Re: Assume the persona here is legit intially


"Quentin Grady" <quentin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:66q004p7c8m7kni8sos49ae7hqfmvodgv5@xxxxxxxxxx
On 9 Apr 2008 10:48:12 GMT, Chris Malcolm <cam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Yes, but a good idea to do such querying in a new thread in terms
understandable only to those who know the history.

G'day G'day Chris,

It reminds me a little of Neighborhood Watch. Do you guys have a
similar local set up. I started a cell locally a decade ago. It had
more than fifty households and functioned well for some years.
One thing we had was a telephone tree. An email tree could function
similarly to awaken people to the possibility of the return of a sock
puppet.

On another tack I've given some thought to how genuine people might
be. It arose in the context of new comers and whether I was concerned
about how genuine they might be.

As I wandered along with my dogs I reflected on whether some folks
were or weren't as they made themselves out to be. And would it
matter? What I wanted to say but it wasn't relevant on that occasion
is that IMHO it wouldn't. The winning option was to proceed as if
they were genuine.

Let's say for example that they portrayed themselves as exercising
regularly when they didn't. Not surprisingly they'd receive praise
here for exercising. Would it matter?

Now here is the curious thing. It might even help bring about a
change in their behavior. They might like the praise the receive even
if they didn't deserve it. The hints that go along with the praise
about them now being able to enjoy life so much more might be enough
to nudge them into making it a reality.

OK, perhaps I'm an optimist but I do believe people tend to become
how they are perceived. Lots of corny school experiments have been
done with faked test results which predicted students would do well
thanks to their high IQ and surprisingly they did perform better.

Well those are my thoughts. If we support positive behavior it might
well become a reality. If it doesn't for the individual it might for
others who read the thread and learn. Most information that is shared
is shared experience and generically useful.

Best wishes.
--
Quentin Grady ^ ^ /
New Zealand, >#,#< [
/ \ /\
"... and the blind dog was leading."

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/quentin


Quentin, those were almost parallel to my own thoughts upon reading this. I recalled some time ago when a sock puppet named "Madison" purported to be a young teen girl with diabetes. It turned out not to be so, and it was some recurrent troll, if I recall correctly. But before this was discovered there was a great deal of very active correspondence and almost everyone weighed in on it in a positive sense and to be honest, I think the replies were some of the best and most heartfelt, I have read here in several years.

I didn't regret a single word I wrote to "Madison" and frankly none of the replies that others made should have been regretted either. Why?

Because all the replies were kind, compassionate, helpful and made in good spirit, in good faith, and with only the best intent. This, (no matter who dupes us) is a very good thing.

We were not made fools of who replied to "Madison" we were made better human beings by it..... the only true fool was the person doing the fooling.

We have no way of knowing who anyone is who posts here. They can present themselves as just about anyone or anything, but that is not what this newsgroup is all about. It is what it brings out in all of us that matters. If it brings out kindness, helpful thoughts, good wishes, then all share in that benefit.

The troll/sock doing the fooling has only their own furtive nastiness to deal with all alone.

--
Best Regards,

Evelyn

.

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