A lot of people believe it is malc who "created" the trolls, which I addressed thusly on a private thread at his forum:
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I just want to put this on the record, with the theme Sam brought up in mind: emotional detachment is needed to properly process all angles of this information.
One "outsider"....hell, maybe "outcast" is a better word...perspective on this place is that some people perceived all the crap DF describes here:
Some were put on vacation, memberships revoked, threads closed and/or shoved into member only categories or conspiracy threads to be hidden from public view. And like a broken record this behavior would repeat over and over again at PA which is why so many of us withdrew support willingly or unwillingly because we could see there was an underlying agenda** taking place before our very eyes.
Whether it was accurate in the wake of alt community sh!tstorm**--as some, like the eye-rise crew, those closest to Malc/Tot the longest, and a few specific individuals (including myself) thought, whether there were a few occurances--be them "mistakes" or not--that got blown out of proportion and used for revolutionary soap-box outrage preaching (which I tend to believe now), or nothing really happening but "people being people" (which I have always felt a cop out, and has always irritated me when people were satisfied with that and urging the "move on" meme)...you (and I'm specifically addressing malc here) came out of it with all these views projected on to you, at least by a handful of vocal people.
Some of those that held the first perspective STILL believe that you are the "troll" that pops up on "fringe" forums, an example of this behavior/pattern can be seen here:
openuptoday.freeforums.net/post/154/threadThe dude(s) have three patterns:
1. (poorly) impersonating a recognizable member of the "community"
2. cryptic non-answers with strange snippets of webpage images
3. complete evasion of any direct addressing
The example I show does not demonstrate #1, it was a slight twist. Normally it would take the poster's avatar and actual lines from posts. It would have lines mixed up, so that you couldn't even consider it a "quote". The changes are what I always found odd, and what I think leads some people to believe it is you. They go out of their not to just post what someone else said, but the punctuation gets messed up in the process which is reminiscent of your writing pattern. That, and the fact that it is completely out of context in childish way that make no sense, I think lead people to project an emotional immaturity on to you and lead them to their only conclusion of why someone would do that is to send scared/annoyed to the "safety" of your forum. Your defensiveness played into that and fueled it, I have noticed you have gotten way better at handling, so kudos there.
The second part is reminiscent of Stephen Hodges' posting style, this is my own personal opinion...which was reinforced in one of the sock puppets PMing me on another forum (IW) when the activity was ramping up, where he said something like "watch, the game's getting started" or something like that and signed it SH.
The third part is what has always really bothered me and what I continue to strive to be the change I'd like to see around here. The first two "tactics" are childish and silly words on the internet. Anyone that has an emotional reaction to them, and worse believe they are somehow directly harmed by them...is playing exactly into the game they think they're a victim of, as evidenced by the fact that the ******* is afraid to actually communicate in any way to reveal his true purpose. This leads most to believe it is just an emotionally immature attention seeking weirdo, and so by default there's not too many other directions to look but the forum owner trying to build up membership.
But as I experienced on my blog, the dude showed up when I posted Bill's private message:
suemebill.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-pm.htmlI deleted the first comment or two, because it was plagurizing Bill mixing up the words within sentences. If it were a forum and they were using his avatar and members and all that, I might have handled it differently, but I felt BR might have a case to at least b!tch to me, as it was obviously his actual words but literally twisted. I did leave the "trolling" comments when the dude was using his own words...I WANTED them up and visible they were great pieces to use to start conversations that might shed light on his purpose, but he got all ****y, deleted his own sh!t and I never heard from him again there.
But that adds the element this dude (or a copycat wanting us to think it's the dude) wants people to believe he's Bill's enemy--or supporter, as all of that is pretty much completely unrelated to you.
The other piece in the investigation of cutty-pasty as I'd come to call him, is that he stalked the people rolled around together as a group when the rift over the Cult of CG--which subsequently pris turned into a free speech/mini-PA style forum dictatorship revolution in her mind--over almost a half dozen forums. She has a good case that she's being individually targeted...as she went by herself to the Mists of Avalon and got harassed there...all the other places I've seen besides that exception (and my blog), also included myself, purplelama, eelco/catsqotal/Sophia's choice (I got those wrong, I think, but you know who I mean), spiral/dark quark/pluto's child...and a handful of others...but these were the most vocal at all places. Shane/the ruiner, Sam, Bob, and a handful of others visibly participated in some. Any of these could be potential targets (and/or perps).
One more piece of experiential evidence: the dude used the name of your newest child, Sophia...on one of the most effective occasions, leading to the accusation of a Sophia on EE to be "outed" as a troll without even doing anything. Using that name has some people thinking it's you and others thinking it couldn't possibly be. So adding a puzzle piece.
I am just rehashing this in this context because I think it serves you to be aware others' perceptions of you. This thread is about the revelation that the discussion here critical about SP was shut down due to his suppressing the conversation with legal threats. Aragorn and TOT seem vindicated, and this has exposed BR's extreme and bizarre measures of protecting/shaping his image...and for me at least, brings up issues of responsibility for Simon's image. This is a perfect fractal of what you went through with Corey, and one other tidbit helpful to you in your journey is to keep in mind some may have the perception they do because they believe the manipulation he did with your image, where I guess most of the faithful HAVE to believe that you hacked PA (ie he ain't lying, he's mr. sterling integrity).
As for solutions, I have been doing my best to bring as much darkness out into the light, so it can be analyzed from a place in loving detachment. Showing less defensiveness and allowing conversations such as these is the example you should have been doing all along, your earlier stance of always pushing everyone to "move on" (and I believe a lot of those that "moved on" from tot in the CG fiasco encouraged and supported that at that time, your old biggest fans were the biggest enablers) before anything is resolved. Sure, it is frustrating, and seems like endless loops, but if we don't get all the cards on the table they are going to continue whether we discuss them or not. So please don't let any of my "disclosure" here hurt your feelings, I'm NOT trying to cast you in a bad light...rather show you the dark people are perceiving, how I see you continuing to be shedding light on it, and giving you platform with which you can shed even more, if you feel you can (which goes for all of us forum freaks). It shouldn't just be "woody's opinion"...it should be something we can actually figure out the facts on, together.
**with those believing that this place was encouraging or at least friendly to the Cult of CG, which ended up sort of being the case, which has been admirably owned and apologized for and hopefully learned from