roseembolism | The Sockpuppets of Gor

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The Sockpuppets of Gor

So why did I ask about a text analysis program to see if two writers are the same person? Well, for those who haven't been following the "More Proof that Life Just Isn't Fair" journal thread, here's some history.

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It all started with Dark Horse Comics announcing that it would reprint the notorious Gor novels by John Norman. For those not familiar with the series, it's a badly written fantasy world which espouses a "Master/Slave" relationship between men and women. Rape, abuse, etc. is all good, if it teaches a woman her proper place.

For some reason, some people don't like the Gor novels. Among those critics, the author Tamora Pierce suggested on her livejournal a boycott of Dark Horse. This got responses from posters

ravinpa1, and

jacks000 accusing Ms. Pierce of promoting censorship, defending the literary merits of Gor, and quoting the American Library Association's definition of censorship. Interestingly enough, neither ravinpa1 or jacks000 existed except as replies to Gor postings. Hmm.

Interestingly, Ravinpa1 also posted on James Nicoll's livejournal, a couple months after he wrote about the Gor reissue. Same melody, same lyrics. And then again, when he posted about the oddness of the situation. James also brought to our attention

cheryl_mazana, who ALSO references the ALA, and is the only poster with an actual profile, such as it is. Hmm. She lists herself as a librarian. Some more Hmms.

The plot thickens: a defense of Gor, ALSO using the AMA definition was written by "Charlotte" on the Howling Curmudgeon’s thread on the Gor brew-haha. Finally, when I post on Dark Horse and Gor, I get posts from

greree accusing me of promoting censorship, and using- wait for it- the ALA definition of censorship. Surprise surprise, greree exists only as replies to posts on Gor. Hmm. Hmm, hmm, hmm.

SO, let's see here. We have:

Ravinpa1
jacks000
greree
Charlotte
and cheryl_mazana

All defending Gor and decrying any boycott as censorship, using the ALA definition. And of them, only cheryl_mazana has any real profile, and self-identifies as a librarian. Now, while I didn't actually get access to a text analysis program, I'm not sure I need one to suspect a sockpuppet or four.

I suppose we should thank Ms. Mazana for her tireless efforts on behalf of John Norman, but I have to wonder if she's getting a kickback from Dark Horse. Or perhaps Mr. Norman commanded her, in his masterful way, to create sockpuppet accounts?

Maybe Ms. Mazana will grace this thread with her presence, and explain all the sockpuppetry. Or even better, we may get a new post from some new LJ user, who will quote the ALA at us!

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Maybe that IP-tracking technique they used on Wikipedia to call attention to the self-serving entry modifications could be put to use?

Greetings Rose....

I don't know about the first three but I think I know Charlotte and cheryl. It sounds like Charlotte is the same person who is a moderator on the Chronicles of Gor http://gorchronicles.com/ web site. If so, she is also a librarian. A research librarian at a major university library.

The reason you are seeing a lot of the same things is very simple. It is the truth. Most diatribes against the Gor books are based on a few quotes taken out of context and a lot of lies and misinformation. One truth that most wish to deny is that John Norman has more science fiction books to his credit and more copies published and in more languages than almost every author who specializes in writing science fiction. The books sold very well until they were pulled after Donald Woldheim's death and his wife took over DAW. The word at the time was that she ended the contract for political correctness reasons. The books are certainly not politically correct.

Yes, the attempts to boycott publishers and books because you don't like what the books or the author says is censorship. Most of it that I have seen in response to Dark Horse doing a reprint has been pretty crude in the insults and very lacking in real information about what is in the books. Those of us who have read the books do find it sometimes amusing and sometimes merely typical PC behavior of tell the same lie often enough and people will believe you and find someone that people can hate because somehow some protected group has been victimized by that person or group. Usually it is white males and the author is a white male, so that may be part of it. The interesting thing is that you don't have the same hatred for Sharon Green or Ann Rice, both of whom have written similar things, or in Ann Rice's case with the Beauty series, much more explicit sex and slavery. The usual double standard.

The books are really not what most people think they are and yes, there are some people, both male and female, who do want to live that way in reality, not just in their fantasies. Are they right or wrong for wanting to do so and can you really say that where something does not harm others, or themselves, they should not do what they will?

One last comment. I am someone with some long existing profiles and track record in discussing things Gorean and I don't use any of those nicks or any nick but my own when speaking of these things.

Be well....

Malkinius

I don't know about the first three but I think I know Charlotte and cheryl. It sounds like Charlotte is the same person who is a moderator on the Chronicles of Gor http://gorchronicles.com/ web site. If so, she is also a librarian. A research librarian at a major university library.

Well hello, anonymous. I had already figured that she/they were a university librarian, based on the obsessive usage of the ALA quote, and her basic attitude toward how the free market works.

The reason you are seeing a lot of the same things is very simple. It is the truth. Most diatribes against the Gor books are based on a few quotes taken out of context and a lot of lies and misinformation.

My dislike for the Gor books is very simple: I've read them. I find them full of purile, misogynistic purple prose that wouldn't be accepted in the Letters to Hustler column.

Yes, the attempts to boycott publishers and books because you don't like what the books or the author says is censorship.

That's ridiculous. Once again, I am exercising my right to free speech, and my right to spend my money as I choose. I am not doing this as any form of a group or organization, but merely as a private citizen. As such, it's making the organized responses to my live journal all the more suspicious in comparison. If using one's right to free speech to get one to stop publishing an item is censorship, what does that make your actions?

One last comment. I am someone with some long existing profiles and track record in discussing things Gorean and I don't use any of those nicks or any nick but my own when speaking of these things.

Well that's just great- though that really doesn't mean much in sockpuppet land. Even if that's true, all that means is that you could be the source.

Hi, Roseembolism,

I understand you’re obsessing about potential connections among the recent posters defending the Gor books, to the extent that you’re trying to obtain text analysis software to analyze our writing patterns.

Too funny.

My “handle” is ravinpa1, my name is Charlotte, as I disclose on my blog, which is linked from my LJ account. I’m an academic librarian here in the U.S., as my blog also discloses, & as I‘ve mentioned in several of my posts. I’m a very busy woman, so I’ve never set up a blog before, although I did so last month after making my first post to J.E. Remy, inasmuch as his “Speak Out” post, to which I was responding, bewailed critical comments he’d previously received in response to his advocacy of this boycott. However, since there were almost no comments of that nature visible on his blog, it was a pretty good clue that he was simply deleting most of them rather than allowing them to be viewed publicly, so I decided to set up a blog of my own on which to post my own comments to him, just in case he did the same with mine. He then did, of course, with what I can only characterize as -- to borrow his phrase -- a “faux reply.” Big surprise. Forewarned is forearmed.

I’m not in any way affiliated with Dark Horse & have never even been in contact with them except indirectly to place a book order. Professionally I’d be prohibited from working for them without making full public disclosure, although there’s no reason why I can’t discuss the Gor novels with other intelligent people in various forums or even moderate a fan website for the books on my own time. As I explained to Greg Morrow in an off-list email to him upon making my first post to the Howling Curmudgeons board, I’d never heard of the Gor novels nor the so-called Gorean lifestyle till late 2003 & I never picked up the first volume to read until about 20 months ago, which I did with no small amount of initial skepticism myself. However, given my own academic training -- which is not limited to librarianship -- it was immediately clear to me that the books were satire in addition to adventure-erotica & before I had half-completed Tarnsman, that they were philosophical allegory as well. I haven’t yet completed the entire series, although I’m quite close. I then sought out a number of forums in which other fans were discussing the novels, although I don’t spend any time in role-playing forums.

I also don’t live what is so commonly described as a “Gorean lifestyle,” & although I’m finding much of what Norman is doing on the philosophical level of the novels to be penetrating & worthwhile (& to a very large extent the exact opposite of what he seems to be saying on the literal adventure-erotica level), I don’t agree with everything he says philosophically, but that’s neither the point nor value of reading him.

Cheryl Mazana is not I, nor is she a librarian. She’s from the U.K., a care assistance worker, which she discloses in her LJ profile, which also provides a link to her U.K. art website. If you’d taken the time to read it carefully or to search for “Cheryl Mazana” on the web (much easier than tracking down text analysis software, but evidently not as dramatic), you would find quite a few references to her on various U.K. sites.

“jacks000” is not I either, although she is also a fellow fan of the Gor novels to whom I’d mentioned the boycott Tamora Pierce was advocating & she found Tamora’s site as easily as I had. Tammy had made so many egregious, easily demonstrated errors in reading & summarizing the Gor novels that any careful reader of the books could probably have made a dozen or so posts correcting them. It was hard to resist the temptation not to do so myself, so I respect jacks000’s self-control in making so few.

continued below..

I was the first of the people you’ve listed to post to Tamora’s blog & as a librarian I naturally cited the A.L.A.’s position on censorship which is sponsored or endorsed by numerous other organizations, including the National Coalition Against Censorship & the A.C.L.U., so it doesn’t mean much to note that Cheryl, jacks000 & greree cited it, as well, especially during Banned Books Week when it was all over the media. If you run a Google search you’ll find over a million sites, bloggers & commentators also citing the A.L.A. position. What can I say? I’m a research librarian & I think like one, not like a would-be CIA agent entranced with conspiracy theories.

As for greree, I was as curious as you were when I first saw his posts, so I clicked on his LJ profile & followed a link on it to his blog, which has posts dating back at least to 2006 & is of a military orientation. He’s since removed the link, so I won’t disclose its name or url, in case he’s decided to keep it private, but one of Tammy’s recent posts indicates that she also visited it, so that’s no big news. I’m not certain what part of the U.S. he’s in, but he doesn’t appear to be a fellow librarian. He emailed me to request permission to re-post my posts on the Howling Curmudgeons board on his own blog & I’ve given him permission, so if you eventually find his blog & see my posts there, it indicates nothing more than that.

The only other potential sock puppet that comes to mind right now is some self-identified so-called slave who made a rude post to Tamora the other day, although with a sock puppet like that, who’d need enemies like you, Tamora, etc.?

To clarify one last misconception that you & so many other detractors seem to be obsessed with: I don’t give a rat’s ass whether any of you loves or detests the Gor novels. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest that you might think they’re offensive trash & that there’s nothing in them beyond the superficial adventure-erotica (I know a lot of people who hate Ulysses, too, but it doesn’t bother me either). I’ve been willing to expend a modicum of my time & effort to explain the philosophical & satirical sub-text of the Gor noels to you all, but one can only lead a horse to water, one cannot make it drink, & I have little interest in wasting my time attempting to pry open minds that are hermetically sealed.

What does have me exercised is the attempt by the boycotters to have the books driven out of print on the theory that the First Amendment is the only applicable measure of censorship & that boycotts don‘t distort & undermine the free marketplace of ideas. The First Amendment is not the sole standard of censorship, which the U.S. Supreme Court has itself held in more than one of its decisions, & which the American Civil Liberties Union generally reflects in its own position statement:

WHAT IS CENSORSHIP? (http://www.aclu.org/freespeech/censorship/26611res20060830.html)

Censorship, the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are "offensive," happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others. Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups. Censorship by the government is unconstitutional.

In contrast, when private individuals or groups organize boycotts against stores that sell magazines of which they disapprove, their actions are protected by the First Amendment, although they can become dangerous in the extreme. Private pressure groups, not the government, promulgated and enforced the infamous Hollywood blacklists during the McCarthy period. But these private censorship campaigns are best countered by groups and individuals speaking out and organizing in defense of the threatened expression.

If at least a few people reading this will actually read the A.C.L.U.’s statement carefully once or twice & spend a moment or two reflecting on it in an open-minded way, posting this will have been worthwhile, since they might finally grasp why I & others have been posting to these threads & that the boycott supporters are not in possession of the moral high ground here.

And if not, at least you have some more text of mine to analyze now.

Charlotte

That's really an impressive amount of verbiage. Did you actually write that all out, or did you cut-and-past from your previous rants?

In any case, I find it interesting that you refer to the ACLU, since I can also quote articles with the ACLU directly intervening to support boycotts. So its not as cut-and-dried as you imply. Would you state that the boycotts against South Africa were evil and should have been stopped? What about the boycotts against Snapple and other corporations? Are you envisioning a future where we shall be forced to buy products and prevented from criticizing the products they turn out? Because that's the logical end to your position, and I categorically reject any position that prevents me from registering my displeasure whenever a company does something boneheaded.

In any case, if the proper defense is to organize, then perhaps you should actually turn that massive verbiage to lobbying Dark Horse Comics. Perhaps you can use your consumer activity to force Dark Horse to print the books, rather than spending your time and energy on a private blog.

Oh, by the way, Rose. If you'll check my LiveJournal profile, you'll see that I created it over two years ago.

But you haven't even posted on this thread yet?

...or HAVE you?

This IS too amusing.

I have removed my post, I was falling into the trap of playing tit for tat, something that is way too common on forums when emotions get heated, I am an adult and it behoves me to act like one.

Cheryl

Hello Rose,

I wouldn't want you to think I forgot about you...I guess the sock-puppet
accusation is a useful diversion, at least from having to critically
examine what the heck you were saying.

You still refuse to acknowledge that trying to stop the publication
and availability of a book, a source of ideas and information that
people in a free country can choose to read or not, is a form of
censorship. When a pressure group attempts to prevent a books
publication or republication, it is attempting to deny access to
other free individuals because the group does not like the message.
Censorship is complex, it is not just the legal prohibition of a
work by a government, it is also when a work is banned from an
entire community because of the actions or pressure of a small
segment of the community. You are attempting to control the access
to the work by the public.

Of course, you don't want to understand this difference, since if
you did, you'd have to acknowledge supporting censorship, something
you don't necessarily want to be characterized as doing, and you'd
lose a politically valuable tool. Whether you consider your
case "just or right" or not really is not the issue here. Rather, it
brings to mind the old question of "do the ends justify the means?"
Do you think you actually serve a good so important that censoring
the minds of the public is warranted? If so, you are on a
dangerously slippery slope to totalitarianism.

Those fans of John Norman that have commented on the postings have
politely pointed out that from reading the threads it is clear that
those posting ---have in some cases, not read the books at all, or in
most cases, without much critical understanding, that their
ideas about Norman seem based on conjecture and political bias
rather than fact, and that attempting to encourage censure on a man by
his employer, or on a publisher not to publish books--- merely because
you disagree with their content ---fails to meet the requirements of
a free society.

We recognize you don't like this message, we also recognize you need
to hear it, anyway.

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The Sockpuppets of Gor

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All the same people?

Re: All the same people?

Too Funny pt 1

Too Funny pt 2

Re: Too Funny pt 2

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no subject

I wouldn't want you to think I forgot about you...