Logic fell on deaf ears. Despite the baselessness of the complaints filed by John and his friends, the thread was deleted, including that absolutely innocuous first post, leading John to first send one odd little missive, and then another, before we even got the news. Reading them, it was hard to tell exactly which part of his childhood John was reverting to (7). The House, to its shame, had radically empowered a troll who, in the words of one of their shemsu was "a little young for his age", and in those of Jeremiah, "everybody is a little afraid of". Or was, at least. So much for maintaining civility on the boards.

The operative word, when dealing with the House of Netjer, as we've found, is "cowardice". Given a situation in which the facts were trivially easy to confirm, and the ethics cut-and-dried, the management let the mob define reality for it, much as its members let the trolls do so for them. Within minutes of writing the letter you just saw, explaining the situation to the Nisut, Antistoicus noticed that he had received a letter from Stephanie Cass, the monitor for the board. Given her past history, he expected something irrational and unjust. He wasn't disappointed.

Mindlessly parroting what others had written, Cass wrote:

" The forums are meant for discussion of Kemet ... not for going after members of the forum community. What is between you and John/(kemetic name deleted) ... I am gathering from your post that this is something you weren't aware of ... "

What we were gathering from her letter was that she hadn't even bothered to actually read the posts before commenting on them. You've seen the first post Antistoicus made on the thread. Criticism of John was altogether absent on it, an undebatable fact which made no impression on Cass, who was to go on to say:

" While you did have some relevant discussion points in your posts, they seemed to be a vehicle for going after John/(name deleted). "

So much for objectivity, or even honesty.

You've seen the second post Antistoicus made, as well. The only criticism to be found in it, was a highly justified complaint that John (and company) had lied about what Antistoicus said. Are we to take it that if one is slandered in the forums, that one is not allowed to set the record straight? Believe it or not, the answer to that is "yes"! As Cass put it:

" While I am aware in the academic community ... it's entirely acceptable to go after someone's credibility in public, it is not true in our forums."

Yes, you read that right. Click on the link above to Stephanie's letter, and you can even see that this hasn't been taken out of context. Cass has actually had the nerve to come out in public, and, in effect, say that to beat somebody else in an argument is a violation of the rules. This is the proverbial wet dream of every kook who ever populated a Usenet group, or haunted a mailing list.

Let's also remember that this came in the context of a letter sent to explain why she had deleted yet another thread. Not only was Antistoicus not 'allowed' to successfully rebut the arguments of others on the board, but, according to Cass herself, if he did, all record of his having done so would be expunged from the board. Even the infamously censorious "Reader Circuit" crowd seldom went that far. Click on the aforementioned thread about Cleopatra, and click on the links back to the old posts on the thread under discussion. You'll come up dry, because Cass has deleted that entire thread. She couldn't allow them to go down in the public record as having lost an argument (ie. having been discredited). She said it herself.

Now, perhaps, you also know why kooks are in such ample supply on the Netjer boards. Cass has created a hostile environment for skeptics, their natural enemy. The next quote leaves no doubt as to where her sympathies lay. More quickly than one could say "blaming the victim", she offered the following 'friendly' advice:

" I know our board policy has been obfuscated for the last few months ... but I know it can be easy to forget these things. If you could take a moment to read them, it might help clarify some of the difficulties you've been having getting healthy discussions going here."

Sigh. Define "healthy discussion", Stephanie. But, here, she has come out, and made her attitude clear. Being the one charged with maintaining order on the board, she has chosen as her operating philosophy the attitude that the responsibility for abuse lies, not with the abuser, but with the abused. "Just give the kooks what they want, and they'll leave you be, and you can start having good discussions". Like, the one about Pre-Ptolemaic electrification, or the one about Caesar and Cleopatra having been black?

This is known as "appeasement". The price for giving the kooks what they want is that one will be allowing them to define reality in every discussion they notice. On those terms, a discussion can be nothing more than an exercise in ignorant insanity. The fact that the participants will be putting on a forced show of good spirits will not make the discussion a healthy one.

"You did agree to them originally when you signed up for an account on our forum."

No, Antistoicus absolutely didn't. By Cass' own acknowledgement, those policies were not in a visible location. This concept of an 'agreement' is preposterous. Let's say you've just signed a lease. One day, your landlord shows up, and starts carting off your furniture and jewelry. Naturally, you ask him why he's doing that. He hands you a paper on which the ink is still wet. "It's a rider to your lease". "Excuse me", you say, "I didn't sign this". "So what?", he asks, "you signed the lease, and this is part of it". The proper response is, "like (expletitive deleted) it is". Nothing is part of an agreement unless it's put in plain view at the time of the agreement, and Cass knows it. On any other terms, one could be forced to agree to everything, if one ever agreed to anything at all. Besides which, the 'agreement' was only implicit.

More importantly, to agree to a set of rules is not to agree to just any bizarre and unheard of interpretation of them that the management may dream up. Calling a counterargument against a weak point (or self-defense against an illegitimate complaint) a personal attack doesn't make it one. Whether Cass likes it or not, the House has portrayed itself as a place for serious scholarship, on its own website. As serious scholarship is not possible under her interpretation of "the rules", through this self-promotion, the House has implicitly promised to not engage in the very sort of behavior that we've seen out of her here, so even the 'elastic clause' they have built into the rules doesn't give her the leeway needed to justify her own personal abuse of authority. (8)

Question :

"Wait a second! Didn't Cass put a rule up, announcing that posts couldn't be copied? Doesn't that obligate you to refrain from doing so?

Answer :

No. As I pointed out elsewhere, such an announcement carries no legal weight, either in the US or the UK, under the circumstances. As for why there is no breach of contract issue, click here.

Continuing with her haughty attitude and disregard for such reality as was lying right in front of her, Cass wrote:

" Additionally, whether or not we have "taken action" with John/(name deleted) is between him and us. "

Rubbish, running contrary to two millenia of custom in small matters, and legal precedent in more serious ones. The victim of mistreatment has a right to justice, and a right to know when and how justice has been administered. Without the second right, the advocacy will be missing to ensure that the first right is more than an unenforced and unenforceable technicality. To take the path of least resistance, and appease a troublesome party (like John) by not administering justice becomes all too tempting, and in the absence of any possible criticism (since nobody will know), all too easy. But then, "taking the path of least resistance" has been what Steph has been preaching all along.

The comment is not on point, anyway, because as the reader could plainly see, in Antistoicus' second post, linked to earlier, his complaint was "Reverend" Cass' capricious enforcement of her ill-defined policies regarding civility, not her lack of a public announcement. (9)

Continuing to show remarkable courage in the face of the facts, Stephanie Cass then wrote:

"The House of Netjer chooses to keep private matters private when at all possible."

How on earth can a post put in a public place visited by thousands, possibly be a "private matter"?! When its up, it's there for all to see. When it has been removed, there is no disguising the fact. Cass wasn't even beginning to make sense at this point, and she was not about to start ...

"If your posts are an attempt to get us to "do something", I would ask you to desist and consider moving on to other subjects."

... an interpretation which boggles the mind. The first post Antistoicus made, which you saw earlier, showed the reader where to find a discussion about Geometry. The second, which you've also already seen, corrected a misrepresentation of what he had said. The fact that she was making no sense was umimportant, though, because, in Cass' words:

"In all matters regarding our congregation or potential congregation, Her Holiness and the priesthood will act according to our own assessments of the situation."

Pure, pseudo-clerical arrogance, and a beautiful illustration of the difference between Neopagan clergy and the real thing: the lack of humility. A true cleric knows that the sole source of his authority is his worthiness to wield it. When he is caught in a wrong, he apologizes, and that apology comes from the heart. The Neopagan impostors, like Cass, who pretend to be clergy, will merely assert their power, showing nothing more in the way of principle than is seen out of an animal as it marks its territory.

"We're going to do whatever we feel like, and don't you dare question that", when spoken by "clergy", speaks volumes about the stature of the "religious institution" granting those credentials, and none of it is good. The question remained, though - even if this one cleric was unworthy of clerical status, did she speak for the House or only for herself? Who better to ask, than the Nisut, herself, Rev. Tamara Siuda. Antistoicus had invited her to look at a thread which, now, she couldn't, because Cass had deleted it. To keep the test fair, he sent her copies of some of the thread that you just saw, and told her that he could send her the rest, if she wished, along with a copy Cass'letter, forwarded seperately. He then waited for a response.

He didn't have to wait long. Click here to continue.