This is a flagrant lie, and I won’t hesitate to call the jerk saying it a liar.
PZ Myers, an atheist blogger who writes on the Freethought Blogs network, recently announced that he will publicly reveal the identity of anyone who leaves comments he does not like on his blog using a pseudonym.
This nonsense is being spread by the usual mythologizing twits on their blogs and forums and twitter. It’s a dishonest distortion of what I actually said in this blog post.
But there are also bad reasons to use a pseudonym on a blog. The very worst? Some people use anonymity to empower their ability to be a shithead. They snipe and sneer, they hide behind fake names, they use multiple sock puppets to generate the illusion that more people support their hatred, and also to prevent people from blocking them — they want to force you to read their venom.
Notice that nowhere do I even mention “comments I don’t like”. What I’m dealing with is a collection of nasty, obsessed characters who have been banned for egregiously bad behavior who insist on coming back under an array of pseudonyms — people who are indistinguishable from Dennis Markuze in their persistence, pointlessness, and repeatedly expressed hatred of me, commenters here, the entirety of the freethoughtblogs network, and often, of those damned feminists.
I’m up every morning between 5:30 and 6, and what’s the first thing I have to do? Comment cleanup. Cleaning out the spam trap. Adding new terms to the filter list to automate catching these twits. It’s people like Mabus (hundreds of pseudonyms, over a decade of harassment), Reap Paden (over 30 pseudonyms used to dump ungrammatical tirades), Piltdown Man (yes, he still trolls by now and then), the latest idiots like Martin Wiesner and “AndyWatson”, and the expected loons who come by with ‘clever’ pseudonyms like “FuckPZ” and pornified versions of my kids’ names.
It has gotten ridiculous, especially now that there’s a whole site full of slymers dedicated to inciting more haters. They don’t dirty their own hands anymore; it’s enough that they can work up foul-mouthed twelve year olds to do their mudflinging for them.
So yes, I’m fed up and I’ll be taking stronger action against these trolls and other assholes. But that does not in any way imply that I’m silencing disagreement…but that’s the message the trolls and assholes want to send out, to foment more harassment.
And here’s what’s incredibly annoying about it, too: I don’t ban that many people, and those that I do kick out, I try to be open about it, listing their names on the Dungeon page. Which leads to the other lie: that I’m unusually censorious. It turns out that being transparent about necessary banning actions, while just about every other goddamn blog out there just invisibly disappears objectionable junk, leads these phonies to make up more lies about policies here.
So I’m also changing something else. The Dungeon is gone. From now on, if you’re a jerk, you just get zapped and disappear forever, with no documentation, just like it’s done on the blogs of the assholes who accuse me of banning people for disagreeing with me.
It’ll save me a little work, too.
I’ve noticed a resurgence of activity by DM. Either he’s reached the end of his probationary period or he’s simplyviolating its terms. I’m not a (real) doctor, but I diagnose some kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
There is an entitlement also in the trolls where they assume all spaces are their spaces and even if they violate the rules, disrupt the normal function of the blog, use IP changers and other ways to duck around bans, and overall spend their time stalking and harassing the commentariat and authors of blogs they disagree with, they cry like wounded animals when the forum rules they just went up and violated are used against them and enforced against them.
They are just so used to a society where people like them (white cis male heterosexual bigots) are entitled to every space and automatic deference when there, that the very notion that their actions have consequences allows them to brew all sorts of bad faith self-justifications for abuse.
Hence the cry of “censorship” and the uses of IP changers to try and “tell their side of the story”.
It’s why I’ve moved on to just blanketly banning trolls first off at my own blog, because I’ve already got enough creepy abusive stalkers with massive boundary issues and a feeling of entitlement to spaces they aren’t wanted in or deserving of. I don’t need more and I certainly don’t need them becoming my dominant commenter.
That works. Generally, transparency is good, however, these pisscakes have been using being listed in the dungeon as a twisted badge of honour, so all it was doing was giving them yet more attention.
The further along this goes, the more the anti-human-rights brigade, the Slympitters and their fellow travelers and sycophants, the WhatAboutTheMenz asshats on parade, look more and more like the cultural and political fundamentalists infesting American politics. The lies, distortions, quote-mining, and, more than anything else, the feigned and manufactured outrage over non-existent slights, makes them sound much like a Faux Newz talking head commentator. So fearful of losing their privileges that they are willing to do, say and write anything to score a point in their twisted little game.
Well, PZ is the Stalinist Feminazi, while they’re only being fair and balanced…
I wonder how many will wander by here to earn their very own “I Got Banned By PZ!” or their “I Got Banned By PZ AGAIN!!!!” badges?
Zeno, while I get where your coming from, I think that comment does a disservice to the 1-3 percent of the population who do have OCD. It isn’t the sort of thing that makes you lose all sense of social propriety, it is generally an intrusive thought/fear that leads to a reaction to mitigate that fear(the obsession and compulsion respectively.)
Many people with ocd know their fears to be unfounded and could talk about it. While it is possible that DM could have ocd and other mental illnesses, I think I would urge restraint in such speculation since ocd can be very painful for those who have it, and stigmas can prevent treatment, which is especially unfortunate as ocd is very treatable.
Sorry to go on about it, I do have ocd but I am not personally bothered by the comment, I just think it might spread falsehoods about it, and maybe stigmatize people.
Too bad about the dungeon, really. It made novel reading. It was interesting to see how fast it refilled after the amnesty period when FTB was founded. Overall, I guess it’s no great loss.
I found out about the Dungeon only a couple of days ago and perused it – just in a nick of time, as it turns out. Sad to see it go, but I guess this is why we can’t have nice things.
Ah, PZ! And here I was mourning the loss of the old Dungeon still! If nothing else, a catalog of the ossified leavings of your more persistent dullards was an enjoyable oddity for those of us who like to track these characters. Oh well, leave it to someone enterprising pup to go on curating the Mutter Museum of bigoted internet screeds.
Trolls were to The Dungeon as Doctor Who is to museums.
Anyone who believes that you’d actually out someone for simply disagreeing isn’t someone whose insight we as a commentariat would benefit from anyway.
PZ, I would hope that the removal of the Dungeon is only temporary. It seems you have given the Asses of Evil exactly what they wanted. No Dungeon, no accountability for the pests.
The Dungeon, gone?! Damn. I remember when that thing only had about six people in it.
Caine has the right of it at #3. Some of them come here and deliberately escalate with every intention of getting banned. It’s not like what will get you banned here is a secret, and there’s been more than enough cases where PZ’s put up a warning and the troll subsequently posts a taunting reply to warrant that conclusion.
I’ll miss the dungeon. Hopefully PZ saved the contents somewhere so it come back when times are simpler. When the trolls smell less rancid and run less rampant.
I gotta admit that I read the Dungeon every now and then for the schadenfreud of it. I’ll miss it, too.
The Internet Archive Wayback Machine has many snapshots of the Dungeon over the years for those who miss it.
Yay executions!
Nah, I’m just kidding, but yeah, this sounds like a good idea. Otherwise you might get some idiot trying to top someone in the dungeon.
PZ
I think you’re a Blogger Atheist.
fuck
No Dungeon?
Shithead pattern Delta: abuse system so people crack down on system then complain about how unreasonable the system is.
That would be great if the real-life fundamentalists weren’t continuously gaining ground and shifting the discussion to the right, even though they’re supposedly recognized as blatantly unreasonable fundamentalists. In case you haven’t noticed, in about 33 years we’ve gone all the way back to discussing the validity of contraceptives, only now through the language of whether they should be covered by insurance or some such. We’ve also widely embraced the notion that “balanced budgets” are inherently good, even if they come at the expense of people’s livelihood (in addition to there being literally nothing explaining why “balanced budgets” are inherently good).
On the other hand, right-wingers have gotten away with harassing, threatening, and attacking the marginalized and leftists (those who defend the marginalized) since forever, and we’re expected to deny the existence of a pattern of behaviour when we hear calls for “compromise”, as if, somewhere, an ideology whose followers will defend through physical and intellectual* violence when reality does not agree contains something reasonable that allows us to ignore the use of violence to conceal a lack of argument.
Yeah…keep dreaming =/
* – Intellectual violence is the use of poor arguments, pseudo-intellectual mangling (including overly complicated math and walls of jargon-y text) and other unfair “debate” tactics in order to silence the opposition by giving the appearance of having the argumentative upper hand. Social justice denialists are some of the worst offenders — and amongst this crowd, economists stand out as the worst offenders.
Most Excellent Move.
Slimy boogers merit no history.
Shamus Young recently had an interesting post on his moderation philosophy.
His overall approach wouldn’t work for Pharyngula. He is foremost trying to maintain a conflict-free comment area, to the point that politics & religion are forbidden topics; whereas this a more adversarial environment, with religion and politics being among the primary topics.
However, some of his observations on internet social dynamics ring pretty true to me:
Banning is the only appropriate course of action for persistent assholes.
Martin Wiesner? That is the old YouTube embedding assclam, Pogsurf. He is trying to take down FtB. A couple of months ago, he offered to pay ImprobableJoe money to be a “double agent” and dig up dirt on people here.
It begins when a new Twitter friends talks about how she vets her new followers. As it turned out, it was our old friend, Pogsurf, and I told her about his past. After a while, IJ links to an e-mail from Pogsurf asking him to play “secret agent man”.
What the fuck is wrong with some of these people?
I learned that the hard way after years moderating a fandom forum.
That Pogsurf character recently showed up at the A+ forums trying to resurrect the porcupine meme to portray PZ as an advocate for rape.
Describing it so clinically really fails to capture the devoted, visceral rage of the original delivery, however. Quite toxic.
Example, currently in Michael Nugent’s blog (A response to recent online open letters and emails by Michael Nugent on June 7, 2013):
Phil_Giordana_FCD June 11, 2013 at 3:30 am
Pogsurf June 11, 2013 at 6:25 am
#28 – It’s like words have lost all meaning.
First off, all hail Borkquotia, daughter of fair Tpyos.
This is odd. I recall threads in which multiple people, men and women, have come out and witnessed their pain — pain of rape, abuse, silencing, you name it. I do not recall this incident (and my Googlefu sucks big time so, while I tried to look for it, I failed (normal)).
I have been mentioned over at the Slymepit (looked once, never going back). But I certainly never commented there. And, even if I did, there is no way that I would share my history with a group of people who embrace gendered insults and rape jokes. Caring? They may care for their own. I’ll stick with the support, caring, understanding, inclusiveness, reality, no-bullshit attitude, of the horde.
This I really do not understand.
No one is claiming (except as a strawman) that PZ and rest of FtB are telling atheists that they must support human rights or they will be kicked out. No one here is setting out on years-long campaigns to harass and intimidate other bloggers and activists. How is refusing to stand by and let someone blame the victim silencing?
Between gaslighting such as Phil_Giordana’s and the deliberate misunderstanding of silencing by some of the leadership of CFI and by commenters such as pogsurf, I feel sick to my stomach. Assholes.
They really think that, because I see atheism and what it means in a larger context differently than they do that I am trying to silence them and push them out? What a sad life.
want to know why I can never take anything Phil Giordana sez seriously?
reason
bonus reason
yeah, it’s kind of ad-hominemy but hey.
Seriously. They can still go have their He-Man Woman Hater’s Atheist Club over there, and we can be over here not being assholes.
I, too, am puzzled. With the Slyme’s proven track record of making up shit out of nothing at all and then mythologizing it, I’d like to see some citations for this.
Actually, if I recall correctly, there were one or two comments expressing skepticism about Giordana’s story, but those commenters were called out for it and backed down.
That’s my memory of Phil’s wonderful visit.
I honestly don’t know how PZ does it. Personally, if I had to be witness daily to the absurd attacks, distortions and mudslinging – I’d just quit. I get to hide behind a pseudonym (Although, I would be happy to provide my real name and e-mail to most any of the Horde vetted by PZ if they would simply respect my privacy.)
There have been many of my comments and postings that I feared might get me banned.
THANKFULLY, that hasn’t happened. This is because I believe that PZ actually means it when he says he allows for disagreement. I very much enjoy the crucible that is Pharyngula, and have learned much from its master and Horde.
Yes, it hurt my feelings when he called me a “fucking idiot.” But, OK. It’s his blog. So, I give it back. That doesn’t mean I hate him. And I didn’t get banned.
I am sure that many of you would very much appreciate me just going away. I’m sure the creationists feel the same way about you. The difference between them and us, is that we actually allow a place for dissent – no matter how discordant it is to the key of liberal (very much its own dogma.) And, no, I’m not even remotely a libertarian.
PZ is most certainly a more patient person than I am.
Well, it’s discordant in the sense that some liberals, like myself, actually want to get shit done, and don’t actually think it’s useful to have the same fucking debate on private vs. public healthcare every three days, especially since the evidence overwhelmingly points to the efficacy of public systems in improving the health of populations.
But, you know liberals: we just don’t get that endless neckbeard debates, while certainly qualifying as ‘work’ in a university undergrad poli sci seminar, aren’t actually ‘work’ anywhere else.
I call BS, and not just because I don’t recall (anything like) it. Link?
Ah. Is that the same pogsurf who recently sent me an email with a question mark photoshopped over a photo of PZ on the speaker poster for the Dublin conference, with a ‘Quiz” attached that he allegedly sent to all panelists, suggesting not so subtely that PZ is some kind of rape apologist?
The self-fulfilling slymer fantasy. How cute, and how ridiculous. Guys, can’t you at least try reality?
Yep.
Thank you, web archives:
http://liveweb.archive.org/web/20120505123606/http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/episode_ccxxxv_the_cuteness_it.php
Chas @ 32
If those are enough for you to disregard him, I guess you’d better not find out about his band.
I’d forgotten how pompous he was. Looks the part, though.
Sili, I think those errors were somewhat deliberate. It was an inside joke, if I recall correctly.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAaaaa
That’s what it said downthread, yes. (Don’t think I ever got the joke, myself.)
Doesn’t Phil any less of a pompous arse for offering so kindly to help out the poor rubes.
*make
Sorry Sili. I misread your comment as you offering to help the poor rubes, rather than you quoting Phil.
(I didn’t get the joke either).
Sorry,
I should have copied the headers.
No, it was my fault for not reading the blockquoted text properly.
Phil Giordiana is claiming that he was silenced when he spoke up about his rape? What a complete piece of lying shit. It isn’t as if that thread goes on and on long after he brought it up and was given support, despite the fact that he came here for the express purpose of being an asshole.
I almost wet my pants laughing when he offered to correct our french. Pompous ass didn’t understand that we were mocking his arrogance and stupidity. I may have to re-append my nym with his most awesome troll title.
zombie feminist were-squid
Jesus fuck, I shouldn’t be surprised at how blatantly they lie, but I still am. I just read that entire incarnation of TET (235?) and all I can say is:
Phil Giordiana, fuck you.
He’s lying about what happened on that thread, straight fucking up bald faced shameless lying.
I see two comments (three if you count Morales) doubting his story, and countless regulars seriously pile on to those comments for comment after comment and making it VERY fucking clear that that shit is not fucking OK, including the rape victim Phil just belittled and basically told to put on her big girl panties and deal with what happened to her, like he did.
So yeah. Lies, damned lies and slymepit narratives.
Another example of the irony of confusing “shut up and listen” with “shut up forever.”
It always seems to be the anti-feminists who think that identity and personal history is the ultimate trump card:
— Paula Kirby’s never been harassed, and she’s a woman, so discussion ended, there is no harassment problem
— Abbie Smith thinks it’s ok to call women ____s, and she’s a woman, so discussion ended, it’s totally ok
— Phil Giordana was abused, therefore he’s the ultimate authority on how people should handle abuse.
— (fill in the blank) thinks that what’s happening to Rebecca et al. isn’t harassment, and she’s been “really” harassed, so discussion ended, she’s the ultimate authority on what is and isn’t “real” harassment
Well, there went half an hour. Am I the only one who reads old threads with the relish of finding a lost diary? I would so buy the hell out of a compliation book called “Pharyngula: the comment threads”.
I read it too Carlie; you are not alone. Never heard of Phil Giordiana before, or not in any memorable way. After reviewing that archive yesterday (thanks Beatrice) – several hundred comments – I have to agree with the general assessment here – repulsive.
Weed Monkey was the first of three or four to express disbelief, and went on to abjectly apologize no less than three times, at least one of which was accepted by Phil Giordiana. And Weed’s comment was 175. Phil’s was 127. Every comment expressing disbelief was refuted at least once, but usually multiple times. Was he called a liar? Yes, he was. But if he’s going to use a handful of refuted comments made by four commenters as some sort of standard of acceptable “friendship and support,” then, quite frankly, he’s doing it wrong.
Another thing, Phil’s reveal was used for the specific purpose of attempting to emotionally bludgeon Illuminata. It was stunning, really..
What, only?
No.
No :)