Here's the final post made at You're Not Helping. Here we see this dishonest little anonymous coward, this person who hid in the long grass and lied and lied about himself and everyone else, actually claiming to be the victim!
Of course we still don't know whether the information given even in the final post is true. That's the thing about fakes: once they are known to be fakes, you never know whether to believe anything they say.
Obviously there are more lessons here than just the one about dangers inherent in anonymity, but that one is a pretty good start.
About Me
- Russell Blackford
- Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019); AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021); and HOW WE BECAME POST-LIBERAL: THE RISE AND FALL OF TOLERATION (2024).
7 comments:
I gave the blog the benefit of the doubt when it first appeared, and assumed the blogger was commenting 'in good faith'. After one or two posts, I began to have my doubts, and didn't bother to return.
It's regrettable some feel the need to stoop so low to further their agenda, and I dare say others on both sides may have stooped low too; but I really still puzzle about the accommodationist agenda. I don't mind folk appealing for calm when they see a dispute ("he's not wurf it!"), but accommodationists appear to think that it's atheists (the new variety, obviously) that are the more guilty party in this particular dispute.
That's not how it looks from where I'm standing, and adopting disreputable tactics, as YNH did, may be seen as simply reflecting their argument's inherent dishonesty.
Perhaps one day they can run a blog or write an article that doesn't caricature the new atheists, but I'm still waiting for that day.
What a twit. I especially like this phrase: “find out who this is and ruin their life so they’ll stop saying things you don’t agree with”
This guy and his puppets were nasty, towards me, towards you, to Greg, Stephanie, Glendon, Ophelia, PZ and wants people to believe he was just reacting to being called names. He was hurt and so he felt justified in lying and lashing out.
He hasn't come out of hiding, at all. Stephanie doesn't think he is telling the truth yet, and neither do I.
I was reading the site while it was being "locked" and there were closer to 50 comment and not just the 10 which Ophelia and Oedipus have persevered.
One of the allegations which was coming out "coincidentally" just before YNH became "protected" was that "Will" had been altering comments and concocting comments which were then attributed to the readers of Greg Laden's blog to make "New Atheists" look bad.
We mustn't forget that "Will" had a good number of people convinced the readers of certain science blogs were edging ever closer to violence. He even had me taken in at one point due to some of the violent rhetoric of YNH's more vocal opponents in the comment section.
At this point there is every reason to believe that those comments were the result of dishonest sockpuppetry ...
Just something to think about for those going around saying that YNH had made some valid points.
He didn't!
I am now convinced that the entire premise was spun up out of nothing.
I can hardly believe some of the last comments I made on the site were discussing with "Brandon" that sure, I think there could be sockpuppets at YNH.
I said something about YNH having a higher-than-I'm-used-to ratio of non-linked, generic names (Patricia, Brandon) than most other blogs about atheism (I know I know - possible anecdotes and confirmation bias). Brandon layed a smackdown on me. I just found it weird.
I don't mind pseudonymous bloggers at all: I have even had art clients that I still don't know the real name of, and I totally don't care. They were excellent clients I trusted the reputation of.
But the sockpuppetry, the claims of being a team of writers,and especially claming some were female just to blast at Benson were beyond the pale. (Useless too. I envision Benson withstanding a hurricane.)
What was next? Criticism from an openly gay atheist or black-atheist leading to YNH claiming part of their team was from that demographic?
Will dug himself deeper and deeper.
What amuses me is that different socks seemingly had it in for different people -- schizophrenia at its finest. "Brandon," for example, was constantly attacking Russell Blackford. But if I made a comment that YNH disagreed with, suddenly "Patricia" would pop up instead and be all over me. YNH itself, of course, was after Greg Laden.
Yet Ophelia in particular, for some reason, was ganged up on by the blog and all its socks together. I wonder why the extra animosity?
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/06/youre_not_helping_blogger_will.php
We have a sincere apology.
(Useless too. I envision Benson withstanding a hurricane.)
:- )
It was all worth it for that!
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