So some douchebag is impersonating me on Reddit. I post as manboobz. He (or she) posts as manboobz_. (That is, with a little underscore at the end.) Luckily most of the faux-manboobz’ comments are fairly easy to tell from mine — this is not someone with a great sense of subtlety — so at least some of the regulars have figured out that this bonehead is not actually me. Not all of them, unfortunately.
As impersonating someone else is a violation of Reddit’s rules, and an asshole move to boot, I politely asked the Men’s Rights subreddit’s mods to ban the faux-me. Here was the response:
Stay classy, AnnArchist!
Brandon, if someone showed up on this blog impersonating one of the regular MRA commenters, I would ban them immediately. People are responsible for what they say, not for what other people pretending to be them say.
Me quoting what someone ACTUALLY SAID (as I do in my articles here) is not even remotely the same as SOMEONE PRETENDING TO BE SOMEONE ELSE TO MAKE THEM LOOK BAD.
@Bagelsan: It really doesn’t. I just think David’s whining about this is kinda amusing. It’s like two countries fighting in a war and one saying “oh wait…can I warn the soldiers before you start firing”.
In this case AnnChrist didn’t really do anything wrong. He didn’t concede to someone that doesn’t respect him, he answered with a pretty general statement without name calling or vulgarities. He just said it ain’t happening, without being rude.
Oh, FWIW, the IP in that Hugo Schwyzer post is not an IP address that MRAL has ever used, though if you look it up you will see that it does originate from BU.
But I’m assuming that MRAL is telling the truth and that he didn’t send the anti-Semitic email.
Brandon, are we gonna play another game of “how do wars work”? And rules? :p
Uh, Brandon, AnnArchist is violating Reddit’s TOS on impersonation. I know, it’s minor point and you’d have to admit you’re… y’know, not informed, but it’s OK, you’ll get over it.
Also, there are any number of Redditors who might have done this. I doubt it’s one of the regular trolls here.
Impersonating people is a regular part of Internet arguments?
@David:
You own this site. You can run it however you like. If you want to take the “ban any impersonators” stance, then more power too you. However, you can’t force people to take that stance on others websites.
You are responsible for what you say, and if their is someone impersonating you, then you inform people about it without making demands. You even decided to mock AnnArchist with this post by using “stay classy” at the end. Again, being disrespectful to someone who you want to actually do something for you. If I was AnnArchist, I would have told you to screw and after seeing this article I would have felt assured that I made the correct decision. I go out of my way and be helpful to people that respect me and appreciate it…not for people that mock me.
If you are going to start a site about mocking a group of people, it should be common knowledge that they aren’t going to like it when you start making demands and then mocking them for their response because it wasn’t the decision that you wanted.
@hellkell: I see that Brandon is going the “ignore everything I don’t want to acknowledge” route. Classic Brandon! 😀
Brandon, we all know you read very selectively, but what part of VIOLATION OF REDDIT’S RULES don’t you get?
Shit, we really are going to play “fucking rules, how do those work?” aren’t we?
@hellkell: Really? Is joe5454 impersonating joe4545? Unless “manboobz_” comes out and says “I am Dave F and I run manboobz.com”…it’s not impersonation.
@Bagelsan: Umm..apparently you can’t read the analogy. War has little to do with it…it’s about making demands then pouting on your blog when things don’t go your way.
@bagelsan: yup, looks like it’s The World According to Brandon time again. I hate this show.
Brandon: Third, why do you expect other people to defend your reputation? That is your job, not theirs.
Lastly, I am not knocking you because you attempted to get them to ban the “manboobz_” name. It doesn’t really hurt to ask. I am knocking you for shifting your responsibilities on to the mods at r/mr and expecting you to get your way when all you have done is mocked them. And for complaining about it in this post.
He’s not asking them to do it. He’s doing it himself. He’s asking them to live up to the duties they signed up for (you know, one of those funny, “contract” things you think make everything happen; just cause).
reddit disallows impersonation. This is pretty plainly just such a thing. He asked them to fulfill the contractual duties of a moderator.
OMFG, I am not having this discussion with you, you fucking weasel. Seriously? You’re gonna go the “if they’re not admitting to impersonation, it isn’t impersonation” route, you disingenuous turd?
I’m sure if someone stole Brandon’s credit card and ruined his credit, he wouldn’t mind unless the thief actually claimed to be him at some point in the process.
Brandon: REDDIT’S user agreement:
“You may not impersonate, imitate or pretend to be somebody else when using the Website.”
http://www.reddit.com/help/useragreement
I’d like to hear AnnArchist’s explanation of why he, as a mod, can refuse to enforce this.
@pecunium and hellkell: The user agreement:http://www.reddit.com/help/useragreement
states:”You may not impersonate, imitate or pretend to be somebody else when using the Website.”
From a legal perspective, this statement is rather “loosely defined”. It can mean either the users handle or the actual person themselves. This seems like Reddit placed this in there so they can determine themselves what constitutes “impersonating” on a one-by-one basis. If David really wants to test this, he should submit this to a global moderator and allow actual Reddit staff to make that determination.
Because that was totally not impersonating Brandon, I used my own gravatar, and everything.
@Katz: Trust me, I value my credit card number far more than I value some username on some website.
@Brandon: Wasn’t your analogy about how, like blogging, war has no rules of engagement?
Right, those contracts you say make every relationship between any person and the resot of society tailorable to get precisely what you want them to be… you don’t really believe in them.
Addendum: In what states are you admitted before the bar to practice law? Since you are declaiming the, “legal looseness” of the user agreement of reddit.
Where is NWO to explain that Reddit’s contract isn’t legal because it’s not IN ALL CAPS? 😀
Brandon, are you a lawyer now? Besides, I thought you looooooooved you some contracts. They make everything better!
Elaboration: I am not a lawyer, I don’t even play one on the radio, but I did take courses on the law when I was considering a career as a paralegal, and the nature of my job in the Army required a fine understanding of what the law allowed (in some very specific, if broad reaching, areas).