25 Feb 2008

The Language Hat caper solved -- Fraud


I'm sorry to dwell on this one more time so I'll be brief. This is important to fellow bloggers, particularly linguistics bloggers, who may have seen a rise in trolls lately in their stats. It may even shed yet more enlightenment on the ailing psychology of modern society.

Upon consulting my blog stats, I have confirmed that the IP address of my recent attackers (namely 209.6.245.13) has been emanating entirely out of Massachusetts, home of Language Hat (aka Stephen Dodson). Considering Stephen's strained credibility in his comments pictured above (link to his site here), I'll just go out on a crazy limb and suggest that Stephen Dodson is masquerading as "Vanya" and other names. It's now looking like he's trying to sabotage other blogs, whether for fun or for something more calculating, through the guise of numerous trolls both on and off his site. Perhaps this helps his ratings, or he's bored this month or he needs a hundred more Google Ad clicks to pay his rent. Whatever the motives, proof is in the pudding.

These spiteful people always like to use the threats of social disgrace or feign offense to try to coerce people into not speaking up when people are being hurtful. (Echoing the tactics of the Bush administration to silence opposition and free speech covertly and... rather successfully.) Of course, having grown up in a pacifist religious minority and then becoming open about my sexuality, somehow my toughened sense of individuality is not threatened by popularity vote. People who aren't trying to be cool have more interesting things to say on life than fashion-conscious (or is that fascism-conscious?) drips anyway. You know I'm right. ;)

Thankfully Language Hat has released Paleoglot from his blog links. Amen. I should expect to see a sharp drop in troll comments on my own site now. Any readership of mine worth keeping will only be intelligent adults who have the sense to see through Language Hat's poorly played game. It's unfortunate that Stephen is so gifted in one kind of intelligence (i.e. literary and scholastic) and yet lacks the social intelligence to understand when the game is over, if not ended before it even began. It's time to put away the toys and find purpose in life without putting down others for it.

On that note, despite trolls, my next draft for my Etruscan Dictionary project will be posted later on today unabated (or is it 'unbaited'?) . Quite frankly, I'm all so ashamed for being so damned productive. Must be my alleged Asperger's flaring up again.

5 comments:

  1. Using the ARIN WHOIS utility, the IP address 209.6.245.13 is located in Virginia, not Massachussetts. Did you mean a different IP address?

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  2. Nope. You're looking at the address of the ISP's headquarters. This site is probably more user-friendly: http://cqcounter.com/whois/. When you try 209.6.245.13 there, you see Massachusetts dead on.

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  3. West Newton, Massachusetts is just west of Boston. So the troll's trailerpark home would seem to be from somewhere within this immediate area.

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  4. Hmm, considering this link to a 'Stephen Dodson' who happens to be a 'copyeditor and writer' from Pittsfield, MA, I have to wonder... hmmm... Does this West Newton branch of RCN Corporation deliver internet service to Pittsfield, Massachusetts which lies to the west of the greater Boston area? It's a positively tantalizing idea and my alleged Asperger's sensibilities just can't resist this yummy data.

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