Anonymous for a day

July 5, 2005 1:27 AM

I've written a Greasemonkey script that does pretty much what leftcoastbob suggested here.

It adds a few refinements: the replacement name is "Poster" for the Poster and "Comment N" for commenters, where N is the number of their first comment in the currently viewed thread, so if the same commenter posts more than once in the thread, all his comments have the same replacement name.
posted by orthogonality to MetaFilter-Related at 1:27 AM (87 comments total)

Try it out, and see if some people's comments seem more reasonable when not attached to their names.

As it's a bit lengthy for a comment, and as the pre tag doesn't work correctly in comments, I can't post it here. Email me for a copy.

If anyone would care to host it, that would be great too.
posted by orthogonality at 1:28 AM on July 5, 2005

Great idea. It would be really interesting if a group of members would make a kind of "focus group" and agree to use this (only - no peeking!) for a specific period of time, and then report here in MeTa on their experience.

(Not me, because I spend hardly any time in the sorts of threads where this might prove most interesting...)
posted by taz at 1:44 AM on July 5, 2005

If they do, though, they'll have to remember not to use the other script for quoting posters, since their names will show up with the quoted material. Or will your script also mask those names?
posted by taz at 1:49 AM on July 5, 2005

I'm torn. This kind of script is right up my alley, but Metafilthy is also right up my alley, and my alley is too narrow to allow two cars.
posted by Bugbread at 4:25 AM on July 5, 2005

Commenter Two writes "they'll have to remember not to use the other script for quoting posters"

There's a Greasmonkey script for quoting users?


Commenter Three writes "This kind of script is right up my alley, but Metafilthy is also right up my alley, and my alley is too narrow to allow two cars."

It's a sub-compact script.
posted by orthogonality at 4:47 AM on July 5, 2005

orthogonality: "There's a Greasmonkey script for quoting users?"

Yeah, but it's a little crusty.
posted by Plutor at 5:52 AM on July 5, 2005

Alright Bugbread, we aren't really interested just how many things you can fit in your alley. Save that for a chat room, okay buddy?
posted by Pollomacho at 6:27 AM on July 5, 2005

what about in-comment username references? and
"how does it handle misspelled usernames?" - Quansar
posted by quonsar at 6:40 AM on July 5, 2005

I'd be happy to host it. E-mail is in my profile.
posted by odinsdream at 6:54 AM on July 5, 2005

orthogonality, aren't you the one who wrote Metafilthy? Can't you just host it there?
posted by Gyan at 7:54 AM on July 5, 2005

Plutor: "orthogonality: "There's a Greasmonkey script for quoting users?"

Yeah, but it's a little crusty."

Oh, it's like MetaFilthy, but ugly.

:) Just kidding. The use of xpath to identify candidates is slick, and arguably slicker than MetaFilthy's heuristic.


quonsar writes "what about in-comment username references? and
'how does it handle misspelled usernames?' - Quansar"

It doesn't touch comment text at all -- changing what a commenter actually wrote is just bad. It only changes appended author names.
posted by orthogonality at 7:58 AM on July 5, 2005

i'm writing a greasemonkey script that writes greasemonkey scripts.
posted by quonsar at 8:12 AM on July 5, 2005

I thought about trying to do this, except I was gonna have a list of funky cool stupid pseudo-usernames people could edit wiki-style. Then when the handle replacement bit was happening the script would pick randomly from the list. But now I've forgotten all the wicked names I was gonna seed the list with, though "23seeThruNighties" rings a bell.

Good work, ortho.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 8:13 AM on July 5, 2005

Commenter Nine writes "except I was gonna have a list of funky cool stupid pseudo-usernames"

It occurred to me that such a thing would make for more memorable names, but, on the other hand, given how thin-skinned Mefites can be, I decided to go with numbers.
posted by orthogonality at 8:54 AM on July 5, 2005

Commenter Eight writes "orthogonality, aren't you the one who wrote Metafilthy? Can't you just host it there?"

It's a common misconception. I may have had the original idea (that's unclear) and I did a lot of the alpha testing and publicizing here, but I didn't write it. (And last I heard from the author, he was working on a new extension and was going to be charging for MetaFilthy. So I don't even know if you if you can still get a free copy.)
posted by orthogonality at 8:58 AM on July 5, 2005

mmm, grease.
posted by wakko at 9:11 AM on July 5, 2005

I greased a monkey
posted by matteo at 10:19 AM on July 5, 2005

Of course, someone will just post about the Ramones to smoke Jonmc out.
posted by drezdn at 10:33 AM on July 5, 2005

orthogonality writes "last I heard from the author, he was working on a new extension and was going to be charging for MetaFilthy"

Bastard didnt' say any of that when he showed up at the meetup ;) Must have learned coding at the crack school. Get 'em hooked then charge them.

Speaking of which, what is MetaFilthy creator's username? None of us who were at meetup can remember. And I wasn't even that drunk.
posted by terrapin at 11:01 AM on July 5, 2005

terrapin : "what is MetaFilthy creator's username?"

Well, it's hosted at a domain registered to Thomas Diffenbach.
posted by Gyan at 11:19 AM on July 5, 2005

That much we knew, gyan. But searching the user database hasn't yeilded much :) Thanks.
posted by terrapin at 11:44 AM on July 5, 2005

I suspected orthogonality was Diffenbach, based on his comment at Slashdot & his profile here, but it seems not.
posted by Gyan at 12:40 PM on July 5, 2005

Gyan writes "I suspected orthogonality...."

You try to do a good thing, you try to contribute some free software to the community, and you get hunted down all over the net. ;)

How'd you come across a year-old /. comment anyway?
posted by orthogonality at 3:05 PM on July 5, 2005

Oh, c'mon. othogonality is clearly diffenbach. Why does that matter, though?
posted by monju_bosatsu at 3:30 PM on July 5, 2005

orthogonality : "How'd you come across a year-old /. comment anyway?"

By searching for other code you may have released. When you linked to metafilthy here, I noticed that your site didn't have a navigation or index as such. Your profile mentioned your Slashdot nick and you gladly revealed your nick, so I googled site:slashdot.org orthogonal diffenbach.org :)
posted by Gyan at 4:11 PM on July 5, 2005

Huh, ortho is Diffenbach. That's a bit of a relief.
posted by Bugbread at 4:21 PM on July 5, 2005

Gyan: Why did you pull your website from your profile?
posted by mlis at 4:59 PM on July 5, 2005

I moved hosts and I wasn't maintaining those pages anymore, so I removed them.
posted by Gyan at 5:27 PM on July 5, 2005

I met orthogonality and he gave me ice cream!
posted by jessamyn at 5:28 PM on July 5, 2005

I met orthongonality and he kicked me in the balls!

No, wait, that never happened.
posted by kenko at 5:50 PM on July 5, 2005

i met orthongonality and he ate ice cream off my balls.

No, wait, that never happened.
posted by quonsar at 6:12 PM on July 5, 2005 [1 favorite]

That's a bit of a relief.

How so? It's a good thing that ortho, one of the most prolific posters of the current era, has misrepresented his relationship to metafilthy on numerous occasions, including as recently as 6 hours ago? It's a good thing that he looked a bunch of us in the face at the last DC meetup and lied about who he was?

I had a incredibly bad first impression of ortho, but have grown to appreciate his contributions to MetaFilter lately. I'm afraid this revelation (which I had suspicions of, but dismissed because "why would someone do that?") has returned my opinion of him back to the red.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 6:19 PM on July 5, 2005

I don't understand this. Orthogonality, did you lie when asked a direct question? If not, what is the meaning of the slashdot comment and your exchange with Gyan? If so, um, what the fuck?
posted by gleuschk at 6:31 PM on July 5, 2005

IIHAA has a very good point. At the meetup many of us suspected/assumed and even asked ortho if he was, well, ortho. He denied it. I must admit it feels icky. Too bad too. Ortho's a nice guy.
posted by terrapin at 6:39 PM on July 5, 2005

Maybe he just didn't want his real name out in the open. Does it really matter? It's a total non-issue. Seesh.

Anyways, most poster's style are too distinctive for this to work.
posted by nixerman at 7:22 PM on July 5, 2005

I have, in my hand, papers *waves papers* that prove orthogonality is a child molester. Do what you will with this information.
posted by odinsdream at 7:25 PM on July 5, 2005

*drops dime on odinsdream for possession of kiddie porn*
posted by quonsar at 7:30 PM on July 5, 2005

orthogonality did something nice for the community and wanted to keep it to himself. So what? Thank him, use the script, don't use the script but unless he's actually done something nasty to you, get off his case. So thanks orthogonality, metafilthy is great.
posted by peacay at 8:02 PM on July 5, 2005

I have had disagreements with ortho on the site but he was very helpful when I emailed him for help with a Firefox issue. He was friendly and polite. My understanding is that he has also helped other Mefites with varied Firefox issues. He is a good Metafilter citizen.
posted by mlis at 8:22 PM on July 5, 2005

hey, i think i've argued with orthogonality too. so can we make his life miserable?
oh, hey, just looked at your home page. do you want a job in chile working on java code for databases?
heh. could kill two birds with one stone.
posted by andrew cooke at 8:30 PM on July 5, 2005

He is a good Metafilter citizen.

I can agree with that. But, come on, doesn't this comment seem noteworthy, in weirdness at least, if not malice?

I guess I've gone from thinking of him as a mean crazy mefite to a mundane mefite, and now to a nice crazy mefite. Hmm, I guess that is a relief if not a common misconception. I'm happy nice crazy people are welcomed here.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 8:40 PM on July 5, 2005

If I Had An Anus writes "But, come on, doesn't this comment seem noteworthy, in weirdness at least"

Were we to specifically note weird comments on MeFi there would be such a deluge of navel gazing that the site would be apt to disappear up its own fundament. A common misdirection.
posted by peacay at 9:43 PM on July 5, 2005

As far as I can tell, Diffenbach doesn't even have an account at MeFi. If any regular poster here happened to be him, and just wanted to maintain a certain separation for all sorts of possibly excellent reasons, it's really no skin off our collective nose, is it?
posted by taz at 11:17 PM on July 5, 2005

If I Had An Anus : "How so? It's a good thing that ortho, one of the most prolific posters of the current era, has misrepresented his relationship to metafilthy on numerous occasions, including as recently as 6 hours ago? It's a good thing that he looked a bunch of us in the face at the last DC meetup and lied about who he was?"

I'm relieved because while Diffenbach always seemed like a really straight-up guy, I couldn't find any connection to MetaFilter, so I always had a bit of suspicion about why a non-poster would make this script that phoned home when it was used. Diffenbach pointed out exactly what data was being sent back, and I couldn't see anything at all nefarious, making the giant dragon of suspicion into a house lizard or maybe miniature gecko of doubt, but the doubt was still there. Knowing it was a frequent poster made the whole thing quite a bit less baffling and suspicious.

Though I'll tell you straight, orthogonality: I loves me some Metafilthy, as your logs surely show, but I'm also a cheap bastard, so I won't use it if it costs money. That's not a reflection on you or Metafilthy, but on my own cheapness
posted by Bugbread at 1:47 AM on July 6, 2005

MetaFilthy's at version 2.2.5. Assume it takes 40 hours to write the first version, another 40 hours to write the upgrade, another 40 to write the documentation and create the logos and deal with users bug reports and figure out the problems and fix the bugs and test. A conservative estimate of 120 hours.

Assume a middle range rate of $50/hr for the code, and that comes to $6000 in development costs. Given the size of the metafilter user base, clearly not economically viable except as a volunteer project.

Only the author of course knows how many people use MetaFilthy, but assume one hundred people use MetaFilthy, and get some pleasure from it.

MetaFilthy is free; anyone can download a copy from the author's site without charge, there's not even a paypal link for contributions. No one is asked to heap praise on the extension or its author, the extension is given to everyone who wants a copy, regardless of the author's opinion of them or their opinion of the author.

It's a gift freely given to the metafilter community, and particularly to the individuals mefites who use it. It's the equivalent of the author giving each user a free gift of a over an hour of his time and skull sweat, or sixty bucks cash.

(And, no there aren't any plans to charge for it. That was a brazen lie, on the theory that people often think that's something free isn't worth having, but will rush to get it if they think they can get it before the price goes up.)

All the author asks in return is that his privacy isn't compromised, that he can give you this free gift without coming under all sorts of scrutiny for it, that he can continue to enjoy metafilter in the role of a regular user and not as someone who must also be at all times concerned with the care and feeding of the pony he gave you.

But can you leave well enough alone and enjoy your gift? Can you relax and figure that the author has his reasons for preferring to be an anonymous donor? Or realize that by explaining his reasons, he'd necessarily lose that anonymity?

No, you need to play "Encyclopedia Brown, Junior Detective" and then sit in judgment and offer moral pronouncements about the donor. What a wonderful reward you've given the author for his efforts.
posted by orthogonality at 2:26 AM on July 6, 2005

orthogonality : "And, no there aren't any plans to charge for it. That was a brazen lie, on the theory that people often think that's something free isn't worth having, but will rush to get it if they think they can get it before the price goes up."

I think it's quotes like this that keep you on my "good" list. It rides that very fine line between "what an asshole" and "awesome", and then tipples over on the "awesome" side. Not a mix of both, but right on the line where it's one-or-the-other.

And, by the way, thanks to Diffenbach again for MetaFilthy. [It is good].
posted by Bugbread at 2:41 AM on July 6, 2005

I was wondering when this issue was gonna be revisted.
posted by catachresoid at 4:11 AM on July 6, 2005

Thank you for the explanation of your relief, bugbread.

No, you need to play "Encyclopedia Brown, Junior Detective" and then sit in judgment and offer moral pronouncements about the donor.

Unless you're referring to some collective "we" who are conspiring against the noble "author," I don't know who you are speaking to. Gyan was the detective (which is a feature of MetaFilter users, not a bug) but he certainly made no moral pronouncements.

A couple of others expressed confusion and an 'icky feeling' about being lied to...in very non-confrontational terms. I hope you (and peacay) don't have a problem with them expressing their reaction to this news.

Which leaves my "It's a good thing?" comment. I simply stated a fact --for whatever reason, you've repeatedly made false statements-- and I asked the question "is this good?" Any moral implications that readers, including yourself, draw from this are their own. It was more an incitement of moral pronouncement, which was received with indifference at best.

It's the equivalent of the author giving each user a free gift of a over an hour of his time and skull sweat, or sixty bucks cash.

No, it's not. Free software doesn't work that way. (I do not know what license metafilthy is under. I've never downloaded it. I don't even have greasemonkey installed.) People take on these projects mostly for the challenge of the problem, with the added benefit of increased standing in a community. You cannot use it to lord over the community. The goodwill gained is not a kind of get out jail free card. But I suspect you know that, slashdot.

All the author asks in return is that his privacy isn't compromised

Then why did you introduce yourself at the meetup as "Tom, the metafilthy guy" rather than "ortho"?

A common misdirection.

Ironic, no?. I was not talking about every weird statement on MeFi, I was referring to a specific comment in this thread. Your expanding my comment to the ridiculousness of applying it to whole of MeFi seems a misdirection in itself.

But really I'm with you, peacay: "So what?" I apologize for the derail and thank ortho for making his extensions available.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 6:12 AM on July 6, 2005

"No, you need to play 'Encyclopedia Brown, Junior Detective' and then sit in judgment and offer moral pronouncements about the donor."

My issue--if it can even be called that--is not with the creator of MetaFilthy. It is with ortho for telling us (through jessamyn) he wasn't coming to the meetup (with some excuse about being too ugly) and then denied being ortho when he did actually show up. The rest of us openly shared who we were, and didn't hide behind a real live sockpuppet. The first part of this is what is creepy. Ortho RSVP'd in the meetup thread, then contacted us to say he wasn't going to show up with an excuse about his appearance. Then did show up and pretended to be someone else completely, even talking about ortho as if he was another person.

Yeah, but his Firefox extension is cool. Good thing, huh.
posted by terrapin at 7:22 AM on July 6, 2005

eh, I've uninstalled metafilthy and Ortho is really creepy with this talking in the third person, sneaky double-identity business.
posted by puke & cry at 7:39 AM on July 6, 2005

Can you really blame someone calling himself "orthogonality" for wanting to keep various aspects of his life separate?
posted by kenko at 7:45 AM on July 6, 2005

If a user wants to be anonymous, that is their right. However, they should consider not showing up at meetups, and not pretending to be someone else if they make that decision.
posted by terrapin at 7:59 AM on July 6, 2005

If I Had An Anus : "Gyan was the detective (which is a feature of MetaFilter users, not a bug) but he certainly made no moral pronouncements."

Just to clear things up. I only put the information forward, because ortho asked about hosting the script. I was confused because I thought he was already hosting Metafilthy, and I didn't know there was any intended obfuscation over the relation between ortho and Diffenbach. In hindsight, it seems obvious. One software could be hosted and linked at, while maintaining the unstated fiction of being different people, but hosting & linking more software wouldn't maintain it.
posted by Gyan at 8:00 AM on July 6, 2005

Well whom ever wrote metafilthy, my thanks. It makes this site at least 20% more usable.
posted by Mitheral at 8:01 AM on July 6, 2005

One software could be hosted and linked at, while maintaining the unstated fiction of being different people, but hosting & linking more software wouldn't maintain it.

Actually, I think that's not true. Since ortho did so much of the alpha testing for Metafilthy, wouldn't it make sense for him to ask Diffenbach to host his script? Especially since claiming not to have hosting just made people curious.

And really, isn't it weird that someone like ortho would have no hosting whatsoever?
posted by kenko at 8:03 AM on July 6, 2005

i personally would like to salute our new "icky" feeling overlord. ortho, you vibrate man!
posted by quonsar at 8:09 AM on July 6, 2005

If I Had An Anus : "People take on these projects mostly for the challenge of the problem, with the added benefit of increased standing in a community. You cannot use it to lord over the community."

Well, yeah, which means it's a damn good thing he was trying to keep it anonymous, and a bad thing that he got outed. So you two are in agreement, right?

If I Had An Anus : "Then why did you introduce yourself at the meetup as 'Tom, the metafilthy guy' rather than 'ortho'?"

I can take a blind stab guess: If you introduce yourself by your handle at anything other than a hardcore ham radio enthusiast meet or a furry convention, people are going to ask your real name. Saying "I'm ortho, but call me Tom Diffenbach" would be a bit of a giveaway, wouldn't it?

terrapin : "My issue...is with ortho for telling us...he wasn't coming to the meetup...and then denied being ortho when he did actually show up...The first part of this is what is creepy. Ortho RSVP'd in the meetup thread, then contacted us to say he wasn't going to show up with an excuse about his appearance. Then did show up and pretended to be someone else completely, even talking about ortho as if he was another person."

For me, another example of riding the knife edge of cool and asshole and falling on the cool side. So close to being a bad thing, but somehow (for me) so far.

On reflection, both this and the previous compliment come off as damning with faint praise. That's not what I intended; if anything, that would be praising with faint damn. Both compliments were intended to be straightforward, no-hidden-subtext, non-ironic compliments.
posted by Bugbread at 5:21 PM on July 6, 2005

I asked Matt (via Jessamyn) to delete this thread, as is usual when someone's real identity is outed; since Matt hasn't I guess I'll have to address some of complaints raised. I hesitated to do so in part because I didn't want to "out" anyone else's private information, but I can't continue to act so delicately.

There's a bit of irony going on here. Part of my reluctance to go to the meetup as orthogonality was because I feared awkwardness with a user who indicated he'd be present. The irony is, I knew he'd be present not under the username with which he'd previously had harsh words for me, but under a sock puppet account. The greater irony is that, under the sock puppet account, he's one of the people criticizing me in this thread, and he's one of the reasons for my going incognito at the meetup.

I recognized his sock puppet pretty much from his first, artlessly claiming to be a newbie, posts under that account. After one of his sock puppet's comments and a follow-up by terrapin in the meetup thread gave me some cause for concern, but still wanting to respect his privacy, I raised the issue as obliquely as I could in that thread, in such a way as to not "out" him and his sock puppet account. I got a disturbing and ambiguous answer that made me more concerned.


When I (privately) emailed Jessamyn that I'd not be at the meetup, that's because I really expected not to be. And I emphasize: that was a private email, not a notification to terrapin or anyone else. But a few days before the meetup, I was invited to a baseball game in Baltimore; since that took me pretty close to the meetup, I decided at the last minute to attend.

Wanting to avoid any confrontation with the user/sock puppet I mentioned, and in part because I hoped to solicit ideas for improvements of the MetaFilthy extension, I decided to present myself at the meetup under, not a fake name, not a username, but my real name. Yes, in response to terrapin asking if I was in fact orthogonality, I denied it, but I didn't raise the issue myself.


As to Anus's characterization of the motivations for writing free software, well, I guess I have to ask how much free software he's contributed to the world. My original motivation for writing MetaFilthy was to create a tool for my own use. That was pretty simple. But having done so, I thought it would be a "good deed" to make it so that others could use it too.

And the real work was making it a tool others could use. As the author, I don't need, for instances, a preferences GUI to set MetaFilthy's options: I know my own preferences and could hardcode them into MetaFilthy, or change them by typing numbers into Firefox's about:config screen. Much of the work with MetaFilthy was adding code to make sure MetaFilthy does the right thing even if the user does something I'd never do, or that I'd understand wasn't MetaFilthy's "fault" if I did it and MetaFilthy failed to do its job. Stuff like highlighting two comments at once, or making MetaFilthy work for one-button mice (mine is a three button mouse), or adding the status bar icon to show that MetaFilthy is working. As the author, I don't need any of this in my copy, but users who don't know MetaFilthy's internal workings do. The original MetaFilthy didn't track comments in tabs opened in the background, because I don't open tabs in the background -- that functionality, and all of the settable preferences were added at the request of users.

Similarly, the Greasemonkey script that I opened this thread to discuss: I could have kept it to myself, and of course, now I wish I had. But I thought it might be of use to others in the community.


Sure, I told you I wasn't orthogonality when I was asked at the meetup, but that's because I consider that my private information. How many of you would have answered honestly if you'd been asked by strangers at the meetup questions you considered to be of a private nature?

Would you have answered honestly if you'd been asked about your sock puppet accounts, the amount of your mortgage, your salary, or whether you'd ever posted an anonymous question to AskMefi? Some of you would have answered some of these question honestly, some of you would have protected your privacy by dissembling. Asked point blank if you'd posted some particularly embarrassing AskMefi, would your response have been a principled but all too telling "I won't answer that" or a simple "no"?

Terrapin, i know that you show your real name in your profile, and so does Jessamyn. But I notice (as did MLIS) that Gyan does not. Nor does catachresoid, or puke & cry. Nor does If I Had An Anus. But while retaining their own privacy, they castigate me for doing the same.

People have been fired, or not hired, for what they've blogged. People have a right to consider certain aspects of their lives private, whether or not they attend a MetaFilter meet-up. For those reasons and just because I am a very private person, I wanted to keep my posting identity private, and distinct from my professional identity. I should have had that right; making the community the gift of MetaFilthy shouldn't have abrogated that.
posted by orthogonality at 3:37 AM on July 7, 2005

I think you read too much into the DC meetup thread, but apologize if that exchange startled you. As far as my previous handle, it's not a big secret. You may have wanted to share why I changed names, but whatever, saying I had harsh words for you means almost the same thing.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 4:00 AM on July 7, 2005

*takes notes, calls publisher*
posted by peacay at 5:10 AM on July 7, 2005

orthogonality : "But while retaining their own privacy, they castigate me for doing the same."

Like I said earlier, I was unaware of any intended obfuscation. I thought it was pretty apparent you wrote and hosted Metafilthy. And I didn't castigate you for anything, except not hosting the script.
posted by Gyan at 7:17 AM on July 7, 2005

I asked Gyan about his website because he had a number of excellent resources linked there and I was disappointed when it was pulled.
posted by mlis at 7:24 AM on July 7, 2005

Sure, I told you I wasn't orthogonality when I was asked at the meetup, but that's because I consider that my private information

You go to a metafilter meetup and consider your metafilter username private information. That's absurd.

But I notice (as did MLIS) that Gyan does not. Nor does catachresoid, or puke & cry. Nor does If I Had An Anus. But while retaining their own privacy, they castigate me for doing the same.

There's a pretty big difference between not posting your real name on your userpage and bold-faced lying about it to someones face, I hope you can see that. And if really wanted to know my real name, you just just look at my posting history where I reference it more than once I believe. It's bob sarabia.
posted by puke & cry at 1:48 PM on July 7, 2005

Ortho, if you really wanted to have separation and privacy, you should have thought a bit longer before posting metafilthy to a domain that is your name. And then, you should have thought a bit about pretending not to have any hosting here.
posted by kenko at 2:29 PM on July 7, 2005

puke & cry : "You go to a metafilter meetup and consider your metafilter username private information. That's absurd."

Meh, yes and no. I, for example, have neither sockpuppets nor secondary affiliations with MeFi. For me to go to a meetup and consider my username private info is absurd. However, if, for example, you have two accounts, it isn't so absurd to consider one or the other private information. And if you deal with metafilter both as a user (ortho) and as a software provider (Diffenbach), I don't find it absurd either. For example, Matt's mentioned that he's hired/will hire someone to work on the MeFi code, to make it run smoother. If said person also had an account, but introduced himself at a meetup as "the guy working on JRun", I wouldn't find it absurd.
posted by Bugbread at 6:48 PM on July 7, 2005

But you wouldn't expect the JRun guy to talk about his account in the third person.

ortho, you've been awfully quiet on the blue/gray/green the last couple of days. Maybe you are on a break. I sincerely hope you will return sometime.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 6:51 AM on July 8, 2005

Ortho: I am not sure what you read into my comment about joining IIHAA outside, but I assure you it was only to join him for a "smoke" and I was being silly (hence the winking emoticon). I had never even read the RennFest thread until you linked to it. I have no animosity toward you whatsoever.

LOL! IIHAA spell checks as "biohazard"
posted by terrapin at 9:03 AM on July 8, 2005

orthogonality gets a free pass from me for turning me on to sciTE.


posted by 31d1 at 11:49 AM on July 8, 2005

My thanks to (in order of their comments) bugbread, MLIS, andrew cooke, peacay, taz, and Mitheral, for these sorts of comments.
posted by orthogonality at 12:15 PM on July 8, 2005

*shakes head*
posted by terrapin at 1:12 PM on July 8, 2005

And to everyone else, your undying rage!
posted by kenko at 3:09 PM on July 8, 2005

You two are endangering your $60 cas—oh wait, puke & cry is out—your $60.61 cash gift.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 5:55 PM on July 8, 2005

Man, this is fascinating. There's a whole world of intrigue and game-playing out there! If I ever manage to get to a meet-up I was just going to say, "Hi! I'm that wanker Decani but you can call me Jack! Because that's my name! Hahahaha! Who's for a beer?"

I feel so naive. Now I think I'll turn up in a trenchcoat and trilby and say, "Is it raining in Tallin today?", and then only buy beer for those who reply "No, but I hear the daffodils bloom late in Minsk".

Probably.
posted by Decani at 6:23 AM on July 9, 2005

I just waiting for the "I'm not orthogonality" shoutouts to start showing up. ;)

Decani: I look forward to a beer with you one day. Maybe this October if the wife and I get up to NYC for Audio Engineering Society conference as planned.
posted by terrapin at 7:05 AM on July 9, 2005

Or... "I am orthogonality and so is my wife!"

October's a distinct poss, terrapin. Let's hope it comes to pass.
posted by Decani at 9:01 AM on July 9, 2005

—I love you orthogonality!
—Then let's rock and roll!
posted by kenko at 12:36 PM on July 9, 2005

Thanks for Metafilthy. I'm sorry that our paths did not cross at the meetup, regardless of the name you showed up under. I came and went fairly quickly, and I don't think we met.
posted by OmieWise at 9:39 PM on July 15, 2005

So the cops knew that Internal Affairs was setting them up?
posted by gramschmidt at 1:03 AM on July 16, 2005

I thought more about this overnight (yesterday was the first time I saw this thread). I wonder if people reacted so strongly to this because orthogonality has been such a strong personality where he has showed up on the site. I can understand some people maybe thinking that not introducing himself with his user name amounted to some kind of attempt to repudiate that in favor of something easier, and hence, an untenable secret for those who were curious about orthogonality. But there really is no reason why someone shouldn't be able to enjoy people meet on Metafilter in person without dragging baggage from the site into the meet-up.

In all, I think this thread was a shame. I haven't always agreed with orthogonality, I've sometimes thought that his positions were indefensable (or even cruel), and the vagina purse thread was a prime example of that, although I also think that orthogaonlity calmed down hiw rhetoric a bit after that thread. Still, the notion that he is culpable for hiding his work on -Filthy just seems wrong to me. The notion that he should be derided for hiding his identity IRL seems strange too, given that this is an internet site.

Finally, orthogonality has been roundly criticized in more than one MeTa thread, and one of the things that made me feel like he was an ok guy was his ability to take it. Way better than most people here. The fact that this thread seems to have pushed too far, especially when taken in the context of the other threads he's been called out in, should indicate that it was overly harsh.
posted by OmieWise at 5:35 AM on July 16, 2005

Wow. I agree with OmieWise; I had ignored this thread until just now, when it was mentioned in Decani's thread, because I could care less about Greasemonkey scripts, but having read it I think those of you who made a big deal of ortho's "lying" should be ashamed of yourselves. People have a right to partition elements of their on- and off-line lives and identities, and unless they're hurting someone it's nobody's business but their own. Sure, on the face of it the sequence of events sounded a little puzzling, maybe even suspicious if you're the suspicious type, but ortho's explanation makes everything clear. It's bizarre to me that people would get such a thrill out of "unmasking" and condemning somebody who took the trouble to create what is apparently a useful script for many MeFi users. I have often disagreed with ortho, but he didn't deserve this.
posted by languagehat at 7:29 AM on July 16, 2005

I think those of you who made a big deal of ortho's "lying" should be ashamed of yourselves. People have a right to partition elements of their on- and off-line lives and identities, and unless they're hurting someone it's nobody's business but their own.

I agree, absolutely.
posted by ori at 12:03 PM on July 16, 2005

If this thread means the end of orthogonality then the terrorists have already won.
posted by furtive at 5:50 PM on July 16, 2005

Wow. It's 9824v2, the thread that wouldn't die.

There are few people I respect more on this site than OmieWise and languagehat. They are telling me I've been overly harsh of ortho and that I should be ashamed, so I'm listening. I am a perjurer of the great name of Ortho, I understand that. But I just reread the thread and truly do not see where I said something I should feel ashamed of. Where is the harsh big deal you guys are referring to? I am sincerely asking for help with this bizarro world feeling I get every time I have a direct exchange with ortho. (All of which is not to say I don't feel regret that ortho has perhaps left us as a handle, just not shame. Yet.)

Yes, languagehat, I think ortho is rightfully called a liar, there's no need to put quotes around it. All his dealings here regarding metafilthy have been under false pretenses. (I see no need for links, they're voluminous, but here's a front-page self-link, granted, a violation of the letter of the law rather than it's spirit.) He has also lied to people in meatspace where emotional reactions are even more likely than on this beloved pancake.

That these lies got out was an accident. There was no witch hunt.
When it got out some people reacted negatively.
ortho, as is his way, ratcheted up the negatively (making an accounting of the value of his benevolence which I find ridiculous, all the while playing the "oh whoa is my privacy" primadonna).

Then the people who felt hurt by ortho attempted to explain themselves better. I apologized for the derail though I already thanked ortho and agreed he was good for metafilter (despite my personal history with him). (Ok, yes, I called him crazy.).

I really thought all sides had had their say and that bugbread's analysis would be the end of it. But instead ortho cannot continue to act so delicately and posts his petty and utterly hypocritical rant outing my "sock puppet" (there's 7, count 'em), a rant I apparently have to answer for. (As much as I'd love to tell the story of how I lost my poopchute, I'll keep it to the points raised in ortho's rant, rather than the details of my birth from a velvet vulva.)

The only time danostuporstar and IIHAA posted in the same thread was a joke-hint-thingy in 9622v2. The 2 times ortho characterizes me as falsely claiming to be a newbie, are either 1) me trying on my new duds in a thread I knew would be deleted ("artlesly") or 2) just plain wrong -- I am ignorant of the bees not MeFi ("newbie").

His reading of the DC meetup planning thread was paranoid in my view. I did put a little edge on my "meet you outside" comment, but I meant to clear things up when I said don't worry about dano (the rape your dead mom thing was a MeTa topic at the time). Why he chose the believe terrapin was conspiring with me to beat him up, rather than the obvious, that terrapin was clueless of dano/ortho history, is curious. I do find it funny that ortho of the big talk is actually a pansy ass, but I find it even more surprising.

Regarding his asking whether I would out my sock puppet at the meetup, I did actually mention both user names that night. Regarding the apparent fact he thought he was doing me harm with his outing, well that pretty much squelches any claim he has to be indignant over a loss of privacy. Petty and hypocritical.

Anyway. I'm tired. I'm sincere in asking for help seeing my shame, I've spent a long time looking for it.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 10:18 PM on July 16, 2005

If I Had An Anus writes "They are telling me I've been overly harsh of ortho and that I should be ashamed, so I'm listening."

Actually, I don't want you or anyone else to feel ashamed, although I think that the thread as a whole was a shame, meaning something that would be nicer had it not happened. And yes, I stand by the things I said upthread, but I also agree with you that orthogonality was touchy here and was touchy in other places on this site. My defense of him above was qualified, in much the same way that some people (I would be one) would defend quonsar's antics as being acceptable ultimately although sometimes painful on their face.

Just to further assuage your feelings: given your history with orthogonality in the vulva purse thread (where I think he was mainly in the wrong, and I thought so at the time, but I had just had my own dustup with him and was unsure how I was going to be reacting to him in future) I think that your suspicions of his motives were pretty justified. I can understand terrapin's as well, since it is strange to interact with someone who lies to your face (even if I defend the right to tell the lie). In this thread I think you walked well the line between defending your motives and making sure that orthogonality knew you were not attacking him. You nicely apologized for the derail and tried to move on. I think your behavior was good. What I think was a shame was the people who seemed upset just out of pure principle, and probably because they didn't like him anyway, and just chimed in here or there to egg everything on.

Sorry to be so verbose. I'm saying I don't think you should feel badly about your behavior.
posted by OmieWise at 7:10 AM on July 17, 2005

Alright, dammit.
On another rereading, I think what's a shame is that the thread resulted in orthogonality's departure (so it seems). I don't think what IIHAA or terrapin said anything over-the-top; I think this was clearly a sensitive issue for orthogonality and he was unable to understand why his actions might seem strange at all without thinking he was being attacked. So he certainly bears responsibility for how it turned out. The thread is a shame because if the results, it is not shameful for anyone's actions. (I guess I was partly orginally reacting to orthogonality having departed.)
posted by OmieWise at 7:19 AM on July 17, 2005

Anus writes: (I see no need for links, they're voluminous, but here's a front-page self-link, granted, a violation of the letter of the law rather than it's spirit.)

The prohibition on self-links exists on the blue, not on the grey. It is not accurate to call it a "self-link". He was sharing something he had created for the community; MeTa was the appropriate place for the link.
posted by mlis at 9:19 AM on July 17, 2005

if you lie and pretend you're someone else (online and in person) you should not be surprised that people treat you with a certain degree of suspicion or question your motives.
posted by johnny novak at 1:54 AM on July 18, 2005