Trinity shills

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Chip, May 18, 2001.

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  1. Chip

    Chip Administrator

    Folks,

    Trinity U. operatives have clearly been lurking here for some time. (The fraudulent Trinity, of course, currently operating from a Mailboxes Etc box in SD.)

    We have recently identified and taken action on several cases where Trinity operatives have posted inappropriate and factually incorrect messages. Since we can expect that these operatives will step up their actions here as GMA focuses more of their guns on Trinity, you may from time to time see more messages that are present and then gone. This does not indicate any change in policy or further censorship, only increased activity by mill operators trying to sell their worthless degrees.

    We have zero tolerence for shilling by degree mill operators or posting using multiple names. These actions will be dealt with quickly, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

    Chip
    Administrator
     
  2. Guest

    Guest Guest

    BRAVO, Chip!

    Keep up the good work!

    Russell
     
  3. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I'm interested in what kind of interest the mills have taken in this newsgroup. Have there already been posts from them? (How does one identify them before purging them?) For that matter, has "factwatcher" made any other attempts to attack this group? I can't imagine that he would be content to let it operate peacefully after all the work that he put into destroying AED.

    Personally, I would prefer that people defending the mills be permitted to speak here, and that the group not be restricted only to the mills' critics. A dialogue is alway more enlightening, to say nothing of more entertaining, than a monologue. If the defender has some connection to the bogus school in question, so much the better. I should think that we would want to invite authoritative representatives of those institutions to take questions. Isn't that a good chance to publicly put them on the spot, GMA-style?

    Obviously if somebody is bent on disruption like "factwatcher" or "producer", then by all means can them. But if a degree mill representative's posts aren't disruptive, I expect that we can probably handle it.
     
  4. Lawrie Miller

    Lawrie Miller New Member

    Here speaks the voice of reason. Censor only if you must, not because you can. If this board is to be restricted to right-thinking brethren who adhere to a particular doctrine, publish the catechism so that contributors and readers will be in no doubt about its agenda.

    I dare say that if all were expelled who have posted factually incorrect statements, there would be no one left here. Why reserve that penalty exclusively for those with whom the censors disagree?
     
  5. Bill Hurd

    Bill Hurd New Member

    I applaud the moderators' desire to keep slammers and spammers off this forum.I would rather miss a few postings than wade through dozens to get to the one that has something substantive to say.

    For those who protest that this is censorship - so be it. After all, the person who owns the ball can name the game and set the ground rules. Besides, there is always AED.

    Bill H
     
  6. Lawrie Miller

    Lawrie Miller New Member

    But those aren't the choices, Bill. It isn't a case of being drowned in spam or muting dissenting views, that is not the choice. We can have opposing views AND no spam.
    Well, why should those who hold a different view from you go to AED, Bill? As I understand it, this forum is lightly moderated, that the advertisement, anyway. Your invitation to go to AED is high handed and arrogant.
     
  7. tcnixon

    tcnixon Active Member

    It *might* be interesting if mill operators were at all interested in a dialogue of any kind. The few posts thus far here plus our collective experience with AED suggests otherwise. For the most part, they seem interested in being disruptive.

    In any case, they rarely announce that they are mill operators. It is only through checking IPs and such that we can even figure out who they are.


    Tom Nixon
     
  8. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Excellent point, Tom! If these individuals were interested in serious dialogue or meaningful and constructive collaboration, they would not "sneak" into the forum.

    Therefore, Bill's suggestions was neither high-handed nor arrogant. If the purpose of a poster is to be disruptive, they do indeed need to go to a.e.d. (with the help of the moderators of course [​IMG]).
     
  9. Lawrie Miller

    Lawrie Miller New Member

    Indeed, but Bill's suggestion was NOT directed at mill owners, Russell, it was contained in the paragraph directed at those of us who questioned the wisdom of preemptive censorship. So the premise of your argument has no basis in fact, and there is no "therefore" about it.
     
  10. Bill Hurd

    Bill Hurd New Member

    Thanks to those who tried to interpret what I said. Actually, I thought my points were fairly clear to begin with - (1)keep spammers off the forum, (2)the individual(s) who started the forum have the right to set and enforce ground rules, (3)disrupters still have AED to ply their trade.

    I must add that I respect and welcome opposing views - bring 'em on.

    My remarks may sometimes be construed as pedantic, but I would not characterize them as arrogant or as high-handed.

    Mild Mannnnered Bill
     
  11. Guest

    Guest Guest

    It could have been a case of using a wrong hermeneutic, and a resultant misunderstanding of Bill's post. However, I thought he mean't mill owners, spammers, and those whose intent was to disrupt, as opposed to those who hold a dissenting view.

    Now, Lawrie, be a good little girl, and don't take everything so personal. [​IMG]

    Russell
     
  12. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    If posts are being removed by the moderators, are they being removed because: A) They are disruptive, or B) They are made by mill-operators?

    My opinion is that those attempting to disrupt this group should be prevented from doing so, regardless of whether or not they are associated with a degree mill.

    And I would prefer that those who are polite and not disruptive not be censored just because somebody disagrees with the content of their posts. I think that disagreements are better handled by addressing the issues, not by suppressing them.

    If there is some fear that these arguments (however polite) could grow to overwhelm other valuable discussion on this group, here's my suggestion: Banish them to the Siberia of a separate forum, as was done with the MIGS threads.
     
  13. Chip

    Chip Administrator

    There is indeed a fine line in some cases between moderation for the purpose of continuing to maintain quality discourse and discussion, and moderation to filter out opposing views.

    Our intent has never been to filter opposing views, but to prevent long threads that are of the nature of "Trinity provides a quality education" "No it doesn't," "Well, it's legal" "No it's not".

    That's the kind of thing you get from the Trinity operators. At least the dribble from Snell was, for the most part, humorous, even though he didn't intend so. But these folks are just annoying.

    Now, if a regular wants to start a topic of dicsussion on the legal or educational merits of a Trinity degree, that would be fine.

    At some point, we'll probably have a whole section just on mills and less-than-wonderfuls, along with additional resources and maybe full exposure of the collective information on all of these fraudulent schools, but that's probably sometime in the future. So in the meantime, since this is a private forum, we've made the decision that we have no desire whatsoever to do anything to help these frauds get more business, and will continue to moderate to maintain that goal.

    As for the Factwatcher contingent, yes they have attempted to post from time to time. We're generally pretty diligent about removing the posts, so they haven't tried to do much. (Not a lot of fun when you post and it gets deleted before anyone sees it or has a chance to respond.) And we also monitor both registrations and the IP blocks from which messages are posted, and take actions to delete duplicate registrants, block IP addresses (and sometimes blocks) from which offensive or flooding posts originate, and we also block most anonymous posting/browsing/email services.

    All behind-the-scenes stuff that helps to keep degreeinfo spam-free, and all of which would be impossible without the tremendous efforts of our all-volunteer administrators.
     
  14. DWCox

    DWCox member

    Degreeinfo.com:

    Keep up the good work!!!! Delete as you see fit.

    Regards, Wes
     
  15. uxu

    uxu New Member

    We need a favorite TC&U website contest... mine is this Homestead based one... it even has class MIDI music in the background [​IMG]
    http://trinityuniv.homestead.com/Home.html

    And take a look at these handsome degrees:
    http://trinityuniv.homestead.com/cert.html
    (complete with matching MIDI track..)



    ------------------
    I picked up a Magic 8-Ball the other day and it said 'Outlook not so
    good.' I said, 'Sure, but Microsoft still ships it.'
     
  16. Guest

    Guest Guest

    I gotta have me one of them there handsome degrees. My favorite is the blue on blue. A feller would be right proud of such a thing a hangin on his wall. [​IMG]
     
  17. Bill Highsmith

    Bill Highsmith New Member

    That page actually blazes new trails in the credit-for-life-experience paradigm; it says, "Providing Degrees Based On Your Previous Life Experience." Now that is a school that Shirley MacLaine could appreciate. But why limit it to just one previous life? If you go back far enough, you'd probably find qualifications for many professions: lawyer, business person (or going back further, businessman), stone mason, bronze pourer, barber/surgeon, chariot balancing and alignment, seller of purple, cave painter, and high school diploma. History qualifications should be a snap.
     
  18. Lawrie Miller

    Lawrie Miller New Member

    A quick dabble in crop, sharpen, cut, and paste, yielded a stunning rendering of a personalized Ph.D. certificate from the raw material referenced above. Frighteningly easy, on "parchment quality" paper, and with about the same value as the original.

    Well, into the shredder, I guess.
     
  19. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    My favorite Trinity C&U site is PTShamrock at http://www.ptshamrock.com

    This thing doesn't only sell you fake degrees, it also sells you fake driver's licenses, fake passports, anonymous mail drops, off-shore bank accounts and everything else the well-equipped white-collar criminal needs.

    If you examine the diplomas pictured at http://www.ptshamrock.com/auto/degrees.html you will notice their similarity to the diplomas on uxu's homestead.com site.

    What's more, the attentive reader will notice that the text describing the British 1988 Higher Education Act on ptshamrock's degree page is virtually identical, word-for-word. with the text on the Earlscroft University site at http://www.earlscroft.com

    So my opinion is that both this site of uxu's and ptshamrock are additional manifestations of "factwatcher's" branch of the larger international TC&U organization that has also given us degree-consultants and ses-consultants. And now Professor Javed Mostafa of Indiana University as well.
     

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