Veiled Prophet of Khorasan

Expat

I don't think debate is possible without some antagonism. After being in USA for over 30 years I see debates here no different than those in American politics. People called Bush and Obama all kinds of names.

The issue is where to draw the line. I suggested we draw it at threats of violence. What to do about it is up to the admin. Again I suggested warning followed by a ban. By the way I do not want to see the level of "Iron fist" as on the other sides.

I did read your post..

.. and as I said, whilst it is unfortunate and disappointing that people are physically threatened, I am not surprised.  My point is that things start off by verbal arguments-name calling and such and people getting personal with each other.  Naturally it takes a few unstable individuals to then take this further and start making physical threats..

Maybe is people learnt the art of debate-putting thoughts across without insulting, name calling, being petty and childish, then it wouldn't get to the point where threats are made.  I have been on other sites (not Iranian-Mumsnet for anyone who lives in England), and people wouldn't DREAM of treating each other the way they do here...

Expat

Expat you missed my point. Please go back then read my whole post. I admit that verbal arguments go on. That is not what I am objecting to. What I object to is "threats of violence".

That is totally different from calling one "Basiji" or "Mossad". Threat of violence is when a person asks where I live or who I am. Then implies or openly says they are going to do something to me. Another form of out of bounds action is what Fesenjoon mentioned. Going to his work or sending offensive pictures to his work. That is different from calling a person a label on IC. 

I hope you get the difference. If not it is too bad.

roo ke neest!

No Dr Ala,

Youre the one who has the nerves to lie left and right rooze roshan.

The information I posted was not your "personal info". You were contributing to your own biography article on wikipedia. Wikipedia is public domain space. Millions of people access it every day. 

Funny..

'We on the IC are used to verbal arguments. Basiji or Zionist labels are tossed around like rice in a wedding !'

VPK, it's usually you doing the tossing! You have called me Basiji and Islamist on many an occasion, and I've always asked you not to get personal so it tickles me that it is YOU that has put this blog up!!!!

Can I just say, as a reasonably new poster (and NO, I haven't been on here before under another name, as again, I have been accused by VPK!!) that this entire forum is in general very verbally aggressive to each other.   We all obviously believe different things, but the strength of vitriol is remarkable.  So the fact this spills out into everyday 'real' life is disappointing, but not altogether surprising cos there are some pretty unstable characters on here.

Dear Anahid

Naked prophets won't do well with some Iranians. You saw how Golshifteh got people all gheirati :-)

Dear VPK

perhaps  one of these days, i will become veiled prophet of khuz estan or lorestan or tehran. i have to choose which one. or better than that is naked prophet, it has an edge to it.

Responses

• Dear Dr Ala: It seems like anonymity will not let go :-) Therefore I will respond again. I have to disagree since anonymity is the one protection we have again retaliation. As I said using "real" names will not do any good. How does it protect me against an IRI agent reading IR but never posting. They may not even be a member. Just read it then take down my name and next time in Iran nail me.
• Amirkabir. I already replied to Anahid who asked the same thing. If you just go down the page will find it. 

I agree to M Ala and others

about bogus names, however there are some points;

- You may not know this but there are people in this world who sell infromation. For example provide personal details of IC to a government like IRI. Some of us have business there and can not risk it.

- Users can create names too. So it is better to be optional.

Fairness and Equality in Justice

VPK Considering

you have your own indicators to judge other bloggers one assumes BY NOW you have solved this.

I solved it a long time ago. This is politics, if gets hot it gets hot. Do not use your indicators again. I am not say threats are good. I have to say this because I know how wrong your assumptions are.

I am here on this site to express myself NOT to get everyone to think like me and to agree with me (does this ring a bell?). Has anyone been threatening you? What did he/she said and what was the discussion?

Fairness and Equality in Justice

Fair to be suspicious of those constantly seeking real names?

Since real names can be used to target real people and their relatives back home. Just wondering....

Threats will NOT go away as long as members use bogus names.

Sorry to be late to this blog.  I have been busy, e.g., I prepared several pictures from a documentary that I am working on and sent them to JJ to prepare them in the form of gallery and post them on IC.

There are few of us who have used our real names from Day One (Spring of 1996) when IC started taking shape.  I have received my share of threats ( more than most who complained in this blog.)  I will continue to use my real name.  As Anahid mentioned, there are pluses and minuses for using a real name.  I am for accountability and taking responsibility for our actions.  How can one trust someone who keeps changing his name?  IC has lost good and honest members who had different views than those who seem to have plenty of time on their hands to express their views or their organizations’ views.

VPK and I have gone back and forth on this topic several times.  I am okay with members to be anonymous but in my view, as Souri mentioned they cannot threaten people who use their “real” names or ask “personal” questions.

In one thread yesterday, VPK asked my personal opinion on a topic that many IC members for it have chosen to be anonymous.  In another thread, Fesenjoon2 posted personal information about me a day ago.  He must have some nerves to complain about others.

I received threats (all types) and in 2005 several people from IC called my place of employment when I worked in the USA.  Even now a non-relevant comment has stayed on my students’ evaluation AFTER I retired.

About a year ago, two people, one by the name of Marmoulak started messing up my Wikipedia bio.  I never posted that bio to begin with, but a person did not like my comment at IC, after that he kept messing up my bio every day.

In my view, attacking people who use their “real” names is nothing but being a coward and low life.  It shows why some Iranians are dishonest . . . they change their positions depending on the wind direction (as the saying goes).

JJ has been notified about the threats and abusive words.  He has taken actions on some and ignored many others, perhaps he or other IC administrators did not have time.  JJ has said “ma adam besho nistim,” which I partly have agreed with him.

What we say about each other defines who we are.  People who have used anonymous names, for fun, I have called them bogus people.  Bogus members have threatened other members with deportation or digging personal information about them.  Threat of “reporting” or “deporting” are NO less than threat of “physical attacks.”

This topic will NOT go away as long as Iranians place their personal interest(s) ahead of their national interest(s), and hide behind a bogus name to take revenge or attack others when they disagree.

Dear VPK

thanks for explaining more in your comment. 

Going back to subject of your blog, it is an important issue that you have written about, Thanks, and I agree with your suggestion that you presented in this blog.

Dear Anahid

Two things:

• As I said several times this was not why I wrote the blog. My goal was to discuss threats not the issue of anonymity. 
• My suggestion by definition is just that. How could I "force" my ideas on you? I have a right to suggest and you have a right to not accept it. I do not own IC nor do I set the rules. It is between you and the admin not me.

Dear VPK

Your suggestion does not work. Some of us believe that more people should use their real names on IC, so how does it help if we generate a new account with a new name which is not real. You are trying to force your idea on those of us who don't believe in it.

Dear Souri

Thank you,

Please let me explain my goal. Originally I wrote this to focus on threats and what to do about them. I did not plan to discuss merits of anonymity. However discussion went that way. I still like to at debate handling of threats.

Regarding anonymity Fesenjoon made a great suggestion. Just make a new account and you are good to go :-) 

jang e na baraabar

dear VPK

This is a never finished discussion. The real problem here is that there are one group who at first logged here with their true name. That was at a time when  IC had no comment page and the battle of words were not so nasty.

Then those users, got some notoriety with their known ID. So they have continured using the same ID.

On the other hand, there is anothe group who prefer to stay anonymous, which is absolutly understandable and legitimate.

What is wrong , is not the use (or not use) of the true name by the people. What is wrong is that, the anonymous users, take advantage of their anonymity to insult and accuse the real people, here.

I wish the anonymous users, would take care of this matter and they handle their opponent, as if they were in front of them, in person.

It is not an equal battle, in my opinion. People hide behind the wall of anonymity, and throw the stone at the real persons. So, this will give them a tool, to reject and remove the opposite idea from the site, all together.

I don't know how, these people can get satisfaction from a false sense of victory! The ture IDs, won't change their mind. They will only stop comenting here. Then at the end, there will remain Ali and hozesh! There will be a multitude of anonymous people with the same ideas, who will write tones of pages of the same contents! And they will alwasy agree with each other :)

Yes unfortunate

Yet very real and very possible. As one who has got into intense disagreement with Fesenjoon I agree with him. I condemn what happened to Fesenjoon. But it is the price of speaking your mind.

In my opinion any act of retaliation against a person is out of bounds. Do not mix ideas or/and make it personal. I hope Fesnjoon sued the person's a** and won over that vile attack.

It boils down to remaining anonymous; risking attacks or not saying much. Yes if your main interests are non controversial it is fine. But if you are opinionated better be anonymous. Many do not handle criticism well

Thanks Fesenjoon2 for

sharing your experience. It is unfortunate that you had to go through this.

anahid

When I used to use my real name, I once ran into a tense standoff with some hamvatan on the internet. And like many over here, he hated me. But he took things to a new level: 

A week later he went and found a picture of me on the internet, downloaded it, cut and pasted my head on an image like this (//25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lw732qLsUC1qaak3fo1_500.jpg ) and emailed copies of it to all my colleagues at my work place (and not me). It's not a good thing when you learn about such a thing through your colleagues. 

Using real names is for a world where people are not sorry-ass losers. 

We should be more careful nowadays as people in Iran are getting persecuted just because of what they write on some blog somewhere. 

baayad movaazeb bood.  

Ah....you guys are no fun

I really like to have the freedom of telling people that I will show up at their houses and kill them if they disagree with my comments.

Three simple points….

1-      I am sorry for your experience, no one should put up with any sort of abuse or threat

2-      If one makes threats of violence or verbal abuse that is beyond the norm of Basiji & Zionist, the alleged abuser should be exposed to all so everyone is aware of his/her nature.  Not too long ago, one member even started sending me private e-mail with verbal abuse which involved my female family members and I just copied and pasted the same message on IC and requested admin not to delete it.

3-      Posting under anonymous ID has its own issue.  For many who are self-restraint and have enough manners to keep it civil, it works but few who obviously do not possess those qualities, the anonymous ID gives them a mask to hide behind and spew ever so much non-sense with border line abusive language.  That is the down side of being anonymous and on the net with little policing and guidelines.

'Hambastegi' is the main key to victory 

Mehrdad

Three simple points….

1-      I am sorry for your experience, no one should put up with any sort of abuse or threat

2-      If one makes threats of violence or verbal abuse that is beyond the norm of Basiji & Zionist, the alleged abuser should be exposed to all so everyone is aware of his/her nature.  Not too long ago, one member even started sending me private e-mail with verbal abuse which involved my female family members and I just copied and pasted the same message on IC and requested admin not to delete it.

3-      Posting under anonymous ID has its own issue.  For many who are self-restraint and have enough manners to keep it civil, it works but few who obviously do not possess those qualities, the anonymous ID gives them a mask to hide behind and spew ever so much non-sense with border line abusive language.  That is the down side of being anonymous and on the net with little policing and guidelines.

'Hambastegi' is the main key to victory 

Mehrdad

Dear Anahid

You are right and this was not my goal in this blog. I mostly want a very well defined policy on posts. What does constitute a threat; what is allowed and that kind of thing. Not the business about being anonymous.

Thanks for posting.

VPK

Dear VPK

I think this discussion of using real names or not has been done before. I leave it to Admin to decide on which way to go. In my opinion there are drawbacks to not using real names (positives too) and if some people do make threats, solution is not for more people to go anonymous. I am sorry that someone made threats against you if that is the case.

Dear Anahid

I respect and value your opinion. However it is not always practical or does anything. For example:

• A reader may never make a threat or even post. Just take down the name and then go after a person. There is nothing admin may do.
• A threat may come from a person beyond the reach of authorities. In a nation where authorities don't care or will not take action.
• IRI is known to send its death squads to the West. They might decide to teach me "a lesson". There is nothing IC may do.

The result will be people will self censor and not post. I might not agree with Fesenjoon but I don't want IRI going after him. A similar thing for all others who are particularly opinionated. I don't want to see them harmed.

One possible thing is an option of posting anonymous or not. Then for somethings I may post under my real name. For others I may remain anonymous. The problem is that it is easy to identify a person based on how they write.

Fesenjoon2, thanks

for your advice. 

Admin should report threats to authorities

Solution is not to go Anonymous.  As it is, some value of IC is lost on me and possibly other users because of abundance of people with fake IDs. take a look at number of commentators. We are nt becoming more. My guess is that some people out there would like to comment but don't care to exchange comments in an environment when many don't use real names. I can see benefits and drawbacks to both using real names and not using them but if threats have been made, solution is Admin has to report them to authorities.

Dear Anahid

Please read these:

//iranian.com/main/news/2012/02/13/azerba...

//iranian.com/main/blog/savalan/birth-aze...

Posts may have been edited since I read them. 

Thank you and very good advise

Thank you for posting here and I hope others will also jump in. Fesenjoon has a very good advise. Go for anonymous.

While I understand some people do not anonymous it is the only safe method. As it is people try to dig up who you are. I ask why? Are debates between ideas or people. I have no interest in personal fights only ideas.

If debates are between ideas then why do people need to have a name?  Ideas are valid or wrong no matter who poses them.  If a person wants to get personal then please say it. I will refuse to participate in personal fights