netmouse | Poison Letters

Poison Letters

Hi folks.

It seems someone who, um, really really dislikes me is writing poisonous anonymous comments on LJ. A couple months ago there was one posted to my LJ about how I was cheating on Bill (which I'm not). On September 30th, it was a more elaborate post on Bill's LJ about how this person hopes he falls in love with this girl he's hiking with because I am actually a professional whore who isn't good enough for him, etc. etc. That's not true either. Well, the whore part anyway. Whether or not I'm good enough for Bill is up to Bill and I can make no assertions on that point.

Anyway, this is obviously a person who hopes to break up my marraige and/or ruin my and my husband's reputations. I don't particularly like that.

Anonymous posts are now screened on both of our journals.

However, I can't do anything about your journals, and my friends list is of course public, and for all I know this person is also badmouthing me at cons - there was mention in the last post of having worked on cons I've worked on. I thought I would go ahead and say that if you read or hear something poisonous about me, I hope you will a) doubt it, b) feel free to talk to me about it, c) delete it if it is an anonymous post - and send me the IP address if you track them. (And if for some reason someone posts this sort of thing in a non-anonymous way, well, I'd like to hear about that too.)

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Well, I know you don't know me all that well, and that I don't know everything about your situation. . . But I have to say that whoever it is is obviously way off base.

From what I can see you are trying very hard to do the right things, and care greatly for that goal. You seem willing to sacrifice a huge amount to make things right that have drifted off course .. . . And I, for one, admire you for tackling those treacherous waters, and working so hard to make it all come out for everyone's best.

So. . . Good luck, and here's to hoping you can escape this nasty poison being sprayed in your general direction.

Thanks. I appreciate the comments.

Welcome to the nuthouse. I had to make a similar post back in July (which you can see since it's f-locked). I notified the mods of the communities that I belong to in order to give them a heads up in case my troll decided to spam them too. You might want to consider that if you think your troll will try to get their jollies elsewhere once being blocked from your LJ.

You can also use a stats tracker to see how often this IP reads your journal even if they don't post. I did that and discovered that my troll read me daily - sometimes multiple times in a day - which just seems bizarre. Why read the LJ of someone you dislike? Oh, wait... troll=no real life. I forgot. ;-)

. troll=no real life. I forgot.

Exactly. It amazes me that some people have nothing better to do.

Where do you find the LJ stats tracker?

You can use the code generated at statcounter.com If you put it in your user info page where HTML is allowed, it works fine (you can't track individual entries). I just needed an idea of how often a certain IP hit my various sites. It works in more detail on my own website. LJ limits what info is returned, but it was enough to let me see how obsessive the freaky neighbor is. :P

Though it is no longer active, using Component I had a free stat counter on -all- of my LJ pages for a good year or two.

jealousy makes people do stupid things....
and then there are the just flat out nutbags..
people say things about me all the time so i
know exactly how you feel.
it is hard to let it go, but the truth always comes
out in the end and those who are your friends
won't believe it and those who you don't know,
and are friend material, will make their own
judgements.
no one, for the most part, thinks i am good enough
for matt except matt and you know what? that is
all that i really truly care about.

xo
dan'a

*hug* thanks, hon.

lots of good thoughts in there.

Just one of the reasons why I, personally, am sure you're good enough for Matt, but you're right, these sorts of things are really between the people involved.

thanks for your support and empathy.

That's awful. I'm sorry.

But honestly, why would anyone believe an anonymous comment on someone's LJ?

B

Yah, what B. said. I generally take the "two sides to every story, truth has many facets" approach whenever possible, but anonymous insults forfeit that.

I don't figure most people would, but the first we heard about it was when Bill was on the phone with his mom - I don't generally read Bill's email and neither does he, on the trail, so we hadn't gotten notification of the post yet. His mom had seen the comment and spoke to him about it. She did, sensibly, say something like "I don't suppose you can believe things anonymous people say on the internet." She's a very smart woman, Bill's mom is. But still. There are lots of people who don't really "live" on the internet like most people here, who aren't familiar with trolls.

I think an anonymous troll comment says volumes about the moron that posted it, and nothing really useful about the intended victim.

Agreed.

But the more worrisome question, and the one that prompted this LJ post in the first place, is: what about the readers?

B

There really is nothing that one can do about that - one has to just let that go, because it is out of your control.

I trust that my friends are honorable and forthright, and make it clear that I am open to discuss any topic, including what an asshole I may or may not be. What else can be said, without at least knowing the remarks made about you?

Ruining the lives of others through rumor, conjecture, and implication are the hobbies of spiteful people who feel slighted (rightfully and otherwise). People have been doing it for as long as there have been people. Othello (and many other plays) is based on it.

All you can do is trust that you have chosen your friends wisely.

You mean as "oh my... it says this/that/whatever...what will people think?" I'd give my readers the benefit of believing that they're intelligent enough to to recognize what was going on. For instance, my troll included you are nothing, absolutely a worthless nonentity, an oxygen stealing, resource wasting, compassionless subhuman in one of their many spams to my LJ and when I read it to a pal he burst out laughing, which was my reaction too... in the context of the entire typo-ridden and ill-thought-out post with unfinished sentences, it fell into the category of unintentional comedy.

I didn't see the troll posts Anne refers to, but my first thoughts upon seeing her post today were along the lines of "geez, she's picked up a nutcase" not "oooh... gossip on Anne and Bill...there must be some truth in there". The majority of net-dwellers are going to recognize a troll. Those that only visit occasionally probably didn't see the post(s). If someone is going to take a mean-spirited anonymous comment seriously, I'm not going to worry about what they think.

YMMV... but the idea that I'd have to prove / justify / defend myself to some dimbulb that can't figure out it's a BS post doesn't register. I've learned to block out gossip. You pretty much have to otherwise you'll go crazy from all the lies / misinformation floating around, and there are a lot of petty, small-minded people with too much time on their hands who create drama by making stuff up. You can just see it easier now that we have the Internet ;-)

I don't think Anne even needed to refute the accusations in the troll comments, just alerting people to potential incoming spam in their own LJs was enough. If Anne wants to swing from chandeliers with the football team and Bill has run off with a gaggle of balloon animals, it's no one's business but their own (anyone reposting that last sentence as fact will be tracked down and pummeled, then cited for being sarcasm-impaired).

I want to *see* the chandelier-football team thing. Really. The physics of the thing alone would be simply fascinating...

It's close to what I was asking about in our LJ (Friends-locked for many reasons, and this is one of them), about whether people believe gossip. For most people who replied, it seems that they do, at least in some situations. And that of course is what gives trolls like this the power they have.

That said, I'm terribly sorry this has happened,

netmouse. You don't deserve to be attacked like this.

K.

Thanks, K.

how annoying. bleh.

Well, I for one think you're WAY TOO GOOD for Bill, and should drop him and find someone far better. :)

Oh, wait -- why drop him first? Why not honestly and ethically with full communication with everyone involved have Bill and this other, or others in your life? I like that plan.

I'm sorry that someone is stalking you in this way, it does really suck. But, I know better than to listen to something like that. I hope that all your other friends do, too.

*grin* Thanks for the vote of confidence.

--I actually doubt this troll person knows that you can honestly and ethically and in full communication be involved with multiple people at one time. Clearly they think that whatever I may or may not be doing, Bill is just an unknowing victim and I am keeping him in ignorance while stashing away my huge piles of money from my professional whoring. (please note sarcasm is on here.)

Among other things, I find such assertions rather insulting to Bill as well as to our relationship. Bill doesn't attend all conventions with me but he does attend some. I sometimes go hiking with him, but I'm not out there on the AT now. But still, we communicate, sharing our thoughts and our activities. Our lives are open to each other, whether we are together or separate.

You're welcome.

Yes, this person probably doesn't know. Too many people don't, or don't believe it even if they see it.

And, I so understand having a partner who was hiking the AT, while I'm the one that goes to cons. ;)

Ugh, how disgusting. :( I can't believe you're a target of such nonsense (of course, this is the internet, and nonsense abounds), and I'm sorry that this happened. I hope it subsides soon. :(

**hugs** to you and Bill.

Ergh... that's lousy. I got hit by someone like that earlier in the year.

*hug*

Sorry to hear about this Anne.

Who ever is doing it sounds like a real troll, someone disconnected with reality.

Hoepfully they will lose interest and go away.

I feel your pain. As the very visible head of one of the country's largest gatherings of fans this past year, and as someone who's been involved in online fandom for about 15 years in various forms, I've seen some truly atrocious and hateful things written about me. It can be hard to stand there and take such abuse, and you sure shouldn't *have* to. But people with no life always have more time to spend being jerks than people with a life of their own. And jealousy, especially in fandom, can be a powerful motivator for those no-lifers.

My advice is this: take reasonable steps like you are doing (no anonymous comments by default), let people know that you're on to the troll, and don't let it get to you. If it gets any more serious than anonymous comments, report the offender to his ISP.

For what it's worth, just talking with you when Neil was at Balticon was very enjoyable. Nobody who's met you (even briefly) would believe the bullshit anyway.

Don't worry -- I prefer to make up my own mind, especially about people I know a bit. And all of your many friends are going to be telling you the same thing: this cowardly person can say all he wants, but none of us are going to believe him even slightly. *hugs*

Dearest, I don't know what to say other than it's hard to believe there are such venomous people out there. *HUG*

Ew, I'm so sorry, what a childish and insulting thing to do. I wouldn't worry, though, I'm sure no-one who knows you at all would ever consider such things to be any more than disgusting nonsense.
*hugs*

That's really irritating. I don't know why anybody would do such a thing. Though rainonthewind's ex-husband tried something similar when she and I started going out.

Unfortunately it's kinda the cost of doing business in a free society. I figure people who do that sort of thing are pretty sick. But I've never knowingly met one, so it's hard to check how the present in-person. Sucks that they've picked you; some people get through their life without having to deal with it. So far as I can tell it's essentially random, though the stalkers of course don't think so.

Have you reported this to LJ abuse?

Hugs to both of you.

That's just bizarre. Wow. Well, those of us who know you know better.

Did you get their IP address?

Well, I know I'm just reiterating what everyone has posted here, but... Even *I* know you and Bill well enough to know that these libels aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
I believe that this isn't specifically targeted at you. I'd bet that this is someone who was in a similar situation as Bill (i.e., in a temporarily long distance relationship with a spouse/S.O.), but whose spouse/S.O. cheated on him/her. This person then stumbles upon yours/Bill's LJ, sees the parallel of the situations and then decides to take it out on you. He/she probably feels that they're doing Bill a favor. In short, it's just a bitter, lonely jackass with nothing better to do.

Urggg. Just at the point I think that the bottom-feeders have hit bottom, well, they hit a lower bottom.

Much support from this direction (D.C. area - I'm in the throes of moving, but

jonsinger is still at the same place).

(a) You have your friends' support.

(b) Remember, if you don't feed them, the trolls won't stick around. I suggest that the next time you need to comment on this that you turn off comments. These comments we're writing may be troll food (attention) instead of troll repellant.

hmm... interesting point in b. I hadn't thought about that. Thanks.

I'm sorry you and Bill had to go through that, especially the part about his Mom reading the comment. Ugh.

Here's a tool you might be interested in: http://community.livejournal.com/lj_nifty/147554.html?nc=1

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Poison Letters

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