how to save a newsgroup
Rolf Marvin Bře Lindgren
newsgroups have been bombarded with messages from one frantic
individual.
this individual, let's call him Brad, has one good point - that
psychological science lacks a lot of science and that many
psychotherapists cannot substantially support the efficacy of their
methods.
Brad, apparently, is very frustrated about the apparant lack of support
of his views. which is kind of weird, given the fact that we all agree
with him. those of the participants of the psychology newsgroups who
have training in science work all we can in order to improve the basis
of the field.
in effect, Brad is telling us, over and over again, ad nauseam, ad
infinitum, that the world is round, and that he's very frustrated that
the rest of us won't join him in gaining support for this idea.
anyway, I'm fed up with having to read over and over again about his
attempts to kick in open doors. I should like, as an attempt to allow
this group to return to sanity, to set up a robot to post every two
weeks how various newsreaders can be set up to ignore posts from given
individuals.
since I don't have access to all the newsreaders in the world, I should
like to gather volunteers to help compile an list of how to set up
kill-files for various newsreaders.
thank you.
--
Rolf Lindgren | Disclaimer: I am a student of Psychology with little
| clinical experience. If I sound as if I believe
9111 Sogn Studentby | that I know anything, it's due to natural arrogance.
N-0858 OSLO | FAQ: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/sci.psychology
Eric G. Myers
<snip>
>
>anyway, I'm fed up with having to read over and over again about his
>attempts to kick in open doors. I should like, as an attempt to allow
>this group to return to sanity, to set up a robot to post every two
>weeks how various newsreaders can be set up to ignore posts from given
>individuals.
>
>since I don't have access to all the newsreaders in the world, I should
>like to gather volunteers to help compile an list of how to set up
>kill-files for various newsreaders.
>
>thank you.
>
>
An interesting idea...except that it will be difficult to killfile based
on either e-mail address or subject line. This individual has multiple
aol screen names that all translate into valid e-mail addresses
(following up his own posts, thus giving the illusion of support).
Perhaps you could kill the organization line of the header which is
commonly given as Client Advocates.
EGM
P.S. - This whole situation reminds me of another situation that occured
on a mailing list I subscribed to. A former (current?) consumer of mental
health services subscribed to the list (a research oriented list dealing
with behavioral outcomes and evaluation) and began to "grind her own axe"
as it were. The current situation has some of the same feel. Like a
disgruntled, but somewhat educated client railing against what they see
as the faults, injustices, etc. of the current system.
Eric G. Myers Internet: emy...@utmdacc.mda.uth.tmc.edu
David Michael Kusters (David K'ay)
: like to gather volunteers to help compile an list of how to set up
: kill-files for various newsreaders.
Sorry I didn't mail, but my mail server is acting up. I use tin for UNIX
machines. You simply hit ctrl-k and follow the directions. You can
ignore threads, certian people, or both.
____________________________________________________________________________
Dave Kusters: dkus...@oboe.aix.calpoly.edu http://www.calpoly.edu/~dkusters
Incognee
This would be unfair and exclusionary. I do not think you would
approve of this for anyone even me, who you must really despise. But,
Rolf, this kind of plan to deny an individual equal, fair hearing is
abhorrent to me (and I hope others). I am NOT merely repetitive and
should be given a chance to be heard by all. I would appreciate some
support here. Friends, will you support me?? -- b jesness
Incognee
I have seen no evidence that people agree with my views. I must
admit I wonder if you really do. I have heard things that make me feel
people at least STRONGLY avoid the issues I raise (if they do not
disagree), yet I get few comments. It is this avoidance now that I
would like to hear about. AND maybe it is this the field needs to
discuss. IF the field does agree with me they still do not want to hear
about OR DEAL WITH these issues. Can we talk about that? -- b jesness
P.S. I think your plan is wrong and biased and exclusionary. Do you
not have the tolerace to glance at what I have to say. I go by Incognee
and shall unless forced to have another name. John Grohol, who has most
assuredly been making absolutely false and slanderous accusations
against me is trying to get me kicked off aol. A name change may have
to occur for that reason. Also, if any robot post such as Rolf has
proposed occurs, I shall also have to consider a name change. -- b j
Incognee
example: the Counseling Psychology initiative to better define standards
for validation of therapy and to develop better standards for that
validation. DO YOU REALLY WANT TO IGNORE THAT. If so, WHY?? -- bj
Incognee
Might I suggest that the reasons you and some others want to get rid
of me may have something to do with the recent assessments of things
provided by MrEdtH ? Maybe you are in an active denial. -- b jesness
Incognee
positions a leader in the field states that they are highly
controversial !!! ?? See below to review some basic positions BRAD has
taken AND to see PAUL MEEHL's response:
In response to the following ideas of BRAD:
Outline for an organization: a client and science
advocacy group, dedicated to furthering science standards
and practices in the therapy field.
We insist on fair and proper representation of treatments
and on providing information about costly or limited treatment
options available to clients "up front". We believe options
and evidence of their efficacies should be provided to clients
before they enter a course of counseling or therapy. Also,
the various treatments and programs offered by each
professional mental health service provider should be
outlined in some detail in a booklet made available to clients.
Only all this would provide reasonable information before the
expense of and commitment to a course of treatment.
Also, techniques or methods used that have NOT been clearly
shown to have efficacy AND validated for a particular,
reliably-identifiable problem type
(i.e. showing blind inter-rater reliability)
are NOT be referred to as "therapy." Correspondingly,
when what is done is COUNSELING, the cooperative nature
of this should be made clear and i tshould be properly
represented, engendering appropriate expectations. Counseling
is considered a most noble cooperative endeavor, requiring
the most consideration, judgement, and intelligence.
Those who are well-adapted will be better counselors.
For this reason, and considering
the rest of the evidence, counselors/therapists
should have a long history of good adaptation.
Moreover, we believe daily standards-in-practice
should provide for on-going research (such as for the
development of reliable diagnoses) and this should be done
within each large mental health service agency. Furthermore,
basic foundation research definitively showing that
graduate-school-trained counselors are superior to other
sources of help must be done to establish the range of problems
for which special treatment by professionals is actually
better (and not inferior to other more accessible and less
costly sources of help, e.g. peer counselors or paraprofessionals).
The organization also supports (given at present there is no
evidence against it and some good evidence in its favor):
peer counseling programs and counseling programs for
paraprofessionals. We seek to demystify mental health
professions and rid it of great myths. We hope for a sensible,
delineated mental health care SYSTEM, with the care often
involving peers and paraprofessionals and for care to be
provided by individuals within a client's working community.
PAUL MEEHL's response:
"These thoughts are interesting but also pretty complex and
controversial. Some colleagues would doubtless be deeply troubled.
I have retired from practice and cerebrating on such matters has
hence taken low priority at my age (76). I would not feel comfortable
expressing (shortly) opinions on them, and a thorough examination is
not feasible for me. Sorry not to be more helpful. "
WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON ROLF ??
WhyYouMightNotWantToGetRidofBRAD
JUST RECENTLY (and all this has just been recent): I have shared
information on a Counseling Psyc. (APA, Div. 17) initiative to develop
better validation standards for "therapies." I have also shared my
ideas on this and a dialog I had with Lichtenberg (chairperson of the
committee). His response to my ideas was positive. Allen Ivey response
to my ideas was: "WOW !!!!!!"
I have raised controversial ideas about areas where the clinical
psychology field needs development. Witness the following:
PAUL MEEHL's response:
Do you really want me gone? I could use a little support here -- b
jesness
B. Jesness, MA, mem. APA&APS
How did I ever get to be so great: Always "right," all the time.
Even it that's true (and I can accept that) there are issues to pursue
and to elaborate on, positions on HOW to make things BETTER to be
developed. IS THIS OK? Or do you want things exactly to be as I
describe them and consider them inevitable? ??? -- b jesness
Jamie Eimermann
You have the right to speak and you do. Your messages are stored on
news servers around the world. However, we have the right to choose
not to listen to you. You cannot MAKE us listen any more than you
can make us reply. Killfiles are a long honored tradition on Usenet.
Jamie
Paul Bernhardt
"B. Jesness, MA, mem. APA&APS" <no...@pre.sent> writes:
> Even it that's true (and I can accept that) there are issues to pursue
> and to elaborate on, positions on HOW to make things BETTER to be
> developed. IS THIS OK? Or do you want things exactly to be as I
> describe them and consider them inevitable? ???
But MultiBrad! YOu have proposed how to make it better. Do the series
of studies you have proposed. Go ahead, do them. If your ideas are
valid, someone out there will be willing to fund your progress to a
PhD. Go for it big guy and take all the glory for your findings. You
will richly deserve it and I will be the first to applaud your research
and findings, after they are published in a peer reviewed journal.
+=================================================================+
Paul Bernhardt, Grad Student in Educational Psychology at U of Utah
+=================================================================+
Rolf Marvin Bře Lindgren
| Rolf,
| How did I ever get to be so great: Always "right," all the time.
| Even it that's true (and I can accept that) there are issues to pursue
| and to elaborate on, positions on HOW to make things BETTER to be
| developed. IS THIS OK? Or do you want things exactly to be as I
| describe them and consider them inevitable? ??? -- b jesness
Brad, I accept your views and your position. what I do *not* accept is
that you keep stating them *all the time*.
are you incapable of understanding that you're not going to change the
world thru this newsgroup?
are you incapable of understanding that this and other newsgroups are
saturated with your posts?
are you incapable of understanding that people get fed up with seeing
your messages all the time?
can't you try for once to post _one_ _single_ _message_, no personal
followups, no use of all caps, a blank line between paragraphs, correct
spelling of "their"?
some of us manage to get our posts right the first time. why can't you?
--
Rolf Lindgren | FAQ for sci.psychology:
| ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/sci.psychology
9111 Sogn Studentby | Student of psychology. Writes thesis on
N-0858 OSLO | team building, requested by the market forces.
Robert White
to censor I would be interested in knowing exactly what was done.
Clearly, everyone is well aware of BRAD posts all over the whole
damned world, but even if his rants are not appreciated, he is still
entitled to spew as much as he wants. In this democracy we use our
delete functions instead of getting into mass censorship. Clearly,
if BRAD was to act somewhat 'normally' (whatever that may be we don't
know) maybe he would eventually see some responses to his rhetoric.
p.s. BRAD, if anyone attempts to censor you please let me know.
sincerely,
Robert--
----------------------------------------- Carleton University ----------
Robert G. White Dept. of Psychology
Ottawa, Ontario. CANADA
INTERNET ADDRESS ----- rwh...@ccs.carleton.ca ------------------- E-MAIL
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rolf Marvin Bře Lindgren
| Brad has every right to spew as much as he wants and if anyone tries
| to censor I would be interested in knowing exactly what was done.
it's not possible to censor somebody from USENET.
but many newsreaders support kill files which allow readers to shut off
individual posters. mine even allows me to shut of threads depending on
who's posting to them.
killfiles is not censorship, and neither is educating people about how
to use them.
Incognee
I do not have the means, position or facilities to do any of the
studies much less all of them. The tasks would be the work or more than
one anyway. What I do is try to provide new, less expesive, more
accessible types of mental health services (incl. promoting peer
counseling programs). This is enough. Thanks for the support though. --
b jesness
Only Livi of BRAD receives and responds to mail. To contact the
organization BRAD, write Livi...@aol.com
Ask us about BRAD: It is a client and science advocacy group,
dedicated to furthering science standards and practices in the therapy
field. We insist on fair and proper representation of treatments and on
providing information about costly or limited treatment options
available to clients "up front". We believe options and evidence of their
efficacies should be provided to clients before they enter a course of
counseling or therapy. The various treatments and programs offered by each
professional mental health service provider should be
outlined in some detail in a booklet made available to clients. Only this
would provide reasonable information before the expense of and commitment
to a course of treatment.
Only where a there is a reliably identifiable problem type (showing --
in research -- evidence of good inter-rater reliability in diagnosis) AND
there is evidence of a clear and repeatable technique with demonstrated
efficacy, should treatment be referred to as "therapy." Otherwise what is
done is the major cooperative endeavor know as COUNSELING. This requires a
well-adapted helper, with much consideration and openness, using the most
intelligence, self-control, and judgement. -- some demands of BRAD
Paul Bernhardt
inco...@aol.com (Incognee) writes:
> I do not have the means, position or facilities to do any of the
> studies much less all of them.
Then quit your bitchin'!
You remind me of the people who complain about Congress, the President,
etc. Then you ask them who they voted for and they say, "Uh, I didn't
vote."
You have repeated yourself over and over again. Sh*t or get off the pot
'cause we are sick of hearing you f*rt!!!
carter yeager
<deleted>
: In this democracy we use our
: delete functions instead of getting into mass censorship.
Without getting into the validity of BRAD's posts, I find this
to be an interesting point. At least in the U.S., the "free speech"
provision supplied to all citizens really only frowns on _government_
suppression of speech. There is absolutely no guarantee that anyone
is required to give all speech equal attention. As an aside, many
users of the internet, it's my understanding, pay a small fee for
any message downloaded from a newsgroup or received from a mailing
list; why should individuals in these circumstances such as these be
required to pay for messages they wish to avoid? If I don't like the
things someone says, I should have to listen to it. I would argue
that there is no philosophical or political problem with turning
a deaf ear; the internet equivalent of a deaf ear happens to be a
"kill file". In the long run, is turning a deaf ear to anything
the best policy for science, or for any un-scientific movement which
fancies itself based on solid principles? Probably not. But neither
is it what the authors of the constitution were concerned about.
Just my .02
Carter M. Yeager
Boston Univ. Dept. of Psychology
c...@bu.edu
Incognee
AS I HAVE INDICATED, I am tempted, based on what you have said to
consider you an honorary member (member) of the science and client
advocacy group. You have said you agree with the position AND what
needs to be done. After dialog with you though, I am considering asking
that individuals express an willingness to participate in the
reconceptualization of the educational system, the research practices,
or clinical practices and/or act in a way to further one or another
basic tenet before I personally would consider them BRAD. -- b j
Incognee
Didn't the government set up and provide the internet. Personal kill
files are the only appropriate recourse. The fact that you pay to access
a public resource doesn't make it non-public.
Only Livi of BRAD receives and responds to mail. To contact the
organization BRAD, write Livi...@aol.com
Ask us about BRAD: It is a client and science advocacy group,
dedicated to furthering science standards and practices in the therapy
field. We insist on fair and proper representation of treatments and on
providing information about costly or limited treatment options
available to clients "up front". We believe options and evidence of their
efficacies should be provided to clients before they enter a course of
counseling or therapy. The various treatments and programs offered by each
professional mental health service provider should be
outlined in some detail in a booklet made available to clients. Only this
would provide reasonable information before the expense of and commitment
to a course of treatment.
Only where a there is a reliably identifiable problem type (showing --
in research -- evidence of good inter-rater reliability in diagnosis) AND
there is evidence of a clear and repeatable technique with demonstrated
efficacy, should treatment be referred to as "therapy." Otherwise what is
done is the major cooperative endeavor know as COUNSELING. This requires a
well-adapted helper, with much consideration and openness, using the most
intelligence, self-control, and judgement. -- some demands of BRAD
(organization name subject to change)
Incognee
If people were and chains in a foreign country and I didn't have the
keys would you want me to keep quiet ?? -- b jesness, M.A.
Brett Bullington
<rolf.l...@psykologi.uio.no> says:
>
>[...] I should like, as an attempt to allow
>this group to return to sanity, to set up a robot to post every two
>weeks how various newsreaders can be set up to ignore posts from given
>individuals.
>
>like to gather volunteers to help compile an list of how to set up
>kill-files for various newsreaders.
>
Rolf,
I don't have the expertise to contribute to this, but it's a great
idea--I hope it works out.
Brett Bullington
Incognee
I believe that all those that have a mind to completely ignore me
could indeed go ahead and do so. It seems often they want to save
others from my ideas (at least this is what has been said by various
individuals on several occassions). AND there are others who say any
sensible person would agree with all I say. I get interesting reviews.
-- bj