Hi!

I think some of you might know that I just released a CTB effect a few months ago.
(No, I'm not here to advertise my CTB. That's not the point.)

When I first post my demo video of my CTB on the café, the response is great. However very soon, I can see a few people with very nasty comments about my CTB. Later on I discovered that this same group of people posts negative comments on other CTBs too. They have one thing in common; all of them are fans of Nick Verna’s Factory Sealed (this effect had NOT been released yet) Hence, I suspect some foul play here.

Here is a timeline of the events.
Nov 2006 Start of the topic “New coin in bottle from ellusionist” (E’s forum)

Dec 2006 Start of topic “3 CTB from Ellusionist Best Coin Through Bottles” (Magic Café forums)

Jan 2007 gnmagic124 joined the Magic Café Forum and E’s forum

Jan 2007 candlestickchik, Mirrocles52 joined the E’s
Foums

Feb 2007 desales24 joined the E’s forum

Gnmagic124, candlestickchik, Mirrocles52 and desales24 joined the E’s forums 1 or 2 months after the E announced that they are going to release their CTB. Since then, they have bashed EVERY SINGLE CTB on the market. They will then hyped up the E’s CTB.

Here is one of the emails I received.

This group of E’s CTB fanboys will try their very best to make other CTBs look bad.
I have received several emails from creators of other CTBs, as well as other magicians saying that they were disgusted by these “E’s CTB fanboys”

Gnmagic124 in particular, tried his very best to make my CTB and myself look bad.

He will post questions about my CTBs.
I will answer all the questions but he will ignore all my answers. Very soon you will see him coming back with the same questions and accusations again; making it seems like I have not answer his questions or said nothing about those false accusations. In the end I have to repeat my answers again and the cycle repeats. His tactics are very annoying. :angry:

He also targets every other CTB creators (except Nick Verna of course). B)

But I seems to be his favorite target. He will follow me in every CTB thread and just bash the hell out of me. I don’t really know the reason.
Maybe because I am able to answer all his questions, and rebut all his accusations.

Maybe because I’m only a “new user” in the Magic Café. (Yup, he bashed several other members just because they are “new users saying good thing about other CTBs).

Maybe because I’m just a young 22 year old Asian magician from Singapore.

Or maybe because my CTB is good enough to threaten his precious “Factory Sealed”.

Here’s the description of Nick Verna’s Factory Sealed.

If you guys watched the demo video of my CTB, you can see that it matches the description.

That is why those “E’s CTB fanboys” hated me and my effect so much. They thought that I copied Nick’s effect.

Please how can I copy an effect that has not been released? They don’t even have a demo video of Nick’s effect.

I believed Nick Verna has already seen my CIB. I am very certain that both effects don't look the same at all.

This is a description of the effect of Factory Sealed by Justin Miller on the Magic Cafe.

From the above source, we can have an idea of how Factory Sealed looks like. A coin is laid on your hand. The magician or the audiences can place the bottle on top of the coin. When the bottle is on top of the coin, the coin slowly melts in.

For Sealed & Stuck, the coin is in your hand and you push the coin towards the side of the bottle. The coin melts into the bottle and sinks to the bottom.

Hence I believe that Nick Verna's CIB is very different from my CIB


It is not only the "E's CTB fanboys" I think the Magic Cafe did not handle the incident well enough too. :(

Long story short. The Magic Cafe through I was Aaron Chee( the guy who cheated some magicians in magic cafe) and they banned my account.

I re registered with a new username. The first thing I do is to post a "clarifying post" in the "Right or Wrong" section of the forum.

The weird thing is that the whole topic got deleted . They mods did not give me any reason why they delete the topic. If I'm not wrong all other forums will provide reasons why they delete a thread. Not the Magic Cafe, they just delete the thread without providing a reason.

Now, my account was banned again. I don't understand what happened. They must have read the clarifying post, because they are the ones who deleted it.

I sent emails to Steve Brooks, but he did not reply the emails. :(

I really hope that it is just a misunderstanding.

I hope that they did not ban my account because a young 22 yr old Singaporean released a product that could rival the products of their sponsors.

I have no problems with other magic forums. Everything is peaceful on SMC, Malaysia Magic Fellowship Forums, penguin magic forums and Magichat uk forum etc. All the problems are from Ellusionist forums( not surprising) and Magic Café Forum.

I’m sick and tired of the unfair treatment and the biasness in some forums. I’m afraid other Singapore magic creators might face the same problem in the future. :(

I really hope we can see more justice and more gentlemen in other magic fourms, and less of those “aggrogant noobs, fanboys and elites.”

Let’s hope that the magic community will be a peaceful and better place in the near future.


Ace

Woah long post. No offence but personally I feel nothing can match Prohibition. Its the best "something" thru bottle since Sinful.

Ace, political issues are everywhere. Sadly even in the magic community you will also see people taking sides regardless of how wonderful your effect is.

Have you ever considered, if you were to sell your effect to E, will you receive all these bashings? I doubt it. Heck, with E brillant marketing skills, you will even get your fame overnight. Unfortuantely you took the difficult route to market your product yourself. Not only you do not have the ability to market it well, you do not have the creditability as well. After all you are just a 22-year-old Asian boy with another coin thru bottle effect.

If I were you, I would have send a free copy of my dvd to the more reputable members in the Cafe (Vinny Martini, Christopher Williams or even Steve Brooks, just to name a few), ask them to give a review and hopefully recommendations. Thats how to push your products, rather then ranting on about the unfairness and bias-ness.

This is a bias and unfair world, you got to live with it.

My 2cents.

Yup, prohibition is great! I think it is the best cap through glass bottle on the market.

I sent a copy of my effect to Wayne Stevenson, a magic dealer and owner of The SpookClub magic shop.

He gave a review of it and the review is great.

I'll be sending another copy to a respectable magician in the Magic cafe soon. He is also the creator of another great CTB effect.

Yes, this is a bias and unfair world. I'm not going to just live with it, I'm going to challenge it. Just like what I did a few years back.

Thanks for the advices! :)

All the best, mate!

Here is a story I want to share with you.

Mr A went inside a TV store, and asked what are the functions of a certain TV set. Mr A already has his own TV, but would like to know if the TV set from the store have more functions. He asked “What are the functions of this TV. Can it do this?” Then a group of guys just came in and beat up Mr A. The police see that there is obviously a problem and they have to solve it.

Can you guess the solution?

The solution is, the police sent Mr A to jail, for being the victim.

Doesn’t make any sense? Well it doesn’t make sense to me too. But a similar incident happened in the Ellusionist forum.

I know this might be a sensitive topic. This whole topic might just vanish into thin air. People will pretend that this thread never exist and nothing has happened.

However, I believe that this story has to be heard. People have the right to know what is truly happening.

Here’s what happened.

An E’s member hairyhaggler mentioned that he wanted to know more information about the E’s CTB before buying them. Another member Dai Hard said that he also want to know more before paying money for the effects. Nothing happened to this 2 people.

Ace85 (that is me) said that I agree with hairyhaggler and Dai Hard. I would like to know what the CTBs can accomplish before buying them. And I got bashed, when I was just echoing the concerns of the other 2 members.

Brodger post a message asking to ban me and said that I’m a “crazy nut”. Hiphopperco came in and said my CTB was an eyesore (Note that I did not even mentioned about my CTB in that thread). The chain effect follows and they just keep bashing me.

What did I do wrong there? I’m asking the same thing as hairyhaggler and Dai Hard. How come I’m the one that gets bashed?

I have no choice but to defend myself. Finally, everything is peaceful again.

But Matt, the creator of Bullet came back and started the fire again, asking me to “GET OUT”

The thread was finally closed.

A few hours later, I discovered my account was banned.

I noticed that people who posted offensive comments (like Brodgers, Irishghost, hiphopperco etc) are not banned.

I was puzzled.

Why was the victim banned?

I keep asking myself this question.


Question) Who will get banned?


a) People who post offensive comments (“crazy nuts” “JUNK!” “bite you in the butt” etc)
B) People who are victims of the offensive comments

Ans B) The victim who did not use any offensive terms gets banned. That was fair wasn’t it?

a) People who go off topic and start arguments
B) People who try to defend themselves and try to get back to topic

Ans B) The victim who tried to defend themselves against false accusations was banned. People who started the fire would not be banned. Of course, that was fair to the mods.

a) People who post offensive comments but support E’s product
B) People who don’t post offensive comments but is neutral about E’s product.

Ans B) Of course we won’t ban people that support our product. They can do whatever they want. They can bash people, go off topic, and make personal attacks and false accusations. As long as they support our products, it’s ok.

I hope I can have a public apology from the Ellusionist, for the unfair treatment that I received.

Not to sound too harsh while still being realistic and constructive at the same time, I don't think posting here will do any good in your hoping that E will give you any public apology in return.

It is indeed reasonable and understandable for you to create awareness here in this community so that others may learn from your painful experiences. In the end, one can empathize only so much, and over your numerous threads on your various woes and run-ins on OTHER forums/online communities (all more or less centered on your CTB effect), I think you have made your point.

However, the harsh reality is that hoping that the person sitting next to you on the bus will stop blasting music from his handphone out loud by telling your other friend who is somewhere else through SMS that you are hoping so will do little to stop the noise.

I am in no position to question your behaviour as a netizen or forumite, but if you keep getting knocked about wherever you go, perhaps it is time you reflect on the way you interact with others in other communities?

The above represents my personal view as an individual in this community and has no bearing whatsoever on my role as a mod.

AdrianLee

Nope, I did not get knocked about anywhere I go.

Everything is peaceful in other forums. SMC, Malaysia Magic Fellowship forum, Penguin Magic forum, Talkmagic forum, Magichat forum and Theory 11 forums.

The only problem is in Magic Cafe (now everything is peaceful over there again) and E's forum (not surprising)

The fact that everything is peaceful in other forums shows that the problem doesn't come from me. I also talked about CTBs in those forums, but nothing happened.

The reason why things happened in the E's forum s because of a group of E's CTB fans. Read my first post for more information. They are the ones that bash me, they are the ones that should reflect on their way they interact with others. They are not active in other forums, that is why everything is peaceful in the other forums.

They call me names, (crazy nut's, idiots, fool)etc. I never once called them names, even when they bash the hell out of me.

I tried my best to reason with them, but failed as they simiply refuse to listen.

At least I'm not just standing there and let them push me around.

There is a problem with that website. Other people have the right to know that.

I really respect the way you post. That is the way we discuss issues. We don't just go off topic and start calling people names.

SMC is still the best

Question: Did you go to the Ellusionist forums and announced the release of your new CTB effect?

ZiAn

Nope, I did not.

Someone mentioned my CTB on the E's forum. As expected, E's member just bash the hell out of it. I'm tired of that whole thread and I just left the whole thread. Other CTB creators did the same thing. That whole topic just went dead for the past few months. I did not go back to that topic again.

Warning: This is a 2000 word post. I apologize for the length of the post.

If you think this post is too long for such a “trivial” issue, you can skip to the conclusion part.

Introduction

Just read my previous posts to know what this whole topic is about.

The Truth

The Ellusionist tired to justify their actions by twisting the story. They are trying to hide the truth.

I asked them to show the whole undeleted thread to everyone.

Now the Ellusionist Mods said they won't show the thread.

I swear that what I said is true.

I want them to show people the thread, but they refused.

Who is lying here? You don't need be Sherlock homes to figure that out.

Those offensive members involved in the whole thread just run away and hide from the questions, at the same time making more personal attacks. They are just helping me to prove my point by doing that.

All hell breaks lose when other E fans starts going off topic and make personal attack and insults.

The online gangsters just gang up and beat the hell out of me.

The words they used are beyond imagination. Those words would get deleted for sure if they appeared in SMC.

Things get out of control. Magic Cafe soon closed and deleted the topic.

Theory 11 was the next to close the topic as the online gangsters flood the thread.

Talkmagic forum has the peaceful thread. Everyone stick on topic and nothing happens. That is until one of the online gangsters found their way there. I did not even bother to reply them. The thread was reluctantly closed.

Once again, the online gansters forced the various threads to be closed. They are the reasons why threads get closed down.

People who are offensive did not get banned.
The victim of their offensive comments gets banned.

It is better to just ban 1 guy than to ban 10 other guys. It’s simple math.

It might not be fair, but being fair is not the objective of the Ellusionist.

To the Ellusionist, they did nothing wrong.

Like most companies, their objective is to maximize profits. Banning people that are offensive but supports their product is not going to help maximize profits. It is a case of welfare maximization vs profit maximization. Of course, profit is always more important to the welfare to them. Simple math. Simple economics.
(Btw, they are going to advertise their company on national TV. That is really helping the laymen to know where to learn the secret art of magic. Again Profit > welfare)

I had enough of the Ellusionist. At first I though it is just the few bad apples in the forum. Now I understand it’s not just the bad apples. It’s the whole company.

God bless the magic community.


Biasness

In Russia, dark-skinned people, especially blacks and people of African origin face a growing trend in race-based violence.

In 2005, more than 15 people were killed in racially motivated attacks. A year before that there were 44 such slayings, according to the Moscow Bureau of Human Rights.

According to your logic (no offence) then it is the Africans fault that they received such treatment? If they did nothing wrong, then they should not be attacked.

The fact is they did nothing wrong.

Same thing here. They attacked me not because of what I said, but rather who I am. Because I'm another *** creator.

Here’s one of the evidence.

An E’s member hairyhaggler mentioned that he wanted to know more information about the E’s CTB before buying them. Another member Dai Hard said that he also want to know more before paying money for the effects. Nothing happened to this 2 people.

Ace85 (that is me) said that I agree with hairyhaggler and Dai Hard. I would like to know what the CTBs can accomplish before buying them. And I got bashed, when I was just echoing the concerns of the other 2 members.

Brodger post a message asking to ban me and said that I’m a “crazy nut”. Hiphopperco came in and said my CTB was an eyesore (Note that I did not even mentioned about my CTB in that thread). The chain effect follows and they just keep bashing me.

I’m asking the same thing as hairyhaggler and Dai Hard. But I was the only one that got bashed. Only because I released a competing product.

In their minds, hairyhaggler and Dai Hard voiced the their concerns in the forums because they want to know more about the product before buying them. There is nothing wrong with that.

I have the exact same concerns as hairyhaggler and Dai Hard and I mentioned them in the forums. I'm doing the same thing as hairy haggler and Dai Hard. But in their minds, I asked that same question because I'm out to ruin the E's CTB.

It's all in their mind. They see that I'm a *** creator and they form an impression about me. Even if I did nothing, they would think that I'm there to attack the E's CTB.

I asked the same thing as hairyhaggler and Dai Hard. But I was the only one that got bashed.

It's not about what I asked, but rather who I am.

Get the picture?

The E's fanboys won't get the picture.

Because they are so bias that they can never see the truth.


Magic Cafe

The first time the Cafe banned me was due to misunderstandings. They mistook me for another guy.

This time, the Cafe banned me again. And there are no misunderstandings. They want to get rid of me. Because that is the easiest (maybe not the right way, but it is indeed the easiest way) to solve the problems.

I post about the E's forum in the Cafe, to warn people about the Ellusionist. To expose their actions to the rest of the community. To show people the ugly truth that E is hiding.

There are of course those who do not want me to speak I knew that from the first second I post that topic, pms are jamming up the moderators mailbox, and Mods will soon be on their way to closed the topic and even ban me.

I see that something is wrong with the E’s forum. The Cafe Mods can see it too. But they choose to ignore it. They choose to burry your head in the soil like an ostrich.

I know why they did that. I know they were afraid. Who wouldn't be?

If they said they saw the truth too , they might offend the Ellusionist. The fear of losing another sponsor, the fear that the army of E’s fan boys will attack the Cafe forum, fear that all hell will break lose.

There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt their reason and rob them of their common sense.

Fear got the best of them, and the best solution is to be an ostrich and pretend nothing had happened. And ban the only guy that is right.

They said they banned me because “I created new topic criticizing many members for their opinions, always taking the offensive and accusing them of attacking me?

That is just hypocritical and bias.

Other members also attack me. They called me a fool, an idiot, said that my work is JUNK, called me a crazy nut and the list goes on. I never once called them any names.

I can only see injustice, intolerance and oppression in the Magic Café forum. My case is only one of the many cases that prove this. I have only been in the Magic Café for about 3 months, and yet I can see so other cases where the Café tries to cover the truth.

Yesterday, I post something that I knew would be self destructive. Why would I do that? Because I want to remind everyone that fairness, justice, and freedom exist.

And by closing the topic and banning me, The Cafe Mods are showing everyone that Magic Café is oppressive and bias.

They are as guilty as the Ellusionist


Conclusion

E owns the house. They can kick anyone out without giving any reason, encourage offensive members (as long as they support E)

Magic Café can just pretend nothing has happened and take the easy way out.

We can do nothing about that. The most we can do is to let people know what they did.

I have lost faith in both the Ellusionist and the Magic Café. I will never ever step foot in their forums again. Even if they lift the ban, there is no way I’m going back there.

If you want a fair discussion on magic, you can find other smaller, but better magic forums. SMC is a great choice in my opinion.

It sure is. Nothing is fair on this world.

I used to believe in “justice and equality”. Those 2 words really meant a lot to me. Whenever I recited the Singapore pledge, I can feel the importance of that 2 words.

Fairness, Justice and Equality.

They are more than just words.

They are ideals and perspectives.

You cannot find them in this world. You cannot find them in societies that are still fighting against racism and prejudices. You cannot find them in societies with huge income gaps. You cannot find them in schools where teachers are bias against students from a certain class. You cannot find them in certain oppressive and bias magic forums.

You can only find them inside your heart.

And sometimes you wonder if they are still there.


After thoughts

Of course it's just a stupid, little magic forum. What’s the big deal?

I just want to let people know about the incident, and at the same time get this whole thing off my chest.

I won’t spend my precious time and effort trying to make things right. It is pointless to try and reason with them.

There are more important things in life. I have other better things to do.

Spend more time with my love ones, perform more magic, and maybe read my lecture notes.

All the best,


Ace

Erm then why are you spending time on a 2000 word post?

If they don't appreciate your effect, let them be. No point whining.

I think you should take a second read at what Adrian said and reflect about the entire matter.

There are many ways in which you could resolve and approach the issue, unfortunately, you chose to do it in a highly confrontational manner. In fact, alot of your posts that I've read are generally confrontational in tone. Likewise, you can expect others to give a similar if not even worse response. Your words may be sensible and logical but if the tone is wrong, it will be interpreted differently and negatively regardless of how righteous the statements are.

I can understand why your post in the Cafe was shut down. To most, it would have seemed incendiary in nature. The post read like you were just out to criticise Ellusionist and that you had no genuine intentions to resolve the issue. Most people would have read the post as you trying to further your own agenda.

Was there a purpose to the post you made in the Cafe? If the post was about letting people know about the issue of how the Ellusionist forums is mistreating the just, you could have done it in a manner that was more comfortable with other members on the Cafe.

If the purpose was to seek and demand a public apology from Ellusionist, I'm afraid the Cafe is the wrong avenue for that.

Wah Ace, it seems like you are going ALL out to keep this thread alive. Despite the fact that i think all things that need to be discussed have been discussed and all that you need to be complain about have been mentioned.

We from SMC do pity you. It was a unfortunate incident. If you wanted to warn us about the evil-ness of Ellusionist, we would like to thank you and we really really do appreciate it. We all are aware now how naughty those at Ellusionist are. Bad bad people, we should be aware. Thank you thank you.

But if your purpose of posting all these is not as you mentioned, to alert us, then what is it?

1) It seems like you are overly emphasizing the fact that you have created a CTB effect. We all know that, you don't have to go on about it.

2) You want SMC to help you get to the bottom of this. I don't know what we can do. What would you like us to do? If you want to go beat up these people who bashed you online, you can find their home address and i will be on the next flight to rip their faces apart with my bare hands.

Overall, i think that this topic is old and stale, at least for the rest of us. (you might still be boiling inside) Oh well.
If you cant do anything just suck thumb and get over it man. No point whining and complaining and crying.

For a moment i thought it was my grandmother posting all these complaints. Jeez.


ZiAn

I think we should stop here before it gets into a heated debate like other forums.