[Split from] comments invited - skeptics vandalised homeopathy forums...or did they!

[Zep]

The story so far...

Neil has a problem with skeptics apparently vandalising homeopathy forums, particular his own: hpathy.com. Seems it happened some years ago - four years, according to Neil's memory. He claims that the skeptics took on all sorts of alter egos (sock-puppets), stomped around the forum, were rude to the regulars, acted like vandals, and raised all sorts of problems, etc. He claims he successfully turfed the skeptics out then and has kept them out so far.

My recollection is that no-one bothered or cared really to visit hpathy at all. The usual response was to be IP-banned before entry...the welcome mat was firmly pulled in before the door was even opened.

However this was so long ago that I honestly cannot even recall wanting to go to hpathy. I don't know if I have an account there, and I'm not about to try to find out. I could have... I do know I have no idea if any other skeptics are there or not, under cover or otherwise.

We also have an issue with Neil being unable or perhaps obstinately unwilling, to use the standard quote function on this forum. He seems to want to go to extreme lengths to NOT use it - expending a LOT more energy than if he did. Silly mixture, no? ;)

OK, the story continues:

in any case, zep, in quoting my response to you, you eliminated my formatting. as always, however, my original response clearly distinguished my comments from yours, by boldface type, a procedure that has until now provided no insurmountable obstacles to your ability to read what i have written...Only if I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to decipher it. By using the quote function, all such problems are eliminated, AND everyone can understand what you have written.

...but the essential point is that poor behavior exists on all sides. i have said this numerous times - i have no problem admitting that homeopaths can behave badly, or formulate or sponsor poorly considered opinions or inadequate research. i also have no trouble acknowledging that i see a number of serious concerns with roy's research. but it seems, even in such a context, i am told in return that i should look in the mirror when i make comments about the skeptics. I agree - bad manners is not a property of skeptics OR any other group. People have bad manners, not skeptics or homeopaths.

i would suggest to you, that you would do better to respond to points made, than to come up with counterpoints that are basically irrelevant: the behavior of homeopaths may be atrocious, but that says nothing about the behavior of skeptics - a situation similar to that obtaining, when a homeopath criticizes conventional medicine in hopes of somehow created a positive case for homeopathy. two different subjects, zep - though related, they each stand on their own. in short, your comments about delivera et al have nothing to do with skeptical trolling.Not quite unrelated. We are talking about how behaviour is managed on your forums. Put it simply, there is a double-standard on homeopath forums - a very noticeable double-standard - and it is allowed and even encouraged to exist by the forum admins there.

For example, let's take Delivera. The man is an old and crotchety codger with an obsession with arnica and bottled spring-water as cure-alls for everything. He thinks he has all the medical knowledge in the world. He has a good vocabulary and writes well, but if anyone at all contradicts or even questions his "theories", even gently, he goes ballistic, has a huge temper fit, roundly curses and bombasts the accuser and calls them all sorts of horrible names. He is just a grumpy, silly old man, but he is allowed to stay and post on these forums because he supports homeopathy (even if he is totally wrong about it too!).

Consider though if a skeptic behaved like that. First sign of even a possible raised voice in response and the admin would turf them out. In fact, the admins double-standard is so blatant that if it was a skeptic that asked Delivera the question that angered him, it would be the skeptic that would be punished for the question, not Delivera for the appallingly bad temper tantrum!

Perhaps now you should compare with this forum. Here, you are free to post your views as you like, as long as you conform to the forum rules. I may not agree with you at all, but just because of that, I have no intention of trying to have you banned. You might even be angry at me - again, I would not want to see you banned. You might want to question me a lot (you have - see below) - again, no reason to ban you. It's a different way of discussion, isn't it, compared to the above!

imo it would represent a step in the right direction, if you simply acknowledge the problem - we don't even have to go into ludicrous routines trying to establish relative levels of guilt in the matter, or to demand a well-formatted List of References. all that is really required is an honest statement of the general case ... I have no idea what you mean by this. What "case"? List of References to what?

which raises the question again: have you ever been banned from hpathy? if so, what name or names did you go by?And my answer remains the same: If you never found out, how do you know if I was even there? In short, this approach of yours is also called "phishing".

MOVING ON...as you wish.

now, zep, this is the fourth time i have posted my reply to a question you asked a couple of days ago. in the interim, you have taken up an energetic effort to re-focus attention from bad behavior of skeptics to bad behavior of homeopaths. perhaps, now, you will finally address a more substantive question?...and you go straight back to the previous subject we just moved away from... :confused:

An excellent starting point.

Now here's the next question: How do you propose to ensure that any proof you obtain is sufficiently robust as to be effectively unassailable? What is your criteria for "proof"?

neil replied: you like big questions, huh? ok - i have two standards:

1. comprehensiveness of the evidentiary record (which will differ depending on the type of evidence and the type of research), and

2. independent corroboration (not just replication, but also corroboration by independent means)


neilWas there a question of yours I needed to respond to? I asked a question, you answered it. Thank you.

Oh, you want me to interrogate you further? OK, then.

1) Please describe how you would ensure evidence was comprehensive. Examples would be good.

2) Does comprehensive evidence equate to compelling evidence? Voluminous evidence? Either or both? Something else? Discuss.

3) Please describe further what you mean by "independent corroboration".

Thanks.

[Rolfe]

H'pathy! There's a set of goons!

Funny thing is, somebody else (certainly not me) registered there as "Rolfe" and posted stuff along the lines of what I might have argued, but in a much ruder and more confrontational style. He or she was banned, I think. The same thing happened to Badly Shaved Monkey. When I read what that version of BSM was writing, I thought my friend and colleague BSM had completely lost his mind. Then of course I realised it wasn't him. He registered later as "The Real Monkey", I think.

So when I had to go to H'pathy because of a fight started by our own dear SarahI (Naturalhealth), I think I had to register as Rolfie or something like that. Read all about it from the link in my sig line. It turned out that Rolfie wasn't instantly banned because it was the 4th of July, and certain people were busy elsewhere! When JanZy got back to her computer she made sure to have the last word in the thread, then immediately locked it.

I think "Rolfie" got banned soon afterwards. I re-registered as other variants of the name to try to keep making certain points, but I was always banned quite quickly. I found it all a bit tedious after a while.

I suspect some people were rude. I know that somebody (or somebodies) who registered with user names of well-known JREF homoeopathy opponents was rude. I really don't know whether these false flag registrations were believed by the H'pathy admins to be genuine. I didn't immediately peg them all as fake, but usually by the third or fourth post it was clear that it wasn't the same person talking. It was quite clever though. But for all I know it could have been one or more of the H'pathy people deliberately trying to discredit JREF posters.

I've read a lot more than I've posted at H'pathy, and I noticed a pattern which permeated the whole thing. People would turn up, and ask a question or two. Unless their initial post was slavishly complementary to homoeopathy, there was a good chance one of the regulars would be spectacularly rude to the newbie right off the wicket. This was almost inevitable if the question was in any way probing.

Sometimes an innocent newbie would take offence at this reception, and reply in kind. Instant ban, with vile abuse. Nice.

I recall one particular thread started by a newbie, who merely asked how she could tell whether a homoeopathic pharmacy was reliable or not. She was given some fairly sensible answers along the lines of personal recommendations of pharmacies that posters believed to be trustworthy. Some of these recommendations were contradictory, but there you go. Then someone else asked how quality could be guaranteed as there was no way to test the actual product. At this point Naturalheath (SarahI) chimed in that it was in fact possible to test the remedies to prove they contained what they said they did. On further questioning, she confirmed that this applied to 30C remedies just as much as 6C. She was pressed for details of this testing procedure. At this point the thread was locked and I think deleted (not sure about the deleted part), and all the posters who were not H'pathy regulars were banned. Including the opening poster, who had by then made only that single post, a simple query about finding a reliable homoeopathic pharmacy. Such a nice way to treat a newbie, don't you think?

I can confirm what Zep has said, that the H'pathy regulars can be as abusive as they like and frequently are, and there will be no sanction. However, critics or even questioners of homoeopathy are liable to be banned even though they remain polite and calm. The banning seems to happen when they ask a question that embarrasses someone. This is seen as "disruptive behaviour".

These people want to live in their own fantasy world, where they can discuss this farrago of nonsense, this system of excuses masquerading as medicine, to their hearts' content without anything from the uncomfortable real world intruding. They want to reinforce others' beliefs and have their own beliefs reinforced by likeminded people. They want to have their stock excuses ("aggravation" "wrong remedy" "wrong potency" "seems to be proving the remedy" "disease is coming out" and so on) for lack of success validated by others who will agree with them. They don't want to be challenged by people pointing out that what they are describing is cases doing exactly what one might expect them to do if you just hand out a sugar pill with a few kind words.

Now, have they the right to demand to be left in peace in this fantasy world?

If they were roleplaying Harry Potter or something, I'd say yes. Kicking over sandcastles is the act of a bully. But they're not. These are real people in real distress they're selling their overpriced sugar pills to, and misleading with false hope, and sometimes seducing away from real treatment that might help them. I personally have no problem with going in and injecting a bit of reality from time to time. The only problem is, they're so far gone in their delusions that there's little hope any of them will figure it out. The most one can really hope to do is make some of the questoners and seekers who turn up there realise that it's not the happy garden of cure-all that Neil would like them to believe.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

luminaries such as catriona, manon thebus, fatman, zookeeper, and others with enormously vile mouths represent the worst of the skeptical community.


This is what really started it, isn't it? Now I don't recognise any of these names as posters on the JREF forum. I do recognise them, I think, as having posted on H'pathy. I don't remember any of them saying anything "enormously vile".

So, Neil, can you clarify. Do you have evidence that any of these posters posts at JREF (perhaps under another name), and can you quote or link to examples of anywhere any of them demonstrated an "enormously vile mouth"?

If you can do neither of these things. I'll take my assumption as correct. That is that some people have turned up at H'pathy and asked uncomfortable questions. Rather than face up to these questions, the admins banned these posters. And to cover their high-handedness, rewrote history to claim that these people were impolite.

Neil now assumes that these people were regular JREF posters. But has he any evidence for this? I don't recognise them.

Nice going. How to run H'pathy.

Allow regular H'pathy posters to be a egregiously, vilely rude as they like, indeed encourage them
Accuse newbies and apparently sceptical posters of rudeness even when they've been perfectly polite
Ban the newbie and the sceptical poster the minute they either ask a difficult question, are goaded into replying in kind to some of the abuse they've been receiving, or provoke a particularly spectacular outburst of offended rudeness from a regular
Ban any newbie who happens to get caught up in a thread that has sceptical questions asked in it
Accuse all the people asking questions of being JREF Forum members, even if you've no evidence.And finally. Delete the offending threads, or at least the posts with the unanswerable questions. This serves two purposes. It prevents new forum vissitors from seeing the unanswerable questions and maybe starting to think, and it removes the evidence that the questioners were generally polite, so allowuing Neil's revisionism into "enormously vile mouths".

If you can prove anything otherwise, Neil, please do. How about an "enormously vile" comment from Catriona or Manon Thebus, at your leisure.

Rolfe.

[Mojo]

Funny thing is, somebody else (certainly not me) registered there as "Rolfe" and posted stuff along the lines of what I might have argued, but in a much ruder and more confrontational style. He or she was banned, I think. The same thing happened to Badly Shaved Monkey. When I read what that version of BSM was writing, I thought my friend and colleague BSM had completely lost his mind. Then of course I realised it wasn't him. He registered later as "The Real Monkey", I think.


Much the same thing happened at the NCH Pakistan forum: a whole slew of accounts with names corresponding to forum names here were created (including, bizarrely, 1inchrist). Many of these never posted. In the case of "Mojo", this poster appears critical of homoeopathy, but his English has a certain subcontinental flavour (for example, see here (http://nch.ipbfree.com/index.php?showtopic=406&view=findpost&p=5891) or here (http://nch.ipbfree.com/index.php?showtopic=393&view=findpost&p=5894)).

[bvw12]

rolfe said: "Funny thing is, somebody else (certainly not me) registered there as "Rolfe" and posted stuff along the lines of what I might have argued, but in a much ruder and more confrontational style. He or she was banned, I think. The same thing happened to Badly Shaved Monkey. When I read what that version of BSM was writing, I thought my friend and colleague BSM had completely lost his mind. Then of course I realised it wasn't him. He registered later as "The Real Monkey", I think."

thank you for confirming my recollections, in terms of rude and "more confrontational" postings by "skeptics" and conceding that BSM, or whomever adopted his name, appeared by the style of his postings to have "completely lost his mind." the question remaining is whether these were impersonators in some or all cases, or if in some or all cases they were the real deal. i appreciate your denial, and zep's, but respectfully note that a jury of peers would require evidence one way or another, and that we are not in a situation that encourages us to wait optimistically for that eventuality.

so i take your comments as a confirmation (to one degree or another) of the gist of my concerns for "skeptical" posters (trolls) at hpathy, if not of my belief that those posters originated at randiland.... in fact, a number of them i can say with some certainty, originated at the bbc skeptical forum, as i recall, by their own admission.

by the single example of the ballot box stuffing thread, it seems there is also some nefarious activity originating here, and i concede that my experience in past discussions here at randiland have been unpleasant enough to reinforce my belief that some of the "trolls" in fact have originated from your site, but i can't prove my assertion of an association, any more than you can prove your assertion that there is none.

in any case, that is perhaps less of a point than it has been before, since present company seems essentially benign in its demeanor, and for the last year and a half or so, the "vile" posters at hpathy have been well controlled.

expectedly, as is the norm for debate, your own reconstruction of hpathy bias - that we permit vileness from homeopaths but not from skeptics - skews the issue in the other direction.

just for example, joe delivera does not post at hpathy, possibly has been banned, i have no idea, but i have not seen anything from him, ever. i do know, otoh, of other homeopaths who have been banned, for vile behavior.

rolfe said: "Now, have they the right to demand to be left in peace in this fantasy world?"

what fantasy world? i assume you mean the one in which you repeat your own oft-repeated opinions, stating them as fact?

indeed, do you have the right to openly describe people pursuing careers they take seriously, and begin a conversation regarding their practices by referring to them as "goons?"

exactly where do you expect a conversation, initiated in that spirit, to end up? exactly how do you expect your counterpart in the discussion to respond to such "sentiments?"

if you expect anything other than that they take offence, and likely respond in kind, and invariably an escalation of rhetoric and an ultimate ban on the disturbing influence such language has introduced into their forums, then you inhabit a domain that bears little resemblance to any human society i have ever witnessed, real or in fantasy ... but perhaps you can document your own observations, of societies whose citizens welcome being labelled with crude nicknames and treated dismissively.


zep said: "If you never found out, how do you know if I was even there? In short, this approach of yours is also called "phishing"."

i don't know if you were ever there, which is why i asked. i do know that randi-ites did dabble in trolling activities, concretely in the example of the ballot box stuffing thread. the language and attitudes i have also seen in my few earlier visits here often had the same flavor of hostility and personalization to them - a flavor that has happily been absent, for the most part, during my current sojourn amongst you.

it is called suspicion, based on reasonable associations, and it is called seeking to clarify the situation. as i said to rolfe, i appreciate your denial and respectfully note that in the absence of evidence ... you know, evidence?


zep said: "bad manners is not a property of skeptics OR any other group. People have bad manners, not skeptics or homeopaths."

well, just a grammatical or logical quibble: if skeptics and homeopaths are people, and people have bad manners, then skeptics and homeopaths have bad manners.

i assume we agree on that.

aaanyway, thank you for finally acknowledging my response to your question. i had thought you might have asked the question in the first place, because you were interested in what i had to say, so a "thanks for clarifying that," would have done nicely, a gesture you have now succeeded in discovering.

but your additional rather inhospitably couched "interrogation" misses the point: there are many methods of gathering evidence, and those who specialize in any one of them have their own methods to confirm, to their own satisfaction, the reliability of their findings, and to lead them to believe, based on their own methods and standards, that the evidence they have produced is virtually unassailable, compelling.

obviously, those who have faith in other methodologies frequently challenge the convictions of those whose methods and findings contradict their own.

therein lies the necessity for independent confirmation, as for example of controlled trials by laboratory evidence or therapeutic case studies...

...in short, the "gold standard" for a method capable of providing a compelling outcome, if any, is achieved when disparate research practices produce the same outcomes. to claim otherwise is simply presumption - and before you jump on me for that, i admit my guilt, that i consider the well-wrought case study far, far superior to the well-wrought controlled trial for its ability in determining, describing, and understanding the "truth."

neil

[Zep]

I've changed my mind. In the OP I said:We also have an issue with Neil being unable or perhaps obstinately unwilling, to use the standard quote function on this forum.I'd like to revise that to read:...Neil being unable or perhaps obstinately unwilling, to use the standard quote function on this forum.Thanks

[Zep]

thank you for confirming my recollections, in terms of rude and "more confrontational" postings by "skeptics" and conceding that BSM, or whomever adopted his name, appeared by the style of his postings to have "completely lost his mind." the question remaining is whether these were impersonators in some or all cases, or if in some or all cases they were the real deal. i appreciate your denial, and zep's, but respectfully note that a jury of peers would require evidence one way or another, and that we are not in a situation that encourages us to wait optimistically for that eventuality.So, legally speaking, you are going to presume people here are guilty until proven innocent? Let's see what happens...

so i take your comments as a confirmation (to one degree or another) of the gist of my concerns for "skeptical" posters (trolls) at hpathy, if not of my belief that those posters originated at randiland.... in fact, a number of them i can say with some certainty, originated at the bbc skeptical forum, as i recall, by their own admission.Yes, indeed this is the case - you have no proof (or I would suggest more accurately, you haven't actively looked for the proof) that it wasn't us, so it clearly must have been us! Out of all the millions of posters on the internet, it could only have been us. It couldn't have been, for example, a bunch of regular Hpathy posters deciding that sockpuppets were a neat way of fooling their own admins and embarrassing us simply because their fantasies were pricked. And the very same trick was tried over at another forum where they also post, and got their pride bruised. Interestingly, there they got to register and post on regardless, even after the skeptics were banned and deleted. Isn't that all completely strange and coincidental! :rolleyes:

by the single example of the ballot box stuffing thread, it seems there is also some nefarious activity originating here, and i concede that my experience in past discussions here at randiland have been unpleasant enough to reinforce my belief that some of the "trolls" in fact have originated from your site, but i can't prove my assertion of an association, any more than you can prove your assertion that there is none. Neil, the moment anyone starts referring to this place as "randiland", it is obvious where their bias lies. Immediately we start to expect a particular kind of behaviour, and we are seeing it from you now: baseless accusations with not a shred of evidence, coupled with a repeating of some fairy tales that simply are not true. It's very childish, and we expect better from our posters here.

in any case, that is perhaps less of a point than it has been before, since present company seems essentially benign in its demeanor, and for the last year and a half or so, the "vile" posters at hpathy have been well controlled.It would appear that whoever they are, they are not from here. You would be lucky if there are more than three from here who could even be bothered to browse, let alone post, and they appear to have been open and honest about themselves there. Would that your impersonators were too...

expectedly, as is the norm for debate, your own reconstruction of hpathy bias - that we permit vileness from homeopaths but not from skeptics - skews the issue in the other direction.

just for example, joe delivera does not post at hpathy, possibly has been banned, i have no idea, but i have not seen anything from him, ever. i do know, otoh, of other homeopaths who have been banned, for vile behavior. That could well be the case with Delivera. I last saw him at the Pakistani homeopathy forum (nchpakistan) over a year ago, still ranting and raving about how the admins there should ban skeptics on sight. He went off in a huff for a while - did he ever come back? I wouldn't know - they banned me from there at that time. Check for yourself if you don't believe me.


zep said: "If you never found out, how do you know if I was even there? In short, this approach of yours is also called "phishing".

i don't know if you were ever there, which is why i asked. i do know that randi-ites did dabble in trolling activities, concretely in the example of the ballot box stuffing thread. the language and attitudes i have also seen in my few earlier visits here often had the same flavor of hostility and personalization to them - a flavor that has happily been absent, for the most part, during my current sojourn amongst you.I'd like to see the evidence that whatever this ballot box was for was actually found to be stuffed. And that any stuffing was from here. That would be a good start to proving your point. Until then, I'd suggest you reconsider why you think that it ever actually happened as you thought it did. I seriously think you are letting your suspicions get the better of your evidence - you are convicting without proof. Bad form, don't you think?

it is called suspicion, based on reasonable associations, and it is called seeking to clarify the situation. as i said to rolfe, i appreciate your denial and respectfully note that in the absence of evidence ... you know, evidence?Indeed, suspicions! What you have when you don't have any evidence. And evidence is what you should look for and obtain before you go making accusations.


aaanyway, thank you for finally acknowledging my response to your question. i had thought you might have asked the question in the first place, because you were interested in what i had to say, so a "thanks for clarifying that," would have done nicely, a gesture you have now succeeded in discovering.

but your additional rather inhospitably couched "interrogation" misses the point: there are many methods of gathering evidence, and those who specialize in any one of them have their own methods to confirm, to their own satisfaction, the reliability of their findings, and to lead them to believe, based on their own methods and standards, that the evidence they have produced is virtually unassailable, compelling.See if you can explain why the highlighted part is likely to be challenged as a definition of evidence.

obviously, those who have faith in other methodologies frequently challenge the convictions of those whose methods and findings contradict their own.Again, see if you can explain why faith has nothing to do with the discussion. For example, have you a definition of what faith is?

therein lies the necessity for independent confirmation, as for example of controlled trials by laboratory evidence or therapeutic case studies...

...in short, the "gold standard" for a method capable of providing a compelling outcome, if any, is achieved when disparate research practices produce the same outcomes. to claim otherwise is simply presumption - and before you jump on me for that, i admit my guilt, that i consider the well-wrought case study far, far superior to the well-wrought controlled trial for its ability in determining, describing, and understanding the "truth."

neilI won't jump on you at all. You are confusing inquiry with inquisitiveness and rational discussion. And I'm pleased to say that I think we are moving forward here. Slowly, but any steps forward are good.

[Mojo]

It's very childish, and we expect better from our posters here.


From homoeopaths? Samuel Johnson would probably have described this as "the triumph of hope over experience".

[bvw12]

So, legally speaking, you are going to presume people here are guilty until proven innocent? Let's see what happens...


Yes, indeed this is the case - you have no proof (or I would suggest more accurately, you haven't actively looked for the proof) that it wasn't us, so it clearly must have been us! Out of all the millions of posters on the internet, it could only have been us. It couldn't have been, for example, a bunch of regular Hpathy posters deciding that sockpuppets were a neat way of fooling their own admins and embarrassing us simply because their fantasies were pricked. And the very same trick was tried over at another forum where they also post, and got their pride bruised. Interestingly, there they got to register and post on regardless, even after the skeptics were banned and deleted. Isn't that all completely strange and coincidental! :rolleyes:
it has happened before, to the blokes from the bbc bb. except, in their case, they acknowledged it was them at hpathy, and even invited us back to their own site to continue.

then there is the fact that people with your names, espousing the same opinions as you espouse, presented themselves at our site, representing themselves as you, or several of you. given the fact that it is common for criminals to claim they have been framed, it would not now be too surprising to find that you have adopted the same strategy of denial, and have constructed what you hoped would be a plausible defence. i don't know that to be what's going on, but it is not an ungrounded suspicion, it is not an accusation, and it has not been explained away, your elaborate string of historical annecdotes and generously proportioned inferences notwithstanding.

there is of course no denying my bias in the matter, you are quite right about that. but, unlike you, i am quite aware of the fact that there is no reason my suspicions can't turn out to be ill-founded, and i am therefore not intent on a fruitless search for the grail of an Evidentiary Record that will satisfy your seemingly unbounded thirst for the "Golden Proof." i have stated a simple question, based on experience with an obviously pertinent set of circumstances, and have been greeted in response with a very lengthy and noisy denial and counter. clearly, you have done nothing to establish your case, nor to undermine my own suspicions. there it must rest, unless you consider yourself judge and jury, too.



Neil, the moment anyone starts referring to this place as "randiland", it is obvious where their bias lies.you're surprised? btw, how do you refer to "this place"? i am happy to adopt the correct and respectful title, but i haven't a clue to your preferred usage. Immediately we start to expect a particular kind of behaviour, and we are seeing it from you now: baseless accusations with not a shred of evidencevide supra, z., coupled with a repeating of some fairy tales that simply are not true.ahhh! and how do we know this? on your word? with no evidence? or by ignoring my evidence? It's very childish, and we expect better from our posters here.then you'd best improve your own example. and you might suggest to rolfe that he refrain from opening his posts with sentiments such as, "H'pathy! There's a set of goons!"


That could well be the case with Delivera. I last saw him at the Pakistani homeopathy forum (nchpakistan) over a year ago, still ranting and raving about how the admins there should ban skeptics on sight. He went off in a huff for a while - did he ever come back? I wouldn't know - they banned me from there at that time. hmmmm. were you using your own name? did you claim to be yourself? did you express your own opinions? hmmmm. we had someone like that over at hpathy, too, awhile back ... but i hear he was an impersonator.:) Check for yourself if you don't believe me.btw - why did they ban you ... d'ya have any good quotes?
I'd like to see the evidence that whatever this ballot box was for was actually found to be stuffed. And that any stuffing was from here. That would be a good start to proving your point. Until then, I'd suggest you reconsider why you think that it ever actually happened as you thought it did. I seriously think you are letting your suspicions get the better of your evidence - you are convicting without proof. Bad form, don't you think?
well, i couldn't believe it either, so i followed the link someone had provided, and there it was. a bunch of randiland members hooting and howling like dysfunctional adolescents, and plotting their next outing to the ballot box - it was a poll on readers' opinions of the quality of the ezine. i seriously think, however, that you are disinclined to consider as even faintly probable, beliefs of those with whom you disagree, especially when they reflect poorly on either you or on the company you keep.

Indeed, suspicions! What you have when you don't have any evidence. And evidence is what you should look for and obtain before you go making accusations.
the trolling activity has been confirmed, at least to a degree, by rolfe himself, and by your own reference to people who "impersonated" you in the past. i have expressed my suspicions, based on very suggestive circumstantial evidence, but have not entered a formal accusation, for the ample reason that i don't know with certainty what transpired. you might try to couch your comments as carefully.


See if you can explain why the highlighted part is likely to be challenged as a definition of evidence.

Again, see if you can explain why faith has nothing to do with the discussion. For example, have you a definition of what faith is?

I won't jump on you at all. You are confusing inquiry with inquisitiveness and rational discussion. And I'm pleased to say that I think we are moving forward here. Slowly, but any steps forward are good.i understand that you don't get the point, but please try to follow this: it is easy to adopt 'this' definition of evidence and then claim that those people, who have adopted 'that' definition of evidence, don't have any evidence.

it is also possible, in fact, easy, to find fault or mistakes in any experimental method; that is why we all have standards and procedures, and why, in our own fashion, we nitpick our work. so, i am not interested in the least in playing this game of trying to devise a foolproof definition of a research methodology, and compare it to another presumably foolproof definition of another research methodology. the fact is, they are all subject to error. that is why we nitpick them all, and that is why independent corrobotation is needed.

neil

[Complexity]

Neil - Use the quote button.

Nothing that you drivel on about will be read until you do.

What a woo.

[bvw12]

complexity itself wrote: "...drivel.... What a woo."well, perhaps one of your friends will inform you the content of my response to you, since, absent the quote button format you are not reading this - being a man of your word ... but honestly the direction this is turning, i look forward to being ignored by those among the local residents, who, like you, demonstrate such elevated sensibilities.:rolleyes:

except i hope that sep manages to sustain his efforts to maintain a focus on the more serious matters at hand (errrm, if this is the real sep, and not the one at nch ... or the one at hpathy ... or at otherhealth ... now, which one was it?). and rolfe, too, who has produced some very good work in the root thread.

bach (a.k.a. Bach-Verzeichnis-Werke 12 - eh, rolfe?:))

[opqdan]

complexity itself wrote: "...drivel.... What a woo."well, perhaps one of your friends will inform you the content of my response to you, since, absent the quote button format you are not reading this - being a man of your word ... but honestly the direction this is turning, i look forward to being ignored by those among the local residents, who, like you, demonstrate such elevated sensibilities.:rolleyes:

except i hope that sep manages to sustain his efforts to maintain a focus on the more serious matters at hand (errrm, if this is the real sep, and not the one at nch ... or the one at hpathy ... or at otherhealth ... now, which one was it?). and rolfe, too, who has produced some very good work in the root thread.

bach (a.k.a. Bach-Verzeichnis-Werke 12 - eh, rolfe?:))As somebody who isn't going to argue either side of thise, I just thought I would drop in and ask that you please use the "quote" function as it is intended, and like the other poster's are mentioning.

I only say this because it makes your responses harder to read, which puts you at a disadvantage whenever somebody reads the thread. The quote function defines a standard way of separating other comments from your own that make is much easier to understand the structure of the thread.

It does require a bit more work if you are separating the post into multiple sections, but I really think we would all benefit if everybody could easily understand what either side is saying.

Thanks. :)

[bvw12]

opq -

sorry, but it's not worth it.

frankly, i don't agree that it makes that much difference, except on some occasions when things get really complicated. i used to get involved in deeply segmented exchanges with hans, over at hpathy, and we would end up with text in the original normal black font, and in boldface, and then a color, a second color ....

...well, we worked our way out of that one, hans showing the way to be honest about it, and since then i see that hans has even adopted the quote format. but in a recent post over at hpathy, i was amused to find that some of his quotes were in the quote box, some of them outside the boxes in the comment/response area, and vice versa for his co-discussant. so i thought, that's even worse than multi-colored implants.

beyond that, getting my point across has never really been a problem for me. those that like me, read without complaint. those that don't like me, still manage to monitor my dissertations, even from their perch here at randiland - or so i'm told, as friends variously inform me now and then that i've been the subject of discussion here, again.... so, if my formatting is good enough to spy on, i figure it's good enough to deal with in the flesh.

at least until they stop calling me and my hpathy colleagues "goons" ....

frankly, they haven't earned even the little effort the change would require. otoh, if they all spoke, consistently, as you have spoken to me, i might think about it. if they all maintained the kind of decorum reflected in rolfe's numerous, very high quality posts in the root thread, i might think about it.

but i just don't care enough about this silliness to give it that much attention, and i don't trust that were i to acquiesce, i would not be subject to a similar assault at the next opportunity, in other words, next time they were unable to win an argument with reason and honesty, instead of irrelevant and infantile harrassment.

i expect, btw, that one day in the distant, or not-too-distant future, who can tell which? i will in fact adopt the quote function, simply because that seems to be the trend in on-line forums and it 'feels' like the kind of thing i will gradually acquiesce in ...

but, again, i do appreciate your obvious effort to frame the issue in civil and respectful terms, and i apologize for any inconvenience my style costs you. however, please allow me to remind you that until recently, style of interleaving quotes and responses was quite the norm. and that my sans u.c. format is simply a very comfortable habit by now. and that neither are really that big a deal...

for me, it is quite enough to wish each other well, and to try without gamesmanship to understand each other. let me make a promise: on the day that randiland celebrates the first anniversary of its last gratuitous gutterswipe at homeopaths, i will adopt the quote function. perhaps randiland as a whole can start today, and mark this (from rolfe, as it happens) as its last exercise in self-debasing declamation -

These people want to live in their own fantasy world, where they can discuss this farrago of nonsense, this system of excuses masquerading as medicine, to their hearts' content without anything from the uncomfortable real world intruding.

sorry, opq. good wishes to you. but focus on something more substantive, please.

truly, best wishes,

neil

[DanishDynamite]

Just a small interrupt to tip my hat to those skeptics among us (e.g. Zep and Rolfe) who still have the energy and zest to fight the fight. Thumbs up for these guys and gals!

That is all.

[bvw12]

later.

[bvw12]

nice, dyno. increasing the ratio of tangential remarks to substantive another notch. but the thread hardly needed it. :(

o, well, that was a cute remark, wasn't it? but i'm not even amused by my own contributions to this masquerade - i mean, who cares about all this frankly really stupid posturing - get over yourselves, guys.

clearly, your drivel clearly indicates it is time for me to go - you guys are really boring, and about as adept at sorting through new ideas as a worm on a hook.

yuk. bye. maybe once i'm gone, you'll gather together the guts to talk about my ideas. but more probably, you'll just sling your usual hash.

judging by my own past habits, i expect to be back some time between next february, and the following october, for another brief, but be-clouded visit. maybe you can work up some better material by then.

but probably not.

[The Great Hairy One]

Hold on, let me get this straight.

BVW12 actually thinks homeopathy works??? Honestly??

Cheers,
TGHO

[Slimething]

bvw, grow up. No one cares about your site here. Stop wasting our bandwidth with your stupid complaints. And, learn how to use the effin' quote button.

Otherwise, I'd like to nominate this thread for "Least Worthwhile" or "Most Unintersting". What was that quote about wrestling with pigs?

Don't let the door hit you on your BFA. :p

[Rolfe]

BWV (Neil) not only thinks homoeopathy works, he has argued long and hard with Hans that the only way to approach the question is from the standpoint of assuming a priori that it does (because this seems so self-evident to him). Thus, if a controlled test seems to show that it does not work, the only logical conclusion is that the test is flawed.

I don't know how Hans finds the patience. When the whole thing is argued in these tones of pompous self-righteousness, it just gest farcical.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

the trolling activity has been confirmed, at least to a degree, by rolfe himself, and by your own reference to people who "impersonated" you in the past.


This is not actually true.

I class the person who registered at H'pathy as "Rolfe" as a troll, not for anything he or she said, but because he or she was not me but was clearly pretending to be me for his or her own purposes (which never became clear). The actual posts were more confrontational in style, and less polite, than anything I myself would have written. They were also, in my opinion, more sloppily argued. However, apart from the identity theft, there was nothing about them that would constitute trolling.

I provided a link to the appearance at H'pathy which was indeed me, in fact I provide it in my sig. line every time I post. If that was trolling, please explain how.

The "Badly Shaved Monkey" identity was a similar case. The posts were not very polite, but they were within the bounds of acceptable Internet behaviour. I only said I thought at first that BSM had lost his mind because the posts were so unlike him. Then I realised it wasn't him, and he confirmed it to me. He also confirmed that he registered himself as "The Real Monkey", and posted several times.

To repeat. The "trolling" nature of the impersonator (or impersonators) lies wholly in the fact that they were impersonations. And that the real owners of these names felt they had been misrepresented. If we took the view that the posts were real, then there was nothing about them that would class as trolling.

Now, these were not the names Neil was accusing of "enormously vile mouths". These names were Catriona, Manon Thebus, Fatman and Zookeeper. So far as I can tell, none of these posters has posted by that name on this forum. So, Neil, can you prove in any way at all that these people are or were also JREF posters? If not, then your accusations directed at this forum are baseless.

I actually remember some of that, it happened three or four years ago. What I do not remember is anything "enormously vile" being said by any of these posters. (I do remember some vile abuse being tendered by certain H'pathy regulars such as Syed, Davina, Snoopy and Naturalhealth, though.) So, would Neil care to give us any evidence that any of these posters ever said anything "enormously vile"?

Personally, I think he has such difficulty defending his position on homoeopathy that he prefers to get into sterile discussions about behaviour and protocol rather than defend the indefensible. Also, like most homoeopaths, he seems utterly devoid of anything at all resembling a sense of humour. This po-faced seriousness when discussing the utterly ridiculous is quite funny in itself.

Rolfe.

[Big Les]

So, cat pictures?

[asmodean]

So, cat pictures?

Don't listen to him!

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/its-a-trap.jpg

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG

Hey, I've just found a stash of capital letters. Perhaps Neil could use them. I post them here as a public service and I claim no rights to the intellectual property contained therein. Please free to cut and paste any one of them to the beginning of any sentence.

Ideally, they could be used to begin sentences that said something useful, but let's take baby steps.

p.s. On the subject of banning. Hpathy has a number of spectacularly rude members whose presence is not just tolerated by adored because they toe the party-line of irrational faith in homeopathy

For yet more entertaining evidence of the ready resort to censorship to defend the indefensible in homeopathy you should take a look here;

http://homeopathy.wildfalcon.com/archives/2007/07/02/tha-parliament-of-owls-22007-iatrogenic-illness/

Any tricky questions meet with oblivion. Hilarious.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

This po-faced seriousness when discussing the utterly ridiculous is quite funny in itself.

When a sense of humour gets diluted out of existence it disappears instead of being potentised. Discuss.

[NoZed Avenger]

When a sense of humour gets diluted out of existence it disappears instead of being potentised. Discuss.

Maybe they just need to be concussed by someone wearing a leather glove?


Repeatedly.

[Zep]

it has happened before, to the blokes from the bbc bb. except, in their case, they acknowledged it was them at hpathy, and even invited us back to their own site to continue.

then there is the fact that people with your names, espousing the same opinions as you espouse, presented themselves at our site, representing themselves as you, or several of you. given the fact that it is common for criminals to claim they have been framed, it would not now be too surprising to find that you have adopted the same strategy of denial, and have constructed what you hoped would be a plausible defence. i don't know that to be what's going on, but it is not an ungrounded suspicion, it is not an accusation, and it has not been explained away, your elaborate string of historical annecdotes and generously proportioned inferences notwithstanding.

there is of course no denying my bias in the matter, you are quite right about that. but, unlike you, i am quite aware of the fact that there is no reason my suspicions can't turn out to be ill-founded, and i am therefore not intent on a fruitless search for the grail of an Evidentiary Record that will satisfy your seemingly unbounded thirst for the "Golden Proof." i have stated a simple question, based on experience with an obviously pertinent set of circumstances, and have been greeted in response with a very lengthy and noisy denial and counter. clearly, you have done nothing to establish your case, nor to undermine my own suspicions. there it must rest, unless you consider yourself judge and jury, too.



Neil, the moment anyone starts referring to this place as "randiland", it is obvious where their bias lies.you're surprised? btw, how do you refer to "this place"? i am happy to adopt the correct and respectful title, but i haven't a clue to your preferred usage. Immediately we start to expect a particular kind of behaviour, and we are seeing it from you now: baseless accusations with not a shred of evidencevide supra, z., coupled with a repeating of some fairy tales that simply are not true.ahhh! and how do we know this? on your word? with no evidence? or by ignoring my evidence? It's very childish, and we expect better from our posters here.then you'd best improve your own example. and you might suggest to rolfe that he refrain from opening his posts with sentiments such as, "H'pathy! There's a set of goons!"


That could well be the case with Delivera. I last saw him at the Pakistani homeopathy forum (nchpakistan) over a year ago, still ranting and raving about how the admins there should ban skeptics on sight. He went off in a huff for a while - did he ever come back? I wouldn't know - they banned me from there at that time. hmmmm. were you using your own name? did you claim to be yourself? did you express your own opinions? hmmmm. we had someone like that over at hpathy, too, awhile back ... but i hear he was an impersonator.:) Check for yourself if you don't believe me.btw - why did they ban you ... d'ya have any good quotes?
I'd like to see the evidence that whatever this ballot box was for was actually found to be stuffed. And that any stuffing was from here. That would be a good start to proving your point. Until then, I'd suggest you reconsider why you think that it ever actually happened as you thought it did. I seriously think you are letting your suspicions get the better of your evidence - you are convicting without proof. Bad form, don't you think?
well, i couldn't believe it either, so i followed the link someone had provided, and there it was. a bunch of randiland members hooting and howling like dysfunctional adolescents, and plotting their next outing to the ballot box - it was a poll on readers' opinions of the quality of the ezine. i seriously think, however, that you are disinclined to consider as even faintly probable, beliefs of those with whom you disagree, especially when they reflect poorly on either you or on the company you keep.

Indeed, suspicions! What you have when you don't have any evidence. And evidence is what you should look for and obtain before you go making accusations.
the trolling activity has been confirmed, at least to a degree, by rolfe himself, and by your own reference to people who "impersonated" you in the past. i have expressed my suspicions, based on very suggestive circumstantial evidence, but have not entered a formal accusation, for the ample reason that i don't know with certainty what transpired. you might try to couch your comments as carefully.


See if you can explain why the highlighted part is likely to be challenged as a definition of evidence.

Again, see if you can explain why faith has nothing to do with the discussion. For example, have you a definition of what faith is?

I won't jump on you at all. You are confusing inquiry with inquisitiveness and rational discussion. And I'm pleased to say that I think we are moving forward here. Slowly, but any steps forward are good.i understand that you don't get the point, but please try to follow this: it is easy to adopt 'this' definition of evidence and then claim that those people, who have adopted 'that' definition of evidence, don't have any evidence.

it is also possible, in fact, easy, to find fault or mistakes in any experimental method; that is why we all have standards and procedures, and why, in our own fashion, we nitpick our work. so, i am not interested in the least in playing this game of trying to devise a foolproof definition of a research methodology, and compare it to another presumably foolproof definition of another research methodology. the fact is, they are all subject to error. that is why we nitpick them all, and that is why independent corrobotation is needed.

neil

OK, Neil. Let's do it in baby steps.

1) A few years ago you were taken in hook, line and sinker by a bunch of identity thieves, posing as JREF members and trolling your forum. You were told they were thieves but denied it. The same crew then did the same trick in another homeopathy forum that I'm aware of, but were rumbled by that forum's management (to their credit). This was all explained to you at the time, but you refused to believe anything but the worst about us. Your ongoing blind insistence on maintaining and promoting this misconception, even today with evidence that it was indeed identity-theft, demonstrates how much of a problem you seem to have in giving up cherished beliefs in favour of facts. I guess the same holds true with you and homeopathy as well.

2) You are clearly having a problem with using the simple forum functions provided by vBulletin. You seem to be able to do the bolding and indenting OK, but can't seem to find the Quote button. Here's a clue: It's the one that looks like this: http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/quote.gif PLEASE USE IT. Or I will simply respond to just the first point you make and nothing further, because it is an unreadable mess basically.

Frankly, it beggars belief that you think you will still be taken seriously as any sort of researcher or spokesperson if you cannot properly manage a communique as simple as a forum post. And if this sort of behaviour is a deliberate attempt to annoy, then it will fail that also. It's not annoying in the slightest, and you will simply be ignored, then your posts used as yet another example of deliberate and obstinate ignorance by homeopaths in action. Your choice.

3) The "game" of evidence and proof as you call it is vitally serious. I suppose it can be summed up simply as: You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. And you are simply trying to make excuses that there should be allowances made for homeopaths to make up their own facts! What a jolly idea that is! Any facts we don't like we can simply substitute our own for them. And of course they would all be correct and apply.

But what if what I wanted to be a fact was diametrically the opposite of what you wanted to be a fact? Which one is "true"? Which one gets to be how reality will actually work? Do we fight it out behind the bike sheds, winner gets to set reality? Does that sound as silly to you as it does to me?

Here's an idea! How about we have a standard reliable method we all agree on that determines if a fact is indeed a fact. Wouldn't that be good? One set of demonstrably true facts for everyone! And what will we call this standard method? I know! Let's call it "The Scientific Method!". Catchy, hmmm? All we need is everyone to understand and agree this is the way to do it...everyone. Otherwise we are just back to anyone at all making up any old crap they like and calling it "fact" without having to justify it in any way. Not pukka, is it, Neil.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

By the way, what is the problem with sock puppets being used to try to extract meaningful responses from homeopaths or indeed to trick them into revealing their true and contradictory opinions? They refuse to conduct sensible debates and delete anything they don't like or which challenges their cherished assumptions. As far as I can see, if they propagate their falsehoods in public forums then there is something close to a moral duty to confront those falsehoods.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. If they could counter the criticisms and attaks then they should damn well come up with the goods instead of crying to mummy that big boys came and spoiled their game. Their game, let me recall on all our behalf, is taking money for sugar pills and leading sick people into believing you can treat real diseases with a drop of water. We're not allowed to call it "fraud" if they sincerely believe in it, but that does not remove the duty to shout from the roof tops that it is delusional nonsense.

If their delicate sensibilities cannot cope with reading arguments that disprove their dangerous ideas then I have no sympathy.

What really burns them is that they have no method to counter the criticisms of their creed so they must eiterate their tired dogmas by rote or simply delete the threatening questions.

It is quite extraordinary how rigid and dogmatic these supposed free-thinkers really are.

[Zep]

Indeed, BSM! If you are a homeopath, whatever you do, DON'T ASK QUESTIONS! ;)

[athon]

From the youngest age, I've been taught that you endeavour to use forms of literacy that the community you're communicating with respects in order to demonstrate that you have an appreciation of their level of understanding on things. To appeal to a potential employer, you petition them for a job using appropriate words, spelling and punctuation, as well as the assumed format one uses in a letter of application.

This extends to forums such as these. Using appropriate words, spelling and conventions shows you have a worldly understanding of literacy, and therefore reflects one's personality in how much effort they put into other things. In short, I really can't take anybody who claims they couldn't be bothered to use capital letters, decent punctuation, put some minor effort into their spelling, or use features such as 'quote', as they evidentally take short cuts and fail to extend themselves into making an effort towards showing that they wish to show they are worth the effort to discuss things with.

Thinking takes effort. So it stands to reason that it also takes effort to show others that you go to great lengths to think. There is never an excuse for laziness.

Athon

[Mojo]

Thinking takes effort. So it stands to reason that it also takes effort to show others that you go to great lengths to think. There is never an excuse for laziness.


In Neil's case it isn't lazyness, and it isn't that he doesn't know how to use the tags: he's been using the [indent] tag. He just won't use the [quote] tag.

[Zep]

He's trying to be annoying simply because we skeptics have asked him to help himself express his views more clearly. Maybe he has some valid points, but his obstinacy in this matter is successfully hiding them from us. His loss, not ours.

[Rolfe]

To make myself more clear. I followed quite a lot of what Neil is on about. I remember the Catriona saga. She had been challenged by a homoeopath (not anyone on the forum as far as I remember) to take a homoeopathic remedy, I think it was 30C Belladonna, and assured that she's be so amazed by what happened she would be convinced of homoeopathy's effectiveness. However, she had read the earlier account (which I also followed) of MRC Hans doing much the same thing, and noted all the backtracking when he reported no effect. Her reason for going to the forum, she said, was to ask for all the prohibitions about what she should and shouldn't do to make the exercise valid to be stated up front in advance, so that if nothing happened in her case then there wouldn't be any reason for it to be declared invalid post hoc, as it were.

I thought, hey, let's see where this goes, and followed the thread. (I wish now I'd saved the thread, but it was a long one, and I wasn't as familiar as I am now with both H'pathy's habit of deleting things the admins don't like, and how to save html pages.) Her reception was mixed, with quite a lot of suspicion, but she wasn't chased away. Nobody told her anything else to avoid (I think her original challenger had told her not to brush her teeth, or something like that). One person said, look up the antidotes, but when she asked what they meant by that, nobody explained any further.

Well, guess what, she reported noticing nothing unusual happening. After several days of this, somebody asked if she'd been drinking coffee. She said, well, yes, I usually have a cup of coffee mid-morning. Several people said that that would have antidoted the Belladonna so that was why nothing happened. Catriona said, but that's why I came here in the first place, so that you could tell me about that sort of pitfall before I started! First the earlier poster said, well, I told you to look up the antidotes, so if you didn't it's your own fault. Then Xanta (I'm sure it was her, from what happened next) said well, I assumed you drank tea and not coffee so I didn't mention it.

The next part I remember particularly well. Davina then came in and insisted that an ordinary cup of coffee couldn't affect Belladonna. It wasn't a homoeopathic preparation, she said, and only proper homoeopathic coffea would act as an antidote. Catriona asked for clarification. Could the coffee have nullified the trial or not? No agreement was reached between Davina and the rest of them, and Catriona was accused of stirring up trouble.

The Xanta said something about drinking alcohol. Catriona said she didn't usually drink but she had in fact had a glass of wine one evening about a week into the trial. Xanta then went ballistic, referring to Catriona as an alcoholic, and having a "drink problem", in almost every post. She also started using various snide nicknames for Catriona, and continued to repeat these after being asked to stop.

Xanta then posted that quote from the Faculty of Homoeopathy web site (http://vetpath.co.uk/voodoo/fachom/cas_met.html) that she kept spamming this forum with. Now one of the statements there is just plain flat wrong - the one where it is stated that Kleijnen (1991) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1825800&dopt=Abstract) found that "The higher the scientific merit of the study, the more likely it is to show homoeopathy as superior to placebo." Kleijnen said no such thing. What the paper actually said was that the authors were surprised by the number even of high-quality studies that had shown positive evidence. I don't think, however, that Catriona realised that Xanta was just copying another person's opinion - as usual, Xanta hadn't attributed it, or attached any link. She told Xanta this was wrong, and provided evidence of what the authors had actually said. Xanta continued to spam every thread in sight with the same quote. Catriona referred to the quote as a lie, and requested that Xanta stop repeating the lie.

I think this was when she was banned. Unfortunately, shortly afterwards, the admins went through the whole forum and deleted every single post she'd made, including anything she'd said that had ever been quoted by anyone. So I can't really verify my memory of this.

I have found what I think is (or rather was) the thread in question (http://www.hpathy.com/homeopathyforums/forum_posts.asp?TID=948&PN=68). It has only two pages now (I think there's even less than I remember following the purge, possibly someone has had a second pass over it), but originally it was into double figures and contained all Catriona's experiences and questions while she tried to do what she'd been challenged to do - take a homoeopathic remedy and be amazed by what would happen. All that interesting information is gone. The posts left only cover four days (26th to 30th January 2004) and barely touch on the proving trial at all, but I'm pretty sure the original thread covered a substantially longer period. However, it wasn't that long, and I don't think it was as much as a month between Catriona starting that thread and being banned. Three-and-a-half years ago.

And that is Neil's best case for trolling, and an "enormously vile mouth". Xanta was the one with the vile mouth, as I recall, calling Catriona an alcoholic and more. But there you go. Delete the evidence, then you can make up anything you like without fear of contradiction.

I remember the "Fat Man" too. He was a homoeopath who'd come to believe that the remedies were making no difference to what happened and gone into counselling instead. I think he was German. His English was a little "interesting", but I don't remember anything "vile" being said. I remember the name "Manon Thebus", but not the circumstances of what the poster was saying. I don't remember "Zookeeper" at all.

I remember other posters Neil didn't name, principally Starburn and Prester John. They posted for quite long periods. Again I don't remember anything vile being said. Only MRC Hans and Prester John were JREF postes so far as I know. I don't remember any rudeness from any if them.

What I do remember is absolutely poisonous behaviour from H'pathy regulars, especially the delightful Divina (a.k.a ChaChaHeels) and Xanta. Divina's opening comment to Catriona is still there, now apparently the OP of the thread. Remember, Catriona had been told that all she had to do was buy some 30C Belladonna and take one tablet every morning, and she'd be amazed by what happened. She was asking for help to make sure she "did it right", specifically what to avoid to prevent the exercise being subsequently declared invalid, and this is what she got (http://www.hpathy.com/homeopathyforums/forum_posts.asp?TID=948&PN=68). Xanta seems relatively friendly at that point, but she got extremely nasty later.

I suppose the selective memory and the reinterpretation of events Neil is demonstrating are just par for the homoeopathy course. Dammit, I wish now I'd saved that thread!

Rolfe.

[Mojo]

Off-topic, I'm afraid, but while we're on the subject of homoeopaths explaining provings, we have a live one (http://badscience.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=42729&sid=a25ea4ffc75ab9f2346707ccc7fc74b9#42729) over at badscience.

Her website can be found here (http://www.maryenglish.co.uk/). Check out the provings under "Remedies".

[ChristineR]

Uh...Rolfe...your slip is showing.

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=672800&postcount=9257

[Blue Bubble]

Off-topic, I'm afraid, but while we're on the subject of homoeopaths explaining provings, we have a live one (http://badscience.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=42729&sid=a25ea4ffc75ab9f2346707ccc7fc74b9#42729) over at badscience.

Her website can be found here (http://www.maryenglish.co.uk/). Check out the provings under "Remedies".

:jaw-dropp :eek: :jaw-dropp

[Cuddles]

I have to say, while it could easily be classed as trolling, I think calling something like this "identity theft" is really just going to make you look silly. These are just made-up names used on internet message boards. You may tend to use the same one in lots of places, but that doesn't make it yours. I'm sure there are plenty of people who call themselves Cuddles, and it's entirely possible they could be mistaken for me.

While it does seem that it was deliberate use of your names to confuse people, that doesn't make it theft. Trolling yes, but certainly not anything more than that.

[Rolfe]

Uh...Rolfe...your slip is showing.

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=672800&postcount=9257


OK, fair enough, it's so long ago I couldn't remember if I'd fessed up to that or not. My recollections still stand though.

Rolfe.

[Deetee]

OK, fair enough, it's so long ago I couldn't remember if I'd fessed up to that or not. My recollections still stand though.

Rolfe.

Yeah - Alcohol can do things to your memory.

Are we allowed to call you a piss-cat?

:D

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I have saved some old Hpathy threads, but not enough to fill in Rolfe's missing pieces, but I did find this from Neil and I thought you might like to be reminded how he speaks when he has the power to ban others but they do not have that power over him;

"simianface or catrionagirl were so rat-like and even more undersocialized than the usual skeptic that there was no choice but to ban them from the community."

I think that crunching sound was him tumbling from his high horse.

(He's run away, hasn't he)

[Rolfe]

Well, since I'ce fessed up to being Catriona, I'll explain why. I was genuinely challenged by a homoeopath to take 30C Belladonna pills, one every morning, and assured that I'd be so astonished at what happened that I'd immediately be convinced that the remedies were more than sugar pills. I bought a bottle in Boots, and in fact according to the label, sugar pills is exactly what they were. I was shocked by the price - £4.95 for the equivalent of about a teaspoonful of (admitted) sugar, when a bottle of aspirin or paracetamol costs just pence. I remember now actually photographing the bottle and posting a picture of it because some posters questioned that I was actually doing what I said.

I chose to adopt a new identity because I wanted to do the trial straight, without the baggage of Rolfe's "anti-homoeopathy illuminati" identity. I really did want them to tell me what to avoid so that if nothing happened then nobody would be able to say, well, that's because you drank a cup of coffee. But in fact in the end that's exactly what happened.

I was excruciatingly polite, even when I was asking questions. Davina/ChaChaHeels piled in with abuse right from the start. (It was very contradictory - she was saying that it was no use unless I took part in a professionally organised proving and researched it all the way, while I'd been told just to take the pills and be amazed, and when I mentioned the publications in existence about the proving of Belladonna, someone accused me of cheating for having looked for such things.)

Xanta was quite nice to start with, but got nastier and nastier. It was "catface", I think, but I really can't remember all the insults. I asked her, politely, to stop calling me names, but she began her next post with a string of nasty names, including the ones I'd asked her not to use. Of course nobody censured her, they just thought up more names. I don't really remember much of what Neil said.

However, after days of abuse from Xanta, and her repeated spamming of the TrustHomoeopathy lie about the Kleijnen paper, I finally called her a liar. Which of course she was. That was what triggered the ban I think. I was finished with the proving by then and of course nothing out of the ordinary had happened, but it would have been nice to have kept the thread just for evidence about what I did and what didn't happen if nothing else.

Now, Neil has accused me of having an "enormously vile mouth", in the Catriona identity. Which I took in order not to be hampered by Rolfe's anti-homoeopathy identity. Anybody actually believe him?

Rolfe.