Integrity, is defined in the dictionary as ‘steadfast adherence
to a strict moral or ethical code’ but we can more simply
understand it as ‘a willingness to do what is right even
when no one is looking’. Individuals with high integrity
often also display courage, honesty, accountability, responsibility,
self-respect, openness, humility, and honor.
These are all traits which we value and seek to foster at BB = Baptist Board.
In my 21 years on public Bulletin Boards* i've frequently (about 6 times)
been the Moderator or Administrator of various Bulletin Boards.
I have to give a hand to Webmaster, making a successful Bulletin
Board is an extensive endeavor. Likewise I have to give a hand to
the Administrators and Moderators here who do a good job administrating and
moderating (it apparently is a job requirement - perform or get fired)
*Note: I didn't say "21 years on the Internet", I said "21 years
on public Bulletin Boards".
Unfortunately some folk who frequent the bb = bulletin boards,
are not people of integrity. I shall discuss one. This happened long
ago and far away (in a sense though it is nearyby in time and space).
If you happen to recoginize the person i describe, you will be discrete
and not mention what you know. I'll call the person 'Alan' though I
can't call him by his real name cause I don't know Alan's real name.
He is probably not any Alan you know or ever will know, at least i
hope so.
Alan found a chink in AOL's armor. AOL = American On Line, current
champion of responsibility on the internet, former foster of
complete undercover activities both good and ill. Anyway, the
IPs = Internet Protocalls, assigned by AOL were dynamically assigned.
As a non-AOL person I had an IP from my vendor that was assigned to
my machine, so net activitiey could be related back to me. But on
AOL each session, you got one of AOL's millions of IP addresses.
We were in a group EASY BOARDS that gave out bb=bulletin boards for
free (later they sold ads, then sold protection from the ads?).
You could be a member of all the bbs. They didn't check to see about
multiple members. Alan must have had a reminder every Tuesday
to make a new AOL identity and a new EazyBoard identity - never can
tell when it might come in handy. So Alan would show up with a
two year old idenity - couldn't be a repeat idenity, could it?
Anyway, the story I want to tell is about when Alan got mad at
the owner of a bb = bulletin board. It was a religious comfort zone,
and i guess he couldn't succeed at one, so he got mad at the successful.
I was administrating the bb. He told us he would make trouble for us,
and after about three weeks, he did right on 4th of July week-end
when i could stay home and fight Alan. He wrote a very ugly
"you are going to hell because of your sins" to several groups.
Only one group caused us trouble, but that was good for a week and we
had to close up: membership by approval only, posts by approval only,
password protected forums, etc.
Here were the groups that Alan sent "you are evil" posts to.
He made it look like he was the owner of the target bb: using
the owners user name with an 'o' at the end of 13 letters instead
of an 'e'.
1. Role Playing Gamers.
They didn't care, they were playing their role games and knew it
wasn't bad. I told them that Alan was a doppleganger - they knew
that is a demon that poses as someone else with the object of fooling them.
2. Mom's day out group.
Super Mom just closed up her bb so only who she wanted to post could post
and it wasn't me.
3. Some gay boys.
I told them we were hertosexuals and could care less about homosexuals,
there is room on different bbs for both.
4. Some ravers
They were high (probably) and didn't get the 'trick' that was put on
them by Alan. They gave me trouble for weeks. Unfortuantely they used
their web of bbs to plan their attack on me. I'd go read up and
see what they were going to do and stop it dead in it's tracks.
I sure had fun banning people only by association
