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As usual, Buzz Dixon's hold on reality is tenuous at best. He is
engaging in the same tactics that tore apart the Guild, in part because
he was one of those directly involved in the smear campaigns involving
the BBS in question.

It's ironic...a BBS is found in which messages from WGA users have
been slandered, their sexual, drug, personal and work habits not only
openly ridiculed but *catalogued* in library archive
files...constituting a de facto blacklist...and this is revealed...and
somehow by virtue of showing how a small group of people were
maintaining a system dedicated to slander, libel and character
assassination itself characterizes an attack on them is mind boggling
to say the least.

Yes, a user gave me full authorization to access a particular BBS,
where I found that members of the WGA Board of Directors, the head of
the WGA BBS and others were involved in actions against their fellow
members, outright libel, and in violation of Guild rules. I reported
this to the Guild, which for political reasons chose to do nothing,
leaving me with no choice than to go public with this. Because careers
of other writers were being systematically undermined. It was the
right thing to do, and I'd do it again.

If Buzz is saying that these messages were "selectively edited," then
he is lying through his teeth, plain and simple. The entire text, with
every single comma in place, was made available to the WGA, and if
anything had been taken out of context, all the sysops of this system
had to do was to give the WGA access to the message base to prove it.
They never did this, and swiftly wiped out the libraries in question,
purged the message base, and quickly changed the name of the BBS
itself. Becuase they'd been caught doing something utterly
reprehensible and indefensible...except by those people directly
involved, who're still trying to cover their butts, and smear others in
order to protect themselves. As is being done here. Every so often,
this thread reappears, the same BS stuff gets posted. Ain't no big
deal.

I have not "deliberately lied about scores of other writers." This is
an outright lie itself. If I had done so, I would have been sued out
of business.

The majority of the other points raised are the usual distortions,
fabrications, petty lies and bigger ones, which are trotted out on a
regular basis by a very small group of dysfunctional individuals bent
on revenge because I exposed their little smear-club in front of the
whole of the WGA. The story was reported upon in the trades, in the
local press, even some national press. And, in fact, it led to a
"writer" who was in fact NOT a writer, but a convicted felon who'd
snuck into the WGA on fake credits, being exposed and removed from the
WGA.

And yes, absolutely, several Guild members took the WGA BBS to court
because it was engaging in illegal business practices. It issued a
User's Agreement which was against labor law, in that it restricted
message topics and discussions on the WGA BBS, which as a union house
cannot legally control or restrict information by union members on its
property. This prior restraint was tacitly illegal, and a simple
attempt to restrict criticism of Guild officials. So if you've got
something illegal...you take it to court. And the court was about to
rule that it WAS illegal when the WGA abruptly dropped the UA and shut
down the BBS in a move not unlike the current situation in Utah, where
to avoid one student group existing, the state shut down ALL student
groups. The fee asked for in the suit was to cover the expense of
filing a suit against the Guild, which is more than $1, as Dixon well
knows. But, again, the facts aren't at issue here.

The tactics of the BBS I stumbled upon were to assemble a series of
outright lies, innuendo, misinformation, disinformation, and bile into
a collected form, which they could use at whim to discredit, harm, or
otherwise smear their fellow WGA members. I'm not at all surprised to
see that those who were involved in that practice are still continuing
it, and that they have dragged this out into the public again. They
got caught with their genitalia in the door, and they will never
forgive the public humiliation that came when the facts came out.

If I had done anything amiss, the Guild or other members had the right
to file charges against me. Nothing has ever happened. Because they
were in the wrong. The Guild shut down its own BBS rather than allow
members speak openly about Guild policies *as required by union law*,
engaging in the kind of censorship and prior restraint which any writer
must abhor.

So now, all we have left is the sour grapes, bile and hatred from
those who got exposed. These are sad creatures, really. I feel great
pity for them, and do hope they seek counseling for this sometime soon.
They know that what they say isn't true; they just hope that by putting
it out there, that this will be enough to cause trouble, which is their
fondest hope. To smear.

What actions I took in this were legally, morally and ethically
correct, and it's all very old news. Buzz should get a life.
Preferably one that does not involve the continued habit of his peers
of smearing other WGA members, as he does here, with half-truths,
untruths, distortions and nonsense. This particular act has gotten
*real* old.

jms