Archive for the ‘Grouply Evangelist’ Category
Oh My Aching Andy
FcNexter Andy Swarbrick is frustrated.
He tried to announce that someone at Yahoo! said that they would no longer delete groups on the basis of trademark infringement claims from The Freecycle Network, Inc.(TFN). This aroused joyful tears on Andy’s part, as indicated in the subject line of his FcNext post announcing his blog post about it, that FcNext subject line being, “Wiping tears was never so enjoyable.”
They are something like crocodile tears.
His blog offered the unsubstantiated announcement, “It is with great pleasure I have the most important announcement to make to this freecycling globe. … YAHOO WILL NO LONGER DELETE YAHOO GROUPS BASED ON SPURIOUS TRADEMARK CLAIMS BY TFN.”
He was unwilling (or unable) to provide evidence that this is now an official policy or position of Yahoo!, or to identify the person at Yahoo! making the declaration. Later, when challenged about it, he back-peddled to say, “If Yahoo on their blog stated unequivically [sic] by the Director, Leonard that they would not delete non-TFN groups, what would that mean? It would mean nothing.”
In his own words, Andy is in tears of joy about a revelation that means nothing. Things like that often occur in cults: emotional fervor (or torment) over phantasms.
From the outset, we saw nothing of substance in Andy’s tearful announcement. He said that Yahoo! would no longer delete groups based on “spurious” trademark infringement claims by TFN. One might call this a truism, whereas obviously a corporation’s defenses of its trademark are not “spurious” when they genuinely believe that they have a real interest in a trademark they own, and Yahoo! did not deem them spurious when they acted on TFN’s infringement claims. Andy, we suppose, thinks himself in possession of a better understanding of U.S. intellectual property law and practice than Yahoo!’s corporate legal counsel.
FcNext cultists call the infringement claims spurious, illegal, unenforceable, etc. because they don’t understand the difference between an unregistered trademark (using the TM symbol) and a registered trademark (circle-R symbol). They keep saying that TFN “has no trademark” because the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has not yet granted a registration. In typically cultic fashion, this ignores reality, in that anyone can establish a trademark without USPTO registration.
FcNexters also attribute their denial of the existence of a TFN trademark to the fact that TFN’s existing trademark is pending a court challenge (also the reason the USPTO has put the registration application on hold). There is no guarantee that the pending litigation will result in the USPTO ultimately denying registration. Maybe it will; maybe it won’t. Meanwhile, TFN has a trademark, and Yahoo! is within its rights to choose to acknowledge it, as they have.
We agree that TFN may have damaged its ability to successfully defend its trademark, because of defects in its approach to establishing that trademark, but that is still a matter under litigation. Nexters put themselves above the law by declaring things decided that are still pending a court verdict or settlement. Such are the foundations of cults: revelations of “truths” not substantiated in reality.
We really don’t care whether TFN has an existing trademark or secures a registered one. We just want to point out the nonsensical behavior of FcNext cultists on the matter, such as Andy’s tears of joy over an unproved Yahoo! policy decision that he says means nothing anyway. If it means nothing, what is he crying about?
In that same FcNext post, Andy asserts, “Words are cheap – just read any post from nexteritis.”
Cheapened words are such as those self-contradictory and delusional ones making tear-filled “most important announcements” deemed one day later by the same speaker to “mean nothing“.
It is fitting that Andy feels the sting of words published by Nexteritis. After all, “Nexteritis” means “inflammation of the Nexter,” intended to goad them into action to amend behavior they have not the strength of conscience or initiative to correct on their own without being prodded like cattle. Inflammation is often the factor driving an organism to change its diet, seek treatment, or stop shooting itself in the foot and banging its head against the wall.
We find it noteworthy that nobody in FcNext has any substantive response to anything said in the Nexteritis blog. This is not surprising. Neither is it surprising that they have gagged themselves on our words so much that they won’t let themselves speak on what we say (perhaps for fear of puking on each other as they choke on our “cheap” words). We render them speechless with our “cheap” words.
FcNext will never hold its own accountable for their behaviors in a forthright, responsible way. They will not take a stand against deceptive, trashy directories like freesharing.org and sharingisgiving.org. Their moderators will not act against their TOS violators, personal attacks, foul language, and character assassinations. Neither will they act in favor of free speech and freedom to dissent. To them, to clean their own house would mean creating disunity within the cult. Instead, they prefer that all live in filth and sling their mud at any resister to its cultic brainwashing in slime.
All we can do is expose them for what they are, for the public benefit and for the edification of those capable of seeing beyond the ends of their noses.
Andy adds, “Yes, I am positive. I will not be swamped by the negativity that seems to drown some. Negativisim [sic] is not realism. This group [fcnext] started as ‘the future of freecycling,’ and that’s what drives me.”
Wishful thinking is not positivity. It can be delusional, like the belief that FcNext has anything to do with a positive future for freecycling. Realism may necessarily sometimes include some negativity. Exposure of hypocrisy and irresponsible, unethical behavior can be called “negativity.” If Andy can’t take the heat, he should get out of the kitchen.
FcNext is not capable of a solution to their problem. Their only “solution” to what they dislike about TFN is hate-baiting cultism. Their heads are bruised all around from banging against the brick wall of trying to take TFN down. No wonder Andy is frustrated to tears.
We don’t know what drives Andy. Realistic approaches to the future of freecycling seem to be no part of it, when he flies into tears over something he says means nothing, has no cogent response to anything said by opponents of FcNext, and will not take a stand for accountability regarding the fallacies and improprieties of FcNext cult favorites like freesharing.org and sharingisgiving.org.
Speaking of wishful thinking and delusion, Andy also says, “There are possibly 10m people freecycling out there on Y!G, depending on how you do the stats. Which means that DB holds less around [sic] 40% of the marketplace at best. That can be your future.”
Oh, brother! We’ve got to see the math behind that fiction. Ten million members of Yahoo! freecycling groups? His use of the qualifier “possibly” veers sharply away from possibility; more like delusion. It’s certainly not realism.
Setting aside the relatively small number of non-Yahoo-based freecyclers (since Andy referred to ten million only within Yahoo! Groups), it is probably impossible even for Yahoo! to establish an accurate estimate, given the reality that so many people hold membership in multiple groups, cross-posting among them, and hold multiple accounts within the same groups, move around from one group to another, go inactive or bouncing, etc.
We know of a group that once sent a message to its 800 members saying that they had to reply to the message in order to stay in the group. The moderator repeated the notice two more times, carefully making sure that none of the members were in “no email” delivery status. After three notifications, 500 of them did not reply or ask questions about it. Careful records were kept about who was terminated for not replying. Over time, about 100 of them came back puzzled that their membership had terminated, meaning that they did not read the three notices from management. The other 400 were never heard from again. They were not really “members” at all. Not even “lurkers,” really.
Such is the nature of freecycle “membership.” Most of the “members” are not really “members” at all, just inattentive subscribers to a service they do not use. In smaller groups, it is easy to see how the majority of all postings come from the same people repeatedly, those few true members actually participating. Then there are in every group those greedy consumerists only there to see what balls and chains they can add to their enslavements to possessions, or what they might make a buck on selling in their next yard sale or Ebay auction.
Even if we counted every subscribed email address as a “member,” TFN and other number-touting people rely on the member count shown on Yahoo! Groups home pages. They have no way of knowing how many of those “members” are really members at all (i.e., non-participating, bouncing, etc.) and how many of them hold membership in multiple groups, and how many of them hold membership under multiple email addresses within any given group.
Thus, TFN’s claim to about 4.7 million members (as of the moment) is by necessity somewhat inflated, though it is the best estimate they have. In any case, that’s 47% of ten million, not Andy’s 40%, so we’re suspicious of any math he may have used to arrive at his ten million figure, given his roughly 15% degree of error in simply calculating the percentage of ten million represented by 4.7 million. A remedial math course is in order for our tearfully frustrated Andy.
Another factor complicating any possibility of an accurate estimate is the absolute unreliability of figures provided by people like Eric Burke, who claim that the freesharing.org directory represents “897 groups listed serving over 389,000 members.” We know already that 60% or more of those “groups” are not truly active, viable, legitimate freecycling groups. At best, Burke’s directory represents maybe about 156,000 legitimate freecycling group member email accounts … ACCOUNTS, not necessarily unique people … and, among the freesharing directory listings there are some TFN-affiliated groups already counted in TFN’s number.
We would not count the content of the SharingIsGiving.org directory at all, knowing that it is padded with so many bogus groups and so many duplicates of the entries in the freesharing.org directory. If we count the legitimate groups listed there that are not already counted among those listed in freesharing.org, they might amount to a few thousand members at most. We doubt that there are even one quarter million real members among all the listings combined at freesharing.org and sharingisgiving.org.
We have never tried to estimate the memberships represented by ReUseItNetwork.org, RealCycle.co.uk, FullCircles.org, and other such network directories. We doubt that they represent more than a million real people, all combined, and many of them are listed at freesharing.org and sharingisgiving.org, too.
This ridiculous ten million figure is just more evidence that Andy and fellow FcNextercultists (who let his estimate go unchallenged) are not known for realism (or arithmetic).
Andy’s market share prognostication is unrealistic, and foolish. FcNext-aligned groups can never aspire to his estimated 40% share of the freecycling population. (For the moment, we’ll set aside notice that his assertion indicates his ultimate desire to completely undo TFN, the only real goal of FcNext.) Right now, groups moderated by FcNext members would be lucky to realistically claim 1% of the global freecycling population, and only a tiny bit of those groups are run by vocally loyal core Nextercultists rather than other FcNext members who are only there out of curiosity or to keep the enemy close, including TFN affiliated moderators among them.
The notion that FcNext offers a viable alternative to TFN, or ever will, is something like Eric Burke hitching his wagon for “saving this country” to a star like Ron Paul, except that Ron Paul actually has some good ideas and the ability to express them cogently, respectably, honorably and professionally, and is a bona-fide authority on matters within his purview.
In that same FcNext post, Andy announced, “Oh, and I have just been accepted as a member of nexteritis – aren’t I lucky!”
When he learned that we would not allow the Nexteritis Yahoo! Group message archive to be abused in typical core FcNexter TOS-violating fashion, he came back whining about it, “Nexteritis hides message archive and yets [sic] wants posts … What a waste. Time to leave the nexteritis.“
Where is the sign saying, “Posts Wanted from Rabid Wolves?”
The group home page says plainly enough what we are about. The group certainly does not exist for Andy’s pleasure, and he does not get to make the rules there about archive access, though it has no bearing on his ability to post messages there, or to engage in dialog with members there through posting activity.
The information we want made public or retrievable from anything like an archive is here in the Nexteritis blog. Andy knows about this blog (and it is linked on our Yahoo! group’s home page). If he has something to say to Nexteritis Yahoo! Group members, he can join and post it. If he has something to say publicly about what we write, he can do it on his own blog, and as he so often does, post a link to that in FcNext and elsewhere, or in our Yahoo! Group. He can also post his flimsy arguments in FcNext postings, though we understand that Nexters are now afraid to do that, knowing that we hold their feet to the fire for what they say. (How curious of FcNext to give such control over their posting activity to Nexteritis, FcNext supposedly being such advocates of “free speech,” now denied even to their own loyal insiders.)
We suspect that Andy really has nothing of substance to say to or about Nexteritis, but only joined the Nexteritis Yahoo! Group to mine its archive for information he does not deserve to have. If he joined to say something to its members, he could have done that, and still can, if he re-subscribes.
We did not expect Andy to last long as a Nexteritis member, anyway, given that we already know one truth a day keeps the Nexter away.
The Nexteritis blog contains all our significant material. FcNext members already holding membership in our Yahoo! group can confirm that. The Nexteritis Yahoo! Group is for private discussion among its members, and to notify them of new blog posts as they come online. Andy is welcome to contribute to such a discussion, but having nothing to say, we doubt he will.
Too bad about the fear-based gag order FcNext imposes on its frustrated members like Andy so aching to whine about Nexteritis. That’s Andy’s problem, not ours. He’ll just have to live with the way those birds built their Fc Nest.
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Copyright 2008 by Nexteritis. All rights reserved. For permission to use, write to: nexteritis-owner@yahoogroups.com
Why we call FcNext a cult
Copyright 2008 by Nexteritis. All rights reserved. For permission to use, write to:
Nexteritis-owner@yahoogroups.com
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Why We Call FcNext a Cult
Paul Hurteau, operator of FreeCycleEarth.org (FCE) and one of the longtime leading Nextercultists, says about us, “And to call fcnexters a ‘CULT’ just goes to show they have no idea what constitues [sic] a cult!”
This deserves some explanation, and we’ll enjoy adding some commentary.
First, a note of appreciation to Paul for using his unmoderated status to post in FcNext a link to our Nexteritis blog, especially given that FcNext moderators normally censor out any strong, genuine, consistently cogent opposition to their cultic mindset.
Quoting with gratitude from our favorite dictionary, Merriam-Webster’s:
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CULT
Etymology: French & Latin; French culte, from Latin cultus care, adoration, from colere to cultivate
5 – a: great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially: such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad – b: the object of such devotion – c: a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion
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We note with interest that the other definitions of “cult” typically involve religion or religious-type behavior and thought. Some of the leading core Nexters have distinctly religious mindsets, even calling themselves “of the cloth,” (Paul Hurteau, for example) “pastor” (Ken Hedden, for example), “evangelist” (Andy Swarbrick, for example, in this case in his activism for Grouply.com throughout the freecycling group world), etc., or have otherwise demonstrated that they are adherents (or at least lip-servants) of religious convictions of types whose best founders, avatars and inspired writings have always opposed the general trend of FcNext-type cultish behavior and attitude. The hypocrisy typical of a radically religious mindset is a common type of human stupidity. It has a strong hold on multiple leading, core Nextercultists.
It is typical of radically religious-minded people to be virtually incompetent of anything but cultic thinking, especially those who glorify themselves for their self-appointed roles in religious activism outside the mainstream of responsible spiritual institutions having internal systems of holding their activists and adherents accountable for their behaviors. Irresponsible, hypocritical, radical religious fervency is a common type of human stupidity having a grip on the mindset of some leading core Nextercultists.
(It is easy to sympathize somewhat with atheism activist Sam Harris, who said that if he could magically rid the world of either religion or rape, he would eliminate religion because it does more damage to civilization.)
FcNext is not by design or definition a religious cult, but it has a cultic mindset similar to radical religion in some ways. In the hypocrisy typical of religious fanatics, they violate the principles of their own personal religions (and pseudo-religions) in their aberrant and deviant behaviors, and abrogate the purported principles and policies of their own FcNext group, not just now in recent FcNext activity, but consistently for years in a variety of online venues that have fed into establishment and cultivation of the FcNext cult, like tributaries into a river.
In the case of FcNext, the cultic trend is grounded not only in devotion to their pseudo-intellectual (harebrained) hypocrisy in lip-service to themes such as free speech, respect for cogent dissent, and lightly moderated discussion and debate, but more significantly, their cultism derives from, focuses upon, and actively cultivates abject hatred of Deron Beal, The Freecycle Network, Inc. (TFN), and anyone who resists the FcNext cultish group-think, calling them “deronites,” servants or aspirants of favor with the “emperor,” etc. , even when such FcNext resisters have no relationship or connection with Beal or TFN, and do not participate in TFN or support it.
Basically, if it does not support hatred of TFN, core Nexters despise it and attack it, reflexively, reactively, irrationally, like mad dogs. The devotional aspect of their cult is less a matter of devotion to a movement of their own (a deceptive shell masking corruption; something like what Jesus called a “whited sepulchre”), more a devotion to hatred and condemnation of anyone who does not agree with or opposes their style, beliefs, tactics, and hate-based dogma. This is typical of a cult that has nothing to offer but opposition to something else, and cultivation of hatred as its primary strategy. Devoid of substance of its own, it derives its being from the labor of demonizing others. It is part of the same kind of human stupidity typical of radical religion.
We note with care that this is not likely true of everyone holding membership in the FcNext group. Their membership count varies between about 450 and 500, but only a few dozen of them actively advocate the cultish mentality of the much smaller cadre of highly vocal cult leaders and advocates.
It is hard to estimate accurately how many freecycling-type groups there are in the world. This is partly because so many “groups” listed in directories like Freesharing.org (Eric Burke) and SharingIsGiving.org (Ken Hedden) are not really viable or active groups at all, or are not true freecycling groups, along with dead/inactive links, etc. Many listed there never were real groups of real people in local communities joining the freecycling movement. They were just empire-building zombie groups created by Ken Hedden to fatten his directory, like others pursuing that kind of decptive activity to perpetuate a false notion that there are many groups offering an alternative to TFN, making SIG just another pretty and petty shell devoid of substance (or honesty).
By educated guess, there could be as many as five thousand legitimate freecycling groups worldwide, with millions of members. Many of the groups have multiple moderators. There may be ten thousand or more moderators in freecycling groups. Among them, less than five hundred hold membership in FcNext. Among those five hundred, not more than a few dozen are active FcNext cultists. Among those, only about a dozen or so are highly vocal in their cultic behaviors and attitudes.
Yet this tiny sick band of cultish miscreants make more noise about their hate-filled agenda than all the other freecycling moderators combined, and attack like rabid wolves anyone who takes a position contrary to their warped cultic hypocritical notions of truth, decency, civility, honesty and honor. Their tactics are akin to terrorists, having no other means to impose and perpetuate their cultic will.
They have become worse than the worst characterizations they issue about TFN. They are the things they hate. It is inevitable that if you immerse yourself in such cultic devotion to a hate-based agenda long enough, you become blind to your own image, which is nothing more than a dark and dismal reflection of your own hatred and the character sustaining it.
Does Nexteritis hate FcNext? Yes, in the way that one hates violence, corruption, hypocrisy, slanderous rhetoric, unconscionable behavior, and cultic blindness to realities beyond a cult’s closed worldview and narcissistic self-view, and the damage these things do to a positive civic movement like freecycling.
Unlike FcNext, the Nexteritis group has no need to stay active indefinitely. We seek to expose FcNext hypocrisy, corruption, and cultism, propagate the information widely to the public, and let it serve as a red flag to anyone inclined to fall into the style of the FcNext cult. We also hold some small hope that some current cult members or fringe members will see that there is more to reality and available perspective than the FcNext hate-based agenda, propaganda and tactics. Still, there is only so much one needs to prove about what FcNext really is before the job is done.
We are not done.
We appreciate the support and assistance coming in quietly from people who have dealt with FcNexters (in the FcNext group and elsewhere since 2004) and have shared information and insights. Thank you.
There was a time when leading Nexter-types embarked on a movement for “truth and reconciliation” regarding their troubled past with TFN and even with each other as individuals. That has been drowned out, dismissed, and driven into extinction by the current cultic way of FcNext.
There may be room still for certain kinds of reconciliation effort. We may propose a safe ground for such an opportunity soon, but not before we finish documenting some things that need to be known by interested parties, and need to be exposed for the sake of uprooting trends antithetical to civility, decency and honesty in the freecycling movement.
Nexteritis is not affiliated or associated in any manner with The Freecycle Network, Inc. or any of its leaders, servants, activists, moderators or members, but we welcome their involvement in our mission to cogently answer the cultic stupidity of FcNext.
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Copyright 2008 by Nexteritis. All rights reserved. For permission to use, write to:
Nexteritis-owner@yahoogroups.com
FcNext Andykaboodleboy
In his publicly posted message at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fcnext/message/24674
Grouply Evangelist Andy Swarbrick wrote:
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Dkchat is an age limited group, in that member have to
assent to being “adult”. Surely there is a paradox
here, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
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That was so that so-called adults already irrefutably proved unable or unwilling to keep a civil tongue in their head could speak their small minds freely, and so that others could respond to them in language such nitwits could understand. That refers to people like the trash-talking three-time proven TOS violator (and profiteering, politicizing owner of “freesharing”) Eric Burke.
But foul-mouthed nitwits would never join a group like dkchat. They can only be comfortable in a group like FcNext that supports that kind of idiocy and censors anyone who opposes it in a cogent, civil, respectable manner, out of Nextercult fear that even just one sensible person speaking out against the behaviors of a couple dozen nitwit cultists has a big effect on their ability to get away with their offensive behavior. Not surprising that many of the same people were kicked out of TFN or had to leave because they could not behave respectably, and did not know how to practice dissent and opposition in an effective way.
This is not to say that TFN is innocent of a variety of offensive behaviors, but except for the Finder fiasco, in which anti-FcNext people also participated against TFN, FcNext has not succeeded in stopping TFN’s hegemony, and cannot, because they have nothing in their toolbox capable of doing that. Now Nexters are learning that Yahoo has sort of “adopted” TFN as a partner, prolifically promoting their affiliated groups. FcNext won’t be able to stop that, either, or generate positive publicity for any of the alternatives, except maybe RIN and RealCycle, the only realistically effective positive alternatives to TFN, though it’s a far stretch to think Yahoo will ever give them the credence they give TFN.
But Burke and his cult friends don’t get away with their cult garbage completely in FcNext any more, either. Now for the third time he’s been “TOS’d,” in the deletion of FcNext message #24528.
That’s three TOS violation reports sustained by Yahoo against half a dozen or so Nexters within the past couple weeks, all three times including Burke. You’d think that the moderators would catch on and start actually moderating the group’s content, before they lose their group.
But you’re right to some extent, there is a something like a paradox, in that dkchat, part of the anti-Nexter movement, is a group set to “adult” rating only because Nexters who might join it to see what is going on there can’t be trusted to behave like true adults, which is the reason that FcNext message 24528 was just deleted on the basis of a TOS violation report, and there are more such actions coming. That latest TOS violation report was not filed by DK. There are others (Yahoo among them) who have decided it’s time to hold FcNext and its common cult members accountable. The more often FcNext opponents succeed, the more people will join the effort, since FcNext does more to harm the future of freecycling than any other force on earth, and is a chronic violator of the Yahoo TOS (not a good way to win Yahoo’s support for alternatives to TFN, but Nexters never were smart that way).
The difference between the seemingly “paradoxical” FcNext opponents and the core Nextercultists is that we oppose FcNext using the Yahoo TOS and rational arguments against FcNext, while, as is typical of cultism, the Nextercult toolbox contains only trash-talking, personal attacks, incoherent ranting, whining, disinformation, dissembling, censorship, and removing FcNext members who make real progress against the cultic insanity of their vocal minority. (The vast majority of freecycling group moderators will have nothing to do with FcNext, and relatively few members of the FcNext group participate in its sick behaviors … only the routinely most active posting members, children in mind really, less than 10% of the group, the other 90% either ignoring it or long gone bouncing.) True adults not brainwashed by the cult see the difference, which is being revealed globally day by day on the web.
We oppose FcNext because it is a group serving to harm the freecycling movement. In all their bragging about “free speech,” of course the cultists won’t allow the voice of opposition in their group, just like OIDG, with the difference being that OIDG is owned by a corporate entity that has a legal duty to protect its proprietary interests. FcNext has a no sense of duty to anything but cultic hatred and contempt for things they can’t cope with rationally, or respond to effectively.
FcNext faces opposition of the sort they never represented or posed to TFN, and for very different reasons.
Nextercult Opposition Team
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Copyright 2008 by Nexteritis. All rights reserved. For permission to use, contact:
nexteritis-owner@yahoogroups.com
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