The Truth About Ruth - Part 2 - Merge

[Palimpsest]

Oh, I don't know. I kind of liked this comment by Palimpsest:

Ummm, okay :evil-eye: Let's all just pretend like nothing happened. Let it go, no need to uncover any more inconsistencies, nothing to see here, just move along. Yeah-right.

Eta~ by "kind of liked" I really mean had a wtf moment

The second bolded sentence seems somewhat contradictory. Did I piss you off too with my Pollyanna-ish comment? I can be annoying like that. Sorry.

As to my comment on the synopsis. I hate to think how many hours Oddeverything put into that brilliant post so I was reluctant to ask her to put much more effort into it. I repeat, it is damning as it stands. In my opinion people are more likely to read and retain a shorter document that focuses on the main points that a massive dissertation detailing minutia. The shorter document is stronger.

If you want to uncover more contradictions and ask her to add them, please go ahead. Again, no-one needs my permission, I just expressed my opinion. :D

[Pinkzebra54]

I'm one of the sad, gullible souls that gave her money. First it was$20, and then I got caught up in her move to IL and the fact that she was in the same field as me, I sent her $100. I told her I wanted to give her a little wiggle room. Like the others, I did not receive a reply, let alone a thank you. I consider it payment for the endless enjoyment I receive from FJ :crying-blue:

[DarkAnts]

I don't quite know what to do with all my angry feels. Suggestions welcome.

Write her a strongly-worded letter? :think: :mrgreen:

Do something nice for yourself. Take a bubble bath, paint nails, drink tea. Thats what I do when I get mad anyway.

[nelliebelle1197]

As much as I wish that the mods could reveal Ruth's identity, I also know that if they bend the rules of their own TOS in this instance, they could be faced with a lawsuit.

I also realize some are more interested in the Razing Ruth saga than others so I grabbed a Blogger account called truthaboutruth.blogspot.com, which I will have to transfer to a different platform and hosting site if we manage to discover Ruth's identity, but I am getting ahead of myself. It will take the liability off this site, to a limited degree, it will give people a place to vent (within reason), and it will be another hit on Google when anyone searches Razing Ruth. It's under my real name for accountability, but I honestly do not know how much time I can devote to it in the next ten days or so. If people can hang on, I'll be happy to create that site as a clearing house for all the research and links. I've also got a complete save of Ruth's site, but I haven't got the comments section yet. I hopefully will be able to get all of that backed up.

You never know, I may have more time in the next two weeks than I expected and may be able to get to it sooner. But it's there and will be populated with info as soon as I can get to it.

ETA: Holy crap, it would appear that I need to move this off blogspot and get it on my own hosting site because thing have progressed much quicker than I realized and if I share all the research I have received, Google would shut the site down. I will have more tomorrow - will stay up late and read some more.

OMG, what a mess! How horrible is all of this? I am so sorry for everyone who sent Ruth money. I am so sorry your trust and caring were abused this way.

Why would Google shut you down?

[Koala]

The second bolded sentence seems somewhat contradictory. Did I piss you off too with my Pollyanna-ish comment? I can be annoying like that. Sorry.

As to my comment on the synopsis. I hate to think how many hours Oddeverything put into that brilliant post so I was reluctant to ask her to put much more effort into it. I repeat, it is damning as it stands. In my opinion people are more likely to read and retain a shorter document that focuses on the main points that a massive dissertation detailing minutia. The shorter document is stronger.

If you want to uncover more contradictions and ask her to add them, please go ahead. Again, no-one needs my permission, I just expressed my opinion. :D

I think your comments are dismissive. "I think we need to let that go", "I think your synopsis is enough"...it's just very dismissive. It doesn't strike me as Pollyanna-ish at all. It strikes me as bossy.

Clearly, Oddeverything is invested in this and quite frankly, I doubt she'd put more effort into it than she wanted to.

As for not digging any further, I think that's just plain non-sense. When you run a scam on the internet and people catch wind of it, there will be digging. I can't for the life of my think of a single reason to plug our ears lest we hear anymore unpleasantness. As I mentioned, this person clearly runs more than one scam and we need all the warning we can get.

[missbrooklyn]

Ye gads, this woman/man/person sucked me in! Damn! And I gave her money! Sigh, back to Cynicism 101 for me.

[eightykatie]

I totally supported her, and never would have guessed until I read this thread. I guess I'm completely gullible. Sad, because I liked Ruth, and really wanted her to succeed. And it really had very little to do with the whole fundie thing. I guess we all just like people who struggle to be able to overcome their hurdles with hard work.

Also, I'm looking forward to reading the whole truth on the new site. It sounds intriguing!

[eightykatie]

Interestingly enough, my DH did his postdoc on neural networks, specifically on comparing writing styles to see if you could tell for certain (or mathemtically certain anyway) whether one person wrote specific works. He thinks this might be an interesting problem. Of course the time to build the code and whatever else it takes could be hard to come by, but he likes interesting problems!

[Lainey]

Ye gads, this woman/man/person sucked me in! Damn! And I gave her money! Sigh, back to Cynicism 101 for me.

Me too. :pull-hair:

[kaetrin]

Lo these many pages ago someone (Thoughtful?) asked why those of us with ATI backgrounds felt like she was legit to some small extent. It would take a lot more re-reading of her blog than I am able to do right now to put a finger on it one way or the other, and with everything else that has come out at this point, I am willing to say that I read her wrongly. Again, the combination of her infrequent posting and my infrequent and non-suspicious reading contributed to my naivete.

ATI IS a membership-only* organization, but I failed to take into account that there are probably enough survivor blogs out there now that someone who really wanted to could acquire enough lingo to pass herself off within the community to some extent. Nothing she said ever raised ATI-related red flags for me until just recently when I started thinking about the likelihood that such a highly-placed (pilot?) family would be able to go unidentified by everyone for so long.

So I'm sorry if I said anything to vouch for her generally as an ex-ATI-er that led anyone astray. I'm an infrequent poster but I read here all the time so I probably feel like I'm more involved in the discussion than I really am. :-)

*and fairly secretive on some levels -- you weren't supposed to share materials with people unless they went to all the seminars first. When my mom left fundamentalism she sold our Wisdom Booklets on Ebay or something, which as a HUGE no-no but at that point she obviously didn't care any more! Actually she wanted to burn them but she needed the money.

[Oddeverything]

I've never had a blog on a Google-run site before and fear their TOS may be such that if I use Ruth's real name, she could complain and the site would shut down the blog. LiveJournal has similarly draconian rules.

But I'm going to dive in with Blogspot and see what happens. If it gets shut down I will just move it to nearlyfreespeech.net or similar.

And as sickened as I am by all of this, it is clear that the woman behind these scams is ill. I have left a comment on Razing Ruth asking her to contact me so she can discuss with me her side of what has happened and why she did it. I feel that this the most fair thing I can do in this matter - to give her that chance. There is no way for her to explain this away, but it would be helpful if she could explain what made her do this.

And it's no real burden when I have extra time. It appears as if the horrifying leg work has already been done so the most time-consuming part will be to grab all the work everyone has done here and on other sites (but mostly here ;) ).

I'm laying low now until Monday, likely. Over the weekend I will be gathering information and will start the site and I'll post back here when I've got it up and going.

I am very relieved we've finally put this to rest.

And for the last time, everyone who gave money to Ruth should not kick themselves. You did kind things because you are kind people. Ruth's lies don't diminish that and people like her win when their bad acts cause good people to harden their hearts. We can all be more careful when we donate money to individuals and hopefully this situation will give us all a better understanding of scams and how to avoid them. But rather than kick yourselves for giving money to a person who lied to get it, laud yourselves for being decent people who care about others.

[thoughtful]

Lo these many pages ago someone (Thoughtful?) asked why those of us with ATI backgrounds felt like she was legit to some small extent. It would take a lot more re-reading of her blog than I am able to do right now to put a finger on it one way or the other, and with everything else that has come out at this point, I am willing to say that I read her wrongly. Again, the combination of her infrequent posting and my infrequent and non-suspicious reading contributed to my naivete.

ATI IS a membership-only* organization, but I failed to take into account that there are probably enough survivor blogs out there now that someone who really wanted to could acquire enough lingo to pass herself off within the community to some extent. Nothing she said ever raised ATI-related red flags for me until just recently when I started thinking about the likelihood that such a highly-placed (pilot?) family would be able to go unidentified by everyone for so long.

So I'm sorry if I said anything to vouch for her generally as an ex-ATI-er that led anyone astray. I'm an infrequent poster but I read here all the time so I probably feel like I'm more involved in the discussion than I really am. :-)

*and fairly secretive on some levels -- you weren't supposed to share materials with people unless they went to all the seminars first. When my mom left fundamentalism she sold our Wisdom Booklets on Ebay or something, which as a HUGE no-no but at that point she obviously didn't care any more! Actually she wanted to burn them but she needed the money.

Thanks for remembering my question, Kaetrin. I was mostly curious to find out if there were particular turns of phrase that really stood out, or stuff that nobody had put out there (as far as anyone knew) until RR did.

And I'd like to say the same thing to you that people are saying to contributors and sympathizers -- you have nothing to apologize for. You are not the liar and the scammer.

[Palimpsest]

I think your comments are dismissive. "I think we need to let that go", "I think your synopsis is enough"...it's just very dismissive. It doesn't strike me as Pollyanna-ish at all. It strikes me as bossy.

Clearly, Oddeverything is invested in this and quite frankly, I doubt she'd put more effort into it than she wanted to.

As for not digging any further, I think that's just plain non-sense. When you run a scam on the internet and people catch wind of it, there will be digging. I can't for the life of my think of a single reason to plug our ears lest we hear anymore unpleasantness. As I mentioned, this person clearly runs more than one scam and we need all the warning we can get.

Yes, clearly Oddeverything is very invested in this and has provided a wonderful solution for further investigation. I had not seen her latest post when I hit submit on my last post. She clearly has the time and the energy. Unfortunately, I do not have that time or energy, but I am very glad that she is stepping up.

As to accusing me of wanting to plug my ears, or asking others to plug their ears, to unpleasantness nothing could be further from the truth. If you look, several of my other posts describe my frustration and anger at the situation. I also have some understanding as to why FJ's hands are tied due to the ToU. I dislike bashing FJ admins over this because their hands are tied by the ToU that also protect my privacy -- and yours too. Curious and the Admins have explained this elsewhere.

Believe me, I also want this serial scammer stopped! I hate what she is doing. I take it seriously. I first became aware of Possummmomma in 2006. I had no idea that RR was connected until two days ago. I was shocked. I also had no idea of how many scams she was pulling off. It is horrible. Dig all you want. No-one, least of all me, is trying to stop you.

If you perceived my comments as dismissive, sorry. If you think I'm bossy, fine. I know myself, and I am neither bossy nor dismissive. Tone is always difficult on the internet and my post was badly written. Obviously.

What the heck. Its past my bedtime. Have fun digging and feel free to berate me some more. I doubt that I'll respond because I have more important things to worry about than your opinion.

[thoughtful]

Koala, I don't know if this will help at all -- I hope you know that I generally admire and agree with your posts (especially when the subject of people whipping children comes up!).

Palimpsest happens to be someone I know IRL, so I hear her voice in my head when I read her posts. I can guarantee that she did not mean to be dismissive or bossy. She is one of the least bossy people I've ever met, and I've only ever heard her be dismissive of tools like Doug.

The comment about letting things go was to comfort people who are still frightened of pile-ons, not about letting go of caring about RR.

Palimpsest wrote:

May I gently point out -- pile ons were in the past. I think we need to let that go. The tone of these two Ruth threads has been excellent. It seems to me that everyone has been calm, thoughtful and polite to all opinions.

And I'm just as sure she was trying to make sure OddEverything didn't feel pressured to do more, not to tell her to stop. I'm sure she doesn't feel that is her place, and I know she wants all of the truth to come out.

As ever, we are all dealing with the fact we are just words on a screen to one another -- I know you have no reason to believe me, and that this may come off as my defending her because I know her. But, I really see a clear case of "that wording didn't work for that person, they are misunderstanding one another" (in fact, I just refreshed the thread in another window, and see that she admits her wording was bad), so I thought I'd throw it out there.

Back to Ruth --

[Jezebel]

[redacted because I am an idiot who really ought to go to bed]

[Oddeverything]

I did some googlestalking, and found what I believe is Possummomma's Facebook. (I did some double-checking to be sure.)

She was in Chicago in late March, and has been back again since at least the last week in June. Her last post was July 4, and she and her kids (?) were still there.

Apparently, she's been taking an extended road trip of some sort, and the course of her travels in late May are, at times, remarkably similar to "Ruth's" journey east. The dates aren't a perfect match, but they were both in Colorado on the same day.

Given the mods' refusal to allow naming names I'm not posting her real name, or the link to her Facebook, but fuck it--those of you clever enough to do a basic Google search have either already found it, or will within about 20 seconds of reading this (should you choose).

Bleah, I've edited my entire response here because I thought I knew something that I really didn't know. Holy crap, what I just did is the real reason the mods want us never to bring up names in this because I was cock-sure I was right and then it was easily proven I wasn't. Even though I mentioned no names I still spurred people down a strange road. So sorry about that.

Sorry y'all. I'm taking a break until I've had a few hours to look things over and when I've got the site up, I will let y'all know. Forgive my haste!

[treemom]

No. As recently as the 42-page thread that morphed into the exposure, a couple of people were clearly hushed for questioning - even slightly - the twisted ovary tale. And none of it has anything to do with new or old regimes.

And the bolded above is really sort of telling me that I should shut up now.

I did comment on the wi-fi, but it was never an attempt to try to shush anyone...I just didn't think it was the best of the discrepancies

[Jezebel]

Oddeverything, be sure to screencap the shit out of everything, before she gets a chance to lock it down. I'd do it, but I am computerless for the time being, do all my internetting from my phone, and have limited screencapping abilities.

[DarkAnts]

<

This is a perfect example of why we are so damn touchy about ToU and outing people. In this case, there are two people in the same town with very similar names - only one letter different. It's something like the difference between Joanne Smith and Joanna Smith. One, we believe, is Ruth. The other is not, and she really doesn't need to be dragged into this mess.>>

I must be thick because its not falling into place. Then again, I dont pay much attention to the media.

[NDC22]

<

This is a perfect example of why we are so damn touchy about ToU and outing people. In this case, there are two people in the same town with very similar names - only one letter different. It's something like the difference between Joanne Smith and Joanna Smith. One, we believe, is Ruth. The other is not, and she really doesn't need to be dragged into this mess.>>

Odds, can you get space at Reddit? They love a good Dox'ing over there and have no problem giving the finger to laws concerning outing people committing crimes and scams.

[Mustang Sally]

If you're worried about webspace, you might be best off to buy a domain and host it yourself. Just make sure your service provider is free-speech friendly. But that will cost you a little money, of course. If you go the Blogspot route, just be sure to keep really ace backups of all your shit!

ETA: I also want to make one small suggestion, take it or leave it, for everyone in this thread - maybe further revelations should be kept in Chatter so that our Scammy McScammypants has less chance for...defensive maneuvers on her web presence? You know?

[Lainey]

I think that is a fabulous idea.

[Jezebel]

Crap. Picard-fucking-double-facepalm.

I almost never go into Chatter as it is, and I've been so hooked on the threads in this forum that it hadn't occurred to me to see what might be over there. I could edit my previous comment, but it's already been quoted by others. Y'all still here, and willing to cut the relevant material?

[Nastyasty]

Selfishly, that would mean long-time lurkers like me would miss out on knowing what happens next.

Just a shot in the dark, but I'm guessing there are more than a few current fundie/ATI people who secretly read here because they are starting to have their doubts about the movement, but who are not yet at a stage when they would post. For their sakes, mostly, I think this needs to be kept either in a public area of the board where they have the best chance of being able to see it, or at least in Snark where registered members can read it without having had to make multiple posts.

Also, presumably being put on a JTTH does not prevent RR being able to read Chatter anyway - unless I have that wrong.

[keeks21]

Jezebel or Gawker might be good as well to release.

I think Jezebel even did a few stories on fundie daughters