h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Please post character witness statements against the ban of Satyagraha here.

For the record, I have spoken and had written exchanges with some of LeKZ alters who speak French as their native language. They all do far better or far worse than Satyagraha.

From the beginning, I suspected that the Franglish of Satyagraha was artificial and exaggerated. I couldn't support that judgment except from my own experience as a theatre professional and I still can't offer any additional support.

So what?

It's not like there aren't people on h2g2 pretending to be what they are not. Children pretending to be adults, women pretending to be men, men pretending to be women. No one has ever suggested that such role playing is a bannable offense.

The question as the editors have posed it is "Is this person LeKZ?"

They stated as they did for Quincy that it seems obvious to them that this person is LeKZ. This is the same as saying that they have no proof but they are going to err on the side of safety.

I would rather see them err on the side of justice.

If there is no proof, beyond a reasonable doubt then there should be no banning. If there is such proof, then Satyagraha must be banned.

Of course, if researchers are not people so much as customers at a candy store where the sign reads, "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" then the customers have no right and the store owner doesn't desire that his customers form a community in his shop either. Rather he serves the community within which he exists. So long as the candy is satisfactory he gets customers. He is well within his rights to insist that his customers behave while they are in his shop.

Customers are not entitled to rights. Citizens have rights.

If our voice here is simply the shop owner trying to keep his customers happy by giving them a chance to speak their mind. That is just the way it is. If we are citizens of a community then each member should have recourse to justice. So far, there is no justice and so far as I can tell there is no right to justice, yet still here I am asking for some if some is available.

Barton

thanks for starting the thread though i'd have done it. i don't know anything at all about this person except what i read in defense of quincy, with which i agreed. it looked like a good analysis.

i confess i think the french seems a bit affected, but that's kind of like my lower case letters, it's a mannerism. everyone's got them. that in itself isn't a crime of any kind.

from what i can tell, there's only one reason anyone thinks satyagraha is lekz, and that's because he defended quincy against the same charge. then there's the stop the presses announcement.

i don't know if being in the denver area is significant at all. why would it be? if i had someone i didn't like in london, well okay, that's london, right. so now everyone who is even a little like her in any london suburb is now likely to be her? ok, so maybe not as big as london, call it whatever cities that guy mentioned off topic in the other thread, but denver's really spread out and it so happens that there's a huge section of colorado that's all within the same calling wan (wide-area-network) including longmont, lafayette, broomfield, westminster, boulder, and south to littleton and east clear out to what's called "saudi aurora". any of these places can use a dial-up or other connection that the main routing goes through denver. if it's a dsl, that's a wan-server and there should be modem-specific IP addressing. if there isn't there's not proof.

by the way i live in the front range of colorado. that makes me obviously lekz too, huh?



gotta run before i totally chicken out.

wendy

wall flower girl

don't ban satyagraha without real proof

On the 'Suspension of Quincy's h2g2 Account' page @ http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A681086 the editors state :-

"As with all cases of banned Researchers who return to h2g2, we don't really care unless that Researcher starts causing problems."

If this is the case, and if (quite a big 'if', so far) there is solid evidence linking Satyagraha with the banned researcher, LeKZ... surely it would be consistent to leave Satyagraha's account until such time as s/he started to cause problems. That, surely, would be in keeping with the policy as clearly stated.

Just for the character record... I had a brief conversation with Satyagraha off my h2g2 homepage during the last week, which went perfectly amicably and pleasantly. In fact, it was the least unintelligent conversation I've had on h2g2 for some months. A study of their other postings whilst on h2g2, does not appear to indicate that they are someone with any trouble-making instincts.

Lear

According to my secret sources from somewhere in the Denver area (and no, I am not anybody else) (pity) LeKZ uses a DSL hookup now, and ought to be - therefore - traceable, n'est-ce pas?

True to my word straight from the Quincy page........


My thoughts on this are as follows, and I'll copy them and post them on the Satyagraha page:

As there is no real conclusive way for you, meaning the editors, to prove the Quincy and Satyagraha are LeKZ I have issue with banning them.

I realize this is your site and we are all voluntarily under the boot. I cannot but speak out on this particularly when I'm invited to do so.

Rather than repeat what has already been said, I offer why not do what you say you would do?

If someone is banned for life(which seems to me to be just shy of Capitiol Punishment in v.r.) and they choose to come back as a different person....so what?

How about treating each individual username as individuals?

You've said you didn't ban him/her/whatever for a week because of their transgressions on the site, so then what is this about? Is it because you "think" they might be LeKZ? Is it because there are people on this site that are so ate up about what happened in the past that they just simply can't let go of it, and therefore result in paranoia about anyone who reminds them of LeKZ? Christ I could be LeKZ for that matter. I've argued with Loony on many different occasions. And I didn't apologize for it either!

My point then, simply is this. If you cannot prove that either of these people is LeKZ then drop the charge. Apologize and save a little face(or even say that you banned them because they were flaming, I don't care).

And then....watch these individuals closely. Like it or not they've marked themselves in your eyes, and big deal if they have. If you're going to ban them, ban them on something substantial. Something that is against the house rules in some gross fashion.

And one last point...I don't really know what got LeKZ banned in the first place...I really don't care. I don't even care if she/he/whatever lied about the Silent Lucidity account. What I care about, and so should you, is wether or not someone goes against the rules you've posted on the House Rules. It's my opinion that whatever got LeKZ banned in the first place will probably get them banned again(which is a whole different issue again, because like I said, I don't know what got them banned in the first place so I don't even know if I agree with the initial banning). So if you watch and have a little patience you'll be able to find out for sure if these people really are who they say they are.

This lifetime banning thing is kind of silly in the sense that you cannot prove if the person ever comes back as a different user. Sure you kill the name they are known by and they have to go through the whole re-shaping their role in the community phase again, but aside from being an inconvience.... I don't find the idea of the .2% or whatever the figure was of probability holds much water. Just the word probability sounds stupid (probable-but not likely-ity). Humanity's evolution isn't probable but somehow here we are typing over ridiculousness. Denver is a very large city. I bet there are lot of internet capable computers in the city. In fact, I bet (because its PROBABLE-I can use the word too) that some of them even look at H2G2. I bet they could even be neighbors and not know it.

But then I'm just betting and that's the whole problem.

Understand, I'm not saying Quincy and Satyagraha aren't LeKZ, although I'll say here that I seriously doubt the allegation. I've got their own denial plus what I've read of their writing and what I've read of Quincy and Satyagraha. My opinion is that neither are anything but who they say they are. But, I'm saying it just shouldn't matter because there is no real way to prove it and unless they go against some major infraction(other than being here in the first place) then let it go already.

Again, you can toss out whomever you want and there is nothing anyone can do about it. I'll still post here no matter what you do to these two people because I think the debates I find myself in, matter. I don't much care for the infighting that is going on here, as they rarely touch my little circle of debate. Yet, after what happened to the Colonel, who I valued as a friend because of his participation in various religious debates,(who I didn't always agree with mind you, but I do respect my debate partners-even Looney although I wouldn't admit it unless it was drug out of me...which it is in some sense) I'm a little bummed out because I think Quincy could have wound up in one of the debates I frequent, and I would have been interested to see what he had to say. In a related point, I wouldn't care if this person was Satan incarnate on earth. I enjoy the opportunity to talk/debate with people I normally wouldn't ever have the chance too. And that, paired with your invitation to say what I think, has compelled me-who normally lets the silly fight their own wars all by themselves-post.

Enjoy and let the flame burn on!!!!

I don't know who or what Satyagraha is. I do know that Satyagraha, like Quincy, is not LeKZ.

I've spent half a year establishing a reputation here as a reasonable, fair and honest person (I think). I did not, at any point, state that Silent Lucidity was not LeKZ.

Neither Satyagraha nor Quincy is LeKZ.

I have been in personal communication with Satyagraha and I am now totally convinced that he is not LeKZ. I have absolutely no reservations in saying so.

As far as the trace goes. I can only point out that shortly after I became active in Peer Review, I received email from §hadow (who left h2g2 over various issues). It turns out that he lives less than 10 miles from me. We would not ever have known this if I had not posted a lot of personal information on my page and at the now defunct mailing list that may not be named. Of course, since §hadow had been here before me, that would tend to prove that I am really §hadow. Of course, that would be a mistake.

According to the 2001 Encyclopedia Britannica the Denver-Boulder-Greeley combined greater metropolitan population was 2,089,000 when it's figures were compiled, presumably during the 1990 census. Given that sort of population center, there must be many researchers from that region who are not LeKZ.

There doesn't seem to be any reason other than vicious rumor to have considered Satyagraha to be banned.

Barton

I agree that Satyagraha's Franglais sounded affected. That's why I doubt that Satyagraha is LeKZ. I've received communications from alters of LeKZ whose native language is French (anyone with doubts about DID/MPD, I don't wanna hear it), and they didn't sound like Satyagraha. I'd dig up excepts, for the linguists and cryptographers to get after, but that would be Posting Communications from a Banned Researcher. I do have some experience with the way people communicate in second languages, having been raised English/Spansih bilingual by a native Spanish speaker, and currently living in Kenya, where English is a second or third language for pretty much everyone.

Of course, I could just be a brainwashed zombie. Stranger things have happened. If it turns out that Satyagraha is LeKZ, meaning that (s)he is operating, however obliquely, from within LeKZ's body, then I'll be shocked. I'll also look like a fool for having posted this, and in the Don't Ban Quincy thread, too. That's a chance I'm willing to take, because I don't believe that Satyagraha is LeKZ. Like David (NBY) said, he never claimed that Silent Lucidity wasn't LeKZ. That means something to me.

As for the Denver thing, I guess you could bring probablities into it. How many h2g2 researchers are there in the Denver area? How many of them know some French? How many think that social justice, ala Gandhi, is cool? Why might someone who cares about social justice get into a certain type of trouble at this website? Would any real satyagraha last long here? Do other websites have SBVMs, Zaphodistas, Modest Proposals? Why or why not?

Sorry, I'm getting off-topic.


GTBacchus, SBVM/tit


PS - I suddenly have information from offsite that LeKZ would disagree with me about Satyagraha not sounding like a real native French speaker. Oh well. Satyagraha, wherever in Denver you are, I hope you're not offended by what I've said about your language stylings. If you are, I'm sorry. Je ne parle Francais que about a squillionth as well as you write English, so I should probably shut up about it.

PPS - Good Lord, now I'm reading that Satyagraha doesn't live in Denver at all, but in Tuscon, Arizona! How many hops or whatchecallems upstream might the Denver thingy be from Sat's actual computer? Colorado and Arizona do meet, at a point. How many servers share routers and flangers, or whatever some technical word means, in the US Southwest? I used to live in Santa Fe; am I suspect?

It is perhaps worth nothing that Satyagraha did say that she had recently moved to the USA, so the IP trace does confirm that.

I have personally verified that Ban Satyagraha does live in the Denver-Boulder greater metropolitan area and confronted him for having claimed to live in Tucson. It turns out that he was simply trying to maintain his privacy for perfectly sound and understandable reasons that have nothing to do with this issue.

I repeat that I am convinced by virtue of my communications with him that he is not LeKZ nor any alter of LeKZ.

Barton

Please accept that "Ban Satyagraha" was a cut and paste error in my previous posting. I'm just too lazy to fight spelling his screen name here when I can copy it and too rushed to have caught my mistake before I posted.

I appologize.

Do not ban Satyagraha!

Barton

Editors,

This latest question is really infuriating.

Could these accounts represent other people who are posting for LeKZ?

It sounds as if, you are seeking any possible short sequence of words that might be attributable to LeKZ as an excuse to ban these two folks despite all that we have posted here.

Yes, I assume that you ask the question because some person or persons, who is or are not willing to stand up in the community and say what they think, made that suggestion to you and you feel bound to ask us about it.

This is even more inflamatory because it is even more impossible to prove. Unless someone can provide an exact quotation clearly and absolutely provable to have been from LeKZ and which can be shown to be, word for word, posted on this site under some other person's account AND which cannot be attributable to that person's having read what LeKZ posted somewhere else in the world without having had direct contact with LeKZ and having agreed to have posted such material for them on h2g2, there can be no valid charge of that person having posted FOR LeKZ.

Such charges cannot be proven, they can only be self-admitted. If you wish to find out then if either party has posted for LeKZ, you will need to ask them and trust in their basic honesty.

To invite us to speculate on such things is simply to imply, as I know you now have reasonable indication, that neither of these people is LeKZ but that you are still seeking some way to appease the invisible accusers who seem to be writing to you out of spite rather than out of any real desire to seek good for this community.

I speak here of those who are twisting your ear to ban these people. Those who are speaking to you not to ban them are merely desirous not to be tarred as 'LeKZ-lovers' in the midst of this continuing witch hunt. There is no other reason not to speak out against this injustice.

Those who speak against Quincy and Satyagraha in secret and now suggest that they may be mere mouthpieces are simply looking at words that I and others have written here, and which are known to be truthful, and are searching for ways in which we might still be seen to be lying. So be it.

Let me close that possibility off right now. I am convinced that Quincy and Satyagraha are individuals separate and distinct from LeKZ or any of their alters. I am convinced that they are posting for themselves and are not posting anything on behalf of LeKZ. Any sentiments or ideas which they may have expressed which might be taken to be similar to sentiments or ideas expressed by LeKZ are simply the result of intelligent people having similar knowledge and/or opinions.

Those who believe that ideas that oppose their own must be the result of oppostion by LeKZ are simply fools who cannot face the fact that the world does not rest on their own limited outlook and understanding. If this whole issue comes down to their inability to believe that anyone could find fault with what they find proper and absolute then we have *certainly* been wasting a vast amount of energy and time here.

Barton

this is being posted in reply to item 2 of the editors' post 84 in the don't ban quincy thread. i honestly didn't look to see if they put the same question here, about whether quincy and satyagraha are posting "on behalf of" lekz. i posted this reply in the wrong place, in a thread called "clarification from the editors" at the community soapbox. i don't mean to spam but this is where this post really belongs, along with the don't ban quincy thread where i already posted it. i'm real sorry about the repetition. as long as i'm making long posts i may as well put them in the right place .



"on behalf of?" like as in these people knew each other before, and agreed to open new accounts under their own names, and then let lekz email them content to post, only in their own words? or some other kinda conspiracy? did i get that right? if i did, that's a little, um, farfetched-sounding to me. i mean, as soon as the people who hate lekz spotted what they thought was lekz-like, the show would be over. why would anyone agree to do anything so silly? i can't see it. quincy said he was a coroner, and then he talked about stuff he'd seen and experienced as a coroner, which has nothing to do with posting "on behalf of" anybody but quincy.

besides, that's even more completely impossible to prove as being either true or not true than the idea that these guys are lekz, isn't it?

i really have an icky feeling in my stomach. i get the feeling you're determined to ban them because you said you believe they're lekz and you can't risk them coming back because you'd look bad.

i could never say it if it was me, cause i'm a stupid in car headlights, but i can stick up for other people so: you look bad to me for what you're doing to quincy and satyagraha on the basis of hearsay and rumor. i'm new, i'm timid, i hate politics . i'm terrified of what you're going to do to me now cause now you're going to say i'm lex too or those anonymous emailers are. i'm also not blind (tho i did miss your big old post in this thread), read up on all the conversations -- there weren't a lot -- and decided on my own, like you said we should do. i think what you're doing makes you look crummy and like you'd be afraid to let quincy and satyagraha come back and prove themselves on their own merits.

if people hate lekz so bad they won't share cyberspace with anyone who even seems a little /like/ her, that's their own problem, not quincy's or satyagraha's. this is a big website. geez
if you get rid of people pre-emptively, to "prevent" any actual flame-wars or any actual medical advice from being given, because things that looked like they almost were -- but were not -- a flame war or medical advice had happened, you're setting a precedent. not a fair one, or a nice one, or a civilized one, but it sure is .

i know i just really came on strong but i already stuck my neck out so you can only cut my head off once. sorry i'm so mad.

sorrier people are so mean to each other all the time.

this is way too far-fetched. it's just too hard to believe. how can you allege that "on behalf of" stuff? how can anyone prove they aren't or are? if people read the same books sometimes they quote the same things, and think the same way. they sometimes believe in the same god and things too.

"there are more things in heaven and earth, horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - shakespeare, "hamlet", act i, scene 1, i think, maybe scene 2? i bet lekz has used that quote. that proves i'm quoting on her behalf, right? i bet lots of other people i've not met have used that quote, so i'm quoting on their behalf too! i know! quincy and satyagraha were channelling lekz and they didn't even kn... er... well... maybe not. i get stupid when i'm panicky, and i get panicky when i get mad or outspoken and i've been both.

never mind me. nobody ever has. there's a reason for that. i'm not that important. sorry for wasting your time.

wendy

wall flower girl

waiting for my page to vanish, like quincy said his did, in mid-posting....

Once again, for the record: Satyagraha is not LeKZ. Satyagraha has not posted on behalf of LeKZ. All of Satyagraha's words at h2g2 were Satyagraha's words, not those of LeKZ.

I'm posting this in the four Ban/Don't Ban threads. I have copied and pasted all of the email correspondence from both of the accused that was forwarded to the TrusT list. Go to my page and follow the link in the bold-type paragraph at the top of the page under the words "Don't Panic". Don't Panic. Make your own judgements, and do about them what you will.

If the link gets moderated away... Christ, I tried. I don't think there's any reason it should, but I don't think lots of things that end up happening.

GTB

Following in GTB's footsteps, I've done pretty much the same thing as he has. Follow the link under the header "Unsupressing Evidence" on my personal space.

I've edited that evidence only to the extent of deleting private email addresses and repetition, where a reply quotes previous content.

I suggest revisiting that link in my personal space from time to time. Things could be added.

FYI we have now published the full correspondence between Satyagraha and the Editors here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A683714

We only received permission to publish these after the office had closed on Friday (see the last email), which is why they are appearing now.

FYI the decision has been made to close Satyagraha's account permanently. You can find more information here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A681374