JW Insider

I do look at IP addresses, as everyone who has been given moderator functions can do that. But they are often meaningless depending on your ISP, or whether you use a VPN or service that replaces the IP address. Also, I have never given information out about someone's location based on IP address anyway. Especially if I only know it from an IP location or private conversations. "Outta Here" was very clear about the country he lived in, even identifying a local UK Assembly Hall as one he used to attend. "Thinking" has also mentioned her country/continent more than once. So has TTH, Arauna (if you can keep up with her moves over the last half-decade), and several others.
There was no big production to impress. I was just making use of information people have provided in order to explain my own observations and opinions.

I’m going to get a spoof IP address and make him think I’m posting from Putin’s palace.

I know you weren't trying to be funny here, but I always found it kind of hilarious that all of your own accounts have been infamous for never admitting it when you are wrong: always blaming others instead of blaming yourself. I was surprised to find you finally admit to a typo as Dmitar, when someone pointed it out. But there were times when you would even defend an obvious simple typo and say it was on purpose for some far-fetched reason. (This is not a reference to "perils" vs. "pearls"; I think we all knew you really meant what you wrote: "perils." Pudgy, I assumed, was just highlighting your propensity for never saying anything positive about anyone here. )
In this case, I'm referring to this "gem:"
I'm always amazed at how you have never been wrong, and never, ever can admit to a mistake. How, did you put it? Oh, right:

@Thinking, Eoin Joyce is the name of a person from UK (England) who contributed his comments here for several years. He indicated often that he was fed up with the lack of spiritual value in most of these discussions. (Which is all the more obvious lately.) He changed his account name from Eoin Joyce to "Gone Fishing" when he stopped commenting for a few months. Then he changed it to "Outta Here" when he got even more serious about leaving here for good. I believe that, by now, he has completely left the forum.
I can't hazard a guess as to why WalterPrescott assumed that someone from Australia was from the same neck of the woods as someone from England. But he has done this before, under several of his own previous account names, where he will make wild guesses about who is really the same as someone else. I think it is related to the fact that it's quite obvious to many of us when he tries to pass himself off as a different person, thinking perhaps that no one will notice that he is the same as AllenSmith/BillyTheKid/NoisySrecko/Dmitar and about 30 other different attempts to disguise himself under different account names.
For a while, he kept many of these identities simultaneously, and I could actually see the evidence for when he logged out from one name and logged back in with another. He tried to keep up the appearance of some intentional differences between some of those accounts, but he sometimes messed it up and used a characteristic of one account on another one.  For this new "WalterPrescott" account, he has borrowed a feature from @Cos, a Trinitarian, who often signed his posts with the fish symbol: "<><". Walter has already pointed this fish out as if it is evidence he isn't really "Allen Smith" but he probably doesn't realize that this kind of thing doesn't really work when there so many other giveaways, including a complete inability to "clothe himself with a new personality."

Oh thank you as I hadn’t a clue…I do remember outta here..but I thought that was from another forum…I don’t go back as most of you on this forum,,,,so thanks for setting me straight…much appreciated 

Maybe Mrs. Musk?
 

He was a good guy. I’m sorry he’s gone.

Alan (either one, either spelling) wrote a book?

If it is Rutherford’s coup and much too expensive are you sure it is not really Perrson’s coup?

@Thinking, Eoin Joyce is the name of a person from UK (England) who contributed his comments here for several years. He indicated often that he was fed up with the lack of spiritual value in most of these discussions. (Which is all the more obvious lately.) He changed his account name from Eoin Joyce to "Gone Fishing" when he stopped commenting for a few months. Then he changed it to "Outta Here" when he got even more serious about leaving here for good. I believe that, by now, he has completely left the forum.
I can't hazard a guess as to why WalterPrescott assumed that someone from Australia was from the same neck of the woods as someone from England. But he has done this before, under several of his own previous account names, where he will make wild guesses about who is really the same as someone else. I think it is related to the fact that it's quite obvious to many of us when he tries to pass himself off as a different person, thinking perhaps that no one will notice that he is the same as AllenSmith/BillyTheKid/NoisySrecko/Dmitar and about 30 other different attempts to disguise himself under different account names.
For a while, he kept many of these identities simultaneously, and I could actually see the evidence for when he logged out from one name and logged back in with another. He tried to keep up the appearance of some intentional differences between some of those accounts, but he sometimes messed it up and used a characteristic of one account on another one.  For this new "WalterPrescott" account, he has borrowed a feature from @Cos, a Trinitarian, who often signed his posts with the fish symbol: "<><". Walter has already pointed this fish out as if it is evidence he isn't really "Allen Smith" but he probably doesn't realize that this kind of thing doesn't really work when there so many other giveaways, including a complete inability to "clothe himself with a new personality."

As you might have guessed, I rarely pay attention to whether something is in the Open or Closed club. The Closed Club is definitely much more pleasant, many less distractions, but I'm sure it gives others the feeling that we have something to hide. The real reason, of course, is to stay away from persons who look for any reason they can think of to start fights, create dissension, highlight GB errors, and turn the subject to false predictions and child abuse. Come to think of it, that's a good enough reason.
There is one other consideration. I prefer to share opinions where they can be challenged from anyone, not just the dozen or so people who regularly participate in the Closed Club. There is also a better chance that someone else, who we don't know yet, is also reading the book and will come along to join in the discussion. That has happened before with discussions of God's name in the LXX, etc.
What I could do, also, is exercise my moderator powers and merely move any posts to a different topic if they are mostly unrelated. I think I'll try that. That goes for memes and pictures that are unrelated too, Pudgy. 😉 Actually, I'm always happy when I see a bunch of unrelated pictures from Pudgy, because it reminds me of how much quicker it is can be to read through a book that has lots of pictures --and they're usually funny! But I feel badly for those who start a serious topic, like Arauna just did, and it so quickly gets taken over by parody covers of children's books.
So, if I end up making a topic of comments on this book, I think I'll try just making a separate topic for the distractions. That doesn't mean people can't attack the book, or attack me for bringing it up. Those posts can remain, of course. But the little squabbles people want to bring up on the side will go to a topic made for that purpose. Assuming I can keep up. 😧

As you might have guessed, I rarely pay attention to whether something is in the Open or Closed club. The Closed Club is definitely much more pleasant, many less distractions, but I'm sure it gives others the feeling that we have something to hide. The real reason, of course, is to stay away from persons who look for any reason they can think of to start fights, create dissension, highlight GB errors, and turn the subject to false predictions and child abuse. Come to think of it, that's a good enough reason.
There is one other consideration. I prefer to share opinions where they can be challenged from anyone, not just the dozen or so people who regularly participate in the Closed Club. There is also a better chance that someone else, who we don't know yet, is also reading the book and will come along to join in the discussion. That has happened before with discussions of God's name in the LXX, etc.
What I could do, also, is exercise my moderator powers and merely move any posts to a different topic if they are mostly unrelated. I think I'll try that. That goes for memes and pictures that are unrelated too, Pudgy. 😉 Actually, I'm always happy when I see a bunch of unrelated pictures from Pudgy, because it reminds me of how much quicker it is can be to read through a book that has lots of pictures --and they're usually funny! But I feel badly for those who start a serious topic, like Arauna just did, and it so quickly gets taken over by parody covers of children's books.
So, if I end up making a topic of comments on this book, I think I'll try just making a separate topic for the distractions. That doesn't mean people can't attack the book, or attack me for bringing it up. Those posts can remain, of course. But the little squabbles people want to bring up on the side will go to a topic made for that purpose. Assuming I can keep up. 😧

As you might have guessed, I rarely pay attention to whether something is in the Open or Closed club. The Closed Club is definitely much more pleasant, many less distractions, but I'm sure it gives others the feeling that we have something to hide. The real reason, of course, is to stay away from persons who look for any reason they can think of to start fights, create dissension, highlight GB errors, and turn the subject to false predictions and child abuse. Come to think of it, that's a good enough reason.
There is one other consideration. I prefer to share opinions where they can be challenged from anyone, not just the dozen or so people who regularly participate in the Closed Club. There is also a better chance that someone else, who we don't know yet, is also reading the book and will come along to join in the discussion. That has happened before with discussions of God's name in the LXX, etc.
What I could do, also, is exercise my moderator powers and merely move any posts to a different topic if they are mostly unrelated. I think I'll try that. That goes for memes and pictures that are unrelated too, Pudgy. 😉 Actually, I'm always happy when I see a bunch of unrelated pictures from Pudgy, because it reminds me of how much quicker it is can be to read through a book that has lots of pictures --and they're usually funny! But I feel badly for those who start a serious topic, like Arauna just did, and it so quickly gets taken over by parody covers of children's books.
So, if I end up making a topic of comments on this book, I think I'll try just making a separate topic for the distractions. That doesn't mean people can't attack the book, or attack me for bringing it up. Those posts can remain, of course. But the little squabbles people want to bring up on the side will go to a topic made for that purpose. Assuming I can keep up. 😧

Let us know what you find out that you already didn't know....in the closed club if you can 😊
Oh and thanks for this expression: "not creating  negative "drama" out of guesswork". I will try and remember that phrase because people tend to do this 99% of the time and it's very annoying! Now I will just respond with: "stop creating drama out if guesswork" instead of going into long explanations... that without facts you can't really judge....and you were not a fly on the wall....etc.
 

I just paid over $39 for a book. And even though it's well over 600 pages, I don't know what the author was thinking. It's $55 in softcover and $65 in hardback. It's the kind of price you'd pay for a book of academic research.
Anyway I'd have to say that, after about 60 pages that I read this morning, it is clearly the most comprehensive, thorough, well-referenced, and seemingly accurate account I have ever read. It is very balanced, so far, and doesn't try to create negative "drama" out of guesswork. I've seen other authors, even Witnesses, do this sometimes.
Even recently, I've tried to get hold of many of the resources he uses and was unable for many of them. I do have a few pages of resources, that Persson doesn't seem to know about (or doesn't use), but they would only confirm his own research, as far as I can tell. He mentions getting some research from collectors of Bible Student history, and a person named Mike Castro in Rhode Island. I don't know if anyone knows whether Mike Castro is a Witness, but someone pointed him out to me when I was looking for a rare document (special Wt supplement not in the bound volumes because it only went to some subscribers), and he sent it to me in PDF format immediately, no questions asked. I'm afraid to find out that he might be an apostate, so I didn't ask 😮.
Anyway, the whole book title is: Rutherford's Coup: The Watchtower Succession Crisis of 1917 and Its Aftermath
https://www.amazon.com/Rutherfords-Coup-Watchtower-Succession-Aftermath/dp/1778143016/ref=sr_1_1?crid=10XAMD6TVT7N3&keywords=rud+persson&qid=1652964472&sprefix=%2Caps%2C53&sr=8-1
So far, I'm impressed. But one should be warned that the author, Rud Persson (pronounced Rude Person 😁) is a former Witness. Don't know whether he was DF'd, but he does say that he worked with Carl Olof Jonsson on research in the past.

@Thinking, Eoin Joyce is the name of a person from UK (England) who contributed his comments here for several years. He indicated often that he was fed up with the lack of spiritual value in most of these discussions. (Which is all the more obvious lately.) He changed his account name from Eoin Joyce to "Gone Fishing" when he stopped commenting for a few months. Then he changed it to "Outta Here" when he got even more serious about leaving here for good. I believe that, by now, he has completely left the forum.
I can't hazard a guess as to why WalterPrescott assumed that someone from Australia was from the same neck of the woods as someone from England. But he has done this before, under several of his own previous account names, where he will make wild guesses about who is really the same as someone else. I think it is related to the fact that it's quite obvious to many of us when he tries to pass himself off as a different person, thinking perhaps that no one will notice that he is the same as AllenSmith/BillyTheKid/NoisySrecko/Dmitar and about 30 other different attempts to disguise himself under different account names.
For a while, he kept many of these identities simultaneously, and I could actually see the evidence for when he logged out from one name and logged back in with another. He tried to keep up the appearance of some intentional differences between some of those accounts, but he sometimes messed it up and used a characteristic of one account on another one.  For this new "WalterPrescott" account, he has borrowed a feature from @Cos, a Trinitarian, who often signed his posts with the fish symbol: "<><". Walter has already pointed this fish out as if it is evidence he isn't really "Allen Smith" but he probably doesn't realize that this kind of thing doesn't really work when there so many other giveaways, including a complete inability to "clothe himself with a new personality."

I just paid over $39 for a book. And even though it's well over 600 pages, I don't know what the author was thinking. It's $55 in softcover and $65 in hardback. It's the kind of price you'd pay for a book of academic research.
Anyway I'd have to say that, after about 60 pages that I read this morning, it is clearly the most comprehensive, thorough, well-referenced, and seemingly accurate account I have ever read. It is very balanced, so far, and doesn't try to create negative "drama" out of guesswork. I've seen other authors, even Witnesses, do this sometimes.
Even recently, I've tried to get hold of many of the resources he uses and was unable for many of them. I do have a few pages of resources, that Persson doesn't seem to know about (or doesn't use), but they would only confirm his own research, as far as I can tell. He mentions getting some research from collectors of Bible Student history, and a person named Mike Castro in Rhode Island. I don't know if anyone knows whether Mike Castro is a Witness, but someone pointed him out to me when I was looking for a rare document (special Wt supplement not in the bound volumes because it only went to some subscribers), and he sent it to me in PDF format immediately, no questions asked. I'm afraid to find out that he might be an apostate, so I didn't ask 😮.
Anyway, the whole book title is: Rutherford's Coup: The Watchtower Succession Crisis of 1917 and Its Aftermath
https://www.amazon.com/Rutherfords-Coup-Watchtower-Succession-Aftermath/dp/1778143016/ref=sr_1_1?crid=10XAMD6TVT7N3&keywords=rud+persson&qid=1652964472&sprefix=%2Caps%2C53&sr=8-1
So far, I'm impressed. But one should be warned that the author, Rud Persson (pronounced Rude Person 😁) is a former Witness. Don't know whether he was DF'd, but he does say that he worked with Carl Olof Jonsson on research in the past.

I’m not a mate…I’m a Sheila …

Wrong- I will not hurt someone with real OCD.  I  call the apostates hate-OCD because all they can do is repeat the same stuff over and over about the GB

Answering critics, some apologist said that to make up a character as complex as Jesus would be more miraculous than simply accepting there was such a man. In a perverse and opposite kind of way….

Those were the days. The 1957 DeSoto had a great big rear window deck. That's how we'd take yearly trips out West between California and Missouri. Sometimes we'd take the Northern Route through KS, CO, UT, NV and usually we'd take the Southern Route ("66") through OK, TX, NM, AZ. My brother and I would argue over who got the back window.
My father, even though he was an electrical engineer by trade, would always keep an extra 57 DeSoto on the property for parts when the main one gave problems. Once we watched while he overhauled the engine and had a big engine pulley system and couple hundred pieces of "car" placed neatly on some extra sheets. I think it was this mini junkyard, more than anything else, that made fellow Missourians accept us Californians as true neighbors. (That, and the fact that he'd fix anyone's color TV for free.)

I’m told if your home is mobile but the 6 vehicles on your lawn are not, you just might be from Missouri.

Those were the days. The 1957 DeSoto had a great big rear window deck. That's how we'd take yearly trips out West between California and Missouri. Sometimes we'd take the Northern Route through KS, CO, UT, NV and usually we'd take the Southern Route ("66") through OK, TX, NM, AZ. My brother and I would argue over who got the back window.
My father, even though he was an electrical engineer by trade, would always keep an extra 57 DeSoto on the property for parts when the main one gave problems. Once we watched while he overhauled the engine and had a big engine pulley system and couple hundred pieces of "car" placed neatly on some extra sheets. I think it was this mini junkyard, more than anything else, that made fellow Missourians accept us Californians as true neighbors. (That, and the fact that he'd fix anyone's color TV for free.)

Believe it or not we did that in Europe too! It was great. I started on the shelf of the rear window in Calais, and next time I woke up we were in Zurich, embracing my grandparents. That's how I remember it anyway....we probably did stop on the way to empty our bladders....and for my step dad to rest...but those are just minor details, lol.

I think we still have about 30 minutes left. We kind of got distracted and later started watching something else. We need to watch the end. I'll let you know when we're done...