gkanakis - Should his HDCOTY title be revoked?

Should gkanakis HDCOTY title be revoked?

  • Yes, Strip it NOW!

    Votes: 90 97.8%

  • No, let him keep it.

    Votes: 2 2.2%
  • Total voters
    92
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T

Tobit

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - March 2010/May 2011
Joined
Dec 12, 2005
Messages
5,145
Disclaimer: Please read this post fully before passing judgement. This is going to be a tough pill for some of us to swallow and some will argue we might not want to discuss this in public. However, we can't hide from this. It happened, it needs to be made known, we need to collectively apologize as a team to those who were taken advantage of, and then we need to move on and let this experience only make us stronger by never letting something like this happen again. Note also that I have the blessing of Kyle Bennett to now talk publicly about this and I've also talked to Kendrak and a couple other elders about this.

Now, to the task at hand...

As some of you know, gkanakis was recently banned from [H]ard|Forum but many of us did not know why. He was banned because Kyle had received very strong evidence that gkanakis had kept giveaway PC's for himself. gkanakis also never provided Kyle with the evidence needed to clear his name.

[H] recently installed new cookie tracking filters to make it easier to detect multiple account logins from the same IP address. lwatson92 and Hard_Gopher were both newbie accounts who signed up to the forum and only posted in the giveaway threads. They both signed up from the same IP address, An IP address gkanakis used regularly.

lwatson92's last post says "My name is Lawrence Watson and currently at FT Bragg, NC." but his IP is located in Soldotna, Alaska.. an IP address gkanakis used regularly. lwatson92's reg IP of 24.237.252.240 shows numerous users, all reg'd late January 2011, all with zero posts and all with @me.com addys (same with gkanakis and lwatson92):

dougmunn
lwatson1992
mkanakis
rberhorst

as the mods started digging deeper, it got worse. The last "boxen giveaway" was won by Hard_Gopher, another two-post n00b who signed up for the contest using the same 24.237.248.20 IP address in Soldotna, Alaska. All of this was just too coincidental to be anything but the obvious.

My friends, we were duped. Duped by someone we thought we could trust. Unfortunately we can't do anything about it really. We just need to prevent this from somehow happening again.

I would therefore formally like to put forth a motion calling for the removal of his Hard DC'er of the Year 2010 title and it passed onto the runner up. gkanakis is definitely not worthy of such a title under these circumstances. I also believe many voted for him because of his work with the giveaway threads.

I hate to be the one to have had to bring this news to you. Please do not shoot the messenger. I've tried to present these facts to you as professionally as possible.

To those who donated hardware to gkanakis, I'm deeply sorry on behalf of the team. To outsiders looking in, this is not how we conduct ourselves as a team. This was one individuals very stupid mistake.

Respectfully,

Brother Tobit
 
Not sure what to say other than that I'm ashamed to have called such a person a team mate.

Simply disgusting.
 
Might I also suggest we ask that Kyle or one of the mods do the drawings from now on for giveaways? I'm going to offer up one after the current SB giveaway and I have no problems with the management doing the drawing. I will provide mailing and delivery confirmation to the boss. I suggest we do this from now on.
 
While all this evidence is circumstantial, I have given gkanakis the chance to give me the information on the winners so I could contact those people and interview them. Contact information was never presented to me. I would have much rather this been cleared up over the last month rather than left where it is.

This of course puts us in a position where we need to regulate drawings such as these. I can handle these personally from here out if you guys would like me to do that. I do this on a regular basis and know how to make the proper verifications that need to be made in order to make sure everything is above board.

As far as venting about this issue, this will be the only thread to discuss this topic, so let's get it out of our systems now and then move forward.
 
BTW, I believe I have his work address if we want to contact his employer.
 
That guy fails at failing

no way of punishing him for this? except the BAN ofc
 
Thank you Kyle.

I do hope this gets straightened out is some way. It would be quite unfortunate is one of our team mates was to be found to have been taking advantage of us, but it will be what it will be.

 
DooKey said:
BTW, I believe I have his work address if we want to contact his employer.
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The evidence is circumstantial and we may not want to open that can of worms.
 
That's a really fucked up thing to do. I say revoke that shit.
 
Tobit, can you contact Stanford and have all of his points expunged from the [H]? I believe this warrants such treatment.
 
DooKey said:
Just damn. Revoke it immediately.
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^^^This, i feel doubly ashamed as i was sticking up for lwatson92 the other week.:eek::mad:

The ones i truly feel for though are the one's who donated to the give aways:( - to have items donated for a good cause to be stolen in that manner just plains sucks, BIG TIME.:mad:
 
on one more note, I would recommend that we have the full evidence before we vote. If this is indeed all the evidence we have, I think I know how I will vote.
 
jfb9301 said:
on one more note, I would recommend that we have the full evidence before we vote. If this is indeed all the evidence we have, I think I know how I will vote.
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Although circumstantial, the evidence presented is very convincing. He's been given the opportunity to clear his name by presenting winners information to Kyle for verification but has ignored such requests.
 
Holy shit, I think I put in for one of his give aways. Wow, count me in as pissed. While normally I would say this isnt quite enough to prove it, I think any REAL [H] folder would step up to the plate in a heartbeat if accused of this and do anything to clear his or her name. Seeing as how he hasn't I can't help but feel crossed, since I know I gave to one give away, not sure if it was one of those tho.

Wow, take It I say, who was runner up? Hell, even that ATI fan boy Charlie is better than this lol
 
Wow, this is ridiculous...and I thought he appeared very helpful and dedicated to the team. I only contributed a little bit to the last giveaway, but I feel awful for those that put up hundreds of dollars in items. I don't think stripping him of a title really does any justice, but it is one of the few things we have the power to do. If he ignored requests to clear his name, then he probably isn't innocent. He was active enough that there is not any doubt he received the requests.
 
Wow- I vote Big Chicken Dinner, and ship him to Singapore for some caning...
 
The indiscretion was bad enough, but his failure to address the situation takes it to the next level.
 
based on the information above as of right now i'd say strip it, unless he can prove otherwise. he's had a month to defend himself without doing so as it is.

i'm more pissed that i spent all that effing time working on the stupid charts for people that entered into the give-away's to make sure they were active only for it to be a complete waste of time.
 
This is very troubling. Has he responded to any of these accusations? Based on the evidence, I would support revoking his title.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
based on the information above as of right now i'd say strip it, unless he can prove otherwise. he's had a month to defend himself without doing so as it is.

i'm more pissed that i spent all that effing time working on the stupid charts for people that entered into the give-away's to make sure they were active only for it to be a complete waste of time.
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^This. The people who donated time and money to these giveaways have to be especially stung.

I say strip it. And if there is any title stronger than 'Banned' that can be put next to his name - like 'Cheater and Thief', or maybe 'Douchebag' :) - do that too.
 
Not happy bout this at all. And it stinks up one of the best things we do here at the [H]. :mad:

I plan on working with Kyle and Steve to make sure future giveaways are on the up and up. Including the current one.
 
So disappointing, now I know why he hasn't responded to my emails.

And of course, if one can rig a giveaway, the Vote for DC'er of the year is also suspect. Of course in absence of apology and return of the gear, it has to be stripped.

:(
 
Seems he was an EVGA member before joining us. Interesting. Just a factoid.
 
I've been folding for years, with various degrees of donated cycles. Will probably never get "DC of th anything" as I'm just a member of the team with a few computers around the house (not looking for any titles either - there are many of you much much more involved that I am). This guy tho... wow... just wow. I say strip it, and let it be known. I know to many people like this... one's I would rather not associate with any more...

This kind of crap really makes me lose trust in humanity... :(
 
DooKey said:
Seems he was an EVGA member before joining us. Interesting. Just a factoid.
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I'd rather keep EVGA out of this discussion just for the fact that even though i hate what that team stands for i really doubt any of them would pull something like this. Gkanakis acted on his own. but this is also why i hate seeing people rush to nominate others for HDCOTM. just because you do one good thing doesn't mean you should magically earn the right to win the award let alone HDCOTY.
 
What this guy did is pretty bad. If he does not respond, and make it right, there is no other option but to revoke his title. If this does end up being true it would also be a good idea to inform all other sites he was know to frequent. However I am all for due process, and not wanting to over react. You never know why this guy did it. Maybe he was using the gear for good, and then got into a car accident or something, and hasn't been able to respond. Maybe I am just being optimistic, and hoping things aren't as bad as they seem.
 
Somehow he felt entitled to the donated hardware. Unfortunately it seems he showed how he shouldn't be trusted. Oh well thieves and liars will always dwell in this world.
 
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lilb3119 said:
I would let him keep it. Why strip it?
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Have you read the first post of this thread? It gives a pretty good explanation of what he did. He organized giveaways, took free hardware from other people, made several alias accounts, and then arranged for them to "win" the giveaways, allowing him to keep the free hardware while robbing other people of the chance to legitimately win.
 
This whole thing is a fucking bummer man... not a good thing at all.

Had a bunch of stuff typed up, but it doesn't matter. What's happened here is just sad.
 
Zero82z said:
This is very troubling. Has he responded to any of these accusations?
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He stated that systems were shipped to real winners but did not produce anything in any way, shape, or form to prove that to me.
 
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