This is probably the most difficult post I've made here on LJ in a long time, if ever.

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Title:	This is probably the most difficult post I've made here on LJ in a long time, if ever.
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Date(s):	June 19, 2006
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This is probably the most difficult post I've made here on LJ in a long time, if ever. is a 2006 post by Heidi8.

It has 288 comments.

Heidi8 wrote a follow-up post (with comments disabled) four days later, see untitled; archive link.

Some Topics Discussed

• msscribe, her cruel manipulation, and the fall out
• The Ms.Scribe Story: An Unauthorized Fandom Biography
• Harry Potter fandom
• Gryffindor Tower
• anger over CharityWank and LaptopGate
• loyalty to friends getting in the way of common sense and decency
• BNFs circling the wagons
• blaming the messenger: Journelfen and Charlotte Lennox and StalkerGate
• rationalizations, defending the indefensible, turning a blind eye
• hurt feelings
• fans comparing notes and figuring things out
• sympathy for those who were duped
• anger that this whole thing is being rehashed "three years later"
• anger at those who did not investigate further and were cowardly and selfish
• anger at those who blamed others for their own actions
• fandom reputations in tatters for some, and for others, not so much
• blaming the victim, gaslighting

The Essay

[heidi8]:

This is probably the most difficult post I've made here on LJ in a long time, if ever.

This morning, nostrademons emailed me and praetorianguard regarding some IP matches that he did using information posted on recent Charlotte Lennox posts on JournalFen and comments to those posts.

On JournalFen, el juno posted 68.82.43.3 as the address they have at JournalFen associated with Sporkify - as far as nostrademons, praetorianguard and I can tell, this is the first time that IP address has been publicly shared as a "sockpuppet" IP address. nostrademons ran it through FA's archives, and found that it did match the IP address used by MsScribe on FA in the winter and spring of 2004.

Back in March of 2004, when I was told that many GT'ers thought that Sporkify was an FA Mod, I did ask on the Yahoogroup we have for mod-organizational things whether anyone on said list was Sporkify, and MsScribe lied to me. She posted a reply and said that people thought it was someone on her flist, and then said, "Did they wank something else? *goes to look*"

I believed her, just as I believed all the other FA Mods who posted to that list that week and said they weren't Sporkify - and of course, everyone but MsScribe answered truthfully. But I believed her, and praetorianguard believed her, and so did everyone else. After that, there was one more wank posted by Sporkify on F_W - this one actually involved wanking about FA and some of its mods - and at almost the same time, MsScribe asked if she could resign from FA. I, of course, said yes, and she stopped modding on FA. She was on-staff from early June, 2003 (when I was on leave [personal info redacted] then working on Nimbus) until late March, 2004, and in that time-frame was on leave for most of November and December.

Now, I know people are going to say that we should've figured this out before, but we had no information about Sporkify's IP address, and we had no expectation that JF would ever release it, because their ToU's Privacy Policy states, "Journalfen will never release your personal information, to anyone, except as may be required by law, or in the course of any possible legal proceedings.... Journalfen will never sell, or otherwise make available, information that is not required for the normal display of your journal."

Back in the spring of 2003, praetorianguard and owlman tried to make it clear that FA mods were not acting for FA when they weren't posting on the site, and that only the two of them and I were authorized to act on behalf of FA off-site. Therefore, unless someone complained about MsScribe as an FA moderator or she violated the FA ToU in some way, none of this involved FA. At that time, nobody directly contacted me about it, afaik.

Personally, I am sorry anyone was hurt by anything that has happened in fandom over the last six years that I've been a part of it. I feel extremely duped and upset about this whole situation. That being said, I am all written-out at this point, and so I'm going to parrot Irina. It's so hard to understand how someone who has been so kind to me, and whom I've seen be kind to others, could also do this - could be untruthful directly to me.

I don't think I've ever posted anything publicly or semi-publicly to hurt any of the GT users. I am friends with people who had fics there, and who posted there, and I would never want to hurt them, or anyone else who was an innocent victim of anything or anyone, and I know everyone else on FA's org team feels the same way.

If I have, I apologize for it. All these years, I've thought this was something that had nothing to do with me, or with FictionAlley and I really still feel that 99% of it didn't - we don't have any conclusive information to add to the discussion regarding Fermatojam or Pottersginny, according to the investigating that nostrademons did of our database.

Excerpts from the Comments

The excerpts below are all from the first page.

Support and Sympathy

ivyblossom: I hate to see you hurting, Heidi. I really do. And the hurt is very clear in this post. I know you did everything you could to be entirely fair all the way along, and once again you are continuing to do that. *sends love*

[lexin]: I'm sorry you were lied to, and that are taking flak for it now.

bookshop: I'm so sorry, Heidi. I can't imagine how hurt you must feel. With all my heart I applaud your courage in making this post.

[effervescent]: I'm so sorry, Heidi. I've been following this as it develops, and I truly can't feel anything but sympathy for you in all of this. *hugs*

[ashavah]:

I'm sorry that you're hurting over this. I'm sorry that you've been lied to.

And on my part, I've never felt that you've done anything to hurt me as a former GT user.

Venue and Timing

• fans asked: "Why now?" "It happened a long time ago." "Why bring it up again?"
• fans questioned the venue of JournalFen
• fans questioned the motives of Charlotte Lennox

flourish: My god.

My god.

You know, you think you've left itl behind... and then... I don't know. *headdesk*

[tiferet]: Journalfen is a wank site. It is my own experience that much of what they say about people there, on any wank comm (and don't EVEN try to tell me Bad Penny isn't one--look at its userinfo and its first post) is deliberate misrepresentation of the people they happen not to like there. I can't tell you the number of times that people have friended me after coming to my journal during one of the floods of trolls they sent there and told me, essentially, "They said you said X, and meant Y, but now that I have read what you actually said, it's clear to me that you said A, and you meant A."

They are trying to make themselves out to be the bringers of justice, but in fact, while Dionne and nobody BUT Dionne is responsible for her actions, their bread-and-circuses mentality fed her all the attention she could ever want and facilitated her trolling and nastiness. FW toasted marshmallows over the flaming corpse of GT. They may have forgot it, but I have not.

[mcity]: Backing away now.

[hermorrine]: *sighs loudly* What I want to know is why any of this needs to come up three years later. What's the point?!

[...]

I didn't have any wounds (though I rather do NOW), and I doubt that the person posting that 'biography' did either. This was done for spite, pure and simple.

[...]

So telling the truth, even when it hurts many people, makes it okay?

[...]

People were still hurting over something that happened three years ago from a stupid fake LJ?!

[gunderpants]: Dude, I don't mean this as a personal insult, but that's the kind of attitude that usually discourages people from telling the truth normally. If the truth's that appalling and offensive, don't blame the listener, blame the person causing problems.

[anatsuno]: I have seen you be fiercely loyal to some people you call friends over the years, which you get, and that's normal and good, credit for; you're seemingly annoyed now on behalf of friends to see some painful times recalled to the surface; therefore, I think you can understand that some other people with other loyalty networks can find things interesting and valid after all that time, and not dismiss it as "old and ridiculous". If it was your friends you wouldn't find it ridiculous, you would feel their pain somewhat, because that's what friends do.

No one gets to decide what hurts others and what doesn't. I won't claim i don't find it a little ott myself, but reading about it, it seems a LOT of people have been badly hurt by a series of unjust accusations - not "the one mocking fake LJ", but a compounded series of events - that can apparently now all be traced to one malicious person. It's certainly important for them to be validated now, of course it is. That's hardly surprising.

[imaginarycircus, aka ari_o ]:I don't buy that this is some great revelation of the TRUTH though. I think it is part grudge and part dog and pony show to amuse people, like celebrity tell-alls in magazines or on TV. I just can't believe this is some great fandom service to set things to rights. This a story to amuse and shock people. And maybe a way for people to get some stuff of their chests.

There is certainly truth in bad_penny's posts, but I am not sure it is the whole truth, (I don't think anyone knows the whole truth) the sources seem very biased.

Ms.Scribe did some bad things but she was certainly not the only one who did. There were two sides in that flame war. So either this is one sided grudge muck raking or a very poor biased stab at the truth.

[tiferet]: I have to agree with you that the choice of the location and the way it was handled say a lot about the intentions of whoever is behind this. If Heidi says that she conrfimed the IPs with FA and that she spoke to Dionne then I believe her, and goodness, does it hurt to believe. But my experience with FW as a "Slytherfan" among other things is that they are never nearly as interested in the truth as they are in entertaining their audience, which in general thinks a very specific sort of thing is funny.

[chocolatepot]: But Bad_Penny isn't F_W. It's not related to F_W, it's not affiliated with F_W, it's not run by the same mods.

[tiferet]: I'm angry because I think I'm one of the many people who's been manipulated, but I did think of her as something of a friend and I did care for her and I sort of still do; I haven't defriended her, she's got great kids, I'm just kind of reeling and I want her to explain to me why she wanted me and Arabella to make idiots of ourselves over this business, why she wanted to fuck with and hurt so many people. And I wanted the truth about F_S out too, in large part because no matter how funny they may think it is in some quarters, there were people who said they thought it was me. There's a post about F_S in my journal. I liked her and now I'm kinda too numbed out to know how I feel, but I never saw this coming either!

[poconell]: I think more than anything, I feel pity for her. Not because she got caught, but because she's so void of (pardon the irony) scruples that I can't see how she can function in a day-to-day life as a mother, wife, daughter, friend etc.

Perhaps that's what brought her to the fandom. An exciting place where she could be respected and loved, even victimized and vindicated all by her own terms. She had control over all of it.

Perhaps a Time to Heal Wounds, Introspection... Probably Not

[chocolatepot]: Yes, it's really lovely to see the people that believed MsScribe and reviled GT and the past GTers and even a prominent Harmonian all come together and heal.

Heidi, it's very brave of you to post this. It's a tumultuous time, but I think after it's all done, everyone will feel better.

[hermorrine]: We obviously don't know the same people, because that's not what I'm seeing at all. I'm seeing people pointing and laughing, making fun of this and reveling in the meanspiritedness. It's 'Hey, Harry Potter Fandom is wankier than XYZ fandom!' time again.

I'd like to believe that this will somehow make things happy and shiny in the future, but I doubt it will.

ivyblossom: We're not all missing that, FYI. I'm not seeing any pointing and laughing, but maybe I have all the wrong people on my flist. None of this is funny on either side of the argument, I can't imagine. I don't know why it's coming out now, but I personally would like to see truth keep coming out, no matter which "side" or area of fandom gets implicated.

[gunderpants]: As an aside, I started laughing at first. Then the laughter kinda turned to that slack, open-mouthed horror you usually have when you realise there's a reason why you need to turn off the stove when you leave your house.

I've seen a lot of really good stuff come out of this: people apologising to each other (like Heidi here) and harmonians getting along with other shippers over at JF. It mightn't be anything huge, but it has at least allowed people to understand the history of the situation better and reconcile differences.

bookshop: I've been following the comments on JF since the first post, and I think the commenters there have pretty much collectively experienced a growing feeling of horror combined with sympathy. The laughter has been more or less occasional.

I think the whole thing has been a healing event for a lot of people. Heidi's post certainly opens doors, I think, to a lot more healing.

[go back chief]:

Honestly, that's what I see too. People who weren't even in the fandom at the time are asked to pick sides, and defriend people in full "with us or against us"-mentality.

I do think there is a lesson to be learned from this particular piece of fandom history, which is that everyone should think for themselves, instead of letting other people think for them, and just jump on the bandwagon. Also that maybe we shouldn't be so quick to jump to conclusions, and self-righteously condemning others, rather than question if we might be, you know, not a hundred per cent in the right ourselves. And yet, from what I've seen of the comments on JF (and in the journal of some big F_W'er), is that people keep responding to this wank by doing just that. Lesson has, in other words, gone completely over most people's heads, and thus I doubt fandom will "heal" any time soon.

[...]

...if those exact people (like the GT admins?) get closure out of this, that's a good thing. I just don't like how people who weren't directly affected, seem to take this opportunity to join the lynch-mob and drag in people who weren't even there, or at least weren't involved. (It's especially annoying when people who have their own skeletons in the wardrobe do this.) And my point is that that will probably sow more even more discord, which is unnecessary, when it could just be about the people who were there and affected and hurt, coming to terms with what actually happened.

[anatsuno]: It could, in an ideal world perhaps. in this real and messy one, like i said, maybe new wounds will be created from this, but that does not invalidate the healing going on. and I'm sorry if like so many others i tend to think that if there had not been a big public outcry/reaction/wank/something, Heidi and Fa people might *still* not know /think / want to check on the IP.

speculating is a little useless (a lot even) but i doubt that if el Juno had unearthed those IPs and emailed Heidi to ask her to check for them in FA logs in relation with Msscribe, she would have heeded that request, you know?

So anyway, this is how it went down, and it still goes down. Chips fall, some people cry. but there is healing going on too, and that was all i meant to point out, because some people are still denying that.

[heidi8]: I would have [investigated]. There have been instances in the last five-ish years where FA's been asked to investigate something, whether it's been a plagiarism of an author's fanfic or an ex- boyfriend-doing-some-stalking and we've always done so. Over the years I have suspended a mod for violating the FA ToU and asked another mod to leave for breaching confidentiality. But these incidents have always only been disclosed to the parties who were involved.

[wildebeth]: For the record, I was on the very edge of the fandom, but I was angry on behalf of msscribe when I ignorantly believed her and those defending her. I even went so far as to snipe blindly at someone who didn't deserve it. This thing has given me a chance to apologize to that person.

Friendships were ruined, people left the fandom and livejournal, and then there were the 'little people' who were indirectly affected. Think of the whole Charity thing. Lots of people (those directly involved, especially) have truly appreciated the new information. The conclusive information. Sure, the queen has retreated to her special little corner away from fandom, but enough people have been positively affected by this that the shits-and-giggles-seekers are meaningless.

Like a lot of people have been saying, the truth can hurt, but not nearly as much as a festering web of lies. I don't see a lot of people sowing discord. This is probably because the subject is the one who has sown the most, and it's doubtful that she would respond.

[go back chief]: What I don't like, are the people who seem to want to divide fandom into "the good ones" and "the bad ones" again, only this time around, it's them who get to be the self-proclaimed arbitrers of who qualifies for what, rather than MsScribe and company. It's understandable that you haven't seen much of that, if you were directly involved, because you probably have other, more pressing issues to worry about, but I don't, and I've seen enough of that, to make me uncomfortable. So that's why I felt the need to say something about it.

[ishtar79]: Fat chance of fandom 'healing', even if that *was* the original intent behind all this digging up of three year-old wank. People are going to be jumping to conclusion and following mob mentality. The only thing that ultimately changes is *which* mob they follow.

[sistermagpie]: Yes, that's definitely something it would be great if fandom could do. Let's face it, it's hard. There's often a lot of pressure to take sides, and sometimes it's the right thing to do. I can remember more than one situation where someone was lying and the person who checked the liar out was attacked by friends of the liar who honestly felt that person was being attacked.

It's never a bad thing for the real story to be told--it's just so hard on the Internet where every true story has 200 random people looking to use it to their own advantage, for notoriety, for amusement, for spite, for personal vindication.

Getting the truth out is a good thing, but this makes me want to also be doubly careful about treating people well just on a regular basis.

[heidi8]: I've been reading through some emails on the mods-of-HPfGU list today, to refresh my memory about some of that list's chronology in April and May of 03, and in the world of irony, I've found posts I made about hatred of factions, and the assumption that people aren't individuals but rather representatives of one faction or the other. And I've always tried to have friends across the fandom and it's been *difficult* - it was difficult before Spring of 03 - and the tiny-little-untruths that show up in so many places, I'm afraid, are a large part of that.

[mcity]: It's 'Hey, Harry Potter Fandom is wankier than XYZ fandom!' time again.

As one of the members of F_W, most of the reaction is either "Holy crap, she went through a lot of trouble", "Wow, that's a lot of research. Can't wait for the movie.", or some vombination of the two. Very little actual pointing and laughing.

[imaginarycircus aka ari_o]: I don't think everyone involved is being so thoughtful. There are a lot of nasty posts over at bad_penny and here at lj about Dionne from people who were and were not involved at the time. I really don't think Dionne was the Devil and the GTers were all innocent sheep. Some of them were in up to their necks and unbelievably nasty at the time. I'm sure many of them were innocent, but not all.

And I do think this is all motivated by spite. This is not some great stab at healing the breach. I've been here for six years. If someone wanted to do that they would not have created a JF comm to do it.

BTW, I'm also ari_o_ .

Comments Regarding Knowledge and Decisions

[heidi8]:I called her about [sockpuppet], and confirmed it with her. So, yes. If she hadn't I couldn't even list the ip address itself without breaking the FA ToU.

[doctoraicha]: by "She" do you mean the sockpuppeteer/FA mod/friend of yours and Cassie's known variously as MsScribe/delawarean? and by "confirmed it with her" do you mean "MsScribe admitted she was sporkify and used that IP and lied to Heidi and other FA mods"? I want to be sure that I get what you are saying exactly as you mean it, and that I don't misinterpret what you are saying.

[Heidi8]: No, I did want to buy what she was saying... Just like the Queens of H/G wanted to believe Chryslin despite everything, I wanted to believe that her computer had been hacked/the IPs spoofed.

[kvader]: I wasn't around when the Chryslin stuff happened, so I'm not qualified to comment on it. Let me try asking again without that part.

By inconclusive, do you mean that the IPs were checked before this past week and matched what Carissa and Angua had sent you?

[Heidi8]: I would have loved to have had this all solved back in 03 or at least 04. Had those who were curious about Sporkify's identity asked the mods at F_W back in 2004, and had the IP info been provided, I wouldn't have had to trust that people would be honest with me. I honestly never thought F_W or J_F would give that info up because of their ToU and the fact that they keep that information off the page, unlike, say, mailing lists where an IP address is included in the header information and thus shared publicly with everyone on the list.

[doctoraicha]: Maybe it was the first public post, Heidi, and I will give you props for admitting you were duped by MsScribe. However, you were emailed evidence on several occasions by people with the same/similar evidence - MsScribe was not only Sporkify, according to IP evidence - she was a number of other hurtful, mean spirited sockpuppets. You were wrong about her. I'm sorry for you about that. It hurts to be duped.

[heidi9]: The thing about what I was sent back in 04 is, it didn't have any IP info relating to Sporkify - yesterday was the first time that was made public. And I've been told by all my techs and many techie friends over the years that it is possible to spoof or otherwise alter IP addresses, so if the only evidence is an IP address match, then it has to be seen as inconclusive. That's all I said at the time. The other thing is, by the time Angua sent me all that information, MsScribe was no longer an FA mod and was hardly visiting the site, so on an official level, there wasn't anything for me to really do about it.

[doctoraicha]: I understand that she was your friend, a former mod, and that you wanted to believe her. And yet, Heidi, you know as a lawyer that these were pretty serious claims, and that people have a responsibility not to have their heads in the sand when dealing with others on the internet.

The claim that she was creating socks in order to make GT look bad is serious, even if you didn't feel that it was serious at the time. At the time, I wasn't happy with GT myself, and yet I think if someone had told me that Mo had fabricated sock puppets to make GT look bad or something, I would have looked into it a little bit more than asking "Hey Mo, did you do that?" and taking her word for it over any IP evidence. Maybe it's possible to fabricate IPs, but you could have looked into Clarabella and the other fangirl!Socks MsScribe created. So she used socks to make herself look good. Well, she's a sociopath (unable to feel remorse).

She USED you, which I admit SUCKS, and you didn't want to believe the (then-scanty in your view) evidence, so you didn't.

When the CharityGate wankery broke, you waited several days, and through several PLEAS from 3rd parties - while MsScribe attacked an ill woman on that woman's LJ for the crime of contacting you to ask for help - help, I might add, that she asked for in the wake of your raising money for Cassie's shiny new laptop and fo[r] breastcancer. People are still pretty sick about the way you handled it, and you owe that woman an apology. Her daughter, who I admit is something of a small name fan in HP - had to listed to MsScribe and all her Mouse socks WISHING THAT HER MOTHER WOULD DIE.

...

I think I'd cut Dionne off then. She was not much of a real friend to you at that point, because I don't think you are that bad a person as you are a mother yourself, though I have never met you and you and I have had any number of disagreements over the years. It sure looks like you condoned her behavior, since you didn't cut her off. AND, to be fair, maybe you did cut her off. But you were defending her over this last weekend, so I don't know....

When evidence started going around over at bad_penny and around LJ, you popped up in people's LJs basically saying, "OMG this is all a bunch of lies I could proof wrong if I wasn't so busy!" - which made you look pretty bad, frankly, and I was pretty disappointed in you as a lawyer. You know bald assertions don't work as evidence. Doesn't work in term papers, either, where my students better bring the quotes and cites or risk failure.

The thing is, Louis the Stalker never existed. There is no detective working for the Dayton police department that can find ANY RECORD of him or Dionne involved in a stalker incident, or any other people involved in an incident that was similar to that one in either the city OR the county jurisdiction OR the state in Ohio. There is no one with a criminal record with Louis's name ANYWHERE IN THE UNITED STATES. She FABRICATED the crime AND the criminal. She wanted to look like she was stalked like Cassie allegedly was, so she could be JUST LIKE A BNF OMG!. No one even bothered to call Dayton, did they?

I say that as I have never seen evidence that the Cassie incident was true or even paid much attention to the wankery over it. I more or less believed it at the time, I think.... What I have seen is that the evidence was IP evidence and email evidence. IP addresses and emails can be faked, as you say. So who knows, really?

I'm pretty disgusted with the fandom right now, especially the people Dionne targetted as her "friends". I don't think she was EVER your friend. Friends don't pull this crap on each other. It's not just the sporkify that's true, and it's not just the GT users that were hurt.

[heidi8]: people have a responsibility not to have their heads in the sand when dealing with others on the internet.

I agree, and that's why I had our techie-types look into the IP issues at the time. And also, at the time, other friends of mine, including ari_o , asked MsScribe about this. She and I weren't especially good friends at that time - I mean, there were about 35 mods on at FA and another dozen or so art approvers, and another 30 or so fic intakers and uploaders and all the ones with LJs were on my friendslist - so why would she have been honest with me about anything when she wasn't honest with me about the Sporkify situation? When I got all the Fermatojam - et al IP info from Angua in Spring of 04, I had recently *asked* about Sporkify, and she lied to me.

So now you say, "I would have looked into it a little bit more than asking "Hey Mo, did you do that?" and taking her word for it over any IP evidence." So you would've believed inconclusive IP evidence over a friend who you had no reason to believe was dishonest? That's your call; it wasn't, at the time, mine. And I was completely hoodwinked. I was completely wrong to believe her.

When the CharityGate wankery broke, you waited several days, and through several PLEAS from 3rd parties - while MsScribe attacked an ill woman on that woman's LJ for the crime of contacting you to ask for help

No, I did not. snacky posted on my LJ about the posts on Sapphsmum's LJ just before March 14th began, and when I was next online (about 14ish hours later according to my gmail timestamps) I replied. D had already said she was through posting there, by the time I saw it, and a bunch of posts were screened so I never saw them - I did get in touch with D and ask her to keep to her pledge, though. I didn't know she was going to post there before she posted there. Snacky and I dialogued about it and I looked at the situation more extensively and I did post a request for people to stop about an hour or so later. It didn't, of course, which I knew would happen, but I did try.

[personal info redacted] I think it's awful that Christina and family had to read anything that was deliberately cruel, but you're suggesting that I should have been able to stop someone who had lied to me, and who had done things to hurt me? How do you think I could have accomplished that? Even threatening to defriend her if she posted there again would've been utterly useless because she just would've used a journal not associated with her name, and I never would've known.

When these posts started last week, I did say in IIRC two livejournals that there were inaccuracies in the posts. And there are. They're small details - and big details - and they're not accurate, but while it seemed on Friday that those kinds of details were important, they don't seem so now. If anyone wants to know them, I may have the time to list them out in a few weeks, for curiosity's sake. They're not important now.

I don't think ari_o called Dayton because she relied on the police report itself. But as I've said before, I wasn't really around at the time, so everything I knew was second-hand.

what I have seen is that the evidence was IP evidence and email evidence. IP addresses and emails can be faked, as you say.

You ought to ask Arabella and Zsenya, as they're the ones who did the IP match, and who confronted Chryslin and Jeff; Jeff and Chryslin replied to A & Z and Jeff admitted to it. Then, once they had that in hand they emailed me to let me know what they had learned, and after they did that, Jeff threatened to report Sugarquill to WB, which was a pretty scary threat at the time (although now, we'd laugh at that sort of thing). So no, Cassie and I never made any accusations based on just IP information in that situation.

Believe me, I am plenty angry at D right now - it's a metaphorical "want to hit her with a 2x4" sort of thing. She lied to me and that really bloody hurts. I don't know what our friendship meant to her, but I have had a lot of fun spending time with her, and her kids, and it's devastating to reconcile all this with someone who's been terrific to me on the phone, in person, etc.

[doctoraicha]: So you would've believed inconclusive IP evidence over a friend who you had no reason to believe was dishonest? That's your call; it wasn't, at the time, mine. And I was completely hoodwinked. I was completely wrong to believe her.

Yes, you were wrong. You chose to believe her over the evidence that was provided to you – in no way was it inconclusive except that you chose to believe the nanny did it. You had two paths; you chose loyalty over suspicion. That is exactly what the GT admins did that you and your friends publicly and privately vilified them for doing. When they chose to believe Jeff over IP evidence, you attacked them as if the Entire GT Site was personally responsible for sending those wanky, freakish emails to Arabella, Cassie et al.

So, here is the problem: you wanted them to be sorry for their culpability in allowing this to continue when they had the evidence right in front of them. This PuppeteerGate is precisely the same situation. You (and your friend Cassie, and a few others) have personal responsibility for letting MsScribe continue to send vicious, wanky, freaky things out into cyberspace. Either you do, or Anne and Paula and some of the other GTers that you blamed for StalkerGate have no responsibility for that. Evidence in both cases was provided by various SQers. I believe they were partly responsible, just as I believe you (and others, but we are talking about you, here) are partly responsible.

I wouldn’t have believed IP evidence whole heartedly over a friend. But I would have checked. Considered the evidence. Investigated more than just asking around and in one place. You asked SQ for evidence in StalkerGate. Why not ask portkey or the Quill or any of the other sites – I’d have done more checking than you admit you did, if only to PROVE she was right. To exonerate her of all charges. For one, I’d have asked to meet the nanny/babysitter/friend she was claiming was the Root of All Evil.

[heidi8]: You chose to believe her over the evidence that was provided to you – in no way was it inconclusive except that you chose to believe the nanny did it.

That's not what I was told at the time. That's not what I believed in the spring of 2004 when I talked with people - including Dionne, who lied to me about Sporkify's real identity - about the allegations in Angua's email.

When I got Angua's email, I spoke about it with praetorianguard, ari_o, owlman and others who had been involved and/or paying attention in spring/summer 2003, and they told me that there wasn't anything in Angua's email that hadn't been examined in the nine or so months before. At that time, ari_o said "fermatojam is/was a real guy. I have his name and address and IP tucked away somewhere because I was in charge of Nimbus Security. He was a very real stalker who hacked into Ms.Scribe's computer." So I believed her. I'm sorry I did because as it turns out, she didn't have independent confirmation of things like the contents of the police report, although she'd said she did at the time.

You had two paths; you chose loyalty over suspicion.

In a sense, yes, but not loyalty to D alone. Loyalty to zorac , who said it was inconclusive, and to ari_o and to owlman who had looked through FA's IP records, and to the people who said (seemingly correctly) that Infinitus was real and had confirmed the claims D made regarding Louis. I wasn't just listening to one person.

That is exactly what the GT admins did that you and your friends publicly and privately vilified them for doing. When they chose to believe Jeff over IP evidence, you attacked them as if the Entire GT Site was personally responsible for sending those wanky, freakish emails to Arabella, Cassie et al.

That's not true. We never made an accusation based solely on IP evidence. I sent four or five IP addresses to Arabella back in December of 2001, shared with her some of the emails' contents, and asked if there were any matches in the SQ IP database, and if not, could she ban those IP addresses because then the culprit might complain about being banned. A few hours later, she emailed me back and said that the IP did match to a user, and said user's husband confessed to sending the emails.

The GT admins chose to believe Chryslin over Arabella. That was their decision.

[angua]: When I got Angua's email, I spoke about it with praetorianguard, ari_o, owlman and others who had been involved and/or paying attention in spring/summer 2003, and they told me that there wasn't anything in Angua's email that hadn't been examined in the nine or so months before.

What? Are you saying that these people read my email? They saw all my arguments, my evidence, the contradictions I pointed out in Dionne's story? Are you saying that, when Ari_o was making fun of me in public on her LJ, saying that R/Hr shipping had fried my brain, SHE HAD READ MY EMAIL?

Wow.

Obviously, I don't think "don't respond, do nothing, and mock the sender in public" was an appropriate or prudent response to the email I sent you. But others must judge that for themselves. I will post the text of that email on my LJ, so that they can.

[bookshop]: At that time, ari_o said "fermatojam is/was a real guy. I have his name and address and IP tucked away somewhere because I was in charge of Nimbus Security. He was a very real stalker who hacked into Ms.Scribe's computer." So I believed her. I'm sorry I did because as it turns out, she didn't have independent confirmation of things like the contents of the police report, although she'd said she did at the time.

I do not say this to cause either of you more pain, but my god, Heidi, Katie feels horrible enough about her own (guiltless) part in all of this as it is without you minimalizing your part by blaming it on her.

[the woodpecker]: Heidi, I'm with Aja on this one. This language and behavior is really upsetting to me. Please. I think you have no idea how much you are tearing down the reputation you built with language like this.

Please don't. We're friends. I'm so upset right now I'm about to lose my spicy noodles. ::::::::: [anonymous]: You just keep trying to push the blame off to other people, don't you? Keep on back pedaling, Heidi, keep on back pedaling.

[imaginarycircus aka ari_o]: I never ever said I saw a police report. Because I didn't ever see one. Wow, I'm learning who all my frineds are this week. The quotation you have from me is all I ever said.

[unanon]: Heidi,

I've known for some time that sometimes you'll say/do things that aren't deliberately meant to be hurtful or cruel, they're just astonishingly thoughtless...and I've been okay with that. People aren't perfect.

I'd like to believe that shunting blame on people whose faith you claim to value most likely wasn't your intention in this case, but it certainly was the very real outcome. Katie (among others) does not deserve to be thrown to the wolves for this. [Upcoming] vacation or no, it's only right that you step in and take some personal responsibility.

It's bad enough that we were duped by Dionne, but this is nausea-inducing.

[lore]: Heidi...Honestly, you make it very hard for the people who want to be supportive of you. Quit being a lawyer and dissembling and just say what needs to be said. To K now, too.

[sugarjet03]: Heidi, I haven't always agreed with your actions, but I usually can see where they are coming from. This time, though, you are slandering someone who is just as innocent, if not more so, than you are. You owe Katie an apology. Too many people have already gotten hurt, and you are making things worse by trying to make yourself look better.

[doctoraicha]: I did get in touch with D and ask her to keep to her pledge, though. I didn't know she was going to post there before she posted there... Please remember that I was four weeks away from delivering at that point. I think it's awful that Christina and family had to read anything that was deliberately cruel, but you're suggesting that I should have been able to stop someone who had lied to me, and who had done things to hurt me? How do you think I could have accomplished that? Even threatening to defriend her if she posted there again would've been utterly useless because she just would've used a journal not associated with her name, and I never would've known.

[Previous personal info that has been redacted here]. You were online and posting to LJ repeatedly that week. However, there is a wider problem with your argument.

You contacted Dionne and asked her to stop posting at F_W, but you didn’t appear to make any real effort to make her take back the horrible things she said. You didn’t say “Hey, this is my friend but she is not speaking for me right now, and I do not condone it” – and this means you were culpable: you knew what she was doing, you told her to stop, but you didn’t make her stop or apologize. That is the same as approving what she had done. If you make your kids stop hitting other kids, you still need to make them apologize to those they hurt for already hitting them.

Yes, I am suggesting that you should have been able to make her MsScribe identity stop posting terrible things, and retract what she said, and apologize. If you could not, you should have apologized for that. Why? Well, she claims to have been doing the wanking in defense of you. You are responsible for the entire wank in the first place, because you acted callously. You were posting to your LJ, but you couldn’t take 3 minutes to post a shout-out – which everyone our age knows is a “hey, you guys, if you have a sec take a look at this. She might really need some help.” CharityGate was disgusting, and you were at the heart of it. The first step in a long line of reprehensible wankage.

The other problem is that you are saying that it was no use to make her stop by defriending Dionne-as-MsScribe because she’d just have turned to another sock, because she is lying and hurtful. But you have said you didn’t know she had other socks, and you didn’t know she was a hurtful liar, so there is no way you knew at that time she would use other socks. So you could not have known that defriending would not work. Your argument is circular. Why did you not threaten to defriend, when you didn’t know that it wouldn’t work on this sociopath MsScribe? Did you know MsScribe had the socks and figure it wasn’t worth your time to try to make her stop because she would use the socks? If not, and you didn’t know, and importantly, if you didn’t condone her behavior, why not threaten to defriend? Or, for that matter, why was the only action you took to ‘ask’ her not to post further?

[heidi8]: Puppeteer? What's that supposed to mean? Dionne pulling the strings of sockpuppets? I would make a joke about socks coming full cycle, but I'm too drained to make it actually funny.

And no, once we realised this was likely the work of two people, we never asked anyone else for a "mea culpa" for the emails that pair sent. I don't blame Imogen or anyone else for Chryslin and/or Jeff's lies and impersonations on Michela's Writer's University forum or their phone call and follow-up email to CF, the law firm I left at the end of November.

What I blamed them for was their decision to ban the word Schnoogle from GTGT's forums, their decision to ban Cassie from the forums, their decision to say things like "First of all if you're going to discuss this, you should really have all the facts before you make a statement. And just as that may leave a bad taste in your mouth, blackmail and harassment don't taste too good in ours." That's something that Cyg recorded Marian as saying back in June of 2003 on the GT livejournal itself here . But since the community was deleted, that post isn't available anymore, as the only archive.org records of that community were from Oct 05, 2002, Dec 03, 2002 and Apr 07, 2003 (and the April page has a nice comment from amaterasu about something I posted on SQ).

Now, none of this is meant to say that I have no responsibility for not figuring out D was behind Sporkify sooner, and I understand why people think I should have not trusted what I thought was confirmation of D's claims regarding Louis, but you seem to be misinformed about how *I* feel about things. Back in 02, I tried to mend fences with Paula over Paul McCartney. I tried to talk with the site admins in the fall of 02 as well. And each time, I was rebuffed. There's only so many times that someone will speak into the wind before she realises that the wind isn't going to answer back.

I wouldn’t have believed IP evidence whole heartedly over a friend. But I would have checked. Considered the evidence. Investigated more than just asking around and in one place. You asked SQ for evidence in StalkerGate. Why not ask portkey or the Quill or any of the other sites – I’d have done more checking than you admit you did, if only to PROVE she was right. To exonerate her of all charges. For one, I’d have asked to meet the nanny/babysitter/friend she was claiming was the Root of All Evil.

I thought what Angua sent me included all the information from SQ, actually. LJ won't divulge information without a subpoena, as we'd learned during the investigation back in December 01, so I didn't try to run into that brick wall again. Why didn't Angua ask other sites when she was collecting the information back then? I can't get to the Portkey ToU right now, and I've never read it, but I assume it includes the standard language about not handing IP information around, so I probably would've assumed they would hold to that.

[doctoraicha]: You ought to ask Arabella and Zsenya, …[re Cassie].

I did as you suggested. A couple of emails and IP matches makes Jeff a real freaker, in my opinion, and probably dangerously weird. What he did was make terroristic threats. This does not make him a stalker, any more than MsScribe is a stalker (the only person she seems to have really stalked, IMHO, and STRANGELY ENOUGH, is Cassie, in a kind of Single White Female way). Chryslin and Jeff acted very badly. GT admins closed ranks around their friends – we have since made them apologize for protecting a criminal. Jeff admitted he did it, and Sue left the site over the actions of her husband. When will FA apologize for harboring MsScribe and protecting her in the face of the evidence? OK, she was not a mod the whole time, but Jeff was NEVER a mod. Again, GT acted badly and stupidly. So have FA, the so called inner circle, and your friends. So what we (royal we, me and a lot of people on the bad_penny board, for what it’s worth) really want to see is an unequivocal “I am sorry for my part in this harboring this person. I should have looked closer at the evidence.” Period.

Believe me, I am plenty angry at D right now - it's a metaphorical "want to hit her with a 2x4" sort of thing.

Good, you ought to be. Me, too. She is pretty sick. If I saw her in person I’d probably backhand her and take the consequences. I am fairly certain that the fandom would pay my legal fees.

I don't know what our friendship meant to her

I think I can answer that. Not very damned much, and you can take that to the bank. She treated you and the rest of your friends pretty badly.

[heidi8]: GT admins closed ranks around their friends – we have since made them apologize for protecting a criminal.

Where?

Where did they ever apologize?

When did they ever apologize?

I have never seen an apology to Cassie for their actions after they chose not to believe our evidence, or what Arabella told them.

If you know where it is, please let me know. If it was on the now-defunct GT, then I don't know how anyone expected Cassie to see it.

[...]

But I will point out that FA, as a site, never took any retalliatory action against any GT admin or member as a result of anything D did or did not do. GT, as a site, took retalliatory action against Cassie, and against FictionAlley, and against me because of the bans and the word-blocks and the statements to fandomers that Cassie had lied about what happened in December of 2001 regarding Jeff and/or Chryslin.

[...]

You're mischaracterizing the site, the staff, my friends, and this so-called inner circle, which is not something that I ever thought existed in this fandom.

[magoo42qohg]: Actually, we banned the word "schnoogle" because we thought it was a stupid word. We banned plenty of other words too. Like smurf. Are you saying that we banned smurfs just to piss off whoever it is that owns them?

If you can ignore the main points and concentrate on the little details, then I will as well.

[doctoraicha]: Look, you had information that you chose not to believe. You preferred to believe racist, homophobic, prejudiced, and classist vitriol was coming from GT (despite the fact that there was no evidence of this at all) and that GT and Angua forged evidence that suggested MsScribe was stalking herself. Angua deserves a real apology. GT admins – not just users – deserve an apology (although methinks they were no saints during the Cassie Incident, and they acted pretty damned badly toward both FA and SQ when GT imploded). Nevertheless… Don’t say you’re sorry for what Dionne did, and don’t cast yourself only the role of victim.

Most importantly, you owe Christina and her mother apologies for your inaction. As Moeyknight puts it, you set yourself up as “Top BNF” of the fandom. You want everything to come through you for approval (we saw the post). You have to expect that people are going to ask for help. It’s pretty appalling that you didn’t do it immediately, and the fact that you were publicly shamed into doing it doesn’t really fix the fact that you were willing to ignore it at first....

Christina, her mother, GT admins, Arabella (since the sociopath attacked Arabella, too, when we were all at B’s dad’s funeral), and the fandom deserve Official Apologies from you, Heidi, for your part in this mess. And you had a part that was not simple victim, make no mistake. I know it’s hard to admit mistakes (Lord knows I make a LOT), and harder to stand up to your friends than your enemies. JKR has that exactly right. You probably really are hurting right now, and I don’t doubt that Dionne used you. That’s hard as hell, and I know it is. You’ve made a step in the right direction in the last couple of days – but take Neil Armstrong’s giant leap and the fandom will respect you in the morning. I know I will.

[...]

I am now convinced that FA is only interested in what is legally right. That's fine, except that you, an admin of FA, wished to hold other sites up to standards that your site does not feel obligated uphold. To wit, you have publicly stated that you are angry at the admins of a website for banning a stupid word and banning someone they didn't like, who they believed - rightly - hated their ship, and for telling people they didn’t have the whole truth and not to talk about the Cassie incident on GT.

Those are pretty weak – nay, petty – reasons to condone the kind of vitriol that was aimed at GT from the FA side of the fandom.

And I am PUBLICLY angry at FA for harboring this MsScribe, a parasite on the fandom and because it has at least one admin (not, I point out, said admin’s spouse) who refuses to acknowledge her complicity through the use of spin, double talk, misleading statements, straw men, backpedaling, and ridiculous excuses. Heidi, what we are asking for is recognition for your part in this and an apology for it, not self victimization. We are not asking you to fall on your own sword, here. Just apologize.

{{Quotation2|[rap451]: Because while I adore HP I was never in the fandom. But seeing what I have seen and seeing your posts, I have to say something despite the fact that I will not be shocked if it is removed.

You had a choice here, You, [Heidi], *could* have said "Hey, Msscribe shouldn't be mocking an actual cancer victim. Even though Msscribe is my pal, I do not in any way support bitching at an actual cancer victim." But you didn't. You as near as I can tell (because I am just a [[Battlestar Galactica/Power Ranger fan and therefore shit under the boots of the BNFs and not privy to the endless private postings) did not ever publicly denounce the mocking of a cancer victim. Your friend did this. You supported her. You never said that you didn't approve, And all your pals are hugging you like you are somehow a victim here.

[...]

You're not the victim here. You don't deserve all the "poor victim Heidi" posts because you had ample opportunity to mitigate the damage. You didn't have to stand by and allow your pal to mock someone with cancer and insinuate that they were faking - you could have been an adult and said "hey back off" or at least done some freaking research to prove or disprove the cancer claim. You didn't.

It *was* years ago - but it was still a crappy thing to sit by and allow. I am NO saint at all... and not gonna lie - this whole fucked up cunty mess (to coin one of your best pal's favorite words) prompted me to call up people I hadn't spoken to since high school to apoligize for immature shit - but as a human being you sicken me. Apologize publically for standing by and doing doing nothing while your friends tore into a dying woman in your defense and then you might be a decent human being.

Your vague little 'gosh sorry if people got hurt while they accused of being racist scum and of faking cancer but since it was my pals who I openly supported and not actually me, I am a total victim,. pleaze give me hugz' apology ain't cutting it.

[...]

Was her behavior right or wrong to you? Can you even answer a direct question? It's really disquieting that you're somehow gaining victim status over this when you didn't seem to have cared all that much in the past about all the other people who got hurt.

[heidi8]: I think that attacking someone who isn't around to respond is inherently wrong, and I had a fight with someone I was then friendly with back in late 2003 on just that subject - she was harshing on someone who [personal info redacted] and I told her it was not the right time for her to pick a fight. I think that going onto someone's LJ and questioning their health-related claims when they have documentation on a website to support their claims is usually questionable, but there are some circumstances where it would be justifiable; this was not one of them.

I don't know how to answer the rest of your post - I am not seeking poor-baby-victim status here, and I don't want anyone to get the impression that I am.

}}