| Author | Message | ||
     Reflective Citizen Username: Reflective Post Number: 832 Registered: 3-2003 |
CLK and Lydia: Right On! Your several posts above describe my MOL philosophy much better than I could have. Thanks for taking the time to articulate a very sound approach for posting. | ||
| Dave Citizen Username: Dave Post Number: 5626 Registered: 4-1998  |
Nan, There are no fake people. There are no fake ideas. There are only login names and ideas. What people will take away from a conversation is what they will take away. You have to trust readers to comprehend debates. MOL shouldn't intervene in the manner that you want, ie., to require "real name" participation. | ||
| dytunck Citizen Username: Dytunck Post Number: 258 Registered: 3-2001 |
Nan, WTF?? I have been completely silent here for years. Why did you feel it necessary to slam me via "Harpo" on the thread that got canceled? Keep me out of your posts please. You oppose personal attacks on one hand, then personally attack on the other. Completely hypocritical. Harpo: You have some beef with me? From 2001? You (and Nan) keep bringing up Reval. You and Nan have positioned yourselves as the "sensible" Party, and labeled anyone living in the "West Side" - to borrow a phrase from the former Mayor- as selfish elitists. Well, here's my response to you. Screw you. Next time you see me IRL, don't pretend to be looking for someone over my shoulder. Engage me F2F. [Edited to add... Dave/Jamie, as a financial contributor as well as a volunteer musician for the MOL fundraiser, please amend my status to "supporter" to differentiate me from Harpo and Nan. Thankey] | ||
| nan Citizen Username: Nan Post Number: 1898 Registered: 2-2001 |
Cathy, I used to feel exactly the way you do. I've changed my mind. Dave, Ditto. | ||
| CLK Supporter Username: Clkelley Post Number: 836 Registered: 6-2002  |
tulip, what I said was that "it is unethical to make stuff up." I don't know that anybody makes stuff up, but I acknowledge that it is possible to do and impossible to control. It is also unethical. tulip, in none of my discussions above was I referring to you personally. I do not think your discussions with nan were unethical in the slightest. I also acknowledge that your credentials are very likely real. I've gained this trust because I've come to know you or at least "tulip" online. I didn't start out with this trust though - it has to be earned. That's true IRL as well as here. fwiw in my lifetime people have told me the most amazing lies, f2f - people can tell lies whether they are hiding behind a "persona" or not. Insisting on real names wouldn't stop this. I use the same techniques for judging veracity here that I do IRL, which involves working through whether the person is being consistent. Sometimes people aren't consistent because, well, they aren't - people are like that - but sometimes you can sniff out an untruth this way. (IRL you can also guess based on body language, etc, but a lot of these guesses would be wrong.) I don't know if this is how nan has become convinced that people are "lying." | ||
| tulip Citizen Username: Braveheart Post Number: 2121 Registered: 3-2004 |
CLK...Well said. Also, the disadvantage of the board is that there is no "body language" to read, so you can't "hear" the tones of voice. Interesting sociolinguistic issue, by the way... | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 5910 Registered: 1-2003  |
Over in another thread, we are arguing over whether the convenience of a gun (compared with other weapons) leads to more murders. I believe people tend to follow incentives and also the paths of least resistance. | ||
| tulip Citizen Username: Braveheart Post Number: 2122 Registered: 3-2004 |
CLK: Your mind is working much faster than mine this morning. Pardon my defensiveness, but I wallow in defensiveness on the message board, because I can. Apologies, and hope you will disregard as needed. Tom: The only incentive for me is vanity, to see my writing on a screen, where others might see it. I try to phrase things intelligently, but it doesn't always work. No, another incentive is community...to be a part of a community I enjoy, for better or for worse. | ||
| Robert Little Citizen Username: Boblittle Post Number: 138 Registered: 4-2003 |
When French symbolist Pierre Menard (in Borges’s “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote”) rewrote "Don Quixote" word for word as the original, the essayist pronounces Menard’s version “infinitely richer” than Cervantes’s. It has a modern philosophical perspective. Menard’s use of archaic Spanish is artful whereas Cervantes’s is natural. And so on. The reader plays a role in the creation. “Consider the source.” It helps the reader to know. Of course, the consistent use of a pseudonym (I recommend someone use “Sue de Nimes” after Waugh) permits us to develop a track record almost as well as real names would. Bob | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 5915 Registered: 1-2003 |
However, if I can idealize for a moment, I think the level of discourse would go up if we all posted under our real names. I realize this won't happen. But public officials have, to a large extent, concluded that responding to MOL posts is a no-win for them, and they cite everyone else's anonymity as a major reason for this. | ||
| Robert Little Citizen Username: Boblittle Post Number: 139 Registered: 4-2003 |
I do post, but it's largely in the food section. The debate over Thanksgiving turkeys was a bit rough. Tom, as usual, was a model of comportment. (Sorry for the unintential haiku. My officemate and I went to Samurai Sushi today.) | ||
| Dave Moderator Username: Dave Post Number: 5634 Registered: 4-1997 |
Syllables are way off, but the Borges reference scores you points. | ||
| Lizziecat Citizen Username: Lizziecat Post Number: 550 Registered: 5-2003 |
I "lurk" in the education section all the time, but, since I have not had children in the system for more than 20 years, I do not feel qualified to post here. I post under a pseudonym because my husband, who is a local businessman, has requested that I do so in order to avoid any semblance of conflict of interest in his business. I see a lot of concerned--and good parents posting in education. In the long run, I don't think that any of you have to worry about your children. With parents who are so caring, they are already way ahead in the game. | ||
| kathleen Citizen Username: Symbolic Post Number: 1 Registered: 3-2005 |
CLK, I think I can tell you how nan became convinced people are lying. I used to feel like you did and used to post many of the arguments that you have right here on MOL. But I've seen and experienced many of the same things nan has here and I too, have changed my mind. I will tell you why. I and my husband are hardly the worst victims of anonymous posters on MOL. Other people who have taken a public stand on town issues have not just been “outed” and falsified, they’ve received threats that their local business will suffer if they continue posting those views, they’ve had posts put up asserting they have serious psychatric problems – no, not just “So-and-so is nuts!” or “You need a therapist!” I am talking about anonymous people, quite well known to the moderator, who were deliberately posting character assassination because they want their local politics to be victorious. A little less than a year ago, I posted in favor of using affirmative action to fill a BOE vacancy with an African-American. Instead of taking issue with my views, an anonymous poster started a thread on MOL to spread the rumor saying that my husband – who has never posted on MOL in his life – was quitting his job to run as a BOE candidate. This anonymous poster included a link to the website of my husband’s employer, specifically the department where he worked because that is where pictures of my husband and his colleagues and their ethnicity and race could be viewed. Other anonymous posters chimed in with inflammatory remarks about my husband and where he works. Not a single one of these people knew my husband or his views on anything. In fact, the website link was out of date. Without my knowledge, a friend of mind who knew the main offender contacted him to say that if this MOLer was going to drag non-posters through the mud in order to slam MOL users for their political views, he had no right to anonymity to do that, and he’d make sure this dimwit’s name AND his screen name was plastered all over town.. That anonymous poster immediately called upon Dave for protection. Dave asked my friend who had angrily threatened the “outing” to please not reveal anything according to the “rules.” My friend complied.. That anonymous poster continued using the same tactics on other people, with ever escalating mud-slinging during the last BOE election. When my friend later ran into Dave in person, he asked Dave why he never did anything to make THIS poster follow any MOL rules, Dave’s reply was that this anonymous poster was his most popular MOLer, and since MOL is a money making venture he did not want to do anything to hurt advertising. So you see, CLK, there are editorial controls here and choices that Dave is exercising. This isn’t the “free for all” you think it is.Not all people are treated equally or asked to follow the rules. Some people in town who don’t even post here, and who stay out of local politics, pay a heavy price for Dave’s business agenda. By the way, the person who started that anonymous rumor against my husband has a webiste. Why isn’t he the one asked to go elsewhere if he doesn’t like the rules here? You’ve already heard the answer. Again, other people have been treated worse than me, but I’ll stick to my own examples: During the Maplewood reval, I posted pointed criticism of the organization Fairtax. In response my criticism, an anonymous poster who was a leader of that organization put my husband’s name and address online, where he worked, detailed financial information about our house and those of our neighbors to create, through pure innuendo, a notion that my husband, whom the poster pretended to have picked out of the blue, was not paying what he owed the town in taxes. I complained loudly about it, and the poster denied knowing there was any connection to me – until other MOL posters, using a revserse phone directory, forced the truth, including the truth that we did indeed pay what we owe in taxes. The anonymous Fairtax poster then “outed” herself to apologize for the lying. It was Lydia […]. She apologized profusely for losing her head in an argument and begged forgiveness. It was actually given. After that Lydia and I occasionally exchanged perfectly civil posts online. During the last TC election, I was not alone in criticizing Lydia for her vituperative, dishonest posts about a candidate, not only under her own name, but under anonymous screen names to prevent traceability to her. In response, Lydia repeated every lie she had said about me and my husband during the reval. And as you can see in that more recent thread, when she didn’t like what I posted, she immediately turned to trying to create innuendo about my husband. (Some growth!) Not only has my husband never put a post on MOL, he’s never met Lydia […] or her husband. My husband does know Dave. Just like he steered [mem] to the right people when she asked for help getting a job at the newspaper where he works, he also steered Dave to the right people when he was trying to get something published. Perhaps because my husband doesn’t post on MOL, or give Dave money for his lawsuit, his privacy doesn’t get protected. Again, the lies told about him were demonstrably untrue – others posters demonstrated it right in front of Dave’s nose! – and hurtful. The same offenders keep doing the same things without penalty. (By the way, this is a good a place as any to say that when I previously said that [mem] and my husband .had lunch, I said it was after 9/11. I later realized that couldn’t be right, and it isn’t. They had lunch around the time Dave organized a lot of “face to face” parties. That is also when [mem] and I exchanged friendly e-mails. That was before 9/11 and it was after 9/11 that [mem] talked to my husband again and asked his assistance in getting a job where he works.) CLK, if a clear and compelling messages were what made people listen, George Bush wouldn’t be president. Liars very often succeed in spreading their lies and making them stick. In the current culture of Fox News and MOL, they win easily, especially if they have powerful protection so they can’t be exposed. Just as a matter of logic, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t both assert there is no editorial control on MOL and then say those who don’t like the rules should go elsewhere. I have the feeling if we were talking about the community message board in King’s supermarket, you’d realize that “free speech” is a red herring in this context. Imagine if King’s let me put up anonymous inflammatory flyers about your husband because it brought people into the store and helped their bottom line. Just think it about. Yes, people tell lies face to face. But a lie about a decent person posted on a public message is a lie intended to be seen by lots of people with no real refutation. And it is usually done for a political purpose. Again, please remember that other people in town have been treated far, far worse than me or my husband by MOL posters with Dave’s assistance. They really have. I’m just one of the few who makes a public issue of it and isn’t intimidated. | ||
| kathleen Citizen Username: Symbolic Post Number: 2 Registered: 3-2005 |
Bob Little, You seem not to know that many of the posters here have more than one psuedonym just so you can’t track them. Dave, I find it disturbing that you are tracking on site who is and isn't contributing money to your legal defense, and that those who don't are having motives attributed to them by you and other posters that have nothing to do with reality. For all you or anybody else knows, people who haven't given you money just wrote big checks to help sick children or any number of other things. I was especially disturbed by your seeming threat to the teacher’s union that if they didn’t start acting on your behalf, there would be consequences. Finally, to all: Not that you really care, but last month I walked into the Village Coffee Shop to meet with Barbara Heisler Williams, whom many of you know. I didn’t “pretend” to not see [dytunck]. I don’t speak to [dytunck]. It’s not the first time this former Democratic party district leader and Profeta ally has said “screw you” to me. Like the people I associate with, I do have principles, and not talking to someone who says that to me is one of them. Even if that were not the history, I generally cut a wide swath around people who post on Internet sites – as [dytunck] recently did on MOL -- that they’ve seen UFOs. | ||
| Dave Moderator Username: Dave Post Number: 5640 Registered: 4-1997 |
If I'm a convenient punching bag because you can't name others, I'm cool with that. We try to maintain a few rules, but obviously we're not perfect. It would be great if people could move forward rather than continually bring up the past, but there's no rule against that, so have at it. :-) | ||
| Dave Moderator Username: Dave Post Number: 5641 Registered: 4-1997 |
ps. We're not tracking who's contributed toward our defense and who hasn't with those "supporter" tags. The "supporter" tag came about because many people sent us holiday tips and we thought it would be nice to recognize those who contribute. People started giving after the announcement of the suit and Jamie changed their status to supporter as well. It obviously doesn't change getting banned. Strawberry is a large contributor and he's presently banned. | ||
| twig Citizen Username: Twig Post Number: 148 Registered: 5-2001 |
Wow...seeing where this thread has gone certainly seems to give creedence to my initiating post/question. I wasn't trying to start a feud, really I wasn't. But does anyone else feel that this thread has regressed into precisely the sort of personal attacks (e.g. this poster lies, that poster has a lack of ethics, and the ever-popular "screw you", etc) about which my opening post queried? Then again, perhaps it isn't merely this thread. Unfortunately, it may be endemic to the entire anonymous message board medium. For some of us, it isn't so much that we can't stand the heat but, rather, it's a matter of seeing no benefit in the ensuing collateral personal damage caused by attacking the poster rather than adhering to confines of a debate on the merits of a position. Ala Dennis Miller...I'm outta here. | ||
| Lydia Supporter Username: Lydial Post Number: 996 Registered: 5-2001 |
Kathleen,
You were sending e-mails to Fairtax and signing them with your husband's name. As Townie" you posted you had e-mailed Fairtax, as you were the only person who had e-mailed us at that time, we assumed that "townie" and the name you signed to the e-mails were the same person. I did a play on words working your husbands surname into the word "underassessed" to let you know that your game was up. It was underhanded of me, which I felt awful about the next day, and I said I was sorry 5 years ago. I don't post under multiple screen names. Again, if you have proof, please produce it, otherwise I think you owe me an apology. It's really time to move on, the reval and the ugliness from 5 years ago should buried. We should learn from the pain and mistakes that were made and work together towards peaceful solutions. I don't think that either one of us can possibly remember every detail from a half-decade ago clearly. If you and I could come to a middle ground where we can respect each other, I would like that very much. If you're willing Kathleen, I'd love to speak to you over a cup of tea or a beer at the Pub - my treat, but you can pay the tip.  | ||
| Reflective Citizen Username: Reflective Post Number: 834 Registered: 3-2003 |
Hey Twig: You dealt the hand. Now play it to the end. Maybe getting the feelings out on the table will help a few posters go forward. I see that most of those involved do, but one or two don't seem to be able to let it go. I believe they would describe themselves as progressive, but they are locked in the past. |
