Finally, when I got tired of the whole business and tried to disengage, I made the mistake of quoting an old folk saying I first heard from my grandmother: "Never get into a pissing match with a skunk. You both end up stinking, but the skunk LIKES it." Robin took to that like...well, like a skunk to a pissing match, frankly...now he routinely warns his victims to stock up on tomato juice because when he's finished with them they'll need it!
But here's my point and my request. Robin is obviously free to write whatever he likes on his own blogs, and good for him if it keeps him off the streets, out of trouble and out of harm's way. But for God's sake, PLEASE will people stop linking to his site, publishing his comments, and allowing him to gain greater exposure for his slander and abuse than he can gather on his own! All the high-falutin' arguments about "a free and responsible search" notwithstanding, all you are doing is contributing to his hateful, hurtful campaign of lies and abuse. You're not doing him any good, and you're not making our movement smell too sweet either.
I also feel compassion for Robin, and all the things he's apparently suffered...but believe me, helping him to inflict that same hurt on others is NOT the appropriate, compassionate, humanitarian thing to do. So please, PLEASE, PLEASE! just cut him off, right now, today, Cold Turkey, and maybe we can begin to put an end to this long, international nightmare....
BTW & FWI, here are the links to MY ORIGINAL NOVEMBER 17 POST, along with the COMMENT ON CHRISTINE ROBINSON'S BLOG that Robin claims I stole. So setting aside the fact that I hadn't even seen this comment until Robin brought it to my attention, you can decide for yourself whether Robin's accusations of "plagiarism" are really supportable. And then maybe the entire blogosphere will start to stink just a little bit less.
7 comments:
I thought I'd seen those pictures before...
Most of us bloggers and email chat list managers have had to ban Robin, at least for a while, because he has such difficulty managing his online behavior. There are also time when he can be caring and insightful.
I've seen his ravings about you of course- he spams blogs and websites around the world. His whole "case" is based on two things: 1. you "must" have copied the picture from her blog. As this is not her creation but a famous graph from Robert Vanderbei at Princeton University that a quick Google will show has appeared in hundreds of venues from Daily Kos to Newsweek, that's nonsensical.
2. Even though dozens and dozens of blogs have noted that it looks like a bird, no one else on Earth but him could have thought of a phoenix. Obviously- after all, it's not like the phoenix is famous or anything...
Don't worry, the people who take him seriously can be counted on one hand- the hand of someone who had an accident with a firecracker. He's only bothering you because he has time on his hands; the church he stalks has a restraining order out on him. That order expires in a month, so he'll soon be too busy harrassing the people of Montreal to keep up his campaign against you.
My dad had a book called "David and the Phoenix" that he'd had since he was a kid. He gave it to me and I remember it as having roughly the plot of "E.T." or "Splash," but with a Phoenix.
My memory is the book had an illustration of the Phoenix in almost exactly the same position as the Phoenix formed by those election results would be. That whole fuss made me wonder if both of you had seen this book at some point as children or read it to a child and the whole thing was a bit of subconscious connection to a kid's book published in 1957.
CC
who had an argument this morning about whether Commander Data was "ripped off" of Isaac Asimov characters that were "ripped off" of Frankenstein so arrived at this post a little tired of the topic already but had had been meaning to mention "David and the Phoenix" for awhile.
Robin ran me off of a UU discussion forum over five years ago by pushing me to take a stand in his favor against the miniser and church he had/has a grudge against--I simply stopped going there in order to avoid him. I'm sure there are people who have avoided UUism altogether, as well. Certainly the power he has to negatively impact our movement would be lessened if we all banned together as you suggest and stop giving him a voice.
On the other hand, on my own blog I've published most of his posts as long as they follow my guidelines for posting. I'm not excited about the potential to become his latest target by joining in a ban. It's a problem of herding cats to get all UU bloggers to agree about this, and until you do, I wonder at its effectiveness.
So color me, like the fact that I'm posting this anonymously, a bit chicken about confronting him right now, especially on my own or as part of a loose band of bloggers. If it gains momentum, I'll probably join you.
I'm not really suggesting that we all make a big "To-Do" over any of this. What I'd really like to see happen is that one-by-one, all throughout our movement, we simply stop approving his comments to our respective blogs, disable his back links, essentially do the best we can to ignore him altogether. And then maybe, just maybe, that will be the end of it.
I'm not much for blacklisting. That written, I have rejected some of Robin Edgar's comments on two of my blogs. Yet, he hasn't risen to the level of automatic rejection.
He is not the only commenter with whom I have had issues. Particularly on my marriage-equality blog, I have received numerous obscene and abusive personal attacks as well as anti-LBGT and anti-same-sex marriage ones. For over five years, I have moderated all comments as a result.
I also post and occasionally re-post my policy on comments. Mr. Edger ran afoul of that several times, with the personal remarks, off-topic comments and efforts to link back to largely unrelated posts of his own.
Again, he is not the only one and he is far from the worst offender.
I welcome his relevant comments as I do those of others. He'd have to violate my blog policy consistently to get a ban.
Edgar has tried to publish some inappropriate content on my blog, which I've simply refused to do. Nor have I taken him on.
There's a good chance that will change, as the focus of my blog is sexuality issues, and this fellow seems hell-bent on accusing a great many UU ministers of "sexual misconduct" ...
All the more reason to moderate blog comments, and screen carefully before posting.
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