The Anonymity Issue

[_Eric]

You should continue to assail me all you want. Don't change.

Oh, I'm sorry. Was it my turn to say something nice about you?

Do you expect me to say: "It's okay, Bob. I've forgotten all about how you and Dan Peterson took advantage of my family and my little sister to score a point (throwing my step dad and your "friend" under the bus in the process) against "apostate" message board participants, and how you both libeled and defamed me for longer than a year while lying about what happened, things I supposedly said, and things I supposedly did. Now that you've been embarrassed by the relics of your own behavior and are behaving slightly less abrasive than usual, well I guess you're a good guy."

[_Yahoo Bot]

Like I say, you're free to continue on. I've never libeled nor defamed you. I've disagreed with you.

You made claims of libel and defamation to the state bar, or so you said you did, and to my law partners, emails which were forwarded to me; didn't work with them and won't work with me.

[_Eric]

Like I say, you're free to continue on. I've never libeled nor defamed you. I've disagreed with you.

You're not going to claim that I called you a child molester anymore? Why?

You made claims of libel and defamation to the state bar, or so you said you did, and to my law partners, emails which were forwarded to me; didn't work with them and won't work with me.

I don't know about complaints to the state bar, I may have floated the idea out there and perhaps I inspired someone else to. I can't be responsible for all the trouble you make with others on the Internet.

As for the email to some of your partners; what made you stop claiming that my step-dad was a client in your posts? You sure have cleaned up your act when it comes to saying things about me that aren't true. Just today you were caught censoring yourself. By my count, it did work.

[_Kishkumen]

Just today you were caught censoring yourself. By my count, it did work.

All the evidence I need.

[_Eric]

Yahoo Bot accuses Eric of lying, denies (and invites all to read his past denials) that any such communications exist, and then to drive the point home, implies that Eric can prove he's not a liar by posting them. He has created a situation in which the only way for Eric to defend himself is to post the private message. Isn't that a clear demonstration that, contrary to a typical situation, Yahoo Bot doesn't intend for those communications to remain behind-the-scenes?

Since we are discussing the merits of anonymity in this thread, and an opponent of anonymity has called for his own purportedly on-point PM to be posted, why not make an exception to Universal Rule 3 in this case, and let Eric do it? Moderators?

Of course, if Yahoo Bot wants to (1) rescind his waiver of Universal Rule 3 and confirm that Eric should keep his non-existant private messages private, and (2) provide a way for Eric to defend himself from accusations of lying about private messages without posting those private messages, we can all get some closure, without Moderator intervention, and move on.

-JV

Here is one of the private messages from Bob:




I can post more if he likes.

[_Hades]

My family and friends know that I have resigned from the church. They know that I no longer believe. I am an evil apostate in their eyes.

In my workplace, Mormonism is a liability, not an asset. My colleagues know that I'm a former Mormon. I am completely honest in real life.

I could post under my real identity on this board, but knowing that anonymity pisses people like bot off is reason enough to stay anonymous.

[_Juggler Vain]

Here is one of the private messages from Bob:



I can post more if he likes.

Just to clarify, I have three (or so) questions:

1) Is this message evidence for your assertion, in a post above, that Yahoo Bot/Bob worked in concert with Daniel Peterson to contact your father about an anonymous post you made on this message board?
2) Is the idea that Yahoo Bot/Bob forwarded your anonymous post to Daniel Peterson, who then contacted your father about it, in the middle of a family crisis?
3) Can you give more detail about the redacted name in the first line? Is that Daniel Peterson? Your step-dad?

Also, you've provided a .png image of the message that doesn't really show it in a context that would indicate that it is a private message -- specifically, there is no timestamp or other identifying information. Is there a way for us to objectively confirm that this private message is authentic?

-JV

[_Kishkumen]

Just to be clear, JV-

Daniel Peterson does not deny contacting Eric's father to alert him to the contents of Eric's anonymous post to this board. He is rather proud of having done so.

[_Juggler Vain]

Just to be clear, JV-

Daniel Peterson does not deny contacting Eric's father to alert him to the contents of Eric's anonymous post to this board. He is rather proud of having done so.

I understand that -- in fact, Daniel's confirmation of that fact is the link in my question 2 above. What I'm trying to understand is what accusation this private message relates to. I think there are two basic accusations Eric is making:

1) Yahoo Bot/Bob notified Daniel Peterson of Eric's anonymous post; and
2) Yahoo Bot/Bob tried to forward one of Eric's anonymous posts to Eric's step-dad, but ultimately failed because he had the email address wrong.

This private message could relate to either of those accusations, but I can't tell which, because the name of the recipient of Yahoo Bot/Bob's message has been redacted. If you read the post linked in accusation 2, that's the one this message seems to fit.

-JV

[_Eric]

Unfortunately, because of Bob's crafty habit of editing posts, threatening the mods until threads are deleted, and changing usernames, I have to rely on screenshots for most of this.

Bob denying this or making accusations is his way of trolling, so there is a fine line between feeding him and reminding others why he and Dan Peterson are the two biggest reasons to remain anonymous on this message board.

It's important to note that we are talking about three separate emails that were going around in early 2008.*

There was the one Bob claimed he sent in this series of PMs from rcrocket:






Then the first, now infamous, email from Dan Peterson:



And then this one later:

On 28 March, I sent a second note to GoodK's father, one that will guarantee my disgrace forever. I had just looked at the board again, and I thought, mistakenly as it turned out, that GoodK had taken a new moniker, as "Chap." I didn't know whether GoodK's father was looking in on the board at all, nor whether he cared much, but thought that, if he was or did, he might want to know that "GoodK" was now (as I mistakenly thought) "Chap."

It turns out that Bob was lying to me when he said he emailed my step-dad, or as he later claimed, just didn't have the right email address. He also later claimed that he sent an email to Dan Peterson, but Dan Peterson claimed that he had not received Bob's email until after the email was already sent, absolving Bob of any wrong doing and maintaining his own benevolence. The details of that are discussed in the thread Bob was furiously trying to censor yesterday on page 10 (where, coincidentally, most of yesterdays edits are found): viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9734&start=189)

That's all I really want to say about this, but I'm sure it will all come back up again in a few years. If I could leave these two men with something, it's the fact that they (along with people like Blaire Hodges and other Internet Mormons) have successfully kept me from ever considering going back to Church, even at times of weakness when I might have even felt like it. If that is their goal on these message boards, then great job. I see these people claiming to be on the Internet "defending" their Church as if they are some kind of Cyber Holy Warriors and protectors of Truth, when in actuality they've just turned the Mormon Church from being something I, at the very least, always culturally identified with to something that looks like an extension of the Tea Party, filled with people I want no association or affiliation with.

I hope the Church eventually considers the amount of missionary work it will take to compensate for what its apologists do online, in print, and even in real life.

*Little did the two vindictive, gossip loving bishops know, I had already sent these online exchanges between DCP and I: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4440 to my step-dad long before my sister became ill and they tried to out me. Dan Peterson -- and more so, the FARMS Review -- was, until then, spoken highly of by my step-dad (despite his annoyance with fund raising attempts by Ed Snow). I wanted to show him what kind of a person Peterson was online. Now I thank those early exchanges with DCP and other nasty Internet Mormons for helping me decisively leave and stay away from the Church.