Just curious why so few people use their real names.

[deafskeptic]

143. Exactly.

BTW, is why I keep my profile empty.

I used to be on another forum. For some reason, that forum attracted more than it's share of narcissists, drama queens and psychopaths. I guess they wanted to feel superior to the "poor, illiterate ASL using Deaf" - especially in the Deaf education forum. Deaf education is a hot topic and debates can get intense especially when it's oralism vs manualism.

Explaining the philosophies of both methods is a bit beyond the scope of this post. In any case, my group made enemies with 4 parents who called themselves "The Horsemen" who saw themselves as the destroyers of the Deaf community. I was friendly with the Horsemen at first.

When I first started debating with them. I realized that this group might be capable of picking up info about us and using it against us so I cleared any data that could be used to track me down and I didn't put any info.

My friend wasn't nearly so discreet and in time they threatened to call her boss at work. I thought they should have been perma banned for that. One of them even threatened our moderator as well. The guy is a lawyer as well. I left the forum after a member of my group got perma banned and our moderator resigned in protest as well.

BTW. the Horsemen are in one of my FB groups. I have them on block though I can tell if they're still active by the response of the other members.

The lawyer guy threatened to call one of the parent's office and give the dirt on them to their boss when they got in a heated debate in my FB group. He almost got banned for that.

Ditto for one of the other horsemen. She has a history of setting up multiple accounts and faking ids. She got perma banned - twice - for that. Now some think she is doing the same thing in my FB group; I think they may be right. I could tell you some colorful bits about her but this is a bit beyond the scope of the post.

I'm afraid there are malicious people out there. Gotta protect yourself from them.