Jeff Wagg is the witness, at the JREF forum, on a thread where people are picking over what Alison Smith has said.
Alison’s timeline is correct. Approximately 30 minutes after I took her back to her room, she asked to be taken to the condo. She was having trouble walking to the car which was in the back valet area. Security noticed this, and stopped us, and then offered a wheelchair to help her get to the car. We accepted. I took her to the condo, stayed for a while and then returned to the Flamingo to get ready for the next day of TAM.
I have no way of knowing what went on behind closed doors, but I do know that Alison was very upset, and very drunk. And what she told me that night matches what she’s saying now.
And it does not match what Shermer has said about that night. At all.
Color me completely unsurprised.
Jeff Wagg worked for JREF at the time. Randi is quoted saying in the Oppenheimer article that staff had told him about Shermer (and that he, Randi, had done nothing).
Think about those two items.
So Jeff is also in on what I am told is a grand conspiracy theory to ruin Michael Shermer’s reputation for reasons that have yet to be divulged? This goes deep.
I don’t know Jeff Wagg at all, but I’m thinking that right about now he’s considering the fact that he witnessed the aftermath of a felony assault and is wondering about the implications of what kind of person that makes him.
Yeah, I would not feel good about myself it I was Jeff Wagg, but that makes him stepping forward all the more impressive, since it doesn’t color him in the best light.
And as he says, Alison Smith has been consistent in what she has been saying all along.
I don’t see this as painting him in a bad light at all. He witnessed it, we know staff (probably him) told J Randi about it, did nothing, and Jeff quit working there not long after DJ came on board as far as I remember. If Alison didn’t want people knowing about this, I’m not sure what more he could have done other than try to influence from the inside. If I’m missing something, let me know.
I know Jeff. I know he cares about Alison. I can’t speak for him, of course, but I believe he would have supported Alison in anything she wanted to do about the incident.
I also know that Jeff did not voluntarily leave the organization. DJ “cleaned house” when he came on board (and then spectacularly failed to retain any of his subsequent hires for very long).
I regret the use of the word “incident”. I believe Alison was sexually assaulted and should have made that clear.
@5…if that happened to me…if I were in Jeff’s shoes, I would be wracked with guilt. I would play the incident again over and over in my head, trying to figure out what I could have done differently to intervene before things got out of hand. I also would be wondering what I could do to support the victim in reporting the crime to the police.
I looked it up…in Nevada (where the assault took place), the statute of limitations on rape is 4 years. Except if a police report was filed within that time frame — then, it’s “never”. So, if Alison had filed a report anytime during the succeeding 4 years of the assault, Michael Shermer could be subjected to arrest anytime he lands in Nevada.
Not any more. Were I Jeff, I’d feel tremendous guilt over that as well. That I only went to Randi and no further.
In much the same way, I wonder how the guy who saw Jerry Sandusky assault someone in the shower can live with himself. Knowing day after day, month after money, year after year that he could have done more to disrupt the cycle of assaults.
Shorter me: fucking conscience…how does it work?
There’s a good comment about second guessing in that forum thread:
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=10238324&postcount=1000
Ultimately it was Smith’s decision and we can’t blame Jeff Wagg or anyone else for not ignoring her wishes on the matter and running to the police on her behalf.
Egad, the folks challenging Alison in that thread look HORRIBLE. Someone should save that in carbonite to refer to the next time these “Stayed at a Holliday Inn Last Night” sleuths start scrutinizing a victim’s story.
I used to post at JREF. I left during the Elevator Gate aftermath when I realized, in the midst of arguing with someone about whether Bayes’ Theorem proved that Rebecca Watson was totally safe and just stirring things up for drama, that they really were not the sort of folks I needed to be engaging with. There were a handful of people in that thread making reasonable points, and the smackdown on the Dude-Bro “Thin Blue Line” defenders was so dramatic that I feel somewhat hopeful.
I shouldn’t, but it is at least better than the horrible environment I saw last time I was there.
Another thing about Jeff Wagg and Alison: neither of them were particularly fans of mine before the incident (nor do I assume they are now). Wagg especially was one of those skeptics pissed off at the intrusion of atheism into skepticism.
This is not a bunch of pals slapping each others’ backs. We’re people who disagree about a lot of things who can still agree on the events behind this mess.
Kevin Kehres @ 8
Your assumption here that getting the police involved would be the best possible outcome is really not cool. A lot of rape victims don’t go to the police because the ordeal of navigating the justice system over a rape charge is often as traumatic, if not moreso, than the rape itself. I’m pretty sure you’re well aware of this.
You also have no basis to assume Jeff Waggs didn’t ask Alison what she needed from him and then do exactly that. And that’s exactly what he should have done. If you’re thinking he did handle it how Alison Smith wanted him to and that he still should have done more? Just stop right there. Nobody has any business doing an end run around a sexual assault victim with regard to how they deal with their assault.
That I only went to Randi and no further.
Again, this would only be a bad thing if Alison wanted him to do more and he didn’t.
It’s one thing to wonder if you did everything you could; if you were the best possible friend you could have been to someone in that situation. But your language in #8 completely erases Alison Smith’s wishes from the equation and that’s not OK.
Blargh. This line in my #12 :
Should be a block quote.
@Keven at #8 http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/01/how-to-help-sexually-assaulted-friend/
Regardless of what he should or shouldn’t have done, I’m sure he had a lot of complex feelings over this and I don’t envy him in his situation. Any situation involving sexual assault often exposes one to the worst in others through their ignorant reactions. I’ve lost and seen other people lose old friendships after revelations about sexual assault. It stirs up a lot of cognitive dissonance and scary feelings for people.
As I said before in another thread – Shermer is the fucking predator acumbag we all thought he was. Hope this spreads far and wide.
About the two items …
My thoughts are uncomfortable:
left in the lurch and betrayed
(after careful calculation of impact on the organization even?)
It only gets uglier for Shermer but I would certainly not criticize Wagg for not going to the police in this situation given the facts that we currently know.
In that situation I would be much more concerned about the possibility of further harm to the victim than securing a conviction of the perpetrator. And going to the police without their consent would be a very bad idea.
One of the big problems with these Internet attempts at walking back the cat is that people are evaluating people’s past behavior in the light of information they didn’t have available at the time. And when folk point that out they often get a pile of abuse hurled at them from the folk who really can’t understand why people are ‘defending Shermer’. I am not, nor am I the type of skeptic who looks at the facts to decide how I can avoid changing my mind.
Wagg does not reveal anything Smith said to him. If Smith did say more to Wagg then I really want him to STFU right now because it is time to get the police involved. Florida is one of the very few states that does not have a statute of limitations for rape. Wagg does not tell us what he told Randi either.
It happened in Las Vegas.
Yeah. I mean…I don’t think I would have had the courage to do what PZ did, for instance. I can’t be at all confident I would have done The Perfect Thing if I’d been any of the bystanders in this situation.
I’m confident I would never have done anything like what Michael Shermer did though.
Yeah, about running to the police… first off, just going through the process can create additional trauma. Someone who’s already traumatized may not be able to put up with describing the rape in detail to a bunch of strangers, or having intimate parts of their body swabbed and photographed for a rape kit.
Second, police often victim-blame and silence too, and they have even more tools at their disposal to threaten victims into shutting up or recanting. Most of those MRM claims about 90% of rape accusations being false originate from police departments whose officers flat out assume victims lie. Sometimes it’s even official policy. (More background here and here.)
So no, just going to the cops isn’t a great or safe option, any more than reporting to the organization turned out to be. Staying silent’s a completely rational decision. (And so is going public.)
Ophelia, I think my comment #20 is in moderation for links. Could you have a look, please?
Thanks very much.
Phillip, again:
AgaIn, fucking AGAIN, will you stop this. This is the third time you’ve said this (that I’ve seen) in less than 24 hours, here and at Pharyngula. Perhaps you remember. I replied both other times, as did some others, at least Iyeska did also at PZ’s. Go, read the replies, stop it.
IT IS NOT YOUR PLACE TO TELL SOMEONE ELSE WHEN IT IS TIME TO GET THE POLICE INVOLVED
Ophelia @20
You’re empathetic and insightful. Shermer doesn’t appear to have either of these attributes.
I’m not really a fan of “and the victim should go to the police” routine. I’ve seen it play out in person.
When I was in High School, my best friend was raped by a similarly aged family member. She told me many months after the fact. She was depressed, suicidal, and suffering from a host of physical ailments brought on by stress. She didn’t want to tell anyone. I convinced her to tell the school’s counselor, who in turn either convinced her to tell the police or who told the police herself (I believe it was the former, but I am not certain).
The whole thing shredded her. The police didn’t believe her, told her so, and insisted that there must be something “wrong” with her (like an STD) that was causing her to make up such lies about an upstanding young man. She asked that the police wait until after a school break to tell her parents, and they ignored her pleas and told them right before the break, leaving her isolated with parents who (while they didn’t react as badly as she thought they might) viewed her as irreparably damaged. Her family splintered between those who believed her and those who did not. Afterwards she expressed that she wished she had not gone to the police; that doing so had only made things much, much worse. And I felt horrible, because I had convinced her to go to tell. I, who had bought into the narrative that You Must Involve the Authorities, believed I encouraging her to do what was right. In the end, she just ended up feeling more victimized and violated. And, to all the nits who are thinking, “Well, yes, she may have been more traumatized, but that’s the price we have to pay to keep him from raping another woman!” let me be absolutely clear: the rapist was not subjected to any kind of sanctions at all. He spent no time in jail, was not charged with anything, was not held accountable by his family or peers, and in general suffered no ill effect. Nothing that we did in any way limited his ability to rape again.
Even in hindsight I don’t know what the best course of action would have been. I don’t know if my friend was better off in the long term for having the assault brought out into the open; she stopped being willing to hang out with me soon after this had died down a bit, so I couldn’t even ask her. But what I do know is that if I had it to do over again, I would listen to what she wanted to do more and tell her what to do less. If the police were going to be involved, it was her decision to make, not mine. I didn’t have to deal with the fallout of what happened the way she did. It was her life, her trauma; it should have been her decision. I regret that she had to suffer so much for me to come to this realization.
CJO, it isn’t your place to tell me when to get the police involved and I certainly don’t see any reason to value your opinion when who express yourself like a mindless yob.
SF, crap, I was going by Wikipedia but there were two meetings in 2008. NV has a four year statute of limitations.
WTF?
You don’t have any standing in the matter at hand. It surely is the place of anyone who disagrees with your repetitive and harmful prattle about What Kind of Matter another’s trauma is and has a comment box available to tell you to cut it out.
You’re saying the same goddamn harmful, thoughtless thing, across multiple blogs, disregarding responses, and you’re calling me a mindless yob?
Irony, thy name is Phillip “I say where my place is” Hallam-Baker
Yeah, dumbass. It’s A Matter that didn’t occur in Florida, as profoundly irrelevant as that is. Just shut up.
Eristae, I agree. Which is why I find it mindboggling that people here are criticizing Wagg for not telling other people. If there was any party Wagg might have had an obligation to inform it would be the police. I don’t see an obligation to tell Randi and I certainly don’t see an obligation to tell the wider net.
Am I missing something here? Was there something else Wagg was meant to do? Challenge the perp to single combat? What?
Given where we are however and given the slimestorm which Dawkins and friends are creating for god knows what reason, the usual reasons you give would not apply with the same force.
CJO, you have no standing or expertise. So I don’t see much use for your foul mouthed opinions.
I do actually have quite a bit of relevant expertise. I have written a book on crime. I have spent a good deal of time working with police, prosecutors and lawyers.
You on the other hand had a keyboard and an opinion. Enjoy.
Phillip #32:
How much time have you spent working with rape counselors or survivors? Because your personal experience likely explains why you assume, wrongly, that going to the police would be safe or salutory enough to incur an obligation to do so.
@32 Phillip Hallam-Baker
I’m really, really sick right now (head cold of ULTIMATE FATALITY) so I apologize, but I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Are people arguing that Wagg was obligated to tell people about Smith’s rape without Smith’s consent? I’ve tried skimming this thread and I don’t see anyone doing that, but as I said, I’m sick, and my ability to process information is limited. I’ve discovered (somewhat to my chagrin) that some of the posts on this thread don’t make sense to me because I lose track of where they’re going. For example, there is a section where you wrote
and I have no idea what that means. At all. On the other hand, I understand and agree with you when you say things like
But my brain is all fuzzy so it’s somewhat dangerous for me to try to navigate myself to conclusions about what people are saying based on the limited section of their comments that I can understand in my current state.
So, take my illness muddled comments with a grain of salt, heh.
Pteryxx, read what I wrote, not what the foul mouthed jackboot said I wrote:
“I would certainly not criticize Wagg for not going to the police in this situation”
“I would be much more concerned about the possibility of further harm to the victim than securing a conviction of the perpetrator. ”
What I did say is:
“If Smith did say more to Wagg then I really want him to STFU right now because it is time to get the police involved.”
Note that I did not say anything about what Smith should do. The only person I said should STFU is Wagg because he would be a potential witness if the event had been in Florida not Nevada.
No, I don’t do rape counseling, but how many Internet shitstorms have you been involved in? What might be relevant advice in normal circumstances does not necessarily apply in this case. I am one of the architects of the Web and my role was to try and keep people safe. We didn’t succeed as well as we might. But I do know a lot more than the average person about the failure modes and past incidents when failures have occurred. And given where we are now, if it was possible my advice would be to go to the police. The identities of the parties, the accusation are all out in the open. The supporters of the accused are stirring up a very ugly mob.
I don’t see that CJO or anyone else has the right to react in the way he/she did to my advice and I find her attempts to shut down discussion of options she/he considers threatening to be rather suspicious.
Setting aside my distaste of the fact that for some words of a male witness count more than a female victim ( shades of Old Testament) I note that it would be highly paternalistic for Jeff to further rob Allison of her agency by going to the police on her behalf or insisting she go.
On another note, I recall DJ Grothe’s comments discussed in Stephanie Zvan’s blog in May 2012 ( sorry can’t link)
about lack of harassment incidents at tams, or incidents reported to authorities. His words sure do take on a whole new meaning.
And “If Smith did say more to Wagg” included “please don’t get the police involved, I don’t think I could take it”?
Eristae,
The first few posts in the thread have attacks on Wagg who should feel ashamed for some reason. Presumably means there was something he did or failed to do. But they don’t specify what. The only possibility that makes much sense is to tell someone else.
‘Walking back the cat’ is a term used in the military for a debriefing where you try to understand what happened. The problem with a lot of the people attempting to do it on the blogs is that they can be incredibly sloppy about the information people are supposed to have acted on.
Contra Ophelia, What we have learned in this instance does not change our knowledge of what Randi should have done. The new information revealed by Wagg should only change our opinion of Randi if it changes our understanding of the information known to Randi at the time.
Now I think that is an entirely reasonable point that any fair minded person would make. But we are currently in an environment in which Dawkins is doing his idiot act stirring up the nasty element of the net and so there are a lot of folk who assume that anyone who disputes any part of the case against any of the people involved can only be doing so because they support Dawkins.
So, you have a keyboard, an opinion, and you’d like a cookie.
Excuse me, two cookies!
Listen up everybody! Phillip’s explaining things.
Phillip Hallam-Baker,
If you’re the same guy as the one I see on Wikipedia, you’ve got an impressive CV and I respect that. But this particular corner of the internet has dealt with a lot of different shitstorms of its own, and they typically proceed a little bit differently here than you may be used to. Regardless of the legitimacy or lack thereof of your points, you may find that they will be received better if you spend a little more time informing them with local anthropology, and dial back the intensity a little bit in the interim.
The people who are criticizing you aren’t internet n00bs either. They have reasons for their stances and style of approach, backed by long, hard experience in this particular battle. And from the perspective of those who have fought these fights for a long time, your approach is making you look less like an authoritative and wise Founder of the Internet bestowing wisdom from great heights, and more like just another privileged old white d00d who can’t handle disagreement from the peons. Those are a dime a dozen in the experience of people here, and I suspect that most would rather have the dime. If you’ve truly learned anything from your long experience with internet shitstorms, you ought to know that you don’t want to be that guy.
Please do yourself, and everyone else, a favor, and reconsider your approach.
Also, you pompous ass, if you had been bothering to check back on the other turds you’ve been dropping around here, you would know that the first time I replied to you I was perfectly civil and to the point as to why the “it’s a police matter or else it isn’t a serious matter” narrative is harmful and wrong, and the second time I was only mildly irritated. It wasn’t until the third dropping that the smell started to bother me and I got intemperate, which is still better than you deserve.
gmcard, exactly my point! I just don’t understand why people were dumping on Wagg earlier.
I can entirely understand that she might want to not make the incident public at that time. But given the way Shermer and Dawkins and the rest have acted since the damage is done.
Incidentally, anyone remember when Shermer issued his ‘defense’ statement that effectively outed Smith? I have a theory.
And I am one of the spokes of Gay.
Incidentally, JREF has shut down the discussion thread on the topic, perhaps they are concerned about the implications of what has come out. Earlier in the thread Alison also discusses further details of the events as well.
If you look up hallambaker.com, if this is the guy, he is a very significant person in the development of the WWW.
Anne, yes, I have to admit folk do things differently round here. This is the only part of the net that I am aware of where we have a University Professor of Oxford University duking it out on the Twitter and the Internets to explain why rape isn’t rape.
Apart from that, you might find I have been around rather longer than you think.
Yes, I am aware that whenever someone challenges the credentials of another person in an Internet flame war by saying, well actually I do have some rather relevant credentials here, what are yours, the response is always ‘stop waving your credentials about’.
Now admittedly, not as comical here as in the evolutionary science debate where someone rather unwisely asked what my scientific credentials are which is never a good move for someone who hasn’t completed a college degree.
Why is it that you would think the problem here is me rather than someone who announces their intention to trample over everyone else in their handle? When someone says they are wearing jackboots I consider them a thug.
Philip @ 42
I’m having trouble reconciling the statement in #42 with:
Saying that “it is time to get the police involved” is something that only the victim gets to decide. And it’s not a binary choice between staying silent and going to the police; she’s perfectly allowed to make the community aware of what happened. And whatever action (including inaction, and including changing her mind about what to do) happens on her time schedule. Even if this were still within the statute of limitations, I can understand why she’d have no desire to involve the police, when she’s most likely to find them biased against her, shaming and gas-lighting her. And even if she’s able to get the police to act on it, how likely is she to prevail against “reasonable doubt” to make the ordeal “worth it”?
So I understand pushing back against those who state that the situation casts Wagg in a bad light. We don’t know what directions he was given by Smith. What’s really setting people off in this thread, though, is that “time to get the police involved” line. Partly, as I’ve already said, because that decision belongs to the victim and statements that look like they’re dictating what a victim’s response should be will get push-back.
There’s also history here in the “Great Rifts” in the Atheist/Skeptic sphere (which I don’t know how closely you’ve been following). The “if she didn’t go to the police then she’s lying about rape” has been a popular cudgel of the MRAs in casting aspersions on rape victims, and it was eagerly adopted by the pro-harassment sect in Atheist/Skepticism (including Michael Nugent in a recent post) ever since the “grenade” post on Pharyngula that brought public awareness of Shermer raping someone (Smith was not named in that post). That’s another reason that people here will react strongly to anyone but the victim saying it’s time to go to the police.
Phillip, are you suggesting from your experience that Randi could be liable if he knew of the incident and didn’t report it. Also, are posts on internet forums admissible in court in your experience. Or does this preclude the information from being admissible.
For crying out loud. It’s a joke. On Dawkins. Deal with substance, O ye of Great and Mighty Credentials, and leave the finer nuances of our peculiar and backward customs, like humor, to us ground dwellers.
Phillip Hallam-Baker, if you don’t know what the jackboots are about, you haven’t been paying as much attention as you think you have. You may have good credentials, but you’re still revealing yourself to be short on critical local context.
Also, to be clear, Phillip, the point of my comments was not to localize the source of “the problem” to a single person or group of people. Instead, I was attempting to suggest the most efficient resolution, regardless of the source.
For better or for worse, CJO’s approach is far more in step with the culture hereabouts than yours is, and, in general, it is much easier to change one’s own approach than to get a large number of unwilling others to change theirs. Thus, if you want to comment here and be listened to, I believe you will find that it is more effective to reconsider what you’re doing than to rage against the style of criticism you’re receiving.
It’s up to you, of course. You can also try to fight it (probably futile), or to leave if you don’t want to communicate on these terms. But these *are* the terms of this environment, and you’ll be better off no matter what you choose if you recognize that’s the case.
SF, forum postings not only could be evidence, use is quite routine. Now obviously all the usual heresay rules would apply. But if it came to a case then anything Wagg said on the Interwebs could be brought up and used to impeach (i.e. discredit) his testimony.
I don’t know what Randi knew or when. I know he gave Oppenheim that statement in the interview but I don’t know what Randi means by it. I certainly don’t see it as admitting any of the claims made in the piece. We now have substantially more information than was available at the time of the interview.
I am not a lawyer (though I have spent several legal educations worth on legal advice over the years, mostly other people’s money fortunately). So I can’t really comment on liability. Though how would Randi be liable for not reporting what he heard thirdhand?
Given the information available to me now and given that I am not 86 and in cancer recovery, my response to Oppenheim would probably have been the same as the one Randi gave. And then I would speak to the lawyers and then I would tell HR that a major change in the staffing of the organization is necessary.
Anne, I stopped paying attention to what Dawkins says after elevatorgate, now I am meant to follow what he said last Friday?
CJO, No, I don’t see the joke when your behavior is mean, vicious and disruptive. You are behaving in exactly the way that Dawkins tries to caricature his opponents which is why I suspect you of being one of his supporters trying to stir up shit.
Ah, Phillip, I’m going to put this as gently as possible. You are outside your area of expertise. You indicate this, rather strongly, by your ham-handed and oh-so-“expert” advice to a victim of trauma. It is apparent that you mean well, and that you’re clear on most of the basics. But it is important, and sometimes very difficult, for an expert to recognize where one’s expertise ends. This is in fact how Mr. Dawkins gets himself into such trouble, and I advise you not to follow his worn example.
There is not a police officer in my city who would say what you have said about reporting to the police. Why? Because they have all had at least a basic level of training in trauma response. Most of them are not experts, but fortunately for trauma victims in our town, they know more than you do in this area.
There are plenty of folks around here who, like you, are experts in certain areas. Something we tend to cultivate, and one of the great joys of this neighborhood, is how much we all learn hanging around here, that we would not otherwise know. People who are interested in new things are interesting people, don’t you find?
I read through that JREF forum thread from Wagg’s comment to the point the thread got put into moderation. [Disclaimer: So much dreck therein, I’m not interested in wasting time reading the 900+ prior posts. And mind, this thread is “part II.” So I may be mistaken in what follows]
It looks like the thing that finally hit the trip-wire was the discussion turning (in part) to criticism of the JREF for continuing to invite Shermer to TAM and/or questioning what who knew and when within JREF.
I’m sure the cries of “Freeze Peach!!!” will echo throughout the halls of movement skepticism any minute now… any minute… just wait… *crickets*
Phillip, Thanks. Wonder if Alison could pursue some sort of civil case against JREF (or even Shermer) if it could be shown they were negligent in reporting it, if she so chose to, since it seems too late to pursue a criminal case.
@54. I don’t see how JREF can avoid on some level having to deal with this, whether they like it or not.
Phillip, I don’t follow Dawkins’ Twitter account either, but I *do* follow the discussions of the issue that have been going on in this space. If you’d been following this space moderately closely, you, too, might have recognized the “jackboots” portion of CJO’s nym as a snarky reference to Dawkins’ comments.
You also might have been sufficiently familiar with the going-to-the-police-related issues Pteryxx linked to @21, or with this (and other similar nonsense that’s been swirling around the Shermer issue) to know why there’s a certain amount of sensitivity around here on the subject of telling rape victims and their supporters to go to the police. Utter weariness with that kind of thing is why CJO is being “mean, vicious, and disruptive” towards you, and why others aren’t that enthusiastic about your comments either.
If you haven’t been following this issue closely enough to be aware of all these issues that most here are deeply steeped in, then are you really surprised that people are not receptive to your advice? I don’t know if you’ve ever had the experience of moving into a new scientific discipline from the outside, or of dealing with someone else moving into your field from the outside, but if so, it might help you to think of this as somewhat similar, except with a lot more emotional sensitivities involved.
@53, you refuse to acknowledge the fact that I said Wagg should not have reported and I did not say Smith should have reported then.
Nor did I say that she should do so now.
For someone who spends a lot of time complaining about what other people write, you could try to be a little more accurate yourself and a little less condescending.
Also, to be clear, Phillip, I understand that you weren’t trying to critique their decision to not bring the police in initially. But even the statement that they should go to the police *now* (what CJO objected to) kind of falls into the “don’t tell rape victims what to do” category for a lot of people. Since (as some of your comments suggest you may already know) “telling rape victims what to do” is generally considered to be a pretty nasty thing, and since there’s been so much of it going on around here lately, it gets you hostile responses pretty quickly because people are just really tired of it.
The feeling is that you did a harmful thing first by being condescending/controlling/’splaining towards people who have been raped, and so any unpleasant responses you get are entirely deserved. Then, if you then complain about the harshness of the responses rather than apologizing for the harm you caused, you just seem to be digging yourself in deeper.
It seems somewhat likely to me that this isn’t what you meant to do, and if you acknowledge that and rethink your statements in this light, you could probably help smooth this over pretty quickly.
@57, Anne, I have actually been around here for a couple of years. I have observed the discussions and the ‘you don’t know our special ways’ gambit is not uncommon. You lot all play go slam the new guy. But no comment at all about CJO’s behavior which is egregious by any standards.
It did occur to me that the handle was ironic. But really, shouldn’t people at least think twice before metaphorically donning NAZI uniforms even if they are doing it satirically?
1) Can’t I get you to at least concede that might possibly be a little in bad taste?
2) Given the fact that people are allowed to make a scene over pretty minor violations of what they see as political correctness, isn’t it rather odd to let that skate by and instead attack the person who made the complaint?
3) It does not work at any level if the person strutting about in their jackboots goes and proves Dawkins right with the type of verbal thuggery he was complaining of!
Phillip, given that that response was to my @57, I’m going to wait to see if your stance is affected by my @59 before I say anything else.
Phillip @ 58:
True, you said that in #18:
However:
That is not true. You also seem to make the opposite statement at the end of that post:
And also in #35:
So regardless of intent, it does look like that’s arguing both sides. Yes, you’ve said that neither Smith nor Wagg needed to go to the police then or now; but elsewhere, you’ve said that now they should. Rather than just pointing to the former and ignoring the later, a simple “When suggesting they go to the police, I wasn’t considering the whole picture of what that would mean for Smith. I apologize and withdraw the statement.” would probably cool things down here a lot.
Oh, and:
Dude, you named yourself an architect of the web and said that your opinion about this situation deserves particular consideration due to your expertise in computer security failure modes. I’m also well-traveled in standards bodies and WAN/LAN/PAN security, but that gives me no privileged insight into rape, dealing with the police, or the human nature of bullying.
Anne @59
I already stated that when I objected to CJO’s malicious editing of my comment.
And yes, I do know what being a witness in a trial in a court of law can do to a person. But trial in the Internet kangaroo court is usually far worse. And Dawkins and some others have been very busy this past couple of years putting the victim on trial.
Well that was a fun thread that was all about Phillip and his credentials and his opinions and ultimately his ego, and really not very much at all about rape victims or how communities deal with rape.
Phillip @ 63
[citation needed]. Every quote of yours CJO has used here as been word-for-word. Maybe check out that first rule of holes?
And you think that even a guilty verdict in a court of law will stop the Internet kangaroo court because…? Just like the verdict against the Steubenville rapist really turned the community around to support the victim and disown the rapists? Oh wait, at least one of the rapists is back on the football team, and Serena Williams chided the victim for putting herself in that position. I’ll start the bingo card: Smith was lucky to draw a sympathetic jury, witnesses lied/were bullied into submission by SJWs, not Shermer’s fault feminists got the law changed so regret is now rape.
Phillip, I have not been condescending, merely trying to help you understand what’s going wrong here, even though your intentions have appeared to be good.
With that statement, you informed us of the following:
1. You have a strong opinion on what those closest to the situation should do
2. which is not informed by any inside information about what the situation is
3. and haven’t even bothered to follow the publicly available story.
You are also apparently unable to acknowledge that even if you had all the inside skinny, it would still not remotely be your call.
Seriously? You could make a cat laugh. I am not a frequent commenter, and that was my first post in this thread. I made the mistake of thinking that you might wish to understand what’s going on here. You are out of your depth, and ignoring and disparaging those who began by viewing you charitably.
Now you’re going all sensitive and accusing someone with a satiric nym of Nazi tendencies. Oh, please. No wonder you had to invent the web; you must have found Usenet terribly upsetting.
And I agree that accuracy counts. That, see, is why people keep quoting your statements with which they disagree. You seem to have some difficulty remembering what you’ve written here, and even more so understanding the implications of your words.This is not the fault of the people who have tried quite patiently to explain the problem to you.
But, Sally! He’s an architect! I wonder if he could explain all the squeaky doors in this web thing, and why the windows don’t open properly, and why is it that when you put a marble on the floor, it always rolls the other way? The cats like it, and the squids don’t care, but some of us find it disconcerting.
Phillip Hallam-Baker @35:
Oooo, cool! I don’t have anything near “worked on Public Key Infrastructure” on my resume, but I am an old-school Unix-head (was recently testing for BREACH vulnerability by hand with curl, for instance).
Phillip Hallam-Baker@18:
No. Pteryxx @21 gave an excellent argument for why not. Allow me to expand on it.
Most police officers held roughly half of all reports were false; in actual fact, our best research suggests that number is 2-11%.
It all adds up to systematic bias within the police system against victims of sexual assault. This has horrific consequences.
Phillip Hallam-Baker @32:
I’d value your opinion on cyber-crime, certainly (but you think you can stop it? Yeah right, the law of large numbers says otherwise). As one Computer Scientist to another, though, I suggest that on the topic of justice issues you need to RFTM.
SallyStrange, you are absolutely right, and I regret my role in playing the foil to said ego. But I’m claiming the SIWOTI defense on one last and then I’ll stand down.
Phillip:
1) Understand that Richard F. Dawkins signed his name to the phrase “verbal jackboots” and so tarred me and an entire online community of which I am a part with his childish paranoid fancies. But you are today’s winner! I liked “mean, vicious, and disruptive” too, but the sillier the hyperbole the better.
2) dearie, the kid gloves came off right around “mindless yob”. Down here on the ground, our juveniles often congregate and mark the days of their dreary existence in outdoor spaces known as “schoolyards”, where despite their benighted lives they trade in a certain rough wisdom. One of their sayings is “if you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.”
3) “Malicious editing” is merely risible: show me where. But insinuating that I’m an outside agitator is just obtuse, so stupid as to not even be insulting, and as Anne C. Hanna and others have been trying to tell you, you’re remarkably opaque to the idea that this is a community. These people know me/(a more or less consistent persona). The cover I’ve built up over seven or eight active online years would indeed be convincing, it’s just that my evil-genius plan foundered on a pissing match with the likes of you? Give it a rest.
Phillip @63, this may be a bit of a tl;dr. Apologies in advance.
——–
I would urge you to read psanity @66 carefully, particularly this bit:
Whatever you may have intended, this is what many people are getting from your comments and your subsequent defense of them. If you didn’t mean to come off that way, and if you are as committed as you apparently want to be to cleaning up our society’s harmful ideas about rape, then the best way to make those good intentions clear is to show that you’re more concerned about the possibility that what you said was harmful than you are about the fact that somebody responded to that harm with anger.
Right now, you don’t seem to be doing that, which is why a number of people are still angry with you. But from some of the other content of your comments, I do think you’re the kind of person who can probably back your way out of this mess (unlike most of the people who get themselves into these kinds of situations at FTB), if only you can get a more useful perspective on it. Quite frankly, that’s the only reason I’m engaging in this discussion at all.
But why, you might ask, am I not challenging CJO’s behavior too? Let me address your points from @60:
I think it might be more useful to ask why Richard Dawkins didn’t think twice before metaphorically *assigning* Nazi uniforms to everybody who criticizes his Twitter habits. CJO’s metaphorical “Nazi uniform” didn’t come out of nowhere — like many other similar jokes I’ve seen around here recently, it’s a very specific response to Dawkins’s invocation of the Hitler Zombie, which is highly relevant to the present conversation. It’s not like people are “wearing” verbal jackboots because they think Nazis are just harmless fun, which is what your level of dismay at the satire seems to suggest. In fact, *Dawkins* is the one who was trivializing totalitarianism with his comments — the mockery around here is *critiquing* that.
Now I do understand that you weren’t initially aware of the relevant context, and that it might be a little hard to rewrite your initial impression into one that’s more informed by that context. But even so, I’m a little baffled about why that first impression seems to have been that the jackboots were being played straight, given that you’ve been around here for a couple years. That seems like a somewhat perverse assumption in this environment — do you really think Ophelia would tolerate sincere jackbooting in her space? The fact that you reacted so strangely to this, along with your apparent allergy to local norms of criticism, is why you’re getting the newbie treatment — you’re acting like a n00b even if you’re not one.
I certainly agree that there are contexts and ways of playing the “jackboot” thing that could be in bad taste. However, I still find the intensity of your concerns about the nym very difficult to understand. (I *do* understand why you’re unhappy about the comment that was under the nym, even though I don’t agree with your response to it.)
Just sorta FYI, “political correctness” is one of those phrases that tends to make poor communications strategy around here. I don’t have any idea how *you* meant it, but it’s used *far* too often as an excuse for why it’s okay to say harmful things, like in the, “Oh, you PC police are so mean for not letting me call her a c–t,” sense. So if you intend to communicate ideas which you do not want to have associated with such harmful behavior, I recommend you select different terminology.
In any case, if you think CJO’s nym is harmful in and of itself, then you can make a case for that, but it’s still a separate issue from the question of whether or not CJO’s (and others’) substantive concerns about your comments are worth addressing.
It’s true that you got a dose of the same treatment that Dawkins received — you said something which some people consider to be perpetuating ideas that are harmful to rape victims, and you got some angry and uncivil responses.
But I’m not sure why you think that proves Dawkins right. People here may be angry, but they’re not “shun[ning] evidence and despis[ing] facts”, as Dawkins claimed in his “verbal jackboots” complaint. They’re laying out the reasons why they think what you did is wrong, even if they mix a certain amount of invective with that argumentation.
There’s no “Party which is the sole arbiter of what is ‘true'” that “enforces it with violence”, just individuals on a blog telling you that they think you screwed up and why, some of them angrily.
You’re not being simply “punished by vitriolic abuse or ostracism”. You’re being disagreed with, with reasons being provided. And, yes, some of those reasons are interspersed with the word “fuck” or given by people with weird nyms, but they’re still reasons, not just attacks.
And so forth, but I hope you get the picture by now.
——–
I really don’t know why you’re insisting on making this so hard, and on diverting onto all of these side issues, because this is really a very simple situation. You said something which some people perceive to be contributory to a culture that harms rape victims. As far as I can tell, you don’t actually want to harm rape victims and, in fact, posted your original comments in hopes of being helpful to them. And lately you almost seem to be trying to say that you didn’t intend your comments to convey the harmful message that people took from them.
But, as someone who wants to avoid harming rape victims, I hope you agree that it *is* reasonable to be angry with people who do that harm. So, if you recognize that people here (who do not live inside your head and could not read your intentions, just the words you wrote) thought you were doing a harmful thing, then you should see that they were *right* to be angry, based on the information they had available to them. And in that case, the ethical response on your part is not to be angry with them for responding to that harm with anger, but to be apologetic for doing a harmful thing accidentally.
The fact that you are choosing to be angry rather than apologetic gives the impression that you do not see the harm you did as being real and/or important, especially relative to defending your own ego. This, in turn, leads people to believe that your professed good intentions toward rape victims are not sincere, or, at best, exist only up to the point where they actually require you to engage in anything more emotionally demanding than dispensing wisdom from on high.
I’d personally like to believe that that’s not true. But the only way I’ll know that it’s not true is if you prove it by reining in your (natural, normal, human, we-all-do-it) defensive reaction for long enough to consider the *substance* of the criticisms here carefully, even if you don’t like the style.
@68 Anne, it was not my intention to tell Smith what to do. I am sorry if people interpreted my comment in that way.
I do not see any call for CJO’s reacting as they did. Anger is an explanation, it is not an excuse.
Nor do I think it is at all reasonable for a self styled skeptic community to be telling newcomers to ignore the fact that the person who reacted to something you said by screaming at you has dressed up as a NAZI because they are only doing it to parody an emeritus professor who seems to have lost a screw.
Philip @ 69
Gonna take a wild stab in the dark and say that you aren’t sorry at all.
Maybe you SHOULD read what Dawkins has been writing recently? You could learn even more about how being an expert in one area makes you an expert in all the others. Or find out more about the current topic and context. Maybe both!
Phillip,
This is not a bad start on fixing things, but I’d still urge you to to be wary of the possibility of it coming off as a “notpology” (which I hope is not what you intended). The phrasing, “if people interpreted my comment that way” can seem to put the responsibility for the harm on the person who was angry about the harm, rather indicating an acceptance of responsibility by the person who did the harm (however inadvertently). But I do appreciate your clarification, and I’m glad to know that you didn’t intend harm. I think that’s important and good.
So now let’s talk about CJO’s reaction and nym and why you find them so upsetting. First, the anger thing. I want to clarify a couple points about your knowledge of the context and your stance on internet discussion style, so I hope you’ll bear with a few questions from me on this. When you say that the anger is an explanation, not an excuse, what *exactly* about CJO’s comments did you find inexcusable? Was it the simple use of vulgar language? Was it the all-caps “yelling”? Can you write down for me a version of CJO’s comment(s) that would express all of the substantive objections that CJO was trying to convey but that you would not find objectionable, or was the substance itself part of what you found inexcusable? And if you found the substance acceptable, do you have any idea what about the situation might have caused CJO to feel that it was appropriate to express these ideas in a fashion that you found more objectionable instead?
As for the “verbal jackboots”, I guess I’m just really not entirely certain why you’re reacting so strongly to this imagery. I don’t even think I’d seen anybody specifically identifying it as Nazi imagery, as opposed to simply general totalitarianism, until you came along. And even accepting the Nazi-specific framing, I just don’t really see why you find parody Nazis so far beyond the pale as compared to any other possible bad thing one might parody. Do you hate “The Producers” too, and if not, how do you see it as different? Would you object equally strongly if CJO’s nym appeared to reference Stalinism, Juche, or 1984, and if not, why not? Do you have some personal history that makes this Nazi thing especially salient to you? I want to be clear, I’m not trying to “gotcha” you with any of these questions, I’m just genuinely confused about why your objection to this is so strong, and I’d really like to get some clarification.
Oops, looks like B Lar beat me to it on the notpology issue. Phillip, I hope you’ll take that seriously — people here tend to be very alert to nuances of that kind, so if you didn’t mean it as a notpology, a quick correction would be helpful.
Phillip Hallam-Baker,
You seem to be blind to the fact that what happened in 2008 was not an isolated incident. I accept that you agree it shouldn’t have happened, that blanket “go to the police” responses are unhelpful and that Mr Wagg because, faced with that situation, he’s not sure even now that he did the right thing or did enough, should not be blamed.
Now let me put on my retired Trade Union rep hat and approach this as though it had happened in England at the same date. JREF was at the time Alison Smith’s employer and thus had a duty of care. At the same time JREF had a duty to ensure the safety of those attending the conference, in co-operation with the venue. In an ideal world that duty to participants would have included giving Mr Wagg a clear line of persons to report to and some basic training in how to handle such a situation – not that training can ever be enough but it might have helped support him.
What I do not know is whether there are comparable laws in the US or how they are interpreted. The moral obligations which underlie UK law on this are not easily waved away, wherever you may be.
Now let’s look at what really happened. When Alison Smith was clearly far too drunk to take care of her own safety, no-one intervened, no-one put her safely before their own amusement, including Dr Shermer. Mr Wagg became involved, did his best but was unsupported. At some stage Alison reported a criminal act to the “top brass” and ran into company policy – basically that JREF was and still is above the law.
Some of this you know perfectly well: what I’m trying to do is put it in chronological order so that you see why some of us who have been dealing with this for years are a little curt sometimes and rather feel that people should do their own homework. Or, more bluntly, pissed off.
So what happened next? Well, in the following years the existence of the “creep list” became known and was treated as an outrageous act of disloyalty by the plebs. Dr Gay gave a talk which mentioned that there was a problem – no names, no details – and was blacklisted. Rebecca Watson gave some very gentle dating advice to the gormless: she’s blacklisted in places and she still faces torrents of abuse. Her Page o’ Hate was updated just the other day. Just about everyone on the planet who identifies as female was accused of making the whole thing up. Many other women have been subjected to campaigns of abuse, left the internet, been made ill. I am sure that you are aware that the attempts to produce very simple codes of conduct for behaviour among strangers at alcohol-laden events was fiercely resisted, not least by JREF.
So what would you have us do next? The amendments to the law – definition of rape and consent, including sexual abuse in the training of at least some police officers, strengthening of employee rights and hate crime / discrimination law and practice – are well under way if imperfectly grasped. The studies of serial acquaintance rapists have been done. The myths about false rape reports, about how women are “supposed to behave” are being challenged and the knowledge, part of psychology for decades, of what traumatic experiences do to memory is gradually seeping into the odd mind in the judicial system.
With some magnificent exceptions among male comrades most of this change has been driven by women. Wherever it is happening – the most recent outbreak seems to be among librarians – we are also expected to teach each new group of men what it means, starting at the “A is or arse, don’t touch” level.
Even in this last year, when it was clear that every last detail of the 2008 rape was going to come out and soon, those with power were using it to try to get the whole thing hushed up. I don’t believe that’s the sort of world you want to live in. Neither do I!
How about stepping away from this conversation and starting a whole new experiment – the one where men teach other men to to see this, as I know you do, as something other than an almighty joke and one where you get to pass on tips about how to rape someone but maintain plausible deniability?
You seem to have lost all sense of proportion.
Look, here I am, oppressing you with my verbal jackboots.
I’m witch hunting you with my opinion that you’re a feckin’ idiot.
I’m thought policing you by wondering what the hell you think a skeptic community is–a community of people who have fits and fall into a faint because they can’t process the concept of parody?
You’re useless, Phillip. The best thing you can do to help rape victims in the future is to shut your goddamn trap.
That Brive1987 in the JREF thread displays the full range of asshole.
Off-topic, but for those of us who distrust self-professed authority, Phil doesn’t seem to be on the level. He doesn’t seem to deserve the authority he thinks he deserves.
Thousands of people have contributed to the things he’s also contributed to. That doesn’t make him an architect. It makes him one of us; people who in small ways contribute to the way the internet works. But he prefers to lie and hoard rather than to tell the truth and share. You’re not one of us, Phil.
.
@B Lar,
No, I did not mean to do that. The reason for the contorted language was that I had misread the Wikipedia page and was under the misimpression the event was in Florida and thus a prosecution still possible. Even if the victim did not want to bring a prosecution now, she might change her mind in the future.
I read enough of the Dawkins tweets to realize that he has returned to form after his elevatorgate attack on Watson. I did put some time and effort into working out the details of what happened then and preparing points for talking Dawkins out of his tree. Because at the time it seemed worthwhile to try to close The Rift before it got any bigger and it was not clear to me that Dawkins was intentionally stirring up the Internets.
I am not doing that again because (1) I don’t think there is a way for Dawkins to climb down now (2) I am not giving him the benefit of the doubt a second time and (3) I don’t think he is worth keeping on the team. Yes, I really do get the fact that he has been back at his old trick of stirring up the dregs of the net with tweets that many interpret to be pro-rape. And I know that the tweets appear designed to shield Shermer and that Nugent has written a very long and incredibly tedious explanation of why atheists should not criticize Dawkins.
@Maureen,
Yes, I know that there was more than one perpetrator and more than one act and it is pretty obvious that some folk here have more specific information that is not yet public. The fact that it was a creep list rather than the name of one creep tells us there was more than one perpetrator for a start.
The elevatorgate shitstorm makes no sense at all. Her hate mail is possibly the worst on the net. It is an order of magnitude worse than anything else I have seen. And I have seen a lot.
One thing missing from your chronology is when Shermer and his supporters effectively outed the victim. I bet that happened more than four years after the incident.
@76 latsot,
The expertise I claimed was in Internet crime and the dark side of the Web. Due to my role I have seen rather more than most.
@71 Anne,
My point was that if you want to come across as an impartial honest broker here you would by now have acknowledged the fact that my original post did not justify the uncivil behavior.
Since you all seem to be very intent on hazing the new guy and then complaining that he is side tracking the conversation, I’ll probably not bother to reply further.
Phillip, how about you shut the hell up about your wounded self and let this thread be about something other than you?
Philip wrong? That’s unpossible!
The only explanation is that everyone is just bent on “hazing” him. And THEN complaining that the thread is all about him. Cuz, you know. He’s the only rational person in this virtual room.
You’re an asshole, Phillip.
I stomp on your words with my verbal jackboots.
Even granting for a moment that Phillip’s initial post didn’t warrant such “uncivil behavior,” his behavior since then has amply justified any hostility, anger, and even *gasp* vulgarity directed towards him.
While I can’t speak to how much he knew and when and what he did or didn’t do at the time, I can say “Bravo” to Wagg for stepping forward and stepping up now. It couldn’t have been easy to do, so well done, him.
Phil @79. No. You called yourself an “architect of the web” in order to establish some undeserved authority here. You don’t have it. You know you don’t have it. And you’re welcome to the arse you’ve had handed to you.
@78, oops. Way to spoil my own thunder. Even so.
We unwittingly have a new trope. I’m an architect of the web therefore….
And Josh as usual is right. It’s not about Phil.
Has anyone pointed out that this claim of sexual assault wasn’t widely believed until a male witness stepped forward?
Admittedly it isn’t quite that simple, but after Grothe’s repeated lies about incidents at TAM and their secret anti-harassment policy, you should not need extraordinary supporting evidence to support a plausible ordinary claim.
Damn sea lions.
My favorite web architect is Charlotte. Some pig, indeed…
HJ Hornbeck @89:
I almost posted a comment to that effect, but decided not to because I wasn’t confident that it’s “widely believed” now.
Though there are some encouraging signs. I did see someone arguing with Russell Blackford on Twitter along the lines of “yeah, I hate FTB/Skepchick, but it’s not looking good for Shermer.”
For those of you turning yourselves into knots trying to make excuses for Jeff Wagg, remember this line from Allison’s original message:
Sounds to me like she asked him to support her and he failed in his duty of care to her, as well as to any other women Shermer raped at the many meetings he was invited to after that.
He is a rape enabler.
I hope any women that were victimised by Shermer take JREF to court over this.
So Russell Blackford is still saying Shermer didn’t do it?
Diva – no I don’t think so; I think it was Randi who didn’t do anything. I hate to say that, but it seems to be the case, given what he told Oppenheimer – that JREF staff had told him Shermer was a problem, and he’d done nothing about it.
Ophelia @95:
I was surprised to see this from you, because the tweets I was referencing were retweeted by you (or some of them were). But I see now that, although you retweeted it yesterday, the conversation took place on September 12, right after the Oppenheimer article was published. I don’t know what, if anything, he’s said about Shermer after Wagg’s disclosure (or even if he knows about it).
Ah. Sorry to be confusing, screechy.
Nah, my fault for not reading carefully.
I’m neither a lawyer nor an architect of the web. I am, however, a former J-student who aced all his classes on editing.
The only plausible interpretation of the above statement is that the speaker is advocating that the police be called in. If the speaker does not mean that the victim, or that Wagg, should be the one to do this, then it is at least insufficient who would do so–perhaps the author believes there are magical law enforcement fairies who intervene when the time is right?
Now, a slight re-phrasing of this statement could be much less patronizing: “If Smith said more to Wagg, Wagg should avoid making any further public statements right now, in case Allison does decide to go to the police, even after so much time has passed.” The re-write, which took only a few moments’ thought, eliminates the implicit condemnation of the “STFU” acronym while also emphasizing Allison’s right of agency.
As it is blatantly obvious by this point in the conversation that several people DID interpret the original comment that way, the ‘if’ phrasing is off-putting. It resembles the typical not-pology form of placing the blame for the misinterpretation on the reader–which is only valid if one can demonstrate that the offensive interpretation requires a strained reading of the original text. As demonstrated above, however, the opposite is true–the sentence required a strong re-write to eliminate the problematic phrasing.
Conclusion: Phillip seems to be on the right side of the issue, but his ineptitude with phrasing, and his inability to set aside his own ego long enough to properly assess same makes him a limited value ally at best.
I think I’d really like to be an internet planner. Why limit myself to just one web, when I can design a whole internet?
Phillip, I’m not impartial. I’m just patient, which is something I can afford to be, because I don’t spend very much time personally engaged in these debates, unlike most of the others who were responding to you. And what I’ve been trying to tell you, as gently as I possibly could, in order to make it easier for you to hear me, is that the *reason* your comments were met with incivility is because, while it may have been the first time *you* said those things, it’s the hundred-thousand-millionth time most people around here have heard them, or some variation on them. They’re sick and tired of having to deal with a constant flood of 101-level errors as the price of being able to have this space available for higher-level discussion.
It’s all very well and good to have an ideal of being easy on n00b errors (which your errors have been, and prizing “civil” tone over avoidance of harmful substance is yet another one). But tolerance of the more harmful types of errors is costly to the people who are expected to be doing the tolerating, and many of the spaces around here are designed to address the needs of those people more than the needs of n00bs.
Thus, it is considered somewhat more excusable when a person decides they don’t have any interest in being patient with yet another apparently ignorant recital of a harmful rape myth than it is to be the one reciting the harmful rape myth. Doubling down on defense of the recital rather than apologizing for the harm caused further increases the costs to those who were already harmed, and thus is seen to indicate bad faith engagement in the space.
That’s not to say that there’s no room here for n00bs, it’s just that it you have to *accept* that you’re a n00b and be humble about it. You have to recognize that your cred from elsewhere doesn’t mean *anything* until you’ve established yourself as a good-faith citizen here. You have to present your ideas tentatively rather than forcefully (i.e., no saying that people you don’t know and don’t have any business giving instructions to should “STFU”), and respond to criticism (even harsh, dismissive, uncivil criticism) with openness to the possibility that you might have been the one in the wrong, rather than defensiveness and anger. N00bs who handle these issues gracefully are the ones who are seen as deserving gentler treatment from the commentariat. Unfortunately, you failed to present yourself in a way that communicated the expected demeanor right from your very first comment in this thread, and it only got worse from there.
Anyway, I guess this comment may be pointless if you’ve already left, but I’ll throw it out there just in case you haven’t.
Hallam-Baker says:
I’m still trying to figure out how this all relates to secure data transmission protocols, and when I do, I’ll come back here and vindicate Dr. Hallam-Baker.
[Don’t hold your breath.]
I really like the sound of those formulations.
I am one of the shoe-wearers of Pigs!
[it’s the local-part of my e-mail address and my gravatar, I don’t mean someone else is a pig!]
Did Wagg encourage Smith to talk to police once she said she had been raped? If Wagg told Randi, did Randi take this step?
Not this again.
Guest post: The whole thing shredded her
Shermer won’t address this at all. But if he did, I’m sure the new excuse would be, if it was rape, why didn’t Wagg, Randi or JREF report it. Unfortunately this is likely to blow over, i.e. he got away with it.
I would disagree. Strongly. That is why I so appreciate people like Ophelia & PZ & Dana Hunter, and even Adam Lee, for not letting this shit fade away.
Per several of the comments above, reporting an alleged crime is not necessarily legally limited to the victim. In fact, adults in most states are **required** to report allegations they hear about child abuse, especially child sexual abuse. Even if the victim is an old enough juvenile to theoretically talk to police himself or herself, or even if the victim is now an adult, but statute of limitations has not expired.
Nor is someone who has heard about an alleged crime perpetrated by one adult on another necessarily morally limited. Let’s say something similar to this happened in 2012, and the person to whom Smith, or some other victim, talked to, knew that Shermer had an alleged history by that time. Were I, at least, the person getting my ear bent, I would at least consider going to the police on my own.
None of this is meant to blame Wagg, who obviously didn’t have a trail of allegations in the picture back in 2008, either.
My further thoughts, in an update on a post from earlier this month about Grothe getting canned: http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2014/09/james-randi-and-founders-syndrome-at.html
Steve Sirhan, going to the police against the wishes of the victim is a horrible thing to do. Nobody who is not the victim has the right to take it upon themself to sign the victim up for potentially years of further trauma with little to no chance of actually seeing justice served.
Unfortunately, a large number of people know about this and haven’t spoken up, probably never will. Witness the announcement of the party on the JREF forum in 2008. Remie (Alison) discusses her aims to attend.
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=113875
Steve Sirhan, speaking as an adult victim who went to the police: NO. You do not have the right to make such a decision for an adult human being. You do not have the right to put them through a hell which is in many ways worse than the original rape. You do not get to choose for them what justice to pursue.
They just had their agency taken from them in the worst possible way, and they need to reestablish their boundaries and take back control over their own lives. They need people who will support their decisions and support them. They need people willing to do and be whatever they need in order to survive. They know better than you what they can and cannot cope with. If you report their rape to the authorities without their express consent, guess what? You’ve taken their agency away. You’ve violated their boundaries, their trust, and their consent. Much like their rapist.
Do not ever presume you know what’s best for an adult victim. They’re not children; they can decide for themselves what to do. You don’t like it? Fucking tough.
You want to do something about it? Support victims. Listen to them. Tell rapists not to rape. Educate yourself on how predators operate and shutt them down. Push back against rape culture. Demand that law enforcement change the way it deals with rape victims. If your buddy tells you they’ve raped someone, report that (unless the victim has told you not to).
Don’t ever think you have the right to take tge victim’s agency away.
“I am one of the architects of the web…”
And that would be highly relevant, if we were talking about web architecture. Crikey.