One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...

 "we see what the mebers ahev to say - if theya r4e sifficuently behind us we may ride this out"   - Hils (aka Pickled Tink) 7/18/2010

If it were not for the number of people whose reputations were so badly damaged in the appalling deception carried out by Judy Okla and Danileo in July 2010, the recent appointment of Judy as Administrator of SBFII would be laughable.  Quite honestly, you couldn't make this stuff up!

I thought I might provide the most basic of Cliff Notes for those readers whose memories need refreshing in the 18 months that have passed since those shameful events.  All of the information I am listing CAN be proved, incontrovertibly.

On July 17th/18th 2010 word spread amongst the staff at SBFII that an attempt was to be made to 'take over the forum' by 'DJGers', i.e. members of Susahumor.  This false rumour was instigated by a cyber troll who had somehow won the trust of the staff at SBFII (even though he had been banned under many different aliases.)  The staff encouraged the falsehoods and helped spread them.

Staff started resigning, including Kalua (admin) and this continued throughout the day.  It was obviously pre-planned, probably on the assumption that there would be a clamour for their return, but that didn't happen. 

New admin accounts appeared 'out of the blue' and all sorts of mischief, mayhem and confusion ensued.  There was manufactured hysteria about banned members returning to the forum, even though the staff knew that new accounts had to be approved by a moderator before becoming full members.

Some members panicked, there was a hue and cry, and the remaining staff resigned leaving lChris to try and cope with what looked like, to all intents and purposes, an attack on the forum.  If the staff had seriously believed the forum was under attack, would they really have resigned and abandoned the members to their fate?

lChris was eventually unable to cope single-handed and asked for volunteers with some admin experience to assist, so another member and I eventually stepped forward and did what we could to help.  We had no idea at that time what was happening. lChris had expected Tink and the staff to return on July 19th.  They did not.  Tink claimed that lChris was preventing her from doing so, but that was a lie.

Afterwards, when the staff DID agree to return, I was accused of letting banned members in.  The fact is, NO banned members were readmitted to the forum, but members were encouraged to think they were, in the chaos. Even so, Pickled Tink later made a deliberate attempt to incriminate me in an official statement  of the Board of Directors.

Kalua was re-admitted as a staff member.  He could not become a member of the Board as he refused to give his personal information to dyebat who needed it to register officers of the intended non-profit organization that would become SBFII.

Pressure was put on the Board to carry out an investigation, in an effort to determine the perpetrators and to exonerate innocent parties.  In the end Tink arranged for an 'independent' examination of the database by one of her son's mates..... 
He answered the questions she put to him, but they were not designed to reveal any information that Tink and the Board did not want disclosed.

The Board made a ridiculous statement full of inaccuracies which played fast and loose with the truth.  Facts were manipulated by Tink to cover the antics of JudyOkla and Danileo and it contained a generalized 'apology' to the perpetrators as well as the victims of the farce.

Eventually dyebat became so exasperated with the lack of progress of the SBFII Board investigation that she requested additional help to examine the database. 

Knudt's systematic examination of the database revealed very clearly that JudyOkla and Danileo were behind the forum fiasco.  She laid out the evidence painstakingly so that everyone had the chance to see the truth.  Here is a link: Setting the Record Straight For Susan Boyle Fans

Many of the staff at SBFII denied ever reading knudt's blog which just adds to the mountain of lies already told.  We KNOW that staff members and Board members read them.  And that some of them KNOW that they contain an accurate, truthful record of events.

So, JudyOkla is now admin of SBFII.  No members of DJG's forum, or any other forum, ever had designs on SBFII, but it begs the question in my mind that perhaps someone else did....

Many of us are familiar with the concept of psychological 'projection';  ascribing one's own thoughts, feelings and motivation to others.

We had thought that the accusations that someone wanted to take over the forum were completely false, but did they perhaps have some basis in fact, but not from 'outsiders'?  Did JudyOkla and Danileo plan this way back in July 2010?

I am reminded of some very wise words,

To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good... Ideology - that is what gives devildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. - Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

Just Following Orders? Nae Excuse!

I have recently received a copy of an email sent by Stevieboy last July.  The member who passed it along assumed that we had already seen it.  Not so.  If others have relevant information that we have not mentioned, please let us know.

When converted to the database time, the email was received at 07:47 am Monday July 19, 2010.

Dear friends, 

I have been asked by Tink to inform you of the situation as it stands right now on the Forum. 
As you might be aware by now, Carlos (Kalua) has resigned as Admin of the site, effective immediately and I and Ross Manarchy (waldog) have also resigned. This is in response to the behaviour by dyebat and Lchris and what is perceived to be an attempt to undermine the Staff. We are also under sustained attack by those member of DJFG's site, who are conspiring to destroy the forum, something they have been trying to do now for many months, even before the recent auction. 

If you wish the bulk of the remaining Staff to remain, then you are requested to say this in the strongest possible terms, for as it stands at the moment, the entire Staff is about to resign en masse.

Thank you,
Graeme

PS Please pass this message on to your friends on the forum, the ones that you can trust!

Tink asked Stevieboy to send the email, so it can be reasonably assumed that she knew what he would say.  I believe that this email further implicates Pickled Tink as one of those coordinating the events of July 2010.

Stevieboy claimed that Dyebat and lchris were trying to undermine staff, but as we have shown, they did no such thing.  They had always expected staff to be in charge, and asked them to return. 

So why had the rumour that Dyebat and lchris wanted to undermine staff been passed around?  Most likely it was the result of their questioning of Kalua’s excessive need for secrecy.  He had refused to provide any identification at all, even though he was to be Director of the Board.  If Dyebat and lchris insisted on it, they had to be discredited.

Stevieboy claimed that the site was “under sustained attack” from DJG members.  We now know that the “sustained attack” had nothing to do with DJG and was done by JudyOkla and Danileo.  But who told Stevieboy that it was the DJGers?

Stevieboy also said that the ”entire Staff is about to resign en masse”.  He asked for members to say if they wanted the staff to remain “in the strongest possible terms”.  This is further confirmation of the ploy by staff to walk out and orchestrate the membership to demand their return.

It is clear that the events of July 18th were coordinated by the several staff members.

It is possible that some of the staff members were unaware that it was a sham and were used by others.  Stevieboy had been trusted by the membership of the forum.  If he knew that that the whole thing was a set-up, it was a betrayal of the forum members.  If he did not know about the activities of JudyOkla and Danileo, it is especially unfortunate that he would be used in this way to spread disinformation.

The Smear Machine

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)

The Beginning of the End

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. (Winston Churchill)

It has been eight months since the events of last July set us on our present path.  Establishing the truth has involved a long period of examination and analysis.  We might have been able to publish our findings a little earlier but we have experienced illness, surgery and other real life situations which took priority.

lChris, dyebat and I have been lied about publicly in particularly vicious ways.  I have been a victim of malicious communication by CB, approved by SBFII staff, and so it is of particular importance to me to make it a matter of public record that this was done without foundation.

For four months we put our faith in the Board of Directors of (the now) SBFII and took them at their word when they promised a full investigation as to what had taken place.

When, after months the promised report failed to appear, Knudt, lChris & Dyebat and I started to blog, in order to bring the truth to light by putting pressure on the Board to have a full examination of the forum record and the results made public. Our actions did appear to have some effect.

A report from the Board of Directors was finally posted in mid November but it became apparent that no thorough investigation had been taken, and that no honest disclosure would be forthcoming.

So we continued with our own investigation.  We examined relevant threads from the July period, establishing a time-line and converting times for data into EST, which is 'forum time'. We continued to blog and to continue to try to clear our names.

By December, it became quite obvious that the administrators at SBFII were not prepared to bring the truth to light and so I made the decision to resign.  So did lChris and dyebat. Knudt did not resign, but was (soon) banned.

It was at this point that dyebat decided that knudt and I could be handed some of the Hostgator records (for the period during which she had been the owner) to carry out a thorough investigation.

In January we received the first part of the database. We then had to learn how to read, search, analyse and interpret it.  We sometimes had to search in several places to find the truth, when attempts had been made to cover it up.  

We received more of the database in March. The pieces of the puzzle began to come together at last.  Despite the delay and the length of the journey to truth, I am able to confirm that we did get definitive answers. We are now posting our findings.

It is regrettable that those responsible for the events of July 18th - 21st did not step forward in an honourable way to admit their parts in what happened.  That would have saved a lot of time and further angst from within the community.