Matt, I really think you owe them an apology.

Hi Matt. Long time fan, first time writer. Never called into your show, given your rule about preferring theists because they’re more interesting call fodder; and the corollary rule about not acting like a Poe.

I’ve listened to a great number of episodes of The Atheist Experience, and while I don’t have the full scope of the four hundred odd shows you’ve put on, I’ve certainly come to understand your frustration when you receive the same questions over and over again. When you hear the third caller on the same show bring up the ontological argument or TAG or Pascal’s Wager, I feel every ounce of your cringe and I fully agree with every time you hang up on a person who simply will not engage in the points honestly.

It’s gotten to the point where some folks have nicknamed that sort of battle fatigue “Matt Dillahunty Syndrome”, where you need to stop repeat arguments dead in their tracks because they’re a waste of everyone’s resources, and your own are worn thin from past battles. This isn’t a new phrase made unique for this occasion — it is one I’ve seen in the wild for at least a year, and a recognition of the psychological damage that long-term trolling can actually take.

I respect that you’ve suffered from that, and had to be quick to hang up on abusive or potentially-abusive callers. I’ve seen your pattern recognition kick into overdrive where I didn’t detect a hint of abusiveness from the person, but trusted your judgment that you were making the right call for the situation, since you’ve been doing it for ten years, and you, after all, were the guy who would have to slog through it right then.

And I’ve seen the damage others have taken from those situations, where chipping damage has pushed Jen McCreight out of blogging, and forced Greta Christina to focus on her book, and Surly Amy to focus on her art, and forced Ophelia Benson out of speaking engagements. I’ve seen good people say really stupid things exactly once as a result of battle fatigue, and pay exorbitantly high prices for those solitary indiscretions. I’ve seen the real bad guys — who go out of their way to damage people who don’t deserve it for reasons other than their antisocial behaviour — incur absolutely no splashback themselves and go completely unpunished for far too long. And when they finally are called to account for their behaviours, the people demanding restitution are accused of being divisive or driving a witch hunt. I’ve seen too much injustice and too many good people fall to chipping damage by trolls.

So, I hope you can understand why so many folks feel betrayed by your so-called “concern trolling” a battle-fatigued forum about someone who got banned.

They really wanted to smooth things over with you, because of all the respect they — WE — have for you. So they delayed taking action while they tried to smooth things out. This delay cost the moderators of the forum very heavily in their users’ trust. The problem with your putting on a second account to make your points is not solely that you used a second account to prove that trust isn’t necessary about how right your points are. I mean, you obviously believe in how self-evidently right your discussion on how to treat strangers with less suspicion happens to be. I don’t know that it IS that self-evidently right.

The forum’s participants are threatening to leave in droves because the moderators screwed up in not treating your, frankly, rather offensive behaviour in advocating for someone who’d been banned, with the same sternness they’d come to expect from their community leaders. By a number of accounts, this person was banned perfectly reasonably — I know you’ve explained here that you feel it was less than merited, that the person was just overly snarky, but the people running the forum disagree. What happened here is like if you’d hung up on someone who may have had a valid point but just got on the wrong side of your tolerance for personal invective, then hung up on the next person who yelled about how you shouldn’t have hung up on the previous caller, but then lo and behold it turned out the second one was a very popular and respected community leader that even you look up to. So you waffle and bicker and commiserate instead of sticking to your guns, and the people depending on you to help provide a safe space for conversation in the manner of your choosing tune out because now the show is an hour of bickering about who gets to call in and who doesn’t, instead of actual theological debates.

Telling someone that they’re doing something wrong and having them listen earnestly does, in fact, require a level of trust from that person that you’re not simply some random troll. This is why the situation changed when you “took off the mask” and revealed that the Curious account was actually you. Especially when pattern recognition dictates that the overwhelming majority of the time that an argument is framed the way you framed it, it actually is a troll. By all appearances, you are examining a forum under stress, recognizing a weak point in that they are battle fatigued, and testing that battle fatigue in order to chastise them for not reacting appropriately as though they were still fresh. This is a very young forum — how long has it been around? A month? Two? I could find the exact dates, but it doesn’t matter. It’s barely crawling. And you’re kicking it for not being resilient enough to handle a troll or two, when the whole point of the place is to provide safe harbor with less of the usual trolling you get everywhere else on the intertubes. They have barely started building a coherent and unique userbase. And you’ve violated their ability to police the place by attacking — intentionally or not — their weak point in an effort to, what, make them stronger?

What’s more, in this specific case, you’ve really gone out of your way to advocate someone’s cause after they’ve been banned, doing far more damage to both yourself and the forum in the process than if you’d have approached a moderator privately and pointed out the ways their policies could be improved. With your real name, and your reputation, people would have been able to put aside the need to moderate heavily against concern trolls and rules-lawyering and undercutting forum moderators’ authority. Your points might be self-evidently right (and we can’t see them, obviously, because they’ve been lost to the deletion, so we have only your word that the elision of your identity did not also require modifying your arguments), but some things actually do require a level of trust to back them up. Not because these people are insufficiently introspective, but because these people absolutely must eye any newcomer who demands sweeping changes to their policies, policies built out of self-defense, with a modicum of suspicion — which you said was understandable, but wrong. I contend that it was not wrong at all. Self defense is decidedly not wrong, when the people who might claim to you to feel shunned are actually actively probing for weak points and trying to waste the forum’s resources.

I am concerned that the longer you do not apologize for misunderstanding the stress these people are under — stress in trying to build themselves a protected forum for more “advanced students”, where they don’t have to worry about random outsiders triggering them or abusing them or wasting their resources on 101-level discussions over and over again — the more the damage will accumulate and aggregate. I get that you’re still feminist, that you’re still a social justice advocate, that you’re still pro-everything-atheist-plus. But in your not living a life where you’re bullied every day just for trying to build a nice quiet spot for you to have discussions with like-minded folk, you just played the role of the guy calling up to demand why that other guy got hung up on. Your ability to assume good faith on the part of every person calling in (and your pattern recognition in weeding out those calling in bad faith) is a facet of the privilege you hold in that the people jumping to talk to you are, in fact, mostly calling to talk to someone in good faith.

But the internet is different, and the person who got banned for trolling might also be sockpuppeting and be simultaneously a trusted and beloved forum participant. The newbie asking concern-troll-style questions might (and often is) just a troll looking to damage the place, even where there’s an off chance that they’re arguing in good faith. Or worse yet, a big name and a hero to these people whose identity is important in establishing trust.

As you are.

You absolutely had a good point about providing a path to challenge bans, or first-time posts, or about rules for making second accounts (that aren’t used to sockpuppet). In fact, I agree with all of those points completely. So did the forum moderators, apparently. But the means by which you brought it to their attention is a violation of their trust in you, and more importantly in their trust in their moderators to handle outside cases like this one.

Furthermore, I am not dissuaded from my concern that you got suckered in by someone trying only to damage the place, who was banned for perfectly legitimate reasons. Considering that original person who approached you, “Skep tickle”, was by their own admission posting for the purposes of challenging the place rather than to participate (Slymepit link, where “Skep tickle” has been welcomed with open arms), these fears are very well founded. This, by the way, is probably also why people think Curious was their sockpuppet questioning their own ban after being correctly and justifiably thrown out on their ear.

And this person had apparently approached a number of others at the same time, including Rebecca Watson. That earns the title of troll all by itself. Shopping around looking for people on top to go circular-firing-squad and damage a part of the movement that these trolls couldn’t damage themselves, it would seem. Stephanie’s seen this sort of troll herself very recently. I am concerned that this troll tactic of divide and conquer worked here, and that you’re doing tons of splash damage in entrenching yourself in how self-evidently right your position is that you’re failing to see the multiple tiers of abuse that are happening — abuse that you’re providing apologetics for. And I’m not even sure you’re aware you’re facilitating that sort of abuse, here. If this tactic gains in steam because it worked on you, succeeded in doing great damage to that forum with you as the troll’s unwitting pawn, you’re doing us all a great disservice.

I know you, from dealings on the back channel and from your public face, to be introspective and thoughtful about these things. I know you’re a good man. I know you want to do right by everyone. And I know the inclination to dig in, to demand that people accede to your superior understanding of the situation. I’ve felt it. I’ve lashed out when I should have listened. I’ve been decidedly unheroic. And I’ve apologized contritely for it when it happened.

Please, PLEASE, don’t dig in this time. Pause your righteous indignation, that fire your fans know so well, and chew over what people are saying to you. They deserve it.

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Matt, I really think you owe them an apology.
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262 thoughts on “Matt, I really think you owe them an apology.

  1. 201

    Is it your contention that Matt explicitly agreed to the terms you outline and then broke them? If it wasn’t explicit then your perspective is flawed.

    Flewellyn was wrong to assume an agreement was in place but that’s a different issue from whether Dillahunty is right in characterizing Flewellyn’s behavior as he has. It’s one ting to say someone was wrong and wrong to believe as they did. It’s another to imply malice or a determination to obscure the truth.

  2. 202

    I didn’t assume it. I was TOLD it, by Maidao up there. She believed him to be making an agreement.

    Now, if he didn’t intend for this to be an agreement, but was just stating his intentions, that’s fine.

    Then my perspective becomes “Well, he broke with his stated intentions within an hour.” So, either way, same result.

  3. 203

    I will declare now that I have not been persuaded of the necessity of Atheism Plus and I am a supporter of Matt Dillahunty, so take on board the following with that in mind and ignore it as you see fit.

    In the long run this incident, if allowed to fester, is going to have a more detrimental effect on the Atheism+ forums that it will on Matt Dillahunty. Why can’t you apologise to Matt, accept that there was blame on both sides for this incident blowing up as it has and that it was poor judgement to insist that Matt apologise for the damage he caused. You could still request an apology for setting up a second account in breach of the forum rules should he wish to return to the forums.

  4. 204

    The atheistplus forums started really well. In the first couple of weeks there was a lot of good feeling. Whole bunches of people were posting good links, organizing and so on.

    But it quickly became entrenched. Folks like Jen were nowhere to be seen. Instead, hostile figures took over, including various faceless anonymous moderators with bad attitudes. No more enlightening threads. No more organizing. No social justice. Just bad faith and miserable drama everywhere.

    All in the space of a month or so.

    A real shame.

  5. 205

    Why can’t you apologise to Matt, accept that there was blame on both sides for this incident blowing up as it has

    Our moderators already did both of those things, with the added bonus of working on ways to improve the process.

    and that it was poor judgement to insist that Matt apologise for the damage he caused.

    It wasn’t.

  6. 206

    First of all if the moderators had ended their commentary on the issue with “Thank you Matt for pointing out these problems, your assistance was invaluable, but your methods upset some members of this community, and we would appreciate an apology”, I suggest he would have done so. He certainly would have if that communication had been done privately.
    Secondly when Matt admitted that his accounts were correctly banned, and that he had no issue with that because he had broken the rules he was implicitly apologizing, or at least admitting that he was not without “sin”.
    Finally what I see (as the owner of a chat network for 12 years, and having dealt with hundreds of mods) is a group of them, who were made to look bad in their kingdom, throwing their weight around because of it, and without concern for the fallout as long as they “win” their personal battle.

  7. 207

    mikepaps: From where I’m standing, that looks like exactly what happened. Once they knew this person wasn’t a random troll (read: Schrodinger’s Threat) trying to cut them apart, they apologized. It sounds to me like they were already taking the specific complaints seriously when they were pointed out and seen by more than the one moderator, even though there was a heaping helping of calls of “teal deer” (TL;DR) that really annoyed Matt. Except, the moderators apologized. The issues were addressed. They seem to be asking for an apology for how he acted. He has dug in, because he feels that the point could not have been made any other way.

    I contend that it absolutely could — that the problems with forum procedures could have been addressed separately from the questioning of the way Skep tickle was banned. Maybe even by the same “Curious” account. But for both to hit at the same time, the forum moderators — who absolutely have to protect the forum’s members — would have been extending too much benefit of the doubt.

    I’ve been emailing back and forth privately with Matt, as both our time allows. He keeps saying that Skep tickle was right on some points and wrong on others, and that the only thing remotely abusive that she’d said was the last thing about Kool-aid. I strongly suspect this is part of the problem between us, the first point of contention from which most other disagreements flow.

  8. 208

    Something else these mods don’t seem to recognize is that Matt’s youtube channel alone has more subscribers than A+ forum, and each video he puts out gets more comments than the A+ forum does in a week.

    Matt has been relentlessly defending, and supporting A+ despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of his “fans” think it’s a bad idea, and have been constantly telling him so, and why. He felt his personally credibility with his audience was at stake. He didn’t do what he did to support A+, he did it to prove he was right in his support of it, and the criticism/namecalling he’d heaped on the naysayers.

    When he he was proven wrong, and the critics appeared right he took that as a personal affront to him, and a betrayal of the trust he had in A+.

    So now not only have they let him down with their behavior, they expect him to apologize for it? IMO the best choice he can make now is distance himself as much as he can from A+, and regain the trust of his fans, and admirers.

  9. 209

    Many of his “fans and admirers” are the same goons just trying to tear that forum down. Consider the link I put in my last comment, please. There’s a reason a space full of minorities can’t extend the benefit of the doubt as far as privileged folks like me and Matt. And presumably you, since you don’t seem to understand this fact.

  10. 210

    The rest of your comment sounds like “how dare the tiny and insignificant forum ask for an apology for perceived-to-be-shitty behaviour from the great and powerful Matt Dillahunty”. Argumentum ad populum ain’t a great tack for a skeptic. Just saying.

  11. 211

    He keeps saying that Skep tickle was right on some points and wrong on others, and that the only thing remotely abusive that she’d said was the last thing about Kool-aid.

    On that thread, yes, this is accurate. That was the only really abusive thing that Skep Tickle had said on that thread.

    Had he, perchance, looked at her posting history? On other threads?

  12. 212

    Said he looked at all 17 of her posts. I only see 16 now, but I do see this one from very early on:

    “And now, I predict that I will be told what I think or what type of person I am, and what I should do (“STFU” being one example that seems to occur with relative frequency here). I’d be delighted to have that not come to pass, but the odds are against that. Here, why don’t I lie down to make the dogpile easier. ;)”

    Doesn’t that sound just a bit abusive to the rest of you? She did admit she wasn’t interested in participating but only challenging everything and anything about the forum when she discussed the thing over at the Slymepit.

  13. 213

    Many of his “fans and admirers” are the same goons just trying to tear that forum down.

    I’m curious Jason, have you ever really looked into the numerous criticisms of atheism+, and I’m not talking about those coming from MRA’s who I generally consider to be on par with whites complaining about “reverse racism”.

    There’s a reason a space full of minorities

    Then call it Atheist+minorities, and keep everyone else out, but if you want to be inclusive that doesn’t work, and the fact it doesn’t, and people know that is one of the criticisms coming from those you claim are trying to tear it down. If that’s true A+ is providing the ammunition.

    The rest of your comment sounds like “how dare the tiny and insignificant forum ask for an apology for perceived-to-be-shitty behaviour from the great and powerful Matt Dillahunty”. Argumentum ad populum ain’t a great tack for a skeptic. Just saying.

    If I was saying Matt is popular so you shouldn’t ask for an apology THAT would be an argumentum ad populum, but what I’m saying is he’s done a lot for A+, and could do much more if he isn’t alienated. They call that not shitting where you eat, or knowing which side of your bread is buttered. No Latin required.

  14. 214

    I don’t think it’s abusive at all. It sounds like trolling. Like deliberately trying to provoke hostility and encourage antagonism from the forum. Something that would warrant a “cut that crap out” from moderators and a more severe response if the behavior continued.

    Which it did. So she was shown the door. Seems fair to me.

    In any case if Dillahunty feels (and I don’t know or think that he does) time would be better spent distancing himself from A+ he should. He doesn’t owe us anything and he’d still be a stand up guy.

  15. 215

    Jason Thibeault @ 207:

    I’ve been emailing back and forth privately with Matt, as both our time allows. He keeps saying that Skep tickle was right on some points and wrong on others, and that the only thing remotely abusive that she’d said was the last thing about Kool-aid. I strongly suspect this is part of the problem between us, the first point of contention from which most other disagreements flow.

    So it’s just as I feared: a lot of miscommunication escalating out of control. The way out of this log-jam is simple enough:

    * Chill down the rhetoric, to cool down emotions and get everyone thinking clearly again. Based on this thread, the A+ mods seem to be doing a good job here.

    * Search out mediation, to get a view that isn’t biased by what each side is seeing. Dillahunty’s mentioned he’s been in contact with Christina, which is a good step forward.

    * Figure out the facts, with the help of the moderator. Both sides seem to have very different views of the same events, likely due to missing information. Replaying what happened with commentary from both sides, with the help of the mediator, should remove the fog.

    * Finally, start laying out apologies. There’s nothing wrong with asking for or offering them before the last three steps, but you do run the risk of asking for an apology that isn’t deserved, or apologizing for the wrong thing.

    I’ve posted favorably of the mods before. For his part, Dillahunty has been a strong supporter of the ideas behind A+, and as far as I know still is. He’s put up with a tonne of grief himself, from anti-A+ trolls to friendly fire from A+ identified people without all the facts. Both sides are on edge, so a flare-up of tempers is understandable. Both sides sound like they’re moving forward, though, and I’m hopeful most of this will be resolved within a week.

  16. 217

    As I see it, the main problem here is with the attitude of those within the atheism plus inner circle. In particular, they spend an inordinate amount of time trying to justify a set of double standards, don’t treat people as they themselves would like to be treated, and often dish out insults and accusations at the drop of a hat when they themselves simply can’t take it when insults are tossed in their direction.

    Case in point. In this very thread some of the atheism plus mods took umbrage at the implication that they had been lying about something. It was correctly point out that in order for something to be a lie, there has to be intention to deceive on the part of the so-called liar.

    So that is all well and good, and I happen to agree with that sentiment. In order to call someone a liar or to call something a lie it is critically important to know with a high degree of certainty that the person in question knows the actual truth and is saying something else intentionally.

    Yet prior to Matt’s accusation of lies being promulgated on the other side, here is a statement made by one of the atheism plus mods on their own forum:

    “From beginning to end despite what he claims, I feel certain that Matt’s actions were predominantly unilateral. There’s no way I can believe that he talked to either Greta or Jen as he claimed, and, if he did he didn’t hear a thing they said anyway.”

    Which basically boils down to an accusation that Matt is a liar. That while he said he was approached by Greta, that such a statement simply cannot be believed, that Matt has acted “unilaterally” and his story is simply a load of bs.

    So it is completely permissible to paint Matt as a liar with zero evidence to suggest that his story is in fact fabricated, but Matt was out of line for calling the same people liars who called him a liar. In fact it is Matt who requires an education on what actually constitutes a lie.

    Not to beat around the bush here, but over the past few days Matt has been characterized on the atheism plus forums as a privileged bully who sought to intentionally deceive the atheism plus community by making them participate against their will in an emotionally traumatizing social experiment. Once the experiment was concluded he unilaterally contacted two prominent members of the atheism plus community in order to essentially strong arm the moderators into an agreement that they would never have normally agreed to. In coercing this agreement it was also pointed out what a shit Matt was for using misusing his friendship to encourage a grieving individual to advocate on his behave to get this agreement in place. Then to top things off, once the agreement was established, Matt waited one hour and then breached the conditions of that agreement as one last FU to the atheism plus community.

    I wish I was exaggerating here, but anyone is free to see for themselves that this is the narrative that has essentially developed. It is nothing more than an attempt to demonize and vilify Matt because once someone has been demonized, any and all bad treatment received by them is deserved.

    This story, as far as I can tell, has been concocted over there pretty much out if a series of half-truths, and the people guilty of promulgating this concerted character assassination include not only the membership, but also the moderation staff because they are far too trigger happy and jump to unsubstantiated conclusions time and time again.

    But sure, we should be focusing upon the fact that Matt was a bit too hasty in his characterization of one statement as a lie because in principle he should have said it was wrong instead.

    I happen to agree with the above sentiment actually, I don‘t like terms like lie and liar being tossed around too freely… but I also find it to be a tremendous double standard coming from a group who has failed to apply the same rigorous standards to their own behavior.

    It is obnoxious to expect perfection from others when you fail time and time again at the very same task. There is no justification for this type of behavior and until this changes many people are never going to feel comfortable with the environment fostered at the atheism plus forums. What appears to be true over there is if you happen to be within the in crowd, no insult or accusation is too big to toss maliciously at someone else, but if you are not within the in crowd, no insult is too small to get you eliminated by the moderation team.

    Just something to think about. If more people were treating others as they themselves would like to be treated in the same situation fewer of these problems would result.

  17. 218

    Flewellyn posted this, on the thread about me:

    “For my part, “apology” would be nice, but what I really want is for Matt to just, I dunno, not bash us in public anymore?

    And then we can do the same: not bash him in public anymore, either. Y’know, for politics.”

    First of all, I haven’t bashed you. I’ve posted 2 videos – one describing the circumstances (which were already public and required a public response), the problems that were discovered and praising the moderators for correcting them and stating that I was (cautiously) optimistic about the future of the forum.

    There was no ‘bashing’ there. It was honest, factual and even supportive.

    After that, all of my actions and public comments on the subject were made up of clarifications to the A+ detractors that I hadn’t changed my mind on the issues and that this incident doesn’t necessarily support all of the claims made against the forum.

    I was silent – or doing ‘damage control’ (in the sense that I was striving to make sure that the situation wasn’t misrepresented as a problem with the ideal of A+ and wasn’t used to turn everyone against the forum as a place for communication).

    And then, you implied that I needed to apologize and that I didn’t care about the forum. You also set up a thread for people to trash me (or compliment me, but given the environment…). You then misrepresented the facts here, and several of you implied that I was being dishonest in other areas.

    I’m not the one doing the bashing here – but if you want me to start, that can be arranged.

  18. 219

    Matt, please, reread what I wrote in a more charitable light. Assume good faith.

    I just said earlier that I was presenting the facts from my perspective, and that I understand that perspectives differ. I resent the implication that this is “misrepresenting” just because we don’t agree on what happened.

    It’s also worth noting that the thread I set up for people’s reactions, was not intended to bash you. It was intended for people to talk about how THEY felt. You know, making “I” statements.

    For the record, I DO appreciate you pointing out to people that this was a personal conflict, not a conflict of ideas, and that you still support the goals of A+. That is very important. Thank you for that.

    I just think we need to come to some kind of rapprochement here, and I’m more than willing to admit that we screwed up in several places. We’ve already taken steps to fix the problems you pointed out.

    It’s just, can you meet us halfway?

  19. 220

    Figure out the facts, with the help of the moderator. Both sides seem to have very different views of the same events, likely due to missing information. Replaying what happened with commentary from both sides, with the help of the mediator, should remove the fog.

    The metaphor that often pops into my mind is the story about the several blind men and the elephant, where everyone has a different perception based on what part of the elephant they are touching. It’s not a perfect metaphor for starting from different points of view, but it is a good metaphor for having just some of the facts. (Human beings seem to be extra good at filling in the “pattern” from very skimpy data sets.)

  20. 221

    “It’s just, can you meet us halfway?”

    So, first you want an apology. Then you want me to stop bashing you – when I wasn’t bashing you…and now you want me to meet you halfway.

    Halfway between what? The truth isn’t halfway between right and wrong.

    I was supportive, I praised the corrections, expressed optimism, fully supported the ban and the correct application of the rules. I honestly represented the facts and did continual damage control in an attempt to keep the truth from being re-spun into more serious damage for the community.

    Meanwhile, I’m a dastardly villain and a liar and was never an ally and…

    Halfway is for you guys to stop digging. You’re deep enough.

  21. 222

    Don’t make the mistake of thinking that stuff that some of our members say about their personal feelings, represents official forum policy.

    We, the moderators, apologized, we corrected the problems you pointed out, we stated that we didn’t think you were an evil person or a dastardly villain, and I just expressed appreciation that you continued to fight the anti-A+ers’ misconceptions on public media such as Youtube and Twitter. That’s our “halfway”.

    That some of our members are still upset with you is not in my control. What do you want us to do, ban them from speaking their minds in their safe space? Sure, some of them are saying you’re a dastardly villain, and I don’t agree with that. But I’m not going to tell them to shut up.

    At any rate, I think I see a problem here. You are still approaching this situation as if it’s a matter of “THE truth”. Well, when it comes to purely interpersonal conflicts, one of the things I have learned is that it’s more useful to focus on what people involved think and feel about what happened, and what their goals are. If that means disagreeing about some aspect of what happened, agreeing to disagree to keep the peace is perfectly legitimate.

    MY goal is for us to be able to put this behind us and work together. I assume that your goal is much the same.

    What do we, both of us, have to do to meet that goal? I’d like to have that conversation with you. But I would like to have it in such a way that we aren’t hurling accusations at each other anymore. In particular, please, let’s give up this “this is THE TRUTH, and if you disagree you are misrepresenting” stuff. Like I said, with purely interpersonal conflicts, “the truth” is less important than “the peace”.

  22. 223

    Flewellyn,

    I obviously don’t speak for Matt, but I do not perceive the request being made on your end as simply asking Matt to “meet you half way”.

    Based upon the actions of those on the atheism plus forums, including the membership (for whom you are not responsible), other mods (also for whom you are not responsible), and yourself (for whom you are responsible) you are making a somewhat unreasonable request. It isn’t actually a “meet us half way” thing.

    Matt has been unfairly characterized by you and others in a light that more or less shows a complete disregard for his actual intentions going in to all of this. In fact, the sentiment has been expressed that his intentions essentially mean squat because of the fall out that has resulted.

    You are asking for an apology from someone who was trying to help you. What exactly is he supposed to fix on his side? The only adjustments he can make are to not care about your movement any longer, or he can care and just ignore your movement and remain silent. This is the reason we have things like good Samaritan laws, to protect those who have good intentions from being held accountable for less than ideal outcomes that might result from their intervention.

    For him to continue to care and act on that care in a way that he feels is constructive is for him not to change at all. What specific changes are you looking for Matt to make here and in the future?

    Matt pointed out very specific issues that required adjustment in your moderation procedures and as a result your team was able to address those issues.

    The only “problems” your side has pointed out about Matt are that he is essentially a liar who manipulates grieving friends, sets of social experiments on emotionally vulnerable individuals, bullies people around with his privileges status in the atheist community, etc… People have been pointing out character flaws, not procedural flaws.

    If Matt does not agree with those characterizations (which I don’t feel he should agree with because those are all unfair descriptions of what transpired) then how is he supposed to “meet you half way”.

    It would be helpful if you specifically outlined the issues you have the same way he specifically outlined the issues he had (for example, pointing out that it is not advisable to have a system that deletes posts that are rejected by a mod because it prevents review at a later stage). If you want him to meet you half way then it would serve you well to point out procedural flaws in his behavior and NOT character flaws.

    You really need to get specific like that. Then and only then is it even possible for someone to meet you half way. Please point out specifically what procedures you would have preferred Matt adhere to, please make constructive suggestions as well. Assuming what you point out is reasonable I doubt that you’ll have trouble getting people to agree with you.

  23. 224

    Nothing is more important than the truth, to me. I’m not sacrificing the truth to keep the peace. I’m not going to be apologizing – that’s just the way it is.

    The truth is that you accused me of bashing you. Defend that. More than that, you imply that I’m continually bashing you. Defend that.

    That’s a public attack on my reputation and an attempt to characterize me as continuing the problem – when I was either silent or consistently doing damage control on behalf of the mess that you created.

    I was done with this after the first video, steps had been taken to improve the community and I was done – apart from continuing to clarify this in order to prevent undeserved attacks.

    But you folks had to imply that I should apologize. You made the post calling for an apology and accusing me of lacking concern for the forum membership. You accused me of continually bashing you – and that you wished I’d stop. You just suggest that if I stop bashing you (which I haven’t been doing) that you’d stop bashing me…which is an admission that you’re bashing me.

    Don’t come on here and try to look like the reasonable moderator, just seeking the peace….and blaming this on the opinions of forum membership. Put down the shovel.

    No, I don’t expect you to silence people. I would expect decent people to defend the truth and to correct the misinformation being tossed around, though.

    I’ve already arranged to do a Skype discussion with one moderator, I might do more…I tried to offer this to Jason, as well.

    But, quite honestly, you’re making it very difficult to want to do that.

  24. 225

    I need a clarification here: What precisely is the “truth” that Matt thinks we’re trying to get him to deny here?

    Here’s what I, personally, want from Matt, and this is entirely me (i.e. not to be taken as a representation of the mods, whom I’m not, or the forum in general, which I’m just a part of), as a person who really really likes Matt and is very hurt by what’s gone on:

    I want Matt to care about the fact that his methods came off as dishonest and manipulative, regardless of his intentions, which are not magic. I want him to actually care, to try to grok how this looks from our perspective and understand why it would be hurtful. And then I want him to acknowledge that he cares, preferably in the form of an apology for causing that hurt, and for the repeated statements that he doesn’t care about it. I very much want Matt as an ally, because I do respect him a lot and have for some time. I’m not sure where the “denying the truth” accusation falls into this.

    I am exhausted by this. Matt’s behavior toward us has caused me a lot of pain and disappointment. I want to put this behind us. Unfortunately, I feel compelled to continue talking about it because of Matt’s responses to our moderator above.

  25. 228

    That’s a fair point, knighttyme.

    For the record: I, personally, do not believe that Matt lied when he said he spoke with Greta or Jen. I do not believe that he intended to look like he was bullying people with privileged status. I am sure he did not intend to actually bully anyone. Hell, the fact that I believed and still believe Matt to be someone of good character is why I was initially derisively incredulous (or incredulously derisive, if you prefer) about the new account being him. I can’t speak for anyone else on this matter, but I personally believe Matt’s intentions were good.

    Intent, of course, is not magic. It’s easy to accidentally step on someone’s foot, even if you’re trying your best not to. The point is, as internet commenter “Hershele Ostropoler” says, if you step on my foot, you need to get off my foot.

    I think, basically, if Matt were to just say “Yeah, covert op, bad idea”, that would be enough. Because the covert aspect of things rubbed a lot of us the wrong way. And the other thing was arguing that because of his work elsewhere supporting A+, he was necessarily entitled to intervene in the policy decisions of a forum that, by his own admission, he didn’t participate in.

    I mean, yes, his whole point was to try to demonstrate that A+ers will listen to an argument regardless of who it comes from. But as Jason points out above, that’s not a fair thing to expect when it comes to arguments about how a community is run. Arguments about factual matters, sure. But “how are we going to run our community?” is a question best left to members of the community. I mean, do we let theists tell us how we should run atheist activism? Why not?

    That said, his arguments on how we run things, and how that should change, DID have merit. Which is why we introduced the changes we did. Still, he should have just said, as himself, “Hey, I think this is a problem.”

    Yeah, again, I KNOW he was trying to prove a point. But was the point worth proving? And were the people he was trying to prove it to going to listen anyway?

  26. 229

    “Matt’s behavior toward us has caused me a lot of pain and disappointment.”

    What ‘behavior’ toward you?

    Aren’t you the person who started the accusations that I was being obnoxious for doing EXACTLY what I was told to do? Why, yes…you are.

    In the e-mail stating that my post had been denied, it instructed me to go to this forum and talk to a moderator. Exactly what was it that you said was obnoxious?

    “My post was questioning the merits of a ban – in the thread where the ban occurred referencing the specific subjects surrounding that ban.”

    So, you think that questioning a ban is obnoxious and you’re hurt by my ‘behavior’ toward you?

    Kindly fuck off.

    But thank you for exposing another problem they should work on: If you direct users to a forum to talk to a moderator, maybe you should suggest that non-moderators either stay out of the discussion or avoid mistreating new users who are doing exactly what they were asked to do, in an email, from the moderators.

    I’m done letting Cipher stir up shit.

  27. 230

    “Matt were to just say “Yeah, covert op, bad idea”, that would be enough.”

    That’s not going to happen, because it’s not true. It was the only viable op.

    “Because the covert aspect of things rubbed a lot of us the wrong way.”

    Clearly. I wonder if you’d feel the same way if it hadn’t exposed so many problems. We’ll never know.

    “And the other thing was arguing that because of his work elsewhere supporting A+, he was necessarily entitled to intervene in the policy decisions of a forum that, by his own admission, he didn’t participate in.”

    Please point to where I made this argument. I’ve never claimed that I was entitled to intervene. I set aside my entitlement and I didn’t step on your feet.

    I claimed the same entitlement that ANY new user has. By virtue of being human and by virtue of being invited to participate, they are entitled to ask questions and offer their opinions. If you don’t want that kind of forum, that’s fine – don’t invite people. But if you do, and they do what they’re allowed to do, and you smack them around for it – you’re going to look bad.

    You’re stepping on their feet.

  28. 232

    What ‘behavior’ toward you?

    I appreciate that you asked, although the fact that you then went on to rant about how terrible I am really doesn’t make me want to answer. I will anyway: Approaching us in a way I see as dishonest and manipulative to prove a point (a point which, incidentally, I find to be naive in its assumptions about how we ought to act) about us to other people, then pulling out your name with its associated privilege when you felt that people weren’t treating you deferentially enough (and as Flew’s pointed out, your intentions very likely were good, but the effects are the same), then repeatedly stating that you don’t care about violating the rules and norms of our community or about people being upset by it. It’s also very frustrating to me that you’ve been pretty uncharitable to our mods in this thread, most of whom have made an awful lot of effort to balance the interests involved in this discussion.

    Now, would you please do me the courtesy of answering my question? What “truth” are you being asked to deny/sacrifice?

  29. 233

    So, you think that questioning a ban is obnoxious and you’re hurt by my ‘behavior’ toward you?

    Yep! Both. Critiquing the ban of a user I thought was pretty obviously trolling, especially on a forum beset by trolls, is annoying to me. (You’ll note that I also directed you to the appropriate thread for making such a critique.) Using us to prove a point with no regard for how we’d feel about your methods, then stating outright that you don’t care, is hurtful. Not sure where you see the incompatibility there.

    Kindly fuck off.

    I’ve already said I want to put this behind us, Matt. Painful as it is for me to get such negative remarks from someone I respect – and believe me, it is painful – I’m not going to “fuck off” just because you find me irritating.

  30. 234

    “What “truth” are you being asked to deny/sacrifice?”

    I was a new user, who was mistreated while doing nothing wrong (as far as you were aware). The fact that I had an inactive account that no one had ever interacted with, is an irrelevant distraction from the events that actually occurred. If I hadn’t made an account previously, I’d have still been posting on that day, in that way, as Curious.

    I acknowledged that I violated the letter of a rule, without my knowledge and that this was my fault and that the penalty was valid.

    But asking me to apologize because people’s feelings got hurt simply isn’t reasonable. Why are their feelings hurt? Their feelings aren’t hurt because of that other account that they’d never interacted with, their feelings are hurt because their mistreatment was exposed. That’s not my fault.

    That it turned out to be me, is yet another distraction.

    The truth is that I’m the wronged party, here.

    Here’s a story I’ve been relaying, it’s mostly true…

    My grandmother is very old. People had been complaining about her driving and suggesting she stop. My dad defended her. “Hey, she’s got a license and no accidents and she drives her friends around without incident…she’s fine.” One day, my dad was out driving and spotted my grandmother, driving down the street – and something didn’t quite look right. So, a few days later, he decided to follow her, without her knowledge. She was squinting, driving erratically and while she wasn’t involved in an accident, she certainly could have been and could have even caused a few.

    My dad approached her about this and my grandmother agreed that it was probably time for her to stop driving.

    That’s a somewhat-true story. In short, my dad did accidentally sees something suspicious and then did follow her, without her knowledge. (I’m not sure if she has actually agreed that she shouldn’t drive, or not).

    Did my dad do something wrong? Does he need to apologize for anything?

  31. 235

    Since Matt and Jason are blogging under their own full names, I view character attacks on them (or anyone else similarly in public) to be very serious. Saying something really derogatory about someone who is known only by a “nym” has fewer repercussions, not that that makes it right in that case either.

  32. 236

    But asking me to apologize because people’s feelings got hurt simply isn’t reasonable. Why are their feelings hurt? Their feelings aren’t hurt because of that other account that they’d never interacted with, their feelings are hurt because their mistreatment was exposed. That’s not my fault.

    No, no, no, no, no, no, no, and finally, no.

    THIS IS NOT WHY PEOPLE WERE UPSET.

    Where did you get this idea that this is why people were upset? It is TOTALLY not the case.

    IF you want to know why the members who were upset, got upset, you can find that out by going to the forums and reading the thread on people’s reactions. That’s what it’s for.

    But no, we mods were not upset that you exposed a problem with us not assuming good faith on the part of new users. Nor were we upset that you exposed a problem with our moderation policy being inconsistent.

    WHERE did you get that idea?

  33. 237

    Their feelings aren’t hurt because of that other account that they’d never interacted with, their feelings are hurt because their mistreatment was exposed. That’s not my fault.

    This is a big and unfair assumption. The fact that, for instance, I’m blunt with new users (as with everybody else) was not a secret from anyone – and it’s not something I’m ashamed of, [tl;dr] although you may see that I’ve voluntarily toned it down in the past few days because I don’t want to add to the shit the mods have to deal with, because I have been taking an unbearable amount of heat and focus from actual trolls (including the one who played sincere-if-thick until he had the ammo to deliberately trigger me one week prior to your experiment, and whose genuinely horrifying posts were unable to be removed for some time after that happened because the mods weren’t available when he finally decided to cross the line), and because, for personal-life reasons, my stress levels now allow me to stretch out my patience a little bit longer.[/tl;dr] Here’s why my feelings are hurt: because the covertness of the op, especially when taken in combination with the big reveal, seems manipulative and dishonest to me. I have a very low tolerance for that. The fact that it was the only way to make your point doesn’t mitigate anything for me.

    Did my dad do something wrong? Does he need to apologize for anything?

    No. He did not interact with her under false pretenses – he watched. The equivalent here would be if you had come to the forum and lurked.

  34. 238

    Their feelings aren’t hurt because of that other account that they’d never interacted with, their feelings are hurt because their mistreatment was exposed. That’s not my fault.

    Matt, you cannot prove this. You are not a mind-reader. You are not a psychic.

    Mind-readers and psychics do not exist. People have said why they are upset themselves. Unless you have contrary evidence, say other places where they say the opposite, you have no proof to contrary.

    This is unsubstantiated slurs against the users of the forum, implying they are only upset because of contradictions or exposure, not because someone many people respected and liked lied to them, used them to prove a point, and abused his privilege.

    Its like stepping on people’s toes. You may do it completely by accident, but you still hurt people. Do you refuse to apologize when this happens, even if your intentions were good? No, you fucking apologize.

    So don’t you fucking make accusations you can’t fucking prove, Matt. You can’t read people’s minds, don’t make implications you cannot back up.

  35. 239

    I’d like to take this moment to point out that I was hurt by your actions without having commented in the thread in question. I did not treat you improperly. Hell, I didn’t comment to you at all.

    But I have a very low tolerance for bullying behavior due to having been bullied in my life severely for pretty much all of my public schooling. Your “Sincerely, Matt Dillahunty” bit came off bullying and arrogant in a, “Do you know who the I am?! I can fuck your shit up!” kind of way. It, to me at the time, seemed like an attempt to intimidate and bully the mods into submission. Regardless of your stated intent after the fact, that was how it came off at the time both to me and to several other posters on the forums. That upset me, and that hurt. That you then doubled down and did all the other things other posters have been talking about has not helped matters. That you did not intend to cause pain does not change the fact that you caused it.

    When I was a kid, I slammed my sister’s hand in the door by mistake. It broke her finger. Should I have said, “Well, I didn’t intend to break your finger, so yeah I get it your finger is broken but too damn bad.” Hell no. I should have, and did, apologize.

    I hope you can see the point of my analogy. You accidentally slammed peoples feelings in a door. That it was accidental does not negate the pain that was caused. At the very least, acknowledge that the pain exists and don’t dismiss it with “too damn bad” or try to brush it off as being angry at being called on unacceptable behavior.

  36. 240

    Flewellyn,

    Thank you for the kind response. Just a few points I’d like to address.

    I agree with you that intent isn’t magic. People can have the best of intentions and screw things up royally. That being said, I’d personally choose to have a friend who tries to help me and fails than an enemy who tries to hurt me and fails.

    The reason of course is that eventually these people will succeed and I’d much rather have someone actively attempting to push me forward than someone actively trying to hold me back.

    As for people being upset with Matt and the reasons why they are upset, I have tried to understand their feelings by reading through the various posts.

    The best I can tell, the anger at Matt feels very reminiscent to the anger an addict might have at being “tricked” into attending an intervention under false pretenses.

    I’m not sure if you have ever had a friend or family member suffer from a sever drug or alcohol addiction, but that is what tends to happen after an intervention. They don’t tend to immediately focus upon the issues that have been pointed out to them that they need to fix, they instead focus upon how shitty their friends and family are for whatever methods they used to point out the problem.

    While I agree that the mods have been more careful about this, the membership has been all over the map which seems like a really disproportionate response to what actually transpired. From my perspective, nothing Matt did was quite so awful that it should result in emotional pain that lasts for days on end.

    In my opinion sometimes to be a good friend you have to risk losing a good friend. Doing the right thing isn’t always the same as doing the easy thing.

    I feel like Matt did the right thing here, he obviously didn’t do the easy thing because the easiest thing would have been for him just to say nothing at all. The membership of the atheism plus forum may hate him for having done it, they may all think he is a piece of human garbage because they feel manipulated and deceived in the process (and this is exactly how some members are portraying him by the way).

    I personally would rather have a beloved friend hate me for pushing them to improve their life and get over a debilitating personal issue than to have them love me as I watch them standing obliviously as they flush their life down the toilet.

    Keep in mind I’m not trying to beatify Matt here either, perhaps there was a better way to achieve the exact same result. However, it isn’t clear to me what that method might have been.

    How could Matt have demonstrated the exact same issues he brought to light in a manner that was more open? It’s already been acknowledged that if he had posted under his own name that what he wrote would have gone through without any issues.

    Doesn’t that lend credibility to the idea that there might just have been no ideal way to resolve this particular issue? Just like there really is no perfectly ideal way to help a friend who is suffering from a serious personal problem such as drug addiction or gambling?

  37. 241

    Uhhhhh…I fail to see how the comparison to drug addiction interventions holds up.

    Especially since, as I said, we moderators did immediately take action to correct the problems pointed out.

    And if you want to understand why people were upset, listen to what they say.

  38. 242

    I have to argue against the accusation that Matt was deceptive. He went to your forum anonymously to question the banning of an individual. This banning had been brought to Matts attention because of his celebrity in the community. I am certain that Matt never envisaged having to reveal his identity.

    He only gave his identity after being challenged to demonstrate what he had done for the community, from later comments it seems this challenge was intended to be about what he had done for the forum community, but it is understandable that he misunderstood this to be about what he had done for the atheist plus community.

    Matt may have appeared deceptive but is it really reasonable to ask someone to apologise for something they have not done, simply because the victim thought they had?

    Matt did not damage the forum, the moderators have even admitted that what Matt did has uncovered deficiencies in the moderation processes that are now being rectified. So asking Matt to apologise for damaging the forum was wrong.

    Triniola @238 does bring up a good point about apologising for hurt done despite lack of intention behind the hurt. I obviously cannot speak for Matt but perhaps he can be persuaded to apologise for inadvertently causing hurt to some members of the Atheism Plus forum. would this possibly be a halfway point that both parties cold agree on?

  39. 244

    S’fine with me, stainless.

    Look, Matt, we’re upset. We’re probably going to be upset for a while. But we still appreciate the work you’ve done, you’re still someone we admire. We’re not going to keep fighting over this, Matt. In spite of all of this, you’ve been an awesome atheist spokesman and one of our relentless defenders. Take care, and maybe we can try talking again later?

  40. 245

    I agree with Flewellyn — let’s all just back down and breathe for a while. Nobody’s trying to tarnish anyone else’s reputations intentionally, nobody’s attacking anyone, things are indeed a bit heated but there’s no point in recriminations.

    That includes us, Matt — I’m sorry, I’d love to do a Skype call, but I am slammed at the moment and I need to beg off of a few things in my meatspace world as well as my blogospheric world. I can’t really even sit down to fully reply to your last email. Can we revisit in a week or so?

    If you agree, I’ll close comments on this thread til then. No point in letting random first-posters drag this into territory that nobody actually is in.

  41. 246

    Flewellyn,

    It holds up in the sense that a person sees someone they care about potentially heading in a bad direction. As a result they concoct a method to get them to confront the issue at hand. As a result the person tends to get really angry about the method chosen by their friend as opposed to acknowledging the issues that came to light.

    Hiding behind the whole “we moderators did immediately take action to correct the problems pointed out.” while simultaneously defending the hurt feelings of everyone who is pissed off by the methods utilized to bring those problems to light seems precisely analogous to the behavior I’ve seen of people who go through interventions actually.

    If you don’t like that analogy that is fine by me, you are free to pick a better one if you are so inclined.

    “And if you want to understand why people were upset, listen to what they say.”

    I have tried very hard to understand. I have read and listened to what has been written. However much of what has been written is so over the top that it can scarcely be taken seriously. This isn’t meant to minimize peoples feelings, but there is such a thing as a proportional emotional response. Statements such as the following made by a moderator (note- not simply a member of the forum) on the atheism plus forum make it extremely difficult to relate to what is going on in their head:

    “Between “too damn bad” and “no” he’d have to solve world hunger, end sexism, racism and every other -ism, cure cancer, AIDS and everything else that kills people and achieve world peace before I’d consider taking him back. Personally. At the same time. At least.”

    I mean really???… Really??? What Matt did was so horrendously awful, cause so much emotional torment for this individual that he would have to personally and simultaneously snap his fingers to resolve world hunger, end sexism, racism, cure cancer and eliminate all other diseases and bring about world peace before they would ever consider giving him one ounce of forgiveness???

    I’ve listened to what the members of the forum have said. I’ve listened to what the moderators of the forum have said.

    I consider myself to be an empathetic and caring human being and I can’t manage to wrap my mind around the level of anger they have for Matt over there if the comment above is to be taken seriously.

    I don’t believe I have failed to understand their emotional state because I have failed to listen. I do not understand the degree of the emotional trauma they claim to have is so disproportionate to the offense that it boggles the mind.

    That someone can say something like the above is suggestive that something is wrong with the environment over there, that this can be considered a reasonable position to hold is astonishing to me.

    This is the position one might hold if someone was expected to forgive someone who kidnapped and murdered their child. This is not the position an emotionally stable person holds when they feel someone was dismissive of their feelings.

    So no, I don’t “get” the anger and upset feelings being described by some people on the atheism plus forum. In many cases they appear so over the top as to be inconsistent with the reality of what has actually taken place. This is the kind of response you get from drug addicts defending the idea that they can “quit whenever they want” while making those who care about them out to being the enemy. This is not a measured and proportionate response to anything Matt has done.

    Can you explain the reasonableness of the magnitude of this reaction?… because I am frankly at a loss.

  42. 247

    On a side note, despite Matt accepting the ban as being legitimate It could be argued this was not the case.

    The rule concerned seems to be this one

    “Single Identity: One person may only use one forum account. Sockpuppets, when detected, will be banned alongside the main.”

    Yes Matt did have a second account and was in breach of this rule, but the banning relates to sock puppets and in no way did matt use his second account as a sock puppet.

    However I will concede you have you rule zero “Do not try to cleverly interpret rules listed here for your own benefit. These rules are general guidelines and are very flexible.” so perhaps this is moot.

  43. 248

    JT
    So asking Matt to apologise for damaging the forum was wrong.

    I don’t think anyone did. If you have seen someone do this, please link us.

    From the forum:

    “Matt Dillahunty may be allowed back, at some point, if and only if he apologizes, sincerely, for the damage he has done to our community, and makes good on trying to repair that damage.”

    http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1615

    This was what prompted Matt’s second video on this incident.

  44. 249

    “Their feelings aren’t hurt because of that other account that they’d never interacted with, their feelings are hurt because their mistreatment was exposed.”

    That’s my opinion of what’s going on…I apologize for not being clear about that. I’ve ready why they say their upset and I find it ridiculous. (I made the place unsafe, I violated their trust…etc.)

    So, what are they saying?

    1. Here’s why my feelings are hurt: because the covertness of the op, especially when taken in combination with the big reveal, seems manipulative and dishonest to me.

    What is there to have hurt feelings over? You seem to think that there’s a violation of trust here. There is no trust. I don’t know you, I don’t owe you anything, I had been blanket-advocating for people I didn’t know. I had been telling people “go here, they’re great”. They’re not great. They’re probably good people, in a bad situation – and they acted atrociously.

    The continuing conversations has shown many (not all) of the posters to be irrational, unskeptical and unfair. They’re not considering the merits or the facts – they’re just whining about how hurt they are.

    This was an instance of a new user, doing what they were invited and directed to do, being treated like crap. When it turned out the new user was me – some of you started complaining that your feelings had been hurt. And some of those complaints were just pathetic.

    Exactly what is there to have hurt feelings over?

    It’s *almost* make sense, if I had shown up and presented myself as a foe – but I did not. You didn’t see the original post. The only thing YOU saw was a new user, doing exactly what they had been told to do…and you went on the attack.

    2. ” Your “Sincerely, Matt Dillahunty” bit came off bullying and arrogant in a, “Do you know who the I am?! I can fuck your shit up!” kind of way.”

    Here’s what I actually wrote:

    “You should probably know who you’re talking to before making accusations about actually participating in the community.
    It might be nice if you knew the content of the original post before disregarding it.

    Sincerely,
    Matt Dillahunty”

    This was written in response to an accusation that was inaccurate and misunderstood. I’ve already addressed that.

    Even if I hadn’t misunderstood the comment (which was definitely in the spirit of ‘let’s all shame the newbie’ by virtue of the ‘don’t come in here and try to be smart’ bullshit), it doesn’t say what you read it to say.

    It’s not my fault that you misread that with the tone of what you wrote. You’re not fairly considering what I wrote or considering the situation (I was the one being bullied) – you’re just reading into it the tone that you’re bringing in from YOUR baggage. It’s not my fault that you can’t help but ASSUME that I was bullying an arrogant. Ironic, in that I was the one being bullied.

    I’m going to stop there…if we start going through forum posts, it’ll never end.

    This is beyond ridiculous.

    But, by all means, keep on blaming me for hurt feelings. It’s making you look so much more reasonable.

    Your feelings were hurt – in my opinion – by your own false expectations, your insular community and by a conversation so poisonous that you’re unable to tell friend from foe. Oh no! It turns out that this person that I assumed was a foe (based on content I never saw) was actually a friend?! Well, let’s find a way to shame them for not clearly identifying themselves as a friend, first.

  45. 250

    Damage to the individuals (e.g. the community), not the forum.

    Now would the peanut gallery please simmer for a bit? I want to hear from Matt and Flewellyn only. Can we please table things for a week?

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