How do they do it? How did ordinary, basically truthful members become the sort of people who now fail to speak out when they know lies are being told in their name?
It happened with the official report, when lies were told about Citroenlady unbanning a member, lies that Board members must have known could not be true. It happened again when John V sent a letter to Citroenlady, withdrawing the offer to chair the Appeals Panel.
In his message to Citroenlady, John V said it was a Board decision and gave a couple of reasons for the decision. I have looked for that decision in the minutes of the Board meetings, but it is not there.
The minutes do mention the decision, during the Nov. 6 meeting, to remove lchris’s access and later to send a letter informing her of such. But there is no mention of Citroenlady.
There is one item in the minutes from Nov. 6 which is likely to have been that discussion. It is listed as a “closed personnel item”. Is that when Citroenlady was sacked? It seems very likely, because according to the minutes, at the very next meeting “Tink suggested Ponylady to chair” the Appeals Committee. That would be rather premature unless the decision to remove Citroenlady had already been made.
I PM’d three Board members to confirm this. I also sent an email. Since John had already stated that the Board decided to withdraw the offer, it is hardly a secret. Why not tell us when it was done? But I received no replies to my query.
Why is the timing of this decision such a big secret? Because John lied about the reasons in his letter to Citroenlady? Because other Board members knew he lied and failed to speak up?
Why do I think he lied? Because the reasons he gave had not yet occurred when the decision was apparently made.
What reasons were given by John V for the Board decision in his message to Citroenlady? First, was that the Board was disappointed because Citroenlady was “not willing to accept apologies given by Administrators,Staff and The Board”. The second reason given was that CL’s blog “quotes and criticises members of our site”.
If the decision was made on Nov. 6, those reasons cannot be true. The Board report with the “apologies” was not posted until Nov. 14. Citroenlady had not written any blogs about the site by Nov. 6 either. If Citroenlady's dismissal occurred during the Nov 6 Board meeting, John V was not telling the truth. And the other Board members knew that. Yet none of them spoke up.
