I love to call someone's bluff

Scroll down to the end.

Ridiculously long link.

 

Sunlight IS the best disinfectant.

 

James Crabb defending John Dovelos describes it all. Just another reason to believe James and his gang of shills are an irrelevant group with absolutely no community. If it wasn't for a few DI regulars pitching in there once in a while, there would be nothing at all about legitimate higher education.

I've learned that they are best ignored.

 

Exactly! What's it going to take to get everyone around here to just ignore these idiots? The smartest thing we could do, as I've said in one way or another, over and over again, is to get them to the point where they're, in effect, jumping up and down and waving their arms in the air to get our attention... asking, "Hey! Aren't you guys reading what we write about you anymore? Helloooo! Anybody out there?"

When will we learn? This is schoolyard bully stuff... of the type that I learned about way back in 1st or 2nd grade. The most effective (for you) and maddening (for the bully/tormentor) thing you can do is just ignore. When will my fellow DI members finally get that? It's easy, too. As I've pointed out here before, I ignored all other fora, including AED, for months and only let myself get sucked-in briefly a couple of months ago, but not since. Heck, I didn't even click on the link in Bruce's thread-starting post here... that is, once I realized what forum it linked-to by hovering my mouse over said link and noticing the URL to which it pointed in the lower-leftmost corner of the browser window. Honestly, when you just stop thinking or worrying about them, and just let them sort of swish around in their little cesspool like so much bacteria, life gets so much easier. I keep telling everyone here, but they seem not to believe me.

Let's all please stop elevating those in the Crabby Forum and other such places to a wholly undeserved level of legitimacy by even talking about them, much less actually communicating with them. All we do, when we do those things, is lower ourselves.

Please, everyone... I'm beggin' ya'... just ignore them. At long last, just ignore them... no matter how tempting it might sometimes be to respond. Just ignore them. Please.

 

For once i have to agree with Gregg, there is nothing there to mention, to talk about or to even publicly get excited about.

 

I confess, I have a sick fascination with looking in on that other forum. Never to participate, but just to lurk. The funniest thing to me, and I'll say it here and never mention it again, is the accusation (made over and over again at that forum) that DI is "RA or No Way". I've been a member here for a little while now,and I feel comfortable enough to say that the "RA or No Way" accusation just doesn't stick. This place is replete with long time contributors who recommend Ashworth College, Education Direct, Andrew Jackson University, and American Military University just to name a few DETC schools. I've also seen recommendations for unaccredited programs from NationsUniversity and some right wing religious CA approved law school whose name escapes me. I can't imagine a legitimate program, UA, RA or NA, that would not get a fair shake at this forum. Degreeinfo is as fair and balanced as you can get while still being accurate and honest. I am glad to have found this forum.

 

Being relatively new --

OK, I'd be stupid not to see that there was a history here (obvously deep and dark). AND, I'd be a liar to say that I was not curious as to what that history is/was.

 

There is a loooong history to this site, and I was one of the original Gang of Six, AED refugees to come over here. When I'm retired, sitting by the fire with a pipe, I might just transcribe my memoirs on this - what a roller coaster ride it has been.

In all honesty, I believe there is a place for Jamesville. And Degreeboard serves an important function too. All three forums sit on a continuum where people can choose to log in and engage. Who's right and who's wrong? Who knows? Clearly, all these arguments are not black and white, that's why it makes for such a fascinating research topic. I still dream of the day when members from all 3 forums can sit in a lecture theatre and have a mass debate about the whole deal. No weapons allowed of course.

Cheers,

George

 

John Dovelos is a person that was associated with SRU.

Here's some background links in approximate reverse chronological order going back only a few weeks. The full story goes back much further though.

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21232

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21180

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21119

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21043

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20926

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20836

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20953

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20870

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20831

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20751

 

mcdirector,

As a fellow relative 'newbie' I was in the same position as you. I did actually do a little net investigation out of morbid interest to see what it was all about. I think I have a rough handle on it now, but certainly have no intention of (and no business) getting involved!

For me DegreeInfo has this kind of undercurrent of history which manifests itself in various threads. Those involved are the founders/oldest members of the forum, thus I guess they have rights to use this forum as a sounding board if they wish.

More importantly as RobbCD states it seems to be a fair, open-minded and objective forum, and the 7000 or so member who do not know or care about the 'history' are always available to offer wise counsel.

I'm certainly glad I found it!

Peace,

Dave C.

 

On all counts; well said, George!

 

Legitimate posters engaging criminals, flamers, frauds, etc. doesn't seem productive to me, other than to draw their activities into the light using their own statements. (See Neil Hayes's self-inflicted wounds regarding his fake doctorates.) But those people do a good enough job on their own. I hate to see legitimate people giving those people any aura of credibility by engaging them.

I used to feel compelled to confront each lie, whether about me personally or about DL, accreditation, etc. However, (a) it doesn't stop them and (b) it doesn't matter.

On this site you have people actually involved in DL. You have the most prominent figure ever in nontraditional higher education, John Bear. You have Alan Contreras, directly fighting diploma mills. George Gollin has been a key figure in the contemporary fight, and Steve Levicoff has a long history as well. Tony Piña has emerged as a strong contributor, bringing experience in both DL and traditional education. George Brown is actively engaged in relevant research, and others have provided relevant, near-time answers to nagging questions. Many of our participants have taught in DL or other nontraditional programs. Authors (Bear, Levicoff, Nixon, Head, and many others) appear here frequently, as do many others actively involved in legitimate higher education--as students, faculty, administrators, etc. It is an amazing group.

What do you have at Jamesville? People directly involved with diploma mills, people promoting diploma mills (including the operator of the board), many anonymous shills, a few former denizens of DI, and a few cross-overs from this board. A big focus is doctoral-level education, but they have no active members who hold legitimate doctoral degrees. They talk a lot about accreditation, but they have few (none?) with experience at accredited nontraditional schools. Their "flagship" school, Knightsbridge University, is a fake school run from the owner's home (and out of a postal box) with no legal authority to award degrees, and whose degrees have absolutely no academic standing. That's the bar over there, and the modus operendi involves touting the benefits of fraudulent schools, making personal (and utterly false) claims about the people they don't like, then crying like a little girl with a skinned knee when called on it.

I just don't understand anymore why they would be worthy of anyone's time and effort to post there.

 

Hi Rich

I have to agree. I see little value in conversing with the frauds and degree mill promoters of "Jamesville". I have to also admit degreeboard is not as easily classified. Despite the owner's promotion of the known degree mill Kennedy-Western, there also seems a genuine interest in legitimate education. That is unfrotunately marred by a few hostile and argumentative posters.

 

Agreed. Whether the K-W stuff was active promotion or just an attempt at even-handedness, it did seem too positive about what is obviously a rip-off.

As for hostility, the administrators seemed to be on top of that initially. I wonder what changed.

The main disadvantage of that board is its tiny number of contributors. An advantage is the amount of information available, most of it also available here.

 

Hey Dave C.!

Like you, I've done some digging for my own rough handle on things. AND I agree about the getting involved -- with no history on my part, it would be silly to stick a foot in or a neck out -- but there is that morbid curiosity.

I'm thankful for what is offered here at DegreeInfo. I've learned tons and used that information to make some personal decisions. I also get to use a great deal with the high schoolers I work with.

I appreciate those with questions asking them, and I appreciate all those with knowledge being so willing to share!

 

Yes! Yes! Exactly! My argument around here, exactly, for a long time! Now if everyone would not just buy in and stop giving them the time of day here which they so desperately seek over there.

Who, for the most part, if you'll notice, tend to be regulars over at Jamesville... or, as I like to call it, The Crabby Forum.

And because AIMOO (which hosts the Crabby Forum) actually has -- and occasionally even enforces -- a TOS (which the Crabby Forum people have actually violated many times already), those very same people are also posting far more vicious, hurtful, hateful and even harmful things on AED, under all manner of usernames and/or "Guest," via places like the Military Forums.

It's all the same gang of idiots. Because of the anonymity that's possible in places the Military Forums, some of them actually respond to their own postings as if they were someone else just to keep the threads alive and/or to pile-on what seems like more and more agreement. It's pathetic, really... and clearly the work of people with far more than just borderline personality disorders.

But as Rich points out, not one single bit of it really makes a whit of difference to anyone, anywhere. Rich, it seems, is saying that he once thought it did -- as many of us, I should add -- have thought, too, in the past; and that it took some time away (and all the introspection and contemplation and whatever else naturally attends such mini-sabbatical) to realize that it just ain't so.

They're impotent... probably, most of them, in more ways than one, but I digress. They don't affect anyone's opinioin about anything, anywhere... at least not anyone with half a brain. It is always astonishing to me, therefore, when anyone -- including at least one person who has posted in this very thread -- lowers himself to go over there and participate.

That said, though I don't agree with George that there's a place in the DL marketplace of ideas for such as The Crabby Forum, I do believe that there's a place for some of the legitimate points that are occasionally made over there regarding the whole "unaccredited, but nevertheless credible" argument. That being the case, there's a part of me (and, believe me, the rest of me knows it would never work because those knucklheads over there simply can't control themselves long enough to stay civil and keep from being thrown outta' here)... but there's a part of me that thinks maybe this place should start a forum called "Unaccredited, but still legit? RA or No Way?" and then let those guys back in here to make their points, but forced by the TOS to do so without the invective so that real and meaningful debates about it can take place. I mean, if this really is the most legitimate gathering place for these kinds of discussions, then we're probably depriving the reader of some seriously spirited debates that, if they could be conducted without the name-calling and cheap shots, would cut through the crap and finally reveal to the reader, once and for all, what the inherent problems are with their arguments.

But I realize that that's too much to ask for. If they're psychos over there, then they'd just be muted, self-restrained psychos over here... and we'd all just wear ourselves out responding to their strawman arguments, and all manner of other slights-of-hand and intentional misdirections. Still... it would be nice if there were some way for some of those guys' more rational and lucid points -- on the rare occasions when they actually make them -- could be proffered and represented here (and by them, so they'll be really authentic) so that the reader can learn from the ensuing debates... and see the folly of their points.

But, when you think about it, they all pretty much had their chances to do that here... and they blew it and got thrown out. And not because they merely disagreed with us, as they so often allege, but because they were, in the end, unable to keep from posting here the kind of psychotic invective that they post both there (in The Crabby Forum) and in AED. I mean... who wants anyone in their midst who's capable of posting the kinds of words that we see in this godawful thread, for example. Anyone who can't see what's wrong with the mind of the terrible, filthy, godawful kinds of people who could write things like that -- and why we wouldn't want them around here -- is probably sociopathic himself/herself.

And, yes... I realize that, in order to post that link, above, I had to go against my own advice and visit Military Forums (which is nothing but a gateway to AED)... which I have so proudly said here that I've been easily able to do for so many weeks (and before my last visit) months; and which I've counseled others, here, that they, too, can easily do. But I decided to fall off the wagon so I could show readers here who have not visited such threads, and who may be scratching their heads wondering what the hell we're all talking about here, just exactly how bad it is. I went there with the express intend of finding the most vile and repugnant example of what these psychotics routinely post in the other fora... and I didn't even have to go back any further than the first pagefull of threads (as of this writing) to find one of the worst I've ever seen there. And I'm not surprised it was so easy. That thread -- and hundreds like it -- is what AED has become; and what The Crabby Forum would be if AIMOO would let it; and what DegreeBoard would be if its owner, KWU-supporter though he may be, would let it become.

Thankgod DegreeBoard's owner is at least better than that... though, then again, the fact that he has allocated some of his board to being a gateway to AED, just like Military Forums, suggests that he thinks there's little or nothing wrong with helping people get at such godawful posts as that to which I've linked two paragraphs back. People vote with their feet, and I'd say an argument can be made that he's clearly voting with his by his making AED available through his board. And I think that's a pity, really, because the truth is that I kinda' like what DegreeBoard's owner would clearly like to build that place up to... with all its current and/or intended features and whatnot. But if he can't recognize that AED -- along with many of the formerly halfway-decent usenet groups -- is no longer worth the powder it would take to blow it up; and, therefore, doesn't realize that being a gateway thereto provides no real benefit to anyone other than to expose his readers to one of the most vile and pathological places on the Internet, then he doesn't deserve the success he seeks. Which, I say again, is actually a pity.

So, I'm not sure that I agree that there's a place for such as The Crabby Forum or even DegreeBoard... especially when we know that there's precious little standing, in those fora, between the kind of invective shown in the thread to which I linked, above, and what they actually post in those places, other than either AIMOO's TOS or the good sense of DegreeBoard's owner.

I appreciate the honest-to-goodness decent and worthwhile posts that occasion both places, but the sometimes horrific crap around which one must wade in order to find them just isn't worth it. So I've stopped -- except for when I fall off the wagon, as I've just now done in this very post -- going to those places altogether.

[sigh] Oh, well. Today I re-begin my "sobriety":

• Gregg: Hi. My name's Gregg.
  
  Group: Hi, Gregg.
  
  Gregg: And I've been off AED and other good-for-nothing fora for... well... about five minutes, at this writing.

And so begins, hopefully, many more months -- ne, years -- of never ever going there... as I was well on my way doing, yet again, before I jumped off the wagon to make my point, above. Fortunately, it's easy to stay on that wagon, as Rich is basically saying, in this thread...

...unless, of course, you need to make a point like I made a few paragraphs back; which I'm now starting to regret and feel like I need a shower to mitigate; and which we can all probably do without around here, regardless.

This -- here at DegreeInfo -- is the place to be if one wants to have meaningful discussions about distance learning and all the other stuff that we talk about here. None of those other places matter. They never have. They never will. And the sooner we let threads like this die and fall to the bottom of the thread list; and stop either starting new ones that give the other fora the attention they so desperately seek, or make occasional references thereto, the better off we'll all be.

Or so it is my opinion.

 

...that runs so true...

Couldn't have said it better myself--shorter, yeah, but not better.

My only disagreement is that this thread should be kept at the top to warn newbies and let the ambivalent and the confused see how satori can be attained. Best wishes to almost all who have posted on this thread.

Oh. One other thing. It's "nay", not "ne".

 

I agree with a previous post that DegreeInfo, DegreeInformationDL, Degreeboard, and AED have a place in the market (as do other boards) since there is a need for free speech, open expression, extending the body of knowledge, etc. These sites also have limitations.

DegreeInfo seems to have the broadest membership and covers the widest range of information, but many if not most members are silent in light of a small vocal group that is frequently intolerant of others, commonly using "liar" "fraud" "shill" "troll" to make their point which is unprofessional and sounds uneducated. At the same time, there are pearls and some very good stuff. It's about 90% BS/10% pearl, maybe 80/20 on a good day. I think what hurts DegreeInfo is that it became the home of a debunking crusade which has become an inquisition of sorts. Like an unsafe and bad marksman, shots go everywhere and a lot of innocent and well-meaning people are hit. Still, it can be a good site and there are interesting subjects discussed.

DegreeInformationDL is primarily a protest site by some who were dismissed at DegreeInfo. Many of the frequent posters there were banned here and now they call out those who did the trashing, while at the same time banning them there. Membership is much smaller than DegreeInfo, but tends to be vocal and presents an intelligent counterpoint. The general philosophy is tolerance for a broad range of education from the largest accredited, to state approved and/or state licensed, to very small schools that claim no accreditation or external approval at all. Many accusations of promoting fraudulent schools have been made against the core posters from traditionalists and those affected here, but no hard evidence against the schools discussed have been forthcoming, mostly conjecture and innuendo. The biggest limitation of the site is the lack of information related to the distance education market including innovations, programs, schools, etc. This is due in large measure to the primary mission which appears to be designed to deflate those who consider themselves experts here. I haven't seen much meaningful debate and little direct discussion, so who's to say who is right?

Degreeboard is the most heavily moderated of the four and runs a pretty level playing field on a number of education issues but the smaller membership limits the breadth and depth of information discussed. The biggest limitation is the lack of mainstream school and program information, but there have been interesting and useful discussions. Some members from DegreeInfo claim too much tolerance is given to those promoting fraudulent education, which is a matter of opinion.

AED seems to be completely unmoderated with not a lot of useful information on education, with many protest posts against the more vocal who post frequently at DegeeInfo. Some grains of truth and useful information, but many posts are course and vulgar designed as anti-personnel, which is the antithesis of an education site.

 

Degreeinfo has a lot of members that do not get involved in the discussion board battles and are here mostly to learn and share information. Reading this forum and looking at the success others are having with DL is a good motivator and it is also a hobby of sorts to discuss the many topics. The only problem I have is with the rude treatment some get for simply for having a different perspective about things. I have learned first hand that many of these "universities" are just money making ventures, but we should criticize the "universities" for their operating practices and stick to facts. Calling people liars, frauds, shills, trolls, etc does nothing but create the kind of atmosphere like the one we have now.

I very seldom read any of the other forums anymore besides degreeforum because there is very little useful information. Degreeboard is ok, but it is usually dead and has little participation.

My biggest problem with DI DL is that the major players are obsessed with attacking DI and attacking its members which are all painted with the same brush. The board is run in exactly the way this board is accused of being run. The major players can write anything they want about anyone, yet they will not allow the ones they criticize to post there at all. To me it is extreme hypocrisy to complain about the way this place is run and then go and do the same there. IMO if you see a wrong then you should try to correct it, not duplicate it.

At DL any enemy of DI is a friend to them. The very schools that they so HEAVILY criticized in the past have become OK so long as those involved with those schools are also an enemy of DI. If all forms of legitimate education is tolerated on that forum then what is exactly legitimate? Is it anything beyond just buying a diploma? This is something I could never get an answer for. I guess it doesn't really matter since the main objective of owner seems to be trash DI rather than actually discuss DL.

With that said DL members make some very good points in regards to some of the major players here. For instance, we all (myself included) think very highly of John Bear and his books on non-traditional education. But, many of the schools that have been promoted, recommended, or at least mentioned in a positive way are now considered diploma mills by many here. Rich Douglas has been very critical of others for their unaccredited choices, yet he has (like John) been involved with unaccredited schools, some of which have been closed down by authorities. The argument made by them at DL that it was good enough for you, so how can you so strongly criticize others has a loud ring to it. That is why I think it is best to stick to criticism of the "schools" and their practices. Calling someone a fraud, liar, or shill for defending their choices can certainly go both ways and should be avoided IMO.

Everyone involved here and there should learn to treat others with more respect. There are few who can truthfully claim to be innocent of wrongdoing on either side, and it is just childish to continue it. I am sure there will be some that read this (as usual) that will point out the log in the others eye and claim to not have a speck in theirs, but as usual I am just voicing my opinion as I see it.