About me. Posted on Michael Nugent’s blog yesterday.
No way am I telling you my name
May 28, 2013 at 9:41 pm
How lovely. Your “healing the rift” effort required a sharing of email addresses at least one of which has been distributed to Ophelia Benson, who, as I type this, is gleefully doxxing an atheist woman who’s not ‘out’ in her real-life community. Well, she is now. Revenge for “talking shit” about Ophelia. And the “talking shit?” You can go see it for yourself. The woman asked Ophelia if she really thought Justin Vacula was attending the conference in Dublin specifically to “stalk her.”
And Ophelia Benson has gotten her revenge. But that’s nothing. Earlier this week she refused to take down another woman’s private post which Ophelia had re-posted, even after the woman told her it endangered her life by exposing her private information to her mentally ill and armed ex-husband and begged her to remove it. Nope, said Ophelia, not taking it down. That’s the revenge for “talking shit”. Fortunately Ophelia was shamed into removing it the next day, but what damage was already done?
I’d ask for a refund to the Dublin convention but honestly I don’t know if you’re in on this or not. Did you set up the whole thing to obtain private information for the doxxers?
So keep my money. I won’t be attending this or any other conference that welcomes the serial doxxers. I’m including Myers since he’s been talking about his plans to out a gay man with kids for having the temerity to warn Jen McCreight that she was posting information that identified her location. How horrible of him! His warning to Jen had all personal info removed. Her own post didn’t, hence the warning. And he’s getting the punishment.
These people are vile, dangerous to woman and dangerous to marginalized men and dangerous to the atheist community. I didn’t know who the bad guys and good guys were in this so-called “rift” but I sure do now. Do you?
Annotations. Numbered excerpts followed by my annotations in red.
1) How lovely. Your “healing the rift” effort required a sharing of email addresses at least one of which has been distributed to Ophelia Benson
No. No email addresses have been “distributed” to me. “Skep tickle” gave me her email address by commenting here – commenting to tell me to “get help” for my “paranoia.”
2) who, as I type this, is gleefully doxxing an atheist woman
No. I was not “doxxing” her. I did not “dox” her. That’s an outright lie.
3) who’s not ‘out’ in her real-life community
Wrong. Yes she is out in her real-life community. She is on the board of an atheist organization in her real-life community, under her real name. That is being out. Number 3 is another outright lie.
4) Well, she is now. Revenge for “talking shit” about Ophelia.
No. Two more lies. She is not out now, so there is no such revenge. If I had outed her, it still wouldn’t be revenge; it would be denying her the ability to trash me in public with no consequences to her reputation. It would be denying her the ability to protect her reputation in the act of damaging mine.
5) And the “talking shit?” You can go see it for yourself. The woman asked Ophelia if she really thought Justin Vacula was attending the conference in Dublin specifically to “stalk her.”
No. She told me to get help for my paranoia. It’s right here.
Please get some professional psychological help. I’m serious. Paranoia seems to be consuming you.
That’s the whole of her first comment. Under the circumstances – two years of nonstop harassment by her friends at the slime pit – that’s a deliberately offensive provocation.
6) Earlier this week she refused to take down another woman’s private post which Ophelia had re-posted
No. It was not a private post. It was a tweet. I didn’t re-post it; I did a screen grab of it and posted that, on a page where I document a tiny sample of the harassment I get. The tweet was about me, obviously. Katie Graham (the tweeter in question) made her Twitter account private long after that.
7) even after the woman told her it endangered her life by exposing her private information
No. The tweet exposed no private information at all, and Graham was commenting here as Graham (while the name on her tweet was just some random initials). Graham’s comment here itself gave private information that the tweet did not expose. The tweet exposed nothing.
8) to her mentally ill and armed ex-husband
No. She mentioned her mentally ill mother, and then mentioned a gun. She didn’t say her mother was armed.
9) and begged her to remove it
No. She peremptorily asked if I was going to remove it, now that she had made her account private (which I, not surprisingly, hadn’t known).
10) Nope, said Ophelia, not taking it down. That’s the revenge for “talking shit”.
No. It wasn’t revenge. I didn’t like being more or less ordered to remove the tweet in this way, and she gave no explanation whatever of how the tweet could have anything to do with her mother or anyone else finding her or harming her, and I could see for myself that it contained no information about her at all – not her name, not her location, nothing.
11) Fortunately Ophelia was shamed into removing it the next day, but what damage was already done?
No. I was not shamed. After a short exchange she apologized for being so peremptory and explained that having made her account private she simply wanted to see that tweet gone. Fine; I took it down. No damage whatsoever was done. The tweet contained no information about her at all.
11 lies in two paragraphs. That’s an impressive count.
I emailed Nugent to tell him about the comment full of lies. So far he’s done nothing about it.
Update: He did remove it not long after I posted this.
Lying about you is totally civil, isn’t it? You complaining about people lying is the only thing uncivil in this situation. Also, up is down, war is peace, and I’m really tall and extremely rich.
I don’t understand how they think their lies won’t be found out.
Then again, I don’t understand why anyone would want to spread vicious lies about someone else either. Does it make them happy and proud to be such dishonest asshats? Do they think they’ll win some sort of prize for being the worst possible people?
Slimers work hard to live up to their name.
Joe,
You too? 😉
We have so much in common .
Start with a base of false equivalence – the Slymepit’s first commandment is, of course, to commit it at every opportunity – and then toss some of the rankest of blatant scumbag dishonesty on top.
These people have left reality far behind.
Looks like it was too much truth for Mike’s blog as your comment has been deleted, all comments references your’s have also been deleted as has the trackback to this post.
I guess rebutting his lies was just too much for his readers to take.
1) You replied to a different email address than the one Skeptickle usually posts here with. She hasn’t used the one you emailed for on this blog for approximately a year. Why did you reply to her with that email address rather than the one she currently uses to post here?
2) You began to slowly trickle out personal information about her which she herself had not revealed. You used her first name and you began dropping hints about where she could be found. Knowing her first name and the fact that she’s on the board of an atheist organisation was information YOU had revealed about her and would make it easier for someone to find out her real name and roughly where she lives.
He took down the comment full of lies though, so that’s good.
On the other hand it’s infuriating that he says “I am happy to have people commenting here pseudonymously.” If after all this time and all these comments full of smears he can’t see what’s wrong with that………….
Oy.
The comment has been deleted by Michael Nugent sometime before 15:37 BST, 29 May 2013.
@ 6 – What?? Who are you? “Skep tickle” under another nym?
Michael Nugent has removed the post. Maybe he will have doubts about his rift-healing exercise now.
Ah yes, the other email address. I had to look it up to check. (How would you know that? Does “Skep tickle” confide these things in you? Has she been pouring it all out on the slime pit?)
I didn’t use that email address because it’s a string of gibberish followed by what looks like a joke email account – in other words, a fake. Lots of commenters use fake email addresses. I figured it would be wasted effort to use that one so I looked to see if she’d used another one. That’s why.
Why do you ask? Is that supposed to be another crime? What bullshit. “Skep tickle” dropped in here to accuse me of being crazy. What does it matter which of her email addresses I used?
Bernard – no. Nugent will have no doubts about his exercise. He’s removed comments before, when they were reported to him as lies. That never caused him to have any doubts about his exercise. He just said he’s happy to let people comment using nyms – despite the presence of many hundreds of nym posts full of smears and insults and contemptuous nicknames and similar garbage.
When the truth isn’t on your side, what’s left? Lies are tasty but not very filling.
Joanne York – I did not drop hints about where she could be found. That’s a lie. There are plenty of places where you can tell lies about me, as I’m sure you know. This isn’t one of them.
I used her first name, yes, a generic name. Big woop. A generic first name is a lousy way to find someone.
And what is the problem anyway? It’s not her atheism – she doesn’t hide that. So what is the problem? She doesn’t want people to know she hangs out at the slime pit? And you expect me to honor that want? Seriously?
Interesting how when Skep Tickle says that she would be in danger, it’s accepted without question. No “produce the police report or it didn’t happen,” no “threats are illegal, so if your mother has threatened you, press charges, what’s the problem?” Nope, all that hyperskepticism goes out the window when there’s a club handy to try to beat Ophelia with.
(And just so I’m clear — I’m fine with accepting her concerns as legitimate. I just wish the ‘pitters were consistent.)
Will “Joanne York” inform us why “Skep Tickle” lied about why she needs anonymity? Afterall the reason given was that it will hurt her to be out in the community because of her job… Clearly bullshit given she *is* out in the community already, apparently even being on TV as an atheist activist! If true then it seems that anonymity is required for the activity at the Slymepit and nothing else?
@Joanne York
Skep Tickle/skeptixx had already used the name “Eliza” on a public comment. See comment 76 here:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2012/09/21/i-object/
And comment 13 here:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2012/10/08/thats-fucking-effective-bitch-to-you/
to show that Eliza is skeptixx.
screechymonkey wrote:
Oh, you silly thing – you know the rules that the ‘pitters apply to other people don’t apply to them!
Ophelia and Oolon – wait a minute here. You don’t get to decide what personal information you leak about someone; they do. If Skep Tickle wants to reveal her first name, or her last name, or where she works, or what board she’s on, then that’s up to HER, not you.
“I used her first name, yes, a generic name. Big woop. A generic first name is a lousy way to find someone.”
Why is the word “generic” in these sentences? YOU dropped her name. That’s Doxxing. So, you only dropped 50% of her name. Big woop, eh? I’m sure that knowing her first name, and the fact that she’s on the board of an atheist organisation and has made TV appearances (thanks, Oolon), the job of stalking her has suddenly got a lot easier, and YOU made it easier.
Isn’t this what you pulled Justicar up on? The fact that he highlighted Jen’s tweet and pointed out she had left a trail of breadcrumbs for a stalker? Why don’t you see that in this instance it’s you who are dropping the breadcrumbs. Stop it.
If she presents herself as Skep Tickle then that’s how you should refer to her unless she gives permission for you to call her anything else. If she uses Jane Doe then that’s her you refer to her.
#6
What’s wrong? You worried that the treatment you dish out at the Pit might be returned to the Pitters? Ophelia, Steph, Amy, Jen, Rebecca etc. use their real names and are being harassed, lied about and threatened. The Slime has no problem with that. So what’s with the double standard? Skeptickle is out as an atheist in her community. She’s only protecting her identity so that she can join in the bullying of feminists online with impunity. Isn’t she supposed to get “thicker skin” and “listen to criticism” or just plain stay offline if she doesn’t want to be treated to the same shit show she enjoys treating others to? What happened? Why isn’t that advice good for your friends when it’s been considered fine for the people they like to bully?
The thing is, I don’t think she should have to put up with that nonsense any more than the Ophelia and the other previously folks mentioned should have to. No one should sling slurs at her, lie about her, or photoshop her into porn or onto farm animals. No one should body shame her, laugh at the thought of kicking her in the genitals or tell her to kill herself . The thing is, that behavior is not coming from this side of the rift. There is no reason at all for the person who came here to declare a woman with every reason to be concerned about the harassment she’s received “paranoid” to be worried that she’ll be treated to the same mistreatment.
On a personal level – thank you, Ophelia, for allowing my comments through moderation.
Oops, I missed this:
Ophelia wrote:
“I did not drop hints about where she could be found. That’s a lie”
A lie? Really? Could you not have said “You are mistaken”? You are accusing me of intentionally make a false statement. For reasons I’ve outlined, I don’t believe I did intentionally lie. You were the one who revealed that she’s on “an atheist board under her own name”. That’s dropping hints.
Tell that to Skep Tickle’s buddies at the pit who doxxed me in precisely the way you’re whining about.
If you are a friend of the pit, Joanne, you can take this load of fucking shit and jam it where the sun don’t fucking shine.
If you’re actually some newb who doesn’t know what the fuck is actually going on here, then shut your pie-hole. You’re out of your element.
Anthony K, if you were doxxed by the Pit in “precisely” the same way then you either:
1) Think what the ‘Pitters did was wrong, and therefore as Skept Tickle is being doxxed in “precisely the same way” that you were you should be on my side in this discussion
or
2) You think it’s fine that Skep Tickle is being doxxed in this way which means you’re therefore fine with the way you were doxxed.
Which is it? Oh, and telling me to “shut up” is very compassionate of you.
@Jackie #20
Two wrongs don’t make a right. I’m sick and tired of the Pit and the FTB/Skepchick/A+ crowd all arguing that “Well they did it so why can’t we?”
Two wrongs don’t make a right. People should call out bad behaviour REGARDLESS of which “side” is doing it.
Joanne, she posted under her first name here some time ago. She then connected her name with her nyms. The links were provided. Were we all supposed to forget that? She made a choice. If that is doxxing, she doxxed herself.
Yeah, from the information she voluntarily shared it took me 5 sec to find her on Google from the words “Eliza” and “atheist”. (Just looked it up now. Never cared to before.) That’s only because she isn’t trying to hide her atheism. She’s openly active in her community. So, she’s caught in yet another lie.
That info has been public for a while now. Has anyone bothered her? Was she concerned before now? Did she ever contact the bloggers where she posted that info and ask them to remove that info after she shared it? Doesn’t seem so. It seems like she’s doing the usual dishonest Pit song and dance to whip up hate directed at people who are actually being harassed.
I said ‘precisely the same way in which you’re whining’ about. Not ‘precisely the same way’ as in the fact that Skep Tickle hasn’t been fucking doxxed by Ophelia whatsoever.
Skep Tickle is a sleazy fucking liar who uses her pseudonym to carry on the pit’s work of harassing Ophelia and other FtB bloggers Noting that she also is an influential board member of an atheist organisation speaks to the fack that she is not in fact semi-anonymous due to her atheism.
I don’t give a flying fuck as to whether or not you think I’m compassionate. I don’t know who you are (thought I suspect you’re just another sockpuppeting slymepitter), but it’ll take a lot more than some false equivalencies and hand-wringing to convince me you’re someone who’s ethical compass isn’t smashed all to ratshit and back.
If you are a denizen of the pit, then you’re a piece of shit, and I’ll stand towering in ethicality over you or any one of your ‘cunt’-screaming, lying, doxxing, harassing, threat-making pals.
Ms York: Turn it around. You’re complaining here; if you think what was done was wrong, did you raise a stink in the slymepit? Or if you think it was OK, what are you complaining about here?
Interesting: (from Nugent’s blog):
So someone apparently created a sock puppet with a phony e-mail address to post that pack of lies.
It’s one thing to use a pseudonym (he said self consciously…) lots of us do. Sock puppets and fake e-mails are a whole other level of dishonesty.
Joanne, I didn’t suggest that at all. I pointed out the hypocrisy of the pit AND I pointed out that the only people participating in harassment and support of harassment are over there in your camp.
There is no second wrong to compare to the first. She wasn’t doxxed. She hasn’t been harassed. The only bad behavior there is to point out are her lies and yours.
Maybe that’s what they say at the pit, but on this side the argument is actually more “those fucking liars need to be called out on the fact that they engage in the very same behaviour they scream blue murder about.”
I haven’t doxxed anybody. PZ hasn’t doxxed anybody. Ophelia hasn’t doxxed anybody. (Just ask Mykeru, who wants her to dox Skep Tickle so he can unload another can of harassment and threats against her.)
So fuck you and your ‘both sides do it’, asshole.
I don’t get the slimepitters at all. The one who left the long list of lies about you at Nugent’s is especially deranged: “These people are vile, dangerous to woman and dangerous to marginalized men and dangerous to the atheist community.” What a bunch of outrageous crap! They really think they are entitled to say the nastiest shit about you from the confines of anonymity? No way. They are abusing their anonymity, and that is the only reason it would be in any way dangerous for them to have their real names known, and that goes very single one of them. I can only think of a handful who are truly anonymous. The rest dance around the Internet using their real name: Katie, Eliza, _____X, etc. Plenty of other slimepitters always use their real names.
If you have kids and you think they’d be in danger because of the nasty shit you say to and about other atheists, then stop saying nasty shit about others (and don’t make YouTube videos where you can be easily recognized by people who know you offline). If you have an ex-husband who tends to be violent, that doesn’t mean you can run roughshod over other women online and not have to face any consequences or reaction (and by the way, the liar got it all wrong anyway–it is not an ex-husband that person was trying to hide from).
Damn, this all reminds me of how when the slimepit started, there was this absolutely vile person going by the name “forced to be anonymous”. Forced by whom? Was someone holding a gun to his head? Obviously not. He just wanted to say nasty shit to others and not suffer any consequences. “No way am I telling you my name” is no better and just as outrageous. They want the freedom to sling shit at others without their enemies being able to confront them. It’s totally morally objectionable. It’s uncivil to the core. It’s not something atheists should condone or allow.
What’s with the sudden urgency of not using Eliza’s name? If she had a problem with it being used then she should have said something a long time ago to Stephanie Xvan or Ophelia Benson.
And besides, what is the big deal with being associated with the Slymepit? It’s not like there’s anything BAD going on there, right? It’s not like it’s anything to hide, right?
PZ – I’ll state this publicly: doxxing it not ok whoever’s doing it. It’s [u]not[/u] okay when the Slymepit does it and it’s not ok when anyone else does it.
And I like your suggestion of turning it around and viewing it from a different point of view. I wish we’d all do this more.
Slimy lies and sock puppetry. They go together like PB&J, don’t they?
The hypocrites who claim Ophelia manufactures outrage by documenting her harassment are actively manicuring outrage.
I’d laugh, but a joke is only funny the first few times you hear it. This act has gotten stale fast.
Since Joanne here obviously isn’t interested in following links, I’ll copy from Paul Durrant’s links in 17:
Is sharing Skep Tickle’s address covered under your comment “You don’t get to decide what personal information you leak about someone; they do.” She clearly said it was okay.
I think its threatening to dox people when they are using a nym as was done with Anthony K and myself on the Slymepit. Its an implicit threat, we know who you are…. When Eliza is using her anonymity to harass people why should she be given any lee-way? Anthony and I were dox’d when arguing with people on the Slymepit whose only recourse is apparently to threaten back. Neither of us are obsessed with any individuals nor making the lives of any individuals in the community unpleasant through online attack. If anyone thinks differently let me know and I’ll happily ignore anyone on the other “side”.
I see Eliza joining in a harassment campaign, not arguing, and the damage done to her reputation will not come from being outed as an atheist but outed as a member of a very unpleasant forum that engages in cyber stalking and harassment. When the damage done is from your own actions then where is the issue? I guess only in the blow back from the assholes at the Slymepit who will aim to dox people this “side” with actual issues of discrimination should their real names come out. So I guess no one will dox her…
Funny, this “Joanne York” who knows so much about all this yet has never been heard from before. Uh huh.
Wow, so I’m a liar and an asshole now. How’s the “We believe in compassion” tenet going for you guys?
I’ve already explained that I have not intentionally made a false statement. I’ve even provided my reasons for why I believe what I do. Don’t call me a liar for that.
And Anthony, why am I an asshole? I like to believe I’m a decent person. Am I an “asshole” because I happen to disagree with you?
Please drop the abuse and name calling. Let’s discuss things like rational, decent human beings shall we?
Joanne, are you going to apologize for suggesting that Ophelia doxxed Eliza yet? That has been shown to be untrue. You may have been mistaken before, but continuing to make the claim after it is shown to be false is what we call a “lie”. You aren’t going to keep perpetrating this lie, are you? That wouldn’t be very civil.
“Everybody I don’t like is a cunt! And I’ll dox whoever I want because I know bigfoot and god don’t exist, so therefore I’m smarter than everyone (including all of the mean kids who shoved me in lockers in high school). Also, everyone I don’t like is Nazis!”
There. Anything else I should be gleaning from my time understanding the pit, or can I take Mykeru’s icepick out of my eye socket now?
@Anthony K, haha yes I remember Skeptixx/Tickle/Eliza turning up triumphantly at the pit crowing about how she was banned from the A+ forum after trolling it… What a star of the atheist movement! She could team up with Justin “Wonderboy” Vacula to make the perfect theist fighting duo.
Not true. We all get to decide that for ourselves.
She did, numskull. She’s done lots of online work under her real first name, “Eliza”. She’s commented under that name. The board she is on lists her under her real name. It’s not some big secret.
Hahahaha! We don’t want to stalk her. We want to know who to avoid and, for the targets of Eliza’s assholery, to know who is making the false allegations against us.
Stop saying nasty shit about us and we won’t have any reason to find out who you people are.
If only the slimepit played fair like that. They don’t. They abuse their anonymity.
I have the utmost compassion for the people whose lives you may destroy with your assholery and lies.
Joanne York why should we discuss things like rational, decent human beings with you? Who are you? Why are you injecting yourself into this discussion out of nowhere? Why should we take you seriously? What business is this of yours? How did you know so much about “Skep tickle”‘s email addresses? In fact how did you know anything about them? I asked you that before. You pretty obviously are “Skep tickle.”
You’re a piece of work, you are. I certainly understand why you don’t want friends and colleagues and others you come in contact with to know what your hobby is. What I don’t understand is how you can stand it yourself.
I disagree with that. Your opinion on the matter is not the only one. Besides, revealing the name of an anonymous or pseudonymous asshole is *not* doxxing! FFS.
Sly, passive aggressive smears? That’s not how “rational, decent human beings” discuss things.
Joanne, be honest: you are a member of the Pit, aren’t you?
No Joanne, you’re an asshole because you aren’t arguing in good faith. You’re a liar because you are making misrepresenting this situation and the things I wrote.
But, she did refer to herself by her name and linked her name to her nym. She then offered her addy and issued an invitation which she never withdrew. All your fuss and bluster is being done in complete denial of the facts…which reminds me alot of Eliza’s behavior.
Throwawy @45,
Here, here!
Oops. Mentally delete “making” from that post, please.
Joanne, it is not compassionate to enable or ignore bad behavior, especially when it does damage to other people.
Joanne York goes quiet suddenly. Perhaps she’s wishing she hadn’t written the first para of comment # 6, which certainly is a ludicrous thing to say as “Joanne York.”
@Ophelia Benson #52,
That’s a Wally Smith level mistake. 😀 “I agree with Polly-O!”, said Polly-O.
Joanne York (probably sock)
How’s the “We believe in compassion” tenet going for you guys?
Being compassionate involves denouncing the lies of malicious pitters. Oh, you want more compassion for the harassers, at the expense of their victims?
Everyone likes to believe they are a decent person. Even the assholes, like you.
Rational, decent human beings don’t focus purely on tone of comments when discussing the merit of their content. They also don’t make false accusations of doxxing and defend slimey harassers.
***
To be even more clear, she commented under the nym Eliza, and then signed the comment with “Skep tickle (aka skeptixx)”.
Yup I think Joanne/SkepTickle/Tixx/Eliza has been caught in somewhat of a lie…. *crickets* …. How about trying the truth for once?
Joanne York, have you had a chance to talk with Mykeru? He really does want Skep Tickle to be doxxed by Ophelia, solely for the revenge opportunity it will give him.
Do you agree with him? If not, are you calling him out on that?
@Skep tickle #6,
Why don’t you give up your sockpuppeting and argue honestly? What an asshole.
I don’t see the connection in the two comments linked to above. I see they both use the same avatar, but that’s not very compelling. One comment is by Eliza but does not mention skep tickle/skeptixx, and the other is by skep tickle/skeptixx, but does not mention Eliza.
Another thing, what business is it of yours, Joanne, if we do share details about people who are talking smack about us? None of your business, that’s what. So butt out!
And since she decided to do so herself I fail to see the problem.
Presumably “generic” because there are probably hundreds of thousands of “Eliza”s on the internet. And no, that is not doxxing. “Dox”, of course, is a corruption of “docs” meaning “documents.” Ophelia hasn’t released any documents pertaining to the identity of Skep Tickle. She used Skep Tickle’s (relatively common) first name — something which Skep Tickle herself has done.
Perhaps if you could admit that much you would not be called a liar and an asshole. I suspect you’re earning those epithets by failing to engage with the arguments that are being made against your claims.
Sure, in the same sense that publishing Jen’s personal information made it easier to stalk her. But then again Ophelia already has 100% of her name out in the open despite being harassed by the likes of you so I’m finding it hard to summon up any crocodile tears for poor “Eliza”.
No, see when Justicar started giving out personal details about Jen 100% of her name was already public. Justicar added to that details that would help to physically locate Jen which is a great deal more serious and intimidating than using someone’s first name (which they had already freely used themselves). Any fool could see the difference. So what does that make you?
But Ophelia gets called “Pruney” etc…hmmm…maybe you should be making this lecture over at the Slyme Pit. It would certainly help your credibility here to hold them to the same standards.
Truth doesn’t matter when your life is devoted to hating other people.
Also Jen had quite publicly withdrawn from the whole mess, and pretty much from blogging altogether. For Justicar to do what he did was completely out of the blue. On the other hand we have skep tickle actively taking part in the trash talking, including in the comments on Ophelia’s posts.
So no, no comparison at all between Ophelia responding to a troll and Justicar creeepily going after someone who has already been bullied into silence…
Just remember that sharing details privately would constitute locker-room gossip and sekrit blacklisting… *rolleyes*
Oh don’t worry, he’s doing that anyway. He’s been filthing up my timeline with incoherent babble making nonsensical claims about Ophelia’s completely made-up doxxing behaviour. When I pointed out that his allegations weren’t true (and that he was perfectly aware of this), he spun on a dime and started pretending he was referring to other, non-specific and unmentioned doxxings he claims Ophelia has done.
Every part of everything he’s said is so transparently dishonest.
Doxxing accusations seem to the the slymes’ method of the moment. Ivonoff used the same tactic on me yesterday. First he sent dozens of deeply abusive, creepy tweets for no reason other than I agree with some people he doesn’t like. Then I mentioned his name, WHICH EVERYONE KNOWS, and he spent the remainder of the day alternating between similar random abusive tweets and screaming that I doxxed him.
These people have a very skewed idea of what decent, proper, ordinary and non-fucked-up behaviour is.
I can see now why someone like Skep Tickle would not want to have their public life tied to their strange online fascinations.
Joanne York, you need to answer my question if you want to comment again.
Don’t get all huffy about not being taken at face value. That’s ridiculous. This is the internet. You’re not here in person, radiating goodness. I get lots of trolls and sock puppets. You’re just a name. We have no particular reason to take you at your word, and quite a few reasons not to.
Explain how you know all about “Skep tickle”‘s email addresses if you want to comment again.
Does anyone else get the impression that the post was written by Tim Skellett / Gurdur? It’s written in his pompous and didactic style.
May 29, 2013 at 8:54 am (UTC -7)
Wow, so I’m a liar and an asshole now. How’s the “We believe in compassion” tenet going for you guys?
Joanne, I don’t believe in compassion, I believe in getting even and then some.
@throwaway, she followed up on that promise to take it up with PZ –>
http://atheiststoday.com/blogs/reapercussions/?p=93
I remember reading this some time back and wondering why she was stoking Reaps fire for the object of his
affectionobsession PZ!*facepalm* LOL, not “manicuring”, “manufacturing”. Wow…I CAN TYPING!
Oh, yuk.
I read that at the time, I think.
The same bullshit as here – photoshops and the like=free speech blar blar.
Oolon, her account of the speech and the Q&A with PZ in Seattle sounds about as honest as her other claims.
I also noticed her avatar on Reap’s blog.
She’s taking hiding in plain sight to a whole new level.
Sorry, Ophelia, I caught this before the moderation and had to respond. Feel free to wipe it if you feel the need.
Joanne:
Jen didn’t go to Justicar and call him a delusional, paranoid person who needed help. Jen didn’t bring up their supposed position to lend weight to the claim that they “truly care” about Justicar’s mental state and that they had an insight into that mental state. Jen had NO interaction with Justicar. Justicar did it simply to be ‘correct’ about Jen feigning her fear of reprisal from the hate-squad.
That’s a big difference and a major problem with your analogy. Wherefore is your indictment of Justicar? Where is the analogy of Jen approaching Justicar, citing her position, about his obsessive tendencies? Are you green-lighting what Justicar did, out of the blue, and then applying the same standard for what happened between Ophelia and Skep Tickle? Ridiculous.
But if you don’t have a problem with Justicar ‘doxing’ Jen and think Justicar was unfairly put upon for doing so, then your only purpose is to point out hypocrisy of standards of behavior, not that those standards of behavior actually mean anything to you… On my moral scale that would indicate you’re prioritizing the wrong thing and your claim of ‘harm’ via associating an online nym with a real person, intensional or as a by-product of conversation, falls flat as an indictment since you won’t apply the same standard to Justicar’s actions. And if you DO apply those same standards, then tell him. But don’t bullshit us as if you’re some paragon of righteousness when you cop to siding with Justicar’s heinous actions.
Does anyone else think its funny that the harassment policy Skep Tickle presumably signed up to, or even had a hand in writing says this … (Paraphrased to avoid doxxing, Google won’t find it from these phrases!)
Anyone suspecting a member of doing this needs to report it to Skep Tickle or another member of the board! They may be excluded from the group for their behaviour. 😀
Ophelia I know about the email address you used too. Didn’t you think using an address other than the one used to register/comment here would be noticed? Why would you use a different addy and wherever did you get another? The truth always wins Ophelia and you are not being completely honest about things are you? For shame, it’s no wonder you are mentioned so often in places you don’t want to be. Ever wonder if maybe you bring such things upon yourself by telling lies and such? Could be.
The remit for that behaviour is also covered in their online section. Hence facebook/forums/etc are out of bounds for those behaviours.
I’m starting to see the real reason doxxing is such an inconvenience for her.
^^ Jerk.
@ 75 – I said exactly why I used a different email. Try to keep up.
No, I’m not telling lies.
I didn’t use an email address other than the one used to register/comment here, I used one that was used to comment here in the past.
And what do you mean “would be noticed”? By whom? The world at large doesn’t know what email address I used to email “Skep tickle”! Nobody knows except “Skep tickle”…and anyone she told. I don’t assume she bothered to tell anyone what email address I used. It didn’t occur to me that it was significant until this ludicrous “Joanne” person showed up to make a stink about it.
You slimers have yourselves so worked up you’ll believe anything. You’re fucking nuts. I’m not the most evil person in the universe. There actually are people who do more harm in the world than I do. I’m not actually worth harassers’ 24/7 attention. I’m not a murderer, I don’t torture people, I’m not trying to hand “Skep tickle” over to the Gestapo. Get a fucking grip.
Throwaway, there is another difference here. Skeptickle outed herself and issued her invitation on FTBs. Jen did not go to the Pit or to Justicar and volunteer her info. She posted a photo. He found it and took it from there. “Joanne’s” conflation of the two completely different situations is more dishonesty. She’s grasping at straws.
sc_7fcd816dc7d5c9e72c65516e9f1f590e,
Lies, approval of harassment and non sequiturs. Yeah, you’re not making yourself look like a complete tool.
..and how dare you project your shame onto another? Ophelia has nothing at all to be ashamed of, you victim blaming, lying, jerk.
My mistake, you are correct Anthony. The same avatar thing is what threw me off.
***
Am I missing something? What the fuck does it matter which email address Ophelia used? If you are going to imagufacture shit to harass Ophelia with, you could at least make up some offense that is actually worth caring about. Stupid and lazy, these asshole are. Their incompetence would be laughable, if they weren’t such skeevy shitbag harassers.
@sc_7fcd816dc7d5c9e72c65516e9f1f590e, you are a dipshit as well as an anonymous coward. Joanne/SkepTickle already pointed out the email was used on here to comment over a year ago. Do you think the info gets deleted? No its there for the blogger to lookup… Including your IP address for further sock puppeting attempts.
Your attempt to turn your own inability to read and understand into a justification for continued harassment is disgusting and Slymey. I wouldn’t expect any less.
Oh, I forgot to say that the commenter with all the letters and numbers is Reap Paden.
Hmm surprisingly coherent and grammatically correct for Reap, although not enough text to make the absence of paragraphs noticeable. I suppose the complete lack of reading comprehension skills might have been a giveaway, but then who in the Slymepit wouldn’t that fit?
No. I can’t either. What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with people commenting pseudonymously? People commenting hate speach, lies and smears is wrong, but it has nothing to do with pseudonymity or online anonymity. For all those who aren’t public figures, online anonymity and using pseudonyms is basic internet hygiene.
The man who doxxed me under the claim of holding people accountable for their actions by revealing their real names?
Reap Paden is so fucking forgettable, the fucking dunce doesn’t even remember what he himself writes.
So, I think you should totally turn it around…
You don’t want to be doxxed? Stop saying shit. Ophelia is a bad-assed reputation destroyer. She’ll doxx you at the drop of a hat.
Be afraid of Ophelia. Be very afraid.
Fear’s the only thing these cretins understand.
@ 85 – what’s wrong with it is that most or perhaps all of them are full of smears and falsehoods. He put no conditions on his happiness to have them. That surely ought to be clear from the context of this thread as a whole.
From the comment o’ lies:
What the fuck is with sockpuppets trying to play “newly-enlightened impartial observer”? Do they really think it fools anyone?
Reap and Eliza are packing some weapons grade projection. Creepy stuff.
Jackie @ 70
On “manicuring”; I actually liked that image of these vain posers lovingly shaping and painting and buffing and polishing their outrage…rather a good description of what they do I thought.
Here’s Reap Paden’s real view of ‘doxxing’:
Read that, Skep Tickle? If you get ‘doxxed’, it’s your own damn fault, says Reap Paden.
There you go. You’re bringing it on yourself, according to one of your besties.
Now, I of course don’t agree with the above. But your side obviously does, Skep Tickle. So, don’t blame us. You don’t like being doxxed? Get off the internet. Like your besties keep telling Ophelia.
Someone makes a good point on Pharyngula about the inaccuracy in doxxing, people reading this should not go off looking for Eliza’s to stomp on. Definitely do not dox as it could well be wrong. Will make us as bad as the Slymepit. I found out there is another James in IT when I annoyed the pittizens a little, specifically Mykeru who posted pics of “me”. Unfortunately for my co-James he was deemed to be a geek/nerd or somehow risible. I hope he never stumbles on the pit and wonders why so many “rational skeptics” decided to be nasty about his appearance.
@Anthony K, yeah I was surprised at Reap getting away with that with no comment from the pittizens. When I was “doxxed**” the “mod” Lsuoma made a show of deleting the comment with the info in at least. Although he never deleted the many comments that replied to it and had the same info in!
** Not really doxxed as I’ve got an “About Me” on my blog, but they clearly didn’t know that. Mykeru getting the wrong James is all the more amusing given I had already posted all the info on where I lived!
. .. are you sure? That post has complete sentences and doesn’t contain a single “BITCH!” or “CUNT!”. Can’t be reap, there was only obvious lies, but no unhinged bigotry.
It’s a forum dedicated to celebrating the fact that they know how to spell the word ‘cunt’ (or scream it, in the case of Reap Paden). I mean, what do you expect with such a low bar for admission?
Oolon, who here is looking for her to stomp on? I think I said clearly above that she doesn’t deserve to be treated like the Slimers treat people. That is no way to treat anyone. I looked her up to see if I could. I could and…yeah that’s her. She put her photo next to her nym.
@Anthony K, well if you want more of a laugh about the genius known as Mykeru / Michael Cortese … I apparently just doxxed him on Twitter by uttering that terrible name despite….
1. Him being “doxxed” in 2005 so that name-nym link was established ages ago
2. Greg Laden recently repeated it
…. Drum Roll …
3. He put his own name at the bottom of his blog posts and calls that doxxing!
Seriously, I shit you not! The amazing stealth dox of this man of mystery was accomplished by reading his blog and seeing who copyrighted the content… LOL
http://www.mykeru.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/spatulaindex.html
Now maybe I’m not web-fu enough but it seems pretty clear you have no expectation of privacy if you put your own fucking name on your blog! Who is the professional victim here? Seems Mykeru has been dining off this “right wing gun nuts doxxed me in 2005” story for years.
wait, seriously? you used someone’s meatspace name somewhere where they post pseudonymously?
Not cool. Not even if their name is John Smith. :-/
Well, that pretty much takes care of the accusation of “doxxing”. Still:
There are fucktonnes of good reasons someone might want to go pseudonymous after originally not caring about it. Granted, this is a dumbass way to go about it, but still: it should be basic internet courtesy not to refer to pseudonymous posters by meatspace name. I expect the same courtesy, no matter how ridiculously easy it is for people to connect my handle to my meatspace name; and I don’t even do it for safety reasons.
Jadehawk@99:
Are you currently engaged in a sustained campaign of harassment and intimidation?
That might have come across as too snarky. I’d be really curious to read your opinion on the “ViolentAcrez” outing if you’d care to speak to that, Jadehawk. It’s what got me thinking about this stuff in the first place and I had a lot of trouble summoning up any sympathy for ViolentAcrez himself. However, it is an ethically difficult situation and I’d love to read your take on that given your tendency towards clear thinking/writing and your strong opinion on this matter.
I really don’t think that is right. That’s making too big a deal out of something that is in this instance trivial. The context is important in these cases just as much as it is in any other interaction. It’s more like using someone’s full name when you’re angry at them for bad behavior.
I look at this whole thing as an issue of netiquette. If you are behaving badly on someone’s blog, then you can kiss your anonymity goodbye. Of course there could be circumstances where using someone’s name, even if they already used it publicly themselves as she has, could result in real harm to the person, but this is not one of those times. There is no reason to be the slightest bit concerned over using her first name here. None.
I don’t understand why it is supposed to be obvious that “Eliza” is someone’s real name when they are using it next to an avatar of Audrey Hepburn playing Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. If someone goes by the name “Mary” next to an avatar of Julie Andrews playing Mary Poppins, how likely is it that that person’s real name is Mary?
Is this what the atheist movement has come to?
Reminds me of that old Bill Cosby bit where his kids are yelling at each other “You stop touching me!” “No you stop touching me!!”
Doesn’t matter who started it or who is/was the worst, perpetuating it doesn’t help resolve anything.
Seriously – can we get back to, like, skepticism and atheism?
As someone whose identity is in the open, and so doesn’t have to think much on these matters, can someone enlighten me as to what the current orthodoxy is regarding doxxing?
I always thought the virtue and vice of the internet is that it never forgets. Once your identity is outed and a link between nym and name forged, surely that’s the end of the story?
Of course, the elephantine memory of the net seems to be something that many netizens have trouble getting a grasp on. So do folks like Skep Tickle believe that there’s a statute of limitations on old posts? Or that somehow postings dissipate over time, getting corrupted and lost in a sea of data?
How is something that is done expected to be undone once imprinted indelibly on the web? How can it be doxxing a name/nym combo if someone has already been doxxed?
Yes, I met Skep Ickle in Seattle. She didn’t introduce herself by that pseudonym, but by her real name. I don’t think other members of the group know her by her freaky pathological role on the slymepit. She also talked to me about the slymepit. Two notable things: she always referred to “them” in the third person, avoiding coming out as an active participant; and her only argument was the familiar one of false equivalence: “slymepit ain’t any different than Pharyngula.”
I was unimpressed. She claims I was mad. Wrong…just bored with her, and preferring to talk to people who had interesting things to say.
some people probably think I am.
the dude who extensively moderated and contributed to most of reddit’s toxic gutter, in many cases violating people’s privacy, with no sign of ever stopping?
Yeah, at some point someone’s behavior becomes so toxic and dangerous, with no signs of ending that behavior on their own/getting them to end it by other means, that outing them becomes a necessity to protect people’s meatspace safety. That is a very extreme scenario though, and should be made as rare as possible. As toxic as the pitters are, and as harmful as they can be cumulatively to people’s mental health, no individual pitter has quite reached violentacrez levels of toxicity. The only pitter/pitter-ally who ever needed to be outed was IIRC hoggle, after he said that he was going to anonymously “sneak up” on ppl he didn’t like and put “something” in their pocket at a conference.
And there’s the other part of that, which like I said has less to do with doxxing and more to do with not contributing to an internet-culture in which other people control your identity: in general, you should refer to ppl online the way they’ve chosen to be referred to. That includes not butchering people’s meatspace names into “funny” or diminutive nicks, and it includes not using their meatspace name where they use an internet handle. It’s the equivalent of addressing someone you barely know by their first name (without prior permission to do so) in meatspace.
@leebimmicombe-wood, Well I think that is completely obvious for ppl like Mykeru and Thunderf00t, their identities are out. If they want to be anonymous they need a new nym, right or wrong they were doxxed years ago. (Or in Mykeru’s case, hardly doxxed at all in regard to his name)
Skep Tickle has not been doxxed but she does use the same avatar and it is trivially easy to see who she really is. But when she has said this would be an issue for her, despite the reason being bull, its not on to out her per se. The question then becomes does her IRL life as a leader in an atheist org and her behaviour joining in harassing people over here justify a dox. There is such a thing as good doxxing, violentacrez for one.
Personally I’d like to see her and the other anonymous cowards at the Slymepit be open. If they are so convinced they are right why hide behind nyms? Of course the paranoia comes out then with stories of “FfTB’ers” stalking people who are open. Personally I see open pitters like John Welch, Michael Kingsford-Gray etc being very vocal critics and having no IRL consequences. Since they have also proposed being open is a morally superior position I expect them to persuade Skep Tickle to come out of the Slyme-closet.
You can add Reap Paden to that list of playing-field levellers.
oh yeah, I should note that this opinion was formed conventiently after the fact, because at the time it was happening I didn’t know shit about it and learned about it only afterwards.
I don’t know what position I would have taken prior to the outing. I guess that would have depended on what I knew about efforts to stop him being a toxic and actively harmful individual with no regard for other people’s privacy, and how likely I thought any of them would have been at actually getting him to stop.
Mind you, I can’t bring myself to feel bad for the dude either, ultimately.
This discussion calls to mind a certain well-worn piece of Biblical wisdom:
“Either how can you say to your brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in your eye, when you yourself behold not the plank that is in your own eye? you hypocrite, cast out first the plank out of your own eye, and then shall you see clearly to pull out the mote that is in your brother’s eye.”
/drive-by snark
/the plank in this case being in the eyes of the ‘pitters. Sad that the discussion atmosphere has become so charged I feel the need to clarify that…
This whole “doxxing” is totally absurd. I tend to make terrible analogies for everything, but this is like some aquaintance of yours showing up at a dinner party wearing a mask and telling all of your guests that you are a terrible person, running out the door, and then getting upset if you tell anyone who they were. You are under no obligation to help maintain anonymity of the person harrassing you in your own space when their identity is known to you. Especially when the only point of the anonymity is so that there are no consequences for being a shithead.
You do not need to shield your harrassers.
This is a completely different standard then outing someone so that harassments and threats can be escalated.
I swear, it’s like these people look around and see what actions generate the most outrage and then get excited when they see their “enemies” doing something that vaguely resembles the action, and try to drum up the same outrage. They only demonstrate their ignorance and amorality.
slymepit ain’t any different than Pharyngula.
Im still trying to figure out whether that was meant as a compliment or an insult – per Vacula the slymepit is this diverse happy place of fun loving people with an evolved sense of humor
Yes, please. PZ already has the warning on his front page:
I fail to see the distinction between threats of violence and harassment. Harassment is, has, and always will be assault. It is, in and of itself, a violent act.
When they light crosses on your law, unhood them.
And if that raises a fuss — tough shit. Stop lighting crosses on people’s lawns.
Frankly, I say no pity, no mercy. Shine a light on the cockroaches and watch them scuttle.
Jadehawk@106:
Thanks. That’s pretty consonant with my take, actually. I was making an exception for Ophelia’s use of Skep Tickle’s first name because it seemed to me more of a “I’m allowing you to pseudonymously smear me because I’ve chosen to take the moral high road” kind of thing rather than a threat but controlling one’s identity online is a great point I hadn’t considered.
This.
I’ve been watching this circus for two years and I only see the violent rhetoric and often unrestrained fury from the ‘pitters growing in intensity. Were I one of the FtB or Skepchick bloggers on the receiving end of this constant daily abuse, I would be honestly concerned for my physical well being. Skep Tickle thought she was being dismissive with her comment about OB’s “paranoia” but, as the saying goes, it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
As far as I’m concerned, “Skep Tickle” is Eliza’s sockpuppet. She uses her real name much of the time (including the comment sections of other skeptical blogs), and yet switches to “Skep Tickle” when she wants to be nasty. If you use two different names in the same field, you have no right to complain if people connect the dots. Doing so isn’t “doxxing”, as the “dox” are already public.
Radical Skepticism!
Actually, if you view the underlying source code for each post, you can see that they are not only using the same image for their avatar, but also the same gravatar code to include the image.
http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/1d2efc5267e36b3fc40ae72aeb39d0c3
Since the gravatar code is a hash of the poster’s e-mail address, it’s a fairly parsimonious conclusion that both posters are the same person.
I suppose it could be argued that one is impersonating the other (the commentator using the nym/name “Eliza” was not signed in at the time, so presumably could have used skeptixx’s e-mail address without permission — although that would require Eliza knowing skeptixx’s e-mail address), but that’s pretty damned strained.
Or, for an even more strained and far-fetched idea, maybe everyone who posts with the same gravatar is secretly multiple people sharing an e-mail account. Anti-parsimony!
It could happen… !!
@117: good point.
Well, damn. That would be my local atheist group. Knowing that a board member is engaging in this behavior makes me feel a lot less positive about actually showing up and looking for some in-person community there.
If I were running an organization that intended to be inclusive and welcoming, I would certainly like to know that a board member was engaging in behavior contrary to the goals of our organization.
*light bulb moment*
Yes, and sock-puppeting is an instant-ban offense on some blogs. No need for Ophelia to ban Eliza “doolittle” Whazzername instantly, though. Ophelia could instead announce that any future posts from Eliza under any of Eliza’s sockpuppet names are forbidden.
Eliza wants to comment, fine, let her do it honestly and openly. Her dishonest puppet identity is an insult to people like me who have one, only one, nym and use it consistently in the whole world. I don’t try to shield my conduct by being one puppet identity sometimes in some places and some other puppet identity some other time in some other place.
I do feel sorry for her, a little. Must suck to be such a creep that you have to invent two or three separate sock pupets just to get one to agree with you.
Oh. Light bulb here too. That is a good point. “Skep tickle” is just a sock puppet.
What are they all in such a rage about, again?
The same thing a toddler gets in a rage about when asked to share one of their abundant collection of toys with someone else. A sense of selfish, petulant entitlement.
Thank you for putting it so clearly. It’s how I feel about it as well. Enforcing some high-minded kind of rule that you can’t out harassers is only enabling the harassers.
That was how I first interpreted their actions, after reading Paul Durrant’s links at #17. Are people really getting faux outraged over you revealing that Skep tickle is sock puppeting?
I can think of one possible legit reason to not draw an explicit linkage between someone’s pseudonym and their IRL identity, even if that person is out as an atheist IRL, and even if they’re using that pseudonym to engage in rather nasty behavior: if that person has revealed *other* justifiably private identity info under the pseudonym, information which ze has chosen not to openly connect with hir IRL identity (e.g. sexuality or gender identity, personal medical information, use of illegal drugs, relationship or professional struggles), then that might significantly raise the bar for linking the IRL name to the pseudonym
I can’t say whether any of this applies to Skep Tickle (as far as I know, it doesn’t, but I haven’t been following her activities very closely), but the small possibility that it does is enough to make me want to rein in my “fuck her, she deserves it for what she’s doing” reaction a little bit. On the other hand, if she *does* actually fear that kind of harm, one might think she could just say so. The fact that she hasn’t does rather make it look rather like the only harm she fears is having people find out what a terrible person she is when she thinks she can get away with it.
@Anne C. Hanna, she has a post she wrote under her own name on a prominent atheist orgs website. However she does say she is not out in her job in that article and would not be comfortable being out…. So I guess the question is would posting another story about her under her own name out her in her job? Well obviously not as she posted one under her own name already! Another calling out her behaviour under her own name would no more “out” her in her job than the one she wrote herself. I suggest Eliza explains in email why she should be allowed to harass under the nym “Skep Tickle” and not her own name. There may be things she has spoken about as “Skep Tickle/Skeptixx” but nothing I’ve seen beyond a lot of harassing behaviour.
Michael seems to have removed this nonsense pretty quickly. I don’t know when it was brought to his attention but it was up for less than 17 hours. May I propose this be noted in the blog, and not only in the comments?
Anna – this is Ophelia’s space. Ophelia can take the ‘high road’ But she Didn’t Force Skep Tickle to come here.
Actually, she would probably pay $.32 for her to NOT come here.
Also, I see one positive thing in this comment addressed by this blog!
Great. Thanks. The money will go to a good use, and the conference will be all the better without your being there. We hope you’ll continue to contribute by sending money and by staying away.
Notice that “Joanne York” has not returned to explain how she knew what email address “Skep tickle” had used to accuse me of being crazy. Gee I wonder why that is.
I wasn’t ‘compassionate’ to her?
Shari @129, of course it’s Ophelia’s space. That means Ophelia gets to look at the possible issue I mentioned and decide what, if anything, she wants to do about it, and if it even applies. I don’t think that means it’s inappropriate for me to mention the issue for her consideration, especially since, as far as I could tell, it hadn’t come up previously. If you look at what I said again, you’ll note that it’s very tentative, full of possibilities and maybes. I’m not making any pronouncements or demands about what Ophelia should do, because she knows more about the situation than I do. I just wanted to make sure this question got looked at, that’s all.
———
Oolon @127, I guess I can sorta see why Skep Tickle might feel that something relatively obscure buried deep in the internal pages of a local atheist group’s site might not really “out” her as an atheist in her workplace, especially since right now the only way I can make her affiliation with that group come up anywhere in the top several dozen search results for her name and location is if I add the word “atheism” to the search. In other words, I have to already know that she’s an atheist in order to easily find the evidence that links her IRL name with her atheism. Given this, I can see why she might think that it would constitute a significant signal boost if her full name and atheist affiliation started to show up on a moderate-traffic blog with international readership.
Of course, right now her full name *isn’t* attached to any of this, so I sincerely doubt that anyone starting only with her IRL name and having no prior knowledge of her atheism is going to be able to connect the dots. So I don’t think she can reasonably argue that anything that’s been revealed so far has already outed her as an atheist to her co-workers any more than she’s already outed herself. But I can also see why she might fear that further revelations might out her, and why she might worry that such revelations are forthcoming now that she’s been put on notice that her sock puppet has been IDed. And, as I mentioned above, there is also the possibility that there are *other* legitimately private things associated with the “Skep Tickle” nym that she hasn’t publicly associated with her IRL name even amongst her local atheist community.
That said, she’s kind of the one who got herself into this situation, by abusing her pseudonymity to shield her participation in an extended harassment campaign, so there’s a limit to how much responsibility her targets have to protect her from the unfortunate side effects that might result when they take action to protect themselves from her harassment. If, for example, a closeted gay man stalked an ex-lover, it wouldn’t be the stalkee’s responsibility to protect the stalker from being outed during the process of getting a restraining order. It seems to me that Skep Tickle’s situation is rather similar. Of course, if she chooses to stop engaging in harassment and apologize for her past behavior, that might change the calculus a bit.
There’s no “kind of” about it. And I have zero such responsibility. How much responsibility has she taken to protect me – hanging out there with my own real name and RL identity – from the possible effects of all the frothing hatred of me at the slime pit? None whatsoever. On the contrary, she’s done her bit to ramp it up.
Please don’t tell me I have any kind of obligation to “Skep tickle”.
Not trying to, Ophelia. In fact, I was intending to communicate the exact opposite. I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear enough. :/
Sorry, Anne. Residual grouchiness, I think!
No worries, Ophelia. I think you’ve got good reason to be grouchy at this point. Sorry you have to deal with all this crap.
Anna, I thought through your above posts. I think the one about what the victim of stalking owes their stalker is a good example of why Ophelia owes no protection regarding ST’s nym.
I’ve been following this mess for awhile – Does Ophelia really have to tread carefully about how she refers to a sockpuppet (never thought that’s a phrase I’d have to use). How should Ophelia be judged for not weighing the backstory for every commentor? What rules is Ophelia supposed to play by in her own backyard? And who gets to make them?
I thought it valuable to respond to your initial comments because I am genuinely curious – Is there an activist expectation Anywhere, which Requires her to stay current on who is semi-out and who is out-out – and protect the not-quite-out – regardless of how insulting, disrespectful, and stalker-ish they are to her?
Shari, I think you and I probably mostly agree. Here’s how I would break down the ethics of a situation like this:
1) In general, we should start from the presumption that people may have a good reason for pseudonymity. Thus pseudonymity should not be breached without good cause.
2) When people behave abusively under a pseudonym, they forfeit this automatic presumption in their favor, and thereby become legitimately subject to naming and shaming by their targets, unless they can present a good reason why naming and shaming would cause them harm inappropriately disproportionate to the harm caused by their own behavior.
3) It is the responsibility of an abusive pseud to make the case for protecting their pseudonymity, not the responsibility of their targets to go search out any possible reason to not expose the pseud. The only responsibility of any person considering exposing an abusive pseud is to take seriously any evidence *presented to them* which gives good reasons to protect the pseud. This does not necessarily translate into a responsibility to actually protect the pseud, as I noted with my stalker example.
To be clear, I would not consider my comments above to constitute good reasons to protect Skep Tickle’s pseudonymity, since they were entirely speculative. If any of the scenarios I described apply to Skep Tickle, it’s on her to say it, not on Ophelia to have to play stupid guessing games about it.
The only reason I said anything at all was that I felt a little uncomfortable with the jump some people seemed to be making from “she’s on the board of an atheist org under her IRL name” to “therefore there’s no possible harm associated with linking her IRL name to her atheist pseudonym”, since it seems to me that there could indeed still be some possible harm, which might be appropriate to remember in other cases. But if the kinds of things I mentioned are what Skep Tickle is actually worried about, then she really oughta just say so. Otherwise she can hardly blame anyone else for suspecting that she’s just afraid her local atheist peers will find out how nasty she is.
Hehe unintentional I know but “abusive pseud” describes so many in the pit it tickled me 🙂
So, seriously, connecting two identities used by the same person on the same network is not doxxing.
In general I’m happy about pseudonymity. I’m pseudonymous and I’m happy about it because it allows me to discuss personal things that I would not like to show up in a google search by a prospective employer such as mental health and sexuality. And actually many of those I DO discuss these issues with know my actual name, be it from mails and even personal contact.
So far nobody complained about this.
Why, because I’m not talking nice using my RL name and harass people using my pseudonym.
Anna, thanks for your response – although I was attempting to make the question more to the group as you’ve been pretty thorough in your responses!. In our house, the phrase ‘what expectation did you set’ gets used A LOT – we found that if we don’t set clear ones, the kids get pretty cranky. It almost feels that when the Doxxing-talk gets started, there is a sense of entitlement that made me wonder what expectations people are trucking around with them with their ‘nyms…
Yeah, shari, now that you put it in those terms, I do wonder what expectations *other* people have. You’ll note that I *don’t* use a pseudonym, which is because my expectation is that a sufficiently determined sleuth could probably penetrate any level of anonymization I’m likely to be able to implement. So I’ve decided to just not say anything I’m not willing to own publicly. But I know that not everyone has that luxury if they want to participate online about these kinds of issues. So maybe others have different expectations.
I see that Anne C Hanna @ 126 has already come up with one potential/speculative reason SkepTickle (or any other pseudonymous serial harasser) might prefer to use a ‘nym for their abusive behavior while being sort of OK with putting their real name to their atheist activities.
I’d like to turn that around for a moment. I don’t think ST is worried about repercussions about her atheist activities.
However, there are some professions which enjoy a HIGH degree of respect and TRUST from the public, practitioners of which are considered authority figures in many ways, and which, consequently also have VERY HIGH standards of ETHICS.
It’s entirely possible that ST would rather not have her campaign of harassment associated with her _professional_ life. IOW, the atheist activities would almost certainly pale in comparison to her published work as SkepTickle/SkepTixx in the eyes of her employer and her professional peers. (which would make the protestations of vulnerability due to their ATHEISM a red herring or smokescreen.)
Now, if that’s the case, and if any of her slymie friends also know her real name and profession, I hope she’s 125% confident that she will NEVER, EVER, EVER do or say anything to turn any of them against her. Because that lot have NO COMPUNCTION about going after their “enemies'” work and/or livelihoods. AFAIK, the only _real_ doxxing that’s been done by anyone identifying as a movement atheist has been done by members of the slimepit or their close allies. Not the sort of people _I_ would trust with my professional reputation and future, that’s for damn sure.