Hi,
In the past 24 hours, Earthan Group was banned from BYAP......and RupertofOz' posts on PAP were edited by the forum owner Murray Hallam.
EG's woes began when he posted an excellent diagram of his Earthan Beds set up on his site. In response to some pretty intense interest in these beds, Paul included a link to the diagram on his site.
Joel Malcolm lifted the diagram and deposited in on BYAP......with the excuse that it would save members from having to leave the site.
Paul queried the ethics of Joel's actions in using his image without at least the courtesy of a phone call.....and that's where his troubles began.
Paul pursued Joel's weak justification for his actions and the tension increased.
In another BYAP post about grow bed depth, Paul linked to a relevant YouTube video which prompted RupertofOz to take issue with the fact that the video was from a competitor to BYAP.
Paul responded and Joel judged him to be "bickering" with Rupert.....and suspended his BYAP account.
This episode raised several interesting issues including:
- Joel is a fearless copyright campaigner. He's relentless in his criticism of people who misappropriate images.....and yet he pulls the same stunt himself....and it's not the first time.
- While Paul was banned from BYAP, for bickering (according to Joel), the real reason (and it is transparent enough to anyone who knows Joel) is competitive anxiety. He simply won't allow anyone to link to any site which could be judged to be competition.
- Anyone who follows these forums will have seen RupertofOz in action.....so how could "bickering" with Rupert be judged a crime.
The fact is that Joel got his teeth on edge when Paul (politely enough) questioned the unauthorised use of his image. I emailed Paul when I saw the post and told him that his days on BYAP were numbered.
I'd also warned him earlier about the fact that Joel was uncomfortable having someone like Paul around. You can tell when Joel is intimidated by someone else's knowledge and experience. I've experienced it myself and I've watched Joel pull this little stunt on others.....on several occasions.
The second episode also involves Rupert....but on another forum. In this case, Rupert was the victim.
He's been uncomfortable with the whole commercial aquaponics course thing for some time, so when Hallam wrote:
.....Rupert responded with.....We have built many, many systems using the gravel grow beds as the filters for the raft part of the system. We take the water for the raft part out of the sump. We design the systems so that the sump collects some of the really fine solids that are still in the water column. You will find that there will be some really fine solids that will drop out into the raft beds as well, but very little. It will take about 12 months to find 5mm of settled solids on the bottom of the raft beds.
We have worked out the flow rates required for it to work really well as well as other parameters that become more important for the commercial operator.
Hallam then said....How many media grow bed and raft systems have you built here in Australia Murray...
I've only seen you post two systems, both educational facilities... and both only 12 months old...
And neither of them is any where near "commercial"... and indeed, I don't know of any raft systems in Australia, that even rival the hobby farm sized systems that have cropped up in the US over the last 18 months or so... let alone anyone here in Australia operating a "commercial" DWC raft aquaponics operation...
I do know of a few (recent) converted hydro operations... and a few integrated aquaculture/NFT operations.... but DWC raft systems????
Rupert then (courageously I thought) then posted......We have worked out the flow rates required for it to work really well as well as other parameters that become more important for the commercial operator.
What followed was a quick edit of Rupert's posts.I'm quite happy to believe that your trials may have resulted in fine tuning flow rates Murray.... and/or other (unknown) parameters...but how can you possibly claim that anything you've done has any significant "commercial" advatages to an operator... when you don't, and haven't run a commercial operation... with either pure DWC rafts... and/or with flood & drain grow beds incorporated with rafts as a pre-filter in place of the normal solids removal...
I foreshadow a problem here.
Rupert and I are alike in one important respect.....neither of us likes to be gagged...and particularly not by mental lightweights like Hallam.
Hallam is ruthless when it comes to dealing with opposition.
Rupe has started down a slippery slope here......and we ought not be surprised if his future at PAP is limited.
......and now you know why APHQ exists.
We are the only large AP forum in the world that provides an independent voice on Aquaponics. The others are all constrained by the commercial interests of their owners.
Gary
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