Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

ONLINE NOTIFICATIONS

              April 24, 2006

Educational Consultants
                    helping parents and professionals since 1989.

              Online since 1995.

              "It is more important to get it right,
              than to get it first."

LYING TAKES MANY FORMS

By: http://www.strugglingteens.com/news/polls.html,
              and manipulated it in such a way that the person was able to vote
              for one selection at least 127 times in one session. This attempt
              to override the honest expressions of other participants' opinions
              was designed to create a perspective that did not honestly reflect
              that of the participants. In essence, this person was lying to
              everybody.

In our culture, people of good will have revulsion for those who
              prove to be liars. It seems this revulsion comes from an almost
              universal ideal. Even a pathological liar will often be incensed
              when somebody else lies to him or her. In our court system, it
              often happens that a witness's testimony is completely thrown out
              if it is proved that they lied on even a matter that had nothing
              to do with the case. In students placed in juvenile justice or
              parent choice residential programs, one of the most important issues
              the staff works with are the antisocial and personal consequences
              of that child's lying. Hacking is a rather despised activity because
              it pretends something that is untrue, and laws have been passed
              that have seen some hackers going to jail. We have even had powerful
              politicians forced out of office when it was determined they had
              lied to the public. Lying is one of the strongest taboos in our
              culture, at least as an ideal, and the revulsion felt by those
              lied to goes very deep.

Of course, we all know lying goes on all the time from little
              white lies to the BIG lie. However, the liar plays a dangerous
              game with potentially severe consequences if he or she is caught.
              Once caught, the liar has no creditability among honest people
              of good will.

The details of the manipulation of our monthly poll are as follows.

             
1. For months, the average votes in our monthly poll have been
                   about 100 votes a month.

             
2. On the morning of April 22, the vote total for the April poll
                   was 54 votes.

             
3. On April 23, the vote total rose to 185 votes, with one choice
                   in the poll increasing by 127 votes overnight.

             
4. A check of the site log for that page showed that 127 entrances
                   to the poll page in a short time had one IP number (a unique
                   number assigned to one computer during one internet session)
                   shortly before 10 a.m. West Coast Time. Only one category received
                   votes during that session.

             
5. At a few minutes past 10 a.m., West Coast Time, on Sunday,
                   an anonymous poster on the Fornits website posted a link to our
                   poll page and said "Heh heh" with a copy of the poll
                   with the results at 173 votes, followed later by approving comments
                   from other participants.

             
6. We waited through Sunday and Monday to see what more they
                   would do. The computer with the same IP number, and some other
                   computers, came to the site and brought the count up to 406 votes,
                   almost all for the same category. Fornits is a well-known discussion
                   board that is much more critical of private residential schools
                   and programs than public juvenile justice ones. The site allows
                   anonymous posters to say whatever they feel, often spiced with
                   profanity, vulgarity and sprinkled with four letter words.

             
7. We are sending a complaint to the owner of that IP number,
                   pointing out that one of their customers had abused their Internet
                   privileges.

             
8. We are freezing the poll and leaving it online for at least
                   the rest of the month with this explanation so the world can
                   see the results of this lie.

           

This person(s) obviously has no respect for the people who expressed
              their honest opinions in this poll.

This person(s) obviously has no respect for the public who might
              be viewing this poll and are interested in learning the honest
              expression of the public's opinion.

This person(s) obviously is afraid to identify themselves and
              be accountable for their actions, choosing to hide behind anonymous
              manipulation and anonymous postings.

Results of this poll are obviously not valid, and only tell us
              that some people think lying is ok.

I have one question. Do the other people who hob nob with this
            person(s) on the Fornits website condone lying?