Lerner is actually at least two people

There is no way that the same person who wrote this post also wrote this post.

And it's far from the first time I've noticed the huge difference. Believe me, if I started really digging through Lerner's posts, I'm sure I could find many other examples. I first noticed it many weeks ago. I dunno... I must have so wanted to find the Lerner silver lining that I must have just decided to ignore it or something. But now the smack in the face that is the unmitigated obviousness of it can simply no longer be ignored.

I guess this gives the two locations that Lerner lists on his/her/their profile page here a whole new meaning, doesn't it.

I have been hard on Lerner around here because he/she/they have, in the past, had a nasy habit of starting threats that danced on the very edge of credibility; and, most importantly, seemed to be a back-door, indirect way of promoting something millish. I'm far from the only one who noticed the sneaky tactics in his/her/their posts whenever he/she/they did this. Rich Douglas, among others, commented on having noticed it, too.

Then Lerner screwed-up in a thread and responded as Lerner to something that it would only have been reasonable for Azad to have responded to (or maybe it was the other way around, I can no longer remember without going and looking-up the thread)... leading some to suspect, openly, that Lerner and Azad were actually the same person and that s/he had forgotten under which username s/he was logged-in before posting the reply. Subsequent interrogations, accusations and sepeculations tried to get to the bottom of it; and, ultimately, it seemed that maybe Azad and Lerner were not, in fact, the same person... though why one would respond as if in the personae of another was never really explained or gotten to the bottom of, and we were, in effect, asked to just suspend our disbelief and move on.

As part of either that discussion, or maybe as part of a subsequent one -- I can't remember at the moment -- Lerner fed us some kind of what I now suspect was unmitigated bullcrap about his/her/their using a voice-to-text device and that being the reason his/her/their words were so weird in the worst of the two flavors of posts that she/he/they make around here. It's worthy of note that she/he/they only did that, however, after someone -- I think it was janko -- wondered in the thread if that what was going on; and then Lerner confirmed that that's what it was. Something didn't seem right about that to me at the time, but I couldn't put my finger on precisely what it was; but, in retrospect, the "um... uh... oh... sure... yeah... that's it! Sure... yeah... I'm using a speech-to-text device... that's the ticket..." feel to Lerner's confirmation is no longer lost on me.

It is also worthy of note that part of our ability to come to the conclusion that Lerner and Azad were not the same person was based on a truly impressive linguistic analysis of both Lerner's and Azad's writings at the time by a poster here whose apparent credentials in the area of linguistics lent it some serious credibility. Of course, since it now turns out that Lerner's words, here, are the work of two or more people, the soundness of said linguistic analysis now becomes questionable; and I say, therefore, that the Azad/Lerner identity issue is, once again, fair game.

At any rate, then Lerner said in a thread that he/she/they was/were merely trying to find a good Russian-speaking/writing doctoral program, and that that's why he/she/they had come around here and proffered a few of what ended-up being spectacularly disreputable institutions (such as the hideous IUFS, for example, just to name one). So I, as the one who had for so long had my knee on his/her/their chest(s), and I wrote that if that's all Lerner wanted, then why in the heck didn't she/he/they just say so in the first place; and I then, in that thread, encouraged everyone here to effectively give Lerner the benefit of the doubt and to really dig-in and try to find Lerner a truly useful Russian language distance learning doctoral program... sort of as my way of extending the olive branch, I suppose; and this despite the fact that one of Lerner's retorts to my excoriation of IUFS in another thread here (which talked about the Catholic Church's findings regarding IUFS and some other nonsense) was worded identically to a post in AED that included absolutely filthy commentary about me and others here that, if actually authored by Lerner there using whatever fake name said poster used (as I suspected then and am even more convinced now was the case), would clearly demonstrate that whatever respect Lerner shows this place and/or its inhabitants is but an act... and, therefore, a lie.

"Okay, fine," I said to myself, continuing, "so, then, what's Lerner's game? What did he (or does he) have up his sleeve?"

[shrugs shoulders]

I dunno... and I don't -- or at least didn't -- much care, either. I just found/find the whole thing weird and curious and sort of inexplicable... and couldn't quite put my finger on what was wrong with this picture.

Ever since then I've paid at least a little bit of attention to Lerner's posts around here and I've been more or less pleased to see that she/he/they has/have been generally more reasonable and has/have not been quite as generally millish as he/she/they had before been. That doesn't mean that I haven't several times noticed that it seemed all Lerner could do to restrain himself/herself/themselves from going a bit millish now and then; and, in fact, some of his/her/their posts at such moments really danced on the edge of revealing what I now believe were or are his/her/their true feelings about mills and toward those of us who opening despise and discredit them (and those who like/support them).

Then, a little while ago, in an unrelated moment, I decided to slip on my environmental hazard suit and go shake my head in disbelief at a few of the postings over in the crabby forum. And there I spied some comments by one of the people who runs the nefarious IUFS wherein he disclosed/confirmed, in effect, that the old adage about any publicity being good publicity is more true than most of us know; and the reason those who are savvy about such things always joke that they don't care what the press writes just as long as it spells their name right is because any publicity is, in fact, good publicity. And as cogent proof thereof, he gloated about how the more bad things we said over here on DegreeInfo about IUFS, the more inquiries and applications he got.

Suddenly it hit me why Lerner kept coming around here proffering nefarious institutions and services so that we'd all take him/her/them to task for it and, therefore, drum-up reader interest (and, hopefully, revenues) for same. Suddenly it was clear why Lerner appeared to be a favorite son of those in the crabby forums and other places that are tolerant of diploma/degree mills and other institutions of questionable worth. Suddenly it was clear why Lerner appeared to be posting horrible things in like AED where he/she/they could do so with impunity, yet his/her/their tone and "respect" for this place seemed feigned... after all, if she/he/they wrote here what she/he/they was/were apparently writing there, she/he/they would get thrown outta' here in a big-assed hurry!

Lerner will post here, of course, denying all of this. It will be interesting, if nothing else, to see which Lerner -- the one who can write decent English, or the one who seems to have just gotten off the boat -- will actually post; but there's no doubt in my mind that one of them will... and that it will be an objurgation of biblical proportions. Watch for it.

HELPFUL HINT TO LERNER: Don't forget to logout as Azad first; and don't forget to put new batteries in your speech-to-text device... you're gonna' need 'em.

In the meantime, I hope the readers here will take all of this into consideration whenever they read anything Lerner posts; and, honestly, I'd like to see the mods just shut him/her/them down. If it's wrong, according to the TOS, to own more than one username around here (and it is), then it should be just as wrong to have multiple persons posting under a single username. After all, they're just different sides of the same coin.

Or so it is my opinion, for what that's worth.

 

This couldn't be a case of multiple-personality disorder, where several personalities reside within the same individual. This is a textbook case of multiple-poster disorder, where several posters reside within the personality of a single username. Equal doses of Paxil and Wellbutrin could significantly reduce the number of postings..............

 

Wow!

 

yes, you were absolutely right and I was wrong that Azad is not a wonderful member of this board as he hasn't posted anything he said he would.

So maybe I'm still asleep but can you hint me even more towards that striking intercorrelation between the 2 posts you pointed out that prove your point on this one? One is about the changing role of accreditation, one about todays practice of hiring unaccredited degreeholders...where is the conflict?

Also why on earth would 2 people share one account? After all they are free, even in Seborga and India...best wishes

 

Azad = untrustworthy diploma mill shill

As I've said many, many times in the past in various ways and in many postings....

Azad is not a man to be trusted. He worked for Canterbury/Instant Degrees before he hitched his star to Saint Regis, and now God knows what he is up to but one thing is certain - it is NOT legitimate educational services.....

Beware Azad for he speaketh with forked tongue.....

 

Greg,

As I did the study showing a discrepancy between Azad's and Lerner's language,

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20067

I'd just like to observe that the data speak for themselves on that point and are silent on the others you raise. Naturally, two days ago I tossed out the Lerner and Azad corpora, so I would have to re-sample Lerner's posts and recompile Azad's in order to present those data for others to examine. I certainly will if there is any doubt about the study itself, but I'm not looking forward to it.

In my post I noted that I tried to exclude quoted text, but that it was not always easy to demarcate. That's relevant to the second Lerner post you link to above.

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20713

In fact, that post alone has at least two authors. The parts in bold come from Drexel's own website:

http://www.drexel.com/Fields_of_Study/Engineering.shtml

Lerner's post:

If I were to speculate, I might guess from the style and content that there is at least one other source document, perhaps from Lerner's company, accounting for some of the rest of the post.

Take a look at this sentence: Do you see any possible seams here?

The omission of the indefinite article at the beginning of the quotation and the spelling of "experiance" at the end are characteristic of one sort of language. And note how the syntax crumbles at just that point: ". . . and lab experiance Engineering expertise. . . ."

On the other hand, the rest of the sentence seems to come from somewhere else: ". . . degree holders in engineering from ABET accredited programs have a level of knowledge . . . that others don't have," with its indefinite article, post-modifying past participial phrase, and subordinate clause with a direct-object relative pronoun.

I realize that these topics are minutiae in the issues that you are confronting. I've glanced at the forums where your villifiers post, and I've seen a few of the appalling attacks on George Gollin and Uncle Janko elsewhere, so I can imagine those targeting you. The fact that wording identical to one of Lerner's posts shows up in one of them is distressing to me as well, especially in light of your reaching out to him. All I can say is that impersonation by partial quotation is a hallmark of those posts, and I still hope that Lerner is not involved. But I can see why you'd be past caring at this point.

Bill

 

Am I nuts or is this thread nuts?

 

Yes.

 

Just as I suspected.

 

Ok - I admit it. Jimmy and I are the same person..



No offense, but you seem to have far too much time on your hands. Who cares if Lerner and Azad are the same person? How do you really know if anyone is who they say they are?

 

Re: Re: Lerner is actually at least two people

NKA Dissociative Identity Disorder.

 

Good work Gregg. I think over the years we have had a number of people who use multiple names – I can think of a troll back in July of 2004 that was creating a lot of problems until a senior member found out his home phone and called him.

 

I think that if somebody thinks that another Degreeinfo participant is breaking the board's terms of service, then he or she should contact the moderators privately.

But starting ad-hominem flame threads apparently intended to drive another participant off the board is not the way to respond to people who frustrate us.

Frankly, I don't know who most of you are. And just as frankly, I don't care.

When any of you post, what I see are words on a screen. When I reply, I respond to the words that I see.

Ideas that we disagree with can't be dismissed by insulting the unknown people behind the screen who wrote them.

It might turn out that one of Degreeinfo's participants is Satan himself, but if his diabolical points are correct, then they are correct.

If we want to defeat assertions that we believe are incorrect, then we have to suck it up and address the issues rather than the personalities.

 

Nosborne48 and I aren't exactly the same person, but I'm his evil radical neocon lawyer twin.

 

There used to be more of this kind of thing (speculating about identities, multiple logins, and the like). I think a lot of it got stopped when the moderators asked people not to engage in this kind of speculation. Bill's advice is correct: take it up with the moderators; don't start a thread on the subject.

(Another reason for the drop-off of this kind of posting has to do with the drop-off of that kind of behavior--we don't see as many trolls and flamers as we once did. I think they got bored and left. (With a couple of obvious contemporary exceptions, of course.)

 

I know I'm not a troll, because I typically hang in there til the bitter end, but do I qualify as a "flamer"? And if not, what would I qualify as? Hopefully something.

 

When you look in the mirror, left and right are reversed, but head and feet aren't.

 

Plus, I'm a LOT better looking!

 

Pick your own character: http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/index.htm

This one is me: http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/troglodyte.htm

 

What did the senior member say to you?

Heh heh.