Dave, thanks for the info and for putting it all in my thread.
I'd appreciate it if a few posters would settle down a little. I started this thread hoping Dave and others in the know would explain things and in the hopes of some good analysis of the whole saga.
So if I could steer it back to the analysis angle, maybe you'll see what I'm trying to do.
First of all, I do admit that I bought the whole thing for a while.
With that out of the way, how can this experience benefit us?
(oh wow, my first "Local Needs" part!)
We should look at what happened as a "JW.com Emergency Management Agency" drill. As more people join the board, the number of "kooks" will also increase. We will doubtless encounter many situations like this which play on our feelings for or against the JW's. Many will be very creative and intricate, like Danni's. Others may even take the guise of asking for financial support.
What we're dealing with here is psychological warfare. We may use the term "kook" or something similar to categorize the perpetrator, but that trivializes what they are doing. It would be a serious mistake to underestimate one who pulls off a hoax on Danni's level. This person accomplished their goal. Plain and simple, they won this time and we failed the "drill".
In my opinion the goal was to see how much damage could be done. And indeed, damage was done. There were arguments and hurt feelings, and I can see from this thread that there is still some anger. That hoax was nothing more than a terrorist attack, and I'm not simply using a "buzz-word" to incite anything here.
Sometime back, another poster complained of a "secret group" controlling the board and a "secret email list". I'm not trying to give any credibility to that conspiracy theory, but it does raise something to think about. There do need to be some behind the scenes to spot and root out people like "Danni" and that does include communications not made public on the board until necessary, however when the time is right the rest of us should be made aware. In other words, our own "Emergency Management Agency". I don't think anyone will disagree with me that this board is monitored by the JW authorities. I have no problem with that, nor should anyone else. It's a public place and the logo at the top of this page does say "everyone is welcome".
This is a controversial place, no question about it. We have posters who have to remain anonymous. We have many lurkers we don't even know about who have to remain silent and secret. They are the ones we have to protect. During the Danni incident, we failed them. First, they saw Danni's story. Then they saw us tear each other to pieces fighting over it. They saw something that should not happen here, namely attacks on people who question whether something is true or not. Y'all, that may have driven some in need of help away. If anything at all should be sacred to us, it is the right to freely and openly be skeptical of what is presented. Jesus did not berate "doubting Thomas", instead he lovingly reassured him. Couldn't the skeptics of Danni's story have been responded to in a different manner?
Just as the Watchtower is always saying how JW's have to "set an example", it's no different here.
I also hope that this hasn't made us too suspicious of some of the things we read here. We've simply got to "make sure of all things" (ok, I'm starting to sound a little to Watchtower-ish but you get my point).
One final note. After reading part of the Sexyteen thing, I think Simon could help clear some of this up as well and I haven't seen any info from him. Perhaps he would be so kind as to shed his own light on the matter.
Now we'll turn the meeting over to Brother Dave.
Mike.
"You can't have everything, where would you put it?" -- Steven Wright
