Disgruntled commenter “nofanofcablecos” thinks we violated our privacy policy when Insider surmised that he was really the Los Angeles Times‘ Michael Hiltzik.

(long post … click on “Read the rest of this entry” for the rest )

Technorati Tags: Hiltzik, LA Times, LAT, Los Angeles Times, Michael Hiltzik

Insider first responded to a comment by nofan in the comments to this post with

“… By the way, when I’ve participated in discussions on your blog I’ve been quite a bit more respectful but you are probably just enjoying the fruits of anonymity that your day job does not provide.”

and later (emphasis added)

“… All that said the fact that Nofanofcablecos’ first words in this blog were “Boy, you guys are stupid” shows what a bitter man he is. He was clearly worked up over his spat with Paterico and took it out on the first blog that came up in his Google blog search on his name (which is how he landed here). I’ll give him credit for working late from the office on a Saturday night, I though most of those guys worked from home and emailed in their stories and maybe he is pissed off about that too. Whatever it is he can’t be too happy about Senior Administration Official’s deconstruction of his Hewitt claims. No doubt our next visit from him will be under the name “nofanofAlexa”.

He’s always welcome here under any name he wants-especially pointing out errors but it’d be nice if he was as civil as I’ve been when I’ve contributed on his blog. My problem with him has almost exclusively been his subject manner he selects in the Business section at the expense of other more-relevant stories. I believe he belongs in the Times editorial section and not in the Business section. This suggestion infuriates him. “

Nofan responded

So, judging from your apparent campaign to attach a real name to my comment and link me to one of your pet targets just because I disagreed with something you wrote, I gather that this commitment in your privacy policy is bullshit:

“We also use other tools (such as Webalizer), provided by our ISP, that don’t place cookies but do track visitors’ IP addresses and collect other information about traffic (time of day, initial page visited, etc).

… Our goal is to use this information to learn how to make our layout and content better. We do not and never will use this information for commercial purposes, sell or give away the data, or provide this information, except in gross form (’we had x visitors yesterday’), to anyone not involved in creating Independent Sources.”

We don’t think we violated our privacy policy by revealing who we think nofan is. Insider discussed how he surmised nofan was Hiltzik, but did not reveal nofan’s IP addresses, ISPs, or any other information that a third party could use for nefarious purposes. As we say in the policy, we will never do that.

Nofan could be a researcher googling “Hiltzik” from the LA Times on a Saturday night. We can’t tell — although the bilious “I’m smart, anyone not on the left is stupid” arrogance is typically Hiltzikian.

So we think we’re true to our privacy policy in letter and spirit. But what about the act of outing this commenter? In blogging you’re free to be as anonymous as you want, and let your arguments make your case (such as nofan’s “Boy, you guys are stupid … get a clue”). But within the blog-writing community it’s general practice to post comments on other blogs under your nom de blog, with links back to your site. I see lots of Patterico posts on Hiltzik’s Golden State Blog; I suspect he’s not also commenting under alternate names. Insider and I have always used our ‘real’ pseudonyms when we comment elsewhere, with links back here to Independent Sources. Should we expect Hiltzik to follow this folkway? Just because he has a blog, should we hold him to a different standard than the rest of our commenters?

On this one I think we messed up. Nofan wasn’t promoting Hiltzik’s Monday piece on telco video; he didn’t represent himself to be someone he wasn’t; he wasn’t using multiple aliases; and his identity had no intersection with the content of his comments and so was irrelevant. IMO we should have just let the comments stand on their own.

That means we hold ourselves to a higher standard than Hiltzik, whose Golden State Blog persists in identifying Patterico by his real name and occupation, irrelevant though they are, and in comments on a post this week insisted on noting “James (Chen) is the real name of the commenter who calls himself ‘Leroy Brown.’”

If we operated under Hiltzik’s policies we’d have had no moral dilemma at all!

—
Update: Our amended privacy policy fixes this problem with “All bets are off if you call us “stupid” in an email to us, in a comment on the blog, or in public (this means you, Michael Hiltzik / Mikekoshi / nofanofcablecos!).”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 18th, 2006 at 7:38 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under LA Times' Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.