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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 f

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.

jerrya 15y ago
Hi, I greatly appreciate your explanation, which I do think explains the "how you knew who plannned chaos was" in a very reasonable manner. I'm not a member of mefi, and if you folks frown heavily on Adams' sort of impersonation, that's your community rules, and fine. But it wouldn't be my community rules to have a moderator out him. I guess I would like to think that his behavior, while perhaps not exemplary, would get a pass from the outing, because I suspect that such behavior goes on all the time, and you aren't policing, consciously or not, the behavior of people with less famous names. I would prefer a community where "famous people" who might be mentioned are welcome as participants and I can only see that happening under pseudonyms. Because hey, they should be able to internet too. And a small aspect of that is that as on any online forum, there will be time they act like jerks, or so you and I might classify. And such behavior really shouldn't rise to national mockery. His statements and the dialog from everyone were actually somewhat interesting. But as far as that thread went, and your behavior while moderating it, the thread went downhill into a Scott Adams bashfest by the second and sixth's comments. As a moderator, you allowed ad hominem celebrity bashing in as part of your community rules, but you disliked it when said celebrity comes in to defend himself and suddenly he is outed because he violated your rules. Well, ... I think your rules that essentially do not permit this guy to defend himself unless he writes under his own name are lousy rules because no one else had to write under their name. You didn't examine who the pseudonyms of the other commenters were. For all we know, it's his ex-wife, or some feminist blogger still angry with him, or someone else with an agenda. I don't know what common mefi behavior is -- I think in your position I would have either ignored it, or as a moderator, asked everyone to get back on track and knock off the pile-on.

jerrya 15y ago

Hi, I greatly appreciate your explanation, which I do think explains the "how you knew who plannned chaos was" in a very reasonable manner. I'm not a member of mefi, and if you folks frown heavily on Adams' sort of impersonation, that's your community rules, and fine. But it wouldn't be my community rules to have a moderator out him. I guess I would like to think that his behavior, while perhaps not exemplary, would get a pass from the outing, because I suspect that such behavior goes on all the time, and you aren't policing, consciously or not, the behavior of people with less famous names. I would prefer a community where "famous people" who might be mentioned are welcome as participants and I can only see that happening under pseudonyms. Because hey, they should be able to internet too. And a small aspect of that is that as on any online forum, there will be time they act like jerks, or so you and I might classify. And such behavior really shouldn't rise to national mockery. His statements and the dialog from everyone were actually somewhat interesting. But as far as that thread went, and your behavior while moderating it, the thread went downhill into a Scott Adams bashfest by the second and sixth's comments. As a moderator, you allowed ad hominem celebrity bashing in as part of your community rules, but you disliked it when said celebrity comes in to defend himself and suddenly he is outed because he violated your rules. Well, ... I think your rules that essentially do not permit this guy to defend himself unless he writes under his own name are lousy rules because no one else had to write under their name. You didn't examine who the pseudonyms of the other commenters were. For all we know, it's his ex-wife, or some feminist blogger still angry with him, or someone else with an agenda. I don't know what common mefi behavior is -- I think in your position I would have either ignored it, or as a moderator, asked everyone to get back on track and knock off the pile-on.