The Present state of the EF and how it can be improved

[Benjamin Cole]

1 minute ago, Martin Nee said:

I am a very new member of this forum and I’m guessing younger than most here. The Ed forum threads often came up in my searches for more information on specific jfk related topics and I found the older ones very insightful. 
I decided to join as I though participating in the forum would give me the opportunity to talk directly to many of the authors and researchers who’s work I have enjoyed and to people who have studied this case since before I was born. 
Unfortunately while I have gotten a lot of positives from browsing this forum I think it suffers from the same issues a lot of boards and subreddits do where there is less of a focus on the “education” part and things tend to devolve into bickering over closely held beliefs and theories with a bit too much zealotry.

As a newbie I’d much rather there was more of a data over dogma approach and it does concern me that threads containing valuable insight discussions and info can be buried under long texts of arguments or wiped entirely. For example if I make a post asking about identifying a person in a photo with Oswald, it’s a little disappointing to see it become a thread largely dominated about people arguing wether Oswald was multiple people and which one was in the photo with the unidentified person. 
 

There is a lot of good and informative work done on this forum both in the past and presently. I would hope there is a way for it to be saved and an attempt made to build upon it for the sake of continued scholarship rather than have it live and die on an internet forum thread buried under pages of people accusing each other of wrongdoing and hurling insults. 

I hope to use this forum to

- gain valuable information it is hard to learn elsewhere 

- acquire links to sources that might not be readily available 

- see updates and informed discussion between authors and researchers 

- see challenges to orthodoxy and long held assumptions not met with instant suppression. The way to test a theory is to attempt to falsify it. 

That’s my two cents anyway 

 

MN- I hope you stick around. 

Many a civil collegial fellow has disappeared from the EF-JFKA. 

I agree 100%: All perspectives (other than hate rhetoric) should be treated with respect. 

I hope for collegial conversations with you.

If we disagree on certain event or issues, that's fine. That is what a forum is for. 

[Sandy Larsen]

54 minutes ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Unless the offensive comments were removed before I got there, neither Greg nor Jean Paul appears to have done anything worthy of suspension.

 

Jean Paul's remarks were disrespectful to the moderator. It appears that somebody has deleted that post, so I can't defend myself on it.

In Greg Doudna's case, he repeatedly lied. Here is his post with my comments in red:

I suppose Pat Speer, probably one of the top ten most productive researchers in America challenging the Warren Commission's version of the JFK assassination of long-time standing, won't be talking much more on this forum about any tangential shot interpretation.

Last night Sandy deleted him from this forum. 

That's a lie. I merely suspended his posting privileges for a few days.

For holding views which the same moderator who deleted him determined on his sole sayso had been "shown wrong" and therefore could not permissably continue to be be expressed.

That's a lie. Hard evidence showed that Pat had distorted the evidence in a way as to make it a appear the James Jenkins said something that he didn't say... that the wound was at the top of the head. Both Keven and I showed Pat that Jenkins never said that, and in fact said the wound was on the back of the head. I gave Pat the opportunity to rephrase what he said so as to make it factual. But Pat refused.

And that was just one of Pat's lies. The other of his lies was this: Pat claimed that Keven Hofeling AGREED that Jenkins placed the hole on top of the head. Which of course is a ridiculous notion.

In some old days I realized early on that in groups or movements which challenge fundamental status quos, there are ways and means by which those status quos can neutralize anyone who is effective.

Pat Speer has been effective.

Someone came on this forum with a vendetta and neutralized him. 

Not content to show Pat wrong through posted or published argument, the traditional manner of doing things.

That's a lie. Keven Hofeling posted voluminous arguments proving his case.

But crush him, blacken his name, silence him from saying what he thinks. 

That's a lie. Neither Keven nor I did anything to try to silence Pat from saying what he thinks. As a matter of fact, I encouraged Pat to state that "he thinks" that Jenkins placed the wound on the top of the head. Because that would have been the truth and there would be no penalty. But Pat refused.

The newcomer had no known previous history with the JFK assassination topic.

Shows up out of nowhere.

Offers no known original argument or analysis of his own.

That's a lie. Keven effectively and convincingly argued that what Pat was saying was a lie. He left no doubt on that.

Has published nothing on the JFK assassination.

Just advocacy of a certain existing interpretation...

That's a lie. Keven provided hard evidence for which no interpretation could be or need be made.

...used as a club and to bludgeon in the service of the only apparent discernible objective: a massive sustained attack on targeted Pat Speer with no letup or pause, over and over and over and over, until victory.

Repetition of talking points and memes and personal attacks.

Just took him out. (Victory.)

Those are the facts.

Those are several lies.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

24 minutes ago, Martin Nee said:

I am a very new member of this forum and I’m guessing younger than most here. The Ed forum threads often came up in my searches for more information on specific jfk related topics and I found the older ones very insightful. 
I decided to join as I though participating in the forum would give me the opportunity to talk directly to many of the authors and researchers who’s work I have enjoyed and to people who have studied this case since before I was born. 
Unfortunately while I have gotten a lot of positives from browsing this forum I think it suffers from the same issues a lot of boards and subreddits do where there is less of a focus on the “education” part and things tend to devolve into bickering over closely held beliefs and theories with a bit too much zealotry.

As a newbie I’d much rather there was more of a data over dogma approach and it does concern me that threads containing valuable insight discussions and info can be buried under long texts of arguments or wiped entirely. For example if I make a post asking about identifying a person in a photo with Oswald, it’s a little disappointing to see it become a thread largely dominated about people arguing wether Oswald was multiple people and which one was in the photo with the unidentified person. 
 

There is a lot of good and informative work done on this forum both in the past and presently. I would hope there is a way for it to be saved and an attempt made to build upon it for the sake of continued scholarship rather than have it live and die on an internet forum thread buried under pages of people accusing each other of wrongdoing and hurling insults. 

I hope to use this forum to

- gain valuable information it is hard to learn elsewhere 

- acquire links to sources that might not be readily available 

- see updates and informed discussion between authors and researchers 

- see challenges to orthodoxy and long held assumptions not met with instant suppression. The way to test a theory is to attempt to falsify it. 

That’s my two cents anyway
 

 

Martin,

Stick with it.

What you are seeing right now is something that almost never happens.

A couple weeks ago a fairly new member opened a thread and in it exposed a lie being made by a prominent researcher. Actually the prominent researcher had been lying about it for a long time, possibly decades.

It is against forum rules to post "demonstrable falsehoods." As a moderator, I gave the researcher an opportunity to correct the lie. He refused. I suggest that he simple qualify his falsehood with something like, "It is my belief that..." which would make his statement true. He refused again, and so I penalized him with a few day's suspension from posting.

Next thing I know, a number of his followers objected and turned against me, two of whom I had to penalize as well. (Minor penalties.) Even a co-moderator turned against me and he posted crazy stuff about me. (He claimed I was under the control of the member who brought the charge against the prominent researcher.) What he said was unfounded, uncalled for, and public! So I penalized him too!

What I've learned from this is that forum rules are only for average forum members, not prominent ones. I have now lost my moderator status.

Now here I am, having to defend myself from the charges of the worst rules-violators who are exacting revenge on me for having penalized them in the past.

But, as I said, this will blow over and things will be fine again.

Good luck to you.

 

[Tom Gram]

10 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

When you make accusations, then yes, the burden of proof is on you. Otherwise your words are empty.

 

 

Keven did prove it. You just didn't read the proof.

 

 

It doesn't matter one bit where the back of the head ends and the top begins.

In fact, is doesn't even matter whether the hole was on the back, on the top, or nowhere at all. Because that is not what is being challenged.

What is being challenged is WHERE JAMES JENKINS PLACED THE HOLE. And the truth is that he placed it on the back. Just like almost every other witness did.

The very reason Mark Knight and I disagree on this matter is that he cannot see the distinction between "where the hole was" and "where did Jenkins say the hole was." Maybe you can't either.

 

 

Jenkins statements are NOT inconsistent or ambiguous. I watched the video from which Pat's stills came from and I transcribed the portions where Jenkins spoke about the large hole on the head. Naturally Pat didn't include these on his website.

There are actually two portions. In the first one, Jenkins describes the hole in the scalp that was left after the mortician had reconstructed the head. He said that the hole in the scalp was about the size of a silver dollar and it was located on the back of the head.

In the other portion of the video, he goes back to the time when he first saw the wounds. He said that they removed the towels and he saw a wound the size of a fist. He said that it looked close to what the famous McClelland drawing shows. And that, of course, is with a very large wound on the back of the head.

Speaking of drawings... have you even bothered to look at the drawing of the wound made by James Jenkins? Well the wound's clearly on the back there as well.

Oh, the wound IS so large that it does extend up high near the top. But to thereby claim that the wound was at the top would still be a lie... a lie by omission. (Look it up.) An honest person would say it was on the back of the head, extending to the top. Something like that.

 

 

You're alleging that Keven broke the rules. Prove it!

Why didn't you report these alleged rules earlier? Why did nobody report them?

Oh I know why... <light bulb!>  it's because he didn't break the rules!

 

You must be kidding. I did call out Keven for breaking forum rules, and so did Jean Paul, for insulting, slandering, and accusing another forum member of being a liar. I also specifically mentioned Keven’s stupid meme that said “you keep listening to their lying ass anyway”, or some juvenile crap like that.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that no one bothered to go through the actual reporting process because of a certain moderator who was protecting Keven and defending his every word. You also broke forum rules yourself by calling Jean Paul a bootlicker - a personal insult that he strongly objected to.

It does absolutely matter where you believe the back of the head ends and the top of the head begins. In fact that is the ONLY relevant issue here. Why? 

Jenkins placed the wound entirely above the right ear, on the back of the top of the head (or is it the top of the back of the head?), multiple times. In the video where he points out “the open hole” that triggered this whole fiasco, he is pointing entirely to the rear parietal bone. In the 1991 video it’s the same deal - maybe slightly more temporal. Jenkins also made statements indicating the same, that the open wound was above the “occipital area” i.e. above the back of the head. I’m still waiting on proof that Pat misquoted Jenkins.  

According to you and Keven, Pat cannot interpret Jenkins placing the hole entirely above the right ear, and entirely above the occipital bone, as the top of the head. He cannot truly believe that, and thus his saying so on this forum must be a willful lie. Your entire argument is based on the semantic distinction between the top and back of the head. So I’ll ask again. Where exactly, in your interpretation of anatomy, does the back of the head end, and the top of the head begin? 

Pat seems to believe that a wound above the right ear, entirely above the occipital bone, is better described as the top of the head vs. the back of the head. I would call it the back side of the top of the head, which is the language Pat uses on his website. However, there is no forum rule against using anatomically unspecific terms. Your “lie by omission” justification is a joke. The burden is on you to prove that Pat cannot truly believe that the “top of the head” is a reasonable and accurate description of Jenkins’ placement of the wound. I agree with Pat. Does that make me a liar too? 

Even Keven admitted that Jenkins placed the wound “slightly higher than the occiput” - which literally means “slightly higher than the back of the head”.  I didn’t see the original comment, but I’m assuming Keven said something similar, and subsequently jumped on the opportunity to accuse Pat of lying to further his censorship crusade when Pat said he’d agreed with Jenkins’ placement of the wound.  What is “slightly higher than the occiput”, in your mind? The top of the back of the head? The back of the top of the head? Do you see how stupid this all is? 

Lastly, I did read Keven’s so-called proofs and they are for the most part shockingly irrelevant with a few exceptions that could reasonably be interpreted as Pat being selective in his presentation of that one Jenkins video. Pat provided a perfectly reasonable explanation and updated his website. Big deal. 

The fact is, Pat did not lie. Jenkins on multiple occasions placed the wound at the top of the head. On other occasions he placed the wound at the back of the head. Or maybe it was the back of the top of the head, or the top of the back of the head, or maybe it was the back of the head, extending to the top, or maybe it was the top of the head, extending to the back. 

Without a precise definition of the top of the head, and the back of the head, and without some impossible proof that your definitions are superior to Pat’s, and without precise knowledge of what Pat actually believes, you accusing Pat of willfully lying and suspending him for it for using the phrase “top of the head” to describe Jenkins placement of the wound comes off as a fabricated excuse to censor someone you don’t agree with. 

To paraphrase Jeremy, it is clear that your bias towards some of the less-than-conservative theories for conspiracy has affected your judgment as a moderator. You allowed someone operating under an alias to shamelessly promote an obvious forgery for profit despite several calls for moderator action over the course of over a year, yet Pat saying “top of the head” to describe Jenkins’ wound placement immediately qualifies as disseminating false information and worthy of suspension? 

Give me a break. 

Edited June 7 by Tom Gram

[Mark Knight]

6 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Sandy Larsen writes:

I accept that Sandy doesn't intentionally punish people simply for disagreeing with him, but his reply illustrates the point I made. The people whom Sandy has punished have been, more often than not, people who disagree with positions Sandy actively advocates. When this happens, the impression inevitably arises that the former might be a consequence of the latter, even if no conscious intention exists.

This is especially the case when a member is punished for no obvious reason, as in the case of Greg Doudna and Jean Paul Ceulemans. I've read their posts in the ridiculous, all-caps, PAT SPEER IS A HERETIC AND MUST BE BURNED AT THE STAKE! thread. Unless the offensive comments were removed before I got there, neither Greg nor Jean Paul appears to have done anything worthy of suspension. The only remaining reason for punishing them would seem to be the fact that they disagreed with Sandy, who was thus tempted to zoom in on some form of words which, under microscopic examination, could be taken to contravene one of the forum's rules.

Any moderator who actively promotes positions which are controversial and divisive will generate suspicions of unfairness when they act against those who disagree with them. That's why Sandy, and anyone else who actively promotes divisive positions, ought not to have the power to punish other members. At the very least, a mechanism should be in place to prevent a moderator sitting in judgement on others while that moderator is actively involved in the thread in question.

 

Harassing and haranguing members whose interpretation of the evidence --  including witness testimony -- differ from some prescribed "orthodoxy," until they either leave the forum or "convert" to someone else's interpretation has never, IMHO, been the purpose of the Education Forum. 

You cannot verbally "beat" someone into submission. As a forum member, that's improper. As a moderator, that's inexcusable...IMHO.

[Tom Gram]

2 hours ago, Mark Knight said:

 

Harassing and haranguing members whose interpretation of the evidence --  including witness testimony -- differ from some prescribed "orthodoxy," until they either leave the forum or "convert" to someone else's interpretation has never, IMHO, been the purpose of the Education Forum. 

You cannot verbally "beat" someone into submission. As a forum member, that's improper. As a moderator, that's inexcusable...IMHO.

I agree with all of the above. 

That has basically been Hoefling’s sole mission since he joined: beat Pat Speer into submission until he either converts to alterationism, leaves the forum, or says something he can twist into a rule violation and report to Sandy.

How many ridiculous all-caps PAT SPEER IS A HERETIC and owes so-and-so a public apology threads has Keven started since he joined? 4? 5? More?

If someone even hints that they believe JFK didn’t have a giant hole in the back of his head, or argues against some other Horne-Mantik orthodoxy, Keven immediately responds with giant walls of repetitive text and images until the entire thread is saturated and basically unreadable without scrolling for minutes through all his 10000 word comments. Plus there’s usually a thorough sprinkling of childish memes to wade through. It’s the debate equivalent of shouting into someone’s face with a megaphone until they get sick of you and leave.

If you are incapable of engaging in actual debate, and articulating your argument clearly in your own words without copy-pasting pages and pages of repetitive nonsense, you aren’t really contributing to this forum, in my opinion. I think Greg D. tried to pry clear, concise answers out of him at one point and it was like watching a root canal. 

That’s just my opinion. Why engage with someone who refuses to consider anything they don’t already believe and behaves like they’re on a propaganda mission? 

I guess there’s the ignore feature, but still. 

[Alan Ford]

Has Mr. Larsen been permanently relieved of his duties as a Moderator, or has he merely been suspended from same for a short period? One can only hope it's not the latter. As a poster Mr. Larsen has made some valuable contributions here over the years, and will hopefully continue to do so; but (as I and others can all too well testify) his moderation style became disgracefully petty and autocratic, to the point where real damage was being done to the forum by his control-freak tendencies. Fatally, he evinced a sorry inability to distinguish between his own opinions as poster and his role as Moderator. His treatment of Mr. Speer was just shocking.

Bravo to Mr. Gordon for intervening! 👍

Edited June 7 by Alan Ford

[Benjamin Cole]

Are we allowed to talk about what the Biden Administration is doing on the JFK Records Act now? 

[W. Niederhut]

56 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Are we allowed to talk about what the Biden Administration is doing on the JFK Records Act now? 

Ben,

     The mods never censored your repetitive false posts denying that Trump orchestrated and incited his historic J6 mob attack on the U.S. Congress, (on the 56 Years thread) so I doubt they'll censor additional threads now about Trump's historic 2017 snuff job on the JFK records, or Biden later pulling a Trump by also blocking the release of the records. 

      BTW, the mods deep-sixed the only forum thread, (from 2020) about Trump's historic refusal to release the JFK records, to the JFK Deep Politics board.  Not sure why.  It was recently transferred to the Political Discussion board, at my request. 

      In the Trump/JFK Records case, the mods ruled that discussing Trump's 2017 snuff job on the JFK records-- even once-- was not an appropriate subject for the JFK Assassination board. 

     But, perhaps, your redundant Biden-bashing will be fair game under the new management.

     You could try posting your 25th "Biden snuff job" thread on the JFKA board now to re-test the waters.   Some people on the forum may not have read any of your previous 24 "Biden snuff job" threads.

     MAGA!

     

Edited June 8 by W. Niederhut

[Matt Allison]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Are we allowed to talk about what the Biden Administration is doing on the JFK Records Act now? 

Hahaha good lord.

Read the room, dude

[Mark Knight]

This thread isn't about current politics. This thread is about improving the current state of the Education Forum.

If you want to discuss the Biden Administration, please start a separate thread.

If you want to discuss former President Trump, please start a separate thread.

If you have suggestions about improving the forum, you can discuss them freely on this thread.

 

[W. Niederhut]

10 minutes ago, Mark Knight said:

This thread isn't about current politics. This thread is about improving the current state of the Education Forum.

If you want to discuss the Biden Administration, please start a separate thread.

If you want to discuss former President Trump, please start a separate thread.

If you have suggestions about improving the forum, you can discuss them freely on this thread.

 

Terrific, Mark.  Here's one suggestion.

To maintain a functional, intellectually honest forum-- now that the previous moderators have, apparently, been sacked-- let's set limits on redundant political propaganda posts on the JFKA board bashing Joe Biden, and/or promoting Donald Trump or RFK, Jr., which are disguised as references to the JFK records and/or the RFK assassination.

 

[Pat Speer]

53 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Terrific, Mark.  Here's one suggestion.

To maintain a functional, intellectually honest forum-- now that the previous moderators have, apparently, been sacked-- let's set limits on redundant political propaganda posts on the JFKA board bashing Joe Biden, and/or promoting Donald Trump or RFK, Jr., which are disguised as references to the JFK records and/or the RFK assassination.

 

As a former moderator, I can assure you that deciding what does or doesn't belong in the JFKA forum is a difficult task. At one point a certain someone assured us that every conspiracy for the last 50 (now 60) years pointed back to the Kennedy assassination, and filled the forum with thread after thread on the moon landing "hoax", the 9/11 "hoax" and so on. This individual got very angry and insulting when the moderators moved his threads to other sections of the forum. He even admitted that he thought his posts were so important that every member of the forum should be forced to look at them, even if they had almost nothing to do with the Kennedy assassination. So it's a slippery slope. IF people want to talk about our current political situation, there are places to do that. But people should be able to come here and see if there are any recent developments or thoughts about the Kennedy assassination, without having to sift through threads about Princess Diana's death, the Liberty Incident, Jack the Ripper, Hilary Clinton's sex life, etc. That was the original thought behind the forum. And we should respect those parameters. 

Now, the thought occurs that those other topics might gain more traffic if they were all combined into one, so the forum would have two main discussion groups: one purely on the assassination of President Kennedy and one on any and all other conspiracies. But that would be up to the administration team. 

[Mark Knight]

Pat, 

The EF has had those forums for quite some time. Some people simply refuse to use them. Check 'em out:

Forums - The Education Forum (ipbhost.com)

There are all kinds of forums here. Most initially were for educators to discuss topics in their subject matter. But there are separate forums to discuss NON-JFK assassination political conspiracies, and many other topics not related to the JFK assassination.

So when a moderator moves a thread to its correct forum, it's usually followed by "great wailing and gnashing of teeth" because the proper forums don't generate the volume of traffic that the JFK assassination does. But a good moderator does what's right, despite the complaints, because that's how the EF is supposed to work. It's a big ol' world, both "out there" as well as "in here" at the EF.

[David Von Pein]

Suggestion....

IMO, this thread should be UNPINNED from the very top of the forum (at least for a certain period of time---perhaps one month or so).

The reason I say that is because I didn't even see this interesting thread for two whole days after its creation, due to the fact that I never even bother to glance up at the Sticky threads at the top of the forum (as I nearly always assume, incorrectly in this instance, that there's nothing new in the Sticky/Pinned posts).

And if there are other people who have developed that same "Skip The Sticky Threads" habit, then a lot of members (and other visitors) are going to completely miss seeing this discussion.

 

Edited June 8 by David Von Pein