Skywatcher ,
I have beleived you to be Queen Vee, or others that have come here in the past to ask questions and not really listen to what was offered , most due to the fact that you would rarely reply to a explanation offered,
But would always come up with another "Whats This".
If you examine how you post ,maybe you might see why others and myself had doubts.

Most of the time I would just ignore your posts ,or if I had something to say it usally was not in your favor...But right or wrong you have every right as everone else to be here, And I will never deny that.
So for any detrimental posts to your character that I have thrown your way in the past ,I ask that you overlook my poor insight into your reason for coming here.
I do apologize ,and will be more civil when responding to your questions or as to your character...But as you know ,any type of words can be spoken in written form, as the person not need make any physical contact, and that goes for myself also.

I will possibly still have doubts ,but I will be respectful.

Feh...I was 20-somethin' when Reagan was still cruising Sacramento, and Nixon was Da Prez...

As someone who has come close enough to that lightly stoned edge of sharp steel to see Planet X's reflection , I can attest to the fact that HRMWOTAS wields the iron fist in the velvet glove with intense judicial fairness. No wonder the man's skinnier than a fence rail; the stuff he puts up with on this board has probably given him an ulcer the size of the floor drain in Mom's basement. Some of the stuff I've posted without thinking, I'd have probably banned myself in a heartbeat.

Yo, Ba...what flavor's that pie? And does it come with a membership application?

skywatcher, ol' sock...let me transpose this one down an octave or three this go-round. People develop severe irritability over the constant "But this one is really it!" stuff. Let's back up and take this from the absolute beginning. Before the misinterpreted photographs, before the misiniterpreted CCD telescope images, before the misinterpreted weather patterns, before the misinterpreted seismograph traces...this all started with someone who found an unwrapped piece of candy in a box at a movie, and she took that as a positive sign that the alien voices in her head were telling her the truth.

She hears voices in her head.

She hears voices in her head. That's what this whole thing is based on. Not one single REPUTABLE scientist has been able to find a single piece of evidence that ANYTHING she's saying bears any resemblance to reality.

She hears voices in her head. Are you really willing to base your entire belief in this stuff on what no one else can hear, and that no one at all can prove?

She hears voices in her head. Those voices told her that people should put their pets to sleep to spare them the panic of the coming upheaval. She admitted doing this to her own 18-month old dog, on a radio interview (although she's done some furious backpedaling recently on why she did it.) There were people on the Web discussing whether they should put their children to sleep the same way, for the same reason. Can you imagine anything more irrational?

She hears voices in her head. Didn't they lock people up for this not too long ago?

skywatcher, do you really want to go through life following the precepts of people who hear voices in their heads? Like we said, stay the heck away from the godlike board and stop blindly swallowing that sheep dip over there that attempts to pass for science.

__________________
"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.

No worries

appology accepted.

Charlie D makes some good points too, worth a second read :wink:

Once skywatcher started posting his own words, rather than links to cyberspaceorbit or postings by Emperor Kenton (aka Kent Steadman), I started to seriously question my assumption about his identity. Yes, proving you are who you say you are, can be difficult, even in real life as well as the internet. I guess too many hoaxters, spammers, etc., have made me overly suspicious. ops:

Hopefully skywatcher will continue to post his own thoughts rather than just links. I find that it goes a long way to proving who you are and has given away many an imposter on the internet.

YUP! Even yours truly is beginning to doubt his suspicions Re: Skywatcher - And, as y'all know, ducks be stubborn birds!

Please stay your NEW course, skywatcher

Sincerely
Dan Sarandon

__________________
My formula for success is never to talk about a successful formula, because it's bound to go wrong!

I commend your tolerance jigsaw, very noble of you. Here's an example of what I was referring too. No mind reading abilities necessary. http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=5624

He does follow up on several occasions, but seems to "think it's funny" that none of us caught the old date on the web cam image. He knew it was a bogus ploy all along, and was obviously just trying to stir us up. As you will notice, most of us were very patient, at that time. Especially considering how obvious the rain drop on the camera lense was.

After so many threads of this nature, I just decided to ignore him; he wouldn't listen to us any way, so it seemed pointless. Now, SW is attempting to change his motis operandi, if that's the case, I'm willing to give him another chance.

__________________
"There is no greater illusion than fear. Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe. " --Lao-Tsu

I, for one, hear ya Peace! - However it is my hope that we are witnessing earnest intent to ”reform” on Skywatcher's part! - If so (only time will tell) then I withdraw (with apologies) my accusation that he is BmpBmp/Sam...

Sincerely
Dan Sarandon

__________________
My formula for success is never to talk about a successful formula, because it's bound to go wrong!

I also apologize. Sorry about all of the confusion. Just ignore my earler posts ops:

Peace, tsk tsk, you're still doing the mind-reading thing.

How in the world can you possibly know that? Which mind-reading course didja take, dude? I guess I'll have to ask for a refund on the one I took, since it doesn't seem to be working.

Skywatcher's comment----which you seem determined to interpret as trollish gloating, reads to me quite differently. Observe my train of ESP-less thought.

Skywatcher arrives at the BABB on May 21--my timeset shows it as 7:33 a.m. He spends the day posting threads asking questions, about brown dwarfs, about light years, and yes, about stuff he sees on Godlike.

The first thread he starts, he says "Hello" and then has a question about something he saw on Godlike. His question is answered. He replies: He has been on the BABB 21 whole freakin' minutes, when the first accusation of trolling appears, in his very first thread, from DragonRider (I think that's an Olympic speed record for the 50-Yard Troll-Spotting Relay):

Skywatcher replies:
Like I've said before, Peace, assuming he's a legitimate Newbie, what is he supposed to say? "I swear on the grave of Carl Sagan that I'm not a troll"? How is he supposed to convince anybody that he's not? Especially considering he's only been here 21 minutes, and he doesn't have a posting history anybody can go look at? All he can do is say, "No, I'm not".

And he goes on in his thread, persisting in wanting clarification as to what the pictures mean. Now, to the rest of us, who are not currently off our medication for paranoia, he sounds like any other worried non-astronomy Newbie who has gotten spooked by Nancy, Godlike, et al, and has come to the BABB seeking reassurance, like PurpleKitten and PicklesMummy.

But to all those who didn't take their pill this morning, he's suddenly Troll Personified, here to gobble up little astronomers.

The second thread he starts, he's ridiculing Godlike. He says:

To those of us who are not currently off our medication for paranoia, this sounds like someone seeking reassurance--"Tell me again Godlike is F.O.S."

But to those of us who didn't take their little pill this morning, this comes across as Troll Personified, pretending to make fun of his home website, just to watch the BABB fall all over themselves.

So now we get to the thread with your favorite Skywatcher comment, the one where he "knows it was a bogus ploy" all along. Here are the replies he received to his question, in order, (and it's quite a parade of snotty, rude, and unhelpful replies, except for G99 and GirlGeek).

And then he makes his comment, which you find so trollish.

To those of us who are not currently off our medication for paranoia, it's abundantly clear that this admittedly rather cryptic comment is most likely referring back to whoever posted the picture at Godlike, from where he probably Copy and Pasted the URL. We figure that he's probably been reading threads in the Planet X Forum, and is gradually learning that Godlike, Nancy, & Co., really are F.O.S., and he's found yet another bogus picture that he wishes to see debunked.

You think he's mocking the BABB members in the thread--how could he be mocking anybody in the thread, when the answer to his question has nothing to do with the date on the photo? Because, you know, the thing is, the only way that comment could be "mockery" would be if the fact that the photo dates from 2002 would somehow suddenly invalidate G99's and GirlGeek's answer--which it doesn't. Like, as soon as the fact that the date was revealed to be 2002, G99 and GirlGeek would have to go, "Oops, guess we were wrong", which they wouldn't. The date on the photo has absolutely nothing to do with whether it's a raindrop or not.

However, if you're coming from, "He must have found that on Godlike presented as a picture of Planet X", then his comment makes sense: "Ha ha, those people on Godlike who think it's a picture of PX are silly, as they didn't even notice that the photo is dated 2002".

So, unequipped with ESP, I fail to detect even the slightest hint of trollish gloating that his "bogus ploy" sucked in two (2) innocent BABB members to give him the correct answer.

And then, bingo! It's back to more accusations of trolling.

Keep taking the pills, guys. The doctors want to help you.

********

I noticed that most of you were very rude, at that time.

But it's only "obvious" to someone who has ever seen what a raindrop on a camera lens looks like. Using cameras in the rain is not a universal experience, you know. And to someone who is, shall we say, gullible, who is browsing an alarmist website where people are posting pix of things that might destroy Life as we know it, it might look like practically anything, and a "raindrop on the lens" wouldn't come into his mind as a possibility.

Tell you what, Peace. You bookmark this thread, and any time in the future, if it looks like Skywatcher is going to throw off the Clark Kent disguise and stand revealed as the UberTroll you claim him to be, you can bump this thread with a size-24 "neener neener, told ya so", and send me a PM to make sure I see it, and ask the BA to send me an e-mail to make sure I see it, and I will not only come back into this thread and post a Size-24 "I was wrong, I admit it", but I will ALSO start a whole 'nother thread saying, "I was wrong about Skywatcher, Peace Rules was right, Peace Rules Rocks 4Ever". And then y'all can gloat freely, for as many pages as the server can handle.

'Kay?

For the sake of skywatcher I really think this discussion needs to end. I think Jigsaw has demonstrated that care must be taken in accusing someone of being a troll and BA has clearly stated that he doesn't like such accusations. Most people have appologized. To debate this any further is only going to make skywatcher feel uncomfortable. Most of us slip up and say something off the wall now and then. It would be pretty ridiculous if we all had to be concerned that we might aquire an unpleasant label for those slip-ups. If we debate skywatchers posting history beyond what has been done up to this point it is only gonna make SW paranoid. "If I say it this way will they take away their apologies and throw back out the troll accusation?"

My opinion.

Jigsaw, don't forget that there were a couple of actual trolls here shortly before skywatcher showed up. Some banning occurred. The skywatcher / skywatch deal did seem a little too convenient to me also, coming when it did.

Some of us were certainly already wary of possible trolling when skywatcher showed up.

None of that is skywatcher's fault, of course.

Note this bmpbmp post. I might think it was skywatcher if it didn't say bmpbmp at the top:

But there's one very important difference: Bmpbmp is saying, "Is there anything to this? I think they're making some good points."

Skywatcher has never said anything other than, "Is there anything to this?"

And the times he has weighed in with an opinion on something at Godlike, it has been ridiculing them, like, "I can't believe these guys are falling for this." I don't remember ever seeing him post something that was definitely pro-Godlike, as in, "I think they have a point here." Although he has said once or twice, "Are you sure?" when someone answers a question, but that could just be insecurity, not trolling.

another post about the date , I saw the pic and got a little nervous and posted here, once I got an explanation I went back to the pic and looked carefully and understood your conclusions to the pic, I then noticed the date to be 2002, I did not know the date at my first post.

Sorry for the confusion.

Honestly looking back at most of my posts i would have yelled troll at myself to, I think it was more fear than anything talking, dfor that I give my apologies, I do not blame anyone for screaming troll and hold nothing against you,

Ah ha! So you admit it could have been trolling!

Well, overall I agree with you, Jigsaw. I just wanted to point out some of the circumstances and events going on around the time that might have contributed to the troll feelings.

Hopefully we eventually did help skywatcher, despite some of our judgement errors.

No apologies necessary Skywatcher. I agree with dgruss23 .. we should put this thread to bed.

Before this exchange stops, I just want to say that most of what I think has already been said, so I won't repeat. But some thoughts...
Jigsaw, the above is probably why it is easy for you to give Skywatcher the benefit of the doubt (and I commend you for that also). You can identify with him. You know what a false accusation of "troll" feels like.
It's like what some of us felt in high school when we were labeled as nerdy, and weren't part of the cliquish crowd, and being called a creep, among other things. Now, 35 years later, we still look at a skinney sophomore kid in ugly glasses, and the heart goes out to him/her... or we at least wonder if (s)he's going through the same thing at school. We can identify with him/her.
Our thoughts are colored by our experiences.
Yes, SW is very young (and that's not a put down, SW). I read a post in which he gave his age, and if I remember correctly, he is in his teens. We should ALL look back to what our lives were like in our teens, and how ignorant of the world we were. I know I was. And as for being a great conversationalist at that age, forget it. And who knows? Maybe he hasn't been on the net very long.
SW, I am also glad that you are staying. You can learn a lot here. I learned some things, and still am. If you go away, you will just get scared again. If you ever go over to Godlike, just remember to not believe any doomsday sayer, or their pics. Remember that they know a lot less about the solar system than the people here.

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Don't put off till tomorrow what you can avoid altogether.

Jigsaw, I would love to continue this, because I happen to disagree with many of your points. I also happen to find your last response to me, a touch offensive. For the sake of this board, I will swallow the temptation to drag this out any further. I've already stated that I didn't think skywatcher was a troll. I've also said I would give him another chance. In this post, for the best interest of this BB, I will go one step further and offer my apologies to skywatcher.

Skywatcher, if I've said anything to offend you, please accept my apologies.

Jigsaw, if you wish to add anything further, please do it via PM.

I hope we can move along now.

(edited for spelling)

__________________
"There is no greater illusion than fear. Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe. " --Lao-Tsu

I guess we are all crusaders for one cause or another, But I agree to let the discussion go .
We all seem to be part of a family and as we know family members do not always agree on issues....So let it be and let us move on...many of us have apologized ,but we must reserve the option of freespeech and rebuttal...We all need not agree on certain issues ,but as a whole we agree on the PX hoax.

This thread appears to have runs its course. Skywatcher is not a troll, wants honest answers to honest questions, and we will all do that from now on, right?

Right.

__________________
Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com