Cassiline,
I'm sorry I didn't mean to skip your post.
You state you have two names and give your reasons for wanting to keep your anonymity. IMO you seem to think that your reasoning for doing so should be accepted, while IF messenger and silentlambs are one in the same his/their reasons for doing so seem not to be acceptable.
If Simon says two names are not acceptable, then they just aren't. It's his forum. I am only saying from my own experience why I think some might oppose it. I am saying that I am OK with the policy, but that because my reasons for having done it in the first place may be very similar to others, I don't think everyone will be happy. That's all I wanted to tell Simon. For as long as everyone has been allowed to post openly, under extra names, I think we should all be welcome to speculate for as long as we wish about the actual personalities behind those posts. Also, people should be very aware of the possibility that they may have already been deceived due to such creative ruses people use.
Whether one set of reasons is acceptable or not is not my call. I thought that my reason was acceptable at the time, but had I known about the policy, I would not have done it, nor would I have argued for "acceptable" vs. "unacceptable" reasons. If silentlambs had actually wanted extra id's, I don't care what his reasons were, they would be acceptable to me. Some of my arguments, in fact, were directly related to why I think silentlambs might have benefited from multiple id's. Some posters may use them to avoid trouble, and some may use them to make trouble. Simon apparently thinks that if someone uses them for making trouble then they should be banned. That may be the best call. I hadn't thought of it that way. If someone makes trouble and the id is banned, then other ID's from the same person might still be used for causing trouble and Simon loses control. The IP address gives him some measure of control again, because they can help identify if the same type of trouble is coming from the same IP address. His idea of using the information as part of the information to help stop this type of trouble in advance is proactive and preemptive, and therefore probably a labor-saving idea.
Then you state that you have read 3000 plus posts in a 24-hour period to confirm so before the posts were lost due to forum changes. After which Simon states that this loss of posts if indeed it does happen will be temporary.
Last night I saw that Simon had explained the "code" something I had forgotten to check previously even though it might have been helpful. I wanted to see just how much meaning I could glean from them in a couple hours. But I made a decision to post about my specific interest in the subject only after hearing about the potential loss of posts and concern about those with two id's. (Also, I hate to go look up a post and find that it has been deleted, or modified beyond recognition.)
You go on to suggest you believe that those who do have two accounts (including yourself IMO) should be offered the choice of having them displayed in private.
Yes. I think that Simon will get less negative reaction in general that way. But that's also more work for him. He will get no negative reaction from me no matter which method he chooses.
Did you offer this choice to silentlambs and messenger if they are one in the same? Seems as if double standards are being presented. Pot/kettle/black perhaps?
Perhaps. I am treating it as somewhat of a "post-mortem" on the evidence left by two inactive posters. Silentlambs has made it fairly clear that he does not plan to post here anymore. Messenger stopped posting almost immediately after that announcement. I was in a thread where someone (teejay) asked where messenger went, and where someone else (Mulan) expressed openly the hope that the two id's weren't from the same person. I had no more reason to speculate openly on those questions until last night. As long as it is clear I am just speculating I see potential good coming from trying to discern what we can from the available evidence. In fact, it reminds me of a very satisfying and enjoyable project I once tried at Bethel:
After finally making it through the entire Aid book, I took on the project of reading all the rest of the Society's publications. I figured that after the Aid book, I could take on anything. I moved to a new room only a few feet from the 3rd floor entrance to the Gilead Library and was often up the entire night working on this project. I worked backwards from 1980 and forwards from 1879. By the time I left Bethel, I was up to 1924 and had just finished the 60's. I bring this up because it was impossible not to develop an idea of the personalities that were running the organization(s). It's probably why I see close connections between the way many elders, and now Bill Bowen, apparently believe that businesses and organizations should be run.
People definitely had the right to ask me to get a life while at Bethel. But I knew almost immediately that much of the information I was reading would be of interest to others. Since then, the information I collected on Rutherford and Russell has been very valuable to many other people.
I ask for the obvious double standard IMO, and your claims of newbie status when first posting about this subject in the thread below.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=39735&site=3
If you are asking if I was a "newbie" when I said I was, then the answer is Yes. I didn't create the second ID until a few days later. The post you mention was my first post on this forum, period. (I had also never posted to H2O before.)
Personally, I don't think much about the idea of double-standards for a couple reasons. I don't mind at all if someone wants to find associations between my id's or guess. I know it's unfair to say so because I am not a very interesting person and it could merely waste someone's time. But people have a right to spend time however they want. The other reason I don't think about the double-standard problem is because I don't even mind if someone decides to lie about themselves or their beliefs. It's part of what I come to expect is possible, and therefore something I have to consider about anything I read - and that goes for the NYTimes, a Bible commentary, a press release, anything. Truth be told, even lies tell a lot about people. A lot of excellent discussion was started from devil's advocate style provocations. Besides, I had a lot of fun with the idea that messenger might have a relationship with silentlambs, and for most of that time I didn't think the possibility was very strong. Still I learned a lot about the poster(s). I wouldn't have gone to the trouble if the idea hadn't intrigued me. Messenger came to a thread to start some trouble. I didn't have a problem with that, just as I didn't think s/he should have much of a problem if I answered back. So, I read to see what I might glean about the personality behind the name. In so doing, I found that silentlambs had expressed similar opinions and opined with similar expressions. I hadn't noticed then that they also had probably posted from the same machine. If anyone had wanted to talk about this latter fact, then I was willing to talk about it, ergo, this thread.
Gilgamesh
