Okay, recently several of us SDMBers got hit with a bunch of “Cheer up!” messages. Apparently, someone named ‘Sarah’ IMed everyone she could (including people she did not know) and asked them to send a message to us to ‘cheer us up.’
22 total messages were sent. Each was sent to 28 people. So far, I’ve been able to identify the e-mail addresses for: myself (John Corrado), Ayesha, Missy2U, Kat, Osip, Milossarian, LovableOne, Democritus, an waterj2.
A couple of questions.
One: Would the moderators like me to send them copies of the e-mails sent to me/us? Given that I have no association with any of the other people in that list other than on the SDMB, I’m assuming that our names were lifted from said source.
Two: If I give the moderators/techs the e-mail addresses that these messages were sent to, would they easily be able to discern the SDMB users they apply to, or would it just be a matter of going through the board and clicking on “Profile” like I’ve been doing?
(Just for the record- I’ve checked over the threads that I’ve posted to in the last five days, and found no thread in which: A) all of the people on the e-mail list posted and B) no one else with an e-mail addy in their profile posted. In addition, given that LovableOne has 4 posts, and I haven’t found any correlation between her posts and any of the rest of us, I’m clueless.)
I got a mess of them too.
(Maybe it was from techchick68, or a helper of hers.
I sent her my photo for that thing.
She’s the only one I remember emailing around here.)
However, most of the “from” names are scriptural, so
it might be that troll who “prays” for everyone.(Preys?)
Naah; I doubt that. There’s only two really scriptural names (ILoveJesus412 and SoulRestorer); the rest are just, well, normal, I guess. (Babykitty, MickeyMousebaby, Azrodeocow, Sk8ergirl, etc.) Or at least normal as far as the Internet goes.
As for who you sent e-mail- doesn’t matter. Click on your profile (as I just did) and your e-mail is listed. So anyone on the board could have grabbed it. (Also, by negative inference it’s disproved- I never sent a photo in for posting.)
I dunno, Show_Biz. Hit anyone upside the head with a verbal punch on the boards recently?
I got the same series of messages. Came really close to setting my account up to bounce AOL mail. Has anyone figured out any commonality between the victims other than the fact that we’re all registered here? Any common threads, so to speak?
We’re still investigating the situation (and y’all can stop sending me copies now, thankyouverymuch), but we think someone with a warped sense of humor registered y’all with a prayer circle or some such stuff.
Please don’t yell at these people that are performing these mundane acts of kindness; they’re well intentioned and don’t need to be bitched at, it’s not their fault.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
The Straight Dope
FWIW, my WAG as to what all the victims have in common…
There has been a certain amount of discussion lately, in different contexts and different threads, of posters who quote/unquote “hijack” threads. We aren’t talking about the normal hijack, where the thread topic is “Cruise Ships” and somebody hijacks it to talk about pollution in the Caribbean. Rather, we’re talking about where somebody starts a flame thread saying, “So-and-so is the goat-felching offspring of a Mongoloid contortionist and an endangered species of newt”, and subsequent posters consider this topic boring or annoying, so they hijack the thread and start talking about sports or weekend plans instead.
I don’t have any scientific data to support my WAG, but it’s possible that everybody on the list has been guilty of doing this at least once, where whoever pulled the e-mail hoax could see it and be annoyed by it.
And it doesn’t have to have been recently–it’s possible that Le Perpetrateur has been keeping a Little List for a long time.
P.S. I also think it’s significant that this happened shortly after the Pit thread on “where are all the creative trolls?” was started. Obviously, somebody is just trying to make us happy. “You said you wanted creativity, how’s this?”
DDG - I tend to agree with you - the only thread I ever posted on in the pit having to do with trolls really was the one where I wondered if OgreFade/Urge was back and remarked “wonder when the IMs are going to start”.
In any event, Tuba, I emailed you - the addresses of who sent me stuff only - not the emails themselves. Thanks for all you’re trying to do to get this straightened out.
Apparently the truth has dawned upon the nice folks that wanted to cheer you up; they are now aware they were used to harass the members of this board.
They’re upset about it too and will report and/or press charges against the perpetrator(s), when found.
So cut them a break, please, they were victims as much as each of you.