From the Aspen forum:
On 2006-01-09 05:39:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Amazing how the People who have only POSITIVES to say always hid behind "anonymous".... anything you say is simply not worth listening to? If you really know what your talking about come forward and stand up for your convictions with a real name!"
This was the response given by another Anon to the previous statement:
"Want to know why that is, people? It's because there's a handful (at least) of rabid anti-any-school posters here who talk like they are a menace to anyone who has a different opinion.
I'm talking threats of finding disagreeing posters, coming to their homes and raping and killing them---and their children. I've seen that here.
More important than just words: these type of posters take action, posting people's personal information so their fellow psychopaths can harass people in their personal lives.
As a result the people who are identified may get threatening calls in the middle of the night,it's happened. They end up having to talk to lawyers and police, and put call-traps on their phones so that if the psychopaths call back there's a chance of locating them. Maybe these brave anti-school characters carry a label here, but they get a little shy and do not identify themselves when they call, you can be sure of that.
As far as I know nobody's been actually killed by a fornit's type so I guess that's something to be thankful for.
So that's why you don't see many positive opinions under an identifiable label. Who wants that kind of trouble.
Look around this site: there is very little hope of intelligent discussion, meaningful, respectful disagreement.
The only reason I've personally even posted here is because I want to give an alternative opinion to any parents with a kid in trouble who might be surfing around and looking for a school. We know from our own family experience that much good can come of placing a child in a residential program after all other alternatives have been tried.
If parents who stumble onto this site only saw the negatives they might get a really lop-sided view point. When we put our child in a program we were lucky enough to have been unknowledgable of the internet, hence we were spared the rantings constantly posted here.
To other parents, we have a wonderful outcome in our family, I beg you: talk to real people when making your decision. Don't go by a site like this. Aside from the obvious psychological problems of many of the anti-school posters, you can't even tell on a forum like this whether the people are real or playing some kind of malicious game.
And to other parents: in my opinion at least, you're making a big mistake if you post your name or other identifiers in the hope of direct communication as a source of information. Some of these posters are really scary, you don't want them contacting you if you decide to use a school and ignore their one-sided advice.
The site's owner seems to have no interest in removing personal information that gets posted here, by the way, so if you post your name or number or email, it may be for good, as will be the case if somebody else posts it.
So be careful. The site's owner seems to think that she is immune from consequences because others have posted this kind of info, even though she's the one who leaves it up even when there are threats associated with it.
Ultimately it will be a court (not a forum owner) who decides what is illegal or even criminal. On the Hidden Lakes Academy (HLA thread) you'll find posts by a crazy named Overlordd or something like that: Hidden Lakes ended up getting lawyers to force removal of his posts associated with that school (the posts in question are now gone due to the legal action although discussion of the whole legal process that occurred remains).
So we parents who are harassed do have recourse under the law, some of us are working on larger solutions like federal ways to discipline site owners, automatic money damages.
But anyone should think really long and hard before self-identifying here: ask yourself :"How much time, effort and money is it worth to me, do I really want to be associated with the madness that is Fornit's?".
To the person arguing with Dysfunction Junction et al on this thread: don't bother. What you say (however rational) will make no difference to these people.
Your instincts are good: there is an agenda here, and it's one that your positive comments are threatened by.
Do yourself a favor, use your energy to talk to other parents who have a real time view of these schools. Then do what you have to do.
What these opinionated strangers think matters not at all in your life.
Do what you have to do and if you have a good experience, well, do other parents a favor and speak up about it later, for safety I'd do it anonymously.
:cry2:
