Old Spice
Active member
No, I am not EB.
Just someone who has been around this forum for ~10 years and went through all the same experiences he did here.
I respect Elmer for his obsession with cannabis genetics and history. He has a unique ability to put together puzzles from a fuzzy picture.
He has a track record of searching out and finding missing pieces of the puzzle.
It was EB that tracked down NL Seattle Greg from a tiny clue that Nevil left in a post here on MNS. He then persuaded Greg to share the entire Northern Lights story with him. A story that has never been published anywhere but in posts by Elmer.
That's passion.
He is tireless in his pursuit of information.
His analysis of what he gathers is keen, insightful, and hard to fool.
Finally, his retention of this info is unrivaled. Over the years I came to rely on him as an extension of my own memory.
Elmer is quite different from most other people you'll find in the community in these ways.
I'm not saying he is always right when it comes to canna history because he is human . . . but he usually is. I trust his process and obsession is something he will not or cannot change.
His confidence in this area seems to attract people who misunderstand him and want to challenge him on his ideas.
Like many other smart people though, EB likes a good argument. He's good at it and seems to see it as just another challenge or puzzle to solve. Like most Aussies I know, he has a stubborn refusal to quit or back down.
This is maybe the most frustrating part of being his friend, because even though he clearly seems to enjoy it, I see arguing with people like you Vlad as a complete waste of time and energy.
Just responding to your posts, I am rewarding you for being stupid, and because I get no pleasure from arguing with idiots or mentally ill people, it means I have in fact let you win.
Congratulations.
All of us come to the internet for information.
In the quest for that knowledge, we find a legacy of deception and vagueness that was common, maybe even necessary across the see industry in europe in the '90s and early 2000's.
The entire industry built on the practice of people stealing seeds and cuts from others, renaming the gear, knocking off F2's of your competition and claiming to have been the breeder of the original.
These practices spilled over into the forums and some seed houses sent trolls to the forums of their competitors to stir up trouble and cast doubt on the veracity of a breeders gear.
During those times, Shanti was trolled hard by Sensi and Greenhouse seeds people. To protect his position as the best EU seedhouse at the time, it was necessary for him to be clever about the information he released on his strains. I'm sure he meant nothing personal to the customers who bought it, but the more info Shanti released on his breeding work, the easier he made it for his competitors to copy it.
Loss of breeder stock, specific info on pedigrees, even selection traits were all closely held secrets that in his world were equal to the formula for Coca Cola or Colonel Sanders fried chicken recipe.
Fear of what the competition was doing and what they could do with information and a pack of your own product was multiplied by many general mis-perceptions about genetics and biology.
These were still "dark-ages" in cannabis science on the forums, just 10 years ago.
The legacy of that environment is what has left us where we are today at MNS.
Many things have changed since then, but sadly, many have stayed the same.
The game in Europe is still built on people stealing other breeders work, renaming it and claiming it as their own. Karma (from Karma Genetics) goes into surprisingly candid detail on what it was and (sadly) still is like in his interview on "the Potcast."
For the industry in the US, genetic transparency has come to be expected as the norm, and though there is still plenty of people taking credit for work that is not their own, it is in general a much healthier environment for hobby breeders who seek info to try to improve the gear they work through selection.
Shanti's business has grown so much that frankly he doesn't have time to mess around on the forums. Like any good businessman, he delegates work that can be done by others and focuses on the things that are most important to him.
There will never be a good time for Shanti to correct misinformation or fill-in the blanks on pedigrees that were necessary in the past for the survival of his business. It's just too risky to even admit that things like that were done because frankly, most people wouldn't understand why things like that might be necessary, and his competition might use it against him in marketing (honesty may be a virtue, but it is seldom rewarded as it should be.)
So . . . I WANT Shanti to correct all the pedigrees and answer the tough questions that are being asked. Only because smart, passionate, determined people like Elmer loved his gear enough to try an understand it better, and in the quest recognized where often the information given on the lines just didn't add up. Failing to do so can breed contempt where once there was love.
I WANT him to do this, but I DON'T expect him to.
I don't expect him to because I understand why he had to misrepresent certain things and understand that the reasons he had to do it still exist to a degree.
What is going on here in the forums is simply very low priority for him, but it has become enough of a distraction that he felt the forum needed mods again. The last time he did that, it was a horrible failure.
I am reserving my opinion on how that is working for him till it becomes clearer if the people he chose really understand the big picture or are capable to doing their jobs in the spirit that is required to accomplish Shanti's goals without burning down the house.
Seed sales are the foundation of his business, but Shanti's ventures span multiple continents now and I suspect if I could look at the books, I'd find the seed sales are less than 30% of total revenues. I hope I'm right about that because it means that Shanti has been WILDLY successful. The seeds sell themselves, running the seed business for him after all these years is about as demanding as setting up a roadside stand to sell the tomatoes and corn he grew in his back yard. There is no incentive for Shanti to do anything disruptive in his marketing.
Back to Jack's thread here . . .
What you are doing Vlad is the definition of trolling.
You follow Jack around wherever he posts and no matter what the topic of the thread might be, you start badgering him about what you are fixated on: his Kanga/Nev mullum seeds.
Jack's a friend of mine too.
He's paid a heavy price for his devotion to the plant under prohibition like many of us have and has come out the other side undaunted.
He's smart, funny, kind, generous, and loves the plant as much as I do.
He's one of a handful of non-Aussies that got the same seeds I did from the grail project when it happened. Strangely enough, I feel a connection with everyone that I know who got those seeds. There aren't many.
Vlad,
All members should be reporting your trolling posts against Jack to the mods, and if they were doing their jobs, you should have received a warning of some kind by now.
I don't know if we can count on that happening because I fear the mods might see people who try to get Shanti to share more info on the seeds they bought to be the enemy. It's a common misconception, and if they feel that way about Jack (or me for that matter) then they may be happy to let your actions go unchecked.
I prefer an unmoderated MNS forum, but with the right people on the job, it might be a good thing. I am still hoping that our new Mods are those "right people."
Just someone who has been around this forum for ~10 years and went through all the same experiences he did here.
I respect Elmer for his obsession with cannabis genetics and history. He has a unique ability to put together puzzles from a fuzzy picture.
He has a track record of searching out and finding missing pieces of the puzzle.
It was EB that tracked down NL Seattle Greg from a tiny clue that Nevil left in a post here on MNS. He then persuaded Greg to share the entire Northern Lights story with him. A story that has never been published anywhere but in posts by Elmer.
That's passion.
He is tireless in his pursuit of information.
His analysis of what he gathers is keen, insightful, and hard to fool.
Finally, his retention of this info is unrivaled. Over the years I came to rely on him as an extension of my own memory.
Elmer is quite different from most other people you'll find in the community in these ways.
I'm not saying he is always right when it comes to canna history because he is human . . . but he usually is. I trust his process and obsession is something he will not or cannot change.
His confidence in this area seems to attract people who misunderstand him and want to challenge him on his ideas.
Like many other smart people though, EB likes a good argument. He's good at it and seems to see it as just another challenge or puzzle to solve. Like most Aussies I know, he has a stubborn refusal to quit or back down.
This is maybe the most frustrating part of being his friend, because even though he clearly seems to enjoy it, I see arguing with people like you Vlad as a complete waste of time and energy.
Just responding to your posts, I am rewarding you for being stupid, and because I get no pleasure from arguing with idiots or mentally ill people, it means I have in fact let you win.
Congratulations.
All of us come to the internet for information.
In the quest for that knowledge, we find a legacy of deception and vagueness that was common, maybe even necessary across the see industry in europe in the '90s and early 2000's.
The entire industry built on the practice of people stealing seeds and cuts from others, renaming the gear, knocking off F2's of your competition and claiming to have been the breeder of the original.
These practices spilled over into the forums and some seed houses sent trolls to the forums of their competitors to stir up trouble and cast doubt on the veracity of a breeders gear.
During those times, Shanti was trolled hard by Sensi and Greenhouse seeds people. To protect his position as the best EU seedhouse at the time, it was necessary for him to be clever about the information he released on his strains. I'm sure he meant nothing personal to the customers who bought it, but the more info Shanti released on his breeding work, the easier he made it for his competitors to copy it.
Loss of breeder stock, specific info on pedigrees, even selection traits were all closely held secrets that in his world were equal to the formula for Coca Cola or Colonel Sanders fried chicken recipe.
Fear of what the competition was doing and what they could do with information and a pack of your own product was multiplied by many general mis-perceptions about genetics and biology.
These were still "dark-ages" in cannabis science on the forums, just 10 years ago.
The legacy of that environment is what has left us where we are today at MNS.
Many things have changed since then, but sadly, many have stayed the same.
The game in Europe is still built on people stealing other breeders work, renaming it and claiming it as their own. Karma (from Karma Genetics) goes into surprisingly candid detail on what it was and (sadly) still is like in his interview on "the Potcast."
For the industry in the US, genetic transparency has come to be expected as the norm, and though there is still plenty of people taking credit for work that is not their own, it is in general a much healthier environment for hobby breeders who seek info to try to improve the gear they work through selection.
Shanti's business has grown so much that frankly he doesn't have time to mess around on the forums. Like any good businessman, he delegates work that can be done by others and focuses on the things that are most important to him.
There will never be a good time for Shanti to correct misinformation or fill-in the blanks on pedigrees that were necessary in the past for the survival of his business. It's just too risky to even admit that things like that were done because frankly, most people wouldn't understand why things like that might be necessary, and his competition might use it against him in marketing (honesty may be a virtue, but it is seldom rewarded as it should be.)
So . . . I WANT Shanti to correct all the pedigrees and answer the tough questions that are being asked. Only because smart, passionate, determined people like Elmer loved his gear enough to try an understand it better, and in the quest recognized where often the information given on the lines just didn't add up. Failing to do so can breed contempt where once there was love.
I WANT him to do this, but I DON'T expect him to.
I don't expect him to because I understand why he had to misrepresent certain things and understand that the reasons he had to do it still exist to a degree.
What is going on here in the forums is simply very low priority for him, but it has become enough of a distraction that he felt the forum needed mods again. The last time he did that, it was a horrible failure.
I am reserving my opinion on how that is working for him till it becomes clearer if the people he chose really understand the big picture or are capable to doing their jobs in the spirit that is required to accomplish Shanti's goals without burning down the house.
Seed sales are the foundation of his business, but Shanti's ventures span multiple continents now and I suspect if I could look at the books, I'd find the seed sales are less than 30% of total revenues. I hope I'm right about that because it means that Shanti has been WILDLY successful. The seeds sell themselves, running the seed business for him after all these years is about as demanding as setting up a roadside stand to sell the tomatoes and corn he grew in his back yard. There is no incentive for Shanti to do anything disruptive in his marketing.
Back to Jack's thread here . . .
What you are doing Vlad is the definition of trolling.
You follow Jack around wherever he posts and no matter what the topic of the thread might be, you start badgering him about what you are fixated on: his Kanga/Nev mullum seeds.
Jack's a friend of mine too.
He's paid a heavy price for his devotion to the plant under prohibition like many of us have and has come out the other side undaunted.
He's smart, funny, kind, generous, and loves the plant as much as I do.
He's one of a handful of non-Aussies that got the same seeds I did from the grail project when it happened. Strangely enough, I feel a connection with everyone that I know who got those seeds. There aren't many.
Vlad,
All members should be reporting your trolling posts against Jack to the mods, and if they were doing their jobs, you should have received a warning of some kind by now.
I don't know if we can count on that happening because I fear the mods might see people who try to get Shanti to share more info on the seeds they bought to be the enemy. It's a common misconception, and if they feel that way about Jack (or me for that matter) then they may be happy to let your actions go unchecked.
I prefer an unmoderated MNS forum, but with the right people on the job, it might be a good thing. I am still hoping that our new Mods are those "right people."
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