(no subject)

[heidi]

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 having my son Jon, 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.

Comments

[hermorrine.livejournal.com]

We'll have to agree to disagree, then. 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.

[edeainfj.livejournal.com]

It was done to tell the truth. If you think that's spiteful, then there's not much more I can say.

[hermorrine.livejournal.com]

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

[(Anonymous)]

More to the point, the "truth" is riddled with multiple lies. If you're going to tell the truth, tell the truth, rather than presenting an admixture of fact and fiction.nmi

[(Anonymous)]

the wonderful part is how people are saying things like this and then refusing to point out said multiple lies. Anyone with a lick of sense and reading comprehension and research skills could see that Ms Lennox is doing her best to present the truth to the best of her abilities and resources.

[phoenixsong]

Having been lied to by people I trusted (in personal matters completely unrelated to this)...yes. As painful as the truth was when it finally came out, it hurt me far worse -- and has made it that much more difficult to forgive -- to learn that they lied to me first, and only 'fessed up when backed into a corner.

I will always prefer the hard truth than a soft lie. The truth wounds, but has a chance to heal cleanly. Lies fester.

[edeainfj.livejournal.com]

The truth wounds, but has a chance to heal cleanly. Lies fester.

Word.

[hermorrine.livejournal.com]

This is probably the first things that actually made any sense to me. At the time the events took place, I would've much rather had the complete truth, no matter what it was. Now? I don't see the point. Other people do, and that's their perogative.

[kvader.livejournal.com]

The truth was pointed out back then. What happened? Those people were called liars. Just because it upsets you doesn't mean it shouldn't be made public.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

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.

[edeainfj.livejournal.com]

When so many people were hurt from the truth not being told? Yeah, it does.

[hermorrine.livejournal.com]

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

way to totally diminish her actions

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

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.

[fairnymph.livejournal.com]

Yes. Truth > people getting hurt, ALWAYS.

It is a matter of principle.

[mattador.livejournal.com]

I would say yes, always. The truth is the truth. It's always better to be aware of the truth, painful or not.

[chickadilly.livejournal.com]

I think so. As painful as it is I'd rather know the truth than be lied to. I'd rather someone be upfront and know where I stand.

I know this is painful. I'm thinking of a very similar experience (that some people in fandom will know exactly what I'm talking about) and when the truth came out I didn't want to believe it at first. But I had to - long time ago or not. I needed to know what was real and what wasn't. For my own personal sanity ... and the fact that someone I loved dearly lied to me (and many others) hurt the most of all. It still does. Believe me when I say I've thought of that incident many many times in the past two days.

This has all been very painful and there is a part of me that is sort of on those lines "It was a long time ago" because it was but, even so ... three years ago a lot of people on the other side were hurt too. There's a lot of hurt all around in this and maybe, just maybe, if things just get opened up and looked at then a healing process can begin.

Or maybe I'm smoking some Polyanna juice.

[mmichelle.livejournal.com]

off-topic from the rest of the discussion, but...

I remember the incident you're talking about (I obviously wasn't involved, but I remember hearing about it through you) and I've actually been thinking about that, and about you, as I read through all of this. I think having heard about the entire thing that you went through made it a lot easier for me to believe (and I'm not saying I believe everything posted by charlottelennox, but...) the stuff that I'm reading now.

and I agree that the truth should always be more important than anything else.

[cesario.livejournal.com]

....

yes.

[cleverthylacine]

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 confimed 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.livejournal.com]

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.

(I know this is pretty insignificant, it's just one of those things that bothers me, like when people say 'jagwire' for 'jaguar' and such.)

[cleverthylacine]

Please understand that I find that a pretty insignificant distinction, especially having now gone and looked at it, when the same damn people are in all the comments threads saying the same damn things they always say, and when the userinfo of Bad Penny refers to FW and FW Greatest Hits. It might not have the same mods. But the same people are hanging out there and egging it on. No, it's not Star Trek or the Next Generation. It's Enterprise. Big diff.

[poconell.livejournal.com]

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.

I think the main goal of this was to get the truth out. This person just happened to know where to perform so the fandom would see it. The entertainment is just a bonus.

You don't have to believe this, but as much as I wanted the truth about F_S out, I didn't see this coming. And I'm more heartbroken and worried for a human being whom I genuinely care about than entertained. (Present tense.)

[cleverthylacine]

Actually from you I do believe that. You and I have some very clear and irreconciliable disagreements about the ambiguity of canon in the first five books. But our disagreements have mostly been here on LJ, out in the open, under our own names. And you and I have always been able to be civil to each other in other people's journals, most especially Dionne's, and we certainly have common ground wrt to being committed to pro-choiceness.

Also, I feel the same way about it--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.livejournal.com]

I liked her and now I'm kinda too numbed out to know how I feel

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 victomized and vindicated all by her own terms. She had control over all of it.

[ashavah]

Well, I had wounds, and it's helping to heal them for me, although I'm sad that in healing the wounds of some, others have been hurt.