Tea reviews. There's a theme worth doing. We had talked about it once before, but I think the idea died. Perhaps your site could be a tea review site. Could you table-ize it? Perhaps include discreet (sp?) places for 1) type (broad), 1a) type (narrow), 2) source, 3) brewing temperature, 4) amount of dry tea, 5) amount of wet water, 6) time the leaves swim in the water, 7) comments, 8) other items I didn't think of. That way the verbose and analytical would have there spaces, and the verbose and romantic would also have theirs (the comments part). That way, your contribution would be solid, especially if it were possible to organize the columns.
I suggest you illicit people to help you do it, especially those who have already engaged in such projects in the past. Whaddaya say, Nico?
Mike, from a non-technical point of view -- the only one I've got, I fear -- the major maintenance issue for "We Review Teas" was that it was a controlled site wherein the site master controlled who could review and who could not. A similar site, but one in which anybody could add their stuff, would require fare less control and therefore time, right? (I just read your WHOLE paragraph above. Disregard my drivel.)
Still, I'd like to see somebody -- Nico/Nicolas, perhaps -- do this.
You're the guy who steals my ideas from this group and uses it on your website under the guise of public domain. You run an infomercial website with a stamp of approval from the various commercial links you conveniently provide. The newsgroup charter prohibits commercial posting. This is Usenet and not the WWW. You refuse to put up a message board so we have to listen to the drool of websurfers. You so far are the only lonely webmaster generating traffic for his site. You've been joined by a few bloggers and a potential portal. It's a matter of time before the group fills up with more special interest links than discussion. If you can't say it here I'm not interested in where you say it somewhere else. I'm not interested in anybody's blog, website, portal. Anybody who uses the word intolerance is by definition intolerant.
I certainly have no interest in censor anyone, Michael. I was just suggesting that constructive criticism makes more sense than unprovoked hostility and derision. Do you disagree? Sure, you or anyone else can say what you like, but that doesn't entail that what you say makes sense and cannot or shouldn't be objected to.
That said, upon reexamining your original post I saw the pun and I actually laughed. It does, I think, nonetheless suggest that I want to be some kind of puppet master of a forum and control what goes on. But, as I think you now realize, the Wiki format is precisely not that at all. It invites people to freely contribute to and edit posts.
To clarify once again, I at no point intended to antagonize anyone or to suggest that this forum is inadequate. I simply had the idea that I could contribute something that would be helpful to people.
I live in St. Paul, MN, where I recently graduated from Macalester College with a major in philosophy. My favorite tea at the moment is uncooked pu-ehr in its many incarnations, which I have really only begun to explore. I find any vendors in China offer the best deals, but I'm really a newbie at all of this.
Thank you, as well, for the very helpful input. That's all I was looking for.
I see nothing wrong with folks using this forum to spread information or resources that people might find useful. I have found many such resources through RFDT. It is, after all, fairly difficult just to find a good online tea vendor, because there are so many mediocre ones (by mediocre I mean overpriced, uninformed and carrying teas of lower quality).
I also see no reason why RFDT needs to have a monopoly on all online tea info. This is A forum, and forums have never been intended to be isolated.
I understand your wariness to turn this forum into a commercial expose, but, at the same time, there are a lot of resources on the WWW that can be helpful, and can't simply be transplanted or completely conveyed on this forum alone.
BTW, I'd like to know from people what is considered acceptable in terms of linking to other sites. If I crossed the line, I apologize.
In Mike's defense, in the month or so that I've been here he's offered MUCH more helpful advice than you have. In fact, I would have to say that, while he seems to have no other motive than to offer lucid guidance in an often confusing subject, you seem to spend quite a bit of time antagonizing people, and not in a very lucid or constructive way at that. I honestly don't mean to provoke you here, but your relentless attacks on Mike call for some objections from a third party. I'm just describing what I've observed.
That's fine, Jim, but it should be clear that you hardly speak for everyone.
And, for the record, I should state that the first time I became the target of your ire is when I had the audacity to say I liked pu-ehr with chrysanthemum (dare I say it again?). How does fit into your objections?
Can I just say again that objecting to what someone says does not entail an endorsement of censorship?
Jim, that old song is getting lame. Just because you said that you used a a tea can as a Rosetta Stone once doesn't entitle you to a copyright on the word or the concept. My idea for a Puerh Rosetta Page was spontaneous and was totally independent of anything you may have ever said. The word is quite commonly used in reference to translations of all kinds, it is practically a synonym for translation, for you to think you are the only one who could think of it is rather arrogant.
Besides, hearing you bellyache about copyrights rings kind of hollow, not to mention hypocritical, when you yourself openly condone defeating copyright protection.
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I guess you are reneging yet again, you said on 4/23/04 that "I'll take your word you're website isn't a commercial venture". There is still to this day nothing "commercial" about it Jim, I provide links to every known online resource that I can find, whether they are commercial or private is irrelevant as I provide them all as a public service and I am affiliated with none of them. Calling it an infomercial is actually slanderous, infomercials sell things, when have I ever offered anything for sale on my website or on RFDT? Instead of being coy about my sources, like you tend to be, I share what I learn with everyone. My motives are simply to raise the quality/price/education bar in the Western world. It is called a public service and judging by the traffic it seems to be very popular in the online tea community, many of whom frequent this group.
Another fine example of your ability to twist the truth on 2 counts.
1st) Nobody can "truthfully" call Pu-erh.net a commercial site as I take great pains to NOT be associated with anything or anyone commercial. I simply do "Consumer Reports" style reporting on the Western Puerh world.
2nd) Show me specifically where the charter says that, because I think you are GROSSLY misleading this group by making that statement. The only quasi commercial reference is the prohibition of "advertising herbal tea products".
BTW here is the actual charter lest anyone be swayed by Jim's hearsay.
"Discussion relating to tea, the world's second most consumed beverage (after water), made by infusing or boiling the leaves of the tea plant (C. sinensis or close relatives) in water. Discussions of herbal teas (e.g. chamomile, sassafras, etc.) are also approved, but this newsgroup should NOT be used for advertising herbal tea products or discussing tea as anything other than a beverage. Tea-as-medicine discussions should take place in misc.health.alternative."
The original thread can be found at
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Jim, I provide a public service, both here and on my website. What do you offer this community other than a bunch of grief? I don't make any money off of the site and nobody subsidizes my bills in any way. Why should I pay extra money out of my pocket to put up a bulletin board just to satisfy you? It isn't going to happen so just get over it. I participate in the topics here that suite me, I was here long before I made the website and I will be here long after it dies.
Who died and made you the RFDT God? Just because you aren't interested in something doesn't mean that others aren't, and it doesn't meant that anyone who doesn't please you should go away either. I am not interested in 90% of your irrational prose but yet you grace us with it anyway, so why can't the rest of us say our piece?
Online tea vendors are a dime a dozen. It's a competitive market. If they've been in business longer than a year they're probably okay. My only advice is buy locally or on Ebay with a positive feedback rating of higher than 20. That way I have the new sellers to myself who are giving the stuff away like some dragon (large) and phoenix (small) white tea pearls. There is no such thing as mediocre tea. It all depends on your tastebuds. Your wallet can't make it taste any better. RFDT is THE Record of Tea because Google never forgets. Anything else is a server waiting to disappear. If you can't say it here you're someone with a special interest elsewhere.
It's precisely BECAUSE there are so many vendors that refering to the experience of others can be useful.
OK, as a matter of definition, something is mediocre ONLY in regard to certain qualities which are valued. Of course it's subjective.
In almost every post directed to me, you suggest that I believe that expensive teas are inherently better than cheaper ones. To my knowledge, I've never said this. One of the points I have been able to discern from you many rants is that you think most good tea can be purchased in Asian markets (aka Chinatown). I don't know if you know anything about Minneapolis, but there are indeed many Asian markets, at which I shop all the time, and I do indeed buy tea from them regularly, including CNNP cooked beengs and Xia Guan raw tuos. And yes, they are good. And, believe it or not, I have gotten a lot of stuff off of ebay, and it wasn't the most expensive stuff either.
To second Mike, who the hell are you to decide what is allowed in here and what isn't? Do you ever take a moment to reflect on what you're saying? Do you honestly think this forum is the be all and end all for all tea info, and that NO other resource is of any use? What's it to you, anyway, if someone posts a link or two, especially if other people find those useful?
In all respect, you make very little sense. If you have a clear critique of what I or Mike or anyone else says, I encourage you to post it. If I'm full of it, tell me. But I just can't make any sense out of this.
Thank you, Mike and Nico, for your recent statements regarding polite behavior and general decorum. I surf the web and I also have blogged, and therefore this Space Cowboy person refers to my opinions as "drool." The guy doesn't know me, though I have often winced through his egregious and execrable attacks against others.
Mike, I am grateful for the resources you have placed at my disposal, and you sell nothing at your site. In fact, you must work assiduously to create and maintain such a public-service. I can't begin to imagine the countless hours you put into it so that other people may benefit, yet some person, this Space Cowboy, attacks you? What has he done for the common good? Where are Space Cowboy's accomplishments? I wish to see them!
Nico, like you, I too am a newcomer to pu'er, and like you, I come here to learn and not to encounter continual obfuscation, negativism, and personal attacks. Neither you nor I nor anybody should come under attack. Especially irritating is the lack of coherence in Space Cowboy's rants. If one reads carefully his effusions with an attempt to reach some understanding, one is bound for frustration.
A quick search of "Rosetta Stone" indicates many groups using the metaphor, some to make money, so not. I'm certain the metaphor based upon an archeological discovery pre-dates the use by this Space Cowboy person or anybody using it for tea.
Nobody owns common metaphors. The idea is ridiculous. I'm certain Champollion is laughing and rolling in his grave.
I just brought the new guy up to speed so your accusation of intolerance is in context. I first used the term Rosetta stone here while you were an active poster. You change that story every time. First it was public domain not copyright, then you couldn't have known , and last serendipity. You're worse than Sasha fishing in other groups for what people said but I stand by that statement because the Supreme Court said I could do it for personal use and not because some vendor tried to keep honest people honest. You say public service I say infomercial with commercial links otherwise why not more links that sells puerh? If you impose the criteria you're selling something. The Charter taken as a whole prohibits commercial posting. We have a hypocrite that accused TeaTalk of using the newsgroup for commercial gain. This is a discussion group and if you can't say it here then you're a special interest looking for traffic. 99% of what you say is regurgitation so load up your site with hypertext anchors and provide those for people who pay for bandwidth on newsgroup servers. Remember this is Usenet and not WWW. I wouldn't want anybody chosen last for a dodgeball team sticking up for me. The people most concered about God are the sinners. If I don't care where you buy tea, then you don't care where I do. All I can say if you recommend a site it is off my list. I even changed puer sellers on Ebay. Now you can take a guess and blabbermouth who you think that is. You're batting 50/50.
As I said Jim, lame, and rather trollish even. I say Troll because you argue anything I have to say, right/left, black/white, even if I said the the sun was shining you would argue it. I havent changed my stance a bit, you simply change the way you twist the facts.
BTW, just because I was an active poster does NOT mean that I read your post, I have been known to ignore and otherwise killfile many of your posts due to your high S/N ratio and Ad Hominem attacks.
So its okay for you to publicly teach people how to defeat copy protection but its not ok for me to use the word "Rosetta"? Bit of a double standard if you ask me. Your just peeved because you got caught.
Umm Jim, to my knowledge, I have the most complete list of vendors who sell puerh that exisits in the English language. Show me a more complete list and I will stand corrected but I think you are talking out of your tail again.
Show me where Jim, in what twisted logic do you get that from, please tell me. I quoted the actual charter and I dont see it in there anywhere! Since I am not commercial your statement is groundless anyway.
Once again you twist the facts, I got on their case for portraying that this group was their own property, it was misleading at best. I dont care if they linked to it, just portray it for what it is, they tried to portray it as being theirs.
If you want to talk about being a hypocrite how about the fact that you are now doing the EXACT same thing you criticized me for doing last year when you said I should never buy tea off of ebay or the internet. Look where you are buying your tea now!
Thats my point, I share information with others, you horde it..... If you were truly intersted in contributing to the group you wouldnt be so damn coy about everything.
Look, Jim. If Mike were selling something on his site, he would have be getting money from someone. Unless you're willing to claim that vendors pay him to put their links on his site, then your claim is simply nonsense. Financial transactions are a necessary condition for selling.
Also, the term Rosetta Stone is a very commonly used metaphor. Just take a look.
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See especially the last section, "use as metaphor". (Man, wikipedia is such a great resource...)
I think you're probably the only person who rejects any use of outside online resources. Lots of other people link to them on this forum. Your logic escapes me, and repeating something a lot doesn't make it true. Even conceeding your point (a stretch), so what if Mike wants people to visit his site? I'm glad I was able to find it through RFDT, because it's super helpful, and this forum could not possibly contain all that info in a systematic, accesible way. If somebody knows of a good online resource, then I would consider myself worse off if they didn't share it.
not more >links that sells puerh?
If you think Mike is missing a vendor, why can't you just suggest one like anyone else would. He provides his email in big ol' font at the bottom of every page. I did a good amount of surfing for pu-erh before I found his site, and thus far I haven't found a vendor with any kind of selection that he's overlooked.
But I sense I might be wasting my time. I really doubt you're going to concede any of these points. But maybe I can help you realize that your highly negative and antagonizing posts here make it a less pleasant place to be. I wouldn't be suprised if a few people have been put off from posting here by it. In my book, what you're doing is far worse than someone posting a link to some site, commercial or otherwise. If you are indeed in the right, I challenge you to refute what I've said, and not just repeat the same truisms.
If I'm way off base here, than I welcome everyone who thinks so to openly call me out on it. I just think nonsense needs to be called by what it is.
Lets see, quoting from the original RFDT Charter documents:
From snipped-for-privacy@acpub.duke.edu Thu Jan 12 14:07:15 1995
Possible topics include:
- History of tea cultivation, trade, culture, etc. - Tea preparation and service - Effects of tea on health - Relative merits of specific tea varieties, brands, blends, etc. - Where to find specific teas
Pay particular attention to that last bullet....
The original thread can be found at
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That's pretty much what I talk about when I am not defending myself against your insipid attacks. So exactly how am I violating the Charter? Please be specific Jim, VERY specific.
You know, when Sasha mentioned that you are actually a lawyer I was floored. I used to think that Lawyers were getting a bum rap, but now I see where all those odious Lawyer Jokes come from.
Mike Petro
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"In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed." Samuel Johnson, 1775, upon finishing his dictionary.
Might I suggest if you were going to do a Wiki for these purposes, I agree with Michael that you should probably be able to drill down on many different things. This is a little different than what I've seen on a traditional Wiki, where the content is more free-form.
That being said, a looser Wiki-style with a tea-review thing integrated into it would probably be kind of cool.
Hi Nico and all - the 'Space Cowboy' lives very well up to his monicker. All I can tell you is it's best to ignore him. I've had him plonked for many moons, and I like it just fine. Whenever he does pop up in some quoted text, it's always him and his bizzare vendetta against a true web hero, Mike - a guy who has spent countless hours putting together one of the best tea resources on the web. His hatred is unaccountable, incredible.
I picture an angry old man, probably friendless, with not much to do. Sympathy might be in order, but give his comportment in this group all I can muster is disdain and contempt.
Plonk him and have done with it - you won't miss a thing, I promise..............p*
Space snipped-for-privacy@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com9/7/05
17: snipped-for-privacy@ix.netcom.com
Mike,
With due respect to you and others, Jim does have legal rights regarding the use of the words "Rosetta Stone" on usenet in a tea context based in part on his first use of the term in this regard. You guys misunderstand most of what he writes because you do not read between the lines. A bit of tolerance in his direction would be appeciated by what has become the silent majority here for which I hopefully speak. Hope this helps.
Actually its like shooting fish in a barrel isn't it. Besides in the court of public opinion it is clear who has won this case. My motives and character have spoken for themselves, while he sticks his foot in mouth every time he attacks. I steadfastly refuse to allow him to run me off like he did all the others and somebody really does need to stand up to the bully/troll.
BTW, if he has Legal Rights to the Rosetta Stone metaphor then I stand humbly corrected and will forever bow before his presence..... NOT!
Mike Petro
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"In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed." Samuel Johnson, 1775, upon finishing his dictionary.
Every time you talk about a Rosetta timeline you keep adding more contraditions. You've mentioned three so far public domain, awol, and serendipity. Now your making up another excuse I'll call anachronism. The first time we had a run in is when you wanted us to critique your website. I told you this is the Usenet and not the WWW. (You still haven't explained why you don't think that matters besides simply postings URLs to drum up traffic for your website. If you need to find something on the Internet you use Google. You don't need to litter Usenet with links. Those days are long gone). I could go back and find you responding to my posts directly or indirectly prior to you requesting feedback on your site. I haven't checked that perse but I remember I could almost see the expression on your face when I told you to take your commercial website and get lost. It was like your mom sitting you in the corner. It wasn't a stranger asking you to go for a ride. Only then you started to hide behind Plonking and Killfiles which you selectively choose to invoke. (For the rest of you who claim I'm in your killfile let's see you back it up by not continously saying I'm in your killfile). I hope people are paying attention to your argument about commercial sites being allowed. Why don't you be honest with us and make that argument about your running infomercial. If you want to publish information using video rerouting to defeat copyright protect you'll need my permission. But that hasn't stopped you before. I preempted any EtTu charges by declaring Ebay a flea market in a previous post. I'm sure I can find more websites that sell puerh with Google than you list. You're probably using Google to come up with a partial list without giving credit. Previously you mentioned they had some stamp of approval and now you're making it sound like potpourri. You still avoid the messy questions I've raised about vendors who overcharge and misrepresent puerh. I'm the only one exposing fraud not you. Your likewise claims are empty sales rhetoric. I'd probably find a lot more under your recommended commercial links probably by the same people you claim have approved your site. I only hoard tea. You're the tea pimp looking for johns and janes. To bring others uptodate I've killfiled this website. I don't make empty threats. You have a HOSTS file on Unix and Windows. You simply enter the dummy address of 127.0.0.1 for the website. I just visited it once to make sure I was being plagiarize through a direct link provided by the webmaster which was obvious my the link name. The website was a commercial business was from day one. It by a legal definition is an infomercial where you trust someone to represent a product. No explicit claims can be made only anecdotal presentation. So if I buy the product and it doesn't work I can't sue you for fraud. You don't have to be that blind to know when you're in a room with an elephant. Anything else I know about the site is said here by others in particular by the webmaster. This guy will also link IP addresses of his web traffic to the IP addresses of newsgroup posters claiming popularity then go looking for your other posts in other groups. I live by the Las Vegas motto. He also seems to fixated on where you buy your puer. This guy simply doesn't respect your privacy. When you get your ass in trouble you want the meaniest, nastiest, and if deep pockets smartest lawyers like Cockran and Mesereau you can find. In our metro area you'll need one to sue the state so you can sell your house which lies in a proposed correidor for state highway development. No eminent domain just an idea in the planning stage being tossed around by state agencies probably ten years to the first use of eminent domain if ever. You'll need one to sue the water district over existing water rights to replace an existing well. They claim when your well dries up so does your water rights. They illegally sold your water rights to a big developer so he could put in a subdivision using underground water. The next time you're on trial make sure your lawyer selects jurors who have an antimedia bias. That advice was free. I've explained my style of posting in the past. I think it interesting you consider it coy. Sometimes I like to frame it as a murder mystery. You know the ending but the story is interesting.
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