This is Roger Thomas and may I first start by saying that I am in no way responsible for the cloning or ripping off of any site and am deeply distressed by the way my name has been slandered and defamed by people that don’t know me or the first thing about me and to be so judgmental.
I can only offering my sincere regret that this situation that has arisen and also state that I am completely innocent of all the horrid and slanderous accusations being leveled at me. Whereby I truly understand how CF must feel and how shocked you must have been to find your beloved site and all your hard work, to what appears to be, in the hands of someone else let me assure you that it is not as it seems and trust me I am equally shocked at how a simple submission of details for the creation a personal website can morph into something that only Alfred Hitchcock could have thought up.
The background of all this is that I am a humble nobody who two years ago decided to rekindle my previous liking for taking pictures and treating myself to a digital camera. During the ensuing period my liking for photography has developed strongly and attend as many workshops as time and money permits. Since packing my last child off to university photography now fills more of my time and have been getting a lot of positive comments from people and suggestions that I should set up a website and display/sell my handiwork to which I have always responded with I’m not ready for it. However, a chance meeting with an old friend who was a graphic designer and had designed business cards and stationery for me some 15 years ago gave me details for a company which he does the occasional assignment for and said they also designed websites suggesting I contact them when I feel ready. Out of curiosity I contacted these people and ended up giving them a brief outline for the type of site
I would like such as photographic display/gallery, brown background utilising orange/beige and green. These colours I have always had a strong association with throughout various aspects of my life (cars, pets, interiors, clothing etc.—favourite colours) and are complementary to my love of the outdoors/nature. I also stated that these were just tentative enquiries for the future so as and to gain a better insight as to what’s involved and cost.
After some initial communications and basic outline mockups I felt I had sufficient information and said thank you I will be in touch when I am ready. A while later I was contacted by what appeared to be a rather keen developer who I have subsequently found out is not in the UK but based in Russia. I was given a link to a web site he said closely fitted my outline spec in terms of photography, colour and functionality saying this is the type of thing I can have fairly quick and should let him know what I like from what I don’t like about the site. Now, I presumed this is something he is working on. I respond saying that would like the background a slightly darker brown with a hint of red, the lightbox display of images to change, I would want small navigation and shopping cart icons, the whole shopping card process to change……etc, etc, etc.
As I understood it the whole thing was to let me see and get a feel as to what he could do and at no point did he ever suggest anything along the lines that this is not a site he owns or—and to his credit—offered no suggestion of ripping off replacing one name for the other, I was led to believe he was purely using it as an example. Also, I knew no better as I had never heard of CF before. And even when I later looked to see if the actual site existed I was still under the impression that he was somehow connected to the building of the site in particular when I saw a CF post stating that work was being done on the site and that new stuff and blog facility will be appearing soon. I was so impressed by the CF photos and site but not as something that I would want a clone copy of. I do have my own personal taste even if aspects might be similar to countless others that may be out there. I even signed-up for the CF newsletter and was even thinking of how I could make it possi
ble to get on one of the CF workshops and even bought one of the photoshop—Melbourne City—tutorial movie. Therefore I think it would be the ultimate in barefacedness to turn up on a CF workshop with his cloned site bearing my name. I felt fortunate that I had been given a pointer to an excellent artist and site and was truly inspired not filled with avarice.
I have absolutely no idea how this cybernaut acquired/hacked the site for his demo purposes but as an old-school IT person myself all I can say is that he must be a real genius boffin and had I such skills I would need to channel them somewhere too, but in a more circumspect way. Also from the little inside information that I managed to get from the ensuing fallout at the design company is that the person does have over zealous tendencies and throughout the whole process I did not think anything untoward, apart from his pushiness, as all appeared to be fairly kosher, this being my first such experience. I think it was unfortunate for him that I was in no hurry to commit to anything and he left the carrot dangling for me far too long, as from memory he made first contact and had the CF demo site on view over two months ago!
So if it was my scurrilous desire to make-off with the CF site I would surely have done so very quickly, and as first stated, I am completely innocent of these allegations and the have been made physically ill and mentally stressed to see tags linking my name to such things so much so that I have only now been able to return to this site to put the record straight for fear of what more I might find leveled at me. Whilst I fully appreciate the shock and outrage CF must have felt on discovering such a situation I too am more than horrified to find links worldwide on the internet suggesting something that I am not and have not done. I therefore politely ask that my name be removed from all these negative tags and extremely defamatory links that are coming up on google so that I can have my life restored back to humble anonymity and before my children and friends google upon them and I promise that I will NEVER EVER revisit the site for fear of being damned again. I will close b
y asking all those in judgment here whether they would like to be globally maligned in such a manner for something they have not or did not perpetrate. To me the presence of this slur couldn’t be any worst than unknown people creating unjustifiable associations to your name across the internet with pedophilia.
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CF,
Thanks for updating us all on this issue. I shudder to think of what unscrupulous people can do with our work without our knowledge and it seems this bloke simply got mauled. Let’s just take him at his word.
Hey CF this seems rather a genuine apology!! He also seems rather remorseful!! It’s your call CF you have a whole community behind you!!
longest blog post ever
crikey, what a saga!. Good thing that it is sorted out now though, for all those concerned.
Does seem genuine but who knows. Hopefully all is sorted.
On another note… I bought my blog back from the dead http://lukeaustin.wordpress.com/
shameless
For a second there I though your blog had been hijacked Chrstian
It really is a worry what some of these unscrupulous web developers will do to get a job, lets hope Roger keeps going with his photography and eventually gets his own site up and running.
So the lesson for today has to be, never respond to anyone typing with a russian accent
I think you can safely tuck this episode away as being put to bed Fletch and offer this poor fellow a big cuddle and accept his apology to put him out of his misery!
I said at the time that it was probably a developer showing someone what their site might look like and had left it up, i might have been close to it maybe.
This all looks genuine and you can only take it on face value , not sure that I’d be throwing up about it though.
Anyway Roger if you read this don’t worry about mate , your amongst friends.
I’d say a few hours have gone into writing this explanation of events. As Merv said a web developer gone rogue, who knowns. Main thing is the site never became anything and was squashed.
Shit, now I feel sorry for the poor bugger, could have been anyone of us.
I feel like I have just met a friend. As Merv says – it could have been anyone.
I am with everyone here who knows who it could of been it could of been any single one of us just like Merv said and I know we wouldn’t of liked it so maybe just maybe Roger you could be forgiven but alack a lass we should all learn a huge lesson out of this that is for sure.
It certainly seems to be a letter driven by strong emotion and anxiety, not someone trying to weasel their way out of a tight spot. On the other hand, the communications with the web developer were quite the opposite – blaming everyone else and back-peddling, tripping over himself with pathetic excuses and apparent untruths. He certainly dropped Roger in it with his explanation. Who can possibly think it’s OK to copy exactly another website and just change and delete parts until it is different enough to get away with it? No wonder they claim to be able to deliver a site in 3-5 days at at http://www.futurewebdynamics.com for £299.
If I was Roger I too would be seething and would make a similar effort to clear my name. Hopefully the web designer has copped a decent spray from Roger too – he is very lucky he picked CF to rip off as I’m sure there are any number of less forgiving photogs out there who wouldn’t stop until they tasted blood.
Good luck Roger – think you just found a whole bunch of allies here.
Thanks for the replies fellas, seems Roger got rogered!! when your up and going mate send us a link to your site, I will hook you up on my blog, we need some English landscapes to look at.
like they say, any advertising is good advertising…looks like roger is going to have himself some hookups and publicity in aus from this..and hey maybe fletch with have some in the UK!