This pattern of deleting/limboing reasonable posts has been going on at least since ElevatorGate. It is this kind of censorship of dissent which triggered me to see the incident of ElevatorGate as something much more problematic than a simple blog/flame-war. Indeed it was Ophelia Benson herself that set off that alarm bell in my head. Previously I had been a big fan of hers, and I continue in my thoughts to wish her well as a person, but I cannot support, and will directly oppose, the anti-skeptical filtering of dissent that she and others are advertising as "FreeThought". To me, this is the very definition of dogma: Unquestioned or unquestionable belief.
Here is a recent description (from March) of the first such incident (which, originally occurred right near the end of the ElevatorGate blog discussions) I personally experienced (description reposted from
http://www.michaelnugent.com/2013/03/06 ... ent-197456 ):
Thaumas Themelios wrote:Thaumas Themelios March 7, 2013 at 7:01 pm
For the record, this is the initial summary of EG which I attempted to post at Ophelia Benson’s original Butterflies & Wheels/Notes blog, but which she deleted without being able to supply *any* good reason, except that she thought it ‘too long’. When I asked her why she thought it ‘too long’, though others had posted comments of similar length both prior and since, she had no reply.
Instead, I posted it on a (mostly defunct, for reasons irrelevant) little wiki I had been working on at the time:
http://gnuatheism.wikispaces.com/Elevator+Guy+Kerfuffle
Can anyone explain why this summary of events was worthy of deletion *except* that it went contrary to the interpretation of events of Ophelia Benson?
Are you *really* surprised that most people think “It’s all because RW said, ‘Guys, don’t do that.’†when *all you are allowed to read* is that interpretation? When contrary opinions are censored? When bridges are burnt (Ophelia has thoroughly burnt her bridges with me, though I’ve done nothing (nothing!) against her personally) over *ideology*?
Are you really surprised that this is an enormous clusterfuck, when you ask *skeptics* to stop being *skeptics*? Seriously. I saw this coming as soon as my post was deleted. I knew something was up. This was *not* good skepticism. The *anti-thesis* of skepticism is what it is: Dogma.
Shortly after I posted that description in reply to another commenter on Michael Nugent's blog (see my repost here:
http://www.michaelnugent.com/2013/03/15 ... ent-202120 ), Ophelia posted this on her own blog (which I've not commented on since the original incident in question). Note that she's careful not to mention my name, but do compare the dates of my repost comment (March 18, 2013 at 9:00 pm (Irish time)) and her blog in response (March 18 also, and whose first comment is timestamped at March 18, 2013 at 6:43 pm (UTC -7)). Archived at:
http://www.freezepage.com/1370701935AGREXGCACF
Ophelia Benson wrote:
There’s a funny thing where obsessive people have Rosicrucian-like Ideas about what happened when once long ago a comment they made on my blog ended up on the cutting room floor. They think it’s because Dogmatism or Social Justice Warrior or Skepticism Stabbed in the Back or the Femistasi or The Lindbergh Baby. They obsess; they make wikis; they type and type and type and type; they go on for thousands of words. And all the time it’s much simpler than that.
The comment was fucking boring.
It was long, and detailed, and pedantic, and about a very small thing that couldn’t stand that much length and detail and pedantry, and it was fucking boring.
You know what? Not everybody writes well. It can be surprising how many people don’t write well and never realize it. I get some people like that commenting here. (Not you! Of course not you. But some people.) When people who can’t write well write long detailed pedantic comments about some tiny incident that can’t possibly merit that level of attention and verbiage…
then those comments are boring. Boring. Boring.
I hate boring. I don’t want boring here. I don’t want windbags here, boring everyone into stone.
But I don’t like just coming right out and telling people, that comment was boring and you go on much too long about much too little all the time.
So I just ditch the god damn boring comment and hope they take a hint.
But they don’t. Instead they develop a Key to All Mythologies on the subject, and they Casaubon it to death ever afterwards. But at least they don’t do it on my blog! They do it on other people’s blogs, and on their beautiful new wikis, and on fora, but they don’t do it on my blog.
And that, O Best Beloved, is how the leopard changed its spots.
(reposted here under the Fair Use clause of US copyright law, for the purposes of accurate commentary on an ongoing controversy in the atheist/skeptical online communities.)
Feeling the need to clarify things, so that this interpretation of events was not the only public record, I decided it was necessary to publish the email exchange which had occurred between myself and Ophelia at the time of the original censorship incident. For that reason, I asked Reap Paden to host this on his site (having nowhere else I felt it would be appropriate to host it). Original posting here
http://atheiststoday.com/blogs/reapercussions/?p=71:
Thaumas Themelios wrote:
The following is an email correspondence between Thaumas Themelios and Ophelia Benson regarding a deleted comment on Ophelia’s blog (butterfliesandwheels.org/2011/focus/), which was later re-posted here:
http://gnuatheism.wikispaces.com/Elevator+Guy+Kerfuffle
The purpose of publishing this correspondence is to document Ophelia’s stated reasons for deleting the post, at the time the deletion occurred, to allow for accurate commentary and criticism in relation to ongoing discussions regarding the origins and development of several major controversies related to atheist and skeptical communities, of which this discussion is a recent example:
http://www.michaelnugent.com/2013/03/15 ... mmunities/
The publishing of this information is protected under the Fair Use (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use) limitation and exception of United States copyright law, which states that: “the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.â€
Unnecessary identifying information has been removed to protect individuals’ privacy.
Correspondence follows, in chronological order:
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:16:07 -0400
From: Thaumas Themelios
Subject: Wonderist stop it.
Hi Ophelia,
If you would be more clear on what’s wrong with my posts, I would
attempt to change how I post. Just telling me to ‘stop it’ doesn’t give
me anything to go on. Stop doing what exactly?
Sometimes they’re long. I’ve got a lot to say and feel the need to be
clear so that I’m not misinterpreted (as happens so frequently in this
particular discussion). But it appears that just length isn’t your
concern, since some long stuff goes through and others get deleted
without warning.
Thaumas
P.S.
Here is a comment I would like to post. I think it addresses important
issues. If you let me know what you object to, I could modify it, or
refrain from posting:
proposed comment as Wonderist wrote: @Godless Heathen
Godless Heathen wrote:
The shitstorm had already started over Rebecca’s comment about the
guy propositioning her in the elevator at 4am. The McGraw stuff
brought that comment to a wider audience. Most of that audience did
NOT listen to the original comment themselves and started going nuts
because they thought they were being told to never hit on women
anywhere, ever or they thought “Oh-My-God-How-Will-I-Ever-Get-Laid
if I can’t ask a woman for “coffee†in an enclosed space at 4
AM????? OHMYGOD, now I’m doomed to be a single, shy, lonely guy
forevar!!!!
I use ‘shitstorm’ to refer to people making unfounded accusations
against one another, leading to largescale vilification, escalation, and
entrenchment on both sides.
The comments on the video were largely anonymous and usually just
expressed a different opinion. Yes, some were over-the-top misogyny, and
others were examples of the escalation pattern I’ve been describing.
It’s of course worth going after the actual misogyny and sexism that
occurred. But this kind of thing has occurred many times before, and it
never got to the point of people Dawkins getting involved and caught up
in the vilification.
This kind of thing would have run its course on its own, probably with
RW unambiguously coming out way ahead. In fact, it had already been
through the blogosphere once (the AronRa video) and didn’t get
Pharyngulated. What gave it extra juice was the McGraw incident, when
several attendees and others took issue with Watson’s treatment of
McGraw. At this point, we have a clear example of the escalation pattern
against someone who states herself that she was grossly misrepresented
and was not in any way supportive of misogyny, nor was she ‘anti-woman’.
This was again escalated with the Naming Names post, et voila, the
shitstorm ensues.
Why was this the beginning of the shitstorm and not before? Because
people (many feminists among them) who spoke up defending McGraw got
tarred with the same brush as the actual misogynists and sexists. In
fact, that’s the brush that McGraw herself got tarred with. This is when
the assuming of malicious intentions got so out of whack that feminists
were attacking feminists as anti-woman, when really it was a matter of
difference of opinion over a hot topic.
The same pattern of vilification is evident with the treatment of
Richard Dawkins. I’ll note that Rebecca Watson has herself been a victim
of such vilification. That is why I’m attempting to leave out my
personal opinion and only report Watson’s actions, rather than speculate
as to her motives. In the end, the motives don’t make much of a
difference, it’s the behaviour that perpetuates the cycle.
From: Ophelia Benson
Subject: RE: Wonderist stop it.
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:14:40 -0700
Hi Thaumas,
Maybe there wouldn’t be much wrong with them (though they’d still be too long,
but then so are some others, for my taste) taken independently, but after all
those endless detailed ones about McGraw they’re just too much. Some long stuff
goes through because I don’t like to delete, but the basic reason is just too
much too much. Plus you’re repeating yourself – but then we all are.
I think I’ll just close comments soon.
Ophelia
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:27:24 -0400
From: Thaumas Themelios
Subject: Re: Wonderist stop it.
Okay.
In my defence I’ll just say that I only repeated myself when others
repeated the same misunderstandings. However, I take your point.
Also, I kept posting in response to others responding to me. But again,
I take your point.
I’ll just post that one last reply (because it is to a comment directly
in response to me) and will sign off at the end of it. Sorry for taking
up your time.
Thaumas
From: Ophelia Benson
Subject: RE: Wonderist stop it.
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:56:21 -0700
No problem. Sorry I was snappish. I get antsy when comments spiral out of
control, as they keep doing on this subject. I hope nothing new happens that
prompts me to bring it up again. Arrrrrgh.
As is evident, I had been nothing but polite and respectful to Ophelia, whom I still respect as a person, even if I disagree strongly with her about ideology and her behaviour. She said nothing about 'boredom' at the time, and considering that this controversy (which in my mind was brewing in the background, but which was triggered strongly by the incident between Rebecca Watson and Stef McGraw) is anything but 'boring', in the sense that it has consumed peoples' (including Ophelia's, and my own, I admit) attention for the past *two years*.
I see absolutely no reason for the comment in question (again, here:
http://gnuatheism.wikispaces.com/Elevator+Guy+Kerfuffle) to have been deleted without warning in the first place. However, that is her choice, on how to run her blog. I consider it dogmatic, though, and will criticize that behaviour on those grounds. Again, I have not commented on her blog since that incident, to the best of my knowledge (if I have, I've forgotten, and it would have only been something very minor and short, if that's the case, but honestly I don't think I have).
More recently, I've had perfectly reasonable (though dissenting) comments held in moderation limbo by Stephanie Zvan, which is documented here:
viewtopic.php?p=81001#p81001
I have also refrained from commenting further on Zvan's blog.
All they have accomplished is to censor and silence (from their own blogs) a calm and reasonable dissenter (i.e. I will listen to reason and if I'm shown wrong will change my beliefs to adapt to the evidence). How can you maintain skepticism if you silence differing opinions? Anyone reading their blogs should be aware: You are only reading one side of the story; if they don't agree with it, it will be censored.
Although I too am concerned about the well-being of people such as Ophelia Benson who's expressed that she feels harassed and put upon, and under normal circumstances that would be enough for me to just drop the subject, unfortunately this issue is too big to allow any one person's emotional distress to shut down any and all critique and expression of dissent. Therefore, I consider this project of documenting the censorship (from their own blogs; not in general) of dissenting opinions by people who *claim* to represent freethought and skepticism to be a worthwhile and important project. That is why I've decided it's worth the risk to post this documentation of the history of the *primary* incident which got me involved in active opposition in the first place. We cannot let one or a few people's emotions dictate what facts are taboo from discussion and what facts aren't.
To those who feel that censorship of one's own blog is one's own choice and therefore *harmless*, I disagree. It is harmful; not only to the blogger themself, but to their readers as well. It promotes groupthink and delusion. A quote I've found extremely relevant throughout these past two years: "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool." ~
Richard Feynman