Comment to be added. Or just add me. Either one works.

I got to feed a three week old kitten today. :c Had to clean out tons of mouse shit first (my shelter's basement got infested), but I'm OK with that.

One of the bloggers at Feminism is the Medium is responsible for a book club; the book we're going to read will be determined by a vote. If you're interested in participating, go here and comment with your pick. You'll have ~4 weeks to read, and since she decided to start with YA fiction, whatever's selected should be relatively easy to get through. I'm posting about this here because right now the top picks are tied, lol.

Before I begin, read about neo_prodigy's greatest hits here if you haven't already.

Because it's relevant to this post and being completely transparent, here's the ONLY correspondence I had with Upkins (this concerns the inclusive_geeks post): ( Under the cut. )

****

I didn't respond to his last email, though it gave early evidence of just how delusional Dennis Upkins is. One of his fellow bloggers on Ars Marginal was a frequent participant in the sf_d community—and miles more active than I ever was, as I'm just a “lurker” on all but the communities I've modded. The person who co-wrote the post is my partner, a bisexual man of color who goes by seluecus on LJ. He's not some “token.” He dislikes Upkins, and after this whole debacle he's absolutely disgusted by this man. Moreover, I did moderate the atheist post referred to in the emails. Yeah, sorry, this is all really boring... but the man is so dishonest or lacking in awareness that I feel the need to point out some of the inaccuracies in his emails. ( Keep in mind... )

****
( Here's a mostly complete account of what happened to the compilation post I made, and all the shit that followed. )

I wrote this entry because I'm tired of him and his friends conflating people who have legitimate complaints with the trolls who hate everything about being “PC.” It's possible that people who are from my side of the debate are sending him nasty things—people do horrible shit—but we're not speaking up against Upkins because he 'threatened' us with his intelligence by talking about women and queers. We are women. We're lesbians. We're bisexual. That he sets himself up as a martyr for progressive causes (and compares how he's treated to the treatment of female bloggers!) is disingenuous.

And, to be honest, the conflation upsets me deeply. I don't think it's unlikely that he's been threatened or harassed, but ever since the inclusive_geeks post my partner and I wrote, I have been specifically portrayed as an abusive person who would stoop low enough to threaten his family and friends. He is a liar. That is not debatable. The reality is that I never interacted with him personally beyond the email I've provided in the post, and I have never harassed his friends. On the other hand, he's focused on me and referred to me by my LJ handle in his own blog. He censored me by abusing DMCA and lying about my character. If he didn't leave me threatening comments in my WP, he still inflamed his followers. And he continues to act like none of this happened.

I would finally shut the fuck up about Upkins if he just apologized and instructed his followers to not threaten the people who don't like him. And seriously? None of this would've happened at all if he just left me in peace with the inclusive_geeks post my partner and I wrote.

( Here are some other links that are relevant to Upkins' and his friends' behavior. They didn't fit into what I was writing, so here they are separately... )

jnelums1988 is the gift that keeps on giving. He's also making absurd comments on Amazon Hollowstone reviews; he specifically wrote to me "you know Icewoman is not a fitting name for you. And I know who you are." OK, dude. This is also the person who sent me an email saying "And Neo said hi" when I told him that I couldn't accept his membership to the inclusive_geeks community. Anyway, see his comments here, too. Not only does he argue that women can be sexist against men, but that queer people can be hetero-phobic. Alright then.

Hate to write this, but I think J. Nelums is too stupid to be neo_prodigy/Dennis Upkins. And that's saying something.

This is a follow-up to the post seluecus and I wrote for inclusive_geeks. I'm posting this to my own journal because I am specifically talking about neo_prodigy this time.

There's a lot of misinformation being disseminated and supported by neo_prodigy and some of his friends, so I wanted to set the record straight. I'm also going to use this space to reiterate some of the motivations that went into making—and supporting—the post we made to i_g.

1) While this journal entry is mine alone, the post Seluecus and I wrote for inclusive_geeks was a reflection of our opinions. And as I mentioned at the start of the post, he's a queer man of color. Pointing to what we wrote as an example of white people being stupid is inaccurate; saying that I'm using Sel for “cred” undermines his contributions. We put equal effort into the essay, so stop acting like I'm the only one who wrote it.

2) I did not actively ban or block neo_prodigy's friends from i_g. Since submitting the post that mentioned neo_prodigy, I've only rejected the membership requests of two people. One of them was later accepted after they provided suitable proof that they were not a sock-puppet by showing that they had an Internet presence to make up for the inactivity of their journal. That person was a blogger from Ars Marginal, neo_prodigy's collaborative blog.

( More... )

If anyone's interested, I've written a less personal follow-up to the i_g post I wrote with Sel here.

ETA (30 July 2011)

I wanted to add that I haven't "continuously stalked and harassed" neo_prodigy and his "other close loved ones,"* so I implore you to not take any claims like this at face value. Besides the i_g post, I compiled evidence of his misogynistic behavior and put that information on my LJ, Wordpress and Blogger (the 3rd happened only because n_p complained in order to have LJ and Wordpress suspend the posts). I also reviewed his book Hollowstone via Amazon and Goodreads, which hardly constitutes stalking/harassment when one is a professional author. My actions re: neo_prodigy and his misogyny ended there (well, until now), because I did not want to come off as if I was doing this for kicks.

I have never harassed or stalked any of his "close loved ones," either; I cannot think of a single action I've taken against his friends. I am not that kind of person.

As a woman who's been stalked, harassed and cyberbullied, I find it incredibly insulting to see a 30+ year old male accuse me of this behavior as a means of censoring me. I've lost friends and respect as part of my very brief stand against neo_prodigy, and I've been truly harassed (told to die, get raped, etc. by anonymous people) as well. But even with neo_prodigy specifically singling me out (despite having lots of other detractors), I have not attempted to blame him for inflaming others.

If his identity as a woman-friendly author/blogger was authentic, then I would not have been able to make the compilation post in the first place - the entire thing consists of his own words and a little editorial. Nothing I've written has been false. And giving women the tools to make informed decisions about him as an author/blogger (who promotes himself and his work as anti-sexist) is far from harassment.

*neo_prodigy sent this complaint to Wordpress: "The copyrighted work are passages from the novel Hollowstone which is written by myself. The blogger has used the passages and made inflammatory and false accusations about myself.

This individual has continuously stalked and harassed myself and other close loved ones. And while we've taken action against her on other blogs, she continues with the harassment."

ETA2 (29 August 2011)

Because these involve neo_prodigy's integrity...

Dennis Upkins Reviews his own book and pretends to be a bisexual WoC. In case the review is altered in some way in the future, here's a cap.

This is how he treats one of his co-bloggers.

----

Here's an early version of the compilation post that I'm referring to in this entry. Someone posted that and other activity related to n_p on Tumblr.