UPDATED 8.12.12 11:40 a.m. PDT - bottom of original essay, before comments
Apparently at least a couple well-known people here have created many – dozens, if the scuttlebutt is true – false identities (alters) for the purposes of: rating their main identity’s (Main) posts, commenting on the Main’s posts and, even more bizarrely, their own, thereby making it seem that Main is very popular, thereby attracting other unsuspecting readers/raters, promoting themselves and their (usually self-published) books and duping both the participants/writers/bloggers here at Open Salon and the nonparticipants who come to this site to read.
In some cases – one in particular that I am all too personally aware of because I was one of his victims – the Main’s alters are shields for leaving nasty comments about people (targets) on OS blogs, sometimes really vicious and ugly things that are absolutely untrue.
From what I’ve seen in the last three years from these two Mains, they aggressively seek to make ‘friends’ here, effusively praising people’s posts, fawning to them and about them to others, often (but not always) without regard to whether their target’s post(s) are deserving of such praise. They send unsolicited PMs (private messages in the OS email system); they like to cozy up. Their efforts, to me, soon felt fake and, frankly, a little slimy.
I’ve known for a year about one Main and suspected a number of alters belonged to him, alters with OS blogs using variations of my name – cant danz, for example – and I had seen (and saved) nasty things said about me in comment strings. For example:
Some of the his alters called me an addict or a drunk, neither of which I have ever been. One of them referred to my mother (who, unfortunately for her children, was an alcoholic). One of them made me out to be a slut, leaving what was leeringly referred to as the garage door open for a man on OS.
I use Statcounter, a program that allows me to put a piece of invisible html code in my posts on OS. When someone clicks on it, their computer leaves behind (usually, but there are a few exceptions – the explanation is technical and irrelevant here) an identifier, the IP address. Many people here on OS use it. Thus, I knew the IP address of the Main (because he had left me plenty of comments before last year), but he was careful only to leave the nasty comments about me only on blogs that belonged to people who were his sycophants, never on blogs controlled by the two people I had confided in; therefore, I never had IP proof. If I had ever been able to match the IP addresses of the Main and his alters, I would have sent the information to OS management (who I had alerted and discussed this with), and all this man’s blogs here would have been removed.
In the meantime, for almost a year, I kept writing, set up my own website, watched my brother die, and kept paying attention.
Last weekend the whole Fusun / rwnutjob anti-Semitic bomb went off here on OS, spread over several different blogs and posts. If you missed that horror, you can start with this: Sally Swift's Gun Violence post
and follow to the other posts. It’s fascinating, finding out who you didn’t know won’t condemn a bigoted remark and can't even see one when it’s squarely before their eyes. But, horrible as it was, that isn’t the point here.
One of the next posts in the series was aim’s “Unforgiven” (see link below). Near the very end of the comment string, last night (August 9 7:11 PM) a writer here of long standing, Sirenita Lake, notices and questions that there were at that time 81 ratings on Fusun’s post, applies logic and some math to the numbers of comments and rates and wonders whether there are alters being used to increase Fusun’s post’s ratings.
Link to "Unforgiven": Unforgiven - aim
We old-timers know that comments are captured by the OS software and, unless deleted, show up in the Activity history of the post they are left on. But I had not (and apparently Sirenita hadn’t either) paid attention when OS modified the software a while back and included Ratings along with Comments under Activity. Because that will (and does) identify every rating each of us has ever left on any post by the identity we used when we clicked “Rate”. And while you can delete a comment (on the blog where it was left if you have the password), you can never delete a rate.
But someone knew that. And he was eager to out Fusun as a shadow-user, pumping up her own ratings. He left this comment right under Sirenita’s:
I would ask that you reread the last sentence of Chicken Maaan’s comment.
Right after that, Chicken Maaan reveals what he says is one of Fusun’s shadows: OS Blog macart .
I read this stuff last night and spent a few hours tracking down and matching up identities and ratings and comments. I was going to leave a comment on “Unforgiven” this morning, but when I got back there, I found that our brilliant Sirenita had done the work and posted the results. It appears that someone who is interested in upping the ratings for Fusun’s posts has created many alters for the singular purpose of rating and commenting on Fusun’s OS posts. Some of these alters are: okaya, onay, seysu, sumjoy, smithson, ayhan, victhar, macart, thecoach, trudie-j, sashira, golsen, sidarneil, swallowtail, blufeather, ushigrey, sophie_g, stillgreen, nmb, yavuzhan, emmrose, Britney, and seafarer .
And then another curious thing happened on “Unforgiven.” A greyhead identity with the name Travis Rodgers (who might or might not be in the same category as sumjoy and the other shadows above) left some comments, accusing Chicken Maaan of having “fake followers” and naming some of them: myopic, tsauni (lady love), oliver Monroe (Edwina cummings), randy newgate, sonja bjorn and mary beth weinberg.
So I went to those OS blogs and looked at the comments and the ratings for each. I followed them around and found frosty funk, uriah heep (originaly cant danz), henry alddrich (originally nanateehee).
In each case, I saved the pages of the each blog as a webarchive. Even if the sites are ever taken down (deleted), the pages as they exist today are on my computer, including all links. I took screen shots of various comments after linking through to the blog that one of these alters was commenting on.
I have... a lot... of data.
We all know that Chicken Maaan is Matt Paust. He has said in numerous places on OS that Chicken Maaan (originally ClarkK) was a fictitious identity that he uses to post chapters of a book, if I recall correctly. He has said it is no secret. He has also said on posts that he has only ever had that one other avatar, Chicken Maaan.
At the end of this post I’m going to include links to all the OS blogs for the alters listed above, both the ones that rate the Fusun posts and the ones that Travis Rodgers attributes to Chicken Maaan/Matt Paust and the ones that I suspect belong to the same person. You can click on them, see what’s there, what they say, what other blogs they lead you to and what conclusions you personally draw.
I’m not a lawyer, but I know if I had the IP addresses of the computers used to post these comments and add these rates to blogs and they matched with self-identified posts on Statcounter reports, that would be clear objective evidence (unless someone’s felonious friend or relative had sneaked into his home or office hundreds of times and used his computer, pretending to be an alter who was pretending to be him – insert emoticon for Incredulous Face here) of who had done this.
But with the rates that link back and the comments – between even multiple alters on Main’s posts - what you will see if you look at what I saw last night and today is what they call in court “circumstantial evidence.” Like I said, I’m not a lawyer. But I’ve heard dozens of judges tell juries that circumstantial evidence has exactly the same weight as direct evidence.
* * *
I argued with a woman who used to post on a blog here. I pointed out that she was factually incorrect once in the cut-and-paste stuff she used to post with a sort of pseudo-journalist cape on. I also implied she was following OS’s “How to Get More Viewers” lesson by pulling bits off the headline news stories online and “writing” posts about them which, using SEO algorithms, will get you lots of views for little work (and sometimes very little worth). She had a lot of OS pals who were appalled that I would dare say she was trying to get views (and, therefore, AdSense money), when I had saidthere wasn’t even anything wrong with doing that but it was insulting to pretend that her posts were some sort of Public Service Announcements and that she had done a bunch of investigative work. One of those pals was Matt Paust.
I didn’t call the woman a witch or a bitch or a dope or a fake or an anything. I don’t call people names. I “questioned her motives,” as one of her most vocal supporters said. I sure did. Because I don’t like feeling like someone is playing me, like someone is pretending to be someone else or pretending to do something that they aren’t doing.
This is the link to that post, if you care to see where it all started:
* * *
I think we are all owed an apology by the people who did this. They are fakes. They tried to game the system here to make themselves look important and popular. They used their positions as self-promoted and, therefore, well-known bloggers on this site to help people who they chose as friends and to hurt people they chose as victims and targets. And they got away with it for years. My personal opinion is if either of them can’t admit to and apologize for what they’ve done, their Main identities should be deleted. All the alters should be deleted immediately, apology or not.
And if, after carefully examining all of this – what my smart colleague Sirenita calls “a massive fraud” – there is even one person here who would defend either of them? Who will twist and weave and pivot and try to find a way to say what went on is acceptable?
Well, speak right up because the rest of us deserve to know who you are.
(Most of) the alleged Fusun shadows:
(I got tired. You can do the last few by typing the names in yourself.)
The other guy’s shadows:
ClarkK Myopic ratings Oliver Monroe ratings
Randy Newgate Ratings
cant danz (Uriah Heep) comments
nanateehee (Henry Alddrich) comments
nanateehee ratings
(included because, according to one of his friends, Matt Paust tells people Frosty is his avatar.)
There was one with the name of Candy Ass. It was particularly vile, and I’ve saved the archive of it, but the user has been very recently deleted from OS, so a link won’t take you there.
Oh, and my family name is Mann. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.
____________________________________________________
UPDATED: August 12, 2012
Paust posted "Kiss my candy ass" today - 8.12.12, 8:02 a.m.
Matt Paust - Kiss my candy ass - 8.12.12
Screenshots of the OS User CandyAss (deleted recently), post entitled "Hello!" dated 9.14.2011, 6:19 p.m.
Note Bio, comments and similarities to "Kiss my candy ass"
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if anything is quirky, let me know and i'll tweak it again.
i'm not naive. but i thought i was dealing with adults here.
You ROCK, Candace.
(oh, and I was FIRST! ;) )
I feel like I need a shower now. Possibly disinfectant.
And flea powder.
nice job. there is far too much bullshit on here and has been for at least a year. one of the many reasons i left was because i was tired of the drama, games, and deluded self-importance exhibited by so many.
Thanks.
I've been stating for about a year now that there's really only a few dozen "live" OSers on this site anymore. This certainly supports that theory.
Oh, I have a second alter, Jonnie_Wolfy_is_Nutz, because I thought this one would be wiped-out and deleted by OS management (like my original account was -- without explanation). A self-admitted, mentally-unstable OSer made some false claims about me and "zap", my account was vaporized. Interestingly, one of her greatest supporters is Matt "chicken man" Paust.
Ahhh, now I get it.
Excellent work and again, thanks.
But I am a naive person, I have no problems saying that. Perhaps, too naked in words, if you will, so I tend to think that people are just like me. I know, such a dumb thing to expect. If you say something to me I believe you are telling me the truth. Using my true name, using a photo of myself until but a few months before I sort of left.
A former boyfriend told me once, "you are too gullible." So very true. It's probably poetry's fault.
I was actually silly enough to feel extreme disappointment when a former writer here told everyone she had two avatars. I felt, in a sense, betrayed. I analyzed my reaction, of course, told myself it was unreasonable to get upset over the decisions of someone I really didn't know except as a bit of bytes. But, I still felt terrible. And it is what it is. We seek meaning, us humans. And meaning is usually found in that connection between souls, the bridge we walk on built with words. And that's the problem, isn't it? The meaning becomes meaningless.
This is so sad. Terribly so.
joisey: i made up one once so i could leave a snarky comment on the post of a very scary woman who used to be here, and i've felt the hand of my school principal on the back of my neck ever since. lucky for me, the scary woman's whole blog was deleted. you know when you're doing something wrong that it's wrong.
jmac, it was a doozy of a dustup weekend. but sometimes those things happen because it's time to find out where people stand. now we know. hope you're feeling better.
And really quite sad that the almighty rate & need to gain attention/"faux" popularity/sell books/whatever - trump conscience and integrity.
I'll be tracking down you and Sirenita if I need a good detective :)
thanks, candace
Thanks for doing all the metaphorical legwork here. You have a solid reputation, and I'm very confused now and frankly, totally unsure whom to trust anymore.
Why would someone create alters to rate their posts on a site like this? Is OS that important? Did it used to be? Could that be why the editors seem to not care anymore?
DiBi: i know right!?! i remember 'incroyable' from my french class. i was going to be all cool and answer you in french, but i bet there's not a literal translation for 'i know right' and i'd end up saying 'cheese sandwich' or something. :) good to see you!!
are you (we) saying that Fusun and Matt are both big fat liars and actually spend the time & effort to make so many avatars and then use them to rate their own posts? theyre stuffing the ballot box as it were?
i'm sorry... i believe in calling a spade a spade and calling people out by name. feel free to either ignore my question if ya want to (im ok with that) or used the word "alleged".
this is a special kind of sad & sick if its true (and it looks to be true to my eyes). Seriously? the need to be at the top of some feed on some website turns you into this kind of person? your ego is THAT fragile?
frankly, i would think learning to be a better (and i dont mean grammar, i mean more engaging & interesting) writer & person might be time better spent.
that said - go you! around here, its not always easy to speak the truth out loud... in fact its damn near discouraged. i admire you greatly for this.
Now you can use it and be all cool, 'n stuff!
Good to see you too :)
this is the internet. you shouldn't trust anyone until you have known them long enough and in enough detail to be absolutely positive who they are. my Trusted list is very, very short.
rates count for nothing because OS counts for nothing. being a star here gets you bupkis in the real world. it's as hard to be a successful writer these days as it is to be a movie star like george clooney. with very very few exceptions (like i can count them on one hand), the people who write here, even good writers, do it for fun.
but if getting rates and getting noticed around here means something to you personally (and it does to a lot of people), you have to put in the time and you have to write things that are: interesting, smart, wise, funny, tear-jerking, outrageous *or* some combination of those. and you have to write them really really well or the only people who will read your stuff are people who can't write either and who are rating you because they want you to rate them back. it's a cruel system, but that's how it works. so if you want to learn to write, you have to write and keep trying to do it better and learn from other people's stuff. and don't believe 90% of what people tell you, including me.
i swear, i typed that just now and started laughing so hard. can you *imagine* the amount of work it was to be all those people? i would have fucked it up sixteen ways - commenting while logged in as the wrong person, saying YAY good stuff when i was supposed to crap on someone's blog - i swear that would subtract years from someone's life, don't you think? hope you're ok, pally. i'll see you soon.
baa haa haa ... can I nominate this for a Reader's Picks comment award?
(and who is "Frank Lee" and why is he ignoring lorianne?)
Agouti-man is here - and no, not attending any more *art films* with you. Last time I went into anaphylactic shock after being blasted by your *aromatherapy*!
DiBi, i can't tell you how excited i am to know that. very, actually. :)
lori: i had three names: femme forte, candace mann, then femme forte aka candace. no imagination over here.
joan: i know. it's the asshats. maybe they'll leave and it will get better.
trey, shouldn't your name be spelled t-r-e-s??? or is it an inside joke, kinda like the abouti thing. i always forget whether that's another name for a capybara. must ... go ... to ... google translate. or is it dictionary.com? how much time do i have?
I've seen this site more as a social place and have tried to make friends. I don't think that the people that comment on my blog do it so I'll return the favor, at least not all of them, but I have noticed a drop since I cut back this month. Of course, OS is having a drop, too.
I heard this comment somewhere else this week, too, from someone else...
"you have to write them really really well or the only people who will read your stuff are people who can't write either and who are rating you because they want you to rate them back"
and it really sounds like you're both calling us losers.
So I guess I will quite gladly keep my little circle of "losers" and carry on. I'm done writing about my angst. It's time to move forward, so if all anyone wants to read about is my rape, I guess they'll be out of luck.
Good investigative journalism, Ms. Candy. Thanks for shining the light on this. I'm gonna suggest here for **our own purposes** that **Candy Ass* could be used as a compliment for a sweet derriere. :)
Still looking at patterns, it seems that Matt's alters were for the purpose of saying stuff he didn't want attributed to him, and Fusun's for aggrandizing her blog. I'm willing to listen to Matt's explanation. Fusun's I don't need to hear, as her psych issues are evident.
And yes, most evidence presented in court is circumstantial. It's the traces of behavior rather than direct observation. You evaluate it by asking what alternative explanation would work. If there is no other reasonable explanation, you've got to accept the evidence. Which, in some cases, is painful.
one of the line in this *fabulous* song is: "well, we cheated on a friend - cheaters never win." he was talking about infidelity, not pretending to be 35 different people on a website, but, you know, same diff.
but i have seen your comments about wishing you had an EP - which, believe me, is no more important than ratings, so i was trying to be reassuring. and kind.
and i apologize if i didn't come across that way. but, for the record, i never called you a loser or said you were a crappy writer. here's some real critical advice, though: if you don't grow a thicker skin and stop reading insults in everything people tell you, you're going to have a hard time.
Good detective work to say the least. It's really kinda wacky out there isn't it?
I've don't use my real name here: Walter Egeaux
And I don't plan to either.
if my ego ever becomes so fragile that i am making up names to boost my comment count? would one of you lovely people please PM me to log off & quit?... and perhaps suggest professional help.
which by the way - those of you who consider yourselves 'friends' of either of these 2 individuals (and i know youre out there)... before you get your pretty noses out of shape & jump to their defense (which is an exercise in futility) perhaps do them a true service..as their "friend" and suggest the same.... log off & quit, seek professional help, maybe leave the house for a while & do some volunteer work... because their perspective on life & whats important has been severely compromised.
scarlett: thanks, girlfriend. my sweet derriere thanks you too. :) xoxo
sirenita: i hate to say it, but i'm not sure i can see any redeeming quality in matt's reasoning about who to flame/not flame. if you look farther into some of the alters, you will see tons of rates for his book chapters. as if it mattered. that's what's so strange to me. thanks for doing all that work. it was what made the rest make sense.
maurene, i appreciate all you said in the comment. thanks for taking the time to tell that story. and i remember you from long ago - am still glad you're around and that you came over for this one. really.
linnnn: yep.
hey, grif. it is very wacky and getting worse. i'm just looking around for something to make me laugh once in a while these days. :)
thanks, phyllis, for the response. i wish you all the best.
i heart you, crazy guitar walter aka guy. (i remember when i had to send you a PM to ask you what walter egeaux meant. sheesh.)
Candace I swear that's how gow my grandama said it.
jl: the amount of time this must have taken is staggering, isn't it? and how far off the rails someone must be to think it's a good idea ...
Are these alters the only ones you can prove? Because there were a few alters discussed as highly suspicious at Aim's Unforgiven post that aren't included in you list above. I only mention it, because one of them rated the racist post made by Mr. Nutjob, but did not leave a comment, which would mean she rated it twice, which is twice as disgusting.
According to the Terms of Service, having more than one account is a clear violation: "You agree that you will not register for more than one account . . . ." That said, I can understand if someone wants to have a second account for some special and legitimate purpose. For example, the OS Readers Picks account is obviously someone's second account, but I don't see a problem with it since serves a useful purpose, and I assume that OS management knows about it.
But having multiple accounts to juke the stats in order to get more recognition, or to leave nasty anonymous messages on others' accounts, is underhanded and reprehensible. But this is the kind of thing that can happen when there's no one managing the accounts.
I've always thought it would be nice if OS charged a small annual or initiation fee. Just $5 or $10 would probably be enough of a disincentive to keep most people from getting multiple accounts, as well as making spamming too expensive. But there is no fee, and since OS doesn't have enough money to maintain the place there probably never will be.
The lack of an account management process causes huge problems, and I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually brought OS to an end.
Fortunately, my posts are so poorly rated that no one could ever accuse me of inflating my stats with multiple accounts. Around here unpopularity is often a sign of honesty.
I'm blown away, frankly.
Between this and the crap on the weekend, I'm kinda....soured on the whole scene.
OTOH, good to have some of this exposed. I await with sadness to see how Fusun reacts to this. And her fans - the real ones. Considering the uproar when Cartouche did O'Really, which wasn't for any kind of aggrandizement, I would expect some repercussions. But one never knows... People are surprising...
And if these two, who else?
Interestingly enough, my last comment befor bugging out was to Kitd, calling her out on her bad behaviour. She was so bad, truthfully, I see Fusun and Matt as her spawn.
wrote some stuff.
Its' been a crazy ride. I am saddened by this as I am every time someone I thought I knew, someone who was kind to me personally and felt some connection, I find out that they are not anything that they appear to be. It's lesson for me. I don't want to opine the days of old as there were scammers, liars, alters then too. It's a big place.
Now that it's all out there, I guess we will all find our corners.
(those of us who aren't busily racing to boost F and M's ratings and support)
Ms. Lake, I can simulate nearly any medical condition in my newly upgraded rumpus room, and I just had my hot tub disinfected last week. You know how to get here, my dear, and there's no need to call first; I love surprises, and if I happen to be out Paquito will let you in and ensure you're comfortable 'til I arrive.
Candace, an agouti isn't simply a type of capybara; they are an entirely different species, and capybaras are much less affectionate creatures than my dear Henri.
As despicable as Mr. Nutjob is, at least you know exactly who you're dealing with. In this case, we have two people who pose as benevolent and welcoming folks, one who rides in to offer comfort, man strength, and his hankie to helpless ladies, then stabs those who don't need his approval in the back, another who plays the Buddhist, quotes Gandhi, and then rates at racist's post, not once, but twice.
Back to the vomitorium for me.
For some reason, I missed Matt attacking you, Candace. (Or was aware but have forgotten? I usually remember these things.) I really haven't participated much in the past 10 months, and wish I had been more aware. Like Sirenita, I was ready to give him more of a chance to explain himself than Fusun, but I have to rethink that completely.
I, too, will return to say more when I get my head wrapped around this...in many ways it makes me very sad. I remember being SO involved here that waking up to log in was basically the first action of the day, and how addicting it was, but also seemingly rewarding. OS was a tremendous help -crutch - for me after my mother's death. When I observe people in that initial thrall I feel like the old person smiling and shaking there head saying: "You'll see..."
But to place so much importance on this site as these two people have done is mind boggling.
Thanks again.
So I'll use the beginning of the last one, and simply say:
Wow. Between you and Sirenita, I had a lot of suspicions become more than just that tonight.
I have been proud to be your friend for a long time now.
Using various accounts to jack up your own ratings is sad - it marks you as a most fragile ego and a fraud. If you're going to write where the public can read, you need to take the bad with the good. Nobody writes exceptionally well all the time. And nobody starts at the top.
Wonder when he'll weigh in here with one of his self-righteous bourbon-fueled blasts?
NOW just a couple of random picks:
Macart Page of ratings:
-----------------------------------------
August 08, 2012 08:34PM
Rated Shadows (8 ratings)
May 09, 2012 04:10PM
Rated 50 SHADES OF black & white...science fiction erotica (19 ratings)
August 08, 2012 04:08PM
Rated In The Mind Of an Athlete (12 ratings)
March 28, 2012 12:33AM
Rated we love you iran & israel... (19 ratings)
July 19, 2012 03:04PM
Rated Wet for a Moment and then Back to Dry (3 ratings)
July 29, 2012 03:02PM
Rated SunDAY *7.29.12*Photo Funny with your Caption. (15 ratings)
August 08, 2012 10:56AM
Rated Code Year--week 32, Hackasaurus (1 ratings)
August 07, 2012 04:06PM
Rated The backwards-sideways 21st century world (18 ratings)
July 31, 2012 10:07AM
Rated Treasures of Istanbul~The Basilica Cistern (84 ratings)
August 05, 2012 11:16AM
Rated Forgiveness (82 ratings)
------------------------------------------------------
The Coach has a name : Paul Larsen. Maybe he prefers not to use it just as you MS femme forte did not until you decided to come out.Here is his first of two pages of all ratings. On what grounds do you insist that he is FusunA?
August 08, 2012 01:22PM
Rated The apology before dying (38 ratings)
June 25, 2012 09:49AM
Rated OSman (66 ratings)
June 21, 2012 06:28PM
Rated Humiliation: It tastes bitter--like that taste in your mouth when a filling goes bad (1 ratings)
June 25, 2012 03:18AM
Rated Mercy Tipping (8 ratings)
June 25, 2012 07:48PM
Rated from orange supernova to silver fireworks (6 ratings)
June 23, 2012 06:57PM
Rated Lost at Sea (31 ratings)
June 06, 2012 02:22PM
Rated Baby Bird Eggs Hatched ~Pics (41 ratings)
May 21, 2012 04:07PM
Rated I'm Out of Air~ (63 ratings)
February 21, 2012 05:34PM
Rated The Ninth Step~ (48 ratings)
June 11, 2012 12:06PM
Rated Surviving a Borderline Parent: a Response to Libby's Post (22 ratings)
June 13, 2012 02:46AM
Rated Obama's Two Words for Us: 'Predator Drones' (22 ratings)
June 08, 2012 10:23AM
Rated Blue (81 ratings)
June 13, 2012 01:49PM
Rated The Other "D" Word (7 ratings)
June 06, 2012 07:47PM
Rated Surviving the Unrecovered Borderline Parent (58 ratings)
June 06, 2012 07:19PM
Rated Walker Wins, Why? And What Now? (21 ratings)
June 12, 2012 07:12AM
Rated The Southern Transplant (8 ratings)
May 28, 2012 11:22PM
Rated Let Me Tell You About That Girl (52 ratings)
June 02, 2012 05:48PM
Rated Hello, It's Me (58 ratings)
May 23, 2012 02:56PM
Rated The Real American Heiresses of "Downton Abbey" (11 ratings)
January 09, 2012 07:04PM
Rated 5 Memorable Non-Fiction Books from 2011 (4 ratings)
May 24, 2012 04:54PM
Rated SPAM -A-RAMA FRIDAYS : NOBODY COULD BE THAT F*CKING STUPID! (27 ratings)
May 25, 2012 12:59AM
Rated Greenheron's Open Call; Can You Draw Me? (12 ratings)
May 24, 2012 10:22PM
Rated Lilies and Roses and More (2 ratings)
May 23, 2012 07:12PM
Rated Is Freedom of Press under Attack in Montréal? (78 ratings)
May 24, 2012 09:29PM
Rated Stranger in the House (5 ratings)
May 24, 2012 01:31PM
Rated Imagine a World Without the Color of Flowers (18 ratings)
May 10, 2012 12:36PM
Rated For lovers of existentialism and cat videos (8 ratings)
May 17, 2012 12:00PM
Rated Rebel with a conscience - Man with a vision (71 ratings)
May 17, 2012 05:16PM
Rated Was Elizabeth Loring Patriot or Whore? (9 ratings)
May 18, 2012 04:55AM
Rated Judge: Obama's NDAA Unconstitutional (11 ratings)
May 17, 2012 05:48PM
Rated FROM COWS TO FIATS (11 ratings)
May 01, 2012 10:18PM
Rated It's just what you do! (9 ratings)
April 29, 2012 05:52PM
Rated How I ducked the US customs without a passport :o) (72 ratings)
March 29, 2012 10:52PM
Rated March: Come What May (5 ratings)
May 01, 2012 09:18PM
Rated A tribute to Duffy - a fine steed of a fellow (21 ratings)
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d white is another alter she used to rate her own posts, but more disturbingly, rw nutjob's a second time, w/o leaving a comment. It's also the alter she used to defend herself to Cranky Cuss, in the comments here: http://open.salon.com/blog/imore
Amusingly, it's Matt who notices her "Turkish accent".
http://tinyurl.com/d6v5bof
Not THE exact same picture, but the resemblance is more than just a coincidence.
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Videotron Ltee (66.130.218.206) [Label IP Address]
open.salon.com/blog/femme_forte/2012/08/10/multiple_personalities_on_os_-_shadowland_for_fun_and_profit_1
(No referring link)
http://www.vulture.com/2008/03/clint_eastwood_to_win_more_osc.html
i retired from the psych hospital 12 years ago (i think?).
i'm not surprised at those in question; human behavior displays many sides and shades. if not for this site, i would not get a chuckle before bedtime. oh well,
this exposé confirms the lunacy one can [will] encounter on the internet. thank you for posting this and for being who you are: real!
welcome back Scan,get better...
After all my harsh judgments over the weekend and my being appalled at what you, Candace, and Sirenita have uncovered, I feel very sorry for Fusun and rather alarmed. She has invested so much in this...
We should not underestimate the degree to which the human being behind the Fusun avatar is unstable. She seems frighteningly close to the edge, and should be urged to seek treatment, not given the usual OS mocking/drubbing/clever dust up retorts. I have concerns about what might happen it that's how it goes in the comments. She knows this is over for her, that it can no longer be contained.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Nice try, FusunA/d White! Better luck NEXT time! :D
(and yes, I am taking GREAT glee in seeing both Fusun and Matt being taken down. Karma is a WONDERFUL freakin thing! :D )
Perhaps the same applies to Matt Faust.
I am, however, careful to remind even myself that whoever wrote those sick, nasty, *personal* lies about me was relentless, dropping ugly bombs all over this site. This guy is
This is obviously not the time to take pleasure in another's pain. Maybe someone can get fernsy to give her a call? They are close, talked on the phone for over an hour the other day if memory serves.
Anyone who's friends with fernsy wanna knock on that door?
So while I'm sympathetic if someone needs help for mental illness, I'm very skeptical of someone who has been so deceitful, so cruel.
This isn't the first time many of us have been to this particular play - the cast may be a little different, but it's the same script.
When KitD mercifully went away it was due to being introduced to "Second life" - a REAL fake internet world where you can take on multiples - are expected to, even - and go fishing or build a house or be a centaur or have an affair...and I think Second Life would be a better place for people who become so obsessed with OS that they lose control of their actual lives and identities. THIS IS NOT A WORLD.
if this was a benigb series of events, calling people out gently would be apropos. But it is not bening - it's really sick and twisted.
I'm having Sneed flashbacks. GAH!
And, hey, did anyone else notice the post by the white supremacist prick on the cover? I'm reminded of a song by the Dead Kennedys titled "Nazi Punks, Fuck Off." To which I might add "Apologists for Nazi punks should fuck off too."
I've worked online so long I can usually spot without even thinking those we used to call SNERTS, but am floored by Matt, who's been unfailingly kind and suportive to me. Go know.
Since my hand surgery in December and subsequent ongoing complications, I havent posted or even commented much, too hard to type (or think clearly). I've been attacked with anti-Semitic comments in the past, always leave them up with a note that people should see in person that hate speech still exists.
It never occurred to me that a legitimate report leavened with a few personal details would cause one of the biggest furors ever. I apologize to all who were negatively affected by the fallout and thank those who came to my defense, called out haters and more importantly decried hate speech. What a mess.
Just so you know, the phrase 'I know, right?' doesn't translate directly to French, but it would be, "Je sais, d'accord?" Or just, "d'accord" which means basically 'agreed.' There, something positive, I hope.
I also hope the best of us agree we can't stop the disturbed, just call them out and then ignore them. That's my plan anyway. Bless your decent, loving heart, my sister. xoxo
I hope there's some positive outcomes from this post Candace. Well done
At least it's moderately amusing...
So, I'm sorry for any trouble they've caused but hey, you try being a single working mother with 100+ avatar kids. And look on the bright side -they're extremely literate, they've got a sense of humor and they're not out there doing drugs, stealing cars and having babies.
oh, and sorry about your feet.
I AM MARGARET, OR SHE IS ME, AND WE'RE GETTING MARRIED TO...I guess a dust rag! I forget!!
I feel better now. Who wants ice cream?
I do know that nothing I have ever done has met your scrutiny - you have, in the last two years, complained about my southern dialect, my number of posts, my sock monkey Monkey Sue (she is still in therapy for your hurtful comments about her), and now, of all things, my online past- times which do not harm anyone but, given the huge amount of sales I log every day provide alot of folks some measure of pleasure.
And to the rest of us: Regarding the use of alts - yes, it's a well known fact that I used an alt here on OS for about three hours two years ago, and for less than honorable purposes. I apologized for my behavior more than once, and yet, here we are, over two years later, still having dialogue about it. In the last couple of days I've seen my name mentioned three times in this regard, including possibly being an alt to the subjects of this post. I am not.
It is enough for me that alts are banned by TOS (I didn't know this when I had my three hour alt). Obviously, this is a TOS that is loosely and arbitrarily enforced. I learned the hard way that using alts is not useful, and more often than not harmful. Except for times when the owners of the alts such as the group that comprise the current "Reader's Picks," the use of alts is generally cowardly, deceptive, manipulative. These are certainly three adjectives that describe my own use of an alt for that brief period, and I regret having done it, even for only three hours - I did alot of damage in a short time and remain ashamed of myself.
I am certain that there are more than a couple of people using alts. My hope is that everyone would abide by the TOS. My hope is that everyone would treat one another respectfully. We ain't none of us perfect, that's a certainty. And sometimes some of us behave in despicable ways. Most of us have, no matter how decent we generally are, behaved badly from time to time.
We are all, at some point of our lives, needful of grace. Even if we've behaved maliciously? Yeah, even then.
If Matt and Fusun have done what they are here accused of doing, it would be great for them to acknowledge it, delete all the alts, and move forward. If they do this, what assurance do they have they will not be continuing to be blackballed for current behavior two years from now?
I admitted my severe indiscretion (I admitted it; I was not discovered). I apologized for it as best I knew how, deleted my alt immediately, and was continually and frequently harassed for my sin for six solid months by a small group of people. And even now, two and half years later, I STILL hear about it.
When is enough enough? Who among us is so flawless that we can be so damning of anyone?
I wonder - if anyone on OS feels so strongly that they have indisputable evidence that someone has done something as heinous as described here, would it not be more useful to approach those people privately and give them an opportunity to remedy things rather than light torches and encourage others to do so as well? If someone has violated OS TOS so severely to prompt an outcry such as we see demonstrated here, isn't it more responsible to present your evidence to the management of OS rather than mount a popular offensive?
To be clear - I do not support the use of alts, given the pain my own use of alts caused others. I think all of us benefit from being forgiven, especially when we have done all we can to rectify a bad situation we created.
What do these folks do, rate their own blogs and then forget that they did so? I mean, they must know that they didn't earn those rates. Most of us are conscious of how well a post is rated but it only has any value as a mild ego sop. If I'd posted all those rates myself, I'd not even get my ego a quick pat let alone a good massage.
Amazing how you put all that together!
Ain't the world some weird?!
Can I contact you for help about getting the IP address of people who comment on my blog; here and elsewhere?
;-)
.
I wonder if you agree with me that Second Life is a good place for people to explore when ....how to say this...their online presence here becomes out of control.
Just to clarify - I wasn't even thinking about your alter debacle when i mentioned you - just how you seemed to let go of a need to be present here 24 hours a day, which you might admit was not the best use of your time nor the best version of yourself.
Again, I apologize for talking about you on this thread. I truly hope you are happy there and I'm sure your fans are happy to see you posting here again.
I think it's okay for anyone to spend however much time they want on any pursuit (except things like torturing animals and things like that, of course) - it's okay for people to have interests and to spend whatever amount of time they want doing those things.
You may remember that about the time I was spending so much time on OS I had also just recently retired and was looking around for alternative ways to spend my time.
I'm still looking....
Just kidding!
Again, thanks for your comment!
I hope someday to meet the person of my dreams, Match.com keeps promising but all I found was Kerry Lauerman's alters. That man has a lot of them!!
:D
kit, I got bored with SL, though I did find some pretty dresses there!! What? :D
first, you might actually read what i wrote. i'd suggest you start there. and go to those links and click every one and read the posts they link to and the comments, and take a look at the ratings. and then go back and carefully read the posts from last weekend and the ones from last year that they refer to. and then, after you've done all that (unless you have read all that stuff because you were present here and paying attention to all of it as it happened, like i was and many other people were), you could explain to me how likely it is that either of them would admit this crazy scheme, say sorry and delete all the alters so we could live happily ever after here on OS.
and i'm really sorry that alison mentioned your name in a comment because it brought you over here where you jump onto a post that has nothing whatever to do with you and make it - surprise - about you. you're as entitled to your opinion as anyone else with an account here, but i would respectfully suggest that, in this situation and with these facts, you don't know what you're talking about.
But the bottom line here remains that obsessing about OS is not healthy when you make bizarre choices in order to be rated .
Not you, Kit, but the people who are doing it.
I'm "meh" about whether or not you got over your head on OS - as a bit of an obsession. I know I did, and I have stated that several times.
This is beyond what you and i ever butted heads about. And what you did. (Which you expressed really well.)
I'll ask you to read through some of the links to find the antisemitism that was unleashed - if you haven't already done so.
There's a point to this post that is far beyond any fight I have ever had with you. You are golden in comparison.
And I respect your ability to own up to your actions, always.
I have read your post here - about eight times today. I've also followed the links. I've read and reread all of the blogs and comments relevant to this issue this past week with great concern.
As you may know, I have a long history of friendship with Fusun and do not take anything about this lightly. I've read all of the relevant blogs for the past week very closely. Like others here, I am very saddened by the unfolding of all of this. I've not had any direct contact with Fusun and wish that it was some some misunderstanding, and recognize that it might well not be.
Do I know what I'm talking about? Who knows? This thing has gotten so out of hand I doubt any of us have the full picture. I certainly don't. My comment was very specific - not to excuse the use of alts, but to apply grace as mercifully as we can.
To both of them. One could argue that because I have a long and well documented friendship with Fusan I am biased. I do not have such a friendship with Matt, and I would respectfully suggest that the same measure of grace be extended to him as to her.
I would also encourage all people who use alts to either own this and/or to delete their alts immediately. Grace is a wonderful thing, but rather hollow when extended to someone who continues to do the thing forgiven.
I also think it is possible that some of the folks who are reveling in the exposure of these two people also use alts themselves.
As to whether or not this has anything to do with me? It clearly has to do with all of us. If your allegations are true then we have all been deceived, their friends and supporters worse of all. I have as much a stake in this matter as anyone.
I am also, for reasons I've already cited, ready to move forward. I hope all of us are.
As for whether or not they should come forward and acknowledge that they did use alts in the way you've described? I thought I was plain that, given my own experience, they might well be subject to literally years of having their "transgressions" recounted if they do admit to it.
Despite my acknowledged and documented forays into deceit, I do generally condone honesty and openness. Such honesty and openness can come at a great price. Do I regret "coming clean" myself two and a half years ago, even when I was not suspected? No. I was ashamed of myself and I took responsibility for it, and there were those who delighted in rubbing my nose in it and saying, literally, "You should be ashamed."
Candace, this is most definitely not about me, nor you. It is about all of us. In the end we will be judged not only for the transgressions we have committed but also by way in why we behave when we are transgressed against.
I learned the hard way the Karma has a long memory. I think she also has a heart of grace.
I wonder, in all honesty, if I had read her comment without knowing that she wrote it whether or not I would have read it differently. I'll never know for sure.
Many of us do tend to read comments through the filter of our associations with the writer.
I myself, as you may recall, was once accused of being antisemitic because I included a video from the 1936 Olympics to illustrate a blog I was writing - unbeknownst to me, that footage was filmed by one of Hitler's hand picked photographers, and by association I was branded a Nazi. I was devastated at these accusations but nothing I could say was ever sufficient in deterring those who chose to believe what they wanted to.
My Jewish buddies have all had a good laugh at this but it still stings.
I think I brought forward my experience at being falsely accused into my own reading of the material. It's difficult to separate our experiences from any given event.
Again, thanks for your gracious response to my comment, aim.
Kit, since you are friends with FusunA, and also a therapist, you might be a good person to get in touch with her, see how she's doing, perhaps help her find some professional support, if she's open to it.
(ps: Damn Emma you still look hotter than ever....especially when pissed. See ya.....o/e)
Hey Tink remember the day we BOTH got a cover and EP on the same day, now that's a record that will never happen again.
However, given your response to Phyllis - "rates count for nothing because OS counts for nothing. being a star here gets you bupkis in the real world ", I've got to ask why?
Given that the folks that run the place obviously don't give a damn, why did you feel compelled to do this? I'm not knocking anything you've done or said, I just don't understand what drove you to do it.
- Mark
(Off to feed the bees now)
Because someone with a following who is not what she appeared to be rated and condoned a vile, antisemitic post, and now we can understand better how this person works. Too many of her followers, swayed by her hearts and rates, did not speak up against this disturbing fact. Those of who are authentic and spoke up were dismayed. We are now heartened that authentic people, the few brave ones here, exposed the misinformation and inauthenticity that pervades this site and this country in general.
It's always been that way. My heroes include Candace, Sirenita, aim, holly, Myriad and others who spoke out and then followed up. Some of the rot is exposed. Those poppies that dominate the month's popularity list are now exposed as plastic.
Wake up, people. Pretty words mean little on the Internet without understanding the motives behind them. Please look beyond, here and in life. We are being used and manipulated so often, here and in life, because we trust. Some people are adept at using our trust. Obsessive and adept.
Be as perceptive as possible, even when it questions your former beliefs. And please,please, please stand up against bigotry, even though you may be fearful of the consequences.
"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of some asshat saying 'I'm was a Beta member...' approaches 1."
@ MarkinKentuckiana: ummm. because what is happening is wrong and people have an OBLIGATION to others to speak up when they see something that's wrong?
and yeah dude, I know... you were a Beta member... :rolleyes:
from my daughter's name (Deedee) ...Bliss is the time I had with her before she died. Nothing hidden there.
No degree of the kinds of foolishness as has been described here can lessen my pleasure in reading really fine writing here, in the back-and-forth with honest people about ideas.
Because when bigotry is publicly flaunted , when fraud is publicly flaunted (and yes - fraud includes massively using alternate IDs to pump up your own ego and make concerted attacks on others, as well as plagiarism and theft) it needs to be publicly condemned.
We all need to own our actions, people, AND our words. It is how life works.
What Fusun did was not only deplorable, it needed to be publicly deplored. Strangely, there wasn't as much of that as I had expected - some of you (not necessarily those who are commenting here - that is a general "you" directed at all OSers) think that supporting bigotry should be ignored when it's "nice" people or "good writers" doing it.
I don't agree, I won't agree, and if I see it I'm condemning it as strongly as I can and I'm calling out those who seek to legitimize it. I don't care if it's antiSemitic, anti-gay, racist - if you make bigoted comments or posts and I see it, I'm calling you on it.
What Candace and Sirenita did was remarkable. That is proof - circumstantial, but enough of it to draw concrete conclusions - that Fusun and Matt have used multiple accounts on this site in a manner that cannot and should not be condoned, that they did so publicly and maliciously, and that the condemnation should be public as well.
That's my position, and I'll gladly own it.
In regard to the IP address check using stat counter. ISP's vary. Some ISP's use static IP addressing, which means it's a constant; the IP address(location) remains the same whenever you sign on to your computer. Some ISP's use dynamic IP addressing, the IP changes each time the user logs on. Dynamic ISP's usually alter your IP address every 24 hours or so, sometimes more often, even when you're signed on. So although stat counter may specify a user is from a particular area it may not always be an accurate accounting. There are also programs for little to no money that can be purchased (donwloaded) that enable the user to alter their IP, to any preferred location, each time they sign on. This is not to say that some of the info. you've provided isn't accurate, it may very well be. It's just an FYI that all is not what it may appear to be for those that may be computer savvy.
As far as using alters; I never paid much attention to the use of alters for self-rating because the amount of rates on a writers post never made an impact on me on a personal level. Nor has it encouraged me to read the post if the title is of no interest to me. If a writer chose to use an alter to bring light or attention to their post so be it as they are only defeating their own sense of importance which, again, has no personal affect on me. They have to live with the knowing, not I.
On the other side of the coin, I don't condone using an alter to be vile, vicious, malicious or otherwise in any form. BUT I also can not condone vile, vicious, malicious intents by those that opt to not use alters. The only argument I know I'd hear that would justify not using an alter for the above reasons is, "At least we are being open about who we are when we say what we say." I, personally can not justify any form of reasoning that would support "intentional" maliciousness to another under any name...but that's part of my own values and ones that are not my responsibility to impose on others in the same manner in which I don't believe others have the responsibility, or right, to suggest I am wrong in not voicing my opinion on issues they find fault with, even if I agree with them.
With that being said, what pisses me off the most is the time all of this to do has taken away from me. Yes, it's about ME. I wrote my first post this past week after some time away and damn it to hell you're all taking some good time away from me getting some f**kin' rates and a bit of time in limelight with these God damned meta posts! ;-)
In the meantime Mom has had me cleaning up more shit being thrown around in the bathroom over the last 5 1/2 yrs than I've ever witnessed here.............and it appears she's ready for another go at it!
Best to you all in rectifying your concerns.
~Dee
I totally remember Matt Pausts inauspicious beginnings here when he attacked many of the A-List female posters in one way or another (A-List being the best writers, most intelligent posters, long-term and/or beta members). That's why i was floored to see him gain such popularity over time. He came back as the milder, sweeter Matt but I was never fooled. So Apparently, the misogynistic pig Matt just took his filth to other avatars. Matt's deception is the more heinous of the two IMO.
The fusun persona is just pathetic. I want to have compassion for her because she seems to need it, but the calculating way she used those fake members is chilling in itself. Truly mentally unstable behaviour. But it finally explains to me how she had THREE posts in the most rated 4 hour feed the other day.
I have been here 4 years now and I have helped drive away other bad, bad actors but this is the most cleanly executed take-down of liars and cheats that we've ever had. Thanks again for that.
I wonder how Matt is going to smarm his way out of this? I shall enjoy watching him squirm.
And, quite aside from that aspect, the fact that the site as a whole was being played, for ego-boo, in a public way, plus individuals hurt by alter attacks, calls for public exposure and public deploring.
And while I applaud calls for grace and all, and I worry about Fusun's state of mind, I think *remembering*, which will entail bringing up the subject from time to time, is important. I'm not in favor of people being able to wipe the slate clean of long-standing offenses with a simple "I'm sorry". Lost trust takes a looonnnngggg time to be restored, if it ever is. If we don't remember who screwed us over and how, we're open to having it happen again.
I hope this is a wake-up call to management, who will address the current culprits (including those possible others we don't know about) and ??? I don't know anything about the technical end, but it would be good if there were some way to make sure every IP only has one account. (Gorlockness agrees.) (Note - Gorlockness has never rated or commented on any of my posts, and I've never done it to his/hers/its.)
Then it went up to exactly 40 ratings. So there was a larger clique who were rating each other's stuff to clog the "top rated" feed, probably with the support of management.
Then came all kinds of stories about one person with multiple accounts who was starting fights between his or her own multiple personae.
And you, an unpaid volunteer, are the only one to ferret out the infection in this place, while there are staff getting paid six figures to do nothing!
You did a masterful job and I appreciate it.
As for OS, no one is at the helm. No one is steering the ship. The body ain't got no brain! They could find the sock puppets, but guess what...sock puppets provide inflated membership counts to fool the advertisers with, while we dangle participles and bring in the views!
But OS is too stupid to realize that the advertisers know when they've been had. They can test to see where traffic originates. One person just blasted Facebook for charging ad fees for traffic that was coming from web bots! What do you think OS advertisers have?
What a dysfunctional piece of garbage this place has become. But do not place all the blame on the current crop of creeps, it was going on from the beginning.
Again, cheers! Job well done.
Sigh.......
Typing from phone and Asia is fixing to make me drive. I would bet however that I'll have a bit more to say on this when I get home to a real keypad. Fucking thumb is cramping doontcha knoo
The notion of ratings is idiotic! The idea that we have them…and that they mean so much to so many should be an embarrassment.
The notion itself is primarily a boost for people who have questionable self-esteem…and people with questionable self-esteem will NEVER get enough acknowledgements to get them past the graveyard. Yeah, I know the editors talk about giving special pieces better readership, but that is nonsense. The new OS self-rating thing is an absurdity…and should be an even greater source of embarrassment.
Most of us are not hacks…we would stand out in a crowd of people who do not enjoy writing, which means we would stand out above 99.9% of the population. But we are not quality in the sense some seem to think they (we) are.
Some of the fiction is deplorable…almost all of the poetry would never see the light of day in any venue that actually pays pennies for poetry. Some of the photography is okay…but not much above okay.
Many of us have opinions…and some are well conceived and presented. But opinions are like armpits…we ALL have ‘em, and although some are nicer than others, most stink.
I’ve seen Happy Birthday threads get rated.
I think in the three or four years I’ve been here, I have rated one (possibly two) threads. Some people rate damn near everything. I have absolutely no idea of how any of my threads have been rated…and I am a thousand times more interested in responses (even angry, disparaging responses) than I am in ratings.
Folks, stop with the ratings. They mean absolutely nothing of value.
As for multiple personalities and accounts...
Management has never shown an interest.
All this work and it will pass.
Candace,
I've known of you being attacked. You've graciously only mentioned one. I've seen it from those who have huge followings and alters. It was ridiculous then and it's ridiculous now.
Drew-Silla and nanatehay have both mentioned how NutWings has been posting racist tripe here for years. Obscured perhaps to some by Biblical quotes, but still gets a cover story this week. His stuff has been flagged by many, self included, but it persists. It was ridiculous then and it's ridiculous now.
I've been appalled to see the continued acceptance of so much garbage. I was out of town last weekend and not watching the dust-up in real time, but caught up. It was ridiculous then and it's ridiculous now.
A self-imposed week of reflection is coming up without cyber connection. Sun, pines, the aroma of pitch heavy duff, shooting stars and the shimmering sides of mountain trout await.
I wonder how this place will look in ten days and if it's worth the time anymore.
It was ridiculous then and it's ridiculous now.
I thought this place was about writing.
Amazing amount of time you must have spent, Candace.
Much appreciated.
...and here I had in mind others who might have been on this list...
My name at birth was Jonathan Wolfman.
You are one of my favorite examples of how not to let the bastids get you down.
Go on wit ya bad self, guapa.
FYI.
and i know this is what we do... i used to say that i knew when a dust up or controversy was over when Tink came in with the jokes like the dude with the moustache & broom at the end of the bullwinkle & rocky cartoons...
but this time it doesnt feel right... the jokes.
i remember how awful the plagiarism controversy was. how many people were hurt or left here behind all of it... and also how quickly people forgot, or let it go and then it was back to (shady) business as usual. i would hate for that to happen here again.
while i am generally in favor of letting things go and moving on... too many people disappointed & disillusioned right now and maybe too soon for the jokes. just my slightly less than humble opinion.
http://open.salon.com/blog/daisyjane/2012/08/11/outrageous
This is the Holly Keith account where I have since changed my screenname after promising never to comment in a self-admitted, mentally-unbalanced OSer's blog again.
It had to do with that person who proudly-proclaimed that she and Jonathan ("it's my real name") Wolfman got me kicked-off of OS for no reason at all -- besides bustin' her balls about what HER words in HER blog revealed about HER (her disobedient & school-skipping son, unable to keep a job, spending her last $20 on a "guitar dress" for open-mic night, etc.).
Yeah, I was bitter after losing 2+ years of posts & comments and flamed her upon my return.
But once it was obvious that she really isn't stable (today she included me again in her blog -- how's that for being a whack-job) and because this account wasn't vaporized after a while (like I thought it would be), I've assumed my previous avatar/OS-identity.
Fairly simple explanation. Not sure what that has to do with Candace's blog here about alters who bump-up their own ratings, but considering how much investment you have in OS-world, it doesn't surprise me Kansas guy.
Good point. My comment does take-away from the discussion here.
Candace, feel free to delete my comment(s) which you feel detracts from the issue(s) at hand.
JSR
The complaint used to be that OS was female dominated. In no time, some shady characters appeared with the purpose of taking down the dominant female bloggers and create a state of blandness. The stench of OS has been formidable.
You cannot mix a writing/blogging site with a social network. You want friends, you want a cabal, you want buddies? Don't blog. By definition, the self congratulatory circle jerk, will kill content.
I remember laughing at Fusun posting about her hydrangeas, some time in early spring. She lives in Montreal, I would love to see a blooming early spring hydrangea in that longitude. But, if someone said something, the followers would defend the sweet flower lady.
If you want to hang your heads in shame, go back and look at many of your compliments of the likes of Fusun and Matt. These two are grand sadists.
But this isn't that.
And Joisey? Please don't out Drew. It's not the same, not even close.
I still am surprised at my own unquestioning of 81+ rates over and over on Fusun's post while no one else seemed to come close. I was fooled. As for this, tilapia:
"If you want to hang your heads in shame, go back and look at many of your compliments of the likes of Fusun and Matt."
Many were duped as I, for one, by pretty hydrangeas...( I'm actually not sure I did comment, but I remember those hydrangeas) but why would I, or others who took posts at face value, hang my head in shame?
That's not my shame.
That would belong to the dupe-er, not the dupe-ee, in my opinion.
I am increasingly honored to be associated with folks on this great forum. The minds that can create an essay and a thread like this are truly extraordinary. Its also heartening to see how the community that has formed, balances itself, and replenishes everyone's resolve to do what we all do best....strive for TRUTH in our creative endeavors. It is the real calling, the real task of writers to explore and constantly push into new territory.
I hope everyone can read and re-read this essay and thread. There is so much more here than the subject that originally inspired it.
I wanted to also thank Sirenita and did not mean to leave her out earlier...Be well folks....
i have like 30 seconds, not even enough time to read all the comments and catch up. mr. forte keeps thinking up work for me to do. the guy needs to learn how to do some things. f*******ck.
soon. i *will* be back soon.
Candace, get your own Purell dammit!
@tilapia: Who're you? Did you have to swim upstream to get here and is that why I've never seen you around before? There's some really dumb names around here but yours wins the prize: tilapia. This is supposed to be a creative site and I think that should extend to avatars. If you're too lazy to come up with something halfway interesting then what are you going to write about? I'd rather be a fuck muppet than a bland old tilapia. And I don't even know what a fuck muppet is; I've never done anything untoward with a muppet, I swear.
You better get out of here before I snag you on my treble clef, dip you in a mixture of panko crumbs, melted butter and Old Bay and fry you in hot oil til you scream for mercy.
Hola mi niña se que vienes tomada
escuche tu llegada pero
tus reproches no entran en mi cama-a-a-a!
Shhh, Marjie, you're messin' up my rhythm, and besides, that exchange between you and Drew-Silla was one of the most disgusting displays I've ever had the misfortune to witness on OS, which is saying something. One time this dude posted a picture of a dump he'd taken on a glass-top coffee table, but even that didn't leave me as nauseous as what you and Drew were spewing at each other.
some of you asked questions that i'll try to answer - a couple of them, at least - so i'm going to work on typing that up. will post this much while i bash some words into Text Edit.
oh, and don't mind Nana and the Jokesters. it's a way to relieve the tension, i think. that and tequila, anyway.
more soon.
@mish: all too true. i agree about the OS s/w and account mgmt. maybe someday …
@eff: i'm sorry you felt you had to leave. i'm sorry you *left*, actually. it's really crappy, all that happened.
@heron: you keep posting all this wise stuff in comments. the "vomitorium" comment is spot on. fake people are the absolutely fucking worst people, whether they're here or where you work or in your family or where-the-hell-ever. the worst.
@grif: i read some of the comments on those Chicken Maaan chapters too when i was cross-linking back from the alters' ratings - the ones where all the different alters are talking to CM and to each other? - and it was weird and almost funny in shake-your-head kind of way, but it was really, really spooky. what kind of person *does* that??
@sweetfeet: i don't mean to sound snotty, but it's not the playground - it's the players. if you go somewhere else, be careful.
personal thanks for the back pats from lorianne and bill S and myriad, grif, chuck stetson (i still think of you as mean mr. mustard), sally, drema, aim, rita, ken, amy, diana, and professor justis (another kansas pal), emma and lea, mark in kentucky (answer to your Q in another comment), kellylark, nikki, zuma, JT, my spanish-speaking buddy catch-22, asia and tilapia, stacey, and pissed-off mom who likes my dirty friends.
next ...
you *knew* people were using alters to rate their own posts? **really**? who were they?
i've been here over three years and know a lot of the people who are here and who have left. i know a few people who have made up alters for the same reason i did - once - to leave a comment on someone's blog that couldn't be attributed to them. but i haven't *ever* known anyone who had an alter for rating their own stuff, not ever, and not for rating their friends' stuff either. i'd really like to know who you know that was doing that. or maybe you mean that it's common knowledge about matt and fusun - is that it? i'd sure appreciate it if you would straighten me out on this one.
I am in awe of Candace and Serenita for their investigation of the bogus use of alters. Like many others here, while not here during Beta, I did join 8/2/2008 and invested a good bit of time and life I into the writers and people who inspired me in those early days. It's been Even less than ideal here for a long time and because it is my spiritual practice not to gossip I won't mention anyone in particular. But if you find I have unfriended you, it is because I don't hang out with those who are intentionally any of the following: cruel, bigoted, deceptive, dishonest or whack jobs in hiding. I don't do that in any forum and not with anyone who breathes the same air that I do.
Thank you Candace. Really. REALLY. THANK YOU.
and this is for susanne and @older/exasperated, too:
i *do* appreciate the OS beta people. and i can see the eye-rolling that's about to start (from my friend @Safe_Bet'sAmy, whose frankness and honesty i love), but when I got to OS in the middle of 2009, it had really only been going full steam for about a year and hadn't yet attracted the numbers of accounts that came after '09. there were a few crazies then - there always are - but the bulk of the people posting here could *really* write and draw and shoot photographs. i remember - and i've written about this - going from blog to blog and being amazed at the talent. i wanted to be like that, to write like that. i figured i could learn here just by hanging around and reading and practicing. it's not an old-timer thing - meaning if someone has been here longer, they get bonus points for seniority - that's not it at all. it's that if you were here back when so many talented people were still here, posting often, you *know* what it could be like, what it was like. it was the **ratio** of great/good to not-good-enough-to-even-bother-reading. that's what was different.
thanks o/e. i was glad to see you too.
You write:
"From what I’ve seen in the last three years from these two Mains, they aggressively seek to make ‘friends’ here, effusively praising people’s posts, fawning to them and about them to others, often (but not always) without regard to whether their target’s post(s) are deserving of such praise. They send unsolicited PMs (private messages in the OS email system); they like to cozy up. Their efforts, to me, soon felt fake and, frankly, a little slimy."
Maybe you should try to get all of Matt's or Fusun's nominations for RPs pulled? I mean you seem to be prosecutor, judge and jury here. The next RP announcements could be a list of all those people who really didn't deserve RPs. Matt was a generous nominator as I remember.
This is where you early on start to repel me and make me wonder about your full-out crusade not just to expose a possible or even probable if your IP evidence holds up, maybe, "gaming of the os system" but to enflame cronyism to take no prisoners, even the friends or acquaintances or benefiters of your "Mains'" good will and generosity or maybe particularly them, too, and demonize or at the very least disrespect everything and everyone in your personalized triumphant campaign.
In Obamaworld rush to judgment which arcs to punishment from the same declarer seems to be the way, I'm thinking. I mean, look at Barry's assumption of the right to assassinate Americans, now, from the same intelligence sources who gave us WMDs in Iraq or I'm thinking Obama's enemies will become more and more domestic and political in being "enemies" of the state.
Too many law and orders? Not just damn the accused ones and don't open up the issue for exploration of reality and motivations -- rational explorations of real life human beings -- but assume and assume and assume and don't forget to condemn their circle of friends and acquaintances and go right ahead and slime them -- all "other" cronies from yours maybe as well while you are at a full gallop. Guilt by association. Or shame at the very least.
It reads like another chapter of mean girls and maybe you are the "banker"?
Did you really have to plug that part in there above about Matt and Fusun inflicting their crafty good will and kindness and interest in others because I'm thinking it reflects more sadly on you than on either Matt or Fusun or people like me whom they befriended.
If Matt and Fusun committed these alleged alter crimes, that is one thing, but to assume you are the "sincerity" police and also the "literary" police leaves me cold.
I don't know the truth of this. I know how inflammatory this is. I know this situation is certainly unsettling to so many of us, whether we were or are in the friendship circle with Fusun and/or Matt. I am in both.
Apparently I may be an implied target of your vigilantism as well, my worth as a writer and naivete as a human being to generosity or good will that you declare has no basis. Nice ricochet shooting, girl.
Yes, maybe I am one of the ones undeserving of respect for my work and those horrible people with their ulterior motives of control of me were lying lying lying about me and others in their circle that needs to be disrespected and punished now, too? Who knows but thanks for seriously insinuating this as you gallop along with your IP evidence. You didn't have to begin to go there, but you apparently couldn't help yourself.
Enflaming cronyism and maybe schadenfreude not only for your two Mains but for their circles I'm thinking carries its own creepiness.
This is why I hate toxic cronyism at open salon. It ripples meanly.
libby
You probably won't find it in a search, but ask around. It's an interesting concept.
I think you will find that Candace has been more than fair in her assessment.
http\\aquarianaromas.dirtylibrarianfetish.nudebavarianlesbians.com
Tr ig - yeah, snicker. *Whap*.
I assume this is the paragraph I wrote that you are referring to?
"As far as using alters; I never paid much attention to the use of alters for self-rating because the number of rates on a writers post never made an impact on me on a personal level. Nor has it encouraged me to read the post if the title is of no interest to me. If a writer chose to use an alter to bring light or attention to their post so be it as they are only defeating their own sense of importance which, again, has no personal affect on me. They have to live with the knowing, not I."
If it is... then this is where the written word can be a pain in the royal rectum because my words were not meant to infer that I "knew" anyone that used an alter to "rate" their own posts. Clarification for you:
"I have never paid attention to the use of alters......" i.e. Self-rating ones own work was not something that ever crossed my mind when either reading or noticing their rate counts. I hope that helps.
This is a perfect example, even though tiny, where I knew what I meant and my purpose when I wrote it yet something different was interpreted by a reader. I'm thinking we all might fair better if OS coded a verbal only comment area, and got rid of the text, so we could hear the inflections in one's voice.
What I cannot dismiss, whether you care about this or not, is that FusanA condoned and rated a detestable antisemitic post on which I and others were condemned in disgusting ways for being Jewish. Does that bother you? If not, what kind of bigotry would?
I owe Fusan A absolutely nothing, and she and anyone who would rate that vile post owes me --who has been here from 2008 as a good, honest citizen of this site, and the others who were smeared -- an apology for rating and condoning that post. I have heard none from her, despite the pain that the antisemitic screed has caused, which I have voiced several times.
it isn't about the ratings. i get whatever ratings i get because i post something that is good enough to get people to read it and rate it. some pieces get more attention than others in large part because some are better than others. i'm a good writer; i work at it; i have a small following. i'm happy when people who appreciate what i've written read it and say so. i like good feedback and strokes as much as the next person. but i write for fun, so i'm not looking to turn ratings into notoriety or book sales, and i'm not competing with fellow OS writers. i have no idea whether i have more or fewer ratings than one of my colleagues here whose writing i appreciate; i never look. this isn't a zero sum game where someone has to fail in order for me to succeed.
a lot of people are hung up about the editor here and the board. this isn't the place to get into what i see as a tedious and complicated business discussion, but the bottom line, for me is: they care about hits. that's what websites want. OS is a multiuser social network that's an ugly stepsister to Salon; it feeds (or should feed) Salon and generate ad revenue. it's hungry for clicks and it hopes to get them by having bloggers post stuff that people will want to click on, not necessarily because it's good writing but because it is *interesting* to someone who lands on the site, interesting enough that the person will click on a title, then click around to more. that's it.
REALLY, ladies? You are going to ignore the DOZENS of times those two attacked people and used their Alts to lie to everyone because they said nice things about you? THEN you got the brass boobs to give Candace shit for calling it on them? SERIOUSLY?
Libby I'd expect WAY more critical thinking from you. Using your thinking Stalin was a nice guy cuz he was kind to animals.
Statsinazi, I DON'T expect more from you because you, Matt and Fusun are all cut from the same roll of cloth.
How you two can defend Matt and Fusun USING people and their perpetration of an utter fraud upon unsuspecting people is pretty disturbing in its own right.
I'd suggest that you, and I most especially mean you Libby, think long and hard about this again. You are defending the Wall Street bankers right to lie here, in an OS sense and that goes against everything you say you believe. (Statsi Nazi you are true to form so you can just stuff it with grape leaves, hon).
Oh and Candace? You can BITE my beta, baby! ;)
that said, i dont think that Candace is assuming to be "the "sincerity" police and also the "literary" police".
I think there is a fairly substantial group here who agree with Candace regarding the motives, sincerity and perhaps even the literary skills of these particular individuals.
within the context of this post, i suppose this all comes across as just one woman's opinion and that would make you correct that Candace is acting as some authority or policing these matters, but i suspect it is more of a consensus of opinion she speaks to rather than just one woman's. i think many of the comments here support that theory.
i dont know you, so i dont know if consensus gives the opinion any additional weight or if it indeed detracts from it. i just felt a need to stand beside Candace in agreement on these points. i hope others who feel the same way do as well.
"And if, after carefully examining all of this – what my smart colleague Sirenita calls “a massive fraud” – there is even one person here who would defend either of them? Who will twist and weave and pivot and try to find a way to say what went on is acceptable?
Well, speak right up because the rest of us deserve to know who you are."
d_ white
Steel Breeze
kitD
libbyliberalnyc
stahi stahi
(there were a couple others that i think would like to be on the list, but their comments were ambiguous enough that i can't make the call. if someone would like his/her name added, i'm happy to do it.)
Safe Bet's Amy, what is your true name...?
Because I know both Matt and Fusun true names, and they know mine..
And, a small note, cause I did not understand...
Safe Bet, did you call me a Nazi...? in your words...
"..(Statsi Nazi you are true to form so you can just stuff it with grape leaves, hon).",
cause this is trully insulting, I must tell you.
"This is why I hate toxic cronyism at open salon. It ripples meanly."
cro·ny·ism
[kroh-nee-iz-uhm] Show IPA
noun
the practice of favoring one's close friends, especially in political appointments.
Then can I respectfully suggest you not practice it?
And you've written about the good old days of OS in a way that strikes a chord with me: i remember - and i've written about this - going from blog to blog and being amazed at the talent. i wanted to be like that, to write like that. i figured i could learn here just by hanging around and reading and practicing. it's not an old-timer thing - meaning if someone has been here longer, they get bonus points for seniority - that's not it at all. it's that if you were here back when so many talented people were still here, posting often, you *know* what it could be like, what it was like.
Nicely put.
But, I must tell you this, that I have it inside me a long time. I am very sad about Kate O, and her leaving OS because she had an issue with some in here. Asia for instance is my friend, even more than Kate, but I like her, and her work. You might not like Kate, but I do. Does this make me an enemy to you?... I mean..what Fusun did on the basis of Lea's description is without saying something that no educated, and right minded human can accept. But I do not believe that Fusun's comment was an anti-semitic one. And believe me I come from Greece, and Fusun from Turkey. If Fusun has multiple rating herself avatars, that is all right with me...My problem will be if she starts insulting, abusing, frightening others. And this is all I am saying, that this kind of abusive behaviour must not be tolerated by anyone in here, cause it is criminal to say the least.
To be honest, I do not like Candace blaiming me for having friends in here, friends like Fusun, Matt, you, Asia, James, Jmac, Libby and so many more. I am not gonna be tossed around by the others will. And believe me, me being called a Nazi, is very insulting, and sad.
As sad it is to me that neither Fusun or Matt have not answered these straight accusations.
Candace (and Sirenita) have provided a reality check & a public service. Call it cronyism if you want - you couldn't be further from the truth.
first, this isn't about alters. that subject has been drubbed to death on OS and elsewhere, whether a blogger should be required to reveal his/her "real" name instead of a nom. this is *not* about alters. this is about cheating.
it's about using fake identities to pretend you have followers when you don't. to add ratings to your posts to get on the feed. to add rates to your posts to attract more followers - because some people think if a lot of other people like you, they should too. it's about lying and pretending to be five or ten or twenty or thirty more people than just one writer. to make it look like you are a big shot when you're not good enough to get that much attention by way of your own talent. and it's about lying about whether you were lying.
second
i said in the post:
"At the end of this post I’m going to include links to all the OS blogs for the alters listed above, both the ones that rate the Fusun posts and the ones that Travis Rodgers attributes to Chicken Maaan/Matt Paust and the ones that I suspect belong to the same person. You can click on them, see what’s there, what they say, what other blogs they lead you to and what conclusions you personally draw."
GO DO THAT. and if, **after you have**, you think there is clear evidence that neither of these people - matt past and fusun atalay - are correct in accusing each other(1) of faking accounts to boost their ratings, please feel free to document why that is.
(1) see "Unforgiven," the comment string, link in the main body of the essay above.
"...::: banging my forehead on my desk :::.."
But I must tell you this, I am not allowing you to use my real name any more, as the uncalled OS prosecutor, without you having stated your true name.
the fact is that insult, abuse & fear wear MANY faces and in this case they wear the benign faces of someones grandparents.
it IS insulting to the many who aspire to be 'seen' here by reaching the the front page feed or cover. it is insulting that they played by the rules and wrote well yet they were denied their recognition by the hubris of those who cheated the system & didnt play by the rules.
it IS abusive to create fake identities and use them to abuse & insult others and not have to take responsibility for those insults and perhaps risk your own readership...
and it IS frightening to the many who thought these people were friends & have now seen the truth. it is frightening to those people who are now questioning their own judgements and wondering who they can trust.
i am sorry of this has hurt you, i truly am. but many others have been hurt and i believe this site has also been hurt... and not by the actions of the ones speaking truth... but the actions of the liars.
there was a fascinating discussion about slippery rodents on FB the other day - ferrets, i believe - and whether they really smell as bad as some say they do. one of our more adventurous children had one that lived in the garage playroom until it (he, i think, went by the name of Itchy) scared the living shit out of mr. forte. in the dark. i'm pretty sure he didn't notice Itchy by his smell, so maybe they're not that bad.
what say you?
You are providing a real "Kill the Messenger" examples.
Go to RW Nutjob's disgusting vile antisemitic post that Fusan rated. She thanked him for "proving" his disgusting vile comment on Sally Swift's post that accused Sally, and all Jews of being responsible for all that is evil. Then take a look at what Candace has pointed out about the cyber bullying she has been victim of by Matt's alters. If you still think Candace is somehow wrong to shed light on this, fine, but at least make sure you have all the information.
Candace, thanks for all the work. I hope you no longer receive any of those hateful smear comments.
And thanks to Sirenita, as well.
r./
http://open.salon.com/blog/rwnutjob/2012/08/03/a_reply_about_jews#comment_3033988
"I clicked on your name to find out who you are, since I was ostracized for not condemning your comment, but rather replying to Sally's post foremost and trying to be conciliatory regarding your highly detested comment, earlier today.
Thank you for this post, if only to prove your point - not that it makes a difference for me, but it does disprove Bill S's denial that there's not a single shred of proof.
As for me, contrary to the opinions of a few clique members here, I'm not a racist, bigot, or hater of any religious or social groups.
Rated♥"
Now - go read that post. The whole damn thing. Check the sources used.
NOW you have context.
Want more?
"Having read it over and over, I see that she could have simply written, “We go there a lot, often [on non-Jewish holidays] when we have no family gatherings to celebrate.” Leaving out the detail in [brackets], unless, subconsciously she was inviting people like rwnutjob to come out of the woodwork. But that's neither here nor there, and I'd be the last one to sound censorial."
open.salon.com/blog/daisyjane/2012/08/06/sweet_forgiveness_vs_bitter_blame#comment_3035383
Note this part in particular:
"Leaving out the detail in [brackets], unless, subconsciously she was inviting people like rwnutjob to come out of the woodwork."
So Sally is to blame as she MUST have subconsciously wanted an antiSemitic response to her post.
Now you have CONTEXT again.
This is the most recent, and in my opinion some of the more egregious ones.
How much context do you require?
@stu pot and commentary#9 - best laugh of the afternoon. thanks for that, seriously. :)
Stathi: Fusun defended an anti-Semitic post and ACCUSED SOMEONE OF CALLING DOWN ANTI-SEMITISM UPON HERSELF BY MENTIONING THAT SHE'S JEWISH! Compris? She's been nice to you - SHE HAS BEEN EXTREMELY NOT-NICE TO SOME OTHER PEOPLE.
I do not like Sally, and must tell all of you why, cause in the day that Nora Ephron died, she found it in her heart to write these words about a dead human...
"...I'm really sorry that a fake orgasm will be likely, inevitably her most lasting legacy. ..."
When I commented my disagreement with her in her blog, Sally said that she " ..calls them as she sees them..'. as though her opinion is the ultimate one, and we both, as adults, agreed that we disagree. I think Sally and Fusun are old enough to solve their differences. And I think if one here in OS can use the argument "..I call them as I see them..' to cover under this his/her opinions, maybe the rest have the same right.
I have read in here comments about Greece that are trully insulting. I answered in my comments, but I did not make the writer or myself the victim. It is called democracy ( if you do not get the context you are in..)
But, to tell you all the truth, I am thinking we all are fool , cause we are fighting while Fusun, Matt, Sally, Candace, can not solve their own differences. I am here to state that bullying in any form is a criminal act and it must not be tolerated by anyone.
Something I've found ironic in all this is that two people who so disliked one another are now united as a significant couple in OS history (which might be three years long, who knows). Each's effort to take down the other caused them both to fall from grace.
thank you for honoring my request.
Go read Fusun's comments as I linked them. Read the posts they were made on. Understand that those are only the ones I AM AWARE OF - I don't have the time or the inclination to chase down every single comment Fusun may have ever made.
And if you're going to excuse it because you believe Sally wasn't nice to you? That's a sad excuse.
Thank you for honouring my request.
Just so we're clear it was MEANT to be insulting. You are defending fraud, deceit, antisematism, abuse, misogynism and general assholism and that deserves to be insulted.
'Sides, if you want to redirect your anger at me for laughing at your defense of the indefensible, instead of at Candace who doesn't deserve it, that's fine. We "Romans" have battled Greeks before and seeing as how we are up something like 18 gazillion to zero, I'm not particularly worried, ya know?
Lorianne - *big smile* You are wise.
i'm leaving what was up before i read her request and typed this comment.
thanks.
And, Grif, you old Dookie, how are ya?
I'm giving up Candace's name: DECKARD. I figured it out when she said this: Replicants are like any other machine. They're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, it's not my problem.
Oh. Nevermind. I said that.
Wait a minute, maybe it wasn't me.
And noone else.
Swear.
. .
was I yelling? Yes, well, excited to be out of that FUCKING TRUCK!
If I may start with this, in my state of newfound non-truck captivity, I think it was unfair to call Stathi a nazi? Really?
I'll bet, by now, she has educated herself on the deplorable behavio(u)r of Fussin' Fusun Atalay... the trickster hater.
Carry on...
Three of her alters rated rwnutjobs's posts without leaving a comment. Two alters rated "A Reply About Jews" on August 3, 2012, our friend "d white" and "blufeather". Fusun also rated it and left the oft quoted comment– I won't repeat that. rwnutjob's post received seven rates, three of them hers. Maybe there were more. I could not stomach going through the entire alter list.
One of her other alters, Victor Harrington, rated rwnutjob's Abe Lincoln post, presently on the OS cover. Again, no comment was left.
To those having a difficult time accepting Fusun's duplicity, this speaks chilling volumes, that she would support a view so strongly that she would log in and rate it, not once, not twice, but three times. Then quote Gandhi.
I have just noticed that your post has received 58 ratings. I am not going to hold that against you, or cast aspersions.
I stumbled on the post by accident. It serves me right for being curious about OS and taking time to browse.
What I have seen written here, both in your post and in the comments, leaves me stunned at how deep and complex OS truly is. I previously had only a hint of that.
I would like to offer a thought about rwnutjob. I don't know who this really is, but my intutition tells me that it may not actually be a right-winger. The worst anti-Semitic comments these days more often come from the Left. The right wingers, whatever they may privately believe, prefer not to be be tarred with the neo-Nazi brush. Furthermore, many, many people on the Right are sympathetic to Israel.
This rwnutjob may be someone whose purpose is to deliberately make the Right look as evil as the Left likes to think it is. The use of the word "tribe" in this context seems more of an insider thing than a term that would be used by a total, wacko outsider.
Given your analysis of the Byzantine doings on this site, I don't think you or anyone else can reject that hypothesis out of hand. Evidently anything can happen here.
Me, I don't care if he's left, right or center - this isn't a "political" issue, it is a moral issue. He can call himself a right-wing conservative and I could care less.
I don't the blame the right for him - I blame HIM for him. Which I think is as it should be.
I have never posted online under my own name. Oh, it's out there -- but only as a result of my former trade. I have, and will continue to have, several alters on the 'Net, although only one on OS. Few, if any, know where I live (don't bothering looking up the address -- it's for the wrong city) or what my name is, and that's the way I want to keep it.
The reasons for that are many, most especially that I don't want to hear from certain elements from my ... uhhhh ...weird and checquered past.
That said, using multiple dopplegangers to attack someone or to merely boost one's own ratings is both ridiculous and grotesquely unfair. I'm no expert, but it seems to me to be pathological.
As for the few Beta Babies still on here (hey, O/E), I'm sorry if odious parvenues like me drove some of you away, but I'm glad the rest are still around.
Good on you, FF, for bringing this to light.
-- had a chance to catch up here a bit, and wondering why, why now, does my long lost friend one_irritatedMOM, bring up the RULES COMMITTEE?
We could talk about how impossible it is to make sense of what that Libby person wrote, though. It makes my head hurt since its about as easy as trying to see through oatmeal, as I so cleverly just said over on FB. Obama??? Does he figure into everything somehow?
Glad to see you got most of your fingers back. And your sorry ass out of that truck.
~waves at Asia!~
Hey, mom. Glad to see yu back and not making sense. Can we still be pals, you and me and that old grif guy if you guys are cheering for the wrong blue team from north Carolina? Shoot.
I called her a Nazi because I didn't feel arsed enough to type out antisemitic. Close enough in my book.
Oh, and before you go THERE, if a person supports the supporter of antisemitism, guess what that makes them? Sames thing goes for people who support abusive, misogynistic, homophobic assholes.
Know what I mean, Jelly Bean???
And tr ig, Mr. Deck-arse, has now shown up.
Coincidence? I think not, Ms. Candance Barburrrrr.
: )
Seriously, on Stathi... naive, sure, but nazi? No. So that was harsh.
Also should say, I haven't visited even one link above. Take that back! The Catherine Forsythe one this morning. I was shocked... mmhmm..
I'm sure A will see your HI. Good to be home... whew. . . thanks
And we are always friends. Especially when I'm not making sense. In the future, just say to yourself: WWCD --What Would Corrine Do? Always works for me.
Does anyone MARVEL at the thought that none of this would have happened if Fusun hadn't outed paust's alters after he had outed the first of hers, leading Sirenita and me on this merry chase?
Just think about that.
News flash: rwnutjob only minutes ago posted a blog which he thinks proves that there was no Holocaust.
You should have been here back in the good old days. There were marathon posts where the comments went on full speed for DAYS. I think one of JKBrady, now deleted, had the longest one. A classic.
The only recent italics, though, that I see on my monitor are your comment containing the words 'apparently not' - which are in italics. None other. Hmmm
Can't say the results surprise me much, this being the Internet and all. Still, considering how low the stakes are on this site, why bother? What possible benefit does anyone gain? As for me, I've been here for over 3 and a half years and have seen no benefit whatsoever, except the pleasure of interaction. No money, no book sales, no nuthin'. All I ever got were two AdSense coupons that I threw out. Ratings and EPs do not translate into cold hard cash, or anything else I can make actual use of. I can't imagine anyone else's experience is that much different. Much ado about nothing, if you ask me.
My name is long gone from this place, for many reasons. But my friendships (yo, "cronies!") with many here have not faded. The only reason I emerge from my comfy section of woodwork is to say: there were and are and always will be great possibilities within this community. But somebody has to at least fractionally police this shit to make it viable for those who contribute, and it's up to the users to do it because management won't. Why does a major, time consuming, VOLUNTEER effort to do that, while at the same time addressing an incident of hate speech piss anybody off? And please, those people who are trying...you can't justify it, you can't sugarcoat it, you can't call it anything else BUT hate speech, it sucks, it shocks the hell out of my jaded self and other far more respected and respectable people, and what fricking insanity to try to make it seem like something other than what it is).
I'm never here anymore except to read some friends, so the nerve of me to show up now, right? But my absence in type does not mean my absence in thought and heart - this is a place where, with the tiniest bit of common sense restraint applied, all things creative are possible. I have laughed myself sick here. I have sobbed my eyes out here. I have been pissed off and offended and offensive and inspired and galvanized, and that's a lot to feel about any one thing in life. Candace and Serenita are reinforcing the dam that holds back the very worst elements that would love to make this place their permanent home. Fricking help them protect you. Even if you don't agree with their methods or presentation (and I do, for whoever gives a crap what I think), what they've done is extraordinary and they didn't have to share their findings with the OS public. I'm sure they had to know they'd get mud flung at them from all directions. That's a tough gig to accept, no matter how strong you are.
Some here will likely say I'm an asshole for jumping in to this, or I'm doing it because Candace is essentially one of my sisters. So be it. I get to back to my sandbox, which is heavily policed at all times, because I? Would need sedation if someone made some of the remarks I've seen in various threads relating to this.
I ain't so tough. But you all need to be. Right now.
Well...this is the longest I've been on OS for a a while—life and pressing needs have claimed my time which has coincided with an evident and expected devolution of the site.
Vox populi has some terrible consequences in the digital age, n'est ce pas? I have no desire to explore the pathological need of those who lie to boost themselves in the way you've described, though there are ways to promote your own work that falls within accepted formulae.
The offenders often tip their hand. From the fellow who claims a newspaper background while defending an egregious thief and liar in that noted plagiarism incident to the expected and inevitable nutjobs, whether of the right, left or batshit crazy versions. It was easiest to ignore the offenders on most occasions, the sky was not in fact falling after all. You just had to walk your own path trying to avoid all the piles of shit people left. But at times the vileness needs to be confronted.
What is lovely in the midst of this scatological discovery is the roll call of the lovely people who have weighed in: Denise, Lea, Sally, Bill (whom I've known for a very long time—a brother with a different mother), Joan, mishima, Laura, Jeff, emma...the list goes on and they are easily identified—people who are worthy of being known and loved.
Some have asked "why" in the comment forum which seems naive to me. And I would disagree with Alan, just above me, re the compensation. I've gained quite a bit from my time here going back four and a half years. I've benefited from the sales of my work—my book (yes, from an established publisher) and the sales of photography around the world, though the promised modest payments from my stuff ported to Big Salon never materialized.
It's not because I love you too Candace that this is important. Lying liars are free to flog their wares after all, but when they cross the line with the intention of damaging others in order to boost their own sorry ass emasculation then they need to be called to account—welcome to the pox vopuli.
Thank you Candace and je t'aime...moi non plus. xo
"Lying liars are free to flog their wares after all, but when they cross the line with the intention of damaging others in order to boost their own sorry ass emasculation then they need to be called to account—welcome to the pox vopuli"."
You, my friend, are one of the reasons I stuck around as long as I did. People like you, Candace, VR, Barry (Yo! Good to see you here again, bro!), and others too numerous to mention kept me hanging around long after I had lost the desire to stay.
What really irks me this time, why I had to come back again and comment insistently, is the incredible naivete that people are showing, the unbelievable lack of critical thinking skills. To say that someone "has always been nice to me, so they CAN'T be the mean ogre you portray them as!" is just incredible to me. It is not hard to do your homework on this site - in fact, it is reasonably easy to look at people's comment history. When specific examples are provided, you can either follow them and look at the evidence presented or you can ostrich.
If people want to ostrich, fine, but they need to quit bitching about the rest of us that aren't willing to do that, aren't willing to give people a pass on their harmful behavior. This isn't a pile-on because we don't like one person or another - this is bringing something sick and twisted out into the light where it can be seen by all.
If nothing else, Boanerges, it gives me an opportunity to thank you and all the rest that made this place a thing of joy for me for so long. You folks made it hard to walk away. You make it easy to come back.
*waves to L.C. Neal*
and thanks to kellylark - who i don't know except as a fellow blogger here at OS - for chiming in here and elsewhere with her logic and straight spine.
i can't believe you came back to leave a comment. i know how you feel about getting slimed here. i also know how much you love me. but this much? damn, woman. friendship is amazing.
Just wanted to clear up that I have been involved in frays in the past, though on occasions I have refrained even when asked to participate.
I doubt, though, that the outing of the latest duplicity--multiplicity?--will affect any changes...leopard spots and all that--which just means wear your galoshes at times and at other times identify the miscreants.
it took hours to capture sectional images of the now-deleted Candy Ass OS user's "Hello!" post and enlarge and sharpen them so the text is almost legible. the narrow column width of the OS template makes it difficult too. i apologize for the blurriness.
but someone else needs to apologize for the filth that is this post. there are words in the Bio and the text that are intentionally, i believe, used to let me know the person posing as Candy Ass is talking about me: i owned a freelance reporting firm, i started going by Candace instead of Candy because i thought Candy sounded like the name of a Vegas showgirl, i owned a pair of velvet pants that looked terrific on me, my mother was an abuser and an alcoholic - and i had written those details into multiple posts on OS before last september.
i dare anyone - especially any woman - who saw a post like Candy Ass on the feed and who knew it was meant to be clear to everyone here that it was about *you* to think it's all right for someone to do that, that it's funny. it's not. it's slime. it's sick. and if i have to put this up, horrible as it is and embarrassing as it is, as a way of getting this person - and all his alters - tossed off of OS, i decided to do it.
and, by the way, a brand new user on OS, first post - how do you suppose some or all of those commenters *found* this post to comment on, hmmm?
Sorry you went through this Candace. Matt is a misogynistic, passive aggressive, old fuck. It takes a strong woman to out him and unfortunately, a host of professional victims to allow the garbage to continue. (oh, and if anyone is reading this as "hysterical" or "festering", it's not.)
I can empathize, because several months ago someone -- I am almost certain who, but cannot provide hard proof -- created a phony blog parodying my own. I don't think it is the same person that you suspect in your own case.
This kind of activity may be more common than you think.
http://open.salon.com/blog/bobbot/2012/08/07/apologies
_excuses_and_explainations
D White weighs in here -- this is when I knew it must be Fusun as the phrasing is just so eerily similar...
The rest of those folks either did it, we're part of it or we're sent there, IMO.
and, like has been said earlier in the string about other bad-actions, because it's common doesn't make it right. i'm sorry you found yourself in that unpleasant situation. it feels awful.
And yes, this is all about the facts and not various relationships or allegiances. He needed to be called out. He was. Good work.
I hope that if I cease to comment on all this, the anti-semitism, the alters, the multiple dust ups, you will not see it as a withdrawal of my support. It's just that today I felt my limit, the one where my emotional well being will be affected if I continue to participate.
greenie, i'm glad you're turning off the computer. go take a walk. write about it. xo
These are the reasons that draw us here ... hold us here ... that sometimes draw us back ...
If someone chooses a different reason to come here ... and that reason is to inflict hurt ... then that hurt ... hurts us all ...
If someone chooses to actively hurt ... here ... then ... what appears to be open ... is not open ... at all ... what appears to be what we thought it was ... for the moments of hurting ... is not here at all ...
When someone’s hands are made to shake ... because of hurt inflicted ... here ... openness evaporates ... and there is barely air to breathe ...
Inflicting hurt ... actively ... no reason to be here at all ...
May the hands that are shaking feel actively held ...
and may ... somehow ... active healing ... begin ...
I read this and rated it shortly after it was posted but I was unable to formulate a comment until today. I waded through the links, I read and re-read a lot of crap, but still I could not comment. Last night, before heading off to bed, I sent Matt a PM and asked him for his side of the story. I requested that he use his blog and present his reasons in a rational manner and to apologize for any harm he did.
Well today I got my answer. His blog entry pretty much said it all and sadly it made up my mind too. You might find fault with me because it has taken me so long to reach a decision but there are reasons for that.
I had five close friends...brothers really...and I left them all in a very bad place in a faraway land. Since then it has been very hard for me to make friends and harder still to walk away from one. Today I walked away, in a manner of speaking, from a man I considered a friend.
By his own words he has condemened himself and I can not and will not stand his sort of behaviour. I am sorry you had to go through all of this and I applaud your actions by bringing all of this to light. You have my undying respect. I am not sure what the next step is for me personally. With so much ugliness and with such preditors swimming just below the surface, my simple stories of life on the ranch seems so irrlevant somehow. But that is a decision I will leave for another day. Right now I think I need a long hot shower and about two fingers of good whiskey.
For me, personally, it is more important that you took your time, examined the evidence, and did what you had to do to make up your own mind. However long it took is however long you needed, and no one should have any complaint about that.
It IS hard to walk away from someone who has befriended you and then betrayed that friendship. It happened to me here, too (not this situation specifically - it was another) and it stung for a while. But that's part of life, making our own mistakes and learning the lessons from them.
I'm sorry that you lost your friend here - truly I am. But I hope you can understand, too, that it was not your fault in any way and not your doing - given the opportunity, people will either make us proud to stand with them or make us ashamed to stand with them.
We never know for certain which way it's going to go until it goes down.
I won't beg you to stay here as I have no right to do that, either. I walked away, for the most part, almost two years ago now.
The real friends I've made here, they keep me coming back from time to time.
As I'm sure the real friends you have made here do for you.
but i want to say publicly what i've said in many PMs to you. you are a terrific human being and i am so aware of how lucky i am - and we are - that you're here. i wish we could clone you. and i love, like greenie does, to read your stories about almosta and the animals and mel.
you have a lot of friends here. i hope you know i'm one of them. i just wanted to say that in public, as i have in private. thank you for your kind thoughtfulness, david-used-to-be-Torman.
And props to greenie for her honest and beautiful thoughts.
It reads:
"I believe this to be a serious and helpful thread to all of us regardless of where we see our writing fitting into the common pool of creativity. The idea of creating your own audience is ridiculous and not without precedent..."
The idea of FABRICATING our audience is ridiculous to me.
We do "build" our audience through hard, honest work, and I am all for that.
I wanted to add some things...I respect and adore you very much. You read my work and impart so much richness to conversations, both on this forum and on FB, where you put up with my endless pictures, vids and scribbles. Thank you Candace, I'm honored to be your friend and colleague.
I wanted to persuade David to keep writing his wonderful posts. I feel as many others he is a treasure here.
All this shows is someone with noooooo life and/or too much time on her hands to snoop and gain her moment in limelight. What did you accomplish except prove that shit rises to the top. Does it occur to you many of us don't belive a word you say, what "proof" you claim to have????
What a flock of slanderers and creeps. Eeeew. Now go write something inspirational.
appears in the body of my essay as one of the alters in the list (prepared by Sirenita Lake using Paust's instructions) of those suspected of being used by Fusun Atalay.
a couple things, though.
this post - which provides links to alters, some of which were *supplied by matt paust as attributed to fusunA and by fusunA as attributed to matt paust* tells the readers to go click on the links and see where they lead and draw his/her own conclusions.
i said in the essay that i'm not a lawyer because i'm not. i was a court reporter for 25 years. i just wrote down the words that the lawyers and judges spoke. and i worked in california and predominantly in the state court venue (as opposed to federal), so the *jury instructions* (that's what the judge tells the jury at the end of the case before they leave to deliberate) that i heard came from standardized texts: BAJI (Book of Approved Jury Instructions) and CACI (California Civil Jury Instructions for Judges and Attorneys).
if you want to, you can go look them up and read them.
but in an effort to be helpful (maybe for kitD), i just found an article in the MCLE (Mandatory Continuing Legal Education) section of the California Lawyer publication (from the Daily Journal, the major legal publication in CA, based in LA). it was written by James D. Ward and is entitled "The New Civil Jury Instructions." (that's because CACI was written to be in clearer language than the old BAJI instructions.) you can go read the whole article if you want to. i didn't type the link in html code because i'm tired.
"BAJI 2.00 reads: "Circumstantial evidence is evidence that, if found to be true, proves a fact from which an inference of the existence of another fact may be drawn. A factual inference is a deduction that may logically and reasonably be drawn from one or more facts established by the evidence.
"The comparable plain-English instruction, CACI 202, reads: "Some evidence proves a fact directly, such as testimony of a witness who saw a jet plane flying across the sky. Some evidence proves a fact indirectly, such as testimony of a witness who saw only the white trail that jet planes often leave. This indirect evidence is sometimes referred to as 'circumstantial evidence.' In either instance, the witness's testimony is evidence that a jet plane flew across the sky."
obviously KitD doesnt think highly enough of any of us to believe we are capable of looking at information and weighing it as mature adults and drawing out own conclusions, so she is going to tell us what we should be concluding. how generous!
i do wish she had left comments open so i could thank her for telling me what i should be thinking. really...cuz ya know, all that thinking for myself stuff is just so much work.
But I'm not surprised, because neither one of them has any evidence to support their positions.
None.
So naturally, they do not want that pointed out.
If Fusun and Matt were innocent, they would have been shouting it loudly right from the start. They would have welcomed inquiry, because being innocent, inquiry would have cleared them.
I stopped reading Kitd a long time ago when I discovered who it was she ran with.
To Kitd, and libby, and all of the apologists out there - don't forget your Voltaire:
"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."
Matt and Fusun are not above criticism or reproach.
No one is.
And since Kitd has no relevant legal experience, maybe she should stick to what she knows best - flutes.
Then closed comments.
She also added a trite comment on another post saying"well played" that about says it all.
I may open a post just to have rebuttal comments. Or perhaps a pretty photo essay.
So make sure you have something to read handy.
And said so much on everyone else's blogs. No.
Not right. Thanks Bill anyway. If the storm is blowing over, fine, but I am not letting that one go.
Crickets.
They prefer to do that on their own posts where they can delete comments as it suits them.
I won't delete a comment unless it is libelous or hate speech.
But, from the looks of it, I don't know if I want to hang around here anymore.
(And, in the interest of full disclosure, I once created a separate account here, to answer an open call with a post that was very personal, and which I didn't want to have identified with me in any way. Even then, I still couldn't stand to have that post out there, so I deleted it and asked the editor - then Emily - to delete the account, which she did.)
I am glad that you took a stance and that you made it public. The notion that this is a witch hunt, or some kind of bullying is truly insulting. What you are doing, is outing the bullying behavior.
Let's do play courtroom drama as invited by kit. I love law. It's my thing. Circumstantial evidence has the same weight as direct evidence. I learned that in law school. Someone who's an actual practicing attorney or knows law better than me can dispute that, but Kit don't know shit, says so herself.
Also, on research, if she had bothered to check her facts (linked from Candace's blog) Candace and I reached the exact same results on the Fusun issue working independently, not knowing the other was tracking the same thing. Candace checked my findings. That's not only being a responsible blogger, it's how it's done in academia. Independent findings that support each other are considered valid.
And the next person who mentions that statcounter is not conclusive will have statcounter virtually shoved up their ass sideways. No one is claiming to prove anything by stat counter. All evidence asserted as proof comes from OS's own activity feeds.
To summarize the issue of evidence: There is an activity feed on your own page. You can alter that by deleting rates, or asking people to delete your comments--or deleting them yourself from an account you control. When you use alters to comment on your own page, you can go back and delete the comments and destroy the evidence.
There is also OS's, lets call it "master", activity feed on the "most recent" tab on the front page. You cannot jack with that.
Before they were warned, both Fusun and Matt had no reason to change anything on their own pages. Now, several days after this began, were their alters' pages could have been modified. Case in point: One of Fusun's alters, Travers I think it called itself, posted the rate activity feed of another alter, macart, from macart's own page, on Candace's post. This was intended to prove that macart did not rate Fusun's blog. I have a screenshot of that same activity record showing a rate to Fusun's Forgiveness post, taken before Fusun was warned that anyone was looking at her alters' pages. (Candace and I both thought to record at least some of this evidence--I'm sure she did a better job). Fusun went back and deleted the rate, but I have a picture in a dated file of the page before she changed it. Now, destruction of evidence is admissible in determining guilt, if Kit wants to make this into a courtroom thing.
The evidence I have is straight from the master rate activity feed for 8/8 around noon to sometime on 8/9 in the early evening. A day and a half, less really. In that time, I found (and recorded a subsection of) 24 accounts whose principle activity was to rate Fusun's posts--often two of her posts within one or two minutes--and to rate Fusun's favorites. The pattern of rates is consistent when the rates were not bestowed on Fusun herself. I won't mention who the beneficiaries of Fusun's spurious rates were, since this should not reflect on them, except one--she rated Candace a couple of times. That is inferential evidence that there never was any bad blood between Candace and Fusun, no motive for Candace to want to take her down.
Finally, because OS's rate history only goes back a couple of days, and the history kept on individual pages can be altered to an extent, you might be too late to independently verify past behavior of alters. But in court, you can also examine a defendant's reaction to an accusation. When confronted with an untrue accusation, the normal person denies it vociferously. When there is no denial, that is admissible evidence. Matt didn't respond for 3 days, and when he did, it was not with a denial. Fusun responded by destroying evidence.
In law, when you are accused of a criminal act, you can respond with denial, or, if you admit the act, argue justification, excuse or mitigation. Fusun and Matt needed better attorneys in this matter. Or a better PR firm. Rita, thanks for this forum. I may cross post this comment to Candace's page.
You have always been and always will be one of the most impressive people I've come across.....and I respect and admire you.
And miss you, too.
Thanks for this.
XOXO
Having said all that, this made me snort coffee out of my nose:
::: banging my forehead on my desk ::: femme forte aka candace August 11, 2012 08:54 PM
And I wanted to do it in a way that actually meant something. As opposed to "pulling a Romney" (Saying something that meant nothing)
I also wanted to do it in a way that described without judging. (No small task)
And the best I could come up with was this: It looks like there is some pain here. I can see some of it. But not most of it. Because this being the internet, I never know anybody's complete story.
And when I see pain among anybody I have any kind of connection to (even one as nebulous as the internet) then that pains me too.
So I ask myself, "What can I do to ease that pain?" And I answer myself (a bit of self pleasure there, but again---this IS the internet)
Not much. But I can leave this message that is really simple:
I hope we can all help ease each others pain.
I learned a while back that I can't do anything for some people, those who lack a conscience. I'm afraid that Fusun and Matt are people who lack a conscience. They're not just insecure or angry or hurt, but also unable to appreciate the wrongness of their actions. That's been amply demonstrated. Other people on this site have behaved badly, copped to it, apologized or explained. Maybe they haven't reformed perfectly. But they know what they've done. These two don't. All they can say is how mean everyone is being to them.
I read somewhere that the last resort of the sociopath is to ask for pity. Not saying I can diagnose sociopathy, but unrepentant dishonestly and cruelty, especially in people old enough to have processed any childhood traumas, makes me wish OS kept a shrink on staff.
........(¯`v´¯) (¯`v´¯)
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............... *•.¸.•* ♥⋆★•❥ Thanx & Smiles (ツ) & ♥ L☼√Ξ ☼ ♥
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