Wow, tiggy. Blast from the past. Just. Wow. Do you remember when Penlind's "assistant" posted about how wonderful "Doc" was. And how about when she was supposedly posting from Ireland, but seemed to be hitting US hours.

Oy.

Wow. This is totally fascinating to me (in a car wreck sort of way and maybe a little because my project at work right now is really Hard). Would anyone want to give a brief synopsis of the whole "Penlind" story?

Sits cross-legged on the floor with lisah and waits for the car-crash story

Fruit Loops (as per the discussion):

I didn't think about it at the time, but it occurs to me now that Plei sent a donation to a foundation for the disease my brother had. I know my parents sent a nice note (though I think my mother was a little confused about how I had a friend in Seattle where I've never been), but that could have just as easily come from me. Only one buffista knows that I actually exist as me- but just because I'm a real person, doesn't really mean I'm the me y'all think you know.

It's weird and making my head hurt.

Prolly not a serial post any more.

Do you remember when Penlind's "assistant" posted about how wonderful "Doc" was.

I don't remember that, but i did find a post in there from "Rye" who was supposedly her husband, Riley. i think it's in one of the boards i uploaded.

And how about when she was supposedly posting from Ireland, but seemed to be hitting US hours.

hmmm...i don't remember when that was either. right now i'm digging through the june 01 files to find the blow-up. i was thinking it was right around then. i found a post by Allyson talking to someone about the "atmosphere" of the bronze and she mentioned that if it weren't for people like her people would be sending money to Penlind for her sick child. so i know it was before the middle of june. i'm trying to be incognito about this because really? i should be working. however, this is more fun.

for those who are wanting the Penlind story, i'd say Allyson is probably a better one to ask than me. my memory is fuzzy. not to mention that i was a virtual newbie when all of this started happening.

When I worked for a forum on AOL we had two weird things like this. One, a long elaborate story involving a woman who had a brain tumor and went blind and eventually died, giving her children to the other woman, her sock puppet. She got a lot of gifts and money out of that.

The other was supposedly two girls in Australia, except there was only one, she posted about the wrong seasons, she posted in what would be the middle of the night for Australia, and I eventually tracked her ISP to Utah.

Eta: one of the girls was supposedly a paraplegic, as well.

My closest experience to this sort of thing was on Usenet, with a regular to a newsgroup who represented herself to be a heroin addict, who got AIDS and eventually died, only to pop up again after the "death" and say it was all made up. She seemed to regard the whole thing as performance art. I don't remember any money changing hands, but people definitely felt betrayed

In light of the continuing discussion here, I checked Medline to see if anyone had written about this topic. I found only one paper:

MUNCHAUSEN BY INTERNET: DETECTING FACTITIOUS ILLNESS AND CRISIS ON THE INTERNET , Feldman, Marc D., Southern Medical Journal, 0038-4348, July 1, 2Vol. 93, Issue 7

The paper had an an interesting table that summarized the main characteristics of these cases. The paper also discusses the response of the communities, and has a parallel table for that.

TABLE 1. Clues to the Detection of Factitious Internet Claims

The posts consistently duplicate material in other posts, in textbooks, or on health-related websites. "

The length, frequency, and duration of the posts do not match the claimed severity of the illness (eg, a detailed post from someone claiming to be in septic shock). "

The characteristics of the supposed illness and its treatment emerge as caricatures based on the individual's misconceptions. "

Near-fatal exacerbations of illness alternate with miraculous recoveries. "

Personal claims are fantastic, contradicted by later posts, or disproved (eg, a call to the hospital reveals that there is no such patient). "

There are continual dramatic events in the person's life, especially when other group members have become the focus of attention (eg, as interest in one person started to wane in her group, she announced that her mother had just been diagnosed as terminally ill as well).

" The individual complains that other group members are not sufficiently upportive and warns that this insensitivity is undermining his/her health. "

The individual resists telephone contact, sometimes offering odd justifications (eg, it would be so upsetting as to cause a medical catastrophe, or the telephone lines in the building do not permit incoming calls) or making threats (eg, he/she will run away if called). "

There is feigned blitheness about crises (eg, a cardiac arrest or assault) that will predictably attract immediate attention. "

Others ostensibly posting on behalf of the individual (eg, familymembers) have identical patterns of writing, such as grammatical errors, misspellings, and stylistic idiosyncrasies.

Others ostensibly posting on behalf of the individual (eg, familymembers) have identical patterns of writing, such as grammatical errors, misspellings, and stylistic idiosyncrasies.

That's how Evie Whiting got outed. Her "sister", posting outraged in response to questions about the funeral (a Roman Catholic/Buddhist burial presided over by a rabbi in India, or something like that), had the same highly idiosyncratic punctuation that Evie did.

When she finally came back, she claimed an "enemy" had stolen her laptop and made all these posts to the board in order to discredit her.

The Nikita plagiarist was generally easy to spot, at least in the early days, because she liked names with "Y". Nyky, Dydy, Jasmyne...

No, really.