#145 Lost posts on PTO (new)

Lost posts on Prison Talk Online

Folks…sometimes it is very good to save your documents…

As many of you know, I have been writing on prison issues for a few years, and in that length of time I have written for numerous prison support sites, many no longer exist, some which have banned me. One of these sites is one called Prison Talk Online.

This was not the first site I wrote for, but I did contribute numerous posts there. If any of you have been reading older posts from me, then you may have recognized my name as either Nolaw97 or masonik4.

But a couple of years ago I was banned from PTO because one supporter of my blogs was disappointed in how such a “prison support” site would kiss the butt of prison books written by people who never so much as made a single post on the site, but when I mentioned my “Grades of Honor” books, I would get warned about talking about my book.

Its an odd irony folks…people on those sites can promote books by every other author, and not one of those authors would spend a second helping others on the site… but I write over 1000 posts there, and get all kinds of people responding, and I can’t get the time of day from the very site I help.

The lady was very disappointed in that, and made a post on PTO about it, and was immediately banned from the site…then they turned around and banned ME…I guess guilt by association.

What made things worse, certain people of PTO were making rude comments on my blog, I suppose in praise to their site. Many of these people would make anonymous comments, so I would not know who said it, then criticize me for “prison bashing”. Funny, I didn’t know PTO owned my prison blogs, to tell me what I can and can’t say.

Things worsened when the owner of the site, David Frisk, sent me an email based on my request to add my prison blog to his list…his comments were quite vulgar to me. After all I wrote for the site, Prison Talk was now treating me as if I was public enemy number one.

All the while, I told readers that if you ever wondered about my contributions to the site, you merely had to go and check PTO and look for one of two names: either Nolaw97, or masonik4. For awhile, I had readers on my blogs that remembered me from that site and others, and were glad to see that I was still writing. But the idea that people could go check my past posts seemed to tick off the site, and they had to put an end to it.

So PTO went back and changed my name to “retired” and some number, that way if you really wanted to read my posts, you would have to really hunt for them…but I noticed at that time they did not remove my posts…something they EASILY could have done. Why not?

I surmise it might be for a couple of reasons: one, because what I shared had value, regardless of what they thought of me. Most of my posts stimulated a lot of responses, and came from a person that had BEEN in prison, not as somebody talking about a friend they knew. Second, I might also guess that they didn’t want to harm the precious post count. I mean, we can’t take off a few posts from someone with 39,999 posts, right? It might ruin their credibility.

So for awhile it seemed that PTO was doing everything to discredit my posts, while I continued to blog about prison issues. Now, I don’t visit that site anymore, so I have no idea what is going on there, or if my posts are there. I had over 1000 posts there, and none were those cheap “hi and welcome to PTO” liners.

But I spoke so much about my contributions to all those sites that many of you probably wanted to know more about them. Yet with many of these sites now the way of the Dodo Bird, and others doing everything they can to erase my contributions, it is hard to really establish what I did in the past.

And to make matters worse, when my computer crashed about a month or two ago, I lost a LOT of material. I was very worried that all my older blogs were erased and gone forever. To be sure, I didn’t think that my older posts from sites like PTO remained, especially if they did everything they could to erase my involvement from their history.

But last week or so I was looking in desperation for old Cds, in some hope that maybe I was smart enough to save some of my blogs…and was fortunate to find several folders…oddly titled “PTO”. There was a reason for this, which now benefits me greatly.

When I was writing for PTO, I was also writing for numerous other sites that no longer exist. Back then, I usually wrote the post live, meaning I wrote on the site as I was there. Nowdays I write all my works offline, then copy and paste it to the sites I want to put it on. That prevents me from losing it if for some reason the modem goes out, and I am stuck 4 pages in and cannot save.

It has happened several times, which is why I write offline now.

But back then, I wrote and posted, and never thought about saving the files. After awhile, I figured, why not save what I wrote, just for the sake of saving? So I went back to numerous posts on PTO and copied the whole page to my desktop. I went and selected many of my posts, and copied the entire page to my desktop. Those pages also included many responses from readers after I made my post.

I have at least 5 folders full of PTO pages, posts that I wrote and the responses that came after it. I read a couple just today and smiled when I remembered my contributions to the site, and the hundreds and hundreds of people that saw the sincerity and value in what I shared. And because I saved those files, I have direct access to them anytime I want. Its almost as if the page I saved was written yesterday, instead of 3 or 4 years ago.

Now when I tell people that I used to write for those ingrates, I have proof that I did, something they cannot erase in anyway shape or form. Let me share an example:

I saved HUNDREDS of these pages to my disc, and in one of the folders is a page from PTO from a post I wrote. The title is “B4 You Give Up On Him”. The page clearly shows me as masonik4, and at the time, a registered user. My join date was November 2003 and at that time I had 1127 posts on the site. The actual post was put up on August 3rd, 2005.

The blog was about not giving up on your loved one in prison, and as I usually do, I wrote several pages on it. You know how I do on my blogs…

After the blog, there is a host of comments from readers; some are as follows:

“All I can say to you right now is a big, huge, heartfelt THANK YOU!! You will never know how much I needed to read that right at this second. Tonight has been emotionally exhausting for me, for reasons I can't even explain. It's almost like you posted this thread just for me. Are you sure you aren't psychic? That was better than an hour of Dr. Phil lol!”

“i've read a few of your posts masonik, and you are very well spoken and make very good points.. thank you for taking the time to write that for us... fortunately, my boyfriend and i are going through a good patch right now, but your words are definitely something i will keep in mind for when the bad patches hit us.. thanks again.”

“Whoaaa!!
I just finished a letter to my husband no more than 4 minutes and decided to check out PTO tonight because I couldn't sleep.
I wrote to my husband and was very upset and didn't know why he was constantly snapping at me. I was stating I have problems also, raising kids by myself, trying to make ends meet, worrying about my grandparent's and maybe having to take care of them, and I told him I never take anything out on him. It seemed like he was unappreciated of everything that I've done for him and I felt like maybe taking a break to rethink our relationship. It seemed like he was a totally different person than who I married and wondered why we got married. I was thinking maybe I went off a little too much on him but it's how I felt and wouldn't ya know, I came to this forum and seen this topic.”

“Thank you for your post. I soooo needed to hear that.
Sounds like alot of us needed that.
How did you know?”

“Thank you for your post, it was great, am sending a copy to Dan.”

And several other comments similar to this.

If you never got the chance to read my older posts on the site, this is what sincerity is all about. Most posts on PTO were never from the prospective of one who has been there, which is odd because the owner of the site apparently didn’t share much with readers, even he has probably 400 billion posts by now. But when I joined, the idea was to get in, share what I could, answer emails and help where I could. When you read posts like I just shared, there is little question that I was a problem, rather part of a solution.

Most of my posts were just like that, when I made a post, there was usually a bunch of kind words and comments from people who needed to read what I shared. Not that it made me THE expert, but it was certainly from a prospective that PTO was not giving…or perhaps didn’t care about.

This is just one of MANY that I have folks…and as I read those comments it fills me with the sense that regardless of what that site says about me now, there is no argument that what I contributed had great value, some which lasted for years after I was booted out the site.

I might have to share more of these pages on my blog as we go along, it would be fun to see the posts I wrote back then, and who I helped at that time. Anyway, I am glad I kept those files. As usual, if you want to email me, ask about my books, cards and the like, you know the email. Until then…