John Norman's Chronicles of Gor - holly/meglovesian [Posting Guidelines and Moderator's Notes]

Tal, Folks.

<i>Following is a copy of a post I made on July 11th, 2009, in our members-only "Non-Gorean Issues" Forum, which I think is important enough, to be published in this Forum, which is readable even by non-members of The Chronicles of Gor Website. </i>

I regret to have to inform you, that I have just banned "holly" and her alter ego "meglovesian," and I've put up an IP block on all her IP addresses.

Admittedly, over the last few years, this was one of the hardest decisions I've had to make. I liked that girl, I loved that carefully chosen picture of her, I enjoyed her artfully crafted openness, and, even though I sometimes got a bit embarrassed about it, I was impressed by her seemingly polite and very, very respectful approach of, let us say, free men and women.

Presumably, most of you share my feelings and experiences in this respect.

The problem, dear friends, is that "holly" doesn't exist. She's not a respectful slave, not a mother of a infant, she's not 45 years old, and "Master Bruce" doesn't exist, either; she's a *character*, a carefully crafted and meticulously maintained illusion by an older woman, whom, for the sake of simplicity, we might best refer to as "Ellen".

Ellen is highly intelligent, and I do suspect, but, to be sure, this is only a personal assumption, that she might hold an university degree, in psychology, or such; Ellen is alone, I don't believe she ever was married, and Ellen has long passed the age at which a women is sure she can be attractive to every man. Ellen is a masterful "mirror," and a perfect organizer, she knows everything you ever made public, and whatever experience you might have, she has had the same experience, she can relate to it, and you end up telling her things you would have never shared with a real-life perfect stranger. She's the ideal of a kajira, but sadly, only in her dreams. Through the internet, she made her dream come true.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Well, this is not about Prize of Gor, this is about Chronicles of Gor, and this is real, it's a fantasy that became a reality, and we all fell for it.

So now, I've got to answer two questions. Firstly, how do I know this, how can I be sure; and secondly, perhaps, most importantly, is such a fraudulent behavior bad enough to be exposed and punished by lifelong banishment?

Most of you know, I have never called myself Gorean, but if I would, my name would be "Simon of CoG". This website, this harbor in Gorean waters, this defiant city to be recorded on her maps, this is my city, my home, the place where I keep my Home Stone. I don't own her, yet I've helped build her, brick by brick, and I know her better then anyone else. I am a webmaster, not a moderator, and unlike my fellow staff members, I own the keys to every lock in this city, I can be anywhere at once, and yes, night after night, I roam her streets, invisible, in the dark, just to keep her safe.

Over the years, I have run into some very disturbed and dangerous people, who tried to get into my city. A fellow, for example, who wanted to buy a small island off the American east coast, "import" a large number of Asian orphans, train them in a Gorean way, and sell them through the internet. In those cases, I track such a monster down, collect all the necessary evidence, and then inform both the local authorities and the American F.B.I.

In Ellen's case, I monitored her IP traffic once I began to suspect her, which proved she was also using a second userid, "meglovesian," and the sheer amount of time spent on this site, and the time when browsing under either user name, made clear that Ellen could never be a mother of an infant. I've got three daughters myself, I know what it's like. Independently, some others became suspicious about her, and, in this thread, a few confronted her with some of her public inconsistencies.

So, I did something, I've never done before. I downloaded all the private messages made since the start of this site, including the deleted ones; I filtered out Ellen's messages, and I read them all. She has PMed nearly every active member of this site, many, many times, and believe me, she has been a different person to each and every one of you.

To be sure, besides me, only the owner of the site, Simon of Tabor, has the ability to do this, and the only time I am aware of, that he, indeed, reviewed someone else's PM, was that of another Staff member to "holly," because "holly" had claimed that that message had been abusive to her and in violation of our ToS. Her claim, needless to say, was proven false. Webmasters can review such PMs for good cause, if necessary, in compliance with our ToS and applicable law, and would never do it otherwise.

To many of you, after a few initial messages, she suggested continuing the correspondence using private email, because "the moderators might be listening". I don't know how many of you actually followed her advice, but why on earth would you be afraid of eavesdropping, when you're talking about the weather or what your holiday was like, not committing serious violations of the ToS or defrauding others? In any case, the number of inconsistencies in her private messages equates to a multitude of her public errors, which might explain both the number of her private messages and her eagerness to switch to email.

Now we come to the big question - what's wrong with pretending to be someone else?

First of all, it is clearly a matter of degree. I am 52 years old, but my picture is not what I look like now, but how I looked 6 or 7 years ago, and if I don't shave for a couple of weeks, none of you would ever recognize me if we met in real life. None of us has perfect memory, so if one looks closely enough, one can always find minor inconsistencies, even in my posts and stories. But those inconsistencies are accidental, they are superficial, easily explained, and, most importantly, they are not abusive.

But if one pretends to have had a certain experience, and, based on that shared experience, one creates an emotional bond, which, in turn, seduces the victim to reveal very private and personal information, one, effectively, creates a power relationship, where the victim becomes dependent, out of fear of disclosure. This *is* abuse, folks, because in legal terms, it is called "blackmail". It doesn't matter whether a blackmailer asks you for cold hard cash, or any kind of support in a given situation, if you are coerced into doing something out of fear, uncertainty or misinformation, whether it’s being whipped, as happened, and more, to a young woman from this site in recent history, or having your most private secrets given up and available for misuse, you are effectively in an abusive situation, and that is what I have been fighting against for over a decade, and something I will not tolerate within the boundaries of my own city in any way, shape or form.

So, each of you, who have been "friends" with Ellen, think about what you've told her, and how you might feel, if one day, she would email you, and say "I want you to do so and so, and if you don't...". We know now it's already happened to at least one member of this site. I will *not* let it happen again.

I rest my case.

Take care,
Simon

PS. We have also located a profile on another site associated with the email address "holly" had used in registering her account on CoG as "meglovesian." It was set up over four years ago and gives "meglovesian's" age as substantially older than the 45 years "holly" claims to be. We have also looked at another photo of "holly" that appears to us to be both the same woman, but, at least a decade older, although photos can be misleading, so we make no claims concerning it, nor will we post it. We have not responded publicly to this situation as quickly as we would have liked, but that is because we Staff have been conducting a diligent review of the data available to us and ensuring we do not violate our own ToS or Posting Guidelines. Therefore, we thank (some of) you for your patience.

<i>To protect the privacy of our others members, the details of this situation, which can be found <a href="http://gorchronicles.com/modules/newb ... 6">HERE</a>, are only accessible to registered members. Registration is easy, and usually a matter of just a couple of minutes. If necessary, you can contact me at all time the following address: simonvanmeygaarden@gmail.com.</i>

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