Character assassination is at once easier and surer than physical assault; and it involves far less risk for the assassin. It leaves him free to commit the same deed over and over again, and may, indeed, win him the honors of a hero in the country of his victims. (Alan Barth)
On 5th August last year, just three weeks after the events of July 18th - 21st, there was a contrived effort on the part of staff and certain 'key players' of SBFII to 'move on' despite the fact that nothing had been resolved as far as determining who had created so much confusion on the forum. The voices of those who had posted most accusingly in July were heard loudest in August, whilst those members whose names had been smeared were equally as determined that they would not allow the matter to be merely swept under the carpet. Despite the fact that the party line was to move on, with the general understanding that mistakes had been made on all sides, posts continued to be made by staff members that were inflammatory and that belied acceptance of that premise. Here is one such example.
LonniR posted the following in a thread started by Pickled Tink entitled, 'Debunking Rumours':
"...Neither Tink nor I resigned until after the hacking and 3 of the new mods never did. That night all the mods were suddently and without warning stripped of our accesses. For a while there we did not know why or what had happened, and then realized we were being inundated with banned members on the forum and were powerless to stop them. I later understood we were locked out for security reasons, but at the time it was as though we had all been fired without notice. It was a very trying situation for everyone involved, but it's all been resolved now and we can move on.
At the time of the July incident, members could join the forum provisionally, subject to moderator approval. No banned members were approved during that period, yet LonniR still perpetuated the rumour and exaggerated the run of events. Inundated? As a moderator she would have been aware that only three former members had joined, and that none had been approved.
LonniR claimed that it had 'all been resolved' last August, but had anything been resolved? Had members discovered the truth about what happened? Was any retraction made by the Staff or Board of Directors of SBFII regarding the ludicrous claim that 'the DJGers' had planned to take over the forum? No. The facts had not been uncovered.
Is the truth of what happened then worth any less today than it was then?
Despite the apparent effort on the part of Staff to persuade members to 'move on', beyond the July events, permission was granted by management to CanadianBill to attack members of another Susan Boyle Fan Site, in the form of his thread entitled "Some Urgent Questions For All". This information was given to him by Mark Conner/Orgonon (aka the cyber stalker bully.)
Was the sanctioning of this thread conducive to 'moving on''?
Now Paulie's forum members and I had become victims of the SBFII smear machine. The attack against me, personally, was scathing.
The smear machine is the opus operandi by which several members and former members of SBFII (formerly susan-boyle.com) had their characters assassinated either actively or by passive resistance of the administrators.
The cyber-troll promoted the notion that several forum members, who had had the good fortune to attend Susan's performances several times were stalkers. No firm statement was made to deny or counteract those allegations by the administrators at SBFII. Not only were those allegations not denied; they were in at least in one case passed along by Pickled Tink! There is not a shadow of doubt in my mind that the rebuttals should have been immediate and unambiguous. No such support was forthcoming from the administration and so these good peoples' names were smeared. Why?
At the time of the trouble last summer, Danileo inappropriately used her professional nursing experience to lend credibility to her false claim that Dyebat was suffering from dementia. This unsubstantiated, incorrect and damning diagnosis was perpetuated by Mirrim, and others.
It was, obviously, a total fabrication that was both erroneous and malicious.
JudyOkla also started making none too subtle references to lchris's state of mind, feigning concern for her well-being within the community. Every effort was made to suggest that lchris's judgement was impaired through lack of sleep and overwork. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
Whilst outwardly the impression of 'moving forward together' was promoted by the staff, a very different story was being played out behind the scenes. The cyber-stalker was still in communication with staff and certain members. He was still believed, despite the fact that the staff themselves recognised him as the pest they had banned on many previous occasions. Why?
In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same. (Albert Einstein)
