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Teufelswacht
Joined: 06 Sep 2004
Location: Land Of The Not Quite Right
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 Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 3:58 am Post subject: Another Article From the Korean Herald |
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If this has been posted elsewhere, sorry.
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Cyber-stalkers roam free on EFL websites
It's the fastest growing "sport" in Korea's EFL community. Right now, a person is posting a racist message using obscene language on a website dedicated to teaching English in Korea. Another, possibly on the other side of the world, is busy slandering a person they will never meet with allegations that would make even Jerry Springer blush.
Welcome to a normal day in the life of chat forums hosted on sites such as English Spectrum, ESL Cafe, Expat in Korea, the Kimchi Pot, The Korea Herald and the Seoul Times - all of which have come in for varying degrees of criticism for allowing their members to post racist and insulting comments with limited or no moderation.
Bad enough in isolated incidences, but following the suicide of Shawn Matthews - an English teacher who achieved internet fame in Korea's EFL community for his prolific blogging - in May, the sinister nature of cyber-stalking campaigns has come to the fore.
Chris Chiavetta, a Seoul businessman and co-owner of the Kimchi Pot - itself a site where obscene language and racist comments are commonplace - claims that for several weeks, moderators and posters on Dave's ESL Cafe Korea Job Forums participated in an online free-for-all where he was accused of being a "murderer" and calls were made to boycott his business.
According to Chaivetta, the attacks were fuelled by allegations on ESL Cafe that he relentlessly harassed 32-year-old Matthews and his ex-girlfriend with derogatory e-mails and online postings until the English teacher was forced to take his own life.
"The disturbing thing is that at no time did I do what I was being accused of," said Chiavetta. "A few comments critical of someone's writing ability is not stalking."
In May, Paul Robertson, CEO of EFL-Law, said he was the victim of cyber-stalkers after his name and website were targeted on ESL Cafe and Expat in Korea - another site with supposedly secret forums where members can write without moderation - by several posters with membership of both sites.
"Apparently, one of these posters was stalking me because I was supposed to have given him incorrect information," he said. "But these people were blatantly lying. Why did the moderators and site owners allow these sick attacks to take place when they knew what was being written was utterly false?"
While registration is required to post messages on these boards, they are open for reading by anyone surfing the internet.
David, 36, an English teacher now living in Japan, claims he was also cyber-stalked after arguing with a moderator and being banned from ESL Cafe.
"An anonymous post was put up on a Korean police bulletin board saying I was a drug dealer and a pedophile," he said.
The message, which contained an e-mail address that David had used exclusively for ESL Cafe registration, confirmed his suspicions that someone with moderator powers had accessed the site's database for malicious purposes.
"To read something like that, something which was so untrue, made me sick to my stomach," said David.
According to a former moderator on ESL Cafe, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Dave Sperling, founder of ESL Cafe, is not involved in the day-to-day running of his site's discussion forums.
"Complete control has been handed over to a couple of moderators who use this power to censor those who do not agree with them," he said.
Robertson said an injustice such as the one David suffered could never happen on EFL-Law because of his site's high standards of moderation.
"We follow a strict moderating code," he said. "No foul or abusive language and no defamation of individuals or businesses. We're trying to rise above the pack and discuss Korea and EFL topics with decorum and respect."
Neither Dave Sperling, nor ESL Cafe moderators, responded to requests to be interviewed for this story.
([email protected])
By John Scott Marchant
2006.08.02 |
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2006/08/02/200608020037.asp |
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chronicpride
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:09 am Post subject: |
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Cigar_Guy
Joined: 05 Dec 2005
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| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:11 am Post subject: |
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What, is there something in there anyone can disagree with?
Seriously, though--he's got a point about a lack of moderating on this site. Recently I witnessed something on a poker forum that really put this into perspective. Someone made a post asking if he should stop playing a certain hand because it's too weak, or if he should continue. There were three or four polite people telling him "Yeah, that's too weak--you're throwing away your money playing that," followed by a fourth who basically said "I can't believe you play that. I'd explain the math of why it's bad, but obviously you can't even figure out 2+2 on your own."
Almost immediately a moderator came on and told the obnoxious poster to lighten things up. The post came back and said "Alright, but I really can't believe that this guy plays that hand--it's awful." The moderator came back and told him again to lay off, at which point the guy gave a long, detailed post explaining why it's a bad hand to play (though in somewhat obnoxious terms). At this point, the moderator told him "That's enough. This is your formal warning: behave yourself or you will be booted."
The poster came back with "Seriously, what did I say in my last post?" to which the moderator replied "You have a seriously obnoxious and arrogant attitude that needs to end immediately." And you know what? He stopped. I think it's interesting that an online poker forum is a far nicer, calmer, more polite place to discuss ideas and ask questions than a forum for English teachers.
Quick tangent: at the Dave's party some months ago, someone showed up who had been banned from posting here but still reads the boards. I've had this in the back of my mind ever since, and I thought now might be a good time to ask: with all of the nonsense that goes on around here, what on earth must a person have to do to be banned from Dave's? |
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flotsam
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:14 am Post subject: |
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David, 36, an English teacher now living in Japan, claims he was also cyber-stalked after arguing with a moderator and being banned from ESL Cafe.
"An anonymous post was put up on a Korean police bulletin board saying I was a drug dealer and a pedophile," he said. |
Satori? Sounds more like Derrek, no?
In any event, this is all absurd. Has the Korea Herald done an article on the racism displayed on Naver yet?
Personally, I wouldn't mind the nasties being dismissed and I think those other two sites are absolute cesspools, but this is, as Jacl so succintly put it, a...
...that is just going to paint all ESL teachers with the same brush. Again.
Poor journalism: sensationalism that panders to the real base of the Herald--the petty-bourgeois conservative Korean. Bottom line. |
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vlcupper
Joined: 12 Aug 2004
Location: Gangnam
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| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:24 am Post subject: |
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Way to endear yourself to the community, Marchant. Personally, I can't wait to see these pricks get their asses served to them with chopsticks and an order of kimchi.
That stuff may be true, but I wonder if it's possible for him to not lump everybody together like we're all fucking Nazis out to lynch Korean schoolkids.
And, yeah, other side of the coin. What about the shit that goes on in Korean chatrooms? What about those assholes that post stuff just to bait people.
Last edited by vlcupper on Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:29 am; edited 1 time in total |
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inkoreaforgood
Joined: 15 Dec 2003
Location: Inchon
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| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:24 am Post subject: |
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| Cigar_Guy wrote: |
What, is there something in there anyone can disagree with?
Seriously, though--he's got a point about a lack of moderating on this site. Recently I witnessed something on a poker forum that really put this into perspective. Someone made a post asking if he should stop playing a certain hand because it's too weak, or if he should continue. There were three or four polite people telling him "Yeah, that's too weak--you're throwing away your money playing that," followed by a fourth who basically said "I can't believe you play that. I'd explain the math of why it's bad, but obviously you can't even figure out 2+2 on your own."
Almost immediately a moderator came on and told the obnoxious poster to lighten things up. The post came back and said "Alright, but I really can't believe that this guy plays that hand--it's awful." The moderator came back and told him again to lay off, at which point the guy gave a long, detailed post explaining why it's a bad hand to play (though in somewhat obnoxious terms). At this point, the moderator told him "That's enough. This is your formal warning: behave yourself or you will be booted."
The poster came back with "Seriously, what did I say in my last post?" to which the moderator replied "You have a seriously obnoxious and arrogant attitude that needs to end immediately." And you know what? He stopped. I think it's interesting that an online poker forum is a far nicer, calmer, more polite place to discuss ideas and ask questions than a forum for English teachers.
Quick tangent: at the Dave's party some months ago, someone showed up who had been banned from posting here but still reads the boards. I've had this in the back of my mind ever since, and I thought now might be a good time to ask: with all of the nonsense that goes on around here, what on earth must a person have to do to be banned from Dave's? |
A very interesting example. I've hung around this site here for several years now, and seen it go up and down. The last 2-3 years, I've been fairly disturbed by some posts being deleted for seemingly no sound reason, yet the usual tripe, that should get obliterated, carries on like cockroaches after a nuclear war. |
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Smee
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do
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| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:25 am Post subject: |
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| Must be a slow news day if there aren't more important things to write about. It's a shame the author isn't able to read Korean; I'm sure he'd think it much easier to find examples of cyber-stalking and racism on Korean portals. And you'd think that after some guy dies there'd be some sense of perspective in peoples' lives. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:27 am Post subject: |
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Closed two weeks ago. |
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flotsam
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:28 am Post subject: |
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| mithridates wrote: |
Closed two weeks ago. |
They have a new site. |
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Cigar_Guy
Joined: 05 Dec 2005
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| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:30 am Post subject: |
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| inkoreaforgood wrote: |
| A very interesting example. |
You think that's interesting? You should check out the cigar forums--not a sweeter bunch of posters on the internet so far as I've found. Unfortunately, I doubt anyone will believe me.
If anyone is interested in seeing the poker conversation to which I referred earlier, please check it out (the nonsense starts with NoNamePro): http://www.bluffmagazine.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4192&PN=3
| flotsam wrote: |
| ...that is just going to paint all ESL teachers with the same brush. Again. |
Maybe I'm coming a this from a different angle, but the article seemed pretty straightforward in that it was criticizing Dave's (and other sites) for letting the inmates run the asylum--I didn't really read it as supposed to be representative of the greater ESL teacher population. |
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flotsam
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:30 am Post subject: |
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| Smee wrote: |
| Must be a slow news day if there aren't more important things to write about. |
As soon as I saw this, I chuckled to myself and realized you're right: Nothing worthy of note is happening in the Korea these days. Ergo, the staff at the Korea Herald is SOOOOOOOO bored, they are using the print media to troll on Dave's.
Ingenious. |
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chronicpride
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:31 am Post subject: |
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| flotsam wrote: |
| Quote: |
David, 36, an English teacher now living in Japan, claims he was also cyber-stalked after arguing with a moderator and being banned from ESL Cafe.
"An anonymous post was put up on a Korean police bulletin board saying I was a drug dealer and a pedophile," he said. |
Satori? Sounds more like Derrek, no?
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"Jacl",
That could be possible only if Derrek was not currently living in Korea.
Welcome to the site, btw. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:32 am Post subject: |
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| flotsam wrote: |
| mithridates wrote: |
Closed two weeks ago. |
They have a new site. |
They certainly do. |
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flotsam
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:35 am Post subject: |
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| Cigar_Guy wrote: |
Maybe I'm coming a this from a different angle, but the article seemed pretty straightforward in that it was criticizing Dave's (and other sites) for letting the inmates run the asylum--I didn't really read it as supposed to be representative of the greater ESL teacher population. |
Ostensibly, yes. But how the picture is painted and how the viewer interprets it are different stories. I just see the Herald's recent trend of criticizing Dave's as a rather disingenous way of pandering to the aforementioned PBCK. |
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vlcupper
Joined: 12 Aug 2004
Location: Gangnam
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| Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:35 am Post subject: |
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[quote="Cigar_Guy"]
| inkoreaforgood wrote: |
| flotsam wrote: |
| ...that is just going to paint all ESL teachers with the same brush. Again. |
Maybe I'm coming a this from a different angle, but the article seemed pretty straightforward in that it was criticizing Dave's (and other sites) for letting the inmates run the asylum--I didn't really read it as supposed to be representative of the greater ESL teacher population. |
Exactly. It's just "punishment" for people on here not liking the Korea Herald. The other sites are just to make it look like it's not a vendetta. Think of it as flame wars in print. Still retarded but uses more trees. |
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