A Sad Day

I received this email. It indicates degreeinfo.com management and Peter French conspired to deceive readers and contributors to AED and degreeinfo.com.

As one who was summarily booted out of degreeinfo.com for defending Peter French I'm a little pissed off. As someone who was essentially lied to by Chip and Peters and became an unwitting and unwilling chump in their execution of their scam, I'm more than a little pissed off.

Neither Chip White nor Peter French asked my permission or your permission when they took us for a bunch of clowns. No where, when subscribing to degreeinfo.com did I or any of
you, agree to play victims in a confidence trick perpetrated by scam artists.

I'm disgusted.

Lawrie Miller


Below is the email I received
********************************************
Hi, Peter.

I am finally free of meetings and fires that had to be put out, and have a tiny bit of sanity left at the end of the day. I've been waiting for comments from some of the other admins, but since I've heard only from Tom H, I'll take this on myself.

How about :

As a number of you may have noticed, some strange and out-of-character posts have been appearing here on degreeinfo and at a.e.d. An explanation is in order.

About a week ago, several individuals (people known to the regulars here but not administrators or moderators of this forum) approached the admins of degreeinfo and asked for our assistance in a behind-the-scenes attempt to "smoke out" details on the spammers that have been creating problems at
a.e.d. and have been attempting to do the same at degreeinfo.

Longtime a.e.d. contributor Peter French was asked to serve as the designated "front man", taking the thankless role of being an advocate for state-approved schools, with the intention of winning the confidence of our
resident spammer. As someone who has read Peter's posts for as long as I've been reading a.e.d. (5+ years now), I can assure that the personality displayed in Peter's posts is *not* the person we know as Peter French... it was a persona created with
the intention of gaining confidence with the spammer.

The project has now ended, Peter's posting privileges at degreeinfo have been restored, and Peter's personality will be returning to normal.

The project created much greater havoc and hard feelings than were ever intended, and as a result of the havoc created, the admins have decided that they will never, ever entertain such a request again. . While those
who asked for our participation had entirely noble intentions, ultimately a lot of feelings were hurt, and problems created. We sincerely apologize for the difficulty, distraction, and other problems that may have been caused by our decision to assist in this action, and ask your forgiveness. It will not happen again.

Sincerely,

Chip
Forum Administrator

 

Lawrie, that is life. That was yesterday, this is todya, and tomorrow will bring forwadra fresh set of challenges.

Get over it.

You are bitter - OK, so are others for a variety of reasons. You came out as friend not an adversary and I appreciate it. I put you on notice and you went public with it. I understand how you feel, but I hope in time you and others will see the broader picture.

There are many things that we have done that we would never do again. There are many things that we have done that we would do differently next time around. However there is a bond or a friendship that we would cross most boundaries for - you have done that, and please don't spoil that momentarily in angst.

Sincerely,





------------------
Peter French,
MEd MAcc (UNE) CMA
Australia

 

If this is all true, they sound very sorry, hunbled and contrite. I for one, understand why they did it, and hope the forum gets back to normal again. The only other option would be AED, and that scene has deteriorated even further.

I think, in a country that forgave Clinton, we can also forgive Chip et al.

Scott

 

While I really didn't care about the infantile manner which these people tried to flush out spammers, I did find it distasteful and low class.

EsqPhD

 

I completely agree. It was a judgement lapse for which I take complete responsiblity. It should not have happened in the first place, it will not happen again, and I and the rest of the administrators have already apologized for our part in it.

Please read my other message and please take any comments you may have to private email at [email protected].

THanks

 

But in fact you have taken no responsibility, you have simply tried to sweep it under the carpet by ordering contributors to refrain from further public comment.

Indeed, it should not have happened, but apologizing does not absolve you from the consequences of your behavior, nor does it mitigate the harm you have caused others by conspiring in this reckless deception. You lied to us.

Why the rush to secrecy? Why did you conspire with Peter French to gain my confidence by deception? I believed him, and I believed you. I agreed with neither of you in the detail of your views, but nevertheless sought to defend Peter from unfair attack. I disagreed with you in your choice of actions, but nevertheless thought you an honorable man.

 

Granted, this may be "your" swimming pool, but I find this entire episode to be in poor taste & class-less, particularly when its conducted by people purporting to hold advanced degrees & offering their 2 cents on a topic many will invest considerable time and money on. If the people dispensing advice lack maturity/integrity/candor (you pick what's appropriate), how valuable is that advice?

 

Lawrie, I'm sorry to see that you seem to have got your feelings hurt. I think I can maybe even appreciate how you feel.

I find it difficult to believe that anyone has really done anything dishonorable or despicable in this little escapade. May I humblely suggest that you seem to have blown the thing out of proportion a little. Try to keep in mind that the apparent target was the a.e.d. spammer and not you.

(And no, I wasn't involved, I was just an outside observer much as yourself. Although I found the whole thing amusing/interesting rather than having any negative reaction.)

 

I have no hurt feelings but am discouraged that this happened as we unwittingly spent time and effort to create posts against threads that had no merit.

John

 

I sat here for a very long time reading through this trying to decide what my true feelings were and if I'd even voice an opinion on these matters. Although I am still not sure what to make of it all or where I stand, I will share this with you.

While discussing the substance of these forums over lunch with a fairly well educated and elder coworker earlier this week, he made the comment to me that "education is not always an indication of intelligence". When I got home from work today and read this thread, his comments rang in my head like a giant gong. While I believe everyone makes mistakes (big and small), some are so large that you just have to stand there and stare with your mouth open in disbelief at the sheer magnitude of it. Having been on the receiving end of one of those stares in the past I think I am at least minimally qualified to recognize one of those moments when I see it.

I sit here and chuckle at this and I can't for the life of me figure out why. I guess some things are so stupid (for lack of a better term) they're actually funny in the same way that a dog can be so ugly that it's actually cute. But, I'm certainly not one in a position to pass judgment and do hope that things straighten themselves out eventually. Although I would be very surprised if people let this rest anytime soon.

Sincerely,

Daniel Alexander

P.S. Peter owes me a new "meter" since he broke mine.

 

Chip,

For a minute, I thought Peter French and Sam Xaviar were both major league assholes.

Cheers,

Byran

 

Good gracious, no! They have always been minor league.

 

)

 

Indeed. And try as I might I cannot help but recall that old Scottish admonishment I learned at my mother's knee, and which is now universally quoted in similar circumstances:

stupid is as stupid does!

 

I really enjoy this forum. It is informative and it is entertaining.

Chip, Peter and the others were trying to do something to improve the quality of this forum (and aed). They tried and it didn't work out. that is all there is to it. To those of you that really seem to be hurt or offended, lighten up!

I enjoyed it. It was like a (internet) play with good (sorry, not great) performances, a few twists and a playful ending. One and a half thumbs up; not enough for a sequel.

Minhaz

 

Interestingly, a couple weeks ago I was summarily chastised by the administrators for using ex-Pres Clinton in an analogy to demonstrate how the powerful protect one another and subsequently get away with unethical behavior - (the Houston police chief with a mill degree). I was told that politics and power have nothing to do with distance learning and certainly nothing to do with this board. It appears that power and politics are alive and well at degreeinfo.com and being exploited to the fullest extent.

So tell me, is deceit a part of, and related to distance learning?

Bob Harris

 

Is deceit a part of law enforcement? If a police detective is trying to catch a drug dealer he must tell the drug dealer that he's a police officer before he asks if he can buy some drugs? Your statement would seem to indicate that you would call our undercover officer dishonest unless he announced up front he was a cop.

Sorry Bob I think you missed the boat on that one.

 

I love this site; very entertaining. A great display of learning ! Hmmm, Art of War by distance learning

Did Factwatcher fall for it ?

 

While I was disappointed, I do realize that errors occur from time to time. If you all know the person behind the writing, you'd know that I am very imperfect--a chief of sinners as St. Paul of the Bible calls it.

Thanks for trying to clean up the spammers.

EsqPhD

 

Then please tell me, Bill, what laws were broken or crimes committed that violated the civil rights others on this board to justify the use of deceit tactics? Are you saying that one’s opinion, which is contradictory to that of the administrators (the powerful), justifies this behavior and rises to the level of employing dishonesty to rid the board of opposing views? The administrators are showing that they are police, judge, jury, AND lawmakers. Where’s the balance of power?

Your analogy is bullshit and to compare the US Constitution with the “laws” of this board is disingenuous and insulting.

Bob Harris