Plattsburgh Linked To Skepchick Wikipedia Attack

-

Once again skeptic-feminist Rebecca Watson has stirred up another controversy, this time with the social news website Reddit. And once again people are viciously attacking her online.

On a panel at the recent SXSW conference in Austin, Texas she criticized Reddit for its lack of moderation, allowing the promulgation of bigoted and hateful comments and viewpoints.

In her article at skepchick.org – "SXSW and Reddit’s Introspection Problem" - she gives examples of nasty comments made by Reddit fans and defenders. Watson has faced similar attacks before regarding the "Elevatorgate" incident at an atheist conference back in 2011.

Talking about the furor in a slate.com article - "It Stands to Reason, Skeptics Can Be Sexist Too" - Watson said she had heard about sexism being experienced by women attending skeptic conferences. While at the atheist conference she decided to address this problem, writing:

"I used my time to talk about what it’s like for me to communicate atheism online, and how being a woman might affect the response I receive, as in rape threats and other sexual comments."

At the end of a long day she was leaving the hotel bar, returning to her room, when a man joined her on the elevator. The man said he was interested in her POV and would like to talk with her some more back at his room over a cup of coffee. She declined, thinking the man was hitting on her.

After she wrote about the incident she ended up receiving rape threats and sexual comments, the same kind of attacks that are reoccurring with the Reddit controversy.

The "SXSW and Reddit’s Introspection Problem" article mentions that her Wikipedia bio has also been re-edited and screwed up by some of her extreme critics. One attacker added the statement that she was "an insufferable cunt."

In the comments section following the article the Wikipedia vandalization was mentioned again. "krelnik" wrote that her bio was on his watch list and that one of the edits was done on a home internet connection in Plattsburgh, NY.

Yes, I live in Plattsburgh. Yes, I've written critical posts about Watson and the Skepchick site.

No, I didn't screw around with her Wikipedia bio. Any differences of opinion I have with Watson I address through this blog.

Comments

X. Dell said…
Well, there have to be other internet connections in Plattsburgh, right?
8:11 PM
Doug said…
If only there were some way to trace the IP of who changed it. Eh, too bad the internet has no such options...
2:28 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

-
Image
Jim Moseley: Flying Saucer Farewell I'll miss my late night phone conversations with Jim Moseley. Despite trying to track how he was doing in his fight against cancer I didn't hear the bad news until yesterday. Jim died on November 16, 2012. One of my regrets that I never had the opportunity to visit him in Key West and spend a day with him. Even though we never met in person, he was a friend. I mainly knew Jim as a voice on the phone -- and, of course, as the writer-editor of the zine Saucer Smear (and also as the author of postcards he sent to me marked PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL). Jim was around at the dawn of ufology -- or as the topic was called way back then, flying saucers. Parts of the field he couldn't accept, personalities way out there without anything real to back them up. For example, George Adamski. Jim was critical of "ufoology." Through his writings Jim made friends and enemies. His humor and tell-it-like-it-is attitude didn'
Read more
-
Image
Jesus Photo Jesus Christ died in 33 CE. French physicist Joseph Nicephore Niepce created the first known permanent photograph on metal in 1826 CE. Ergo, there are no photos of the living Jesus. But not when it comes to supernaturalism, especially of the New Age kind. After reading the non-fiction work When Prophecy Fails , I wanted to find out more about the people described in the book. Their names had been changed but with some Googling I discovered that the actual appellation of “Mrs. Marion Keech,” the leader of the doomsday flying saucer cult in the 1950s, was Dorothy Martin. After her prophecies failed in Chicago, Dorothy Martin moved on but kept channeling Jesus Christ – or the being whose real name, she believed, was Sananda. She ended up in South America, living in the Yucatan, with a new name: Sister Thedra. Jesus (AKA the Ascended Master Sananda) appeared to Thedra and cured her of terminal cancer. To prove that she hadn’t been dreaming, Jesus appeared in tangible form
Read more
-
Image
Fortean Three: North Country Odd Events They say bad things happen in a series of three. Looks like odd events can follow that pattern. Recently the North Country – the corner of New York State where I live, hinterlands bordered by Canada and Lake Champlain – has popped up in the news of the weird and extraordinary. Someone saw a black panther in the Lake Placid area. Not an indigenous critter in these parts. According to an article in the Lake Placid News dated 4/24/08, Tsermaa Plumley thought she heard a bear prowling around their property on Schaefer Road in Keene. Her husband Dan investigated to see what kind of animal was in the compost. They were surprised to see a large alien black cat (or ABC to use the Fortean abbreviation). The mysterious black panther left; no one was harmed, just startled. ( http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/placid-panther/ ) The day before (4/23/08) WPTZ-TV in Plattsburgh reported that a local student videotaped an UFO at night. Mysteriou
Read more