Sandy Larsen Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 2 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said: In my OPINION, Sandy Larsen has flagrantly, repeatedly abused his position as a moderator to suspend and punish members with whose opinions he disagrees, while constantly moving the goalposts for the "rules" of what he alone considers acceptable decorum. James, What Jonathan Cohen isn't telling you is that Mark Knight, Ron Bulman and I (the admin team) all voted to put him on probation. I just happened to be the one who nominated him for that. Shortly thereafter, Jonathan voluntarily quit posting. The reason he quit posting is that he knew that he was on probation for good reason. He had a long history of making fun of people's posts, while rarely adding anything of value himself. Jonathan is now speaking up to get revenge on me. It is a fact that, since I became a member of the admin team, we no longer have members mocking and ridiculing other members for their ideas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Cohen Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 38 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said: Jonathan is now speaking up to get revenge on me. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Isn't it against forum rules to question the motivations of another member? You have zero evidence or proof of your statement, so I suggest you retract and delete it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandy Larsen Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 27 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said: 1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said: Jonathan is now speaking up to get revenge on me. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Isn't it against forum rules to question the motivations of another member? You have zero evidence or proof of your statement, so I suggest you retract and delete it. It's my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandy Larsen Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 3 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said: In my OPINION, the forum will never reach its potential with Larsen in charge and, in fact, his presence is actively driving people away to other places of discussion. LOL what? I'm driving people away? The fact is we have by far the most active JFKA forum on the internet. And -- other than for this recent Pat Speer thing -- the forum runs pretty smoothly. The mods don't need to hand out many warning points to keep it that way. Jim DiEugenio has said multiple times that this is the best JFK forum on the internet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk Gallaway Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 First off, it is a tough job. When Sandy threatened to suspend several people, including Pat in a recent post. I thought it was ill reasoned . I probably should have said something at the time but I didn't think he'd go through with it. I appreciate Sandy has taken an initiative as I believe for example the narrative of what happened to the 56 year thread was a bit like the Warren Commission findings, but seem to be accepted by most members here. I thought the cause of the threads demise was the neglect of the mods who after I' m sure much exasperation were content to let the thread go to sh-t.. Having said this, I'm not pushing reopening the 56 year thread. What's done is done. But I thought a more hands on approach might be better, but I did find some of Sandy's explanations not well reasoned and could just be an example of intolerance as I thought was his threat to suspend several members. You can't suspend someone for just disagreeing with you. I think Jonathan's style can be abrasive but he's one of the better critical thinkers here and I'm often in agreement with him. I've seen the shock waves to people who in my mind hold on to dogma here. But are we really to cowtow to them? In my mind there was much more dogma here 5 years ago when I thought nearly everybody thought exactly the same in 90% of the JFKA subtopics, and now there is more of a pushback, which IMO is a good thing. I think the RFK assassination should be discussed here. Unfortunately it's been used as opening to discuss the RFK candidacy, but not near as often as before, and to that I credit other members pushing back on it or examining the candidate in more depth and his actual views on the issues, which the RFK advocates didn't really want to do. I do think there's some hot dogging going on in that people post for attention more than they post to discuss the topic at hand so when their post gets moved to "political discussion" for example, rather than to continue to post there, they throw up their hands and whine because they no longer get the attention. Yet if people were earnestly interested in discussing the topic at hand, there's no reason that the dialog can't continue in another place. JMO's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Allison Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 (edited) 2 hours ago, Roger Odisio said: It was discussing the little known fact that, besides Naguchi's autopsy that showed the fatal shots were fired at close range from behind Kennedy There is an entire board on the Education Forum dedicated to the RFK assassination. RFK assassination stuff belongs there. To James Gordon- I believe this forum is run exceptionally well, and that is why it is successful. I have received admonitions and penalties from moderators Knight and Larsen, and I admit that I deserved them. Mea culpa. I keep my political tirades in the space that Sandy Larsen created, the Coolers Board, which was, quite honestly, a brilliant way to allow free discussion on the EF without disrupting the specific discussions that each board are dedicated to. The EF and the various boards on here are jewels of the internet, and that is something all participants should be proud of. -Matt Edited June 5 by Matt Allison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Morrow Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 2 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said: Greg Parker's late, great forum (which thankfully still exists in read-only form), Duncan MacRae's forum (which authoritatively dispels a lot of the nonsense peddled around here), Reddit discussions, Tony Krone's forum, etc. I joined Duncan MacRae's forum years ago. Then I defended Madeleine Brown on Education Forum. In response to that, Duncan MacRae BANNED ME FROM HIS JFK FORUM and I had not even posted there. In other words, he did not debate me on the merits of Madeleine Brown in either discussion board, he merely banned me immediately for having a view he did not like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James R Gordon Posted June 5 Author Share Posted June 5 Robert, Tolerance was and must continue to an important principle of this forum. Members will always disagree but we must no longer go to war about it. Members must learn to live with a public disagreement from a fellow member. Unless the disagreemnt fundamentally undermines a member I advise that member try to live with the different opinion. I am happy for members to disagree with each other, but I want members to live with each other. I do not want wars breaking out all over the place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Odisio Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 30 minutes ago, Matt Allison said: There is an entire board on the Education Forum dedicated to the RFK assassination. RFK assassination stuff belongs there. The simple answer to your assertion, Matt, is so what. There should be a separate RFK forum. But to think the murders of the two brothers is unrelated, that there is nothing to learn about the JFKA from information gleaned from Bobby's killing is obviously wrong. Isn't it? Is that hard to understand? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandy Larsen Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 4 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said: When Sandy threatened to suspend several people, including Pat in a recent post. I thought it was ill reasoned... You can't suspend someone for just disagreeing with you. Kirk, I did not threaten to suspend "several people." All I did was notify Pat Spear that he was violating a forum rule and that I would have to penalize him if he didn't correct it. 4 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said: When Sandy threatened to suspend several people, including Pat in a recent post. I thought it was ill reasoned... You can't suspend someone for just disagreeing with you. My Pat-Speer decision was and is extremely well reasoned. Nobody has been able to prove it wrong. Why don't you give it a shot? Here we go... Pat's claim is that James Jenkins said the large wound was on top of the head. My decision, upon reading Keven's proof, was that Pat was wrong. So you are now saying that Pat is right? If so, show me one single instance of James Jenkins saying the wound was on the top of the head. I know you can't because Jenkins has always been very consistent with where he placed the wound. He has ALWAYS said the wound was on the back of the head. He has NEVER said the wound was on the top of the head. Jenkins is still alive, and he actually sent a message to Keven saying that Pat's claim is so ridiculous, it doesn't merit a response from him. 4 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said: You can't suspend someone for just disagreeing with you. I have never, ever penalized somebody for disagreeing with me. I don't know where you get off saying something like that. Produce one example of my doing that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Cummings Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 1 hour ago, Matt Allison said: There is an entire board on the Education Forum dedicated to the RFK assassination. RFK assassination stuff belongs there. To James Gordon- I believe this forum is run exceptionally well, and that is why it is successful. I have received admonitions and penalties from moderators Knight and Larsen, and I admit that I deserved them. Mea culpa. I keep my political tirades in the space that Sandy Larsen created, the Coolers Board, which was, quite honestly, a brilliant way to allow free discussion on the EF without disrupting the specific discussions that each board are dedicated to. The EF and the various boards on here are jewels of the internet, and that is something all participants should be proud of. -Matt Agree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandy Larsen Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 25 minutes ago, Roger Odisio said: Matt Allison said: There is an entire board on the Education Forum dedicated to the RFK assassination. RFK assassination stuff belongs there. 25 minutes ago, Roger Odisio said: Roger Odisio said: The simple answer to your assertion, Matt, is so what. There should be a separate RFK forum. But to think the murders of the two brothers is unrelated, that there is nothing to learn about the JFKA from information gleaned from Bobby's killing is obviously wrong. Isn't it? Is that hard to understand? Roger, We DO allow mixed-topic threads on the JFKA Debate board! As long as one of the topics is the JFKA. In fact, I think we have one on here right now. The exception has been if one of the topics is contemporary politics in nature. We've had a lot of heated discussions in those. However, we have become more tolerant of those now that the admins added a rule that, on the JFKA Debate forum, it is a violation to say anything bad about a contemporary politician or political party. With that rule built into the automated warning/penalty system, it is now a breeze to give warnings to people who violate the rule. This is a new policy that is under beta testing. So far it has worked well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W. Niederhut Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 43 minutes ago, Matt Allison said: There is an entire board on the Education Forum dedicated to the RFK assassination. RFK assassination stuff belongs there. To James Gordon- I believe this forum is run exceptionally well, and that is why it is successful. I have received admonitions and penalties from moderators Knight and Larsen, and I admit that I deserved them. Mea culpa. I keep my political tirades in the space that Sandy Larsen created, the Coolers Board, which was, quite honestly, a brilliant way to allow free discussion on the EF without disrupting the specific discussions that each board are dedicated to. The EF and the various boards on here are jewels of the internet, and that is something all participants should be proud of. -Matt Well said, Matt. There are always habitual malcontents in any group. (See the Moderator Complaints board for details.) In the case of the RFK, Jr. promoters, it's obvious that they have been twisting themselves into pretzels recently to justify posting old RFK assassination research findings-- mainly by Lisa Pease-- on the JFK Assassination board. Notice that they have largely ignored, or misunderstood, the original forum threads on Sirhan and the RFK assassination. If they're intellectually curious, they can learn a lot from the forum archives. Lisa Pease and Fernando Faura already mapped out the CIA, FBI, and LAPD cover up of the RFKA, and Dr. Daniel Brown did a stellar job of elucidating Sirhan's hypnotic programming. What is new in these recent RFK threads, other than the redundant sales pitches for RFK, Jr.'s 2024 campaign? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Allison Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 (edited) 2 hours ago, Roger Odisio said: The simple answer to your assertion, Matt, is so what. There should be a separate RFK forum. But to think the murders of the two brothers is unrelated, that there is nothing to learn about the JFKA from information gleaned from Bobby's killing is obviously wrong. Isn't it? Is that hard to understand? This particular thread isn't for debating your unsupported assertions about the two assassinations. But I will say this: flippant attitudes about the rules of the forum, as you seem to display above, IMO, are far more of a problem on this board than anything the moderators have ever done. Edited June 6 by Matt Allison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Cole Posted June 6 Share Posted June 6 Probably time for a fresh start, a new set of moderators, if any can be found. I do not criticize anybody. I am concerned that strong political and personal biases have crept into the EF-JFKA picture. The EF-JFKA should accept the full range of the political spectrum (excepting overt hate speech), and the EF-JFKA should discourage personal diatribes. The EF-JFKA, and its participants, should be tolerant of various views of the JFKA, and the RFK1A. No need for personal sniping. Try a comment such as, "Well, we are on different pages on this one," or something to that effect. Every effort should be made to encourage collegial conversation. Unfortunately, even moderators have occasionally sunk to personal insults, when one participant did not agree with their points of view. A housecleaning would allow a fresh start, under some solid guidelines regarding political biases (which we all have) and personal insults. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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