Thread:Una74/@comment-71.58.210.121-20171010133156/@comment-71.58.210.121-20171105031419

OK, we have already seen eighteen kinds of bonkers on this thread. Now we have a brand new payload. I will take these claims one by one.

“You upset people by insults, mockery, and the use of intimidating language.”

This is from a Monty Python skit, right? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fNvi6xG-5Y) This is grounds for derailing an academic jobs wiki? Seriously? Let me explain for the new arrivals what my trolls consider “intimidating language.” (I have also been accused, above, of making “threatening comments.”) Someone on the venting page became very upset that I used the word “friendo” in an IHE comment thread: by saying “friendo,” I apparently threatened and intimidated someone. Literally threatened him/her. My best guess is that this person believes that I can materialize out of his or her laptop with Javier Bardem’s haircut in “No Country for Old Men” and make them flip a coin before I shoot them. It’s true, I do mock people who behave this way. I should probably be more kind, and refer them to reputable counseling services.

“You forgot to mention Rebecca blocked you from posting on her blog. You forgot to mention that at the time of the exchange she had been invited to Penn State and had to deflect questions about you.”

This is a farrago of nonsense. I tried precisely once to post a comment on Ms. Schuman’s blog (under my own name, providing my own email address). It was an honest question about “alt-ac” (i.e., nonacademic) careers for humanities Ph.D.s, and she refused to approve it. Which was her prerogative, so I never tried again. I asked only because she had been invited to Penn State to speak in a symposium about alt-ac careers (in which I was also participating), so I thought it was relevant. As for her internet temper tantrums back then, they were legendary– and they had nothing to do with me. Do I need to post a link to substantiate this? I’d rather not, because Ms. Schuman has put those days behind her, wisely. I have no ill feelings about our brief exchange, and I continue to wish her well.

(An aside: who has this kind of insider misinformation about Rebecca Schuman’s blog? This thread just gets curiouser and curiouser.)

“People who aren’t full tenured professors don’t have the liberty to speak against people like you, even on blogs.”

Actually, people speak against people like me (including me) all the time! As well they should. In all seriousness, what do they fear I will do in return? Mock them with a mighty mockery? Call them “friendo” and then shoot them?

“Your inflammatory remarks in this thread include calling people flying monkeys, stalkers, and claiming they have perverted fantasies about you.”

I call people stalkers if they have been stalking me for years, yes. There is abundant evidence of that stalking in this very thread, so I call it by its proper name. But “perverted fantasies”? No, I never said that. I said “perfervid.” Which is a totally different word with a totally different meaning. (It is true that I sometimes get impatient with people who don't read carefully. It is an occupational hazard.)

“Just submit that no others may have any agency whatever, especially in critique of tenured full professors. They decide how people are to respond to insults and ridicule. It’s all in the hands of the gods, the tenured full professors and their friends.”

Scott Timberg and Mary Miles are not tenured full professors. Scott is a freelance journalist and a friend, Mary is a colleague off the tenure track at Penn State. They have known me for years. And Mary is right to be insulted that one of my trolls called her a sockpuppet. I have no idea about the employment status of any other commenters who have looked at the venting page and decided that this campaign of slander has no place on an academic jobs wiki.

And finally, that is really all I am saying. By all means, the people who hate me should create a page where they can indulge in all kinds of perfervid fantasies and share their stories of imaginary sockpuppeting and intimidating language. But none of this has anything to do with academic jobs, and there really is no good reason why this wiki should be hijacked by people who were kicked off Wikipedia for trying to convert my page into a forum for personal abuse.