The SCMC: New information Comes to Light

[_beastie]

Oh good grief.

A few saved quotes that I got a kick out of? Don't you ever save anything that you've read so that you can quote it later? I have maybe fifteen or twenty quotes, mostly 1-3 lines long. Some "dossier."

Are there any normal humans on this message board?

You do present yourself as a "monitor" and qualified to make generalizations about the type of posting taking place on RFM. I would say this, combined with your cherry picked collection of quotes, constitutes a "dossier" as well.

I really don't care who keeps what, but it seems you're not exactly in a position to be accusing other people of obsessive behavior that is predicated on some sort of monitoring of other people's internet musings.

Although I suppose another possibility is that you really have not read or saved enough postings at RFM to be qualified to make any sort of comment on the nature of the place, and are simply misrepresenting your expertise in the subject.

[_Runtu]

You do present yourself as a "monitor" and qualified to make generalizations about the type of posting taking place on RFM. I would say this, combined with your cherry picked collection of quotes, constitutes a "dossier" as well.

I really don't care who keeps what, but it seems you're not exactly in a position to be accusing other people of obsessive behavior that is predicated on some sort of monitoring of other people's internet musings.

Although I suppose another possibility is that you really have not read or saved enough postings at RFM to be qualified to make any sort of comment on the nature of the place, and are simply misrepresenting your expertise in the subject.

One thing that has consistently bothered me (and I'm not singling anyone out) is the characterization of RfM as a cesspool of uniformly bitter and hate-filled people. I have met some absolutely wonderful people on RfM and some who are indeed bitter and hate-filled, but it's the latter who are the exception. When people collect these lists and then ridicule the "so-called recovery board," they paint a diverse group with a ridiculously broad brush.

I don't hang out on RfM much anymore, but when I did, I learned that you just ignored certain people. Heck, I could say that about every board I've ever been involved with, including this one (the so-called "obsession" board) and the board-that-must-not-be-named.

[_Daniel Peterson]

You do present yourself as a "monitor" and qualified to make generalizations about the type of posting taking place on RFM. I would say this, combined with your cherry picked collection of quotes, constitutes a "dossier" as well.

That's a rather idiosyncratic and weird redefinition of dossier.

Scratch literally maintains (and posts) what he calls "dossiers" on specific people.

I neither maintain nor post a dossier on any specific person -- except, perhaps, on Hamid al-Din Ahmad al-Kirmani (d. 1021 AD), for something I'm writing.

I notice that you keep harping on the phrase cherry-picked. You're right. I chose them. And I didn't simply save the entire RFM board at any given time. I selected things that interested and/or amused me. I don't see why this troubles or annoys you. You're free to save any quotations from anybody you like, as far as I'm concerned. And it won't bother me a bit.

Although I suppose another possibility is that you really have not read or saved enough postings at RFM to be qualified to make any sort of comment on the nature of the place, and are simply misrepresenting your expertise in the subject.

That's a possibility. But it's not true.

I have, in fact, read enough at RFM to have a very good sense of the place.

On the other hand, contrary to what you seem to be assuming, I have never, when I've used one of the quotations that I've culled from RFM, said that all posts on RFM were just like it. If you believe that I have, you're simply misinformed.

[_beastie]

That's a rather idiosyncratic and weird redefinition of dossier.

Scratch literally maintains (and posts) what he calls "dossiers" on specific people.

I neither maintain nor post a dossier on any specific person -- except, perhaps, on Hamid al-Din Ahmad al-Kirmani (d. 1021 AD), for something I'm writing.

I notice that you keep harping on the phrase cherry-picked. You're right. I chose them. And I didn't simply save the entire RFM board at any given time. I selected things that interested and/or amused me. I don't see why this troubles or annoys you. You're free to save any quotations from anybody you like, as far as I'm concerned. And it won't bother me a bit.

A dossier doesn't have to be about one person, it can also be about one topic or subject. And if you haven't kept a dossier on RFM, you really shouldn't be making generalizations about the nature of the place. If you haven't kept a dossier on RFM, you're just making your judgments based on memory alone (which is notoriously unreliable).

The reason I point out the cherry picking is that you use the quotes to represent the general nature of RFM, and I know, from my own past experience as a poster there, you have deliberately selected the worst possible quotes. If I cherry picked quotes from MAD like you do from RFM, I could make MAD look like a collection of idiots.

I have, in fact, read enough at RFM to have a very good sense of the place.

On the other hand, contrary to what you seem to be assuming, I have never, when I've used one of the quotations that I've culled from RFM, said that all posts on RFM were just like it. If you believe that I have, you're simply misinformed.

I never said that you said ALL posts on RFM were just like it. I said that you are using these citations to make statements about "the nature of the place", which is the same thing as saying "a very good sense of the place".

You chose the most extreme statements from a few posters and pretend this gives your reader a "good sense of the place".

from your essay on the subject

One message board that I like to monitor is, in its way, a kind of
wildlife preserve for secular anti-Mormons. Although it is of unquestionable
sociological and psychological interest, it offers little if anything
of intellectual merit. What was once said of William Jennings
Bryan could be said of even many of the star posters on this message
board: “One could drive a prairie schooner through any part of
his argument and never scrape against a fact.” Several, even, of the
contributors with the greatest intellectual pretensions on the board
have consistently demonstrated themselves incapable of accurately
summarizing Latter-day Saint positions and arguments, let alone of
genuinely engaging them.

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/pdf.php ... e=cmV2aWV3

How could you possibly be qualified to make a sound and informed judgment about the whether or not RFM offers anything of intellectual merit unless you've kept careful track of the conversations there?

You are just as obsessed with RFM as scratch is with you.

At any rate, just know that every time you point out scratch's obsessive interest in you, it makes me chuckle as I remember your obsessive interest in RFM.

[_Bond...James Bond]

If I cherry picked quotes from MAD like you do from RFM, I could make MAD look like a collection of idiots.

Nevermind.....too easy.

[_Mister Scratch]

At any rate, just know that every time you point out scratch's obsessive interest in you, it makes me chuckle as I remember your obsessive interest in RFM.

(emphasis added)

Well, I'm glad at least *one* person gets the joke!

[_Mister Scratch]

According to DCP, no recording was made, nor was there any "file" presented to the Committee, or anything like that. I think it is important to remember that this committee's supposed function is Strengthening the Members. As I understand it, that includes:
---Making sure that negative publications are "caught"
---Making sure that people who write too many "negative publications" are booted out of the Church and smeared
---Working to address complaints such as those lodged by the above-mentioned man's wife
---Ferreting out dissenters
---Talking to struggling members in the hopes of bringing them back into the fold.

What is eerie about all of it (to me anyways) is the clandestine tenor of the whole thing. It is like the SCMC is this kind of "official" indicator as to the harmful nature of gossip in the Church. You know? It is like a Sword of Damocles, perpetually danging above the heads of everyone---especially scholars. And, as even TBMs have noted, the SCMC saves local ecclesiastical leaders a lot of work. SPs and bishops don't have to worry about combing through all the publications of the membership to make sure that everyone stays absolutely in line. The SCMC does it for 'em!

I'm curious as to how they would be 'smeared' if the organization is secret and the reason the Church keeps so many things secret is to protect the individual from getting smeared.

The collating of documents done by the SCMC facilitates the "digging" into members' personal lives, thus making it much easier to smear them.

[Guest]

A dossier doesn't have to be about one person, it can also be about one topic or subject.

I don't have a "dossier" on a single topic or subject, either. Unless the subject be "Fifteen to Twenty Quotations that Amuse or Interest Me."

And if you haven't kept a dossier on RFM, you really shouldn't be making generalizations about the nature of the place.

So the rule is, If one does not maintain a dossier on a subject, one should not generalize about that subject.

I've never heard of this rule before. It strikes me as patently absurd.

Do you, incidentally, maintain a dossier on the question of whether one can make general statements about a subject without maintaining a dossier on that subject? Because, if you don't, you really shouldn't be making generalizations about the subject of making generalizations about a subject without maintaining a dossier on it.

The reason I point out the cherry picking is that you use the quotes to represent the general nature of RFM

Actually, I've generally used them, without comment, as signatures over at the better board.

But, when I've used them in publications, I have not used them at all in the way you claim.

What you claim isn't true. But that's understandable, because you probably haven't maintained a dossier on this subject. You're going by memory, and memory, as you have pointed out, is notoriously unreliable. (Do you, incidentally, maintain a dossier on the subject of the unreliabiity of memory? If not, you should probably avoid making general statements on the subject.)

I know, from my own past experience as a poster there, you have deliberately selected the worst possible quotes.

Just as I tend to choose the best looking watermelons, the best looking rocks, the best looking leaves, the most interesting books, and the best recordings.

It strikes me as exceedingly weird that you claim to find this problematic.

If I were purporting to draw representative samples in order to generate statistical studies or some such thing, you would have a valid objection. But I'm not, and you don't.

You chose the most extreme statements from a few posters and pretend this gives your reader a "good sense of the place".

Only in much the same sense that choosing Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Brahms's Deutsches Requiem, Wagner's Tannhäuser, Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, and Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge gives a sense of classical music in the German-speaking world.

from your essay on the subject

I stand by my essay on the subject. It doesn't purport to be a statistical study, and I say nothing in it that I'm not willing and able to defend.

How could you possibly be qualified to make a sound and informed judgment about the whether or not RFM offers anything of intellectual merit unless you've kept careful track of the conversations there?

I've read plenty of things there, far more than enough to have a general sense of the place. There is, it seems to me, a very, very low ratio of serious intellectual content to noise, malice, and silliness. You may disagree, but that's your prerogative.

I don't need to maintain a "dossier" on the place in order to have an opinion about it, any more than I need to maintain a "dossier" on Indonesia to have a sense of that place, or to maintain a "dossier" on Beatles songs in order to have an opinion about them.

You are just as obsessed with RFM as scratch is with you.

But weren't you just saying that I hadn't spent enough time there to even have an opinion? Please settle on a single putdown. Mutually contradictory dismissals just make you look ridiculous.

At any rate, just know that every time you point out scratch's obsessive interest in you, it makes me chuckle as I remember your obsessive interest in RFM.

As that "obsessive interest" is demonstrated . . . where, exactly? Do I look in on it from time to time? Yes. Not every day, but sometimes. Often three or four times a week. Probably as much as two to three minutes each time. All-consuming, in other words.

You're priceless.

[_Daniel Peterson]

The collating of documents done by the SCMC facilitates the "digging" into members' personal lives, thus making it much easier to smear them.

Scratch is merely projecting what he would do if he had such documents -- and if the documents were of the kind that he falsely imagines them to be.

[_wenglund]

You are just as obsessed with RFM as scratch is with you.

What a profoundly absurd comparison. It is like equating a shaving nick to a decapitation. Have you lost all sense of proportion and perspective? LOL

Thanks, -Wade Englund-