The Downward Spiral

I have written a lot about the Cyber-bully and his involvement in the problems plaguing Susan Boyle fan forums.  But not everything can be laid at his door.  He could not have accomplished what he did without the aid of others. 

Staff and admins at susan-boyle.com chose to believe someone who sent messages in secret.  They chose to believe someone who had been banned many times from their own site.  They chose to believe someone who said things contradictory to what they knew.

Both Pickled Tink and Kalua held a discussion with Citroenlady about the future of the forum.  They knew she wasn’t doing this in secret.  If she had been involved in some kind of takeover plot, why would she bother to discuss it with them?

Staff wanted to believe the things the Cyber-bully told them, so they did.  They felt persecuted by the other forums and so believed the worst of them.  They fell for it, but it wasn’t true.

Why did staff feel that way about the other forum?  Because there was quite a bit of frustration, resentment and anger there.   Why would members of another forum feel this way?  It was a direct result of the way the forum at susan-boyle.com was moderated in the early days. 

The first major upheaval I recall was the closing of a thread because a few had asked for it.  Other members were actively posting on that thread at the time and the closure became an issue.  A thread was started about the closed thread, with some members asking a lot of questions and making their views known.  That thread resulted in the banning of at least two members. 

That was my first inkling that something was wrong and I began to pay more attention.  In the summer and fall of 2009, mods did not seem accountable for their actions.   I noticed threads and posts deleted, often without explanation.  Some people would get warned repeatedly and others seemed to get away with almost anything.  People were banned for things that would be allowed today.  I have already discussed my experiences in being punished for violating unwritten rules.

DJG-Scotland became the focus of staff actions.  He was not always persona non grata as he is today.  He began like any other member and was more helpful than most because he shared his knowledge and helped people with videos.  He also has a sense of humor and began posting visual jokes.  They were harmless and some were silly, but there were complaints from a few who did not appreciate his humor. 

A humor section was created and he was told to post his jokes there.  There was not any such rule for verbal jokes.  Members could and did post funny lines in threads outside the humor section.  It would have been a far duller place to be if that did not occur.

For the most part, DJG complied. But sometimes a joke needed the context of the thread to be understood properly.  So sometimes he posted them in the relevant thread.  

That earned him a banning.  He did not see it coming and was taken by surprise.  The staff had sent him a PM, but since he was banned, he couldn’t access it for a week.  But he did hear from others about the explanation posted on the forum.  It galled him that the mod claimed DJG “understood” because he definitely did not.  When the week was over, he read the message and it contained a different reason than the one posted on the forum.  This lead to even greater resentment because it seemed staff were making up excuses for their actions. 

This was the impetus to creation of his “humor forum”.  It gave him a voice and way to keep in contact with those he had met on the forum.  It also became a place to say those things which were suppressed on the main forum.  Besides humor and some admittedly juvenile joking, there was an area for letting off steam, the built up frustration that had accumulated as a result of the arbitrary moderation elsewhere.

For a while, the moderation of the forum seemed to have improved.  The rules were clearer.  There were better guidelines for moderation.  (Had there been any before?)  The system was far from perfect, but it was better.  However, recently the staff, following Board instructions, has begun to label controversial posts as contentious, accompanied by deletions and arbitrary punishments.

And the fact that the rules are not applied in an even-handed manner to all members is demonstrated on a regular basis.  One member was banned immediately for “piracy”, yet others received the benefit of the doubt and a chance to remove the problem post.  The hypocrisy was especially blatant when a moderator posted suggesting that members go directly to YouTube to perform their own illegal downloads. KateOhio post #106

Inequities in moderation are also in evidence in the enforcement of the rule prohibiting the posting of “allegations, rude or derogatory comments, innuendo or gossip about another member”.  Some members have been allowed to do this, including moderators. 

We saw recently how frustration at perceived inequities and censorship can lead previously civil members to act in ways out of character for them, much in the same way staff did last July.  To my knowledge, there have been no repercussions for the staff.

The combination of arbitrary decisions and the inability to question those decisions is a toxic one.  You feel what has been done is unfair, but also that you are not allowed to express those feelings without repercussions.  Heavy-handed moderation inevitably leads to resentment.  Unequal heavy-handed moderation leads to even greater resentment.

From the beginning of the humor forum, staff members joined DJG’s to keep tabs on what was happening there, often under different names.  They were not there for any positive reason.   People who listen at keyholes rarely hear good of themselves, so they became aware of the frustration and resentment which had no expression elsewhere.  And because they were aware of this, staff were eager to believe the Cyber-stalker when he spun his stories about a takeover.

We still have the lingering effects from those days of anything-goes moderation, compounded by the recent crack down on expression.  The antagonism goes both ways and led to a situation that was ripe for the bully to manipulate. 

The Cyber-Stalker Cyber-Bully

He has been all over the internet on Susan Boyle related sites.  Why Susan Boyle? I don’t know.  He can sing her praises if he thinks it will be useful to him. But then, on another site, he will savage her.  He seems to resent her success.  And the members of the fan sites were easy pickings.  Many had little internet experience.  They were too trusting.

This cyber-bully has been around since the beginning.  After a while, it became possible to recognize his style.  You may remember some of his names.  Belfast James at Irish Central.  MyFlyinghigh1 on YouTube.  He has been banned over and over from fan sites, but he keeps coming back.  He has had more than two dozen names and is still creating more. 

This bully’s method of operation is to pretend to agree with people.  He says whatever he thinks they want to hear.  He gains their confidence.  In that way, he is able to glean information.  He uses that information against them in other places.  He has been involved in stirring up much of the animosity in the Susan Boyle fan community.  If you have heard something bad about another fan, he may be behind it.

He has had quite a few victims over the last year and a half.  Remember the stalker stories?  He was behind that. Remember the stories about Americans wanting to do tours of Blackburn?  He was behind that, too.  He has accused other fans of being stalkers.  He has disparaged Susan’s management and family and tried to stir up trouble between them.  He has created stories about Susan herself.  He has tried to sell stories to the tabloids. 

I have fallen for some of these stories myself.  There is often a tiny bit of truth in them.  That is what makes them seem plausible.  But the truth is smothered in a heap of lies.  There is just enough truth to make you think it might be true or just slightly exaggerated.

 It has taken some time to track down his activities.  He communicates by private message and email, so his manipulations are not always obvious, but the damage he inflicts is.  His reach into the fan community is almost unbelievable.  The harm he has caused is appalling.  He is still in contact with fans who do not understand the nature of the beast with whom they are communicating. 

If you are contacted by someone who seems to have “insider” knowledge of the music business, be wary.  That is something he often does.  Most of it is BS, but there is usually a tidbit of truth to help him gain “credibility”.  If you are contacted by someone who tells you gossip about other fans or about Susan, be wary.  That is also his style.  Do not fall for it. 

He has been instrumental in the creation of factions and hostility in the Susan Boyle fan community.  He has stirred and nurtured those hostilities.  He is still active on forums and news sites.  So are the rumors and lies he created.  It is time for us to free ourselves from this poison.  In order to do that, we must have a fresh start and put aside all of the rumors, lies and defensive attitudes which are the result of this bully.  

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.  Share your knowledge of this cyber-stalker bully by sending it to an email account set up for the purpose:  sbfandomcrimetips@gmail.com

Serial Cyber-Stalker Cyber-Bully Alert

The Optimist and the Pessimist

Pessimist:  I don’t have much hope for that Board statement.

Optimist:  Give them a chance to do the right thing.  I still hold the faith.  Just hang on in there a while longer….

Pessimist:  I don’t think they would know the right thing if it bit them on the butt.

Optimist:  Look, it can’t be easy for them.  They don’t know who to believe – that’s the problem!   Their minds have been poisoned against us.

Pessimist: I expect a Nixonian “modified limited hangout”.  They will put out a little bit of information in hopes of avoiding the rest. 

Optimist:  My one fear is that they will announce what they have not found, rather than what they have.  The majority of members wouldn’t necessarily understand the implication of that. 

Pessimist: I also expect them to use the old rape defense strategy:  blame the victim.

Optimist:  Surely not! 

Pessimist: I think they will try.  They will try to make it the fault of the accused that the accusers believed the lies of the cyber-stalker bully.

Optimist:  They wouldn’t say that if they had seen him as we had.  He sure had me fooled.  Mistakes were made on all sides, but shouldn’t stop them from correcting the record.  We’re all victims! 

Pessimist:  Just wait.  They will look for any little thing that Dyebat, lchris or Citroenlady, or anyone they ever associated with, has ever done.    

Optimist: Guilt by association?  This isn’t the 1950s.  Is anyone pure as the driven snow?  I doubt it.  I think they are man enough to fess up that they were taken in by him in the same way that we were.

Pessimist: They probably won’t mention that they had already banned this guy many times and he should have had no credibility.   

Optimist:  But we all know they have.

Pessimist:  Why do you think they believed him without checking him out then?  They must have seen an IP match or something.

Optimist:  Perhaps he was so convincing that they were completely won over.  You remember how he always said what we wanted to hear?

Pessimist:  But they allowed members to print lies that broke their own rules on his word!

Optimist:  Yes, that is one thing that is unforgivable and very damaging.

Pessimist:  I don’t think they have it in them to apologize!

Optimist:  Oh – I’m sure they do!  Any honorable person would, if the evidence was staring them in the face…

Pessimist:  Don’t underestimate one main factor in this; pride.  Leaders who are not confident in their leadership might see an apology as a sign of weakness.

Optimist:  But to me it would be a reason to respect them.

High crimes and Misdemeanors

Time to lighten up a little.  I hope you read this in the spirit in which it was intended, both serious and amusing.  Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. 

Confession: I was once banned from susan-boyle.com for a week.  It happened at my third Warning.  In the interest of honesty and full disclosure I will confess my abysmal crimes. 

The first Warning was for violating an unwritten forum policy.  You might ask how I know about this policy, if it was unwritten.  I know because Doc Robbie told me about it when he gave me the first Warning.  He said it was against forum policy to “discuss banned members”.

This happened on Christmas Eve, right after DJG-Scotland was permanently banned.  He was a friend of mine and I was sorry it happened.  So I put a yellow ribbon in my signature and the words “A yellow ribbon to DJG-Scotland”.  I had no idea it was such a heinous offense.  Maybe it would have been okay if I used a red ribbon.

I wondered where that policy was posted and asked Doc Robbie to point it out for me.  Turns out it wasn’t posted anywhere.  I do not know under which section of unwritten policies this particular one belongs.  It is hard to tell when they are unwritten. 

 It could be under the group of policies which are unwritten because they are only enforced when convenient to the mods.  But I suspect it was one of the policies which are unwritten because they are only enforced against some members, because I have seen other occasions when banned members were discussed.  But it didn’t matter that the admin could not show me where the “policy” was posted.  The Warning stood.

Well, now I was feeling really down.  DJG, who often cheered me up with his humor, was gone and I had gotten an Official Warning.  Bummer.  The reason Doc Robbie gave me for the unwritten policy prohibiting discussion of banned members was that it would lead to ”a protest of that action by staff”.  Hmmm….. what if I put something in  my signature that only I would see.  I could type it in white text and then no one but me would know it was there.  That way, there wouldn’t be any protesters storming the staff room, demanding the return of DJG.

So I wrote “Miss ya, DJG” in white text in my signature.  The only way to see it was to select it, as if you were going to copy it.  And who would do that in someone’s blank signature? 

I had not told a single person what I had put in my signature.  But the subject had come up at the humor forum when someone mentioned invisible ink.  I joked that typing in white did the same thing.  There have always been members at DJG’s that go there, not to participate, but to lurk.  Kalua was one such member and must have seen the bit about white-on-white text.  I wonder who had the job of checking my posts and signature every day for secret messages.

Someone selected the blank space in my signature and saw my “private” message.  I got another PM from Doc Robbie saying I was trying to “circumvent the rule” I had violated earlier.  I don’t know when it happened, but the unwritten “policy” had become an unwritten “rule”.  I didn’t understand what the big deal was, because I thought no one would see it.  If no one sees it, it can hardly lead to protests of any kind, can it?  I was obeying the spirit of the law, rather than the letter of the law.  I removed the non-visible writing, but I now had two Warnings, both for violating that same unwritten rule.  After I got the warning, they wrote a rule about white-on-white text.

My third Warning came for doing something that has been done by others both before and after I did it.  I linked to a spoof.  It was one that the staff found unacceptable and I was banned.  After I was banned, they wrote a rule about linking to spoofs.  At least that rule was posted, I thought, so others will know that they could get a Warning for linking to a spoof.  But, like the unposted rules, that was not always enforced either.

So now you know.  I was given Warnings for things which were not officially prohibited at the time I did them.  As a result of those three Warnings, I was banned for a week.  I apologize for not anticipating what the unposted rules would be.  It is especially hard to figure them out when other members do the same things, without any consequences. 

Sometimes the staff at the fansite complain that they are disrespected.  I cannot imagine why that might happen.  Wouldn’t this sort of off-the-cuff, make up rules as we go along and enforce them retroactively style of moderation greatly increased anyone’s respect for staff? 

Postscipt:  If anyone believes those warnings were absurd and couldn’t have happened that way, I will be glad to send you copies of the messages.

WHAT IF IT WAS AN INSIDE JOB?

What if it was all based on lies?  What if the events of last July never had to happen?

What if there was someone posting poison about Susan Boyle fans and forums?

What if he got to some of the mods?

What if he got to the admins and they believed him?

What if staff sent out messages begging some members to help protect the forum from an “attack” that was never planned?

What if staff accused the two people who were trying to acquire the forum for members of being liars?

What if staff accused other forums of being involved in a plot to “take over”, but that plot never existed?

What if staff let in banned members to make it appear that the “others” were doing so?

What if it was staff who caused the chaos on the forum by changing names, deleting threads, etc?

What if staff allowed a member to post a whole thread of lies about other members, in gross violation of the rules?

What if they had an "investigation" and didn't request all the data for review?

What if the “investigation” only looked for unauthorized access by an outsider/hacker?

What if the disruption was caused by well-meaning, but misguided staff members who genuinely felt at risk of the site being taken from them?

If any of that happened, would they ever tell us?

The reason to look at the history of the fansite forum is to understand why things happened the way they did.  But it is not necessary to do an in-depth analysis to know what is needed going forward.  There are some things that can be done immediately.

The first thing to do is to clear up any misunderstandings about what happened last July.  Some of the staff believed the lies of a very successful and persistent cyber-bully.  They repeated those lies, claiming Dyebat, lchris, Citroenlady and members of other forums were involved in a plot to take over the fansite.   It was not true.

Second, explain that it was staff who caused the problems on the forum, including letting in banned members and creating other mayhem.  Perhaps they can explain how this was supposed to help, because I cannot. 

Third, get rid of the cyber-bully immediately every time he comes back.  Report him to the police.  Quit listening to him themselves and advise members to do the same.  Explain to members that someone who claims to have inside information about music matters is not necessarily to be trusted.

And finally, take a look at the rules.  If there are going to be rules, they should be enforced in the same manner for all members.  The rules should apply to everyone or no one.  There is a pervasive feeling among members that the rules are not applied equally to all.  I don’t believe this is limited to so-called contentious members. 

There will be some who clamor that the forum is fine the way it is.  I have noticed that it is always the same few people.  They could be the ones who get the favored treatment, even when they are contentious. 

I also think that the staff would find that if they let up a bit on the heavy hand of moderation, things would be easier, without being out of control.  If you treat people like children, they tend to live down to your expectations.  Try treating them like adults and see if they don’t live up to your expectations.

It is not necessary to wait to do the things required to move forward.  Explain about the hoax attack and the cyber-bully unambiguously.  Clear the names of those who did not do the things of which they were accused.  Moderate the forum in a fair and equal way.