Can we have a calm and honest discussion

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So you are saying that you did not understand the rule, were punished for disobeying, have learned the correct way to behave, are sorry and have it clarified and acknowledge your fault and the lesson learned? Sounds fair, mature and reasonable.

Moderators? What do you say?

rossc, the moderators are aware of the issue; it has been discussed at length. Your input is appreciated, but given the lack of information available to you, there are limitations to your perspective. Roman was informed that his PM privileges would remain revoked for the time being; he is welcome to revisit the situation in the future.


M.

No. We are not saying that at all. We are, if anything, saying the diametric opposite. Swearing is no more acceptable in the Adult section than anywhere else.

However, the chances are, that if no one draws our attention to it, then we will not search it out there. It is still against the rules - but if no one complains, we will be unlikely to pursue the matter.

It is not a licence to swear.

Merely by making your above statement, I wonder how you can expect us to take you seriously.


I am finding it very "old" that you continuously use your Asperger's syndrome as an excuse for everything you do or say.


And has it been just over three weeks since you swore at us for not responding within two hours to your last pair of threads you opened about this?

Ah. Fair enough.
Problem is Roman. I have only one side of the story and it seems the mods want to not expose their side of the story. I am not a big fans of secrecy because of its potential for harm and misuse BUT in THIS case it sounds like they MAY be trying to protect you and/or possibly others. Gut feeling.

The misunderstanding when it comes to swearing was that I was surprised that this forum was a lot stricter on this than on other htings. For example, when I make long posts continuously talking about myself and then arguing with other replies, this could have been viewed as inappropriate. It wasn't. So I was assuming that this forum is very tolerant, which is why I swore. So the answer as to what I was missing is that there are minors which is what makes swearing more inappropriate than other things.

I heard what you just said: swearing is not appropriate in adult section either, you would just be less likely to notice it. Well, that still answers as to why this forum appeared inconsistent tolerance-wise: talking about msyelf at length is not something specifically inappropriate for minors, and thats why you were less likely to take it seroiusly than swearing. So now that I see it, I will make sure my behavior is consistent with what I found.



Look, the rules are public. So making false statements about them does not amount to lying, since you all know what they are. In fact, I expected to be corrected if what I said about rules is wrong.

I were not making an excuses for why I swore either. The whole adult/minor business is something that I read in responses to this thread. This, obviously, happened after I swore, so I never claimed it excused my swearing.

All I am trying to say is that, based on my almost 5 years of participation here, I assumed this forum is far more tolerant than most other forums. Then I was surprised to see that a certain FEW things this forum is far more sensitive about then most everything else. After the fact, I see why; but I didn't expect it at first, so thats why I was surprised by a result, and that is also why I claim that my ignorance of the rules was to blame.



I haven't used the word "Asperger's" in the quote you just made. Even if I didn't know I have Asperger, it is still true that I see ppl as "uniform". That is just my self-observation about myself.

Now, that is true that it is one of the known symptoms of Asperger, so yes, I think that is due to that. But when I "use Asperger as an excuse" I only quote the sympotms that I happened to have. For example, I would NEVER use sensory issues as an excuse, because I don't have them. Nor will I ever use "needing to stick to a routine" as an excuse, since I don't do that either.



There are few things to correct:

1) When I swore, I only opened one thread. The subsequent threads came AFTER I swore

2) The reason I swore was NOT that I didn't get response within 2 hours. Rather, it is because 6 months ago when I made similar thread I didn't get a response and I was mad at that. Because of what happened back then, I expected similar response now.

3) Now, of course, I can't swear at someone because I *EXPECT* a negative response. Well, when I was swearing I weren't talking to mods, rather I was talking to a respondent who suggested I email you, so I told THAT RESPONDENT that there is no point since I would expect negative response (yes, the ORIGINAL THREAD was directed at the mods; but a RESPONSE to that thread, in which I swore, was directed to one of the members). Now, if I am talking to person A, and I use F word while discussing person B, I am not swearing at either of these two ppl.

OK maybe I was completely misreading Mods wanting to protect you or others Roman.

Dude, You swore at mods over not responding to a thread about the inappropriateness of swearing?

Do you have any idea just how ironic that is? This is brilliant comedy. That you are taking this business seriously and thinking you have some kind of point is funny too.

Whatever slight chance of credibility or rationality has been blasted to smithereens by the above post. Mate cut your losses on this one and wait for the sands of time to bury this thread. This is sincere advise. Hope that everyone who saw the above will not be still laughing at the recollection when they see your name in a year's time.

It is not a big one mate. Let it go. Honest.

Not quite, rossc.

Roman was correct, in one of his three points above - plus the threads I mentioned were about his loss of PM priviledges, as a result of scamming for money via PM.

I really don't care if his motives may have seemed honest, to him, but he was asking for money, with a promise of "I'll pay you back next week", in effect. Genuine as it may have been, I find that indistinguishable from malicious scamming, and would hate to see any member even contemplating responding to his request, when there as so many inimical scammers out there to take their money, with equivalently sincere-seeming requests.

The actual sequence was:

1. After six months without PM rights, Roman opened a thread, in "Members Only Discussion" asking for his PM rights back.
   
2. 1hr 47min later, a member replied that a thread in there was not a good way to attract the attention of a moderator (but did suggest, rather unhelpfully, that he should PM a moderator).
   
3. 34mins later, his reply to that post was NOT to swear at the somewhat off-target member, but to collectively swear at the moderators.
   
4. Another member did then suggest that he use the "WP discussion" forum. (Ideally, I would imagine the "MOD ATTN" thread would have suited his purpose. Even though it does not allow for precisely his request, at least all the moderators keep that thread watched. We also regularly scan for new threads in that forum, so that would have been fine, if a little slower, as stated in the MOD ATTN thread).
   
5. He then did post a duplicate of his initial post, in that more-appropriate place.

The irony was that we HAD seen his initial post. We were already discussing whether to restore his PM rights. Before we had sorted out who he was, exactly why his PM rights had been taken, and so forth, he had already shown us what our answer should be.

No, I swore at the mods about not responding to the thread REGARDING INAPPROPRIATENESS OF SCAMMING. That has nothing to do with swearing. Then, after I swore, I was told that they were actually considering giving me PM rights back, but they decided not to because I swore. Thats why right now I am almost exclusively focussing on the swearing part, even though originally I was going to talk about money one.

Regarding scamming, and why I did that, please read my next response.

But the thing is that back then I was unaware that htere is such a thing as scam. Yes I knew about email scam, but I thought it pretty much ends there. In fact, the reason I requested money (and I stated that reason very clearly in my email back then) was to pay someone else who wanted me to give him money. So why was I a victim of that other scammer? Because I didn't know there is such a thing as a scam. If I knew, I wouldn't have gotten involved with that guy in the first place. Now, BECAUSE I didn't know about it, thats why I also didn't know there was anything inappropriate with my asking for money.

As far as "paying next week" I simply said it because the guy who scammed me promised to pay ME next week, and I believed him. Now since I now know he is a scammer, I also know that if that member were to send me money like I asked her, she would NOT have been payed next week. But that is due to the dishonesty OF THAT OTHER PERSON, not mine. I sincerely believed that other person, which is why I simply parrotted whatever he told ME. I was NOT making up malicious lies.

Right now, since I know there is such a thing as scamming (which I didn't know before) I will not do anything like that agian.



Yes there is a distinctions. The fact of a matter is that I have been a member of this forum for over 4 years UNTIL I asked for money. Now, if I joined this forum just to scam, why would I wait over 4 years? And also, if I was a scammer, why would I put so much time writing all these lengthy posts about girls rejecting me for all these years?

It seems like once I appeared like a scammer no one cared about me as an INDIVUDUAL, thats why they overlooked the fact that I been participating here for that long. In fact, when one of the mods wanted to see if I am a scammer like one of the members complained, she sent me PM saying "I heard you wanted to start up a business, please tell us what is your starting capital". Now, if she were to even READ what my "scam" was, she would have known that

1) It involves church, not business

2) It was someone else's church, not mine

3) Whatever it was, it was between ME and HIM. I never claimed any of the members would be involved in it. I simply wanted someone to help me pay money TO HIM

4) There was only ONE member whom I requested money. I picked that member out because SHE PM-ed me first, asking me if I could help find info for her about jobs in India, so I seized an apportunity. I was not sending emails to multiple members asking for money

But you see, since all scammers are alike, thats why the mod completely overlooked it and was asking me about my "business opportunity". Well, even if she believes I am lying, still wouldn't it have been more effective if she at least tried to be consistent with my lie? The fact that she wasn't, shows that she didn't even put any time to READ what I wrote in that PM to the other member. She just deided that, as a scammer, I am indistinguisheable from other scammers, because I am hardwired or something.

Now, I would like to also ask you about one of your sentenses you wrote (where I added bold at the two words I would like to emphasize):



So you are saying that a motives can appear honest to me, while in fact they are not? In other words, I will be lying WITHOUT KNOWING IT? How is it possible? Are you saying I am hard wired, so that I won't even know what is inside my own head?

That is the kind of assumption I have seen NT-s making for the past several years, in all kinds of contexts. For example, back in 2006 when I was told I woud be kicked out of school unless I find thesis advisor by June 1, a number of professors refused to take me on because they were telling me that I would not find their research interesting, or that their research is not the best option for me. They didn't care how many times I tell them otherwise, they know better what I want. Why is that? Do I not know what is inside my own head?

It seems like a common theme. Just like back then I really "didn't" want to work with them but I "thought" I wanted, in the same way half a year ago, I was trying to lie but I was "thinking" I was being honest. After all, he believes me that I THOUGHT I was honest -- as indicated in the quote when he acknowledged my motives "appeared honest TO ME". So its not that he doesn't believe me; he just doesn't think I know what is inside my own head.



I obviously don't remember my reply verbatim since it was deletted, but paraphrase was "Member X, why are you suggesting I email? They won't [language removed - M] respond, they don't [language removed - M.] care ... ". So, while the "f" word was referring to mods, I was speaking TO that member, not mods.

Even with the best of intentions, if you propagate a scam - you are scamming others. Your motives may have been honest, as you've said, but you were lying by proxy for the person who was scamming you according to your story. Being a 'parrot' as you have described will generally only serve to get you in trouble, as you are responsible for what you do and say, and not some third party who may or may not exist. One's tenure does not make their behavior exempt from the rules, or from suspicion... if I were to go on a rampaging tirade of profanity, I would be just as accountable after being here two years as I would have been before - moreso, as since I had been here that long there would be an expectation for me to know and follow the rules. And when an individual steps from acting within the rules to making a relatively severe break in them, then it is taken with great seriousness - yes, every scammer does get treated the same, until such time that there is evidence to the contrary. And you can only know your own perspective; while I can't speak to your professors or other experiences, when you ask others for things you must be willing to accept that they may see things differently, and what you get may be quite different than what you wanted. That isn't an NT/AS thing... it's a part of having different needs, wants and goals.

I just had to remove more examples of inappropriate language, Roman, from your post above. I cannot, under these current circumstances, even consider supporting having your rights restored when you continue to demonstrate that you seem to be unwilling to even attempt to follow the rules regarding language. There is no precedent set that you would follow the rules as a whole or respond to the feedback regarding your previous behavior.


M.

I was not lying, because I sincerely thought that guy will actually return me money, since I didn't think HE was a scammer. You see, I am telling you he was a scammer NOW, not then. Right now, of course, I would NEVER ask anyone to help me pay him or promise to return money -- even if I didn't get into trouble for that. The reason I wouldn't is simply because now I know he was a scammer, so I am not going to lie to people pretending that he isn't. Back then I didn't know it. If I were HONSTLY misinformed, then it wasn't a lie.



But I didn't know that this guy was a scammer, so how can I be resposible for something I don't know? Now I know there is a way in which it is my fault: I locked myself up in physics and whatever other stuff I am doing, and don't pay attention to the world, so I don't know the way the world works. But that is about as close as it gets.



If I been here for such a long time, then you should know that I am not a scammer by a simple logic. If I were a scammer, it would mean that all the posts I have made here were just my way of pretending to be genuine in order for people to be more gullible for my scam. Thus, if true, it would mean I spent FOUR YEARS typing lengthy posts in order to earn credibility, waiting all along for that one day when I can scam ppl.

Well, that would be completely ineffective, and that is NOT hte way scammers operate. Scammers send hundrids of emails a day. They don't have time to wait for four years just to have a hundrid and first email.



There is an evidence to the contrary -- namely the four years of my prior participation here.

And when "every scammer is treated the same" it really reminds me of Indian psychology when "every white is treated the same". Since my skin happened to be white, they KNOW I am rich, so it makes it okay for them to scam me. Don't you see the irony here: scammers assume all whites are the same, and non-scammers assume all scammers are the same.

There is more to that. Scammers think that because I am so rich, I owe them something, so that makes it morally okay to scam me (they won't scam other Indians after all). In the similar way, the mod thought that because I am a scammer, it makes it morally okay to lie to me, which is why she pretended to be honestly interested in my "business" while trying to check me out.



When it comes to things that are inside my head, my "perspective" is the right one; just like when it comes to things withing your head, yours is the right one. When you say otherwise, you are implying that I am not aware of my own thoughts. That is not possible.



It is NT/AS thing because I seem to get into these situaitons disproportionally more than most others.

If the issue is difference in goals, then professors shoud have told me so: "Roman, I know you will successfully accomplish goal X whie working with me, but unfortunately I have goal Y". That is not what they said. They have indicated that it won't be in *my* best interest to work with them. In other words they were telling ME what MY goals are.

I have a proof they were wrong. The proof is ph.d. that I got half a year ago because thankfully one professor finally agreed to work with me. But all these otehr profs were assuming I will never be able to get a ph.d. and working with me is just a waste of time.



Again, just like with a scam, you are just picking at words without bothering to actually READ something. If you were to READ my reply, you would have seen that F-word was part of a QUOTE. I was trying to remind the mod what I said BEFORE while swearing so I tried to quote myself. Quoting swearing is NOT swearing. But I guess when it comes to things that "formally" classify as inappropriate, ppl don't bother to read any further. That is also why that mod assumed that my scam was "business apportunity", while it wasn't.

Roman,

You are responsible for what you say and do - not this third party you keep alluding to. If you trusted him, fine - that was YOUR trust, and if you are acting on his behalf then you are perpetuating his act of scamming. That you did not research the situation at that time to know it was a scam immediately is also your responsibility. It remains a lie, even if you weren't aware of it, and you continued to spread it. When you choose to take part, or in the this case solicit donations, then you are responsible for knowing what you have gotten yourself into and what you're asking others to get involved with.

Your argument about obviously not being a scammer doesn't hold water with me; just because you have genuine posts in the past does not connote that you cannot be scamming people later on. As I said, tenure does not prove anything other than you've been a member here for some time. You acted one way at that point, then changed significantly. As for the moderator's action, I do not take exception with them as they are a common method to garner additional information from scammers. Since your actions entered that realm, I do not see any issue with the approach taken.

When it comes to things inside your own head, your perspective is just that - your own. It is not correct, right, or empowered. I am saying that how you assemble that information in your head is going to be unique and different - again, NOT correct. It may be your opinion, but that does not extend to other people.

You consistently demand that others act to suit your expectations. Simply put, that isn't going to happen - you will not control and influence the behaviors of others in such a manner. So you may choose to continue railing at your professors for expressing themselves in the manner that made sense to them, or you can accept what the purpose of that communication was and move forward. The only proof is that you were persistent enough to complete your PhD; it has no bearing or reflection upon them other than that which you paint upon it.

And lastly - no, I'm not picking at words. You were told without question that swearing was not acceptable, to which you responded with a string of profanity. Whether it is a quote or not is completely irrelevant - swearing is swearing, period - and appears to be yet another attempt to excuse behavior where you were explicitly told otherwise beforehand.

Until you can respect the site rules, I am firmly against your PM privileges being restored to you.


M.

Roman, every single thing you say argues against us restoring your PM rights.

Try to think your way through this analogy.

Imagine we all belong to a gun club, and are happily firing away at targets.

Jim (the scammer) walks in, and says to you: "See Mary, that girl over there, with the red hair.... could you shoot her in the head for me, please."

You take a shot at her, but miss. I come over and ask you what on earth you are doing, and I take the gun away.

You tell me you didn't know that shooting people in the head wasn't right - and that even if you hadn't missed, it wouldn't have been your fault, because Jim told you to do it.

Now.... should I say "Oh that's OK then" and give you your gun back? Let's see what happens if I do.

A week passes, and Tim (that's actually Jim's brother, but you don't know that) comes by, and says "See Arthur, that guy over there with the brown hair... could you shoot him in the stomach for me, please".

This time you succeed, and Arthur dies in agony.

This time you say "Oh... but you didn't say it was not right to shoot people in the stomach, and anyway, he didn't have the same colour hair, he wasn't a girl, and his name wasn't Mary."

Now... whose fault is it that Arthur is dead? I'd say it was at least partly my fault, now, because I'm the one who foolishly trusted you with the gun.

Good story. If people can't use good judgment who to listen to and who to not listen to, they shouldn't use a gun or even own one. Same goes for having PM privileges.

I have read a lot of what you have written and this is by far the most logical and sensible thing I have seen you write to date, Lau. I read it over three times for fault and nada. I am impressed. More to you than I thought.