Pure Chat – Part III

Anatomy of a Message Board

Truly Open Court is another message board with its roots deeply buried into the CTV soil and began out of frustration. CTV had an area entitled “Open Court” where all off-topic posts were welcomed. It became the CTV playground and was a lot of fun until the “moderator” became temperamental and would do a mass banning on Monday mornings. Thus, Truly Open Court was born and was great fun until a rift started to develop between some of the membership. A rather unhappy split took place and yet another message board came about known as The Jury Box. Both of those boards are rather benign and focus on the social aspects of message board posting. I no longer follow either, so my knowledge of their status is limited.

WebSleuths is a heavily moderated board that also has CTV roots, but its creator had an opinionated passion about the Jon Benet Ramsey case and it is one of the earliest spin-offs. I did post at the board for a brief time, but I really have no strong feelings about it one way or another except that I felt the moderation techniques were a little extreme and “timeouts” would be dished up with little or no warning. If you do not mind constantly biting your tongue (or sitting on your hands in this case), it is not a bad board. Some very nice people are posting there and they do tend to take the high-road in most instances.

Freedom of Blog (FOB) does not seem to have a particular niche that I can determine. Their history is unclear to me, but the membership roster is a mirror image of that of The Refugee's. The regular posters appear to share the same mindset as the Refugees and I see little difference in content. Both FOB and the Refugees might be considered the “Donner Party” of message boards. If there is not a victim to attack, or if they tire of attacking other message boards, they tend to begin devouring each other. These two message boards alone deserve to be studied by an energetic doctorial candidate, because the collective psychological profile could easily fill a medical book. Alas Sigmund, where are ye when we need ye.......

Truth 4 Natalee (T4N) is a newcomer to the crime-related message board world and its membership brings a quote to mind “Hell hath no fury…...” lol This small group (four out of five regulars are moderators) considers themselves to be the elite researchers in the Natalee Holloway case. Of course, that is not true, but I do think they have convinced themselves that they are original. Almost all of their “hot topics” are just a Google click away, or have been hashed and re-hashed at the older boards and blogs.

Yes, I was a member at T4N and thought that the regulars had become friends of mine. Sadly, I was proven wrong. This bunch sits poised to attack anyone and everyone that they perceive has done them wrong. They do this all in the name of Natalee and constantly repeat that it is all about Natalee. Their actions say differently and their priorities are abundantly clear. T4N is like an iceberg, so beware what’s beneath the surface. My association with that board was not a good experience, but as with all message boards it is a matter of preference.

Next, I will take a look at the two big boys in the independent message board world, Scared Monkeys and Blogs For Natalee.