Posted by Rick [Rick] on November 11, 1999 at 15:47:50 {mJnjjpluA67ajbiu2wnkFMFBt36Xyc}:
Dear friends,
It has come to my attention that some who are new and mistakenly revealed their true identities are being discouraged from trying to establish anonymous identities on this site.
The purpose of not posting under your real name, I must emphasize, is because using a moniker or pseudonym creates serious difficulties for judicial committees. The present theocratic arrangement is designed to root out clearcut cases of wrongdoing. Think of this theocratic system as run by volunteer "judges" (elders) who filter out obvious wrongdoing at the very least. It starts from an ideal of disfellowshiping convicted cases of murder, adultery, fornication and theft, and gets increasingly complex as the circumstances veer away from outright criminal wrongs to perceived wrongdoing.
As we reach the fuzzy end of the spectrum, elders must either drop a judicial case for lack of evidence, or make an arbitrary decision similar to that demanded from small claims court judges.
Suppose a brother named Pete Smith is posting to a controversial forum such as H2O under the screen name "Xon" and one day mistakenly places his real name in the name field. Sister Concerned immediately posts a reply "Brother Pete Smith from the White Falls congregation, I knew that was you but wasn't 100% sure until now! It is really you isn't it?"
No answer.
Sister Concerns prints the posts and gives them to the elders. They explain that what they hold in their hand is "heresay," pieces of paper signed by a mysterious "Xon" that put the name Pete Smith in the name field. They explain to her that "apostates" might be trying to do what they perceive as a "favor" to the real brother Smith. They call him, ask him if he has posted, and he truthfully says he hasn't. The fact is, which is none of anyone's busines, that Pete's friend Mike who is in his congregation cuts and pastes Pete's posts and enters "Xon" with a registered password.
Again, all this is none of anyone's business.
The elders, having been told by the one that Sister Concern accused that he didn't post that message (actually, Mike was kind enough to put it up on the forum for Pete), they drop the matter. Some might side with Sister Concerned in her concerns about Pete, but they will only form a judicial committee for clearcut cases. How could they possibly proceed unless they went online themselves and played private detective? They're married with kids, spend the little spare time they have shepherding and preparing for talks and the TM schools, and might not even have the computer saavy to perform anything resembling an online "investigation." So they drop the matter.
Sister Concerned contacts known "apostates" and urges them to please get "Xon" to admit he is indeed posting. (Everyone assumes it's Pete but after an episode a few years earlier with the elders who told him to stop posting, the majority considerately play along -- but not Sister Concerned and a few "apostates.")
While the few so-called "apostates" keep pestering to get "Xon" to fess-up to his true identity (which is against the policies of the forum), Sister Concerned knows if she could get her hands on one post where he fesses up, she could get that judicial committee fired up. Little does either side know that the elders don't want to "prosecute" such cases of free speech, and are hoping dearly that new light from the Society eventually will allow them to tell Sister Concerned where she can stick her printouts (back into her bookbag of course). In the interim, they're obliged to act on technicalities and she wins if "Xon" admits publicly he is Pete. Those so-called "apostates" she has been asking to help her reveal his identity also "win" by forcing "mother" to take off her velvet gloves and discipline Pete.
The bottomline is the elders in Pete's congregatio know he's posting as "Xon" but unless a public connnection between Pete and Xon is made by Pete himself, and then Pete acknowledges privately that it was him (and not an imposter), the elders will do nothing. They don't want to do anything. They're overworked, under-rested, financially strapped and some are nearing burnout. They don't need to fight sleep late into the night at committee hearings.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, it's noted that there's no mistake that those who setup H2O with anonymity in mind knew all the "ropes." They even speculate that those like Sister Concerned actually enjoy hearing disfellowshiping announcements from the platform (really gets their adrenalin pumping). The Society knows that if someone wants to exercise free speech under a moniker or pseudonym or even post through someone else, there's nothing they can do based on their own system.
Those who pester anyone into revealing their true identity should watch out, because their posts are subject to removal.
This creates a situation where every member of the GB and writing department could start posting. Even though it is suspected without a confession, and as long as they deny everything (debatably a "white lie" in a similar spirit of the public relations site's claim that nobody has ever been harmed by disfellowshiping?) and clear out their disk cache frequently, then rarely will you see a committee formed.
I think if everyone will stop trying to second-guess others' identities, you'll see more higher level friends in Bethel participating.
Rick