This report will ask people who are posting notes here an important safety related question. Other people can respond to that question by e-mail if they wish. And, there is a very important question here for one particular individual who posts notes to this board.

Canie, what is being discussed here will probably cause your hair to stand on end. However, it deals with the future of certain earthquake forecasting efforts. And as people are aware, earthquakes are natural disasters which reportedly claim some 10,000 lives per year on the average. So, this subject matter is important. Once that particular individual answers the question that I am asking here I will make some decisions on the best course of action to take. And then I am not planning to discuss this matter again in this type of detail.

I am sure that you would rather have this matter settled by e-mail. But as you are aware, to date, every attempt to do that has failed. It apparently needs to be dealt with directly in this public forum.

A SERIOUS SAFETY ISSUE

In a number of my posts to this board I have asked people to use “EQF” when they respond to one of my posts or simply wish to ask me a question. I have said that I consider this to be an important safety related issue. And most people have honored my request on that.

Unfortunately there is one individual who continues to post notes to this board which contain other name or initial references which might or might not be used to identify me. And I will refer to that person as a “she” without meaning to actually identify that person as a he or a she. Those postings continue in spite of the fact this person has, I believe, been asked politely by the board monitor not to do that. And I believe that she has sent me e-mail letters on more than one occasion stating that she is not going to post any more responses to my own posts.

I need to determine if this situation is going to continue. And the following are reasons why I feel that this subject matter is important both to people who are posting notes here and to bulletin board visitors.

1. At the present time I occasionally post progress reports, questions, and recommendations here. If that person plans to continue posting notes here which contain references to me which are not EQF then I plan to avoid posting some of those progress reports and recommendations. And I am hoping that that will discourage her from continuing to do that. Unfortunately, I feel that my not reporting those types of information here will likely slow the development of international earthquake forecasting programs.

2. There are quite a few earthquake experts around the world with whom I talk. And I believe that some of them would be interested in posting notes here if I were to ask them to do that. However, if I myself do not feel safe posting different types of information to this bulletin board then I am certainly not going to recommend that my scientific contacts do that.

When that person posts a note here which criticizes one of mine and adds a reference to me which is not EQF then the following is what I think when I see her note. Obviously I cannot read her mind and tell what she was thinking. But this is what goes through my own mind:

1. I did not like the note that you posted. I am going to say something bad about it. And I will add some information to my post which I believe might let other people determine who you are and how they can locate you. And if some crazy person who feels sorry for me is able to identify you and starts calling your home, harasses your family members, and frightens you to the point where you will no longer post notes to this bulletin board then that is not my fault. My post was legal.

2. If that crazy person is able to identify you, and he decides to burn your house to the ground and you then no longer have a computer which you can use to post messages to this bulletin board then that is not my fault.

3. If that crazy person is able to identify you, and he decides to kidnap and hold your children until you agree to stop posting notes to this bulletin board then that is not my fault.

For certain reasons, I am REALLY not worried about those second and third possibilities. However, those things still cross my mind when I see one of her posts. And I would imagine that other people feel the same way when they are placed in a similar situation.

People reading this might propose that I am too worried about safety. But if you are overly careful about something then hopefully about the worst that can happen is that your efforts will move along more slowly than they might otherwise. On the other hand, as the following shows, if your safety measures are not adequate then the results can be catastrophic. And once something like this happens there is no going back.

The U.S. government, and state and local government bodies have developed elaborate safety measures which they use to keep hostile acts from occurring here in the U.S. Yet we still saw a horrible attack take place in Oklahoma City a number of years ago. And we more recently saw such attacks take place in New York and Washington, D.C. Obviously, as good as they might have been, the elaborate safety measures which were in place at those times failed for some reason.

I myself have no control over major safety issues such as those. But I do have some control over whether or not my family members will be harassed because of notes which are posted to the Internet. If you post a note to a Newsgroup you can expect that you will have virtually no protection. But notes posted to bulletin board such as this one are expected to enjoy a higher level of protection.

One of the main safety measures which I myself use with this particular bulletin board is to use the letter code EQF with my notes. No person can call the home of EQF, at least as that letter code relates to me. EQF does not exist. However, one individual may be rendering that simple safety measure null and void by using other names or letter codes when she refers to me in her posts. And I need to determine if that is going to continue so that I can decide what to do next.

QUESTIONS:

1. For people posting notes to this bulletin board:

Do you feel that that person should continue to use names or letter codes other than EQF in her posted notes which refer to me?

2. For that particular individual:

If it has been your goal to terrify me into not posting notes to this bulletin board then I would have to say that you have come close to being successful with that on a number of occasions. I do not feel at all safe in posting a note here if I have to be away from the Internet for a day or two. I have found that when I return there may be a number of notes posted in response to mine. Yours may be the first one. And it may contain highly confrontational information along with a reference to me which is not EQF. And that causes me to fear what might have happened during the time that I was away. Would your note have resulted in people calling my home and frightening my family members while I was gone?

And so, my question to you is, “Are you going to continue doing that?”

I would like a clear YES or a clear NO.

If you say NO, you are not going to do that any more, then I will expect you to stick with that answer.

If you say YES, or if you do not answer that question, or if you come up with some obtuse answer such as “It depends upon the situation,” or you say anything else which is not a clear NO then I will interpret those answers or lack of an answer as a YES, you do intend to continue doing that. And I will make the appropriate adjustments to my plans.

I work in an area of science where you have to be a realist. I wish that people could post notes to Internet Newsgroups and especially to bulletin boards such as this one without having to worry about safety issues. But that is not the way things really are. If you wish to make any progress then you need to deal with the situation as it exists. And now is the time to determine the reality of this important safety related issue.