Transparency

[apukjij]

i am trouble because i see there are forum members whose posting has been invaluable, and i do not see them posting anymore, what my fear is that they have been banned, just as i ask my chief and counsel for transparency, i am asking for that here, can we have a thread that lists who has been banned, why and for how long, and which admin banned them,  i know the admins work hard, and have real lives to attend to, but if peeps have been banned by admins then i am asking for transparency, i dont like mysteries, its counterproductive to what we are trying to do here....

[Ingeborg]

I'm not one of the moderators (but have been one in others forums), but I'd say in case of persons with solid contributions, there is always the possibility of someone taking ill, unfortunately. Or of a person losing interest in the forum, or a bad attack of real life preventing them from posting for some time.

During all the time I've been a member here, there were a few announcements of persons having been banned that I've seen here, but these were persons who worked particularly hard at being a royal PITA, not persons writing good posts.

Comparing the banning practice here to what I've seen in other forums, then the mods here are really very lenient.

If I may ask: who are the persons you're speaking about? It might be somewhat easier to discuss the issue then.

[Scott Brainard]

I've seen the banhammer come out only a few times over the five or so years I've been reading here, and I can't recall an instance where I considered a ban was unwarranted.  I agree with Ingeborg in that the mods on this site are very reserved in dishing out bans compared to a lot of other sites.

[critter - a white non-ndn person]

apukjij, i've also wondered where some have gone.. even pm'd one just being concerned that all is well, but never got a response. 

i leave it to be that they are otherwise committed to something else.. and hopefully are not ill or deceased. sometimes.. people also just need a break.. or as has been mentioned, have other commitments that take them away from the forums for a while. 

i don't believe they've been banned. 

[educatedindian]

There's no easy way to come up with a list. It'd involve basically going down the membership list and checking each name and seeing if it's listed as banned. And there's almost 2000 of them...

My best (and very rough) guess is that in about ten years we've probably hit the ban button something like 40 times. Most of those are fairly recent and are also robo accounts, automated spammers and so on, which we attract more now that we're an older site with more traffic than we used to get.

As far as actual people, I'm guessing maybe 10 or 12 total, over all these years. At least half a dozen of the accounts banned are a single person, a supporter of white supremacist David Yeagley, John Martin. Plus there was Ray Harrell who got himself banned 2 or was it 3 times? Most people who've been here awhile know someone has to really go out their way to get banned. For example Paul Rick Krech is a Hell's Angel and in grad school to be a statistician (last I heard) and truly hates me for exposing his family friend, a white man who posed as a Lakota ceremony leader. Yet he stayed on here for years arguing away very heatedly, and only got himself banned after getting downright libelous. The only person I can think of who got himself banned right away was, ironically, Krech's brother in law, who posted some libel accusing Krech of all kinds of crimes.

Even longtime members come and go. For example, MIBBY was a dedicated member the first five years, and I occasionally run into him online elsewhere. Huhanna Hickey was as well, but as far as I know her health problems prevented her continuing. Barnaby, one of the older mods, is quite occupied with work as far as I know. And some very good people like Frederica, Bryant Holman, and Mike Two Horses have passed on.

[earthw7]

as a website people come and go i have been sick so have not been here much,
everyone has lives so i don't think it is because of banning

[Moma_porcupine]

I'm not thinking this question posted by Apukjij has to do with me, but I did get a message from Critter asking why I hadn't been around.

I'm sorry I didn't reply. I wasn't sure how to honestly answer that, so I didn't, however I am OK and I haven't been banned.

I really hope I won't be after this post....

Over the years there has been times when I have found my priorities are sometimes somewhat
different than those of the NAFPS administration.

One area of conflict has been that I don't think it is OK to tolerate people posting here claiming to be NDN and making a big deal out of this and their aurthority based on this, when a quick check of their claims shows this to be untrue.

There was a situation here where someone who was a moderator seemed to be defending people making unauthorized claims to represent NDn people, and it turns out they were a member of a organization representing PODIAs as NDN which was commented on by the CNO as being a problem.

And yes I can prove this.

I understand that people are all human, and everyone has personal biases , strengths and weaknesses, and at the time I raised this as a concern, the information about this moderators affiliations may not have been known  (they were not known to me ) but IMO the administration should be more diligent in making sure it does not give a position of public trust to someone in such an obvious conflict of intrest.

As everyone here volenters their time, it is a bit difficult to complain when the administration doesn't want to make time to deal with issues it doesn't see as a priority, and given the many different opinions on what should and should not be a priority, I can understand that administration can't be expected to respond to every concern of a conflict of intrest. But on the other hand, it's a problem when the administration can't be expected to respond to any concern about a conflict of intrest, and there is no mechanism to address this at the point it looks like things have gone seriously off the rails.

On the whole , I generally think the moderators do a excellent job.I understand the the work the moderators do must be extremely difficult as it involves balancing many intrests and , of dealing with vunerable people in complex situations .... but IMO there is definently room for improvement when it comes to transparency, and being accountable for some of the decisions made and publicly explaining the reasons behind these decions..

As to the current situation, which has to do with people getting banned for what appears to be bogus reasons....As Al is well aware, a couple of long time contributers to NAFPs have  been banned. One of them I have worked with quite closely, and the reasons given for banning this person from posting and sending or recieving PMs is clearly either ridiculous or personal and is not a valid concern.

bls926 was banned, supposedly because she responded to a comment Rattlebone made about people who are thin blooded being badly treated on Indianz.com, and bls926 said this mistreatment of thin blooded people did not come from her.

http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=2754.0
Quote bls926
"Rattle, you really consider 1/4 a low bq?"


http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=2754.15
Rattlbone Reply #16
"Personally no, but I have been given arguments even from you over the last couple years that have shown me how soo many people do. This and the fact I see people on forums who are 1/4 or 1/8 whom are enrolled get treated badly and called "thin bloods" or "white, or black" for being of those BQ's."

Quote bls926 reply 18
"You've never seen me say 1/4 or even 1/8 is low bq. Do not put words in my mouth. If you've been given a hard time on other forums because you're considered "thin-blood", that's not my doing."


She was told she was not allowed to mention peoples BQ,and she was banned for this comment.

The thread was about enrollment based on the Dawes roll and contained a lot of refrences to the issue of BQ, and the comment that got Bonnie banned was only in response to what Rattlebone said about people on another message board getting razed for being thin blooded.

In fact bls926 has been extremely restrained in NOT making many personal comments about Rattlebones heritage - considering he has posted several lengthly disertations explaining to other NAFPS members - including bls926 , how he is better than other PODIAs, because his own Cherokee heritage was so strongly retained by his family and is well documented.

As a result of the razing he got from NDNs over on Indianz.com, and being told there was no known Cherokee ancestors on the family line he was claiming was 5/8 Cherokee, Rattle admitted this particular line of his family is predominantly English and Irish and then claimed he had only a causual passing intrest in the story of Cherokee ancestry in that part of his family. Which kind of makes his previous story of how strong the Cherokee heritage was in that part of his family, seem pretty strange.

On the positive side, at least this bogus Cherokee heritage was brought up in a discussion where rattlebone was saying even someone with a strong Cherokee heritage such as himself did not have a right to go out and start their own tribe, though IMO the credibility of his opinion is greatly undermined by his lack of any real Cherokee heritage. If people like this begin to play too large of a role in what is said here, it does affect the general credibility of everything that is said and done here.

I could provide links to all of this, but as I don't want to see this draged off topic into debating someones alleged Cherokee ancestry and authority to speak on Cherokee issues as a Choctaw/Cherokee person. It seems this would belong in a whole other thread, if it belongs anywhere at all...

My point is, the reason bls926 was allegedly banned is, in several ways, so obviously silly,  it is not the "real" reason.

This situation and the apparent hostility I have encountered trying to discuss this, has me feeling unsafe continuing to participate, though I rarely have anything I feel needs to be said anymore, so it probably isn't much of a loss.

[critter - a white non-ndn person]

Thanks MP.. just want to say that for me, it is a loss as you always seem to bring such clarity via reasonable and patient thought..

[educatedindian]

Critter, it's pretty obvious MP is not banned. She chose to leave for a time, entirely her own decision.

Much of what MP is saying is simply false. BLS's banning had absolutely nothing to do with RB, and I really have to wonder why she is making such a strange claim, one that she knows to be false. Both MP and BLS herself know why she was banned. Stalking and harassing and even sending threats to the moderators are why she was banned, no more, no less.

Our position at NAFPS has always been very clear. We are not the BQ police, esp not of individual members. The last thing we want is to turn this place into a childish screamfest like we often see over at Indianz.com, where they throw away huge amounts of time and energy trying to out-NDN each other.

If an alleged medicine person or exploiter makes false claims about being NDN, that is very much everyone's business to know the truth. But trying verify each person's claim of their background is ludicrous and impractical, esp since there's almost 2000 of us now. An individual member's BQ means little to us here.

[critter - a white non-ndn person]

Critter, it's pretty obvious MP is not banned. She chose to leave for a time, entirely her own decision.

Hi, yes, I know she not banned, I was simply replying to her statement that her leaving (regardless of "how")
would be missed by me. I also notice Bls is not banned, or no longer.. but..

Personally, I stay out and away from drama of this sort. Usually, in my experience, there is always 3 sides to
every story.. theirs, theirs, and then the truth..  but whatever, I'm not here for this, so have little interest in it. 
I'm here to support the fight against spiritual theft and corruption. 

[apukjij]

well my hunch has proved somewhat on the mark again, the problem is that i get topic notifications when peeps post, and i have not been able to match up with whats on the forum vs. whats in my email notification inbox, i see posts are now edited.... and they are very different.
i am absolutely discouraged, all one is asking for when asking for transparency, is accountability. so now we have seen two peeps names that have been banned, we have a post from moma p that accuses a mod of having a personal bias and they are gone now edited away,
i have prob a hundred rebuttals for transparency, you see i used them all on my chief and council, and now it seems like the same scenario, the plea for accountability falls on deaf ears, for me this this will be my last post on this subject.

[critter - a white non-ndn person]

i agree the posts should not have been edited. i learned a long time ago, that the only way to build trust is to not try and hide shortcomings.  no one is perfect, no thing is perfect. we live, we learn.

people affected adversely by some fraud or exploitation do not trust easily.. coming here and wondering of the validity of the place.. well, that is just compromised when the not so complimentary parts of a post is edited.  i can say that for me, i am not so sure anymore of the integrity .. not because of what was posted.. but because of what was removed.

perhaps something to think about if ever possible future occurrences..  occur.

[educatedindian]

The first post was edited because MP was posting information which could endanger a criminal investigation and prosecution of an abusive individual. I then sent her a message asking her to not do that again, pointing out that's what got BLS banned. So what did she do? She went and did the exact same thing again! And topped it off by picking a fight over the same foolish feud with RB, over the same petty matter.

Seemingly she wants to get herself banned and hopes to play the martyr, same as BLS. If they had not been longtime members...a newer member would've been banned over such matters long ago.

There are some matters one can't be transparent about because of confidentiality and support of investigations of abusers. We've long said we keep confidentiality for those that ask for it because they understrandably fear reprisals from their abusers. We think it's incredibly important to stop abusers. That's the whole point of this forum. Both bls and MP have, on this one case, done everything they could to undermine that because they support this one abuser and believe him over the many victims, witnesses, police investigators, district attorneys, and elders who support the abuse victims.

That support has, in BLS's case, gone so far as to include stalking and harassing mods and other supporters of the victims. Bonnie Lou Singleton is facing criminal charges for stalking and sending threats. A police report was filed, and the police spoke to her. On this one matter, support for an abuser, she's become completely unhinged. Both she and MP have said to the mods repeatedly they believe there's a massive conspiracy, incredibly, involving all the 1) multiple victims of the abuser 2) multiple DAs 3) multiple police depts and 4) elders who support the victims.  

To give you a further example of how Bonnie has become unhinged, she even filed a complaint with the Attorney Generals office of her state against several mods, for supposed civil rights violations. The AG sent her back a letter saying the whole mess was unfounded. Among the reasons they found her case unfounded, she claims she lost her job because of us, her unemployment claim was denied because of us, even that her grandchildren misbehave because of us, and supposedly all this was because of a curse put on her. Any surprise the AG said the whole thing was unfounded?

They've asked for transparency, but they've certainly never been forthcoming about what they have done. In all honesty, they've been cut way, way more slack than anyone else would've gotten.

It also shows their lack of honesty on this matter, IMing other members to give a false version of what's happened and using them for that same agenda, supporting an abuser, without telling them the truth of what's going on.

[critter - a white non-ndn person]

ok. makes sense now. thanks for clarifying.

[amorYcohetes]

Personally, I stay out and away from drama of this sort. Usually, in my experience, there is always 3 sides to every story.. theirs, theirs, and then the truth..  but whatever, I'm not here for this, so have little interest in it.  I'm here to support the fight against spiritual theft and corruption.

ITA, critter.  This thread involves very longtime posters, and I have hardly been active on this messageboard any time at all; and also this is not my main area of activism in my life.  So most of the issues involved in this thread go waaaay over my head. 

Still, I have been thinking about sharing a general observation.  It may or may not have any bearing on the issue under discussion, and it certainly is not directed at anyone in particular, but I will throw it out there anyway.  I am somewhat of a political activist by nature and have participated in quite a few campaigns for social, economic, and racial justice over the years and I have noticed that there are some unfortunate dynamics that may be common to both traditional and online movements against injustice. 

An RL example - there is a long backstory here - but this past summer my daughter and I participated in a 24-hour vigil on the steps of the Massachusetts State House lasting 10 days, led by brave young high-school and college age immigrant students who were protesting being targeted for discrimination by politicians who hoped to score points by appealing to the prejudice and misconceptions of some of their constituents.  These young people were the main organizers, but a wide range of supporters came:
-people who were the targets of and would have been directly affected by the legislation
-people who had once been in that position, but were not anymore, and strongly identified with the targets
-people who had family or friends in that position
-people who felt that they would be profiled by the legislation because of their race or immigration status, even if they were not the targets of the law
-people who were allies because of their principles or their faith
So whoever was on shift would take turns greeting the public that walked by, explaining why the sit-in was taking place, asking for support, etc.  This mostly worked really well, and different people who'd been drawn to help out for their own reasons all gave out the same message - each perhaps emphasizing their own connection to the issue. 

However, at one point I participated in a discussion the organizers had about an individual whose approach with passersby they felt didn't reflect well on the campaign.   From what I heard this guy was Puerto Rican (therefore a born US citizen), had grown up as a member of the Latin Kings, was very militant, and had apparently come out to volunteer for the same completely legitimate reason that many of us (myself included) had: that as a black-haired, brown-eyed, tan-skinned person with non-European features and a Spanish name, he felt personally attacked by the coded racial message of the legislation and expected to be profiled and harassed if it passed.  However, the problem seemed to be that he was more interested in shouting slogans and getting into arguments than in getting out the campaign's message and seeking support from those who were willing to give it.  In talking about this, we didn't rule out that he could have a sincere interest in supporting the cause.  However the fact remained that as a non-immigrant, he wasn't the primary one that would be affected by the law, yet he was taking it upon himself to deviate from the protocol that had been set by organizers who were in that position, and as a result he was alienating the people who he was meant to be informing. 

So I commented that in any political action, probably most people are going to be there because the need to defend their rights has made standing up and speaking out necessary, and then there will be a few who participate more because for whatever reason they thrive on an atmosphere of confrontation.  IMO, folks coming from this latter place make a lot less of a productive contribution in social change movements.  (And just because of the specifics of the RL example I gave, doesn't mean I am implying that movement leaders could not be the ones who lose sight of their priorities.)  Reflecting on this again now, I wonder how many of us who participate in activism both online and IRL (including myself) move back and forth along that continuum over time...  Well, I apologize if I've gone too far off on a tangent here.  I just always feel so sorry to see a situation where it appears that internal conflicts have distracted from working together towards the main goal.