--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: <snip> > Now think about some of the things that have been said, on > equally as public a forum, about some on this forum. I have > been called in the past a tax criminal, a liar, a pervert, > and many other things. When I applied for residency in Spain, > the first thing the official in charge of my application did > when I left his office was Google me, to see what the Internet > had to say about me. A month later, when I went back to the > office to pick up the residency card he had approved for me, > he showed me printouts of a few of the things he had found. > > Several of them were from Willytex or Nabby; the vast majority > of them were from Judy Stein.
But none of the "vast majority" of the "few" things from me he printed out called Barry either a tax criminal or a pervert, just for the record. (And if he'd looked a little harder, in fact, he'd have found posts from me defending Barry from the charge of preying on young women.) Fortunately I don't have to worry about getting a residency permit or a job based on what Barry has said on the Internet about me (including speculation that I'm gay--although any place or position where that would be a negative wouldn't be one I was interested in--and insinuations that I'm a racist). IMO, anybody who's going to evaluate someone for a job or residency or anything else of significance on the basis of what's been said about them on Internet forums needs to have a thorough understanding of Internet culture. Specific, documented charges of serious misbehavior are one thing; hostile or joking back-and-forth chatter of the type Barry's official apparently dug up are quite another.
