An Open Letter To AndyS In Colorado
Dear Andy:
I read your email to Jack and based on your sincere tone, believe that you can help facilitate a truce among all the differing reasonable voices involved.
First I would invite you to go back and read my last diary at Daily Kos and perhaps see that I too happen to be a sincere and principled person.
What I was pointing out is that MajorFlaw, bottles, and a crew of people (trashablanca, mbnyc, bouwerie boy, etc..) were systematically driving people off the site and that no low was too low for them. They had resorted to threats, outing of people's real life information on multiple occasion, and their conduct, if not stood up to, would eventually have dire real world consequences. If something bad happens to your friend because of these Ugog Kos Kop scumbags, then not only is ugog to blame but all of you who remained silent while I was speaking truth to power should feel some guilt.
I further supported out that Kos enjoyed these Kos Kops for whatever sadistic reasons and that there were certain administrators deeply invested in protecting these ugog assholes. Those administrators are Barbara Morrill, Laura Clawson, and Jennifer Bruenjes. If Fingerit and Lachow are being banned, then Morrill, Clawson and Bruenjes need to go with them along with trashablanca, mbnyc, and bouwerie boy. There's no in between here. These are the 8 people most responsible for this shit other than Kos. (Dana Houle is separate from this, he should be banned for his outing of Bob _______ back in 2007)
What many of you Kossacks need to look at is how you failed by being silent, the same sin millions before you have committed. People like me and countless others who tried standing up for what was right should be thanked and now that our foresight has been shown to be accurate and precise, how about standing up for all of us?
I only speak for my site and me. You can't lump me in with PFF (a site I had no part of), FSZ (a site with wide commentators) or any other group.
You mention community moderation at Daily Kos. People like me had no problem with community moderation. Review my comments and see that I had no problem getting along with almost everybody. On a couple of occasions I did make mistakes and got called out on it civilly. And when this happened, my response was civil in return.
I and others have been speaking out against people who would have been banned a long time ago if the site followed its rules and did have community moderation. What I saw were a small group of really bad people (see above) followed by another group of about 15-25 people who joined the party in lesser roles because they wanted acceptance or enjoyed the bullying. I saw you as one of those 15-25 people.
I also see that sometimes people realize the truth, albeit not as quickly as I'd like. I attack Markos Moulitsas because he's been the snake head of the Kos KOps and until he issues a front page apology and reinstates every last one of the 5000 or so people wrongly banned from the site because of clashes with the Kos Kops, he deserves to be attacked personally.
As for the "outing" game, yes I do believe that since the people involved were outing ordinary users that it was my perogative to out them and those who support them. You disagree with this and your objection is principled so I won't argue with you. See I told everybody I would take down DailyKos if they kept siding with the Kos Kops and four months later, look what one person has done to fight Daily Kos. By fighting DailyKos, I'm not fighting most users whom I like. I'm fighting Kos and an adminstration that has endorsed MajorFlaw and Bottles and until a front page apology and full reinstatement occurs, I can operate under no other premise than that Kos supports all this. See if it wasn't for people like me exposing this stuff, there would have been more browneyes.
As for browneyes, I strongly disapprove of how she had to lie about me to try and ingratiate herself with that crowd in order to gain acceptance. Notwithstanding such, I see the seriousness of the situation she describes and concur with you that what was done to her is completely uncalled for.
I conclude by letting all of you know that I am a forgiving person. Being part of the group of Kos Kops is an inner hell in and of itself. It chews at you each day as you know what you are doing is wrong. That's why a few Kos Kops eventually just can't live with themselves and decide that they have to get out before it kills them. But when other ex Kos Kops saw the light and sought atonement, there were people out there ready to forgive. If you and browneyes want forgiveness, you can receive it so long as it's genuine.
Yours truly,
DFQ
I'd like to commend you for what you've done. I want you to know you are not alone in realising that places such as Daily Kos are either being gamed or rigged.
I was recently banned for having the gall to post the truth about insidious internet personalities named Brett Kimberlin and Larisa Alexandrovna.
MajorFlaw and his posse went after me. In my final diary, every single one of my posts were hidden.
I hadn't cursed. I didn't throw out any ad hominems. I have a master's degree and am quite aware of academic principles.
Larisa, MF and others didn't just abuse me in the comments section. They were involved in tag abuse. At first, the only change made was to keep deleting Larisa Alexandrovna. But then it escalated into using terms such as stalking.
I am not a stalker. Larisa Alexandrovna has been proven to be a liar. I have given her every opportunity to correct her posts saying that the Speedway Bomber is an exonerated, ex-political prisoner. I had a successful thread at Democratic Underground titled Brett Kimberlin Eposed. It reached almost 100 posts and about 5000 views. The whole thread was deleted, even from google cache, implying that Alexandrovna has inside power at DU.
I received a book called Citizen K by Mark Singer. Mark never envisioned that internet popularity was right around the corner. The book was published in 1996.
I was set to start a new diary draft at Kos writing out the bibliographical info from the book and sharing important excerpts and footnotes of such. My goal was to try to fill in the painful gaps in knowledge that exist on the internet concerning the founder of Velvet Revolution.
The same problem exists on the internet which the jurors at his trials experienced. The motive that various police, federal police, and prosecutors developed for the Speedway, Indiana bombings was not allowed in the courts.
Brett Kimberlin was not a pot dealer primarily. He was a drug smuggler who by some accounts was already a millionaire by the age of twenty. His grandfather was an icon in the aviation industry. Brett had a pilot's license at the age of 16.
Brett developed a relationship with Julia Scyphers' daughter, Sandra. He also had a disturbing close relationship with Sandra's ten year old. Some folks felt that Brett was grooming the young girl to be his future wife.
To cut to the chase, Brett Kimberlin was the #1 suspect in the murder of Julia Scyphers when the Speedway bombings took place. The theory was that Brett placed the bombs to cause a distraction for the understaffed Speedway Police Department.
Fred Scyphers, Julia's widower, actually fingered a drug smuggling associate of Brett's, Bill Bowman, as having murdered his wife. Unfortunately, he passed away before any trial could take place.
My goal is simply to set the record straight. I admire your passion in going after MF and others for similar reasons. I'm also up against a cabal of vigilante gatekeepers set against the truth flourishing on the internet.
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If MajorFlaw and Bottles are going to be banned, a big reason why is because there were a whole bunch of us out there who constantly kept exposing them. The moment they posted the porn and outed browneyes, one of their own to that point, it perhaps dawned on Kos that MajorFlaw has investigated every single Kos Kop as well. I think the notion that we could go to the media and say, "Daily Kos permits porn to be posted at site by Kos Kops" forces his hand. However this is hollow if mbnyc and trashablanca are not banned as well for uprating them.
It's also possible that they've been told to chill for a few days.
The next thing would be the firing of Barbara Morrill along with the loss of front page status for Clawson, Houle and Bruenjes. (See there's my compromise)
Next, Kos has to issue a front page apology to the thousands banned wrongfully because of this pack and then go reinstate every single one. Most won't return but the option should be theirs. Kos has to take responsibility for what he allowed to happen here because this is a volatile situation that still could get very very ugly in the real world all because of his support of ugoglie.
I'd like to see all of you reinstated. The thing is nobody can agree with everybody and I don't know the facts in your story or whether or not you are right or wrong about Larisa. The thing I do know is that you should have the right to civilly present your argument.
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Have you considered the possibility that this is some form of astroturfing racket?
Why would an attorney spend all this time organising such a vigilante campaign? Since Fingerit has been hiding his true identity as MF, that implies that him being banned might not mean anything at all. In fact, it could be a way for Kos and others to make it appear that rules are being enforced.
I wrote to every front page admin when I was getting trolled. They had my email address, such as you do now. Not one of them replied.
I somehow got in contact with one Kossack who I won't name, so he won't face any kind of repercussions. He filled me in on MF. I had actually checked that guy out before then to see what was up with his non-sequitor attacks. I went through his comments, and it was obvious to me that he is a fake trollbuster, a strawman for the idea.
That guy's shelf life was probably coming to an end anyway. What I appreciate about your effort is that you seem to be trying to capture the big picture. You are not only going for those at the bottom of the fish but are ultimately aiming for the rotting head.
I won't get into the Larisa thing, because let's face it, there is too much information overload as it is. I have given enough info that people can seek out her ideas about Brett and decide for themselves. I could post some url's. Are you a HREF= for url's?
Some folks will think I am paranoid or a conspiracy theorist, because I sincerely believe that the internet is rigged. I believe that the reason such a situation persists is because the major forums do not provide a fair shake.
I place no faith in Kos. He was a hair away from being in the CIA. One can see that there have been payola type scandals in his past.
Thanks for publishing my comments about Kimberlin.
To wrap up, I think our biggest obstacles are to present findings in such a way that newbies and fence-sitters won't think we are part of an enigma or noise factory. I actually never got into Kos. I never liked the format, and to be honest, it is kind of an eyesore. Plus, a lot of it is noise and immature.
I saw how even Kos got into the menu or food thing on your last diary. That sets a bad example. I think he is acting dumb to belittle the clear point you made. My letter to him and the others was a simple request for them to investigate unfair troll ratings with MF being clearly involved.
Kos needs to get rid of that whole stinking rating procedure. It's not fair that people need to save their posts in order to later prove that they shouldn't have been deleted. It's not democratic when others who might watch our backs cannot risk doing so for fear of also being autobanned or whatever.
There is no justification for how people have been allowed to break the rules. I think Kos is a paid fake, despite my inability to prove it. If he was truly into making money, he wouldn't allow his place to have turned into a hate site. This would explain why he nervously laughed off your concerns.
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Michael J Fingerit is just a psychotic evil individual. The reason why he has 4 hours a day to organize his vigilante campaign is because he has nothing else to do with his life. That's his professional and personal legacy after 23+ years.
MajorFlaw indeed was the biggest troll at the site, has been for over two years. Kos for reasons related to his upbringing and personal experience seemingly enjoys bullying and mistreatment of people.
As for his attempts to go after me in my final diary when I could no longer respond, that was predictable. Make no mistake, he knew exactly what was going on but the playbook of Kos when a high profile diarist "leaves the reservation" is to try mockery, have others claim the person just "lost it" and then question the person's sanity. I knew it was all coming but better yet, had a plan already in place to deal with him step by step. While I had a couple of missteps along the way and a couple of strategic things I would do over, my plan and approach has done more to expose what's going on at that site than perhaps any other person before me. (Although their groundsetting was vital for my success) Kos is not dumb when it comes to technology. He is dumb in so many other ways though.
The ratings could work if done right. Kos is all about making money and I think the meta is part of that. As for the CIA angles I never go there. You are correct on his payola scams of the past.
As for why certain users could overtly break the rules while others who didn't break the rules were banned, it goes to Kos' love of the Kos Kop concept. He simply enjoys the bullying.
The banning of bottles and MajorFlaw, if this holds up, is because of the public relations nightmare that would ensue. Outing a person's identity by linking to pornographic pictures of her is a public relations nightmare for Kos. Trust also that the expose of Lachow plays a role in this. It's now very public what Lachow did to that woman back in Colorado and all one has to do when talking about Daily Kos is calmly read what the Colorado Supreme Court said about Lloyd Lachow and tell people that this was Markos' boy.
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Beautiful, Dave, beautiful. I agree that if people hadn't stood by and allowed it it wouldn't have happened. Like Germany in Hitler's time, eh?
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I sent Andy the email from my email acct which has my real name. He can respond that way (I'll keep the info private) or here or not at all.
The silence of so many Kossacks is the logical equivalent of the good Germans (Granted the degrees of evil are vastly different). Why good people remain silent when they should speak out is still a disease society is wrestling with.
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