David Twede has resigned his membership.

[_RockSlider]

Very interesting thread to read right here
MT's David Twede threatens to have MT withdraw support for postmo because the moderator Brad is drilling him hard for answers.

[_Res Ipsa]

Very interesting thread to read right here
MT's David Twede threatens to have MT withdraw support for postmo because the moderator Brad is drilling him hard for answers.

David kindly withdrew the threat a couple of posts later.

I also think FAIR has been less than forthcoming on its role in the events. I've asked them to post the entire text of Scott Gordon's e-mail, the other side of the PM conversation with starlight012, and to have Gordon state whether or not he has had any communication with a member of David's family.

[_Res Ipsa]

So, I"ve been having this weird "conversation" with editor(s) at FAIR wiki, where I post in the postmo thread and he/she/they rewrite the Twede hit piece within a few minutes. It seem odd to me to have a conversation this way, so I thought I'd move my end of it here and whoever keeps posting to me in the wiki can drop in and converse face to face, as it were. If this is too much of a threadjack, I'd be happy to start a new thread.

Here are my posts addressing FAIR:

And to the folks at FAIR with entirely too much time on their hands: if you're going to cut and paste my posts here into your wiki, include this too:

FAIR should also be forthcoming with respect to its role in this affair. While it has posted starlight012's side of PM conversations, it should also fully disclose the other half of the conversations. Scott Gordon should also post a complete copy of the e-mail he sent to what he describes as several friends and what the NYT story describes as church officials in Salt Lake. Sauce for the goose and all that.

None of the questions I've asked of David excuse FAIR and Scott Gordon's role in this incident. A decent circumstantial case can be made this was a most un-Christlike hit job on a website that has been a thorn in FAIR's side.

And yes, postmos, I'm not kidding about the cutting and pasting in the FAIR wiki. And they wonder why many think their church is a cult.

Then, after reading some new material quoting me at the FAIR wiki, I wrote this:

Just because I think it's instructive of how FAIR operates, they have misrepresented my post to them here and neatly evaded the issues I raised with them. They apparently are glued to exmormon sites looking for quote mining opportunities.

Here's what appears on their site now:

The moderator then challenged FAIR to include in the Wiki (presumably on this page) the other half of the PM's involving "starlight012" and whatever information Scott Gordon passed on to people in Salt Lake regarding Twede's activities. The moderator went on to note that "[n]one of the questions I've asked of David excuse FAIR and Scott Gordon's role in this incident. A decent circumstantial case can be made this was a most un-Christlike hit job on a website that has been a thorn in FAIR's side. And yes, postmos, I'm not kidding about the cutting and pasting in the FAIR wiki. And they wonder why many think their church is a cult." [27]

According to Scott Gordon,
-
"I forwarded the links of [Twede's] public blog to some of my friends. The New York Times reporter who called said my email was forwarded to Twede’s stake president. I have no way of knowing if that is true or not. I did not speak with any of his local leaders, nor did I send an email to them. I told the reporter it was more likely one of his local ward members had read his public blog and told the stake president, but she insisted I was the source as she heard that from David Twede himself."

Check upthread. I didn't ask for "whatever information Scott Gordon passed on to people in Salt Lake regarding Twede's activities." That would be a silly request becuase I've already read Gordon's description of what he sent. The NYT article cites him as saying he sent them to Church leaders in Salt Lake. Gordon's statement on the FAIR website, says he forwarded it to "some of my friends." Both may be true, but FAIR is evading the issue. Gordon tries to make itsound as if he wasn't trying to initiate church discipline against Twede. The text of Gordon's e-mail, including re lines and the names of who he sent it to are evidence of his intent in sending the e-mail.

The other half of the PM conversation with starlight012 has not been posted. Perhaps it will be soon.

Note this explanation also from FAIR:

It should be reiterated that FAIR was initially informed of Twede's activities by "starlight012," not by a Twede relative. The LDS.net poster "starlight012" never provided FAIR with their first or last name, and only communicated with FAIR through LDS.net PM (Private Message). "Starlight012" informed a member of FAIR of Twede's name on September 10, 2012. Finally, "starlight012" never contacted Scott Gordon or communicated with him directly in any fashion. We are unsure what constituted a "smear" on the part of Scott Gordon, and expect that Twede will clarify this at some point in the future.

If FAIR doesn't know starlight012's name, then they can't know that starlight012 is not a Twede relative. So why do they say that? Obviously starlight012 did not communicate with "FAIR" through LDS.net -- he or she communicated with an individual. Who was it? Note that FAIR never denies that Scott Gordon spoke with a relative of David's. It says that FAIR was not "initially" informed of Dave's activities by a Twede relative. It doesn't say that Gordon never spoke with one of Dave's relatives. FAIR also says that starlight012 never communicated with Gordon. If they don't know who starlight012 is, how can they know that. But, again, they never say there was no communication between Gordon and one of Dave's relatives.

You have to parse every single sentence uttered by a FAIR representative. They excel at putting words together that may form a literally true statement, but complete obscure the truth.

So c'mon FAIR, post the full e-mail. Post the other half of the PM conversation. Post whether Scott Gordon ever spoke to one of David's relatives. If you're going to post a lenghty hit piece on someone, at least have the basic human decency to post the full story.

Following that post, there was more editing at FairWiki. The two paragraphs I quoted above are currently gone. The entry is now completely silent on the subject of communication between Scott Gordon and a relative of David Twede's. And this was added to the last endnote:

Regarding the contents of Scott Gordon's email, it contained the following introduction: "David Twede from Orlando Florida has become the new editor of Mormon Think, so he is going back to church just to say he is active." This was followed by a link to a thread on Recovery from Mormonism (Posted by: mormonthinker, Date: September 06, 2012 08:42AM), then a link to Twede's first blog entry and a reference to MormonThink's "Who are we?" page. Finally, a text copy of the "David Twede" post from "starlight012," which is listed in the body of this article.

Parse it carefully. Nowhere does it say "this is the complete contents of the e-mail." It says it contained an introduction followed by some links. Which would be literally true if there were more text after the links. Why can't FAIR post something in a straightforward way? How hard would it be to say: Here is the text of the complete e-mail, along with the identity of the recipients and re line. Or, heaven forbid, post a copy of the e-mail.

The text of the hit piece currently ends with this statement: "With Twede having exited both MormonDiscussions and Postmormon.org, we assume at this point that the truth behind the identity of "starlight012," the person responsible for initiating all of the MormonThink Twede-related media events that followed, will remain a mystery."

The mystery includes:

Who was on the other end of the PM's with starlight012?

What was the other half of those conversations?

What was the complete text of Scott Gordon's e-mail and to whom was it sent?

Did Scott Gordon ever communicate with a member of David Twede's family?

Given the innocuous language in the quoted portion of Gordon's e-mail, it seems odd that it would result in a church court summons a few days later. Were there follow up e-mails or phone calls?

Why isn't FAIR willing to tell the whole story. C'mon down wiki editor(s). Let's hash this out.

[_Kishkumen]

Thanks for posting this information, Mr. Hudson. It does look like Scott Gordon and FAIR have been playing games with this all along. I consider the whole thing very suspicious and would guess that Mr. Gordon had some bigger role in the move to discipline Twede. I generally find these kinds of shenanigans despicable. A Church should not require Danites and a Secret Service, and, frankly, the LDS Church actually doesn't require such things. It seems to me that this is more of a case of unbounded zeal on the part of people like Mr. Gordon and his ilk.

[Guest]

Very well Brad, I'll talk with you here. I considered signing up at Postmormon but frankly, you're the only mod I would trust at this point. I do, however, trust all of the mods here (most of whom know who I am anyway).

At this point, I've removed the entire wiki article. It's only purpose was to determine if FAIR got played by Mr. Twede. I believe that we have our answer.

Who was on the other end of the PM's with starlight012?

I'm sorry, that person hasn't given me permission to reveal that. It wasn't Scott Gordon, and it wasn't me.

What was the other half of those conversations?

The FAIR poster thanked them for posting the information (which is why "starlight012" starts out saying "Thanks") and then asked "starlight012" who the guy was, and they responded "David Twede." They then told "starlight012" that they would pass the information on.

What was the complete text of Scott Gordon's e-mail and to whom was it sent?

It consisted of the introductory line that I quoted, followed by links and a cut-and-paste of the contents of those links. Scott actually didn't write a letter. Most of the text was Twede's blog, some stuff from MormonThink and a post from starlight. I don't have permission to post it, so I'm doing the best I can here.

I do not know to whom it was sent - just that they were not Church leaders. I, along with the rest of FAIR, didn't even know that he had sent anything at all until Scott was mentioned in the NYT article.

Did Scott Gordon ever communicate with a member of David Twede's family?

I'm not privy to all of Scott's private communications. He said that he heard from a lot of people after the NYT article came out, but he didn't share any of them with the FAIR list (well, except for our good buddy LDSToronto here on this board calling him a "rat-fink pool of vomit" and stating that he would attack him if he ever ran into him). If he did talk with a member of the Twede family, it could only have occurred after Scott's name appeared in the media. That's the only way Twede's family would have even known about FAIR or who Scott was. So, it is certainly possible that he could have talked with someone since then. However, no member of the Twede family contacted Scott and "outed" him to initiate the discipline - that was purely passed from "starlight012" to a FAIR member, and then to Scott.

Given the innocuous language in the quoted portion of Gordon's e-mail, it seems odd that it would result in a church court summons a few days later. Were there follow up e-mails or phone calls?

To the best of my knowledge, there was only one email which was sent to some friends of Scott's in Salt Lake. Scott said there was only one email. None of them were ecclesiastical authorities - no GA's or anything like that. There was no contact with any local authorities. There were no phone calls or followups of any sort. If Scott passes anything on to his friends, it is basically a "fire and forget" scenario. They would have passed it to the Church. If the Church decides to do anything, they are not going to tell us. We didn't even know that the Church went after the previous MT editor or that he had resigned until "starlight012" and Twede said so.

Now I'll have to ask for your patience - I won't have access again to this board until later this evening if I'm lucky.

Edited to remove a stray quote mark and add a missing word.

[_Res Ipsa]

Thank you, Kishkumen. Please call me Brad. (Mr. Hudson is my father. )

Based on facts to date, I'm seeing the entire incident as a product of attack apologetics and attack anti-apologetics. The whole culture surrounding the LDS apologetic wars is poisonous.

[_Kishkumen]

Thank you, Kishkumen. Please call me Brad. (Mr. Hudson is my father. )

Based on facts to date, I'm seeing the entire incident as a product of attack apologetics and attack anti-apologetics. The whole culture surrounding the LDS apologetic wars is poisonous.

I agree.

[_Res Ipsa]

Thanks for engaging, Wiki Wonka. What I've read by and about you indicates to me that you are a straight shooter. I'm perfectly willing to accept that the misrepresentation I posted about last night was inadvertent and a product of doing lots of rewriting and revising on the fly.

Thanks for taking the wiki article down. Just a suggestion for your future consideration: perhaps the exercise of trying to figure out if FAIR got played might have been better conducted in private as opposed to on your wiki page. The page read like a hit piece. It felt a little scientologisty, if you know what I mean.

Given that you've taken the article down (which I think is a good thing), I think I've lost my standing to pursue requests for information. The entire incident has really bothered me, as you can probably tell, and I've spent lots of time trying to figure out what actually happened. I think it's possible that David has evidence of contact between Scott and a relative that may appear to be from before the news broke but is actually from after. In other words, what appears to be a case of one or the other lying may simply be an honest mistake.

As to starlight012, I can see only two possibilities: either it was David or it was a relative who accessed his computer. I'm not comfortable ruling out the latter, but there are some issues with the timeline that I'd need to work out by talking with starlight012. And it's pretty clear that's never going to happen.

I'm in no rush, and I appreciate you posting this morning before starting your day.

[_Kishkumen]

My guess was that it was Twede himself, based on the evidence that he was orchestrating some kind of low-key demonstration against the LDS Church. The whole thing started to take on the appearance of a publicity stunt, in which Scott Gordon inadvertently played a key role in transmitting important information.

[_RockSlider]

I have tried to follow this whole fiasco. I saw it as damning to David's side of the story when he resigned so quickly after getting a reprieve from his excommunication. I'm grateful to Brad for having the integrity and willingness to publically ask the hard questions of both sides. David's immediate reaction to Brad on postmo was further damning to his side of the story.

In contrast, we get Wiki Wonka who obviously (and always) listens and reacts to the critical input about the FAIR wiki. I know I've just read the truth as known by Wonka. Damn you Wonka, for making it just a bit harder to hate FAIR.

Of course we are only missing one more side of this story, which David said (but then deleted) would not be given because some member of his family required the protection of his silence.

Once again, special thanks to Brad and Wonka for honestly addressing this issue.