The Triple Nine Society ExCom Memo

March 15, 1997

To: TNS ExCom, Volunteers, and Interested Members

From: Kevin Langdon, Regent, P.O. Box 795, Berkeley, CA 94701
        (510) 524-0345; [old e-mail address omitted]

Distribution

Dale Adams, Ombudsman
John Cooper, Financial Officer
Bob Kopp, Editor
Jacquelinne White, Membership Officer
Jennifer Foster, Member-at-Large
Larry Jess, Member-at-Large
Laura Lansberry, Member-at-Large
Wilson Ogg, Member-at-Large

Jim Grzegorowicz, Correspondence Group
John Kormes, Legal Officer
Ray Suttles, Elections Officer, Monitor, Greeter
Matt Urnezis, Archivist

Memos and Official Business Included

This Memo

I'd like to apologize to readers of this Memo for the interval of over five months since the last one. Despite the fact that there are some serious disputes in progress, I have received very little material for publication in the ExCom Memo until the last two or three weeks, though some of it is dated earlier than that. This and my personal commitments are responsible for the delay.

I'm also sorry to have to inflict another gigantic Memo on you, but in this case, unlike the case of the delay, I had no power to alter this. It comes about as a result of two factors. First, given that it's been a long time since the last Memo, a certain volume of correspondence is to be expected. Second, and most importantly, the majority of the pages in this Memo (and a lot of pages in Vidya) are devoted to the outpourings of--and replies to attacks by--Mr. Paul Maxim. I will have more to say about Mr. Maxim below.

Major Problems Facing the Society

As I see our current situation, there are three important problems facing TNS: 1. our decline in membership; 2. tuning up our organizational machinery (the TNS Constitution and the procedures followed by officers); 3. the presence of two members whose bad behavior is interfering with the enjoyment of membership by others. Aspects of all three problems are discussed in this Memo. I sincerely hope that our officers can resolve the problems and misunderstandings among them we have been hearing about; I regard them all as persons of good will.

Motions Carried

Three motions proposed by me have received an affirmative vote of a majority of the Executive Committee:

* (9) Laura Lansberry, the candidate who received the next-highest number of votes after the four who were elected, [is] appointed to serve the remainder of Hal Darancette's term as Member-at-Large.

* (10) The sum of $150.00 is appropriated: $100.00 for the purchase of a portable IBM-compatible XT computer from John Cooper and $50.00 for shipping and incidental expenses connected with transporting this computer to Jacquelinne White and making it operational.

* (11) Use of the Triple Nine Society logo for purposes other than official business of the society is prohibited.

The vote on the first and third of these motions was 8-0; the vote on the computer motion was 7-0, as John Cooper was ineligible to vote on the motion for the society to purchase a computer from him.

Unfortunately, John sold the computer between the date of the last Memo and the present, but I've purchased a 386 with a color monitor for the same price ($25 of that is a dox-matrix printer from John), which I'm setting up for Jacquelinne's use. We may need to spend a little more getting this machine in proper operating order if I need a part or can't do it myself. Therefore I move that:

* (1) $75 is appropriated for repairs on the TNS Membership Officer computer, if necessary.

(The numbers of my motions begin again from (1) at the start of each calendar year.)

Motion Defeated

Paul Maxim's motion to prohibit the use of my tests and Dr. Hoeflin's for admission to TNS was defeated 7-1, with Jennifer Foster voting ``yes.''

Declining Membership

The Triple Nine Society now has fewer than 200 paid-up members. This has become a crisis. An examination of the Financial Report on page 24 of this Memo will show that we lost $1694.29 in the past year. We must act soon to increase revenue or cut costs. Reducing the size and/or frequency of Vidya does not seem to be a viable option, leaving us the choice of a steep dues increase or increasing our membership, by adding new members and/or recapturing the members we've lost.

One thing that should help is already being implemented by the Membership Officer (dues reminders), but I believe that we must do something to recruit more members. I have two suggestions, both of which will cost money. In my opinion, we should risk a thousand or two from what remains in our treasury to turn this picture around and make a serious effort to recruit new members and reach former members of TNS.

Therefore, I move that:

* (2) Whenever there is a ``single issue'' of Vidya, the Editor shall cause to be printed an extra 200 copies. Sample copies of Vidya shall be mailed to former mem-bers of the Triple Nine Society, to members of other societies with cutoffs at or above the 99.9th percentile, and to persons known to have made qualifying scores on tests accepted for admission to TNS. This shall continue until 600 people known to fall into these categories have received a sample copy of Vidya.

* (3) A display ad for the Triple Nine Society shall be placed in the Mensa Bulletin on a one-time, experimental basis.

There are two to three thousand people on the combined list that I have been working on (Larry Jess has also been working on this project) who are members of the categories mentioned in motion #1, so it would take us at least a year to get a sample to everyone if all issues of Vidya were single issues and considerably longer if single issues continue to be the exception, but this is a good source of recruitment. Doing the mailing in batches of 200 gives us plenty of opportunity to test the efficacy of this approach before we spend a large amount of money. This motion covers only the first three batches. If this motion passes, I strongly encourage the Editor to make an effort to publish single issues frequently.

We would be able to place a quarter-page ad in the Mensa Bulletin for less than $500. (I've requested actual ad rates but have not received them as of this date.)

A mock-up of the ad I have in mind appears on page 7. I would expect this ad to attract a lot of interest. I have not included the exact wording of the ad in the motion, for the sake of flexibility.

Admission of Minors Who Are ISPE Members

In the October 5 ExCom Memo, passage of a motion to make ISPE members eligible for TNS membership without further testing was announced. Jacquelinne White has pointed out that we do not accept age-corrected scores and that this policy was adopted with the aim of ensuring that the society be composed of those who had achieved a score at the 99.9th percentile of the adult population.

Therefore, I move that that motion be replaced with the following one, which adds the words ``over 18'':

* (4) Applicants over 18 furnishing proof of membership in the ISPE shall be accepted into the Triple Nine Society without providing additional evidence of qualification for membership.

Proposal for the Expulsion of Kent Shultz

Readers of Vidya #161/162 have seen John Cooper's motion for the expulsion of Kent Shultz from TNS. A petition to put this motion to a vote of the membership appears on page 23 of this Memo. I request that the Editor publish the petition in Vidya. Let's take a vote on this matter and be done with it.

A Petition for the Suspension from TNS Membership of Paul Maxim

I have come forward on more than one occasion to defend members who have been unjustly attacked (e.g., Anne Paradise, Kent Shultz). Now I am the target of continuing harassment by Paul Maxim, who makes use of any vehicle he can find for his attacks on me, including the journal of this society, which is then obliged to print my defenses against Mr. Maxim's attacks as well.

Mr. Maxim's repetitious and unfounded accusations and his hostile attitude toward those with whom he disagrees do not meet minimum standards of civilized conduct, are highly offensive, and aim to do me (and anyone else who gets in his way) serious harm. Therefore, I propose that Paul Maxim be suspended from membership in the Triple Nine Society for a period of six months, with prepaid dues for this period applied to an extension of his membership for a like period or refunded in cash, as Mr. Maxim prefers.

A petition to bring this to a vote of the membership appears on page 23.

Outstanding Motions

Please submit your comments on my motions ##1-4, above, and on other matters pending before this Committee. Publication date of the next Memo is April 15. Voting members of the Committee, please get your votes to me before then.

In accordance with established procedures, you may vote to HOLD any matter until the second following ExCom Memo if you have comments that you feel should be heard before a vote is taken. Only one HOLD vote is required to delay passage by one issue of the Memo. Those who have voted before comments are published with a HOLD in the next Memo may change their votes in the light of this additional information.

Paul Maxim's Motion to Appoint a Substitute Ombudsman

In Paul Maxim's memo on page 20, he made a motion to appoint John Kormes as substitute Ombudsman with regard to his complaint against me. If the complaint in question were against someone else, I would rule Mr. Maxim's motion out of order, on the grounds of his personal interest in the matter involved. As it is, I can only disqualify myself from acting on this matter. Someone on this Committee may wish to make a motion to rule Mr. Maxim's motion in or out of order, to appoint a substitute Chairman to rule on the validity of Mr. Maxim's motion, or to appoint a substitute Ombudsman to handle this matter.

However, speaking as an individual, it is my opinion that the Ombudsman does not have a duty to resolve every dispute to the satisfaction of all parties and that he is free to conclude his investigation of a particular matter by reporting that he was unable to bring about a resolution. It is not one of the duties of the Ombudsman to allow himself to be beaten up with a baseball bat (see the exchange of letters between Maxim and Adams included herein).

Under this interpretation, the Society need not appoint someone else to subject him- or herself to Mr. Maxim's constant demands. More than a dozen members of the higher-I.Q. societies have been harassed--by mail, phone, or both--by Mr. Maxim; people ask me, ``Who is this lunatic?''

Furthermore, if someone were to be appointed substitute Ombudsman to deal with this matter, it would be highly improper for the party appointed to be someone suggested by one of the disputants. (This point is, of course, independent of the suitability, in general, of Mr. Kormes to perform such a function.)

Triple Nine Society

The only democratically-organized
society at the 99.9th percentile.
$20/year dues includes over 200 pages
of the society's journal, Vidya.

Qualifying Scores

* before 1994 + Concept Mastery Test
# Advanced Progressive Matrices

To apply for membership or for more
information, please write to:
Jacquelinne White, Membership Officer,
[address omitted].

Not affiliated with Mensa.

Date: 15-Feb-97 13:54 PST
From: Jennifer Foster [e-mail address omitted]
Reply to: Re: TNS ExCom Motions

Dear Fellow TNS Folks:

Hello. I am one of the Members-at-Large, and know only a few members, including Editor Bob Kopp (who also lives in Portland and attends my games parties) and Treasurer John Cooper (who lives near my home in Baltimore). I am concerned about the issues Membership Officer Jacqelinne White has raised about the membership roster, and had talked with her on the phone months ago when she called to discuss it. I drafted a memo with suggestions to the ExComm a few months ago, but then chose to not add my blathering to the rest of the fuss, but to try to find out the true situation and to help behind the scenes with Bob Kopp instead. Because JW has pointedly mentioned in a recent memo that I have not responded to her memos, I thought I'd better say something.

Sorry about the long introduction.

Anyway, here's my take on the membership roster situation: JW's concerns seem well-founded, from what I can tell. The membership roster should be cleaned up, and those who aren't paying dues should be informed that they will be dropped via a separate postcard and an article in the next Vidya. (I may even fall in that category--can't remember when I last got a bill for dues or paid dues--but some members would probably pay up if reminded rather than lapse.) I have asked Bob if he agrees this should be done, and volunteered to help him with the database and mailing.

Personally, I am quite disturbed at the fact that my dues are paying not only for my copy of Vidyas full of rabid drivel and quibbling from the same few members, but also for several copies to be sent to former members who haven't paid dues for years. (Yes, I know that I should be writing articles myself if I don't like what I read, but that's not where my interests lie; I prefer social interaction to writing, thank you.)

(Sorry to be a little negative there; I'm usually very positive, really.)

Thanks for listening, and I hope this situation gets resolved soon, and that I get the opportunity to meet some more members and officers sometime.

                                      -Jenny Foster

No Deal, Paul

Kevin Langdon

Paul Maxim has made a clumsy attempt to blackmail me into certifying that his childhood test scores qualify him for admission to the Prometheus and Mega Societies. The deal he proposed in his letter to Bob Kopp on page 9 of this Memo shows the hypocrisy underlying his vendetta against me.

I tried to entice Mr. Maxim into going farther out on a limb by asking him, through Bob Kopp, if he would be willing to agree to the following statement (without giving any indication that I was willing to agree to Mr. Maxim's statement):

I have recently been made aware of the soundness of the norming of the Langdon Adult Intelligence Test and of Kevin Langdon's work in psychometrics generally. I am willing to acknowledge the correctness of Mr. Langdon's business practices and the absence of any fraudulent acts or intentions in his dealings with members of the high-I.Q. societies.

Mr. Maxim often does stupid things, but he didn't bite on this one.

I have a few comments on Mr. Maxim's letter:

As I mentioned to you over the phone, Kevin Langdon has recently complained that I have made ``personal attacks'' against him, and has demanded that they cease. He has also threatened to sue the Editor of NOESIS, Rick Rosner, if NOESIS publishes any more material critical of Mr. Langdon. This threat could have a damaging and inhibitory effect on the operation of NOESIS, which up until now has been a free press. I believe Mr. Langdon has also threatened legal action in his conversations with Dale Adams, our Ombudsman (just as he did in his conversations with you last year), since Adams recently indicated to me that the ``possibility of a lawsuit'' was inhibiting him from performing his duties as Ombudsman (please see his letter to me of October 9, enclosed).

I have mentioned legal action only with regard to Mr. Maxim's unsubstantiated accusations of fraud, which are libelous.

Of course, Mr. Langdon ventures to object only when he is the target of attack, and finds it perfectly acceptable when he (and his henchman, Bob Dick) use their own organ to attack me, without allowing me right of response, as they have done consistently and repeatedly since 1995.

Mr. Maxim's complaint to Harold Nickel, the Ombudsman of Prometheus, was published along with Mr. Nickel's conclusion that it was without merit, which did not include any personal attack on Mr. Maxim. He is not entitled to claim personal privilege on the basis of Mr. Nickel's disagreement with his opinions. Furthermore, I am not aware of a response of any kind being submitted by Mr. Maxim for publication in Gift of Fire.

HOWEVER, in the interest of promoting greater harmony within the high-IQ groups, and because our paramount objective is the pursuit of intellectual attainment, not polemical dispute, I am willing to make a conciliatory gesture toward Mr. Langdon, as long as he is willing to make one toward me in return.

Mr. Maxim is willing to be intellectually dishonest if I will do likewise.

I am willing to suspend all personal attacks against Mr. Langdon, so long as he is willing to rectify his unfair and prejudicial appraisal of my IQ credentials, and accept them at the value as placed upon them by the professional psychometricians responsible for their generation.

The ``professional psychometricians'' responsible for creation of tests such as those to which Mr. Maxim refers very carefully avoid any claim that the tests are capable of measuring intelligence at the four sigma level, let alone at 4.75 sigma.

In other words, Mr. Langdon must stop attempting to impose on me and my credentials his own ``personal'' psychometric theories, which are aimed at derogating all standard tests, in favor of the products that he and Dr. Hoeflin produce.

The better standard tests do an adequate job of assessing intellectual ability up to about 3.5 sigma. Above that point, they don't discriminate reliably. I have nothing against standard tests when they are used for the purpose for which they were designed.

If you are willing to act as ``go-between'' or negotiator in this matter, I believe you may be able thereby to play an instrumental role in its resolution. Personally, I cannot think of anyone better qualified than you to do this, because of your reputation as a responsible officer of the TNS Society, as an ``honest broker,'' and as a nice guy. Here is the statement I am presenting to you for transmittal to Mr. Langdon. If he is willing to endorse it and return it to you, I believe this conflict can be fairly and satisfactorily resolved: DRAFT STATEMENT BY KEVIN LANGDON: ``I have recently been made aware of certain IQ credentials pertaining to PAUL MAXIM, which I was not aware of when I debarred his entry into the Prometheus Society in early 1995. In view of this new information, I am willing to acknowledge that Mr. Maxim's aggregate IQ score on three standard tests qualifies him for admission to the Prometheus and Mega Societies. These tests cannot be characterized as `midrange' at the point that Mr. Maxim took them, since at that point they each had a ceiling high enough to accommodate a 4.75 sigma score, as is attested (in part) by the data published by Dr. Hoeflin in connectiion with his Mega Test norming.''

Let's recall what ``this conflict'' consists of: Mr. Maxim wrote to me inquiring as to my opinion of the adequacy of the CTMM for measuring intelligence at the four sigma level, without revealing why he was asking. I replied that the CTMM is a poor test in general and that it lacks sufficient ceiling to discriminate at that level (I subsequently discovered that the ceiling for adults is 158).

Mr. Maxim then proceeded to apply for admission to the Prometheus Society and the Mega Society on the basis of his score on the CTMM. I advised the officers of the Prometheus Society that, as Prometheus does not accept scores on the CTMM, Mr. Maxim's application should be denied. After Prometheus declined to accept him as a member on the basis of his CTMM score, Mr. Maxim began a yearlong campaign of derogation of my work in psychometrics and personal attacks on me, including repeated accusations of fraud.

I had no power to ``debar'' Mr. Maxim's admission to the Prometheus Society. I am a member of Prometheus, but I am not an officer of that society. I did consult with the officers of Prometheus and urged them not to give in to Mr. Maxim's pres-sure to admit him despite his lack of the credentials required according to the society's admission standards.

His groundless accusations of fraud and his blackmail attempt show unmistakably that he is a man without principles willing to sell his soul to gain the object of his ambition.

I hope that members of TNS have recognized Mr. Maxim's true colors and will give no credence to his wild accusations in the future.

Reply to Greg Grove

Kevin Langdon

I'm sure that many TNS members share the concern of Dr. Grove that diversity of views be encouraged in this society. Triple Nine has encouraged and protected the expression of unpopular views since its founding in 1978. But diverse views are one thing and malicious personal attacks are another. Can we ethically do nothing when members of the society are harassing other members? I think not. Can we be a social conduit for a violator of children? I think not. Are we not entitled to establish some minimum standards of civilized behavior to which we expect our members to adhere, or must we put up with every ill-mannered clod who chooses to spit on our carpet?

I am proposing the minimum steps necessary to deal with each offender in an appropriate manner. If we act now, we shall not have peace tomorrow, but if we do not act we'll never have peace again.

I assume Greg meant ``censor'' rather than ``censure.'' Sometimes somebody won't stop screaming into the microphone and you have to pull the plug. Also, there's the legal angle: certain types of accusations are actionable. The Editor should take care not to make TNS the defendant in a lawsuit.

Initiative: Kent Shultz is expelled from the Triple Nine Society. He shall be entitled to the refund of any unexpired portion of dues paid.

We, the undersigned members of the Triple Nine Society, request that a vote be taken on the above inititative.

Name	Membership No.	Signature	Date
____________________	__________	____________________	_________
____________________	__________	____________________	_________

Please submit completed petition forms to the Editor.

 

Initiative: Paul Maxim is suspended from membership in the Triple Nine Society for a period of six months, beginning on the date when the results of voting on this initiative are communicated to Mr. Maxim by the Elections Officer. He shall be entitled to a refund of dues paid, or an extension of his membership, at his option, for the period of the suspension.

We, the undersigned members of the Triple Nine Society, request that a vote be taken on the above inititative.

Name	Membership No.	Signature	Date
____________________	__________	____________________	_________
____________________	__________	____________________	_________

Please submit competed petition forms to the Editor.

Triple Nine Society
Financial Statement

YTD as of December 31, 1996

INCOME:

EXPENSES:

John W. Cooper, III, Financial Officer

Regent's Note: In 1996 we took in $4,576.02 and we spent $6,270.31. That's a loss of $1,694.29. We have reserves equal to approximately four more years of this level of deficit spending. It's bad we're running a deficit, but it's good that we have some time to fix the problem. I propose that we put about a year's worth of reserves into the programs I mentioned on pages 3 and 4 of this Memo. With more members we'd realize certain economies of scale (particularly on printing) which could help balance our budget.

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