Zoe probably confused a thread from a few years ago with this one. It is easy to get confused when you have three different browser windows open side by side doing careful comparisions between blocks of text.
Not much doubt about that! But in looking at the few responses on the scale I presented, coupled with the inconsistent information that Phlosphr has presented at SDMB at various times that I am aware of and that anyone has access to, then I made the right decision according to my own standards of what was the right thing to do.
Guinastasia, the thread that you linked to was not one that I had in mind.
I had fully intended to post more – some of it trivial and ignorant, some of it offensive (to me, anyway). At that time I did not fully understand (and still don’t, really) the extent of the uproar over the outing of people for lying.
Tomndebb, without his mod hat, early on in this thread suggested that it might be better to submit the information to the staff because apparently doper dishonesty is a hot topic and no one wants a major brawl breaking out with everyone outing everyone else for discrepencies. At that point a dim light went on behind my eyes. That was when I chose, for the time being, not to post anything more here from Phlosphr’s posts.
I pitted Phlosphr for violating the rule against knowingly posting false information. I stopped after posting only one such incident which is considered subject to interpretation by most.
Well then, Zoe, either put up or shut up. Quit hinting about “secret evidence”, you sound like Joseph fucking McCarthy.
[quote]
Bricker**, I counted all “four” of those who responded to my questions. But I confess that I counted monstro’s double post twice. :smack:
No.
And you are misquoting me.
Zoe- I hate to agree with Guinastasia (and everyone else): but- apologize and drop it. Please.
Zoe, you’re digging yourself into a hole, and every time somebody tries to tell you to stop you just pull a bigger shovel. Quit now, please ask a mod to close this and drop your obsession with Phlosphr.
I understand that you think that I was wrong. I respect your right to think that.
I am blissfully free of the need to clarify myself on these boards: Je suis honnêtement moi!
(Well, except for that bit there. I don’t speak French, even with several years of classes at the elementary, high school and college levels; I just used Babelfish.)
Anyway, I’m among those wondering if this place is worth my dough if things continue on in this fashion. Really, for my dollar, I want more threads with gobear describing his physique and fewer of these debacles… 
Well, there’s two sides to that. For one, this is and always has been a public message board, on the internet. So anything you write on here could conceivably be read by thousands of people from all over the world. And there are genuinely dangerous people out there in addition to just the annoying morons, so it’s always a good idea to show some discretion in your posts.
On the other hand, I hate to be so trite as to say something like “the terrorists will have already won,” but it’s kind of the same idea. How much are you going to let what some jackass might do, affect what you do? You can either brush it off, or you can let it turn you into someone as bitter, paranoid, and petty as the people you suspect are trying to backstab you. Seems like it’s a lot easier to just acknowledge that there are bottom-feeders out there, and then take the high road and not have to second-guess everything you say or do.
The message board isn’t full of people like that. My only evidence is that statistically, it couldn’t possibly be – if any group of people had such a high population of idiots, then man would never have discovered fire.
But if the people who do have enough sense all get freaked out and leave the board, then there’ll be nothing left except for the idiots, and me talking about penises. Who wants that?
moi, I don’t think you are likely to find that in the Pit, IMHO, or Mundane Pointless Stuff.
You might try Cafe Society. I dunno.
Do you believe that anyone at all in this thread believes you were right?
I understand that you believe you were right, according to your own principles. But do you think anyone else at all is in agreement with that analysis?
Does that really matter? Not defending the OP, which I also think is kind of a wankfest, but principles usually don’t (or shouldn’t) bend to the will of the crowd. If Zoe truly believes that Phlosphr had somehow done something that is bad for the board, she should do something about it.
“If ten people tell you you’re drunk – go and lie down.”
While principles should not bend to the whim of the moment, if a collection of people (especially here, where you’re lucky to get three people to agree that water is wet) all disagree that you are taking a principled stand, it’s probably worth at least taking a second look at your assumptions.
In other words, while I agree that the majority vote doesn’t PROVE the minority position wrong, the minority should give strong weight to the evidence that everyone else disagrees, since, if everyone else disagrees, there’s likely a good reason for the unanimity of disapproval.
Zoe, you have to understand that the only “proof” we have of Philosphr’s “lapse in integrity” is what you’ve brought to the table. You have chosen to not report any more of your proof (fair enough). I certainly am not going to take it upon myself to wade through thousands of posts to cement your assertion. Even if I did have the free time, surely something in my life would rank higher than exposing mundane inconsistencies in fellow Dopers’ back stories.
And could there be anything more mundane than a RenFaire?
So far the only proof you’ve brought to a Pitting entitled, “Philosphr, I Pit Your Lapses in Integrity” is a post where Philosphr is considering joining the SCA, which is dated after another post where he claims to already belong.
Even if your assertion that he lied is spot on, the fact is that your smoking gun seriously lacks firepower. In the grand scheme of things, whether he’s a charter member, a new member, or just an SCA wannabe is not all that important to anyone save yourself. Why it is important to you is indeed puzzling. And if my toilets didn’t need a good scrubbing, I’d wonder what your real agenda is here.
I just read the linked thread. Zoe, I feel for you. As a psychologist myself, I have been surprised by Phlosphr’s lack of sophistication in discussing psychological matters. Does that mean he is lying about being a psychologist? (And none of that “he has a PhD in psychology, but that doesn’t make him a psychologist” crap, please. He calls himself a psychologist. He reports that his speciality is environmental psychology, but he would still have had to take classes in other areas of psychology, including traditional clinical psychology. He is also presumably a member of the American Psychological Association and has agreed to abide by their ethics code.) So is he misrepresenting himself? I don’t know. I certainly haven’t read anything that to me is proof, so no pitting from me. I can understand why you are suspicious, but that isn’t proof.
The SCA stuff is unimportant to me. If he is misrepresenting himself as a psychologist, that bothers me, but I don’t see proof of that. In psychology, there is room to disagree. I also take into account that some people don’t express themselves well in writing and that someone had to graduate last in their class.
I keep telling mr. e I want to go to Vegas, but this isn’t quite what I meant.
E.
I’m sorry, I was taking a moment to enjoy the accidental sequence that took place in posts #130 and #131:
**Sol Grundy ** - “…there’ll be nothing left except for the idiots, and me talking about penises. Who wants that?”
Zoe - “moi…”
Okay, I’m done with the juvenile chortling. To business.
Zoe, in post 128 of this thread you say that you understand that people disagree with you. That’s nice – that subtle tendency might have been lost on a less perceptive person. But it’s barely a start. If you could expand that narrow window of understanding to encompass the reasons why everyone disagrees with you, and no one is agreeing with you, and why such unanimity (especially on this board) is significant, then you’d be making some progress. Here’s a hint. It’s because in pitting Phlosphr for knowingly posting false information:
A) You twice misreported things he said. He did not claim to have been an SCA member, and he did not say the mead was worth the membership.
B) The only other contradiction you point to is between a post in which he said he and his wife had never dressed in period clothing and an earlier one in which he said they had garb from Randall. I don’t know what semantic differences there may be between “period clothing” and “garb,” though it appears there are some, but I can see that the word “garb” can mean any number of items of apparel, including some amount less than required for authenticity, that “period clothing” could reasonably be shorthand for full, authentic costuming, that it might be possible to buy something called garb from Randall that is not period clothing, and that there’s certainly a difference between having something and wearing it.
C) Even if your accusations were proven, they are just depressingly trivial. I refuse to take seriously an issue that could be resolved by strapping Phlosphr onto the rack and torturing him until he came up with a satisfactory answer to the question “Are you now or have you ever been seen wearing a silly hat?”
D) Your hinting (I’m sorry, you didn’t hint, you proclaimed) in your OP at “other lapses,” without proving or even naming them was not cute. Your continued refusal to produce other examples while still referring to them was downright ugly. Your justifying this with Tomndebb’s post was downright hideous. This is why – you weren’t instructed in any way not to provide evidence for your assertions in this thread, you do not claim to have actually provided these examples to the SDMB staff, and you have continued to refer to these other lapses since.
E) The one thing not trivial about your complaint is it’s potential to cause harm. A lie may be inconsequential, but the label “liar” is not. Especially when it is based not on very good evidence that relies on the reader’s interpretation. Phlosphr may be the proverbial (cartoonial?) dog on the internet – I don’t know. But accusations of lying are either demonstrably true and clear beyond doubt for all to see, or they are the worst kind of defamation possible in a community like this. To so accuse based on mere indications of deception is to me inexcusable. You claim to be a retired English teacher. Someone comes along and says no retired English teacher would use parentheses the way you did in your OP in this thread, and hints at other anomalies to be named later. You can now either spend the rest of your life defending yourself against this someone, or risk accepting the label “liar.” Or you can hope that that thread turns out the way this one seems likely to, only with a graceful admission by your accuser that he was wrong.
The dim light you saw a while ago was a door left ajar by which you might still gracefully exit this mess.
OPTIMIST!
Yes. Misunderstandings need not be permanent, accusations can be retracted, sins can be forgiven, and charity toward all can be the order of the day.