its possible that others were mining on the new block chain before it was posted to the forum.
You can see this isn't true in the block chain
Of course there was a lot of rush to mine this new block chain but many people not realising they required to server switch and still seeing zero balance took to the mining pools despite the very low difficulty.
lack of knowledge != SCAM
With the difficulty starting at 1, and the amount of attention this fork garnered, is what caused the start to be so chaotic, but you should have known this....
I know, I know everyone thought they would fire up their solo miners and mine a quick 500,000 i0coins and then by Saturday they would be rich....please
So those that were mining solo without the server mode switch would have lost any blocks they mined?
Is there currently a block explorer for people to examine when mining began compared to when the first link was posted on the forum?
Yes I may be a "cry baby" and a "bad loser" but I think the credibility of p2p currency was twisted for financial gain here. A lot of people have lost faith not just in spin off projects but in bitcoin itself. I urge people that feel they may have been cheated here to speak up and let their voice be heard. Do not suffer in silence. Let us know how you feel and tell us your story and post your observations.
A full investigation is warranted here and the members of the community have every right to bring this into the open.