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tl;dr: An innocent MetaFilter user posted about Scott Adams's writing. A flame war broke out about whether Adams was right, is self-promotional, is a nice pers

tl;dr: An innocent MetaFilter user posted about Scott Adams's writing. A flame war broke out about whether Adams was right, is self-promotional, is a nice person, etc. One of the users defending Adams was "plannedchaos." After a series of increasingly bizzare statements ("How many people think I'm actually Scott Adams writing about myself in third person?" and "Is it Adams' enormous success at self-promotion that makes you jealous and angry?" among them), an administrator of Metafilter (cortex) emailed "plannedchaos" and asked him to own up to it. Scott Adams did so. Metafilter traditionally has been good at rooting out sock puppets when they become relevant; no surprise here. (PayPal verification is useful for that) The original metafilter thread: http://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Education-by-Scott-Adams http://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Education... Direct link to Scott Adams owning up to being Scott Adams: http://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Education-by-Scott-Adams#3639512 http://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Education...

jerrya 16y ago
Regardless of whether Adams should have posted as plannedchaos or not, it feels a bit icky and privacy violating to me that an administrator of Metafilter knew and acted on it. As examples, if you work at the Social Security Administration, you are not supposed to look up Scott Adams and find out his information. And if you work at American Express, you still are not supposed to look up Scott Adams and tell people what he buys. How did cortex know plannedchaos was Scott Adams, and what tools did cortex use? (and okay, when did he know it.) For all the weirdness in that thread, that's the part that bugs me.
- teraflop 16y ago
  Cortex didn't out him, he outed himself and cortex confirmed it. My assumption is that cortex asked for permission first. I'm not in on what happened behind the scenes in this particular case, but I've been hanging around MeFi for a while, and the mods are generally very scrupulous about privacy.
  - jerrya 16y ago
    I will defer to you, however that's one but not the only interpretation of: "How many people think I'm actually Scott Adams writing about myself in third person? posted by plannedchaos at 9:21 AM on April 15 plannedchaos, please check your email. posted by cortex at 10:19 AM on April 15 [4 favorites] " At this point, I still don't think cortex has much business looking at plannedchaos' records (subject to arbitrary mefi rules that everyone the community might understand differently.) If I said, "How many people here think I'm Paul Graham writing about Scott Adams" would that vague statement give any moderator here permission to look at my profile? And I'm not even sure I approve of cortex confirming it unless and until Adams asks. Moderator's job: make sure spam/hate/abuse/trolling doesn't go to far. Occasionally delete comment. Occasionally delete thread. Occasionally apply banhammer. I don't see in the moderator's job permission to snoop on personal records of any ser that says anything mildly provocative.
    - joshmillard 16y ago
      Hi, this is cortex. How it played out, very short version: I got up in the morning and checked the new signups, part of my morning routine. We have to check for spammers and shills on a daily basis to keep mefi free from linkfarming and bullshit self-links and so on, and that tool is step one. The paypal info that comes with the $5 signup fee is hugely helpful for profiling likely spammers. I noticed what looked like a signup from Adams himself; person I've heard of signing up happens now and then, it's an "oh neat" moment and that's about it, since if you're sticking to the community guidelines and participating in good faith, who you are and what you do and how anonymous you choose to be is entirely your business. Unfortunately, what I saw when I checked out his comments since signup was weird aggressive pretending-to-be-a-third-party arguing about himself, which is really not an okay thing to pull on mefi. I talked to the rest of the staff, we sent Scott an email saying "you need to either let folks know who you are or stop having this proxy argument about yourself as if you're someone else". Time passes, no response from Scott. Then he posts that "who thinks I'm Scott Adams?" comment. Gave him some more time, still no reply, left the "check your email" comment. Time passes, and then, still no response to us, he drops the disclosure in the thread. If he'd chosen to walk away, that'd have been fine too, and we'd have had nothing to say publicly about what he did regardless of how obnoxious and sketchy it was. We took considerable pains NOT to out him and make it his call how to proceed.
- turbodog 16y ago
  Do notice that a MeFite correctly called him on this way upthread. I don't think the mods got involved until Adams outed himself. http://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Education-by-Scott-Adams#3637745 http://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Education...
  - jerrya 16y ago
    Ah! Very perceptive. But that's not a confirmed outing. And I've done that in other forums to other people making weirdly passionate defenses of someone. Sometimes that's just a mocking. The first whiff I get of an outing is cortex's msg in the forum to Scott Adams that he has a message waiting. At that point, it seems cortex has snooped without what I see any real reason/need to do so.

jerrya 16y ago

Regardless of whether Adams should have posted as plannedchaos or not, it feels a bit icky and privacy violating to me that an administrator of Metafilter knew and acted on it. As examples, if you work at the Social Security Administration, you are not supposed to look up Scott Adams and find out his information. And if you work at American Express, you still are not supposed to look up Scott Adams and tell people what he buys. How did cortex know plannedchaos was Scott Adams, and what tools did cortex use? (and okay, when did he know it.) For all the weirdness in that thread, that's the part that bugs me.

teraflop 16y ago
Cortex didn't out him, he outed himself and cortex confirmed it. My assumption is that cortex asked for permission first. I'm not in on what happened behind the scenes in this particular case, but I've been hanging around MeFi for a while, and the mods are generally very scrupulous about privacy.
- jerrya 16y ago
  I will defer to you, however that's one but not the only interpretation of: "How many people think I'm actually Scott Adams writing about myself in third person? posted by plannedchaos at 9:21 AM on April 15 plannedchaos, please check your email. posted by cortex at 10:19 AM on April 15 [4 favorites] " At this point, I still don't think cortex has much business looking at plannedchaos' records (subject to arbitrary mefi rules that everyone the community might understand differently.) If I said, "How many people here think I'm Paul Graham writing about Scott Adams" would that vague statement give any moderator here permission to look at my profile? And I'm not even sure I approve of cortex confirming it unless and until Adams asks. Moderator's job: make sure spam/hate/abuse/trolling doesn't go to far. Occasionally delete comment. Occasionally delete thread. Occasionally apply banhammer. I don't see in the moderator's job permission to snoop on personal records of any ser that says anything mildly provocative.
  - joshmillard 16y ago
    Hi, this is cortex. How it played out, very short version: I got up in the morning and checked the new signups, part of my morning routine. We have to check for spammers and shills on a daily basis to keep mefi free from linkfarming and bullshit self-links and so on, and that tool is step one. The paypal info that comes with the $5 signup fee is hugely helpful for profiling likely spammers. I noticed what looked like a signup from Adams himself; person I've heard of signing up happens now and then, it's an "oh neat" moment and that's about it, since if you're sticking to the community guidelines and participating in good faith, who you are and what you do and how anonymous you choose to be is entirely your business. Unfortunately, what I saw when I checked out his comments since signup was weird aggressive pretending-to-be-a-third-party arguing about himself, which is really not an okay thing to pull on mefi. I talked to the rest of the staff, we sent Scott an email saying "you need to either let folks know who you are or stop having this proxy argument about yourself as if you're someone else". Time passes, no response from Scott. Then he posts that "who thinks I'm Scott Adams?" comment. Gave him some more time, still no reply, left the "check your email" comment. Time passes, and then, still no response to us, he drops the disclosure in the thread. If he'd chosen to walk away, that'd have been fine too, and we'd have had nothing to say publicly about what he did regardless of how obnoxious and sketchy it was. We took considerable pains NOT to out him and make it his call how to proceed.
turbodog 16y ago
Do notice that a MeFite correctly called him on this way upthread. I don't think the mods got involved until Adams outed himself. http://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Education-by-Scott-Adams#3637745 http://www.metafilter.com/102472/How-to-Get-a-Real-Education...
- jerrya 16y ago
  Ah! Very perceptive. But that's not a confirmed outing. And I've done that in other forums to other people making weirdly passionate defenses of someone. Sometimes that's just a mocking. The first whiff I get of an outing is cortex's msg in the forum to Scott Adams that he has a message waiting. At that point, it seems cortex has snooped without what I see any real reason/need to do so.