Just so you know, this post led to this meltdown.
And, for the record, as I say in my first comment on that blog post, it is incorrect, absurd, offensive, and stupid to suggest that I linked a name of an author to that blog. No such thing happened. William, the blogger of YNH, who previously claimed to be a group of three or four people from the upper midwest including one female who is actually a 23 year old graduate student in Alabama, is what we call in the business one sick puppy. Feel free to go to his confessional blog post and join others who are encouraging him to keep blogging. Or perhaps you’d have something different to say to him.
But do remember, when I “sent” commenters and facebook friends to his blog a few weeks back, he created a number of horrid, awful fake comments and accused you (the readers of this blog) of having written them. You, the commenters and readers here, have been accused by William of misogyny and violence. So, if you do visit his post and comment, be extra sweet. Like syrup. Thank you.
Update: YNH blog has been vaporized by it’s maintainer(s). Here is a cached version of the confessions post with a small number of the comments.
Heres’ some further discussion on the issue.
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I really can’t make a decent comment until I stop laughing, and that may take a while. LOL!!!!!!!!!
Thanks, Greg. I was a little disappointed that PZ did not mention my efforts.
Don’t worry, Oedipus, there are a bunch of us out here who can say “I saw what you did there!” in regards to your wonderful stream of comments at YNH, as well as your own blog posts!
Oedipus, your post has been linked to in comments twice on PZ’s post, I send him the linkn, and he is now quite aware of your effort and I presume impressed by it.
I’m quite sure PZ was not reading YNH.
I find myself thinking that anyone who is encouraging that kid to keep blogging hasn’t really read the comments he left when he thought they wouldn’t be traced to him. Anybody who handles simple disagreement that aggressively really doesn’t need to be blogging.
Unless maybe he wants to start a picture blog with comments disabled.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), You’re Not Helping is now a protected blog. I guess he couldn’t take the heat.
I’d made a point of spending as little time on The Intersection as possible of late – but now I feel I’m going to pay them a visit just to say hi to a few of its regulars who took the time to fawn over YNH and tell (them they were) him he was doing, to quote GWB, ‘a heck of a job’ at showing up the ‘new’ atheists and giving people like you, PZ, Jerry Coyne and Ophelia Benson a hard time.
Side-note: No strikethrough tags?
@Wowbagger I can’t help but agree. PZ Myers, Jerry Coyne, Greg Laden and others are good people. We’re actually quite fortunate to have them as resources available to us and even without all the skulduggery they really didn’t deserve this.
I’ve added screenshots of the confession, page 1 page 2.
In fact I downloaded the whole YNH site before posting the final evidence.
Google cache of the post in question, if anyone’s interested.
YNH may be a lying shit but the valid points his blog are still right.
Away from the internet a couple of days and YNH melts down!
How I will miss all the conflations and grand assumptions based on tiny examples he expounded on, and how he ironically told off anyone who disagreed with him under the guise of helping.
People didn’t talk back to YNH because it spoke a lot of truth, or because it was anonymous.
I am extremely disappointed that this lying creep YNH/William is encouraged by others to keep on blogging after his admission. So what if he had a few valid points amongst the lying, back stabbing, making stuff up and ad hominem attacks? He should be ignored and banned on other blogs. Hitler was a great orator – should we sit around and praise him and should he have been encouraged to give more speeches instead of committing suicide? I just don’t understand some people – they get slapped in the face and they say “Have a nice day”
Ender, valid points are right by definition. Are there particular positions YNH took that you’d like to champion because you think anyone is actually arguing against them?
The whole bit in the denouement post about detractors ruining his life is typical of the conflation/exaggeration tactics of YNH as a whole. Exaggerate a situation and run with it like it’s the truth.
YNH blog produced one if five posts that were of any value. The remaining were toss-offs. His accusations were and are inappropriate.
But all of that is true of most blogs. The bad part of YNH is the way he handled getting caught. He had sock puppets. They became obvious. He attacked those who mentioned that he had sock puppets. His sock puppets attacked. The attacks were accusatory and mean.
That is the pattern he followed with all of his foibles. Sometimes insightful comments on other blogs was not linked to even a modicum of self reflection. He laid his hate on any who opposed him and if anyone pointed that out he manufactured conspiracy theories.
He made up his female gender (as Greg has pointed out but most people seem to have missed) and while he attacked PZ and Greg and a couple of others with vigor, he was uniquely mean to the one woman blogger he paid attention to.
Finally, the layout of his blog was stupid.
Naon: Protected blog? Like, in a blog protection program living in a new city with a new identity, where no one can find it?
Ender: True, but its not like there are not hundreds of people saying most of what they are saying.
And, ultimately, their own hypocrisy does, indeed, impinge on their logic and writing. It is not like they’re a person with a semi-under control addiction that when not drunk/gambling/whatever is doing interesting things. Their bad behavior is part of their approach.
And I don’t know why I keep calling him them.
Greg: No one can find it unless they know the URL of the old blog. Oh, and they know the password and username.
It’s very safe.
I’m sure we can guess the password.
Login is obvious; password, probably ‘split_personality’. Or ‘raging_dumb_ass’… I’ll go try them out… 🙂
I’m glad you agree Stephanie. And no.
Possibly Greg, I have not seen many, except those that I have been linked to since finding YNH, they however seem to all have issues following through with what they say they believe, just like YNH did.
I’m not sure that his behaviour did impinge on the logic of any of his pieces*, he is either right when he accuses people of weak logic and being hypocritical, or wrong. Whether he is also a lying hypocrite has no bearing on that.
*with the exception of any cases where ‘his behaviour’ includes ‘lying’ which obviously affects his pieces.
Ender, if by “agree” you mean “think you stated a tautology that adds no information to the discussion,” then yes. As for the rest of your comment, either point at where people are using YNH’s utter social ineptitude as a counter to the logic in the posts or stop making the vague insinuations that “they” are.
@ Oedipus: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/06/how_not_to_run_a_blog.php
AHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH11!!111!!!! Fucking AHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!1!!1!!!!!!!
Oh My….
Ender, he used a) “we are a diverse group” and b) “one of us is female” to provide cred for his arguments early on. One’s enumerative state (one vs. many), one’s diversity, and one’s gender may in fact be relevant in making an argument because lived experience affects perspective (skeptical yammering about how it does not in 3…2…1..). Maybe, maybe not. The point is, he invented three entire people and gave them characteristics that he does not posses in order to strengthen his arguments. That is very serious, and very offensive, making up of stuff. And that does not even count the sock puppets.
This might, on face, be THE KEY THING TO KNOW about this fiasco. Pay attention everyone:
William of Alabama created a pseudo/anonymous blog. There are a lot of good reasons to be anonymous, like self protection etc, depending on what you are blogging about. But, if you are going to do that, you have to play it reasonably straight. For instance, you can’t a) attack other people’s credentials when yours are hidden (totally bad form) and b) make up credentials of your own, when, again, yours are hidden. Making up entire groups of people is a bit over the top in this context.
This is not a little goof. Inventing three authors and three/four/five sock puppets, sending some of those sock to other people’s blogs, accusations that others are crazy because they think they see sock puppets, assertions of qualifications that don’t exist, and so on and so forth: This all relates to the hypocritical arguments, which consisted mainly of demanding Kung-fu perfection in the crafting of blog posts by everyone else, but a very very fast and loose approach to developing the critiques. LISTEN: On several occasions he constructed arguments entirely by a combination of quote mining and willful misunderstanding. THen, he butressed those aregements by claiming that “we” (multiple authors) were making the claim, and then had his sock puppets support the observations.
He served as a kangaroo court judge with a made up jury. That is VERY much an abuse of the pseudo-anon privilege.
Also, in the end, his blog sucked, though some people have not quite realized this yet. Given the number of times William got it wrong vs right, it is not reasonable to say that he got it right some times but screwed up some times. Rather, he screwed up all the time but like a broken clock was right twice a day.
Which then must be put into the context of my main point: William was deeply disconnected with the fundamentals. He wasn’t just claiming to be three guys and a girl from the midwest. He thought he was so important, what he said was so important, that he saw no problem with constructing no fewer than seven entities, in order to become a gang.
And, all of this involved a terrible abuse of the whole pseudo-anonymous concept.
There may well be no mitigating circumstances here.
Damn well said Greg.
I’m tempted to log in just to see how many times I was arguing one person not 2 or 3 or more. And how to trust those other blandly named, non-linked anonymous supporters? He said Julie wasn’t him, but she like so many others: who knows?
Fascinating the way Laden and Myers are bullying the hell out of this guy. Sounds like high school to me. The two biggest ScienceBlog authors really shouldn’t need to bully. Take the high road.
Stephanie, you are taking my simple tautological statement to be some sort of attack on a ‘they’ that was not mentioned in my post. It is not.
Greg, a) is not a valid defense of his critiques, and is not a valid criticism of them when it turns out to be a lie, the same goes for b). (Putting a pre-emptive dismissal of presumed arguments against your position inside brackets may be a neat rhetorical trick but it adds nothing of value to your position in 3 2 ..1)
The point really should be… what a dick… because the truth of your arguments rests on those arguments themselves not on how many people of which diversity of characteristics support them. It was indeed very serious and very offensive making up of stuff, it was also stupid.
I’m afraid I don’t understand your overall point in the rest of your post. I agree he abused his anonymity.
I agree he abused his anonymity.
That was the point.
This is no more bullying than an isolated incident of the most popular kids at school gloating at the least popular kid when it turns out that all the friends he claimed to have are made up.
If they go on an on about it and hound him all over the place and never let him forget it, that could approach bullying, but only then.
Otherwise it is nothing more than a reaction to finding out that someone you don’t like who has been criticising you is a liar and a hypocrite. Just because Greg and Myers are popular doesn’t mean they can’t gloat a little.
Ok, I get you, I think. You couldn’t be more right, he like all sockpuppeteers used his anonymity like a dick to make himself appear more authoritative popular and unbiased and that was doubly hypocritical because he was often attacking people for being paranoid and hypocrites.
In skimming through the fallout of this, I am surprised that people generally seem to be taking the YNH confession at face value. There is no reason to believe anything in it which we did not already know.
YNH wrote a whopping post about me, densely packed with outrageous lies. Really I’ve never seen such a spectacle in my life. We are talking about a true basket case here.
The first sock puppet that was caught red-handed was Milton C., which is not even mentioned in YNH’s confession. The evidence linking YNH to Milton C. is incontrovertible.
Don’t believe what he claims are the non-socks, don’t believe any of it.
There is also a lot of “Too bad, the site is protected” sentiment, however I posted a zip file of the entire YNH site. That the YNH site might disappear wasn’t hard to anticipate!
I mentioned something about not taking what he says at face value on his confession post and was attacked by his sock puppets who claimed to not exist.
What I would really like to see is the full comment thread on that last ost just before the blog shut down. Do we have that somewhere?
Oedipus, I don’t trust anything about the confession. I don’t trust the name. I don’t trust the gender or the age or the educational status. I’m inclined, in fact, after a couple of continuous weeks of Opposite Day on the blog, to think I know more about YNH by paying attention to what we were told wasn’t true. I’ll stick with what I’d already figured out for myself, though.
Greg, since yesterday the sixth update to my post has asked for saved confession pages with comments. I haven’t received anything yet.
Stephanie, yeah I was going to mention that I don’t believe the name either. Though some may call him Will just for labeling purposes, to me he’ll always be YNH.
“hmmmm” (If that is your real name) the kid being bullied in question was a bully, and like most bullies had no substance behind his bullying. He is getting called on the carpet, and there is no need for anyone who was attacked as nastily by William as they were to be taking any sort of “high road.”
He deserves the ridicule because he was engaged in “shaming.” That was the point of his blog. No mercy.
Oedipus, thanks for the zip file. I really wanted those comments from the puppets to hang around. There’s a certain argument to be made that we are the people we act like when we think no one’s looking, and I think people ought to know who they’re offering support to when they tell YNH to keep blogging.
Oedipus: I did not comprehend what you said…
Dude, those YNH wackanutters make you look normal!
Greg, do you mean update #6 on my post wasn’t clear? I did change the wording a few hours ago.
I added a link directly from the YNH confession to Greg’s response here. I would have done that way sooner had it occurred to me.
Oh good – I think I get to take the very lowest road of all!
Ophelia, to quote something that came across my Twitter feed this weekend, “Either take the high road, or scorch the earth.” I think it may be my new motto.
Since somebody else already godwinned here, I’ll add what I decided to leave out of my last post at Oedipus’s blog. You could cherry-pick Mein Kampf and find a few ideas that sound like they have merit and if they really do, you’ll also find them elsewhere and you’re unlikely to offer Hitler as their source if you have a choice. This Will kid isn’t Hitler and YNH isn’t quite Mein Kampf, but there are enough good ideas around to make it unecessary to use a blog that so totally discredited itself as a source for anything. Going on about things in it that were good is special pleading. It was packed to the rafters with lies and false accusations and I fail to understand anyone who, after all that is completely out in the open and not even challenged anymore, still thinks there’s something there that ought to be salvaged. Yes, it did enormous damage to the accomodationist cause in general, so let’s rejoice in that and leave the rest well enough alone.
Are you serious?
The guy got caught telling clearly malicious patent lies about people. Pointing that out isn’t bullying, or taking the low road.
Especially given that some weaselly accommodationists were approvingly linking to this flaming asshole, e.g., the Templeton Foundation. They should learn better.
Hyeesh.
This creep should be publicly eviscerated, by his real name, so that anybody searching for the guy will find out he’s a dishonest asshole. Including potential mates and employers.
Not because I have anything in particular against some 23-year old dumbass in Alabama, if that’s what he is—actaully, I pity the fool—but to make a useful example of him.
People should know that blatantly and maliciously lying about what other people say can have serious consequences, even if it’s “only” on the Internet. The Internet is an important part of the real world, and maliciously libeling people seriously sucks.
(Whether or not a libel suit would succeed, the guy should be publicly shamed in a big way for trying to publicly shame people by blatantly lying about them.)
Paul,
While reciprocity might justify a name and shame campaign, I disagree about pursuing any sort of libel suit or making “useful examples.” The story itself serves as enough of a cautionary tale.
I think you might have been quoting a sockpuppet or troll, by the way. There are several accounts which are still suspect.
I doubt that “Will” has remained inactive during all of this.
I dunno. I’d at least want to out this person by his/her real name. That’s the minimum for making it clear that lying about what people say on the internet can have real consequences in the real world. And if it took a suit and a subpoena to get that real name, I’d think it was worth it.
Anything less will fail to deter a lot of these malicious liars; they’re clearly pretty shameless, and it’s important that real consequences of their actions catch up with them, such that they can’t always just pick a new ‘nym, start a new blog, and resume their blatant and malicious lying.
Yeah. I thought about that, but it wouldn’t change what I had to say.
(But if I was Greg, I might have a peek at Hmmm’s IP address to see if it’s out of Alabama.)
In addition to Paul’s comment on the accusations of bullying, it’s worth noting that this is hardly the first communication between Greg and YNH. The nature of those other communications is relevant.
Greg’s first few links to YNH were offered with little or no comment, generally a quote and a link. Greg has also pushed people to comment at YNH even if they weren’t commenting to support Greg. He engaged far more with YNH in the comments on its blog than he did through his own. He commented there even after accusations arose that YNH was modifying comments. He hasn’t taken them very seriously, but he generally hasn’t used the weight of his blog (which I don’t believe is the second-largest blog at Sb) in his interactions.
PZ, of course, didn’t post anything about them until they had already self-destructed. He made a couple of comments here and there, but he didn’t link and, to the best of my knowledge, he never suggested the hordes invade. His one blog post about the topic is a cautionary tale about how this sort of thing doesn’t tend to end well. It isn’t about YNH; it’s about the behavior displayed on the blog, and he discusses other (classic) cases of sock puppetry as well.
Zach, while I agree that there’s a fair chance someone around here might recognize “Hmmm” under another name, that comment is more likely driven by this thread than by the YNH implosion. This has the smell of someone whose understanding of words is driven far more by affect (“If I don’t like it, it’s bullying.”) than by any actual understanding of bullying or the situation at hand. It’s a fairly familiar smell.
What should I have for lunch; pastrami, or tuna?
This has the smell of someone whose understanding of words is driven far more by affect (“If I don’t like it, it’s bullying.”) than by any actual understanding of bullying or the situation at hand.
HAHAHAHA, Oh, the irony.
It’s a fairly familiar smell.
Oh, I expect you would recognize it, yes. That, and the smell of flagrant hypocrisy.
Yes, Pupet, it’s easy to sneer vaguely from safety. Did you have anything of substance to point to? Any particular double standard you actually name?
Oedipus, you said Milton C. is a sockpuppet for YNH? He’s been on the Intersection comment section since some time late 2009 based on some quick googling (which I think is longer than YNH has been up). I suppose I wouldn’t be surprising if it started there — their comment threads have little in common aside from hating New Atheists.
Paul, that’s a really good catch. Frankly, and I don’t want to spread conspiracy theories, I had a few moments when I thought YNH may be funded by Templeton. Curious that on Intersection he defends that biased Templeton study of Ecklund.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/04/13/are-top-scientists-really-so-atheistic-look-at-the-data/
Is it 100% confirmed that Milton C. is YNH? And how do we know that this isn’t a coincident handle?
Hitch, I think the strongest evidence we have, aside from what is listed in Oedipus’s thread, is on the thread YNH closed to comments. Right before the thread was closed, there were three comments all agreeing with each other: Milton, Polly and Brandon IIRC. Two of those are already admitted puppets. Polly also makes an appearance with Milton on an anti-Pharyngula thread at the Intersection. It’s not definitive, but it is suggestive.
Yes, Milton C. is a 100% match. Look at the second update of my post. Recently I noticed this without even trying.
If somehow you’re still not convinced then just unpack the zip file and browse through the YNH site. There’s enough data there for a Ph.D. thesis in Psychology or in … something.
I am a little curious why there is even a question about Milton C. What am I missing?
Sock puppets are threat to our NATION and must be DESTROYED!!!!111!1!!1!!OJE!!1!!1!!!! Communication Is My Field is ON THE CASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FWIW the only reason I asked the question here is I didn’t read your post until AFTER (I know, so rude, my apologies). While it may not be enough to go to a courtroom with, it’s good enough for the purposes of internet shaming.
Oedipus, I’ll poke around the zip. Some things still don’t make sense to me. I’m sure you are right about Milton C., I just wanted to confirm so I don’t have to cross-check that part.
The Intersection’s thing is what I’m interested in.
As I just said over at Oedipus’s thread, nobody seemed a more obvious sock to me than Milton C. I’m not an Intersection frequenter, so couldn’t comment on that directly, but I can also see no reason why someone couldn’t have invented him to comment there and then “spun him off” to star as top sock of his own blog. The fact that he made earlier appearances elsewhere would only be an asset, as they could be used to dispel any sock allegations.
**cough**
Frankenstein tried to take responsibility for his monster.
…
*blink*
Well, there’s proof positive of innocence! Because nobody involved in YNH could possibly ever have posted anything before YNH was up!
In other words, Paul, had you considered the possibility that William from Alabama might have been using multiple pseudonyms (like “Milton C.”) around the Web before starting his own “YNH” blog?
Regarding Milton: What this tells us is simply that William is Milton.
But, no, wait, I kind of promised to leave Will alone.
But if Will is Milton, then I don’t have to do that becasue that was just Milton telling a lie again.
When Al Gore invented the World Wide Web I don’t think he was thinking of “The wicked web we weave.” But that seems to be how this one came out.
New evidence that Milton C. is YNH:
http://thebuddhaisnotserious.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/the-curious-case-of-the-youre-not-helping-blog/#comment-290
That’s what I was pointing out, yes. One of Mooney’s comment trolls decided to take a logical next step and emulate their idol. Because lying and deceiving is ok as long as you’re “helping” make science more acceptable or less threatening to religious people (and I liked the post you linked, Abbie).
…or perhaps I’m reading too much into it. But it was interesting and not all that surprising that YNH was at The Interdungeon before opening his blog.
Paul, I was thinking something similar.
I’ve been wondering how many of the Intersuction’s resident trolls were the same person as Milton C since before the YNH blog existed.
I had a number of experiences over there being tag teamed by evasive, sniping, misrepresenting “commenters,” who’d take turns to do a sort of collective Gish Gallop. (Typically not bothering to address my refutations of what “another” person just accused me or a prominent New Atheist of, and just launching into another accusatory diatribe.) Some of that could just be sniping assholes being sniping assholes, but I’m pretty sure there was some sock puppeting going on.
(I asked “William” about his identities at The Intersection, in the aforelinked “Curious Case” thread over at B&W.)