The SF-Fandom forums replaced the Xenite.Org forums that I created in 1998 as a safe haven for people who didn't want to be plagued with flame wars. I have often said there are no winners in flame wars. Certainly the people who do the most attacking in a flame war don't win -- even if they drive off the victims of their abuse.
Some people in Tolkien fandom seem to fondly remember the flame wars that rocked the Tolkien news groups from 1997 to 2001. I do not, as I was the principle victim of the abusive tactics used by Conrad Dunkerson, William Cloud Hicklin, and a few other people to harass me and ruin my reputation. There were probably never more than 5-10 hard-core flamers in the group, hardened liars who repeated the same false allegations time and time again.
But those two "gentlemen" were particularly bad because they (along with perhaps four other people) took their disapproval of me to the general Web, posting disparaging remarks about me in more than one forum. Dunkerson even went to SF-Fandom and under various aliases attempted to sow dissension and discontent (he even posted at least one lie about me on Wikipedia that was never edited).
It cannot be doubted that some people, having no knowledge of the long years of abuse I endured at the hands of these few harassers, left SF-Fandom because I refused to tolerate the abuse in my own forums.
But here it is 2009 and I can say that I have done my best not to dwell in the past for several years. I have not heard from Dunkerson, Hicklin, and others for a very long time. I was therefore saddened to see their lies resurrected by David Gransby, posting as Halfir, on the LoTrPlaza forums only this month.
I don't understand what possesses people to repeat the insults, flames, and derogatory remarks they see written about others with whom they have not interacted. I don't have any memory of Gransby, much less of arguing with him.
I doubt you have the stomache for it but you can read more about David Gransby here.
My point in bringing this all up is that people need to stop and think about what it means to THEM if they repeat lies about someone else.
You can be accountable for your actions. Just because you think it's okay to disparage another person who has done nothing to you in no way means you should.
Gransby apparently wanted to discuss some literary ideas that one of my Tolkien essays touched on. Unfortunately, he used the discussion he started as a forum to post false information about me -- to lie about me. He cannot have any personal knowledge of me that would justify the remarks he made. He can only be repeating lies he believed -- lies I was once told by concerned people I should ignore because if I responded to them things would get out of hand.
Well, they got out of hand. I am sickened by the ease with which liars are able to influence people on the Internet. Few people seem to exercise any discerning judgment about what they read. Worse, those people who do have that kind of wisdom appear immensely reluctant to share it -- perhaps for fear of becoming the next victims of verbal abuse.
Science fiction fandom doesn't do itself any favors to tolerate this kind of rude, impolite commentary in its forums. When David Averil Pence invited me to join his Tolkien forum several years ago I warned him I might be attacked. He indicated he didn't think it would be a problem, and pointed out that his forum was moderated. Unfortunately, one of his moderators intervened to protect the people who attacked and lied about me.
When several forum members sent David angry complaints he promptly blamed me, banned me, and forbade any further mention of my name -- all the while doing nothing to enforce his forum policies or take action against the moderator who had violated forum rules and protected two people who started the problem.
If that had been all that happened, it would have remained buried in the past. But the liars successfully posted more lies about me over the following years.
When forum operators refuse to enforce the policies they espouse, they further subdivide the online fandom community and only make situations worse. If you're going to run a Web forum and one of your own moderators violates policy, you have to take action or you lose credibility with your community.
Perhaps because my work is so well known some people will always disagree with me -- that's to be expected in any field. But what is unreasonable, and what people can do something about, is the constant resurrection of old lies that have nothing to do with my actual work.
You should question the antics of character assassins who drop subtle jabs at third parties who are not involved in discussions. You should ask why it is necessary to mix personal attacks with otherwise informal commentary and discussion. You should do these things because the longer you participate in Internet discussions, the more likely you'll eventually become the victim of lies and verbal abuse.
And as many, many people have learned through the years, once you're the target of the flamers, you will never get out from under the weight of their lies. Those falsehoods will chase you for years regardless of what you do.
The only way we can stop this kind of abuse is to NOT tolerate it in the first place.
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