A noble mind o'erthrown

The pattern is the usual one.

Step 1: Someone gets his (usually "his") username/IP address banned from an online forum for generally acting like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.

Step 2: He gets a new username/IP address to sidestep the ban and his first post, always, is some variation of "I won't be ignored, Dan!"

Step 3: Lather, rinse, repeat and demonstrate four out of five of Kubler-Ross' stages of grief in long angry-denying-depressed-bargaining screeds that demand a detailed response to a long series of enumerated points and sub-points.

The latter two steps don't seem like a reasonable or constructive response to getting banned from an online forum, but then again reasonable and constructive don't seem to be these folks' fortes.

Que sera sera.

Comments

[Bugmaster]

I personally use only two names in all my online appearances: "Bugmaster" when it is available, and "Metabug" when someone else already has "Bugmaster" registered. About three seconds of Googling will give you my real name and address -- which will be completely wrong, because I haven't bothered updating it in the past few years. But, 10 minutes of Googling will probably get you the real thing.

I don't think I'm important enough to warrant any kind of untraceable anonymity; although, with the way things are going in the US, politically, I am willing to admit that I'm probably wrong.

[Froborr]

Lauren: In terms of the amount of the Earth's resources I am culpable for when I sit down to a meal, beans > chicken > beef > sardines > phytoplankton. Pork fits in there somewhere after beef; I know it's pretty much the worst common agricultural product, but I don't know how it compares to aquaculture.

As part of my efforts to contribute less to The Problem, I choose to avoid everything less efficient than beef (except for the aforementioned no-more-than-once-a-month special-occasion eat-what-you-please day). I could choose to put the line somewhere else, sure, but that's as much as I'm willing to give up on that front. On the other hand, I don't have a car, pets, or kids, so I think I'm doing pretty okay overall.

[alsafi]

I generally (unless it's taken) use alsafi or some variant thereof as a screen name in all forums to which I belong--complete anonymity precludes any development of community, so it's worth it to me to have my name attached to me in a more permanent way. There's an article about anonymity and public forums and how users prove themselves to be worthwhile contributors that TNH once linked to, but I don't have the time to try and dig it up right now*. That said, while I think a dedicated person could attach my screen name to my real one, it would take a bit of digging to do so, and isn't anything that couldn't be much more quickly accomplished by digging up my ip address.

*Actually, this and the kerfluffle over on Making Light were why I stopped reading scottbot and not_scottbot's posts here--I figured that if anonymity was so much more important to them than participating in the community, they either didn't care about the community enough for me to care about them, or were so paranoid that I would have to take everything they wrote with a measure of mistrust that I don't enjoy applying in my recreation time. Therefore, no matter how amused I was by the early scott-baiting, they were in the end just as much of a troll as Scott, though less overtly offensive.

[hapax]

I use "hapax" or some variant thereof pretty consistently on the internet. There are other hapax-es (hapaces?) out there -- it's an obvious pun to anyone with a smattering of Greek. I do use my real name for professional postings and a pseudonym for fiction.

Although some might argue that everything I write is fiction.

I think there are some people who know all three identities; I don't make any particular effort to hide them. I don't make any particular effort to advertise them, either, because although I'm not at all an interesting-type person to potential stalkers (for want of a better word), I am related to several people who are (for various reasons), and the habit of privacy is a bit ingrained.

[Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little]

I figured that if anonymity was so much more important to them than participating in the community, they either didn't care about the community enough for me to care about them....

alsafi, yes. And the conflating of "caring about the community" with "bowing to mob rule" that these trolls do in the aftermath is disingenuous and bad.

The sockpuppetry that went on in that thread was the main thing that turned me off of reading the troll further. It's dishonest--not in that it hides identity (anonymity is everyone's right, IMHO), but that it attempts to create the illusion of more people supporting a viewpoint than really do. It's astroturf. It actively destroys the ability of anyone to honestly gauge the tone of the conversation. Quite simply, it's hostile to community, and anyone who would do such and be proud of it is not someone I want to sit down to tea with.

[jamoche]

I was podkayne1 on alt.religion.scientology and never used my real name anywhere near that ID, but when one of the clams posted my ID and real name I gave up on anything but trivial obfuscation (and went "yay! I'm an SP3!")

[MikhailBorg]

I've been MikhailBorg since AOL 2.something. (Okay, it was mikailborg then, because of a 10-character limit.) There's nothing associated with this name that needs hiding, which is good, because sneaking around the Internet gets tiresome sometimes, and it becomes hard to remember which friend is in which group.

[Jesurgislac]

I use Jesurgislac all over the place, and have done since 2002 or so. I wanted a username that no one else would think of, that would be unique everywhere, and unmistakable, and was completely unconnected to my real name.

I've changed journals once (livejournal to greatestjournal, when SixApart took over: and greatestjournal to a wordpress blog (which is what you get when you now click on my name) when greatestjournal went slightly kablooie. But I stick with Jesurgislac.

I don't actually mind it being misspelled or shortened by others, but I do find the uniqueness useful.

[Jeff]

As near as I can tell, there is not currently any such thing as environmentally sound seafood

There is locally grown fish -- trout, catfish and sea bass among them. Not sure if that fits your description, though.

=====================

But still, seeing how extreme some people consider having two user names for a few months in one forum

See "sockpuppet".

===================

I use "Jeff" in most public forums -- I haven't had to distinguish in any. It would probably be trivial to get my real name, but I can't see why anyone would bother.

I have another nick which I use private forums. Mostly to distinuish them.

[julia]

I've had this tag for almost forty five years, so I'm pretty happy with it. I stated with lowercase because I wasn't, at the time, a very good typist.

I've really never understood what is going through the minds of people who blithely announce that they're taking part in a light-hearted social science experiment to see how far they can push screwing with other peoples' minds. Do you expect that people having been treated like lab rats for your amusement because their community has the audacity to have different standards than your own are going to be impressed by your libertarian rigor, or is it enough that you've burnished your griefer street cred?

You and your friends put significant time into this. It was what you valued doing.

And now that you've made your point about cruel group dynamics and not enforcing standards by jerking everyone who didn't meet your standards around by the short hairs with your own similarly-minded peer group, you're off to improve your superior mind in the higher realms of erudition, and you'd like the little people you've been mindfucking to profit from your elevating example and do the same.

Apes do read philosophy, Otto. They just don't understand it.

[pat greene]

I am pat greene everywhere -- except for one friends-locked alternative LiveJournal (my main LJ is patgreene). My name is common enough I am not particularly worried about it. Also, keeping up with multiple names is a headache.

And finally, when I read someone here that I read elsewhere, it's nice to know that. It gives me additional data points when considering their viewpoints.

Then again, my Internet blog list is rather small.

[pat greene]

Do you expect that people having been treated like lab rats for your amusement because their community has the audacity to have different standards than your own are going to be impressed by your libertarian rigor, or is it enough that you've burnished your griefer street cred?

Julia? I <3 you. Seriously.

[Lauren]

Funny, I thought the "slac" in Jesurgislac might be related to "slacktivist", but obviously I never thought about it that hard.

Froborr: Should sardines and phytoplankton be reversed in your list? Because otherwise I am confused. Unless you are counting harvesting cost somehow...

Your system still seems illogical to me. Shouldn't you utilize the food that can be most efficiently produced in a given environment, rather than limiting yourself to the most hypothetically efficient food source? You cannot raise chickens at sea.

[Yawzoa]

I am pat greene everywhere

I pretty much stick with Yawzoa myself.

[Jesurgislac]

Funny, I thought the "slac" in Jesurgislac might be related to "slacktivist", but obviously I never thought about it that hard.

Heh. You can break it up into "Je Surgis Lac", and then in bastardised French it sort of means "I rise from the lake". And yeah, it's kind of a Monty Python joke.

Back in 2002, I thought no one would expect that...

*waits*

[Bruce Baugh]

Nicole nails it precisely for me: The sockpuppetry that went on in that thread was the main thing that turned me off of reading the troll further. It's dishonest--not in that it hides identity (anonymity is everyone's right, IMHO), but that it attempts to create the illusion of more people supporting a viewpoint than really do. It's astroturf. It actively destroys the ability of anyone to honestly gauge the tone of the conversation. Quite simply, it's hostile to community, and anyone who would do such and be proud of it is not someone I want to sit down to tea with.

What I care about are souls, or minds if you want to be materialistic or just agnostic about it. :) People, the entities that read, think and feel, and write responses. It doesn't matter to me how much or how little they wish to share about themselves. It does matter a lot to me if they think it's okay to lie, pretend to be others, and like that. If they want to talk about personal aspects of their lives, I want them to do it honestly, and if something makes honesty seem too high a hurdle, then I prefer that they not do it dishonestly.

(As always, there are exceptions. But they pretty much all involve people's safety at basic levels. I can discuss some of them with examples, but they're exceptions. "I felt like seeing how many strings I could yank" doesn't count, while "I am shifting some locales so that I can talk about my experience of this without alerting an abusive ex-spouse given to googling my name and pertinent facts every day" does.)

I also believe very strongly in treating people as possessing agency, of regarding them as moral actors rather than moral patients. We are not the canvas on which others should feel free to scrawl their own artwork, we are not test subjects to be used against our wills or without our knowledge. We are all of us ends in ourselves, to be accorded respect by default and even when we forfeit our standing via acts of cruelty, folly, and the like, still not to be treated as toys, but as people responsible for our actions and subject to discipline accordingly.

"It's all just words", someone often says at this point. And? I say in response. Words are what we have, unless you've got a reliable means of telepathy and/or the world's most amazing collection of ASCII art. Since we don't merge minds, we have to reach across space and time, and we do it with words. Words carry our thoughts, our feelings, our hopes and fears, everything that we wish anyone else to experience. "It's all just words" is like saying "it's all just matter" when someone objects to being given poison rather than medicine - it is all just matter, but there's a real difference between aspirin and arsenic.

[Bruce Baugh]

Sorry, Jes, you're not nearly Christianist enough to be the Spanish Inquisition.

Hold on, that would mean I don't expect you...caught on my own meta-discourse!

[Ryan]

Yeah how are you supposed to remember that "Jesusgurglesac" thing anyway? And who are "Otto" and "Real Class"?

Also, a bit of pedantry: "I was wondering what your criteria were," not "criteria was." "Criteria" is the plural of "criterion."

Silly rabbit! Neglecting the singular turns the plural into a mass noun, just like that!

[julia]

from A Fish Called Wanda. Wanda is telling off her pseudointellectual boyfriend.

Wanda: To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people. I've known sheep who could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQs, but you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?

Otto: Apes don't read philosophy.

Wanda: Yes they do, Otto, they just don't understand it.

[Laima]

I've posted comments on other blogs with my first name, but since it's (afaik) fairly unique (and my surname is definitely completely singular), I wanted something a little more anonymous for Slacktivist. Although I don't comment frequently, I comment here more than anywhere else. Too, "Laima" could (potentially, if it were recognized) tell someone more about me than my first name would, unless they knew me IRL, which likely no one here does.

It was instructive being mistaken by 85% Duane for Jesurgislac's sock puppet, back in the day. I must say, I never expected my writing style (which I had thought rather unique) to be seen as sock-puppetry of anybody, but live and learn. At least it was someone whose writing I like - could've definitely been worse.

And, strangely, I miss Duane, whom I don't recall seeing comments from any time recently. We didn't agree much, but he seemed an interesting person.

[Chris]

I'm Christina Nordlander Dawson, resident in Manchester, currently finishing a PhD in Classics and Ancient History. In case you were interested, which you weren't.

Nice to finally hear the true story behind your name, Jesurgislac. I'd never managed to think of a meaning for it, except "sort of like Jesus". I did figure out the meaning of Bugmaster, though.

[Chris]

Scott has been raptured.

[Froborr]

Lauren: Since I have access to food from multiple different environments, and land-raised protein is intrinsically more efficient than sea-raised protein, shouldn't I concentrate on the land-raised protein and leave the sea-raised protein to people who *don't* have access to land-raised protein?

[Brandi]

Perhaps you could use some kosher turkey bacon, for your kosher-keeping friend? Or perhaps some other suitable smoked/cured meat?

You can't have meat and cheese together, due to the prohibition on cooking a kid (or calf) in its mother's milk (Deut 14:21, Exodus 23:19 AND Exodus 34:26-- apparently it was important). Strangely, while the rabbis have decided that birds count in the prohibition (despite them not making milk), fish do not, so tuna casseroles & melts are A-OK.

I guess I could go with soy cheese but I don't think there are any that resemble bleu cheese (or, for that matter, don't taste mediocre).

[Chris]

Scott has been raptured.

[julia]

How is land-raised protein more efficient? There isn't a whole lot of agriculture involved in the sea food chain, at least in nature, and my impression is that the calorie transfer is much more favorable with seafood.

I don't particularly like it, but if you don't insist on consuming apex predators I'd imagine it was more efficient to eat fish

[Jon]

I post under Jon here simply because that was what I happened to type the first time I posted a comment and after that I just stuck with it. I don't post on very many comment threads/forums, but when I do I usually go with Jon or some variation on Heimdall. I don't put any effort into hiding who I am, simply because I can't see any reason for anyone to care who I am.

[Lauren]

Froborr: I believe that the number fish that can be sustainably harvested exceeds the amount that people who have no access to land-based protein need to eat. And even if not, doesn't everybody benefit from a varied, balanced diet? Culturally as well as physically?

Who doesn't have access to land-based protein, anyway? The Aleut and Pacific islanders? Or is it a poverty thing?

I feel it's about time for a disclaimer: I don't care what you eat, or not. I was initially worried that there was a grave ecological cost to clams of which I was unaware, but that seems not to be the issue.

[Geds]

I generally try to stick with Geds. It's a nickname I've had since junior high, but it was in danger of dying out when I had the brilliant idea of turning it in to my internet identity. I'll occasionally be Geds81 or Gedman, but that's rare.

[Davis X. Machina]

bacon-wrapped turkey.

Or bacon-wrapped scallops, known hereabouts as trayf-kabobs.

As for net-names, I toyed with Billy Dee Profundis, Abe Initio, Ovid X. Ponto, Dave Rerum-Natura (and his pre-Socratic sidekick Perry Physeos), Roy Faineant and a few others, before settling down with this one 10+ years ago on the old (free) Salon Tabletalk.

[Geds]

Billy Dee Profundis, Abe Initio, Ovid X. Ponto, Dave Rerum-Natura (and his pre-Socratic sidekick Perry Physeos), Roy Faineant and a few others, before settling down with this one

That's just a brilliant collection of pseudonyms...

[Karen]

Karen is my real, actual first name. I sometimes post using "Kitty" which is the nickname my husband gave me, but is also used by some of our friends. I never could come up with a pseudonym I liked that much and that no one else used, so I stick with my real name. I don't think I'm sufficiently interesting for anyone to bother looking me up outside of blog comments.

Jesu, I kinda thought your name was an Arthurian reference, but I can't exactly say why I thought that. The "je" and"lac," being two of about ten French words I recognize probably had something to do with it. Great handle, by the way. Do you ever wear white samite, and if so, would you mind tell me exactly what samite IS? I'm an Arthur buff and still don't know the answer to the that.

hapax, would you mind revealing the Greek pun? I promise never to post another kid poem if you do.

[hapax]

hapax, would you mind revealing the Greek pun?

hapax is Greek for "once", most often seen by textual scholars in the phrase "hapax legomenon" (="said once") for those terms that appear only one time in a particular textual corpus.

Like many before me, when prompted to "enter a unique user name" (once "unique" was already taken!), I defaulted to "hapax."

Not terribly clever, once it is explained, alas.

[Anna]

I use either Anna (or Anna S, if someone already had Anna registered) pretty consistently on liberal/political/social issues blogs. I have another pseudonym that I use for fannish and fictional endeavors. Unlike many of you, I do make a deliberate effort to keep the two separate, mostly because professional colleagues know of the Anna nom de plume, and I'd prefer them not to get mixed up in my fannishness without my explicit permission.

[SueW]

But ultimately, the reason I stopped reading scottbot was because the posts under that name were boring.

Me too. Actually, anything whatever to do with Scott became boring to me early on. And nearly always off-topic.

As for user names - I nearly always use some variation of SueW or Cheezits. I prefer to be recognized by online friends if I run into them.

[MikhailBorg]

Not terribly clever, once it is explained, alas.

Why, Holmes, that was really quite simple after all!

[pepperjackcandy]

I use pepperjackcandy (sometimes capitalized PepperjackCandy) pretty much everywhere unless I plan to point real life people towards it. This is largely to keep certain family members from finding out that I write stories in which boys hold hands with each other (and occasionally kiss on the lips!).

My alternative username is my first initial followed by the first seven letters of my last name. I first used this username in grad school, where they had the ever-popular 8-character maximum.

[pepperjackcandy]

I feel it's about time for a disclaimer: I don't care what you eat, or not. I was initially worried that there was a grave ecological cost to clams of which I was unaware, but that seems not to be the issue.

Me, too. Only replace "clams" with "salmon and wild-caught Gulf of Mexico shrimp."

Mmmm. . . Gulf shrimp . . .

[Cat]

"Cat"'s usually taken everywhere I go, so I go with "catalyst" or "catfantastic" depending on the character limit. Don't know why I tried the simple version here, but it didn't not work.

I do have a name that my parents gave me, but I don't like it much, and no one but folks in my family ever uses it, thank goodness.

Once, years ago, when I was dying to try out an alter but unwilling to just start posting as someone else, I asked the folks on another board if they'd mind playing a spot-the-fake game. Response was initially positive, so I went ahead. It wasn't until I'd been running my alter for months that sentiments turned against the idea. I wasn't using it maliciously or disruptively or anything, the idea being to make it as convincing as possible, but...well, I got in large trouble. The person who found out the alter was the one who'd wanted my head for the whole business ever since it had come to his attention. The people who frequented the site forgave me for it, but I found I just couldn't face them anymore, and I participated less and less until I left in disgrace a year or so later. So, um, yeah, no more alters for me. I've seen them pulled off with grace and wit in other places, so I'm not against them as a rule, but I wouldn't ever be comfortable doing it again.

I'm not clear on who exactly has been banned, though, or why. If it's something that doesn't get talked about to protect the innocent, that's cool, but just in case it's one of those things that everyone but me knows, I figured I'd say something.

[Stacia]

Jamoche, you're Podkayne? Hi! I remember you from alt.religion.kibology (I'm formerly The Avocado Avenger, that's probably the name you know me by, if you remember me at all.)

As to scottbot's comment about using the same name on forums, I have several nyms I use, simply because the ones I want are often taken. I would prefer just going by Stacia, but you'd be surprised how many other people want to go by Stacia, too. Of the silly names I made up, my favorite nym was "glitterninja", but I'm continually being confused with the glitterninja on MeFi or the one on Classmates.com or any number of other glitterninjas roaming around out there who aren't me.

Yes, I have a point here: even the use of a nym pretty much keeps you anonymous. A nym is really just there for others on the forum to be able to identify that all posts under the same name are the same person. If scottbot wants to deliberately mess around with forum identity for his own purposes, I suppose he's welcome to do so unless Fred says otherwise, but it seems rather disingenuous of scottbot to engage in this pseudo-hand-wringing over whether people "understand" him or not. Especially since he's still being coy over which names belong to him and which don't.

[jamoche]

That does seem kind of familiar, but I was only on alt.religion.kibology if the thread got crossposted from ars - I was podkayne1 at aol, there may have been other podkaynes :)

[Cat]

Okay, I found the thread where it all went down. Feel a little silly for not having twigged immediately.

[not_scottbot]

Lauren-
'Finally, once scottbot became established as an identity with multiple users, not_scottbot started showing up, which raises the question: how many people does not_scottbot represent?'

Well, though there seemed to be the occasional Scottbot imitator, as near as I can tell, essentially all Scottbot posts came from me (an idea which many people still seem to have a hard time grasping). And not_scottbot started at roughly the same time. Scottbot's posts were essentially always written after Scott had posted, and remained tied to Scott's text. Which is why not_scottbot appeared at essentially the same time. There is much more to talk about than repeated drivel.

Scott was a strange case - he did, occasionally, actually provide something worth considering in its own light.

I do understand the part about confusion, except for the fact that I tend to read for content, and ignore packaging. Quite honestly, posts can be consecutively numbered without names as far as I am concerned, and it won't cause me any difficulties at all.

As seen by my still occasionally seen style of writing to a specific person as an identifier. You can be number 8 as far as I am concerned, and it won't make any difference to what you or I write. After all, Lauren could be male or female, young or old, American or not - and even if information fleshing out the words is available, there is no reason to believe it.

Scottbot was an experiment, directed to one person. And it failed. And the result is that Scott has been banned, which is the typical reaction to anyone who doesn't play by the rules. Though these days, not playing by the rules is becoming an excuse for all sorts of behavior.

And since this isn't all that interesting - the top news item on the radio this morning in Germany (needd to catch my train soon) was a challenge to the practice of using traffic camera data to read license plates to thus be able to better catch the guilty. As pointed out by one of challenges, 1/3000 of the scanned license plates is associated with any law breaking at all, and the assurance that the government immediately deletes the data of the innocent, and would never create a tracking system (ever heard of EZ pass in the U:S:? - you pay for your profile.) is worthless. No one here believes that, of course. No slippery slopes here - which doesn't mean that the problem of evil done in the name of good has been banished.

Because 1/3000 of those living in Germany might be breaking a law or regulation, it is necessary to make sure that everyone is playing by the rules. Otherwise, everything would fall apart. Welcome to our world - at least in Germany, people are still challenging such flawed and evil assumptions. Because in Germany, evil is not a question of Them, it always a question of Us.

[Lauren]

Me, too. Only replace "clams" with "salmon and wild-caught Gulf of Mexico shrimp."

Mmmm. . . Gulf shrimp . . .

Seafood Watch seems to be the place to go for that kind of information. There's a 52 page report on Gulf shrimp, the gist seems to be that it's an OK option, most of the ecological impact from the bycatch (probably sea turtles). Wild pacific salmon is OK, especially if it's from Alaska, Atlantic and any farmed salmon not so much. If all you know is Atlantic salmon, you are seriously missing out. Wild Copper River Chinook may cost $28 a pound, but it is so worth it.

According to some sources, pork and chicken are both more efficient than beef.

[Jesurgislac]

Home-reared pork and chicken are certainly much more efficient than beef: pigs and chickens can both convert food scraps into food. Commercially-reared pork and chicken, not so much.

[Jesurgislac]

Oh my. What do you do with the cloves- just sprinkle them over top into the apple syrup?

Make shortcrust pastry, roll half of it out for the base - I use a 9-inch flan case. Pop the base in a warm oven for the time it takes to peel, core, and slice two or three Bramley cooking apples - though bear in mind I can do this pretty fast. Stick two or three of the slices with a clove, depending how much you like clove. Take the base out of the oven, layer the slices on to the base, making sure the clove slices are widely separated. Sprinkle dark brown sugar on top of the apples, with a little cinnamon if you like. Roll out the top crust, brush cold water round the edge of the bottom crust, place the upper crust on top of the apples, pinch-seal the top to the bottom at the edges (this is where the cold water is useful) and fork holes in the top crust.

Bake for half an hour in a hot oven. You probably want a tray underneath it because the juices sometimes boil over the edge of the flan case.

Eat hot, with thick unsweetened whipped cream.

[Jesurgislac]

(And although most people will tell you to make shortcrust pastry with butter and white flour I do in fact usually make it with decent margarine and wholemeal flour - it's easier to work the margarine into the flour, and the wholemeal flour is what gives the pastry the flavor.)

[not_scottbot]

To throw out another idea about the difference between public and private (and for those ignoring me, please, don't let me stop you).

Most European languages, with the notable exception of English, make a distinction which English lacks - call it between public/private, formal/informal, or even power/weakness. Whether in French (tu/vous, if I remember correctly) or du/Sie in German, the distinction exists between those you actually know, in a real, living way, and the rest of humanity, who is treated at one remove. When writing to strangers (as you all are to me, in my way of looking at things) it is highly rude to even imply that the person writing has the right to address someone in the sense of knowing them. Sorry Bruce, but while the words are real, this doesn't mean they substitute for a real person, at least in the sense being explained here.

Notice this has little to do with how a forum manages itself, but is instead a fundamental distinction in weltanschauung. Germans, for example, do not become easily confused in replacing the real human beings that they use 'du' with onto a group of people sitting at keyboards, whose words are represented on a screen. This is not about human interaction, by the way - obviously, letter writing is equally a form of communication where two people can feel that they are connected in a way equal to any physical contact. But even letter writing has a level of reality - the words on the page, or the time that passes between writing and replies - which the Internet lacks.

Sometimes, it disturbs me greatly to realize that what I consider a minor distraction is taken so seriously by so many people. I have no problems not going on-line for weeks (another old discussion - no need to repeat your own experiences), nor do I have a problem not visiting sites - whether because they demand registration, money, or otherwise leave me cold (hypocrisy being one of the largest). I do unfortunately have a problem being accused of things, and then watching the accuser sit in a position where only the accusation is allowed to stand, but that is a flaw of of mine. And becoming ever so more typically American, and no longer Kafkaesque. A minor example can be seen above - notice how casually 'sockpuppet' is thrown around, as if the accusation justifies itself without need for proof (notice a certain resemblance to another mindset, which seems unstoppable?).

Worse, it worries me how many people seem unable to distinguish between the simulacrum of a person, and the real person. Consider this roughly the difference between a live performance of music, and a streaming MP3 of the same thing. The music may still be similar in most respects (though the MP3, by design, removes much of the 'reality' through its psychoacoustic model), but the MP3 is not the same as actually being among other people, sharing more than mere vibrations in the air. Or in the case of someone sitting at a PC, sharing nothing at all, as the listening is a solitary activity. Which is fine - until someone starts to insist that sitting in front of a PC's speakers is the same as actually attending a concert.

We are creating islands of self-reflection, without even being aware of the most basic distinctions between what appears on a screen, and other people. Or realizing how those islands are being exploited for profit. And while at a screen, ignoring the people we share our lives with. At least partially - I get interrupted by life all the time while typing, which is a good thing. For example, when typing at home, I am often also cooking dinner for the family, or tending the wood stove (bringing in more wood from outside, feeding the fire, etc.). I wasn't kidding about this being a minor distraction in a larger life.

Or about how all of you are just strangers, as we know essentially nothing about each other, and never will. This does not disturb me in the least, either.

[Nenya]

And the result is that Scott has been banned, which is the typical reaction to anyone who doesn't play by the rules.

Scott wasn't banned for "not playing by the rules", he was banned for lying about and abusing both the host and the commentariat of this blog for nigh on four years. It wasn't that he argued with the host, it was that he stomped mud into the carpet and threw plates at his host--all the while claiming that his host had stolen, STOLEN I tell you! his car outside, every time the host happened to mention motorized transport in passing. After three or four years of this, yes, a blog owner is certainly within hir rights to ban a poster who consistently behaves this way. Fred was *extremely* patient, moreso than probably any other blogger I've seen.

As for usernames--I have several, usually variants on this one, but there are a lot of other Nenyas out there. I have two or three entirely unrelated handles, all of which sprang from being bored with this one and trying out another on a fandom website a few years back. A few people know more than one of them, but generally they're in such different spheres of discussion that it doesn't matter.

I do appreciate the usefulness of unique names like Jesurgislac or Nicole J. Leboeuf-Little, since they mean I can follow discussions across blogs. When I see something by Jesu, or Bruce Baugh, or TNH, or bellatrys, or cjmr & husband, I recognize them--whether we know each other or not, I have a background and context for what they say, whether they're posting it here or on Making Light or Pandagon or some other blog. I'm sure there are times when people want to say something and have it only be judged on its own merits, not anything they've said previously (in which case sometimes you get someone saying "I usually have a username here but for this thread I'm going to be anonymous"), but I do find consistent identities helpful. Braver than me, but helpful.

[Jesurgislac]

Nenya: Scott wasn't banned for "not playing by the rules", he was banned for lying about and abusing both the host and the commentariat of this blog for nigh on four years.

But you wouldn't expect "Scott", whether posting as Scott, Scottbot, or not_scottbot, to admit that. If Scott could realize what he was doing wrong, he might have stopped - or at least apologized when called on it.