Most people who meet me have no idea that many years ago I was viciously attacked by a handful of people who savagely destroyed my online reputation in Tolkien fandom. I added flames to the fire by responding but there was one thing my detractors did which I did not do: I did not lie, either about them or about anything else.
Unfortunately, as anyone who has studied propaganda theory knows, it is the lies that are believed more often than the defenses. In fact, when the flame wars first began many people emailed me and asked me (or sternly advised me) to NOT respond to the lies of the character assassins. A few people even explained they had gone through similar experiences.
Regrettably, watching a few people attack me every day got under my skin and I defended myself as vigorously as I felt possible. I spent four years pointing out the falsehoods that were repeated — often by people who never met with me or interacted with me.
Many academics have pointed out to me that this kind of conflagration is common (or has been) in scientific and literary circles for probably as long as we’ve had scientific and literary circles. In other circumstances the bad behavior of people who don’t know how to handle being corrected or challenged (especially when they don’t bother to check their facts) has led to feuds, duels, and wars.
I attempted to bow out of the flame wars in 2001. Nonetheless, a few of my antagonists pursued me. Conrad Dunkerson (who was caught red-handed sending emails to new News Group participants, asking them to have nothing to do with me) cyberstalked me for two years (before that became a felony). Dunkerson’s cyberstalking apparently extended to other people as well.
Some years ago David Averil Pence asked me to join his Tolkien Forum. I reluctantly agreed to and was immediately set upon by two forum members who posted several lies. Instead of intervening to enforce forum rules one of David’s moderators connived with the two antagonists to create and extend a flame war that resulted in David expelling me. He forbade forum members from mentioning me again but over the years the two instigators successfully posted more lies about me on two occasions I learned about.
Similar incidents have occurred elsewhere. I won’t mention all the miscreants but the latest incident simply appalls me. David Gransby posting as halfir in the LoTrPlaza forums recently started a thread discussing an essay I wrote in 2000. You can read it here (NOTE: the thread was deleted from the archive) if you’re interested.
I’ve never to the best of my knowledge interacted with Gransby on any personal level unless he has used other screen names to attack me. Here are the things that drew my attention:
“Martinez – whose ‘flame wars’ with other Tolkien commentators such as Conrad Dunkerson have achieved legendary status on the Web”
“Martinez is always contentious never polite and I suspect deliberately so”
So what’s my point? Well my point is that David Gransby is a liar plain and simple and it needs to be said somewhere on the Web that David Gransby is a liar.
Why? Because people need to be held accountable for their irresponsible remarks. There is absolutely no foundation of truth to what Gransby says.
Lying about people is hardly “polite” behavior and given how often I have NOT been contentious with Tolkien fans (thousands of whom have written to me through the years) it deeply offends me to see that people who have never interacted with me who apparently were never involved in the flame wars that Conrad Dunkerson was largely responsible for continue to repeat his lies and the lies of others so many years after the fact.
If Gransby wants to go back to LotrPlaza and post a public apology to the other members of that community for repeating false claims about me — well he should. They deserve better than to be lied to. But the harm is done (once again).
So here’s the real point I want to make: if you see people badmouthing someone else online DON’T REPEAT WHAT YOU SEE. You’ll never be in a position to justify repeating accusations and insults on any moral or legal basis. The claims are more often false than true anyway.
Tolkien fandom doesn’t exist in a vacuum. People see what what you write and they will remember the bad things you say about other people. And they will remember the bad things people say about you too. You’re not immune to being victimed by someone who decides to chase you around the Web attacking and discrediting you in every way possible. Nor can you prevent people from pointing out your bad behavior.
As an example of the latter here now is a record of the fact that David Gransby having no apparent first-hand knowledge of the matter took it upon himself to spread lies and propaganda. Is that the way you want to be remembered?
There is no freedom of insult on the Internet. You don’t have the right to spread unsubstantiated lies and rumors about other people. You don’t have the right to say anything disparaging no matter how untrue about other people just because you saw someone else say it.
I didn’t start the Tolkien flame wars. I did my part to keep them going but I feel that after four years of bad behavior I finally made every reasonable effort (starting in 2001) to end my part in the ugliness.
All I ask is that people either stop repeating these lies OR that if you see someone else do it you speak up and ask them to stop.
Had more people spoken up and asked the liars to stop in the first place — rather than send me private emails asking me not to respond to the lies — maybe things would have gone differently.
I can’t change what happened from 1997-2001. And I have to live with the attacks made on my character after 2001.
But all of you have the ability to refrain from repeating disparaging remarks you see on the Internet. I don’t mean just the things you may read about me — I mean about anyone.
There is no reason to do that. Unless someone comes out of nowhere to attack your credibility and say untrue things about you you’re not doing people (or yourself) any favors by repeating allegations and attacks without provocation.
I would rather not have to address this topic ever again. And I can assure you having read many heartbreaking accounts of other cyberstalking victims like me I’m not the only person who wants to see an end to these kinds of false mythologies. The best thing you can do when you see anyone attack another person’s character is assume the attacker is lying and just move on.
If you want to discuss what people say you don’t have to preface your remarks with judgments about the character of the people whose comments you’re discussing. Just focus on the comments and leave the personal attacks out of the context.