Debunked - exposing misinformation

FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) or misinformation - Debunked:
A number of list members have expressed concerns regarding various claims and rumors circulating. The main concern is that new list members who have not lived through the dark days may not have the background to recognize these claims for what they are: FUD.

Disputed Claims:

- Of exclusivity to the Panotools name

- Of rights to other Domains

- Of theft of the Mailing List

- Of the Wiki "theft"

- Of harassment of PanoTools members and panorama vendors

- Of slander in the initial invite to the new list

- Of being banned from the new list without reason and without having made a post

- Of loss of the developer base

- Point-by-point response to the "PanoTools Group Invitation"

- Of "20 questions and moderation"

Claim 1. The Panotools name:
John Spikowski, on June 26, 2006 7:42:07 PM PDT claimed "I created the name PanoTools" and makes repeated claims against PanotoolsNG to "Remove PanoTools from your group name."

Claim 1. Debunked:
The term "PanoTools" was coined by Helmut Dersch, the original author, as early as 1999/2000 in release notes, archive filenames for downloads and posts to the original PROJ-IMIM list. April 2000 in conversation with John, May 2000, July 2000, July 2000, August 2000. This is a small, representative sample of posts.

The term "PanoTools" was in wide use for several years before John Spikowski established the backup PanoTools Yahoo Group in early 2003. The setting up of the list was very welcome at the time, but John Spikowski has no exclusive right of use or ownership to the "PanoTools" name.

Also see this note on Wikipedia regarding Notability and earlier references to "panotools".

Claim 2. On other Domains
John Spikowski makes repeated claims on the panotools.org and panotools.net domains.

Claim 2. Debunked:
When John Spikowski first set up panotools.info the International VR Photographers Association was having problems with cyber-squatters - the association had iqtvra.org, but someone else had iqtvra.com and had it forwarding to a porn site.

Rather than risk something like this happening again (to the panotools community), Ian Wood immediately registered panotools.org and panotools.net (.com is still owned by a photographer in Hawaii). The domains and registration fees were initially offered to John but he declined. This wasn't pursued further due to some lingering doubts about John's motives due to earlier actions on Professor Dersch's original PROJ-IMIM list. Ian retained ownership of the domains and continued to pay the annual fees.

The URLs were donated to the *community* not to any one individual, so when the new Wiki and list were set up and the Community had clearly voted with their feet, the URLs followed them. Ian still owns and pays for the .org and .net domains.

Claim 3. Mailing List
John Spikowski makes repeated claims that the PanotoolsNG Group "stole" the mailing list

Claim 3. Debunked:
As of July 7 2006 the people who went on to found NG were the official moderators of the YahooGroup PanoTools and had every right to send administrative notices to list members.

Given concerns regarding the stability of the list, they used an acceptable way to contact their list members and make provisions for an alternative, functioning mailing list to which list members were INVITED to join. No-one was automatically subscribed or in any way forced to join.

Footnote: back in 2003 when John Spikowski formed the Panotools Yahoo Group he subscribed everyone on the old PROJ-IMIM list over ("sort of hijacked everyone" - message dated 24 April 2003)

Claim 4. Wiki
John Spikowski makes repeated claims that the PanotoolsNG Group "stole" the Wiki

Claim 4. Debunked:
The panotools.org Wiki is set in full compliance with the GDFL under which it was published originally - the whole edit history is maintained. As long as the requirements of the GDFL are fulfilled, the Wiki may be copied and redistributed freely. That is the nature of a Wiki.

It was a free choice of almost all Wiki contributors to continue to contribute on the panotools.org Wiki and abandon John's panotools.info Wiki. John Spikowski's panotools.info Wiki, now copying from the panotools.org Wiki, no longer preserves the history and is thus in violation of the GDFL.

Claim 5. Harassment
John Spikowski makes claims of harassment of list members and vendors.

Claim 5. Debunked:
The moderators as well as other concerned individuals have communicated their concern to vendor sponsors of panotools.info This community traditionally holds very strong negative views on disruptive threats and those who associate with them. It was felt that the vendors deserved to know how the community might react to their marketing decisions, as many vendors seemed completely unaware that the community had deserted panotools.info "en mass".

However, no pressuring or harassment of list members or vendors has taken place by the moderators and would certainly not be tolerated by the moderators or the list members.

Nobody was forced to leave John Spikowski's list. All those who join PanotoolsNG did and continue to do so of their own free will. John Spikowski's list was closed in July 2006:

On 21/07/2006, at 2:35 AM, John Spikowski wrote:
> "PanoTools Members,
>
> The PanoTools list has been closed by a overwhelming vote of the members."

All those with an interest in the cause of the split are directed to
http://wiki.panotools.org/PanoTools:History.

John Spikowski however has sent a tirade of threats, offers, ultimatums and generally harassing emails to list members and moderators both privately and to various lists. Some of those have been published to -List for the information of concerned listmembers.

Claim 6. Slander
John Spikowski makes repeated claims of slander in the initial invite to the new list.

Claim 6. Debunked:
The invitation message contained verifiable facts which have also been confirmed by John Spikowski. For reference, here is the text of the message:

====================
Date: 12 July 2006 14:15:48 BDT

> Dear PanoTools member,

> Please forgive us for sending you this unsolicited email. As you may be
> aware, a radical change has taken place in the PanoTools group during the
> last days. John Spikowski used a backdoor to regain ownership of the list
> and demoted all current moderators to simple membership. He also demoted the
> former owner, Kevin Kratzke. These actions were performed unilaterally, and
> without the consent or even consultation of anyone else. As such, the list
> is no longer a stable platform for the discussion of all things panoramic.

> The moderators (Roger Williams, Roger Howard, Serge Maandag, Alexandre
> Jenny, and myself) are in agreement that a new list is necessary in order to
> continue in a stable environment. If you are interested, please join the new
> list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PanoToolsNG/. We will keep the content
> of this list focused on panoramic photography, and free of any personal
> attacks or other "politics". If however you are interested in the ongoing
> direction of our group, you are also welcome to join
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PanoTools-List/

> Once everyone has had a chance to join this new list, we will post two
> polls. The first one to vote on moderators, because we want the list members
> (= you) to decide how things are run. The second poll will concern details
> of the structure of the group, once the PanoTools-List has completed its
> work.

> The structure of the group right now isn't as important as it's continued
> existence is. Therefore we invite you to join the group as several people
> already have done . Let's talk panoramas like we used to and do it in an
> open unbiased environment.

> Sincerely,

> Mark Fink
> Alexandre Jenny
> Roger Howard
> Roger Williams
> Serge Maandag
> Yuval Levy
> Kathy Wheeler
> Thomas Rauscher
> Pat Swovelin
> Ian Wood
> Carl von Einem
> And many others..
====================

Claim 7. Banned without posting and without reason
John Spikowski makes repeated claims of having been banned from the PanoToolsNG list without reason and without having posted to the list. He also claims that many other people have been banned or placed on moderation for no reason.

Claim 7. Debunked:
When John joined the PanoToolsNG list he was put on moderation due to his earlier behaviour.
His first post to the list was in response to a thread about Ford Oxaal's pictosphere website:
====================
DATE: Wed, 02 Aug 2006

> Hello NG,

> This subject is the current extended topic for the new format of the
> PanoTools list. If you have something you would like to say about
> this topic, then stop on by.

> [PanoTools] is a single topic list and not the same format as the
> PanoToolsNG list. (peer support) This first topic may last awhile
> and could be interesting reading.

> I hope we can put the past behind us and all work together. (and
> have a little fun along the way)

> John
====================

This post would have provoked a storm of argumentative posts and was seen as an attempt to dictate that the PanoToolsNG list was purely for peer support topics. As a result the post was not allowed through and he was immediately banned.

Other bans - other people banned from the list were either believed to be John Spikowski operating under various pseudonyms, known spammers and/or bots, and known flamers with a history of troublemaking.

There is a related accusation from Tahoe Dave (if the thread has not been deleted yet), claiming that his post to the PanoToolsNG list was censored. Tahoe Dave is not a member of the list and has never sent a request to join it. Therefore, Yahoo automatically rejected the message. Dave has been alerted of this and sent instructions on how to sign up, but has not replied or signed up.

Claim 8. Loss of developer base
John Spikowski makes repeated claims that the moderators of the PanoToolsNG list have caused the developer base to be less involved with the list.

Claim 8. Debunked:
Most developers set up their own forums or lists for their efforts before the PanoToolsNG list existed. These include Hugin, PTAssembler and PTMac among others. John also set up a PTBETA list in September 2005, specifically to reduce the amount of beta testing messages that were clogging the old PanoTools Yahoo list at the time.

Response to "PanoTools Group Invitation" issued by John Spikowski:

--- quoted message from John Spikowski ---
> PanoTools Next Generation Members,
> Are you tired of the restrictions the moderators have placed on the
> mailing list?

Answer:
Guidelines and responsibilities have been clarified. They represent the
best current practice in similar mailing lists/groups and were prepared
after long and careful consultations with full agreement.

> Are you missing important product announcements because they aren't
> allowed on the list?

Answer:
Product announcements ARE allowed on the list. To safeguard members from blatant spam, a request does have to be made, but approval will generally follow immediately. Established suppliers have blanket approval.

> Are you worried about the mailing list being turned into an corporation
> you must be a member of to continue to post?

Answer:
To protect the list from dictatorial one-man ownership, a Non-Profit Organisation has been
prepared. Membership will be open to all, the list will be open to all,
list members will have no obligation to join the NPO, although all will
be welcome.

> The original PanoTools group would like to invite you join our forum and
> announcement list. The PanoTools group is non-profit and sponsored by
> panorama vendors through the use of banners to cover operational costs.

Answer:
Willful extravagance, demands for "voluntary" funding (or else) and
failure to keep open accounts were a direct contributory cause of the
abandonment of the previous panorama list.

> The PanoTools groups is the caretaker of the PanoTools wiki which is
> well indexed in the major search engines.

Answer:
All of the active contributors to the PanoTools wiki now make their
contributions to the wiki at Panotools.org, not its former home
Panotools.info, where a pale shadow is kept in existence in flagrant
defiance of wiki practice and licensing agreements.

> The forum has a gallery you can post your full screen QTVR panorama to
> and receive comments from the viewers.

Answer:
This uses hot linking to make it appear that the panoramas are on the
panotools.info site, when in fact they are just links to others' sites.

> If you have a software or hardware offering that you would like to
> promote or make product announcement about, we are here to help. The
> PanoTools photographer directory is available and a great way to receive
> referrals.

Answer:
Obviously it is in the best interests of photographers and developers to promote their goods and services in as many places as possible. However we would advise looking at John Spikowski's past behaviour before associating yourself with him.

> There is no need to unsubscribe from the NG list to join the PanoTools
> group. It would no different then joining the PanoGuide forum, QTVR list
> or any other panorama community resource that's available.

Answer:
Much the activity on John Spikowski's sites is actually taken from RSS feeds of the PanotoolsNG group or taken from wiki.panotools.org.

> Stop on by and check out the PanoTools group site and compare it with
> what the NG moderators have to offer.

Answer:
Well, there's something we can agree with. By all means do.

Claim 10. 20 Questions and moderation
John Spikowski on his forum claims: "Joining the forum is a automated process without the 20 questions
and moderation period the NG list requires."

Claim 10. Debunked:
Yahoo groups have instituted a number of measures to try to prevent spammers harvesting members email addresses. It is not perfect and Yahoo acknowledge that. Protecting goups from spammers seems to be a on-going battle, and one of the tools available to us is to try to verify the identity of unknown or suspicious new applicants. Roughly half of the requests to join PanotoolsNG are immediately approved based on their comments and/or identity. The balance are asked to respond to up to 4 simple questions ... like the type of camera and lens they use. This helps us to determine:
- whether their email address is valid - which prevents bouncing messages;
- whether they have a genuine interest in photography - the core technology driving our group;
- and whether they are a real person.
Sadly only a small percentage of those challenged are genuine enough to respond, reinforcing our need for continued vigilance to keep the bots, spammers and troublemakers at bay.

Moderation is only employed on known troublemakers and those who become known by their actions. New members are unmoderated and presumed genuine until or unless they prove otherwise. Unfortunately once the troublemakers realize they are on moderation they quit the group and re-join under a false name and different email address. It then takes a while to flush them out again.

For further information on the history please see http://wiki.panotools.org/PanoTools:History

Acknowledgements:
The moderators of PanotoolsNG would like to acknowledge the contributions of numerous members of various lists in compiling these responses. The identity of contributors is withheld to protect individual privacy. You all know who you are, thank you.