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Possible corruption in Anipike.




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Amida



Joined: 04 Oct 2003
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Sat Oct 04, 2003 2:33 am Reply with quote
I have been dealing with Ron Scovil Jr. (C.E.O of Anipike) for quite some time now. I have found his actions to be quite aggressive in the last few months.

There have been many concerns and actions to the increase in rules for the forum and IRC chat. Originally I felt Ronald was being aggressive in the rules solely for bragging pleasures and acts of inner aggressions.

After reading an old article posted on ANN I started to become more interested in this subject. My first interpellation was that Ronald was fighting for the better good of all otakus. After further investigation I have learned some startelling facts. Ron Scovil Jr. was close friends with the creator of Sailor Moon. I believe his acts were not in the best interest of others but in fact it was his own personal grudge against the head of MixxZine.

Ronald's actions at this point started to interest me more and more; I started to feel that there was something missing. He has failed to explain his actions and was ignoring all contact about the rules. All of his actions were not explained and had no true purpose other then to anger other user's of Anipike services.

I had to question his actions at this point and go further in depth with my research on the subject. After looking into Anipike I have came over a few details that raised my curiosity.

Anime Broadcasting Network (ABN) bought Anipike a while back. I felt it would be best for me to contact the head of ABN for more information on the matter. There was one problem with this though. There was no way to contact ABN on the Anipike website.

I felt it would be best to research ABN more to figure out what exactly they did. From the ABN mission statement on Anipike it quoted:

Quote:
The Anime Broadcast Network (ABN) mission is to leverage its global market leadership in the online anime space to market a library of anime properties marketing these properties across the TV, video, print, merchandising and wireless platforms.


From this mission statement two questions entered my mind. Why was Ronald creating stricter rules when they wanted to get more people to use Anipike? It makes no sense to create stricter rules when it can hurt Anipike's image. The second question I thought about dealt with on of the major things behind Anipike. Why did Ronald sell Anipike, a non-profit organization, to a company based on selling merchandise?

None of this was making sense at all. I went in search for more information on ABN. What I found was shocking; there was no news at all about ABN. It was like it never existed.

I then started to think back when about conversations I had with Ron before he chose to ban me from both the chat and the forum for expressing my views on his actions. I remember many of the talks we had about money. Ronald was constantly buying merchandise online. When I commented about the cost of such goods he replied that they were "gifts". He commented on how he bought the items and then gave them away when he was tired of them. I felt this to be quite unnerving. I felt that Ronald had more money then he knew what to do with.

I also remembered back to another conversation we had back then about his travel budge for Anipike. Anipike's travel budget was if I remember correctly $10,000 a year est. After talking to several employees of Anipike, all of which I will keep anonymous for now. They told me that Ronald spent no money out of the budget to pay for the admissions for Anime events. I found this information to be quite disturbing as well.

Anipike was growing bigger and the staff for the most part worked for free. From my knowledge only 3 people are paid on the staff. Ronald Scovil, Pre, and Hawk. With more investigation I found that the server cost was only about $550 a month. I knew something was up at this point.

After combining all of the facts I came up with a theory. I believe that Ronald is creating strict rules so that he my rid himself of the extra cost for the IRC server and the Forum server. By ridding himself of both the chat and forum, or at least making them small enough so that he can manage them alone. He would be able to get rid of Hawk, the IRC server operator. Pre as well would be cut in pay since he would no longer be needed for the forum.

In the last few days as well, Anipike started to advertise on their site. I found Ronald was increasing the money flow into Anipike and decreasing on cost at the same time.

The final step would soon come about. I have heard rumors about a partnership with Anipike. I am not sure who will be the partner but I would not be surprised of Ronald Scovil used his partner as a scapegoat for his possible money laundering.

As well ABN has had no information online about it's operations. I have began to suspect ABN to be a dummy corporation created by Ron Scovil Jr. himself.

At this point I have not the connections or will power to do figure out if this is true or not on my own. I do feel though that this is a high possibility and all the proof is here. Since I do not have the ability to do this on my own I was hoping that ANN would be able to take on the task of figuring out what exactly is going on with Anipike.

I thank you for your time reading this thread. I hope that this subject will interest ANN and that ANN will see this is a great opportunity to make come out with a major story release.

Thanks again for you time,
Amida

Feel free to contact me via AIM or Email for further information.
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Godaistudios



Joined: 12 Jun 2003
Posts: 2075
Location: Albuquerque, NM (the land of entrapment)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 04, 2003 2:38 am Reply with quote
I wouldn't be surprised to see this thread locked shortly, especially since everything that was stated was nothing more than speculation.

statements like "I think" or "rumor has it" has no place in journalism. You report based on hard facts, not on guesswork which appears to do nothing but bash the individual you are speaking of.
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jmays
ANN Associate Editor


Joined: 29 Jul 2002
Posts: 1390
Location: St. Louis, MO
PostPosted: Sat Oct 04, 2003 10:33 am Reply with quote
Amida wrote:
I have been dealing with Ron Scovil Jr. (C.E.O of Anipike) for quite some time now. I have found his actions to be quite aggressive in the last few months.

There have been many concerns and actions to the increase in rules for the forum and IRC chat. Originally I felt Ronald was being aggressive in the rules solely for bragging pleasures and acts of inner aggressions.

That's ridiculous. Forum/IRC rules are created to maintain order in the venue. ANN's new grammar filters were not added for "bragging pleasures and acts of inner aggressions," and neither are Anipike's rules.
Amida wrote:
After reading an old article posted on ANN I started to become more interested in this subject. My first interpellation was that Ronald was fighting for the better good of all otakus. After further investigation I have learned some startelling facts. Ron Scovil Jr. was close friends with the creator of Sailor Moon. I believe his acts were not in the best interest of others but in fact it was his own personal grudge against the head of MixxZine.

That's not a logical conclusion. Okay, so Ron was friends with somebody involved with Sailor Moon. What does that have to do with MixxZine or Anipike, and how on Earth does that prove he's not "fighting for the better good of all otaku?"
Amida wrote:
Ronald's actions at this point started to interest me more and more; I started to feel that there was something missing. He has failed to explain his actions and was ignoring all contact about the rules. All of his actions were not explained and had no true purpose other then to anger other user's of Anipike services.

This is about forum rules? Are you serious? Bah, anways...you have no clue what his "true purpose" is, so don't start mixing fact with assumption. And again, I'm pretty confident that a couple of sensible forum rules are not grounds for the kinds of absurd accusations you're making.
Amida wrote:
Why was Ronald creating stricter rules when they wanted to get more people to use Anipike? It makes no sense to create stricter rules when it can hurt Anipike's image. The second question I thought about dealt with on of the major things behind Anipike. Why did Ronald sell Anipike, a non-profit organization, to a company based on selling merchandise?

Ron is ABN. No secret world-domination scheme there. Get over the forum rules. And what gives you the impression Anipike is non-profit?
Amida wrote:
I then started to think back when about conversations I had with Ron before he chose to ban me from both the chat and the forum for expressing my views on his actions. I remember many of the talks we had about money. Ronald was constantly buying merchandise online. When I commented about the cost of such goods he replied that they were "gifts". He commented on how he bought the items and then gave them away when he was tired of them. I felt this to be quite unnerving. I felt that Ronald had more money then he knew what to do with.

I'm sorry you don't approve of Ron's financial decisions, but why this would be "unnerving" to you is beyond me. Once again, you're drawing a conclusion from completely unrelated information.
Amida wrote:
I also remembered back to another conversation we had back then about his travel budge for Anipike. Anipike's travel budget was if I remember correctly $10,000 a year est. After talking to several employees of Anipike, all of which I will keep anonymous for now. They told me that Ronald spent no money out of the budget to pay for the admissions for Anime events. I found this information to be quite disturbing as well.

You're gonna have to do better than this "disturbed" crap if you want to make any kind of reasonable argument. There's too much hear-say here for the rest of the paragraph to have any meaning at all.
Amida wrote:
Anipike was growing bigger and the staff for the most part worked for free. From my knowledge only 3 people are paid on the staff. Ronald Scovil, Pre, and Hawk. With more investigation I found that the server cost was only about $550 a month. I knew something was up at this point.

I wrote for Anipike for four months, and I was not paid, but Ron never told me he would. It's the same for the rest of the "volunteer" staff. Who Ron pays is his own decision, and tracking his tendencies is nothing more than a waste of time.
Amida wrote:
After combining all of the facts I came up with a theory. I believe that Ronald is creating strict rules so that he my rid himself of the extra cost for the IRC server and the Forum server. By ridding himself of both the chat and forum, or at least making them small enough so that he can manage them alone. He would be able to get rid of Hawk, the IRC server operator. Pre as well would be cut in pay since he would no longer be needed for the forum.

Anipike just added the chat and forum. Why would he want to get rid of them? Once again, your conclusion isn't based on any "facts" you stated, and I'm pretty sure it's not based in reality, either.
Amida wrote:
In the last few days as well, Anipike started to advertise on their site. I found Ronald was increasing the money flow into Anipike and decreasing on cost at the same time.
That sounds like a pretty smart business model, eh?
Amida wrote:
The final step would soon come about. I have heard rumors about a partnership with Anipike. I am not sure who will be the partner but I would not be surprised of Ronald Scovil used his partner as a scapegoat for his possible money laundering.

More random, ridiculous assumptions.
Amida wrote:
I thank you for your time reading this thread. I hope that this subject will interest ANN and that ANN will see this is a great opportunity to make come out with a major story release.

Since I just waded through a swamp of your speculation, I figure it's an appropriate time to give you a few of my own. I think you have a personal grudge against Ron, and you're trying to use anything you don't like about him or his site to fabricate some absurd "corruption" theories. If I were Ron, I wouldn't even bother to respond to anything you've said here. You're not giving "tips" or exposing any secret operation; all you've done is throw out some incoherent vitriol in an attempt to tarnish Ron and Anipike. If you expect anybody to take you seriously, I suggest you learn how to separate fact from speculation and draw conclusions based on reality instead of baseless assumption.

-Jonathan
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