Posted by Rick [Rick] on November 08, 1999 at 16:33:04 {Nq8EnQ8RVA7ajbiu2wnkFMFBt36Xyc}:
In Reply to: AP=Greg Stafford=Travis=? posted by Lobo on November 08, 1999 at 15:32:45:
One of H2O's admins was reminded that the FPP supports the use of a second ID for matters where one feels they cannot use their first ID. The only exception is where the use of multiple ID's are for clear deceit.
The intended "spirit of the law" has always been this:
Suppose that John Smith (fictitious name for this fictitious example) felt that he was being treated terribly unfairly for making a human blunder, but due to family considerations didn't want to cause his opponents to retaliate (i.e., contact his employer to get him fired by falsely claiming his blunder proved him of dishonest character, or committing other mischief against him). John decides to create a second ID named "Vortauk" and expresses his personal opinion about the opponents, including his own commentary about the falacy of their attacks against John Smith.
Later, John Smith is found out. Did John Smith violate the FPP? Not at all. His intentions were to express a personal opinion that he genuinely feared would reap reprisals against himself and possibly his family and even.
This form of multiple personality is commonly used on forums where a person wishes to express a personal opinion against a political opponent, a fellow professor, or other instance where using their faculty of free speech would result in vicious retaliation by ones who didn't like criticism.
Abuse of this is illustrated as follows: John Smith is a plastic surgeon who encourages those who need face lifts to contact him. He invents Joe Schmoh who subsequently posts that he was a patient of John Smith's and is very satisfied with his plastic surgery, but accidently posts using John Smith's logon (so that [JohnSmith] appears in brackets). This form of deceit is severe because it involves false advertising of a service.
Lesser errors are obviously like this example: John Smith is warned by his elders that he cannot participate in a forum that allows those the organization as branded as "apostates" the ability exercise their faculty of free speech. He is only allowed to post to forums where those whom the organization disapproves are forbidden to publicly express their personal views and opinions.
John is in a quandry, and decides he must express his own opinions about his elders controlling his personal opinions expressed publicly online. In order to "transition" himself over, John registers as "Vortauk" and proceeds to post. His first objective is to distance himself from time-consuming debates that made it difficult for him to continue participating as himself, so he tells everyone he reviewed all his posts, they look like good arguments, so he doesn't wish to belabor the issue further. However, he forgot to close his Netscape browser and his old login [JohnSmith] appears next to "Vortauk."
What nobody realizes is that had John succeeded in getting the issue dropped, he could debate the really important issues. He planned on mentioning that in a democratic country, should his elders have the legal right to prevent the exercise of free speech at the threat of sanctioning personal privileges within the organization? This seriously bothered him, but he was willing to keep the peace by going along. However, as "Vortauk" he wished to discuss these issues as was his free legal right as a U.S. citizen under the Constitution. He just couldn't accept that an organization had the moral right to control his speech, and could not find any scripture giving the apostles the right to control the speech of congregation members, etc., etc.
John admitted that he messed up in his attempt to transition himself to "Vortauk," causing him further problems with the elders who now know that John believes not just superficially in free speech, but appreciates the underlying principles of freedom of speech. This poses a serious problem because modifying John's behavior is more difficult or next to impossible, if John realizes that the behavior they're trying to modify goes against ethical principles of free will that go as far back as the garden of Eden. How does one get another to voluntarily relinquish their faculties of free speech of they appreciate the ethical and scriptural values associated with it? This would mean that John could not be entrusted with higher responsibilities in the organization, because his values could infect younger ones who followed organizational directives not to speak openly in forums where apostates are allowed to speak. The concern was that John's example of speaking out could lead younger ones to conclude that the issue of "apostates" was a side issue and not the real concern.
In any event, John's mistake was not intentional but those hating him wanted to hold him to it as a technicality, while those in the organization were upset because his actions revealed that he valued freedom of speech.
As a result, John is caught like a deer in oncoming headlights with nowhere to jump -- that is, jump left into the arms of wolves seeking to destroy him, jump right into the hands of those wanting to prosecute him for revealing that he believed in the underlying values of freedom of speech. >> End of last example. <<
In summary, John's technical error looked bad on the surface and was thus very exploitable by his opposers, but in fact is was forgivable from an FPP standpoint. Both sides -- his opposers and the organization -- turned on John. However, this lesser error (as contrasted by the first example given) is hardly worth censoring his right to participate and speak freely on H2O.
Rick