Well, here go the conspiracy theories:

Quote from: DireWolfM14 on Today at 05:50:12 PM

I don't think Lauda is gone. I believe he's still around and has done a great job keeping his new identity from being discovered. Even at the end it seemed to me that he loved this forum, and loved it too much to just give up. The "goodbye" post was surprising only in the way that I should have expected it.

I think the "Lauda" account just got too burdensome with all the baggage. Most people would find all that drama distracting, I know I would. Maybe he just wanted to start fresh, without all the distractions.

I am sure not—this, I am sure about. (Unless I am Lauda’s alt, as QS, TS, and others have claimed at various times. I have never denied it. Wouldn’t it be lulzy if they were right!)

People who believe that this forum is some be-all, end-all that people can never leave need to gain some perspective on life. It is an Internet forum. Why can nobody choose to leave this forum and never, ever return? Those who believe it is impossible to leave must surely be projecting, in ways that I do not care to speculate about. (Jay? Roll Eyes

) And to interpret her emphatic declaration she left as confirming that she secretly stayed is conspiracy-theory tier pretzel-logic.

For anyone who has a unique personality in both style and substance, restarting with a new account is not a realistic possibility. Mediocrities who never attain a high profile could easily hide in the crowd; those who are otherwise never can. The risk of being outed is too high. In case you have not noticed, this forum is infested with dweebs with no lives, who are obsessed with speculating on the “real” identities of innocent new accounts that obviously aren’t really newbies. I have been intending to make a general thread on this exact topic, from my concerns as a privacy activist—and from my musing that sadly, I believe it would be infeasible for Satoshi himself to return to his own forum in a different guise.

Furthermore, based on my private conversations with Lauda at the time she left, I am morally certain that she will never return to this forum. Sufficiently certain that I will immediately issue negative trust feedback and raise a Type-1 flag on any account that claims to be Lauda.

And furthermore, her departure was unsurprising to anyone who knew her as you did not. I was shocked when it happened, and deeply disturbed by how it happened. I fear that something may have gone very wrong. But I had long been expecting her departure—well, I had been expecting some sort of a retirement party, a happy event. The cat devoted a big chunk of her life to this forum; she did not want to spend the rest of her life on it. At some point, she would inevitably move on.

The notion that Lauda may return with a new account is not new. It was raised almost immediately. As a final duty to her here, I must firmly squelch it. Lauda did her best to burn all her bridges here, for the express purpose of preventing any scams that potentially may attempt to exploit her reputation.

Rumours of Lauda sightings would open the way to Faketoshi-style impersonations, which could be highly profitable: I would trust Lauda with any amount of money, and I am far from the only one! An impersonator could play off the type of thinking that you are setting up, by “reluctantly” letting himself be “discovered” as Lauda. It is a usual way for such a scam; recall that from the start, before he switched to demanding that everyone believe him, Craig Wright pretended to be reluctant about “admitting” that he was Satoshi.

Lauda will NOT be returning under a new account.

Quote from: nullius on October 19, 2020, 08:32:39 AM

Quote from: NeuroticFish on October 19, 2020, 07:49:38 AM

Quote from: Lauda on October 19, 2020, 05:29:24 AM

no option but to leave the forum permanently.

Quite sad. We've barely interacted, but you were on my trust list for obvious reasons.
It's a big loss for the forum. Maybe you'll "reincarnate" under another user and continue where you left off (one can hope). It would be still a loss, but at least it'll be temporary, until your voice will be strong enough again.

Much though I wish that I could share in that dream, no. Lauda is gone from this forum. She will not be returning. I trust her word, as expressed in OP here.

As Lauda’s admitted fan, I respect and appreciate your sentiment; but please do not sow the seeds of what her OP hereby so sought to avoid. This type of speculation could open the way for the scam of a Lauda pretender, in a more subtle way.

Quote from: Rikafip on Today at 05:57:34 PM

Quote from: nullius on Today at 05:42:52 PM

LOL, at least I admit that I don’t know. You are so sure. I am sure that you know less than I do—and I don’t know.

Since Lauda wrote in masculine gender, its logical to assume that he is male and refer to him as such. Why would I refer to him as "she" when he obviously wanted to be perceived as a male while being active in Croatian board? Things are often simple but people tend to overthink.

That’s a claim far away from your prior post, whereby you said that anyone who disagreed was fooling themselves.

By analogy, I usually write with British spelling. I am perfectly capable of consciously switching to American spelling—and of mixing the two, not from confusion, but from a desire to cause confusion. (Satoshi did the same thing, with Brit/Murican spelling; there exist some statistical analyses this.) I also sometimes purposely switch or mix regional vocabulary (“petrol”/“gas”), idioms, etc.

Since I write with British spelling, it is logical to assume that I am British or Commonwealth, and to refer to me as such—yes?

Although English lacks the grammatical nuances of the Croatian language, I am sure that I could consistently make myself seem either masculine or feminine in any language that I know. Although she never showed it off, Lauda was at least as smart as I am, and possibly much smarter; of that, I am sure.

You call him a “he”. I call her a “she”. No problem. Neither of us knows. I have also seen theories that the correct answer is “they”, i.e., a group operating the Lauda account. I think that is very unlikely; but I don’t know for certain about that, either.