(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]

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]

My reaction back then was that the IP information was inconclusive, in large part because IP addresses *can* be spoofed, or so my friends who are more technologically sound than I am tell me.

[kvader.livejournal.com]

By inconclusive, do you mean that they were checked and matched what Carissa and Angua had sent you, but you didn't want to buy Dionne's lies?

[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.

[(Anonymous)]

What about the email from Angua?

[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.

[anatsuno.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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.

[ashavah]

If it was your friends you wouldn't find it ridiculous, you would feel their pain somewhat, because that's what friends do.

Thank you.

[carissa-lynn.livejournal.com]

I think the fact that you can say that means you don't really understand what happened.

[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.

[chickadilly.livejournal.com]

Thank you for saying this. I'm debating on saying more but I think it's best just to ... yeah. Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me. It was a painful situation and I'm reminded of it so very much because it is similar. And like this there are other sides to the story - I just can only be true to what I personally believe.

*hugs*

[allichan.livejournal.com]

Don't worry I was totally thinking about that particular incident as well. (If it's the one I'm thinking of!)

[cesario.livejournal.com]

....

yes.