#this year lets google what anger issues are instead of using the term to describe random characters we dont like!!

[camelspit]

lets leave fitz hate in 2023 ❤️

[hillnerd]

ptsd/c-ptsd,  therapy & writing

(This is written by someone with CPTSD - I am not a mental health expert, and am just writing from my own experience! )

So a lot of writers want to incorporate PTSD and C-PTSD into their fiction. Sometimes people get it super right- other times I’m left cringing. I wrote this to help writers know more about it, then it also ended up being something I sent to a friend with PTSD as it got into it so she’d know more what the therapy process is like. 

So! What’s it like to have PTSD? PTSD therapy vs regular therapy-How are they different? How are they the same? What does PTSD therapy consist of?

Trigger warning:

I will be describing therapy, talk of other disorders like anxiety and depression, and might use some 'you' talk - example 'once you've gone through this, then you start to feel better.' This will also skim over child abuse, suicidal ideation mentions and trauma in general- Read w/ caution if you are sensitive to this

general overview to PTSD and C-PTSD

I am diagnosed with PTSD, but it's actually C-PTSD*

C-PTSD or Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder differs from PTSD in that it's more for people who have had chronic environments of trauma/abuse for years - and is currently proposed to have a certain symptoms not listed under PTSD symptoms. 

Much of these symptoms have more to do with how one relates to other people, their self perception, and generally their learned behaviors in order to protect themselves long-term. PTSD is more about a specific event, of series of events that occurred in quick succession.

Despite the lack of official diagnosis, therapists treat people for CPTSD all the time- they just use a lot of the same tools they would for PTSD.

Not everyone who experiences trauma or battles develops PTSD, but there are factors that make you more inclined to develop it.

What is PTSD like?

There are many ways that people manifest PTSD/CPTSD symptoms.They are easy enough to google and be familiar with, but what's it ACTUALLY like for me.

a hair-trigger startle instinct I have had a few times where my husband is up at night, and I didn’t realize he was in the room- then I see the outline and start screaming- and can’t stop for like 2 minutes- then the crying settles in for 30 minutes. My traumas had nothing to do with strangers in the night. I just have a super intense startle instinct that sends my whole body into panic mode sometimes.

Hyper-vigilance- trying to control everything around you to keep you safe, and being super on edge keeping an eye out for how things will fall apart. Making sure things are locked, being extra wary of people, wanting to not have your back to people, perking up at every little noise etc.

issues sleeping- insomnia, light sleeping, & nightmares-   Sometimes reliving a memory, or just having intense dreams that leave you exhausted the next day you can barely function. This ties in with hyper-vigilance a lot- so falling asleep and staying asleep can be hard.

Depression and anxiety- pretty self explanatory- but it's common to experience these, and for pills to not necessarily be that helpful without the therapy. Sometimes anxious self destructive thoughts and memories start haunting you and making you freeze up or panic, feel like you’re going to die/be left alone by everyone etc. Sometimes emotional abuse from your past starts coming up and haunting you and you feel all your selfworth leaving your body leaving behind nothing but the want to sleep all day/cut yourself off from people - at times this can turn to suicidal ideation and other really dangerous behaviors and thoughts.

Sudden mood switches/panic responses usually a trigger for these switches is something associated with your trauma- but basically when something associated with our trauma suddenly comes up sometimes it causes us to start having feelings and emotions that feel out of whack for the situation at hand. 

Example: When I was a five I was beaten and locked on a sunny porch of a 2 story building with a sliding door.  Once my husband blocked me on the way to the door so I wouldn’t accidentally walk into some freshly painted furniture on the other side of the sliding door. I immediately panicked and angrily screamed at him to’ let me GO! fuck you!!! when he’s the gentlest man in the world and has never ever been anything but kind and wonderful with me. Then after the rage wore off I was like crying and so sorry.

I’m usually not an ‘angry reaction’ person- I’m usually a freeze/cry type- but yeah.Sometime people get panicked in crowded places, or if they feel someone is mad at them, or if they feel trapped, or if they feel like they’re being abandoned.

Sometimes I’ll get super manic and impatient/snappish if there’s not a plan on what we’re doing at a crowded place (really it’s because I want an escape plan/safe place I know we can always go to- and feel vulnerable when it’s a lot of people standing around without a plan and feel like I’ll get lost/abducted)

intrusive negative thoughts 

It’ll be the darkest weirdest repeating thoughts that you associate with emotional upset.  In ptsd treatment there is a lot of going through the events and rethinking your conclusions you’ve taken away from them. It’s simplified a lot in shows to a simple ‘it’s not your fault’- which, yeah, that’s the crux of it- but the actual work of it is super intense, exhausting, and so much more in depth.  

unhealthy coping mechanisms so a lot of people with ptsd will find ways to cope to help them fill an emotional void, or to cover up feelings etc. There are tons of ways people do this. Some will do extreme things like drugs, risky behaviors, drinking a lot etc Example: They experience a ‘violent retraumatizing’ moment like a pet getting killed in front of them- then later to cope have casual sex and drink too much in order to numb their emotions and not think about them.

A lot of ‘avoidance’ and ‘overdependence’ can be a part of ptsd. Like you might avoid certain things like the plague, or constrastingly might start using people or things or substances or food like an emotional crutch/security blanket instead of coping in a healthier way or learning to be independent.

Self protective steps you take might be super over the top, or self-destructive and borderline suicidal. 

Sometimes trying to repress all your emotions and not express them is something you do to protect yourself. 

This can be all over the map really- there are hundreds of examples!

triggering moments of your ‘Stuck points’

Stuck points are thoughts that keep us from recovering. Stuck points are concise statements that reflect a thought – not a feeling, behavior, or event. 

Example of stuck points:  'If I let other people get close to me, I'll get hurt again', 'I am useless.' 'I'm broken', 'I can't trust anyone in authority', 'People will reject me if they get to know me/see me at my worst’ ‘I’m a monster.’ ‘I’m worthless’ 

These can come up and you won’t even realize it at first. You’ll have something super innocuous happen and all of a sudden you’re on the verge of a breakdown, angry and/or panicking for seemingly no reason. 

These intense emotions will hit you and don’t feel like there’s any thoughts connected to them- there ARE thoughts behind it of course, but it takes a bit of deconstructing to figure it out though and realize ‘ooooh, there’s the thought train that was bubbling under the surface! I didn’t realize because thinking through my emotional processes was something I wasn’t allowed to do during my trauma- so now I don’t know how to instinctively do that even a little.’

Examples in fiction 

Harry Potter in Order of the Phoenix where he is yelling at the drop of a hat when he feels abandoned/rejected by everyone. His reactions are so CLEARLY PTSD related to me.  Actually, I think he has CPTSD and it just got to a tipping point due to the traumas he experienced in the graveyard.

Hunger Games Books  Probably the best portrayal of PTSD, of books I’ve read, is Hunger Games. The movies glazed over it a bit- but the books? Oh man, they nail it so hard.

HP and Hunger Games both have protagonists who are great portrayals of ptsd. The anger, the disassociation, the depression, the nightmares, the inability to identify with humans at times, the self protective steps that are unhealthy, the coping mechanism of avoidance etc.

Disassociating

People describe this in tons of different ways, but personally I think of it like body/brain numbness. All of a sudden it’s like a blankness comes over you, almost like that hazy way of daydreaming, only instead of daydreams it’s nothing but a buzzing blankness with maybe like slight almost invisible undercurrent of panic. It’s like the body is paralyzed, and you can’t act or think or do anything but stare or numbly move a bit- it almost feels like your soul just left your body for a bit and you’ve been consumed by a white room of emptiness. Not a black void- it’s not being lost in darkness- it’s like being lost in the light, if that makes sense? Like think of a blank why void like in The Matrix where the whiteness goes on forever. 

Flashbacks

In tv shows they often show it like it's a hallucination or something. Flashbacks are typically shown as a person basically becoming delirious and having visual and audio hallucinations, then perhaps even becoming violent to those around them because they literally see something different than what is real.

Again, this is my experience- but flashbacks have never worked like that for me. I more disassociate, and then all the emotions of that memory hit me, and in my brain I’m able to see bits and pieces of what happened back then, or even the whole thing- it’s like a SUPER intense memory/daydream/nightmare just settles in there for a bit- and you feel all the full emotions of it for a bit- can suddenly feel the sensations of it too at times-but at NO point am I actively moving about in a real room around people getting them confused with the past and lashing out at the hallucinations.

 I’m just sitting there, or crying there- and if someone in the room with me were to talk to me they might have to get my attention because I'm deep in that daydream/flashback- but I’d hear them and see them once I realize I’m spacing out. The most outburst I’d have would be to not want anyone to touch me- or get super startled from someone touching me then pushing them away from me. That’s very different than the crazy shit they show on TV and movies sometimes.

BAD EXAMPLE: One particular one that still makes me mad is when that had Owen from Grey’s Anatomy sees a fan- then get ‘triggered into a ptsd episode’ where he is unblinkingly choking out Cristina as she begs him to stop for a long time. Like…. It’s one thing for someone to be startled and have their instinct be to strike out- that’s a very different thing from what they portrayed. If they wanted to show him as ptsd dangerous- which is worrisome to me as people with mental health are stigmatized enough- but if they wanted to- it would have made much more sense for her to startle him somehow and for him to just blindly strike out before he realizes it. With combat training, he could very well have instincts that aren’t safe when he’s over sensitized and startled.

What are the main treatments for PTSD?

Cognitive Processing Therapy  (CPT)

CPT is the main treatment for PTSD. It is highly structured, and the majority of it is writing and worksheets. There is a LOT of writing and talking out about your trauma, writing and talking about how you process it, and analyzing it.

Beyond the traumatic memories, there is also noticing the behaviors you have that are related to your trauma and how they come out in every day scenarios. This leads to:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

This is not about processing past events, but about processing current behaviors/reactions and trying to slowly change those behaviors over time so that they are healthier reactions/coping mechanism in place.

Exposure therapy- Reliving memories

For PTSD some people do a lot of reliving the trauma memories by describing them in detail, every tiny detail they can think of- and basically reliving them, but then trying to reroute the emotional response to them. 

Some people are SO repressed that this is a very difficult thing for them to access- both remembering the memory, but also knowing what their emotions were/are. These memories of trauma aren't always easy to remember/re-feel/access and that can be frustrating.

I personally am REALLY GOOD at reliving memories- in fact I'm so good that we have been avoiding it for a bit because i go straight into flashback mode way too easy (more on flashbacks and how they work later)

There are ways of doing this that are more than just revising the memory through talk therapy, that I haven't done and would require research on your part:

virtual reality to revisit the place

watching videos or listening to recordings of the event and talking it through

exposure therapy that's more about getting used to sounds/smells/words that are triggering

The main point though is to process the emotions tied to that event and not make your brain default to that flight/fight/freeze mode when triggering things happen.

IMPORTANT TOOLS FOR THERAPY

If a person hasn't had much therapy, CPT/CBT has a lot of learning for that person, and a LOT of trying to identify emotions and really feel them, so one can process them.

Grounding techniques/exercises-

techniques used to sooth/calm a person when activated- there are like thousands of these guys out there- I think everyone is a bit familiar with them- like breathing exercises in yoga? Basically it's a way of regrouping and centering yourself- 'grounding' you in reality, instead of letting your brain go off on a tangent/emotional rollercoaster.

It's basically any way you can snap your thinking out of your anxious thoughts and concentrate on something until your re-calibrate and are calmer.

Personally the breathing techniques make me freak out- so I don't use those. :P Ones I find helpful are ones like 'Name every color you can see.' or 'go through the alphabet and letter by letter name an animal that starts with that letter.' and 'hold an ice cube in your hand and concentrate fully on every sensation you're feeling.'example  example

-CBT and CPT WORKSHEETS

god, SO many worksheets.

Here are some helpful links

https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/cbt-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-techniques-worksheets/  --- This page covers cognitive distortions really well, and has some helpful resources and worksheets.

https://trailstowellness.org/resources   This page has a lot of great worksheets for trauma.

https://www.psychologytools.com/professional/problems/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/- unfortunately you cannot access the documents here without paying- BUT you can read what the docs are, and how they will be used in a therapy setting- so can use that as a launch point for what sort of worksheets/phrases to google.

I specifically worked from  Cognitive Processing Therapy for PTSD: A Comprehensive Manual a lot.

What is the structure of PTSD therapy?

First session

The first thing I had to do was fill out a questionnaire (PTSD test , cptsd questionnaire) to make sure she thought the treatment was appropriate. We talked about this a bit, what symptoms I had, talked over examples of it. I'm comfortable with therapy so this wasn't so bad for me, but I can see this being very difficult for people who aren't as comfortable in this setting and would need to be walked through it more and have more questions as they might not have a lot of self-awareness. We discussed goals, what could be achieved, and generally what it would be like. We went over the first worksheet and I was given homework of figuring out what my stuck points are.

Sessions after that

Each session we begin with typical therapy for a bit 'how was the last week? Were there any events I should know about?' Then we go over the worksheet I filled out, and analyze it, talk about examples, or apply it to trauma memories.

What is trauma therapy LIKE?

I always try to have the next day or so as free as possible after therapy, because afterwards I am wiped out, exhausted, and sometimes super triggered and crying afterwards.

The analogy I like to use is cleaning out a closet you keep hoarding stuff in:

Your house is your life, your brain is a closet, and PTSD/trauma is a messy hoarders type hidden away in the closet. When the door to this closet is closed you can almost pretend there isn't a mess there at all. Y ou close the door by being in denial, not thinking about your trauma, not acknowledging or processing it. You just keep stuffing the trauma into the closet.

But the longer you let the closet stay like that, the worse the situation gets. Soon that closet door keeps busting open and all sorts of crap falls out when you don't want it to. Freakouts, hypervigilance, meltdowns etc. The crap in the closet starts to multiply.

Ever seen Hoarders or Marie Kondo? You know how people are crying over t-shirts and crap and the house looks WORSE for a while? That's trauma therapy.

In therapy you have to open the closet door, take out ALL the crap you've been hoarding in the closet, process it, organize it, and then put things in order again. Every single box of trauma needs to be looked at then put away- The goal is to  throw out the intense intrusive emotions tied to the junk. You have to keep your memories- but you don't have to keep holding on to the behaviors they've formed, the turbulent emotions, and the intensity of it all. During therapy at first it's fine. Kondo is walking you through it and it's all just fine and dandy- then you are faced with this HOARD of CRAP you have to work through- and it's SO overwhelming. My anxiety and depression got way worse for a while. Like, I was on EDGE and having nightmares and it was horrible. But then once you've processed the memories, and start actively applying what you've learned and start using grounding techniques more and more- things do get easier.

I am not fixed. I am not cured. I will have to continue to work through stuff- It's that whole 'healing is a not a straight line' thing. Like, there are times I regress and I hate it. :P But it's gotten a lot better.

IF YOU GUYS HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS I’M HAPPY TO HELP.

I figure this can be an ok resource for people who don’t know much about ptsd except what it says on like webmd (which isn’t that accessible to me) and want to write about it (or want to just know more about it)

( *C-PTSD has not been considered an official different disorder from PTSD for all that long. In fact, one technically can't be medically diagnosed with CPTSD in america yet. PTSD is diagnosable and has been considered an official disorder for decades, but C-PTSD has not been named a disorder of its own yet in the official guidebook of psychological disorders in the US (DSM). I think they might have JUST recognized it in the UK guidebook (ICD). I know it was proposed for the 11th addition.)

[armsinthewronghands]

Timeline of the Zak Wars

OP:

October 15th 2008 – Zak Starts His Blog, It's called 'Playing D&D With Porn Stars. You can see the opening post here;

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/hi.html

Archive;

http://archive.is/i44G7

Act One.

The Long Build Up/The Sex Wars

Feb 2010 to Dec 2013

This probably has roots in forum arguments in the past but it enters the public record in February 2010 in the Canon Puncture Incident and proceeds through to the Desborough Rape Threat Accusations of December 2013.

This period is characterised by the relatively long periods between each incident and the fact that opponents and arguments don't always carry over or fold into the next incident. Alienation and anger build up slowly, are sometimes diffused, but don't go away.

Most are triggered by arguments over sex and responses to Zaks gaming group (mainly women, mainly models).

Canon Puncture Incident - Zak defends his group from condescending comments.·        

Hyung Tae Kim Incident - Zak argues about the validity of sex in art.·       

The Maxim Article - Zak defends his group again, from accusations that their public profile is bad for gaming.·       

 The Carcosa Thread - This starts off about sexual violence in the game in question.·       

 The Math Skills Fight - Zak defends his player, is accused of misogyny.·       

 The Numenera Succubus Incident - Again, triggered by the presence of sexual materials in the game.·       

 The James Desborough Rape Threat Accusation - Desborough angers many of the same people with his arguments about the validity of rape in games, is then accused of making rape threats.

The tl;dr for all of this:

Zak S is beyond the shadow of a doubt the target of a long-running smear/harassment campaign from conservative gamers that’s been really successful because it plays on the fears of would-be progressive ones.

The campaign against him is mostly from “goons” (their own nickname for themselves) from the troll site Something Awful and from disgruntled members of the semi-allied “storygame” community who have issues with sexuality in games.

This is especially strange because Zak is an outspoken advocate of pretty much every progressive political position, his game group is mostly queer women including trans women, the company he most often works with--LotFP--has the most diverse staff in RPGs and the RPG movement it’s part of--the OSR--is the most diverse in independent RPGs. There are nerds--especially nerds who have a problem with sexuality--who have a problem with this.

Back to the OP:

February 2010 – The Canon Puncture Incident

The hosts of the Canon Puncture Podcast talk about Zaks game with his group. They say some things that Zak regards as condescending towards the girls in the group, Zak requests an apology and the hosts apologise. This gets spoken about on story-games.com and Zak comes in to describe the situation. You can read that thread here;

http://story-games.com/forums/discussion/11540/d-d-with-porn-stars-and-canon-puncture

Archive;

https://archive.is/13HKO

February 11

2011 – The Hyung Tae Kim Incident

Anna Kreider makes an argument against the art of Hyung Tae Kim, you can read it in full here;

https://donotlink.it/Q0Ek

Archive;

https://archive.is/zJBbm

Zak disagrees and the two of them get into it. Zak calls her a prude. Later, on March 10, 2015, Kreider posts her own chronology of her interactions with Zak, you can find it below.

I've been asked to point out that Zak wasn't invited into this thread, he just turned up, which is true, he hasn't been invited into any of these threads, but neither has anyone else? They are almost all public posts or they wouldn't be available to link here. This has been described as a scary incident to me.

Well, take a look for yourself.

December 2011 – The Maxim ArticleThe US magazine Maxim carries an article about Zak and his group. You can read the article itself here;

http://www.maxim.com/women/playing-dungeons-and-dragons-porn-stars

Archive;

https://archive.is/2cbyr

An argument breaks out over representation. Much of this happens on G+ and has subsequently been deleted. You can read a transcript of that (by Zak) here;

http://armsinthewronghands.tumblr.com/post/148473329613/filamena-young-attacks-the-dd-wporn-stars-girls

Archive;

https://archive.is/Iv58T

This was the best evidence I could find of the origins of an important disagreement that, like everything in this chronology, forms resentments and hatreds that pile on into the next thing. If anyone has any publicly available links describing or showing what happened then let me know.

February 2012 – 'Confessions of a Dungeon Master' thread on Storygames,This is an interesting argument over a game transcript from 1980 by John Eric Holmes.

http://story-games.com/forums/discussion/15862/history-of-gaming-confessions-of-a-dungeon-master/p1

This starts out as being between Luke Crane, creator of Burning Wheel and Zak, a lot of classic behaviours are exhibited here and, like a lot of times in this chronology it's based on very different perceptions of, and reactions to, a potentially sexual situation.

Zaks opinion of Luke Crane comes up again four years later in an April 2016 post below.

February 29

2012 – Zak Encounters Something Awful

Zak says that the enmity between him and the Something Awful forum dates from this contact. In his own words;

“The backstory on this is an enmity with Something Awful beginning with me attempting to talk to them about their extreme statements here, years after noticing they took Mandy to task for having extension cords on her wish list”

Link to his post is here;

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/evil-mastermind-from-grognardstxt.html

Archive;

https://archive.is/X91ji

April 2012 – Zak Banned from Story-Games.com 

Zak starts a thread about the 2nd Edition of Geoffery McKinneys Carcosa book. An argument breaks out about Anna Krieder, you can read the thread here;

http://story-games.com/forums/discussion/16258

Archive;

https://archive.is/sHVHL

September 27 2012 – The Math Skills Fight on Somethingawful

Zak argues with the posters on the something awful forum about dice notation. During this, he is accused of misogyny in regards to one of his players. You can read about that here;

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/apologizing-in-advance-for-this-hey.html

Archive;

https://archive.is/3OxeK

This adds to the enmity between Zak and Somethingawful which he has said is the engine behind the Tom Hatfield Failforward article in July 2014.

August 3rd 2013 – The Numenera Succubus Incident

Game Writer Monte Cook  releases his game Numenera. This game includes rules for a Science Fiction Succubus. This causes a massive scandal and argument (google “Numenera Succubus”) especially on RPG.NET where the thread runs for 561 posts;

https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?697888-Numenera-W-T-F-Monte

August 5th 2013 – Zak Banned from RPG.NET

The succubus thread is what finally gets Zak permanently banned from rpg.net. You can read the exact wording of the ban here;

https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?698051-Infraction-for-Zak-S-17)-Permanent-Ban

He's banned by Ettin / Paul Matijevic, which is a name you will see several more times in this chronology.

It's interesting at this point to take a look at the different viewpoints. Here is part of the argument for the ban;

"You serially derail sexism threads with bad-faith arguments. You insist that nobody can ever make generalizations about anything ever (even when they're not), then post generalizations. You pull out arguments that boil down to "words don't mean things" like that's ever been constructive outside the philosophy forum. You're passive-aggressive and occasionally condescending, you post anecdotes as facts, you tell people that things can't be sexist because you know ~females~ who would disagree. You're convinced that you're always right and refuse to consider otherwise, or at least that's the only explanation I can think of for why you keep making up strawmen to dismiss people who disagree with you (cf. the pass-agg "stop assuming all women are alike!" business, asserting that feminist game bloggers and others who disagree with you must be "conservative", every time you say "Tipper Gore" ever). You don't take anything that isn't agreement for an answer, and will argue in circles about it instead of making the positive contributions you could be until you get bored or someone makes you stop."

And here, from the ban itself, is the mods example of Zak doing this;

"Nobody does this research or even seems to ask for it. And they should.

That this idea is going to turn away more women than it brings in has no experimental evidence behind it.

That this idea is going to make folks' attitudes towards women worse has no experimental evidence behind it.

So if your only case against the trope is Monte is being accidentally sexist (via effect) it's pretty much accusing someone of sexism with no evidence.

The idea that this is even a sexist trope in Monte's hands is based on claims it will have a sexist effect. It requires them to be true. It doesn't seem fair or right to do that in absence of anybody trying to test it.

Me, here's who I can test: 2000 blog readers and G+ people. 4 figures of "I Hit It With My Axe" fans on Facebook. Mandy's fans which are like in the 5 figures. We ask what keeps women from gaming: The data we get has nothing to do with content and everything to do with a social environment of weird controlling nerd boys.

But, hey, that's a biased sample

Somebody do some research, rather than assuming all women are like the ones in your environment.

The closest thing we have in terms of experimental data on anything moving the needle of gaming concerning women is the advent of Vampire which proves:

Tim Truman illustrations of sexy vampires --male and female--attract female gamers, a lot of whom want to dress like them.

Folks who run conventions and publishing companies and forums should try to do a better job by publishers, designers and women by actually basing claims about what is and isn't bad for the community on testing stuff."

August 5th 2013 – Zaks 'open letter' to rpg.netIn response to this perma-ban, Zak posts an 'open letter to the managers of rpg.net pointing out the alleged sexism of the ads that run on the site n contrast to the moderators attitudes;

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2013/08/open-letter-to-shannon-appelcline-and.html

Archive;

https://archive.is/sQpvo

If you look at the comments, waaay at the bottom you will see Shanna Germain, Monte Cook’s partner and co-creator talking about her reaction to the arguments made against her and the game.

This is also the first time I recall hearing the name Shannon Appelcline in this history. It will come up again in Febuary 2017. You will see that below.

December 16

th

2013 – The James Desborough Rape Threat Accusation

About 10 months prior to this Ben Lehman publicly accused James Desborough, RPG writer, of being "Someone who threatens their critics with rape". Several people +1 this post.

Desborough has been involved in culture-war arguments with this faction for some time and, in my opinion, persistently trolls them. The verbal violence between these groups is intense. Just google "james desborough in defence of rape" or any combination of those words to take a look at the shitstorm.

John Stavropoulus an RPG writer not aligned with Desborough’s faction or opinions, checks up on the claim that he threatened people with rape and finds no evidence to back them up.

Zak in his own words; “

The short of Jon's research is this accusation turned out to be bullshit even though 80some people +1ed it and it got shared all over the RPG internet.

Now Jon didn't name names, because he "doesn't want a witchhunt". Which is respectable. But I'm not Jon and I do think the RPG community as a whole deserves an apology from every single one of these people for confusing and distorting a very real and very serious issue of real violence that actually affects peoples' lives.”

He names names. Some people retract their +1’s, others do not. I’m not going to provide a link to that post but it is still up.

Zaks naming of names on this issue is used as evidence of harassment from this point on, in particular as evidence of him having a ‘list of enemies’.

Many of the people on this list appear elsewhere in this chronology, almost always as opponents of Zak I think. I can't really point out

who

because, like I said, its alleged to be an act of harassment or directing harassment towards those parties so if I repeat the same names then this chronology also becomes harassment.

December 17

2013 – Paul Ettin Recommends plussing the Rape Threat PostIn response to the above incident, Paul Ettin, RPG.NET moderator and Something Awful moderator recommends +1’ing the accusation against Desborough of making rape threats, he later also says he is fairly sure they aren’t true;

https://plus.google.com/115194116430466884350/posts/jefADpVt1rJ

Archive;

http://archive.is/mw3GC

.....................................................................................................

Act Two. The Summer of Hate

July 2014 to August 2014

As soon as it came out that Zak and Pundit were consultants on 5e, the attacks, accusations and counter-accusations come in thick and fast. This is a very short period of great intensity.

July 3rd 2014 – D&D 5e ReleasedThe new edition of D&D comes out and it is revealed that Zak and the RPGPundit are counted as consultants. This marks the beginning of Consultancygate.

July 4th

2014 – Ettin Admits Trolling This is from a chat log you can read here;

http://pastebin.com/nAzfnHbj

In lines 1174 10 1178 he admits that he does not think Desborough made rape threats but plussed the accusation anyway.

July 6th 2014 – Eric Haddock Asks For Evidence on G+ This is in a public thread so I hope he doesn't mind me putting it here;

https://plus.google.com/u/0/114899023370792587252/posts/c6aeERrjbAw

Archive;

http://archive.is/itg0y

This is relevant largely because of this quote from Sean Patrick Fannon (recently revealed to have been behind straightforwardly guilty of a large number of sexual harassment incidents) which gets a blog response from Zak later;

"The Internet is

screaming

with the harm caused, Zak; this very conversation wouldn't be happening if you'd not actively hurt and pissed off a great many people. You know this as well as I do. You've simply chosen to deafen yourself to it, demanding bullet point accounting that you can then dismiss or refute as you choose.

This is one of your tactics. You ask others to present evidence so you can play your lawyer roleplaying game. You have no actual interest in evaluating your actions or your impact. You are resolutely convinced you cannot possibly be wrong.

You are telling me what I need to know here. You don't acknowledge the harm you've caused, nor your capacity to cause it. Anyone who claims you've harmed them is Swine (or a liar, or worse). I am disinclined to spend any more time on this, since it is clear you've made your choice to stand on the treacherous ground of your own making.

As for being discredited... I think not. Your refusal to give even the slightest ground, to acknowledge even the minimal amount of flaw or fault, delineates your narcissistic arrogance in clear, bold colors.

There was an opportunity here, Zak. You pissed it away. You've discredited yourself, sir.

My credit will remain intact, thanks."

July 7th 2014 – My Defence of Zak As the abuse of Zak intensifies I write this post about him in defence;

http://falsemachine.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/zak-smith-is-not-homophobe.html

Archive;

https://archive.is/b73Rc

July 7

th

2014 – The Pigfucker Post

A few hours after I post my defence of Zak, I wake up to find this article in which he lays out his own (by my standards, highly aggressive) policy on internet arguments, and also accuses someone of (metaphorically) fucking a pig;

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/why-pigfuckers-fuck-pigs-and-people.html

Archive;

https://archive.is/9J0Ls

July 9th 2014 – The “The Internet is Screaming” Post This is really interesting. It kicks off with the quote from Sean Patrick Fannon above, then leads into an (I think we would have to say alleged) message from Zeea, who I think I recall from the rpg.net threads about Zak. I will include a little bit here;

So, I've spent a few hours doing as much research as I can, and I've talked to folks some more.

I'm not going to equivocate. People made accusations against you without proof, the accusations got amplified and distorted and repeated through the Telephone Game effect, and I bought into it when I shouldn't have.

................

I don't think anyone I talked to privately is intentionally lying about this. I think they believe it. But perceptions color memories, as does hearing the same event discussed by multiple people, and some of things look a bit stretched by this point. I can't base an opinion on stretchy-looking facts."

The whole thing is quite interesting and you can find it here;

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-internet-is-screaming.html

Archive;

https://archive.is/eXjOV

BUT

Zeea then (according to this post) retracts their statement based on the 'outing' controversy of July 26th (see below). She does not present new evidence, however.

July 2014 – The Olivia Hill Death Threats I think it’s about this time that Olivia Hill, game designer, claims that she has received death threats, including the names of her children’s teachers and phone calls to her address. These claims go on to become a major part of the case against Zak.

The only publicly available link I could find in which Olivia Hill repeats them is here in post 49 of this forum thread;

http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/general/off-topic/1050412-white-wolf-hires-zak-smith-im-out/page4

Archive;

https://archive.is/WjTp4

July 19th

2014 – The Scrap Princess Defence 

Scrap Princess, who is trans and who is a co-creator with me of numerous projects (one of several trans creators directly linked to Zak) makes a public statement about the accusations (which is blissfully short.) here;

http://monstermanualsewnfrompants.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/just-for-record.html

Archive;

https://archive.is/jzaJG

July 21

st

2014 – Fred Hicks Weighs In Fred Hicks of Evil Hat productions makes a public G+ post in which he seems to support the allegations against Zak and apologises for not doing so earlier;

https://plus.google.com/+FredHicks/posts/SJHZ8Jc5SoW

Archive;

https://archive.is/KY554

July 26

th  

2014 – The ‘Outing’ Incident 

This is where Mandy, Zaks girlfriend talks about some of the trolls attacking her and Zak and uses a variety of openly available aliases for someone who later turned out to be trans. You can read the post here;

http://mandymorbid.tumblr.com/post/92910013775/more-reasons-people-found-to-hate-me

Archive;

https://archive.is/YyJyx

Like every archive in the chronology this link is only frozen from the point of this blog post.

Going forward, this incident forms one of the core pieces of evidence against Zak in future arguments. If you read someone saying that he outs trans people as a form of retaliation or revenge it is probably referring to this incident.

The case for the defence is that Zak and Mandy had argued with this person many times, knowing them only by non-gendered internet handles,and had no idea what gender they were, or that the handles referred to identities with different genders, when the two names were linked.

Zak in his own words;

“The person was not revealed to be trans until Wordmercenary/Tom Hatfield said she was. It was not public knowledge so how could Mandy or I have known?”

July 31st, 2014 – The Failforward Article This article is where the real bomb goes off. From this point on the situation massively intensifies. The article is shared by a very large range of people and is cited in nearly every major attack on Zak from this point on.

https://donotlink.it/VY0M

Archive;

https://archive.is/pi55s

You can read the clearest and most detailed debunking here;

https://www.seebs.net/log/articles/791/consultancygate-an-overview

Archive;

https://archive.is/pYOA8

July 31st, 2014 – The First Dongion Accusation

The Dongion is a blog posting sarcastic commentary about the RPG community. Zak has always claimed that he was not the writer of the Dongion but has said that he 'takes responsibility' for it based on the fact that it is in his blogroll along with many other blogs.

This tumblr reblog of the failforward article is the earliest I have been able to find that links the Dongion blog to Zak. It also links the Dongion to the Outing Incident.

https://donotlink.it/Wp95

August 2014 – “Get at him” Screencap

In August of 2014, in response to the spread of the Failforward article, Zak posts this. It is used in many subsequent attacks on him as evidence of his harassment campaign;

From the image; “hit him up? Correct him? Eat him?”

Zak – “get on twitter. tweet at him, ask questions, give links.I have a girlfriend in the hospital and 111 trolls to deal with please just either help or don’t but pls no silly nerd questions.”

Complete public text of the post (provided by Zak) here;

http://armsinthewronghands.tumblr.com/post/157572020868/complete-text-of-the-get-at-him-post

Archive;

https://archive.is/AUorP

August 2014 – “Destroy” Screencap

A few days later, in response to another article, Zak says this;

It should be noted that the link is aimed at a Metafilter thread and that you can go and look at this thread here, if you want to see if it was, in fact, destroyed:

http://www.metafilter.com/141806/Gender-inclusive-language-in-DandD-5e-raises-roleplaying-questions

Archive;

https://archive.is/iXics

Here (from Zak) is the full text of the post;

http://armsinthewronghands.tumblr.com/post/157572086858/complete-text-of-the-destroy-post

Archive;

https://archive.is/OLIFc

August 2014 – Zaks Response To The Failforward Article

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2014/08/how-dungeons-and-dragons-is-totally-not.html

Archive;

https://archive.is/ZKdRP

In his own words; “it debunks, with evidence, every single claim made up until that point in every single venue”

............................................................................................

Act Three; The Small Wars

January 2015 to August 2016

This is a series of spot fires or low-level conflicts based around particular incidents. During this period we get mutual counter-accusations, the Ennies walkout and the Magpie Games Incident. So far as I know the accusations against Zak don't widen in scope or intensify, but no-ones position changes. This is something like a 'Cold War' period.

Inexact Date but probably Jan 2015 – The Ettin Dongion Accusation

Ettin, the rpg.net mod, accuses Zak of running the Dongion, which he calls a harassment blog and which you can find on his tumblr;

https://donotlink.it/m0RJ

Archive;

https://archive.is/pyQ7J

A link to the blog is here;

http://thedongion.blogspot.co.uk/

January 1st 2015 – Mandys Chainmail Bikini Feminist Defence Zaks girlfriend Mandy makes a long post on her tumblr giving screencaps of various kinds of abuse she has received-- including rape threats--and talks in detail about the alleged outing of a trans person. You can read it here;

http://mandymorbid.tumblr.com/post/106857162470/im-a-chainmail-bikini-feminist-and-im-fucking

Archive;

http://archive.is/w8Wvr

March 10th

2015 – Anna Krieder Posts Her History With Zak 

Anna Krieder makes this post;

https://donotlink.it/gGQo

Which is a chronology of her interactions with Zak from her perspective, so now you have a chronology in your chronology.

It's quite interesting and I recommend going through it if you have the time and if you want to see the whole fucking cavalcade through the eyes of someone on the opposite side. It's almost like the mirror/antiverse version of this post with many of the same events from an entirely different perspective.

Amongst other things it locates their first contact in January 2011 and the the opening of hostilities to the storygames thread in April 2012, not the Hyung Tae Kim Incident in February 2011 as I have above.

Unlike Zak, Kreider never defines harassment or tells her followers not to do whatever that would be to Zak.

March 13th, 2015 – The Sampat Mob Assault Accusation

A brief moment of levity here to give everyone a break. Elizabeth Sampat accuses Zak of riling up a “mob to the point that I was assaulted in front of witnesses.” The “mob” consisted of two women: Karolyn Gehrig, disabled activist, and Charlotte Stokely, adult film actress

Elizabeth SampatVerified account‏@twoscooters

 FollowMore I RTed a blog post about how Zak has pushed women out of the industry. Zak riled up mobs to the point I was assaulted in front of witnesses

Elizabeth SampatVerified account‏@twoscooters

· 13 Mar 2015

More I'm sure rational minds can discern which one of us is an abuser. And that's the last I'm going to say.

karolyn ⚔️gehrigVerified account‏@karolynprg · 13 Mar 2015 More Saying"this isn't a great time, but I really don't like what you're saying about my friends Zak & Mandy online" is not assault.@twoscooters2 replies1 retweet1 likeReply  2 Retweet  1 Like  1

Elizabeth SampatVerified account‏@twoscooters · 13 Mar 2015 More @karolynprg Wait, were you the one who dumped the drink on me, or was it your friend?1 reply0 retweets0 likesReply  1 Retweet   Like  

karolyn ⚔️gehrigVerified account‏@karolynprg · 13 Mar 2015 More @twoscooters nobody dumped a drink on you. A glass of water spilled a full 6 feet away & more spilled on her than you.

https://twitter.com/twoscooters/status/576553462562840576

Archive;

http://archive.is/zFIHj

This is Karolyn Gehrig, disabled activist

https://twitter.com/karolynprg

The other accused member of the mob was Charlotte Stokely. Adult film actress

https://twitter.com/char_stokely

August 2015 – Red and Pleasant Land Wins At The Ennies

Zaks book Red and Pleasant Land wins multiple awards at the Ennies. Stacy Dellorfano of Contessa, the feminist game organisation gives a speech to accept the award in his absence and a few people walk out in protest.

Having adopted a conscious policy that trying to profit of of being harassed was more efficient than trying to sue an entire internet subculture, on August 1st Zak documents the twitter response to his win here;

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/the-reaping-of-tears.html

Archive;

http://archive.is/l687z

August 4th, Kiel Chenier talks about that incident and about the abuse he got for supporting Zak here;

http://dungeonsdonuts.tumblr.com/post/125851772599/i-am-so-very-tiredtired-and-angry

Archive;

http://archive.is/wbYjp

October 20th 2015 – Zak Mocks Olivia Hills Views on Star Wars

In this post, Zak persistently mocks and argues against Olivia Hills views on the Star Wars franchise.

This has been described (in the comments below) as "a blatant attack on Olivia Hill, using screenshots of social media accounts that Hill has said she blocked Zak from."

http://archive.is/20151021233535/dndwithpornstars.blogspot.de/2015/10/the-fetid-shit-stink-of-right-wing.html?zx=ab04705888fd97b7

Zak's defence, from the comments;

"I am blocked from Olivia’s social media, it is still public information available to anyone not logged in.

Criticism is not harassment. Olivia Hills Star wars problem is she hadn't seen it whens he made his years worth of irrational accusations about it."

Both sides get deep into it in the comments of this post if you want to read more.

April 11th 2016 – "Why There's No Tabletop RPG Theory

In this post by Zak he goes further into his numerous and deep disagreements with the Storygames community.

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/why-theres-no-tabletop-rpg-theory.html

Archive;

http://archive.is/lEwEr

I was asked to bring this in becasue people think Luke Crane is misrepresented in this post, and in particular becasue of the request for people to contact Lukes friends which apparently people did try to do. Luke is directly quoted in the post.

It has stuff on Luke (half way down), Cam Banks, Ettin and a few other people. You can read one of the interactions with Luke Crane in a storygame thread entry for 2012 above.

August 26th

2016 – Zak Calls His Critics Psychotics

Also knuckle-draggers, edition-warriors and sociopaths. This is claimed to be an act of harassment by some (see the comments to this post). If you’ve read this far you know that simple namecalling has been done a lot by many parties on both sides. You can read it here;

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/3-dozen-psychotics-agree-go-buy-vornheim.html

Archive;

http://archive.is/IyQzs

July 26

th

2016 – The Magpie Games Incident

Mark Diaz Truman, one of the heads of Magpie Games and one of the few storygamers of color, a storygames publisher, writes an article about aspects of his gaming circles that trouble him. You can read it here;

http://www.magpiegames.com/2016/07/26/two-minutes-hate/

Archive;

http://archive.is/CDQkA

He is accused of defending Zak and therefore aiding a harasser. All the usual people arrive to do all the usual things.

Peoples responses and attitudes to this article become another form of contention which is carried forwards into future arguments. I mean, come on, if you've read this far you know how it works by now.

July 28th

2016 – The Invisible James Raggi Accusations

In this public thread by Mark Diaz Truman;

https://plus.google.com/+MarkDiazTruman/posts/2aRBa37wEtf

Someone accuses James Raggi, one of Zak’s publishers, of.. something? Then deletes the accusation. You can still see the replies to the ghost accusation but not the thing itself.

July 28th

2016 – Zak Talks About Mental Illness in the RPG Community

In this post Zak, without mentioning anyone specific, talks about how to talk to mentally ill people;

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/mental-illness-in-rpg-community.html

Archive;

http://archive.is/6S1d0

Despite having no names attached nor any claim anyone has disputed, this has been described, (in the comments below) as "an accusation that his critics fabricate and distort facts due to being mentally ill. I would argue this is a clear attack, and in the context of the previous posts can be understood as continued harrasment "

August 4th, 2016 – Zak on Anna Krieder

You've seen Anna Krieders chronology from March 10th 2015, now you get to read Zaks, equally long, response to that. And yes all of this is slowly killing me

http://armsinthewronghands.tumblr.com/post/148469806573/anna-kreider-wundergeek

Archive;

http://archive.is/CNj7B

..................................................................................................................

Act Four; We Eat Blood

Feb 2017 - Ongoing

Zak brings out a collaboration with White Wolf and all the old accusations are resurrected and combined with new ones.

February 17th 2017 - 'We Eat Blood' Begins

White Wolf announce that they have produced an interactive text game with Zak. Their announcement is here;

https://blog.white-wolf.com/2017/02/17/a-howl-for-our-bloody-writer-artists/

Archive;

https://archive.is/WGOMv

February 19th 2017 - The We Eat Blood rpg.net megathread

On discovering the news that Zak is working with White Wolf, outrage begins immediately. Numerous threads are started, the primary one on RPG.NET ;

https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?798635-necro-Whitewolf-Hires-Zak-Sabbath-and-Denies-Harassment

(I was banned from this thread).

The main charges against Zak are;

·        That he is a known harasser of transwomen, gays, minorities etc.·        That he used a false name on Reddit, impersonating Shannon Applecline, the owner of RPG.NET.·        That he named one of the characters in the game, Avery, after one of his enemies.

'Known Harasser'

See everything in the above thread as evidence used by various parties.

The SAppelcline Situation

I remembered seeing the SAppelcline identity on Reddit multiple times, very often after a thread was pointed out by Zak on G+.

If you can't see these well, they are from here;

https://donotlink.it/QZ7E

I was bothered enough by this that I contacted Zak directly about it.

He gave me a response with enough detail to persuade me that it was likely true:

“

A fellow gamer in Los Angeles (who does not want to be harassed and so does not want their name mentioned) had a reddit account long before I did.

They posted totally mundane game opinions there. They did not use their account to talk up my work as has been claimed, nor did they ever claim to be Shannon Appelcline or post in a way that could remotely be mistaken for Shannon. These things are recorded, you don't have to trust me.

Why did they pick that screen name? Well, since Shannon Appelcline was responsible for so much of the harassment I and the rest of my game group experienced over the years, when they were picking a name I was like "SAppelcline" and they were like "Ha! Yeah!" the way you might name your dog Nixon. Lots of people have screen names like "illary Clinton" etc. It was a joke at my harassers expense, but not an attempt at impersonation.

Once in a while I'd be like "Are you on Reddit? Can you ask about...." something. Until I got eventually my own account.

The night my video game came out, this person was at my house. We were watching a movie on one computer and watching Reddit explode with harassment of me and Sarah Horrocks (my trans co author) on the other.

My friend and I were commenting and fact-checking the smear campaign Hill and the other Something Awful commenters were launching (within like hours of my game coming out) and passing the laptop back and forth.

There you go.

One more thing: There's a receipt for literally every single incident but this one. And in every case it objectively proves the people attacking me are lying or negligent in fact-checking before making attacks (equivalent evils). Often two or more of our harassers have mutually exclusive stories so literally at least one of them must be lying or wrong. After 6 years of absolutely provable harassment and smear campaign it seems silly people are worrying even a little about what I did rather than holding them to account for things they objectively and provably did for all that time. If you think this explanation is too thin? It’s still more than we’ve ever had from the folks making all these endless not just “thin” but actually-disproved claims. When does the burden shift to them defending themselves?

“

 Although the SAppelcline identity neither claimed to be anyone in specific nor did it promote Zak’s own work despite those accusations having been made.

The Avery Situation

Zaks argument is that;

.This name was chosen with no particular reference to anyone real.·        

.The only supposed opponent of his it could be named after is Avery Alder, the creator of Monsterhearts and they had no significant contact until the Magpie Games Incident, July 2016 and that wasn’t particularly hostile (especially compared to all the other people we’ve seen so far in this drama). He says the script for the game was finished and locked before that point.·        

.He regards the Avery character as a hero in the game, someone witty and funny and cool who saves your life, it would make no sense for him to name her after an enemy as a supposed act of revenge.       

.The Avery character is directly based on Zaks (trans) friend Bailey Jay, with her approval.

.The trans co-author (whom Zak suggested for the job) Sarah Horrocks both approved the text and aggressively defended the character.

I'll editorialise a little more than usual here. Claiming making a trans character a sketchy hyper-sexualised slut as an act of aggression seems a bit mad to me since Zak

is

a sketchy hyper-sexualised slut and so are most of the people he likes and he, and they, have all been pretty open in both speech and deed about how they think this is a pretty great way to live. It's a bit like saying the Pope wrote a book and condemned the villain by making them a

catholic

.

February 19th 2017 – Stacey Dellorfano Responds

Stacy Dellorfano, who runs the feminist Contessa event, responds to the accusations against Zak and describes the various different kinds of harassment and abuse she has received, sometimes from the same people who are opposed to Zak, whilst trying to make Contessa a thing;

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+StacyDellorfano/posts/9DgcEuirpPP

Archive;

https://archive.is/cPSMA

February 21

st

2017 – Sarah Horrocks Responds

The co-creator of the We Eat Blood game, Sarah Horrocks, is trans. You can read her tumblr response to the accusations here;

http://mercurialblonde.tumblr.com/post/157525001658

Archive;

https://archive.is/AF2Mt

Which include, interestingly, an anonymous commenter, without irony, explaining to a trans woman what transphobia is and that she doesn’t really understand how it works.

February 22nd

2017 White Wolf’s ResponseWhite Wolf responds to the accusations here;

https://blog.white-wolf.com/2017/02/22/breathing-the-same-shadow/

Archive;

https://archive.is/BCvrq

May 13th 2017 - Still Eating Blood

White Wolf has released a bunch of information about its new edition. Kenneth Hite is confirmed as the lead designer. This kicks off another thread on RPG.NET;

https://donotlink.it/wvWo

If you've gone through all of this you will see the same accusations from the same people, everything basically unaltered. This thread got locked soon after I posted it here, with 290 posts on it.

Then, the thread from back in February, got woken up. As of the time of writing that one has 1390 posts. (Looks like that has been shut down as well.)

June 20th 2017 - The Mark Rein-Hagen Thread

Mark Rein-Hagen, game designer and original creator of Vampire: The Masquerade, opens a Facebook post about play-testing of his new board-game;

https://www.facebook.com/Reinhagen/posts/10155667328577240?comment_id=10155667453877240

http://archive.is/ZmKON

After a few nice posts, this comes up;

Which, as you can see, has 358 replies as of the moment of this entry. So far as I can see the accusations are all things covered so far.

August 3rd 2017 - 'Art and the Artist' on RPG.NET

Were back!

Thread opens with this; "If he was just some asshole, I'd still buy his books, because I believe in supporting a skilled person if even they kinda suck. But this stuff about driving people out of the industry, calling people's phones to harass them, targeting their families, it sounds super skeevy and crazy.

I'm not trying to start any fights here, but can someone give me some links or information on the above? Being an abravise person who use's sock accounts, and makes some dumb blog where you talk shit all day, that's shitty and all, but it's not really enough to send me over the line of "I'm not doing to buy your books".

The Mods then ban all mention of Zak. Then I get kicked off (2nd 3-day ban)

Oh and I found this cool list of every thread with 'Zak S' as a tag.

August 13th 2017 -

I am Banned from Defending Zak on RPG.NET

Text of the ban; "Dear pjamesstuart,

You have received a warning at RPGnet Forums.

Reason:

-------

Topic Ban

Since your previous ban, we've reviewed your posting history and noticed that you've been posting exclusively in threads discussing a permabanned friend of yours. Specifically, you've been trying to reframe these discussions around a blog post you wrote. Though you present your views as a reasonable, neutral foundation for discussion, your posting mostly consists of attacks on other users and anyone who disagrees with you. Some of these posts are simply drive-by speeches directed at hypothetical future lurkers, and don't engage with the discussion in any meaningful way.

You've made it clear that you have personal and financial reasons to continue this behavior, and have no intention of changing. After discussion, we've decided to formally topic ban you from discussing Zak Smith, including linking to blog posts discussing him. You're still free to promote and discuss any games you've worked together on, provided you focus on the games themselves. You're also free to discuss any other topic on RPGnet, and we hope you take this opportunity to find other threads you'd enjoy participating in.

-------

Warnings serve as a reminder to you of the forum's rules, which you are expected to understand and follow.

All the best,

RPGnet Forums"

Image of the ban;

August 15th 2017 - 4Chan False Identity Accusation

We are back with Olivia Hill on the following twitter thread;

https://donotlink.it/WbaL

Hill accuses Zak of having a 4Chan identity;

Based on the use of the phrase 'get at hi in this anti-Hill comment;

And this G+ thread you will remember from August 2014 (see above).

And including what I think is an accusation of Fascism?

Later on we get Zaks denial of the accusation

“

Of course not--and in what world does that tactic make sense? Like if you go to some rpg part of 4chan and go "somebody should get at him" it's not like 4chan gives a rat's ass or would do anything. Especially if they thought it was me--they hate me way more than him

REPLY “

“

I mean: Olivia Hill writing shitty vampire e novels that nobody reads is an ideal outcome for me, what possible motive could I have to harass her out of that? Let her do that forever. I just wish people would just stop picking it up and running with it like it's a real thing

“

(G+ link may not be accessible to all)

.

(This document gets periodically edited to reflect new information and clarify content about what’s in the longer links. Links are added but never deleted. The original draft of the doc and any the opinions injected are by Patrick Stuart.)

[starlessnightsmoon]

Talking in the wrong conversation.

The following picture came up in my feed a while ago, it’s about a topic that is close to my heart, so I’ve decided to take her up on what it asked us to do.  

While I agree there are sadly plenty of men who try to sweep female issues under the rug and undermine the conversation about women's rights, I think there a plenty of other men who don't have that intention, but are unintentionally swept in that category in a way that is damaging to the conversation about gender issues as a whole. It's complex to explain so here comes a rant...

I think part of the problem here is that one of the toxic gender stereotypes men deal with is 'stoicism.' We are trained specifically NOT to bring up this issues, NOT to talk about anything that might be perceived as weakness. For the most part there simply ISN'T an independent conservation about men's issues happening. (I can't even use the term 'Men's rights' because that's been twisted and polluted into something damaging to both men and women). At a certainly level I think that's because we all feel like it's not okay for us to start the conversation, there is a lot of fear associated with speaking up about these issues.

But the Feminist space has breached these issues, they have opening up the conversation and started to dig in and talk publicly about them. For most men, the Feminist conversation is the only space in which they will see others open up and start to talk about things like rape, abuse, damaging gender stereotypes and expectations, etc. In the Feminist conversation Women are encouraged to speak up, to share stories, talk about their issues, to seek support... I don't know what I would even call an equivalent masculine space without sounding like a chauvinist. Frankly speaking, outside of the umbrella of Feminism, unless you really hunt for it there ISN'T a equivalent space to speak about these issues as a male. (That said such spaces DO exist, and I encourage men to take the effort to seek them out.)

Just try googling abuse, all of the top help websites are geared heavy towards women (which isn't a bad thing). But the majority of the articles could have been written in gender neutral terms and the content would be exactly the same except for the pronouns used. 'Help for abused men' literally just tells you to read the 'help for abused women' article. That's right, the official help documents we are most likely to find about abuse and rape literally instruct men to go to feminine spaces because that's the only place you might find support. Reading every bit of support literature you can find is like a miniature form of gas-lighting, reminding you over and over again: you can't be the victim, you can only be the offender. Doesn't that just reinforce a toxic message about the gender roles of men and women: Women are abused, men are abusers. Rapist is a masculine gender role... I don't think I want that the be the message society tells men about who they are.

We know when one rape or abuse survivor speaks up, it encourages others to do likewise, it opens and creates a feeling of a safe space to speak out, because the topic has been breached you are adding your voice to one of many, it's somehow safer, easier... but no one is starting that conversation for men... So where is a man's outlet, where is his safe space to speak up... there isn't one.

When a Man feels a particular Feminist issues applies to him, he may make the mistake that, because the conversation has been started about something which he has personally experienced, like being the victim of rape or abuse, the Feminist space is a safe space for him to speak about it, in the same way it is (supposedly) for a woman to do so. But he has to test the water first, so instead of sharing his story (which is a neigh impossible thing to admit to) he generalizes, he says it happens to men, he means 'it happened to me and I want to join the conversation as a fellow victim in need of support which I can't find anywhere else' but he can't just come out and say that. So without thinking, because he's being driven by his own tragedy, his own hurt, he says precisely the wrong thing in the Feminist context. The result of course is predictable and his ill-conceived attempt to reach out for support has earned him chastisement and the ire of the people he wants to connect with and desired to show solidarity for.

This is bad on so many levels, he feels vulnerable, instead of the desired comradely feels rejected, he feels unjustly attacked because his intent has been misread (very understandably so given the context, but still...emotions). So now he's learned it's not okay for him to open up and share his feelings, he let himself be vulnerable and the result was bad. He's bitter and hurting and maybe he lashes out as a result...

The end result is counterproductive and only add to the gender divide which the whole point of the conversation had been to try to break down. I don't know the solution. Try to keep an open mind? Try to be more understanding from both sides? Find a way around our personal hurts to check if maybe the other persons meaning wasn't quite as divisive as we assume at first glance? Some of you will not believe that men do what I've just described, but... I know it happens, because I've seen other men make a bumbling attempt to join the conversation, struggling to get out what they mean while digging themselves a deeper and deeper hole, only to get fed up and disheartened leaving feeling like they have no place they can voice their own struggles with these 'Feminist' issues. But Mostly I know this happens because that's been me. I have been guilty of what I have just described here. Because I felt I had no where else to talk about it I've co-opted feminist conversations with the plea of it 'it happens to men too' because it happened to me and I wanted to be part of the conversation that I didn't think I could have anywhere else. Since no one else seems to opening the conversation for men, allow me this one small instance to do so.

I am a male victim of rape, and because I have quite literally never heard another man admit to that, and never expect to hear another man admit to that I've tried to insert myself and my masculinity into the into the feminist conversation about rape. To make that conversation about me as much as any other female victim, and by extension make it about men. But that's wrong... It isn't the same for me as it is for women, I mean in ways it is, but in so many more it isn't. I shouldn't have to force my way into their space, my issues aren't quite the same as theirs... to be quite honest, even though I'm a fellow 'survivor' I don't know what it's like for them. The issues and stigma's they face aren't the same as the ones I do, I can't really understand what it is they go through, and they don't really understand what it's like for me either. For me, It happened over 10 years and several therapists ago, no I don't want pity and I'm not going to talk about details further. I don't want this to be about me, in a way, it's easier that way, to say it for the men who can't speak rather than for myself. There is a sense of voicelessness, of isolation... a nagging fear to admit what happened to any other person is to drive them away and condemn myself, that the act of admission somehow makes me lesser... a whiner, a lair, pitiful, damaged... that to say it aloud makes it true, when otherwise I could hide in denial and self-blame. Somehow that's easier taking the blame on myself, that I should have been stronger, more firm more... manly I guess.

What makes it even worse is that sometimes the people who seem like they should be our greatest allies, who have shared a similar pain or who are champions against what we've suffered (when it comes to women) are the same people who end up using the very same type of attacks and undermining tactics that chauvinist use against feminism to silence our voices when we try to speak out on those issues occurring to men. In a way I don't blame them, it hurts, it's emotionally charged, it breaks the status quo... and they have been attacked so horribly, so fiercely, so wickedly themselves. They have been marginalized by being told what happened to them is no big deal... because others have used ME as THE excuse why what happens to women is okay, or something we shouldn't care about... how else could they react but with anger to the very thing that is used to justify silencing them and doing nothing to stop whats happening.

That was a very interesting and painful thing to learn... to really understand what it's like to be told, "you getting raped doesn't matter, because it happens to people of my gender." Oh the anger... the rage, the red hot fury... I don't know how feminists are able to stand hearing that over and over and over again, I would snap, I'd go crazy. I hope I never make the mistake of stealing your voice again... Because you deserve that voice... that conversation. It's time we started the difficult work of starting a different conversation about our own issues.

We do get Sexually assaulted, we are abused, and men do have toxic gender stereotypes we are expected to live up to. It's time we pit one of those stereotypes against another and have the courage to get over the whole 'men don't talk about our problems/that doesn't happen to real men' thing to start our own separate discussions about these things happening to men, and what we can do to combat them.

[sheminecrafts]

Looking back at Google+

Google+ is shutting down at last. Google announced today it’s sunsetting its consumer-facing social network due to lack of user and developer adoption, low usage and engagement. Oh, and a data leak. It even revealed how poorly the network is today performing, noting that 90% of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds long. Yikes.

But things weren’t always like this. Google+ was once heralded as a serious attempt to topple Facebook’s stranglehold on social networking, and was even met with excitement in its first days.

2011

June: The Unveiling

The company originally revealed its new idea for social networking in June 2011. It wasn’t Google’s first foray into social, however. Google had made numerous attempts to offer a social networking service of some sort, with Orkut, launched in 2004 and shuttered in fall 2014; Google Friend Connect in 2008 (retired in 2012), and Google Buzz in 2010 (it closed the next year).

But Google+ was the most significant attempt the company had made, proclaiming at the time: “we believe online sharing is broken.”

The once top-secret project was the subject of several leaks ahead of its launch, allowing consumer interest in the project to build.

Led by Vic Gundotra and Bradley Horowitz, Google’s big idea to fix social was to get users to create groups of contacts – called “Circles” – in order to have more control over social sharing. That is, there are things that are appropriate for sharing with family or close friends, and other things that make more sense to share with coworkers, classmates, or those who share a similar interest – like biking or cooking, for example.

But getting users to create groups is difficult because the process can be tedious. Google, instead, cleverly designed a user interface that made organizing contacts feel simpler – even fun, some argued. It was also better than the system for contact organization that Facebook was offering at the time.

Next thing you know, everyone was setting up their Circles by dragging-and-dropping little profile icons into these groups, and posting updates and photos to their newly created micro-networks.

Another key feature, “Sparks,” helped users find news and content related to a user’s particular interests. This way, Google could understand what people liked and wanted to track, without having an established base of topical pages for users to “Like,” as on Facebook. But it also paved the way for a new type of search. Instead of just returning a list of blue links, a search on Google+ could return people’s profiles who were relevant to the topic at hand, matching pages, and other content.

Google+ also introduced Hangouts, a way to video chat with up to 10 people in one of your Circles at once.

At the time, the implementation was described as almost magical. This was due to a number of innovative features, like the way the software focused in on the person talking, for example, and the way everyone could share content within a chat.

Early growth looked promising

Within two weeks, it seemed Google had a hit on its hands, as the network had reached 10 million users. Just over a month after launch, it had grown to 25 million. By October 2011, it reached 40 million. And by year-end, 90 million. Even if Google was only tracking sign-up numbers, it still appeared like a massive threat to Facebook.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s first comment about Google+, however, smartly pointed out that any Facebook competitor will have to build up a social graph to be relevant. Facebook, which had 750 million users at the time, had already done this. Google+ was getting the sign-ups, but whether users would remain active over time was still in question.

There were also early signs that Google+’s embrace of non-friends could be challenging. It had to roll out blocking mechanisms months after launch, as the network became too spammy with unwanted notifications. Over the years that followed, its inability to control the spam became a major issue.

Even as late at 2017, people were still complaining that spam made Google+ unusable.

  July: Backlashes over brands and Real Names policy

In an effort to compete with Facebook, Google+ also enforced a “real names” policy. This angered many users who wanted to use pseudonyms or nicknames, especially when Google began deleting their accounts for non-compliance. This was a larger issue than merely losing social networking access, because losing a Google account meant losing Gmail, Documents, Calendar and access to other Google products, too.

The company also flubbed its handling of brands’ pages, banning all Google business profiles in an ill-conceived fashion – something it later admitted was a mistake.

It wouldn’t fix some of these problems for years, in fact. Eric Schmidt even reportedly once suggested finding another social network if you didn’t want to use your real name – a comment that came across as condescending.

August: Social Search

Google+ came to Google Search in August. The company announced Google+ posts would begin appearing in “social search” results that showed when users were signed in. Google called this new toggle “search plus your world.” But its slice of “your world” was pretty limited, since it couldn’t see into the posts shared among your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter.

2012

January: Forced Google+ account creation

If you can’t beat ’em, force ’em! Google began to require users to have a Google+ account in order to sign-up for Gmail. It was not a user-friendly change, and was the start of a number of forced integrations to come.

March: Criticism mounts

TechCrunch’s Devin Coldewey argued that Google failed to play the long game in social, and was too ambitious in its attempt with Google+. All the network really should have started with was its “+1” button – the clicks would generate piles of data tied to users that could then be searchable, private by default, and shareable elsewhere.

June: Event spam goes viral

Spam remained an issue on Google+. This time, event spam had emerged, thanks to all the nifty integrations between Google+ and mission-critical products like Calendar.

Users were not thrilled that other people were able to “invite” them to events, and these automatically showed up on your Calendar – even if you had not yet confirmed that you would be attending. It made using Google+ feel like a big mistake.

November: Hangouts evolves

The following year after Google+’s launch, there was already a lot of activity around Hangouts – which interestingly, has since become one of the big products that will outlive its original Google+ home.

Video was a tough space to get right – which is why businesses like Skype were still thriving. And while Hangouts were designed for friends and family to use in Google+, Google was already seeing companies adopt the technology for meetings, and brands like the NBA for connecting with fans.

December: Google+ adds Communities

The focus on user interests in Google+ also continued to evolve this year with the launch of Communities – a way for people to set up topic-based forums on the site. The move was made in hopes of attracting more consumer interest, as growth had slowed.

2013

It’s not a destination; it’s a “social layer!” 

Google+ wasn’t working out as a “Facebook killer.” Engagement was low, distribution was mixed, and it seemed it was only being used by tech early adopters, not the mainstream. So the new plan was to double down on Google+ not being a destination website, like Facebook, but rather make it a social layer across Google products.

It had already integrated Google+ with Gmail and Google Contacts, shortly after its launch. In June 2013, it offered a way for people to follow brands’ pages in Gmail.

It then decided to unify Google Talk (aka Gchat) with Google+ Messenger into Hangouts.

It launched a Google+ commenting system for Blogger.

It replaced Google sign-ins on third-party sites with Google+ logins.

It was all a bit much.

September: Google+ infiltrates YouTube

Then, most controversially, it took over YouTube comments. Now, if you wanted to comment on YouTube, you needed a Google+ account.

In other words, if Gmail’s then 200+ million users could juice up Google+, then maybe YouTube’s millions of commenters could, Google hoped.

People were not happy, to say the least.

It was a notable indication of how little love people had for Google+. YouTubers were downright pissed. One girl even crafted a profane music video in response, with lyrics like “You ruined our site and called it integration / I’m writing this song just to vent our frustration / Fuck you, Google Plusssssss!”

Google also started talking about Google+ as an “identity layer” with 500 million users to make it sound big.

2014

April: Vic Gundotra, Father of Google+, leaves Google

Google+ lost its founder. In April 2014, it was announced that Vic Gundotra, the father of Google+, was leaving the company. Google CEO Larry Page said at the time that the social network would still see investment, but it was a signal that a shift was coming in terms of Google’s approach.

Former TechCrunch co-editor Alexia Bonatsos (née Tsotsis) and editor Matthew Panzarino wrote at the time that Google+ was “walking dead,” having heard that Google+ was no longer going to be considered a product, but a platform.

The forced integrations of the past would be walked back, like those in Gmail and YouTube, and teams would be reshuffled.

July: Hangouts breaks free

Perhaps one of the most notable changes was letting Hangouts go free. Hangouts was a compelling product – too important to require a tie to Google+. In July 2014, Hangouts began to work without a Google+ account, rolled out to businesses and got itself an SLA.

July: Google+ drops its real name rule and apologizes

Another signal that Google+ was shifting following Gundotra’s exit was when it abandoned its “real name” policy, three years after the user outrage.

While Google had started rolling back on the real name policy in January of 2012 by opening rules to include maiden names and select nicknames, it still displayed your real name alongside your chosen name. It was nowhere near what people wanted.

Now, Google straight up apologized for its decision around real names and hoped the change would bring users back. It did not. It was too late.

2015

May: Google Photos breaks free

Following Hangouts, Google realized that Google+’s photo-sharing features also deserved to become their own, standalone product.

At Google I/O 2015, the company announced its Google Photos revamp. The new product took advantage of A.I. and machine learning capabilities that originated on Google+. This included allowing users to search photos for persons, places and things, as well as an update on Google+’s “auto awesome” feature, which turned into the more robust Google Photos Assistant.

Later that year, Google Photos had scaled to 100 million monthly active users, after shutting down Google+ Photos in August 2015.

July: Google+ pulled from YouTube

In July 2015, Google reversed course on YouTube integrations with Google+ so YouTube comments stayed on YouTube, and not on Google+.

People were happy about this. But not happy enough to go back to Google+.

November: An All-New Google+ Unveiled

Google+ got a big revamp in November 2015.

Bradley Horowitz, VP, Photos and Streams at Google and Product Director at Google, Luke Wroblewski, had teamed up to redesign Google+ around what Google’s data indicated was working: Communities and Collections. Essentially, the new Google+ was focused on users and their interests. It let people network around topics, but not necessarily their personal connections.

Google also rolled out “About Me” pages as an alternative to sites like About.me.

The new site got a colorful coat of paint, too, but it never regained traction.

2016

January: Google+ pulled from Android Gaming service

Google decoupled Google+ from another core product by dropping the requirement to have an account with the social network in order to use the Google Play Games services.

August: Google+ pulled from Play Store

The unbundling continued, as Google’s Play Store stopped requiring users to have a Google+ account to write reviews.

Horowitz explained at the time that Google had heard from users “that it doesn’t make sense for your Google+ profile to be your identity in all the other Google products you use,” and it was responding accordingly.

August: Hangouts on Air moved to YouTube Live

One of the social network’s last exclusive features, Hangouts on Air – a way to broadcast a Hangout – moved to YouTube Live in 2016, as well.

2017

Google+ went fairly quiet. The site was still there, but the communities were filling with spam. Community moderators said they couldn’t keep up. Google’s inattention to the problem was a signal in and of itself that the grand Google+ experiment may be coming to a close.

January: Classic design phased out

Google+ forced the change over to the new design first previewed in late 2015.

In January 2017, it no longer allowed users to switch back to the old look. It also took the time to highlight groups that were popular on Google+ to counteract the narrative that the site was “dead.” (Even though it was.)

August: Google+ removed share count from +1 button

The once ubiquitous “+1” button launched in spring 2012, was getting a revamp. It would no longer display the number of shares. Google said this was to make the button load more quickly. But it was really because the share counts were not worth touting anymore.

2018

October 2018: Google+ got its Cambridge Analytica moment

A security bug allowed third-party developers to access Google+ user profile data since 2015 until Google discovered it in March, but decided not to inform users. In total, 496,951 users’ full names, email addresses, birth dates, gender, profile photos, places lived, occupation and relationship status were potentially exposed. Google says it doesn’t have evidence the data was misused, but it decided to shut down the consumer-facing Google+ site anyway, given its lack of use.

Data misuse scandals like Cambridge Analytica have damaged Facebook and Twitter’s reputations, but Google+ wasn’t similarly impacted. After all, Google was no longer claiming Google+ be a social network. And, as its own data shows, the network that remained was largely abandoned.

But the company still had piles of user profile data on hand, which were put at risk. That may lead Google to face a similar fate as the more active social networks, in terms of being questioned by Congress or brought up in lawmakers’ discussions about regulations.

In hindsight, then, maybe it would have been better if Google had shut down Google+ years ago.

  from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2OfHXYI via IFTTT

[theinvinciblenoob]

Google+ is shutting down at last. Google announced today it’s sunsetting its consumer-facing social network due to lack of user and developer adoption, low usage and engagement. Oh, and a data leak. It even revealed how poorly the network is performing, noting that 90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds long. Yikes.

But things weren’t always like this. Google+ was once heralded as a serious attempt to topple Facebook’s stranglehold on social networking, and was even met with excitement in its first days.

2011

June: The unveiling

The company originally revealed its new idea for social networking in June 2011. It wasn’t Google’s first foray into social, however. Google had made numerous attempts to offer a social networking service of some sort, with Orkut, launched in 2004 and shuttered in fall 2014; Google Friend Connect in 2008 (retired in 2012); and Google Buzz in 2010 (it closed the next year).

But Google+ was the most significant attempt the company had made, proclaiming at the time: “we believe online sharing is broken.”

The once top-secret project was the subject of several leaks ahead of its launch, allowing consumer interest in the project to build.

Led by Vic Gundotra and Bradley Horowitz, Google’s big idea to fix social was to get users to create groups of contacts — called “Circles” — in order to have more control over social sharing. That is, there are things that are appropriate for sharing with family or close friends, and other things that make more sense to share with co-workers, classmates or those who share a similar interest — like biking or cooking, for example.

But getting users to create groups is difficult because the process can be tedious. Google, instead, cleverly designed a user interface that made organizing contacts feel simpler — even fun, some argued. It also was better than the system for contact organization that Facebook was offering at the time.

Next thing you know, everyone was setting up their Circles by dragging-and-dropping little profile icons into these groups, and posting updates and photos to their newly created micro-networks.

Another key feature, “Sparks,” helped users find news and content related to a user’s particular interests. This way, Google could understand what people liked and wanted to track, without having an established base of topical pages for users to “Like,” as on Facebook. But it also paved the way for a new type of search. Instead of just returning a list of blue links, a search on Google+ could return people’s profiles who were relevant to the topic at hand, matching pages and other content.

Google+ also introduced Hangouts, a way to video chat with up to 10 people in one of your Circles at once.

At the time, the implementation was described as almost magical. This was due to a number of innovative features, like the way the software focused in on the person talking, for example, and the way everyone could share content within a chat.

Early growth looked promising

Within two weeks, it seemed Google had a hit on its hands, as the network had reached 10 million users. Just over a month after launch, it had grown to 25 million. By October 2011, it reached 40 million. And by year-end, 90 million. Even if Google was only tracking sign-up numbers, it still appeared like a massive threat to Facebook.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s first comment about Google+, however, smartly pointed out that any Facebook competitor will have to build up a social graph to be relevant. Facebook, which had 750 million users at the time, had already done this. Google+ was getting the sign-ups, but whether users would remain active over time was still in question.

There also were early signs that Google+’s embrace of non-friends could be challenging. It had to roll out blocking mechanisms months after launch, as the network became too spammy with unwanted notifications. Over the years that followed, its inability to control the spam became a major issue.

Even as late at 2017, people were still complaining that spam made Google+ unusable.

  July: Backlashes over brands and Real Names policy

In an effort to compete with Facebook, Google+ also enforced a “real names” policy. This angered many users who wanted to use pseudonyms or nicknames, especially when Google began deleting their accounts for non-compliance. This was a larger issue than merely losing social networking access, because losing a Google account meant losing Gmail, Documents, Calendar and access to other Google products, too.

The company also flubbed its handling of brands’ pages, banning all Google business profiles in an ill-conceived fashion — something it later admitted was a mistake.

It wouldn’t fix some of these problems for years, in fact. Eric Schmidt even reportedly once suggested finding another social network if you didn’t want to use your real name — a comment that came across as condescending.

August: Social search

Google+ came to Google Search in August. The company announced Google+ posts would begin appearing in “social search” results that showed when users were signed in. Google called this new toggle “search plus your world.” But its slice of “your world” was pretty limited, as it couldn’t see into the posts shared among your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter.

2012

January: Forced Google+ account creation

If you can’t beat ’em, force ’em! Google began to require users to have a Google+ account in order to sign up for Gmail. It was not a user-friendly change, and was the start of a number of forced integrations to come.

March: Criticism mounts

TechCrunch’s Devin Coldewey argued that Google failed to play the long game in social, and was too ambitious in its attempt with Google+. All the network really should have started with was its “+1” button — the clicks would generate piles of data tied to users that could then be searchable, private by default and shareable elsewhere.

June: Event spam goes viral

Spam remained an issue on Google+. This time, event spam had emerged, thanks to all the nifty integrations between Google+ and mission-critical products like Calendar.

Users were not thrilled that other people were able to “invite” them to events, and these automatically showed up on your Calendar — even if you had not yet confirmed that you would be attending. It made using Google+ feel like a big mistake.

November: Hangouts evolves

The following year after Google+’s launch, there was already a lot of activity around Hangouts — which interestingly, has since become one of the big products that will outlive its original Google+ home.

Video was a tough space to get right — which is why businesses like Skype were still thriving. And while Hangouts were designed for friends and family to use in Google+, Google was already seeing companies adopt the technology for meetings, and brands like the NBA for connecting with fans.

December: Google+ adds Communities

The focus on user interests in Google+ also continued to evolve this year with the launch of Communities — a way for people to set up topic-based forums on the site. The move was made in hopes of attracting more consumer interest, as growth had slowed.

2013

It’s not a destination; it’s a “social layer!” 

Google+ wasn’t working out as a “Facebook killer.” Engagement was low, distribution was mixed and it seemed it was only being used by tech early adopters, not the mainstream. So the new plan was to double down on Google+ not being a destination website, like Facebook, but rather make it a social layer across Google products.

It had already integrated Google+ with Gmail and Google Contacts, shortly after its launch. In June 2013, it offered a way for people to follow brands’ pages in Gmail.

It then decided to unify Google Talk (aka Gchat) with Google+ Messenger into Hangouts.

It launched a Google+ commenting system for Blogger.

It replaced Google sign-ins on third-party sites with Google+ logins.

It was all a bit much.

September: Google+ infiltrates YouTube

Then, most controversially, it took over YouTube comments. Now, if you wanted to comment on YouTube, you needed a Google+ account.

In other words, if Gmail’s then 200+ million users could juice up Google+, then maybe YouTube’s millions of commenters could, Google hoped.

People were not happy, to say the least.

It was a notable indication of how little love people had for Google+. YouTubers were downright pissed. One girl even crafted a profane music video in response, with lyrics like “You ruined our site and called it integration / I’m writing this song just to vent our frustration / Fuck you, Google Plusssssss!”

Google also started talking about Google+ as an “identity layer” with 500 million users to make it sound big.

2014

April: Vic Gundotra, Father of Google+, leaves Google

Google+ lost its founder. In April 2014, it was announced that Vic Gundotra, the father of Google+, was leaving the company. Google CEO Larry Page said at the time that the social network would still see investment, but it was a signal that a shift was coming in terms of Google’s approach.

Former TechCrunch co-editor Alexia Bonatsos (née Tsotsis) and editor Matthew Panzarino wrote at the time that Google+ was “walking dead,” having heard that Google+ was no longer going to be considered a product, but a platform.

The forced integrations of the past would be walked back, like those in Gmail and YouTube, and teams would be reshuffled.

July: Hangouts breaks free

Perhaps one of the most notable changes was letting Hangouts go free. Hangouts was a compelling product — too important to require a tie to Google+. In July 2014, Hangouts began to work without a Google+ account, rolled out to businesses and got itself an SLA.

July: Google+ drops its “real name” rule and apologizes

Another signal that Google+ was shifting following Gundotra’s exit was when it abandoned its “real name” policy, three years after the user outrage.

While Google had started rolling back on the real name policy in January of 2012 by opening rules to include maiden names and select nicknames, it still displayed your real name alongside your chosen name. It was nowhere near what people wanted.

Now, Google straight-up apologized for its decision around real names and hoped the change would bring users back. It did not. It was too late.

2015

May: Google Photos breaks free

Following Hangouts, Google realized that Google+’s photo-sharing features also deserved to become their own, standalone product.

At Google I/O 2015, the company announced its Google Photos revamp. The new product took advantage of AI and machine learning capabilities that originated on Google+. This included allowing users to search photos for persons, places and things, as well as an update on Google+’s “auto awesome” feature, which turned into the more robust Google Photos Assistant.

Later that year, Google Photos had scaled to 100 million monthly active users, after shutting down Google+ Photos in August 2015.

July: Google+ pulled from YouTube

In July 2015, Google reversed course on YouTube integrations with Google+ so YouTube comments stayed on YouTube, and not on Google+.

People were happy about this. But not happy enough to go back to Google+.

November: An all-new Google+ unveiled

Google+ got a big revamp in November 2015.

Bradley Horowitz, VP, Photos and Streams at Google and Product Director at Google, Luke Wroblewski, had teamed up to redesign Google+ around what Google’s data indicated was working: Communities and Collections. Essentially, the new Google+ was focused on users and their interests. It let people network around topics, but not necessarily their personal connections.

Google also rolled out “About Me” pages as an alternative to sites like About.me.

The new site got a colorful coat of paint, too, but it never regained traction.

2016

January: Google+ pulled from Android Gaming service

Google decoupled Google+ from another core product by dropping the requirement to have an account with the social network in order to use the Google Play Games services.

August: Google+ pulled from Play Store

The unbundling continued, as Google’s Play Store stopped requiring users to have a Google+ account to write reviews.

Horowitz explained at the time that Google had heard from users “that it doesn’t make sense for your Google+ profile to be your identity in all the other Google products you use,” and it was responding accordingly.

August: Hangouts on Air moved to YouTube Live

One of the social network’s last exclusive features, Hangouts on Air — a way to broadcast a Hangout — moved to YouTube Live in 2016, as well.

2017

Google+ went fairly quiet. The site was still there, but the communities were filling with spam. Community moderators said they couldn’t keep up. Google’s inattention to the problem was a signal in and of itself that the grand Google+ experiment may be coming to a close.

January: Classic design phased out

Google+ forced the change over to the new design first previewed in late 2015.

In January 2017, it no longer allowed users to switch back to the old look. It also took the time to highlight groups that were popular on Google+ to counteract the narrative that the site was “dead.” (Even though it was.)

August: Google+ removed share count from +1 button

The once ubiquitous “+1” button, launched in spring 2012, was getting a revamp. It would no longer display the number of shares. Google said this was to make the button load more quickly. But it was really because the share counts were not worth touting anymore.

2018

October 2018: Google+ got its Cambridge Analytica moment

A security bug allowed third-party developers to access Google+ user profile data since 2015 until Google discovered it in March, but decided not to inform users. In total, 496,951 users’ full names, email addresses, birth dates, gender, profile photos, places lived, occupation and relationship status were potentially exposed. Google says it doesn’t have evidence the data was misused, but it decided to shut down the consumer-facing Google+ site anyway, given its lack of use.

Data misuse scandals like Cambridge Analytica have damaged Facebook and Twitter’s reputations, but Google+ wasn’t similarly impacted. After all, Google was no longer claiming Google+ be a social network. And, as its own data shows, the network that remained was largely abandoned.

But the company still had piles of user profile data on hand, which were put at risk. That may lead Google to face a similar fate as the more active social networks, in terms of being questioned by Congress or brought up in lawmakers’ discussions about regulations.

In hindsight, then, maybe it would have been better if Google had shut down Google+ years ago.

via TechCrunch

[fmservers]

Looking back at Google+

Google+ is shutting down at last. Google announced today it’s sunsetting its consumer-facing social network due to lack of user and developer adoption, low usage and engagement. Oh, and a data leak. It even revealed how poorly the network is today performing, noting that 90% of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds long. Yikes.

But things weren’t always like this. Google+ was once heralded as a serious attempt to topple Facebook’s stranglehold on social networking, and was even met with excitement in its first days.

2011

June: The Unveiling

The company originally revealed its new idea for social networking in June 2011. It wasn’t Google’s first foray into social, however. Google had made numerous attempts to offer a social networking service of some sort, with Orkut, launched in 2004 and shuttered in fall 2014; Google Friend Connect in 2008 (retired in 2012), and Google Buzz in 2010 (it closed the next year).

But Google+ was the most significant attempt the company had made, proclaiming at the time: “we believe online sharing is broken.”

The once top-secret project was the subject of several leaks ahead of its launch, allowing consumer interest in the project to build.

Led by Vic Gundotra and Bradley Horowitz, Google’s big idea to fix social was to get users to create groups of contacts – called “Circles” – in order to have more control over social sharing. That is, there are things that are appropriate for sharing with family or close friends, and other things that make more sense to share with coworkers, classmates, or those who share a similar interest – like biking or cooking, for example.

But getting users to create groups is difficult because the process can be tedious. Google, instead, cleverly designed a user interface that made organizing contacts feel simpler – even fun, some argued. It was also better than the system for contact organization that Facebook was offering at the time.

Next thing you know, everyone was setting up their Circles by dragging-and-dropping little profile icons into these groups, and posting updates and photos to their newly created micro-networks.

Another key feature, “Sparks,” helped users find news and content related to a user’s particular interests. This way, Google could understand what people liked and wanted to track, without having an established base of topical pages for users to “Like,” as on Facebook. But it also paved the way for a new type of search. Instead of just returning a list of blue links, a search on Google+ could return people’s profiles who were relevant to the topic at hand, matching pages, and other content.

Google+ also introduced Hangouts, a way to video chat with up to 10 people in one of your Circles at once.

At the time, the implementation was described as almost magical. This was due to a number of innovative features, like the way the software focused in on the person talking, for example, and the way everyone could share content within a chat.

Early growth looked promising

Within two weeks, it seemed Google had a hit on its hands, as the network had reached 10 million users. Just over a month after launch, it had grown to 25 million. By October 2011, it reached 40 million. And by year-end, 90 million. Even if Google was only tracking sign-up numbers, it still appeared like a massive threat to Facebook.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s first comment about Google+, however, smartly pointed out that any Facebook competitor will have to build up a social graph to be relevant. Facebook, which had 750 million users at the time, had already done this. Google+ was getting the sign-ups, but whether users would remain active over time was still in question.

There were also early signs that Google+’s embrace of non-friends could be challenging. It had to roll out blocking mechanisms months after launch, as the network became too spammy with unwanted notifications. Over the years that followed, its inability to control the spam became a major issue.

Even as late at 2017, people were still complaining that spam made Google+ unusable.

  July: Backlashes over brands and Real Names policy

In an effort to compete with Facebook, Google+ also enforced a “real names” policy. This angered many users who wanted to use pseudonyms or nicknames, especially when Google began deleting their accounts for non-compliance. This was a larger issue than merely losing social networking access, because losing a Google account meant losing Gmail, Documents, Calendar and access to other Google products, too.

The company also flubbed its handling of brands’ pages, banning all Google business profiles in an ill-conceived fashion – something it later admitted was a mistake.

It wouldn’t fix some of these problems for years, in fact. Eric Schmidt even reportedly once suggested finding another social network if you didn’t want to use your real name – a comment that came across as condescending.

August: Social Search

Google+ came to Google Search in August. The company announced Google+ posts would begin appearing in “social search” results that showed when users were signed in. Google called this new toggle “search plus your world.” But its slice of “your world” was pretty limited, since it couldn’t see into the posts shared among your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter.

2012

January: Forced Google+ account creation

If you can’t beat ’em, force ’em! Google began to require users to have a Google+ account in order to sign-up for Gmail. It was not a user-friendly change, and was the start of a number of forced integrations to come.

March: Criticism mounts

TechCrunch’s Devin Coldewey argued that Google failed to play the long game in social, and was too ambitious in its attempt with Google+. All the network really should have started with was its “+1” button – the clicks would generate piles of data tied to users that could then be searchable, private by default, and shareable elsewhere.

June: Event spam goes viral

Spam remained an issue on Google+. This time, event spam had emerged, thanks to all the nifty integrations between Google+ and mission-critical products like Calendar.

Users were not thrilled that other people were able to “invite” them to events, and these automatically showed up on your Calendar – even if you had not yet confirmed that you would be attending. It made using Google+ feel like a big mistake.

November: Hangouts evolves

The following year after Google+’s launch, there was already a lot of activity around Hangouts – which interestingly, has since become one of the big products that will outlive its original Google+ home.

Video was a tough space to get right – which is why businesses like Skype were still thriving. And while Hangouts were designed for friends and family to use in Google+, Google was already seeing companies adopt the technology for meetings, and brands like the NBA for connecting with fans.

December: Google+ adds Communities

The focus on user interests in Google+ also continued to evolve this year with the launch of Communities – a way for people to set up topic-based forums on the site. The move was made in hopes of attracting more consumer interest, as growth had slowed.

2013

It’s not a destination; it’s a “social layer!” 

Google+ wasn’t working out as a “Facebook killer.” Engagement was low, distribution was mixed, and it seemed it was only being used by tech early adopters, not the mainstream. So the new plan was to double down on Google+ not being a destination website, like Facebook, but rather make it a social layer across Google products.

It had already integrated Google+ with Gmail and Google Contacts, shortly after its launch. In June 2013, it offered a way for people to follow brands’ pages in Gmail.

It then decided to unify Google Talk (aka Gchat) with Google+ Messenger into Hangouts.

It launched a Google+ commenting system for Blogger.

It replaced Google sign-ins on third-party sites with Google+ logins.

It was all a bit much.

September: Google+ infiltrates YouTube

Then, most controversially, it took over YouTube comments. Now, if you wanted to comment on YouTube, you needed a Google+ account.

In other words, if Gmail’s then 200+ million users could juice up Google+, then maybe YouTube’s millions of commenters could, Google hoped.

People were not happy, to say the least.

It was a notable indication of how little love people had for Google+. YouTubers were downright pissed. One girl even crafted a profane music video in response, with lyrics like “You ruined our site and called it integration / I’m writing this song just to vent our frustration / Fuck you, Google Plusssssss!”

Google also started talking about Google+ as an “identity layer” with 500 million users to make it sound big.

2014

April: Vic Gundotra, Father of Google+, leaves Google

Google+ lost its founder. In April 2014, it was announced that Vic Gundotra, the father of Google+, was leaving the company. Google CEO Larry Page said at the time that the social network would still see investment, but it was a signal that a shift was coming in terms of Google’s approach.

Former TechCrunch co-editor Alexia Bonatsos (née Tsotsis) and editor Matthew Panzarino wrote at the time that Google+ was “walking dead,” having heard that Google+ was no longer going to be considered a product, but a platform.

The forced integrations of the past would be walked back, like those in Gmail and YouTube, and teams would be reshuffled.

July: Hangouts breaks free

Perhaps one of the most notable changes was letting Hangouts go free. Hangouts was a compelling product – too important to require a tie to Google+. In July 2014, Hangouts began to work without a Google+ account, rolled out to businesses and got itself an SLA.

July: Google+ drops its real name rule and apologizes

Another signal that Google+ was shifting following Gundotra’s exit was when it abandoned its “real name” policy, three years after the user outrage.

While Google had started rolling back on the real name policy in January of 2012 by opening rules to include maiden names and select nicknames, it still displayed your real name alongside your chosen name. It was nowhere near what people wanted.

Now, Google straight up apologized for its decision around real names and hoped the change would bring users back. It did not. It was too late.

2015

May: Google Photos breaks free

Following Hangouts, Google realized that Google+’s photo-sharing features also deserved to become their own, standalone product.

At Google I/O 2015, the company announced its Google Photos revamp. The new product took advantage of A.I. and machine learning capabilities that originated on Google+. This included allowing users to search photos for persons, places and things, as well as an update on Google+’s “auto awesome” feature, which turned into the more robust Google Photos Assistant.

Later that year, Google Photos had scaled to 100 million monthly active users, after shutting down Google+ Photos in August 2015.

July: Google+ pulled from YouTube

In July 2015, Google reversed course on YouTube integrations with Google+ so YouTube comments stayed on YouTube, and not on Google+.

People were happy about this. But not happy enough to go back to Google+.

November: An All-New Google+ Unveiled

Google+ got a big revamp in November 2015.

Bradley Horowitz, VP, Photos and Streams at Google and Product Director at Google, Luke Wroblewski, had teamed up to redesign Google+ around what Google’s data indicated was working: Communities and Collections. Essentially, the new Google+ was focused on users and their interests. It let people network around topics, but not necessarily their personal connections.

Google also rolled out “About Me” pages as an alternative to sites like About.me.

The new site got a colorful coat of paint, too, but it never regained traction.

2016

January: Google+ pulled from Android Gaming service

Google decoupled Google+ from another core product by dropping the requirement to have an account with the social network in order to use the Google Play Games services.

August: Google+ pulled from Play Store

The unbundling continued, as Google’s Play Store stopped requiring users to have a Google+ account to write reviews.

Horowitz explained at the time that Google had heard from users “that it doesn’t make sense for your Google+ profile to be your identity in all the other Google products you use,” and it was responding accordingly.

August: Hangouts on Air moved to YouTube Live

One of the social network’s last exclusive features, Hangouts on Air – a way to broadcast a Hangout – moved to YouTube Live in 2016, as well.

2017

Google+ went fairly quiet. The site was still there, but the communities were filling with spam. Community moderators said they couldn’t keep up. Google’s inattention to the problem was a signal in and of itself that the grand Google+ experiment may be coming to a close.

January: Classic design phased out

Google+ forced the change over to the new design first previewed in late 2015.

In January 2017, it no longer allowed users to switch back to the old look. It also took the time to highlight groups that were popular on Google+ to counteract the narrative that the site was “dead.” (Even though it was.)

August: Google+ removed share count from +1 button

The once ubiquitous “+1” button launched in spring 2012, was getting a revamp. It would no longer display the number of shares. Google said this was to make the button load more quickly. But it was really because the share counts were not worth touting anymore.

2018

October 2018: Google+ got its Cambridge Analytica moment

A security bug allowed third-party developers to access Google+ user profile data since 2015 until Google discovered it in March, but decided not to inform users. In total, 496,951 users’ full names, email addresses, birth dates, gender, profile photos, places lived, occupation and relationship status were potentially exposed. Google says it doesn’t have evidence the data was misused, but it decided to shut down the consumer-facing Google+ site anyway, given its lack of use.

Data misuse scandals like Cambridge Analytica have damaged Facebook and Twitter’s reputations, but Google+ wasn’t similarly impacted. After all, Google was no longer claiming Google+ be a social network. And, as its own data shows, the network that remained was largely abandoned.

But the company still had piles of user profile data on hand, which were put at risk. That may lead Google to face a similar fate as the more active social networks, in terms of being questioned by Congress or brought up in lawmakers’ discussions about regulations.

In hindsight, then, maybe it would have been better if Google had shut down Google+ years ago.

  Via Sarah Perez https://techcrunch.com

[dudence-blog]

Dear Dudence for Way After 24 October 2017

When this post should have published I was drowning my sorrows in a couple bottles of Shiner as the Astros futilely waved their bats in the general direction of Clayton Kershaw being awesome.  Oh well, other people still need questions answered!  Ask your own at AskDearDudence@gmail.com or on Facebook!

My 8-year-old asked me “What is sex?”: I am a very open and honest parent with my inquisitive 8-year-old daughter. We can sometimes have lengthy discussions on a wide range of topics. I try to answer as honestly as possible—within reason, of course, depending on whether it’s appropriate for her to know something just yet.

Dear Help! My 8 Year Old Asked me… did she recently use the toilet while your brother’s girlfriend was bathing?  Nevermind.  Your daughter has some idea what sex is, as evidenced by her recognizing two bears frolicking near each other as possibly sex.  So it’s time for you to suck it up and do your parental duty by explaining it to her in an appropriate manner.  She’s going to keep asking until she gets an acceptable answer, and I guarantee you’ll prefer that answer come from you over the older girls at school or… God Forbid… the internet *shudder*.  NuPru’s “Tell your kid what sex is!” is the sort of answer you expect from a young person who has never had to deal with the thought of explaining the wide wide wide world of sex to a pre-teen.  There is an entire genre of books dealing with puberty and sex, I highly recommend you go to Google or Amazon and start researching them, find a couple that look like they might work, get them, read them yourself, and then prepare for this conversation with your daughter.  Heck, I actually think this is important enough to have the beginning discussion without consulting a whole bunch of resources.  Ask your daughter “Hon, the other day you asked me what sex was, I’d like to know what you think it is.”  Find out what she knows, correct what she’s wrong about, and use that as a starting point for your own discussion with her.  You don’t need to get into the many details of the different things people do with themselves, their partners, or the local minor league semi-pro hockey team.  Touch on the basics in an age appropriate way, but, and this is important, you should let her know this is a subject you want to discuss with her because it is an important part of life.  You don’t need to be perfect or have all the answers.  That she knows you are someone she can trust as a reliable source of information on this topic is what really matters.

Toilet seats: Can you issue a ruling on this? I’m a man. When I use a gender-neutral bathroom to pee, I put the toilet lid down when I’m done. But when there’s no lid, I still put the seat down so if the next person to use the bathroom is a woman (or a man who will be sitting), the seat will already be down and they won’t have to handle the seat. I think men tend to be the ones who make the seats gross in the first place so we should be the ones saddled with this mildest of burdens to occasionally touch toilet seats.

Dear Toilet Seats, put the seat down.  It’s the polite thing to do.  If anyone is putting their ass down in a place they haven’t checked first that’s on them.  You’re asking to have a rattlesnake bite your ass if you’re not checking first (Editor’s Note: AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!).  Don’t let a rattlesnake bite your ass.  That being said, your friends fucking hate you for bringing up this topic.

How do I tell her I’m pregnant?: I am a mother of two perfect, healthy, amazing daughters. I thought I was done having kids and have just started the process of weaning my youngest from breast-feeding. I have been very vocal about not wanting more children. I wanted to really focus on me, my marriage, and raising my two awesome kids.  Well, I just found out I am pregnant with No. 3! Total surprise.  Here is the problem: One of my best friends has been unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant. She is currently doing in vitro fertilization—shots, surgeries, the whole nine yards. I want so badly for her to get pregnant and for this to be an easier road for her.

Dear How Do I… I know how you got pregnant.  You’d think after two kids you’d have figured that one out.  I went to public school in Texas and even I know that banging leads to babies!  If your friend has been struggling to get pregnant to the point where she’s using IVF and other measures you’re not the first, only, or probably last friend who has gotten pregnant while she has been unable to.  Give her the respect to treat her like a friend, not like some sort of defective who needs to have her feelings coddled.  Tell her the same way you’re going to tell everyone: by announcing it on Facebook or Instagram.  That way if she does need some time and privacy to deal with any unpleasant feelings your news generates she can do it in the privacy of her own home.  Unless your way of telling people is to phone them and say “I’m pregnant again and it’s amazing how easy it happened!  I just look at man goo and my ovum fertilizes!  Anyone who can’t get pregnant this easily is probably doing it wrong!”  If that’s how you plan to tell her then I’d reconsider.

Romantic comedy: Last month, my fiancé left me for his ex and canceled our wedding. And I am fine. Now that everything has settled down, I find myself relieved. We were together three years, never fought, and were good on paper together. I used to describe us as OK when the real word was lukewarm. I feel like a fraud for not feeling bad. We lost some deposits, but my ex has lost our entire circle of friends. His family has apologized to me and bad-mouthed his new girl to me. My ex even paid off my car for me as a ‘sorry for leaving you at the altar!’ gesture. His girlfriend wrote me a letter (she seems very nice, actually).

Dear Romantic Comedy, what you do now is let people’s emotions and righteous indignation at his act fade.  It’s been a month, it’s going to take a bit of time for the vicarious shock and hurt of disaffected parties to fade.  You help it along by being honest about how you felt about the relationship; it was fading, you were better on paper than as real people, etc.  Eventually those friends he’s lost will come back around.

Romantic comedy: Last month, my fiancé left me for his ex and canceled our wedding. And I am fine. Now that everything has settled down, I find myself relieved. We were together three years, never fought, and were good on paper together. I used to describe us as OK when the real word was lukewarm. I feel like a fraud for not feeling bad. We lost some deposits, but my ex has lost our entire circle of friends. His family has apologized to me and bad-mouthed his new girl to me. My ex even paid off my car for me as a ‘sorry for leaving you at the altar!’ gesture. His girlfriend wrote me a letter (she seems very nice, actually).

Dear Widow Seeks Celibacy, hummmm… it sounds like you’re fighting this fight on your own.  You’re going to get worn down to frustration and anger that way. Try and find, among your friends and family, people who do understand your choice, why you feel the way you do, and how important it is to you, and explain to them in detail how and why you feel this way.  Get them to start running some interference for you.  The people who are pressuring you to “move on” are, certainly, discussing this amongst themselves.  You need people there when it’s mentioned to intervene and let them know how seriously you mean this.  There is no immutable natural law which prevents a “father figure” from being someone other than “man currently banging mom,” so your kids are not being denied some role model because you’re not dating; that is just a cruel thing to say honestly.  The sad fact is you can’t make people understand, all you can control is your message.  What they do after receiving it is on them.

Feelings for my future fake husband: I’m a manager in the service industry, and I love my job, but insurance under the Affordable Care Act is unaffordable and impractical (the back surgery I need would cost me tens of thousands), and I make too much to qualify for any help.

Dear Feelings for My Future Fake Husband, earlier we had Clueless, now we have the Adam Sandler/Kevin James vehicle “I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry”  I do not like the direction our movie references are going.  We’re going to be in MST3K fodder soon.  Don’t marry Jack because you need insurance.  That being said is there any particular reason you’re keeping your feelings for Jack under wraps?  Actually building a relationship with him based on being open and honest with your feelings probably doesn’t get you into an insurance policy that will offer the surgery you think you need in a timely manner, but he has broached the subject of marriage with you, even if only to facilitate some fraud.  It might not be the worst idea for you to reject his offer of marriage because you can’t make a commitment like that for such a blatant material reason, while at the same time saying you’d like to go out with him sometime.

Is my co-worker joining a cult?: Around two months ago, one of my co-workers mentioned that she was trying a new spiritual practice and has been acting strangely since: She often comes in late or won’t show up at all; she deleted her social media presence; her demeanor is distant and confused instead of bubbly and engaged; and she’s started using terms like “good energy,” “negative energy,” and other similar things in everyday conversations. When she misses work, she says that she was meeting with either a “spiritual counselor” or “godparents.”

Dear Is My Co-Worker… since your co-workers new-found spirituality is adversely impacting your work it’s time to have a discussion with your mutual boss about it.  I will let you know that asking someone “Hey, are you in a cult?” is not likely to elicit an affirmative response, even if they are.  As long as you’re not bothered by the risk of a long explanation about how the Church of Atom can improve your life, do go ahead and ask you co-worker if she’s okay; you’ve noticed she’s been distant, whatever.

To clean or not to clean without permission: Do you think it rude to clean someone else’s home without their permission? When my mother-in-law “Deb” visited from another state, she cleaned our house while I was at work—making me feel ashamed about my housekeeping, throwing out things I still wanted, and reorganizing in what I found to be a confusing fashion. My husband said to just let it go because that’s what his family does and she was just trying to be helpful.

Dear To Clean or Not to Clean… follow your gut and check with Carol, maybe she does want to come home to a clean house, or maybe she wants to come home to the place she left.  Regardless “Deb moving in and rearranging an elderly woman’s home without her permission,” is a bad idea.  Then tell your husband to grow a pair and support you when it comes to establishing boundaries with his mom.

[everettwilkinson]

SCOOP: Kushner fundraises in North Carolina for MEADOWS — SPICER’s going away party at MXDC — MICK MULVANEY profile — MUELLER taps IRS expertise — B’DAY: Dee Dee Myers

SPOTTED: SEAN SPICER being feted last night at MXDC for his White House going away party. In his remarks, Spicer joked that former communications director Mike Dubke, who attended, “Lasted 10 Scaramuccis.” Pic http://bit.ly/2xBT5mP

Good Friday morning, welcome to September and happy Labor Day weekend!

Story Continued Below

SCOOP — JARED KUSHNER quietly escaped to North Carolina last night to raise money at a private fundraiser for REP. MARK MEADOWS (R-N.C.), the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, according to multiple sources familiar with the event. Meadows and Kushner have discussed Israel — part of Kushner’s portfolio, and a key issue for Meadows — and paid leave, which faces long odds in the Republican Congress. Kushner went in a private capacity. WHY DOES THIS MATTER? Easy. Meadows has been a thorn in the side of Republican leaders for years, and is now one of the most powerful men in the Capitol. He has been a key ally of President Donald Trump’s — and an intermediary between conservatives in the House and the White House. Kushner traveling to North Carolina ahead of the long weekend shows the nature of the relationship between Meadows and members of the Trump administration.

NANCY COOK’S UPDATE on tax reform: the White House is expected to unveil a “tax reform relief” website next week. The Administration is also hosting conservative groups at the White House next week, according to a source familiar with the White House tax reform efforts. ONE THING TO WATCH: Cabinet secretaries are expected to hold pro-tax reform events in the coming weeks to bolster Trump’s efforts.

BUZZ — Multiple trade groups and companies engaged in influence campaigns have asked their D.C. consultants to exclude anyone in Houston and areas affected by Harvey from getting their advocacy emails this week, according to a source at a public affairs agency. The source said its clients were trying to be sensitive to victims of the disaster and it would not go well if people affected by the storm get emails like “‘Hey – Take action on this!’ while you’re trying to save your family from raging waters.”

**SUBSCRIBE to Playbook: http://politi.co/2lQswbh

THE LATEST ON HARVEY RELIEF — “GOP aims to approve Harvey relief as soon as next week,” by Rachael Bade and Burgess Everett: “House Republicans are gearing up to pass a multibillion-dollar, short-term Hurricane Harvey relief package as early as next week, according to multiple congressional GOP sources. No plans have been finalized but Republican leaders and the White House are weighing a package of nearly $6 billion to get FEMA through the end of the month. That’s likely to include $5.5 billion in disaster relief funds, plus funding flexibility for FEMA to spend more money if needed, as well as $450 million in small business loans, according to sources familiar with the matter.” http://politi.co/2vNFDtP

HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CALIF.) will travel to Texas this weekend to “survey the damage and make clear to the people of Texas that Congress is with them and stands ready to provide the resources they need to rebuild,” according to a source familiar with his trip. McCarthy will be with members of the Texas delegation in Corpus Christi on Sunday and the Houston area on Monday.

— “Houston left with a toxic mess as Trump relaxes rules,” by Ben Lefebvre and Alex Guillén: “Explosions and fires at a Houston-area chemical plant triggered an evacuation Thursday in a region still in chaos from Hurricane Harvey — and generated new criticism of President Donald Trump’s efforts to repeal the industry’s safety rules. Thursday morning’s blasts at the plant came just a day after a federal court refused to force the Environmental Protection Agency to implement an Obama-era chemical safety regulation that the Trump administration has delayed until 2019. The site’s owner, Arkema, has complained about the burdens of the rule, which the EPA created after a 2015 explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant killed 15 people, injured about 200 others and destroyed hundreds of homes.

“The rule in question probably wouldn’t have prevented Thursday’s explosions, but it’s aimed at reducing the likelihood of future accidents — and ensuring that emergency responders and the public know what types of dangerous substances they might be exposed to. Firefighters and other emergency crews lack much of that crucial information about the plants and factories now awash with floodwater.” http://politi.co/2vOBk1u

— “Gasoline Prices Jump in Harvey’s Wake,” by WSJ’s Alison Sider: “Gasoline prices surged to a two-year high at the pump Thursday after the owner of the largest pipeline in the U.S. reported that shipments are being sharply curtailed, spreading the economic pain from Hurricane Harvey throughout the nation.” http://on.wsj.com/2goc4tl

THE NEW POLITICAL REALITY — NYT’S CARL HULSE: “Hurricane Harvey Shifts Political Winds in Washington”: “Gone are the confrontational talk of a government shutdown and the brinkmanship over the debt limit. Instead, both Mr. Trump and his putative allies in Congress — many of them professed fiscal hawks — are promising an outpouring of federal aid to begin a recovery and rebuilding effort that will last for years and require tens of billions of dollars, if not substantially more, from Washington. …

“Facing a difficult September, deeply divided over spending and what to do about the debt limit, Mr. Trump and congressional leaders may find that a devastating storm has provided them the common cause that has proved so elusive after their failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Mr. Trump is eager to be seen as a competent manager in his first big test in a natural disaster, and a shutdown could shatter that image. Lawmakers want to deliver for the Texas and Louisiana communities pounded by Harvey, a region that is not only a driver of the national economy but a center of Republican strength.” http://nyti.ms/2vP67uS

TRUMP’S CHANGES TO WASHINGTON …

— “Trump administration slashes Obamacare outreach,” by Rachana Pradhan: “Senior HHS officials on Thursday afternoon said the federal government will cut the Obamacare advertising budget from $100 million to $10 million in the upcoming 2018 enrollment season. Funding for so-called navigator organizations that help people enroll will be cut from $63 million last year to roughly $37 million.

“The administration’s decision will be especially consequential in the 39 states that use HealthCare.gov, the federal enrollment website. These states are more reliant on the federal government to fund outreach, unlike the predominantly blue states that operate their own health insurance exchanges and have dedicated budgets for outreach.” http://politi.co/2wrYexj

— “Trump expected to halt Obama’s program but allow some Dreamers to stay temporarily,” by McClatchy’s Anita Kumar and Franco Ordoñez: “President Donald Trump is expected to end an Obama-era program that shielded young people from deportation, but he will likely let the immigrants known as Dreamers stay in the United States until their work permits run out, according to multiple people familiar with the policy negotiation.

“That plan would allow Trump to fulfill a campaign promise to end one of Barack Obama’s signature initiatives while also giving the president a way to keep the pledge he made after Inauguration Day to treat the Dreamers with “great heart,” said sources on both sides of the issue who are involved in the discussions. An announcement could come as soon as Friday, just days before a deadline imposed by 10 states that threatened to sue the U.S. government if it did not stop protecting people brought into the country illegally as children.” http://bit.ly/2iLo506

— FWD.US released a letter signed by the leaders of Marriott, Facebook, Microsoft, GM, Apple, Amazon, Google, Visa, Warren Buffett and more opposed to ending DACA. The letter http://bit.ly/2wWaOs2

ON THE WORLD STAGE — “World in no rush to offer Trump help post-Harvey,”by Nahal Toosi: “As soon as Hurricane Harvey hit, Mexico — a country described by President Donald Trump as a source of rapists and drugs — stepped up to offer boats, food and other aid to the United States. Another offer of help came from Venezuela, a country in severe political and economic crisis that has been repeatedly sanctioned by the Trump administration; it said it could give $5 million in aid. The European Union has proudly noted that it is sharing its satellite mapping with U.S. emergency responders dealing the Harvey’s devastation. This despite Trump’s chastisement of European countries he views as overly dependent on the U.S. military. Then there’s tiny Taiwan, which has reportedly offered $800,000 in aid — a number likely calculated to annoy China as much as to curry favor with Trump.

“But compared to past crises, the list of foreign governments lining up to help the United States this time is relatively short for the time being. And the few countries that have raised their hand may get more out of it – politically, at least – than the U.S. The relative dearth of global goodwill, some analysts say, may stem from anger at Trump over his ‘America First’ approach to the world, which has irked even staunch U.S. allies.” http://politi.co/2vPoCPL

— MATTIS SPEAKS, via Michael Gordon of the NYT: “Mattis Insists He and Trump Are on the Same Page on North Korea”: “‘I was asked if there are any diplomatic efforts left, and I said, ‘Of course,’’ Mr. Mattis said. ‘And diplomatic can include economic sanctions, not just talking. It didn’t contradict anything the president said.’ ‘I agree with the president we should not be talking right now to a nation that’s firing missiles over the top of Japan, an ally,’ Mr. Mattis added.” http://nyti.ms/2xC32k3

****** A message from the American Bankers Association: Nearly 9 in 10 Americans surveyed say it’s important to have banks of all sizes. They recognize that the diversity of America’s banks is a source of strength for our $18 trillion economy. Learn more: http://politi.co/2gcsGrg ******

PALACE INTRIGUE — “During a summer of crisis, Trump chafes against criticism and new controls,” by WaPo’s Phil Rucker and Ashley Parker: “Behind the scenes during a summer of crisis … Trump appears to pine for the days when the Oval Office was a bustling hub of visitors and gossip, over which he presided as impresario. He fumes that he does not get the credit he thinks he deserves from the media or the allegiance from fellow Republican leaders he says he is owed. He boasts about his presidency in superlatives, but confidants privately fret about his suddenly dark moods.

“And some of Trump’s friends fear that the short-tempered president is on an inevitable collision course with White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly. Trump chafes at some of the retired Marine Corps general’s moves to restrict access to him since he took the job almost a month ago, said several people close to the president. They run counter to Trump’s love of spontaneity and brashness, prompting some Trump loyalists to derisively dub Kelly ‘the church lady’ because they consider him strict and morally superior. … Meanwhile, people close to the president said he is simmering with displeasure over what he considers personal disloyalty from National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn … He also has grown increasingly frustrated with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson …

“Friends used to be able to call the White House and be patched directly through to Trump; now those calls are routed through Kelly and do not always make it to the president. Friends used to drop by the West Wing when they had time to kill, wandering to the Oval Office to say hello; now they must have an official appointment — and a clear reason — to visit. The changes are largely welcomed by senior administration officials, who say the president’s time is too valuable to be wasted on chitchat and hangers-on. … The president continues to call business friends and outside advisers, including former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, from his personal phone when Kelly is not around, said people with knowledge of the calls.” http://wapo.st/2iKM9jP

ALEX ISENSTADT SCOOP — “RNC chief of staff resigns amid rash of departures”:“Sara Armstrong, the top staffer at the [RNC], is departing, according to three people familiar with the move — the latest in a string of exits from the committee. Armstrong, the RNC’s chief of staff, is exiting to take a senior-level job at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She had been serving in the chief of staff role since early this year after helping to oversee President Donald Trump’s inauguration planning. Richard Walters, the RNC finance director, will serve as interim chief of staff while the committee seeks a permanent replacement. RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel has begun that search.” http://politi.co/2xCjBfS

RUSSIA WATCH — “Mueller Enlists the IRS for His Trump-Russia Investigation,” by The Daily Beast’s Betsy Woodruff: “Special counsel Bob Mueller has teamed up with the IRS. According to sources familiar with his investigation into alleged Russian election interference, his probe has enlisted the help of agents from the IRS’ Criminal Investigations unit. This unit—known as CI—is one of the federal government’s most tight-knit, specialized, and secretive investigative entities. Its 2,500 agents focus exclusively on financial crime, including tax evasion and money laundering. A former colleague of Mueller’s said he always liked working with IRS’ special agents, especially when he was a U.S. Attorney. And it goes without saying that the IRS has access to Trump’s tax returns—documents that the president has long resisted releasing to the public.” http://thebea.st/2wsI07s

— AP: “Russia says it’s studying U.S. decision to shut its consulate”: “Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Moscow has yet to study the United States’ decision to shut its consulate in San Francisco before considering possible retaliation.

“The U.S. on Thursday abruptly ordered Russia to shutter its San Francisco consulate and close offices in Washington and New York within the next 48 hours, intensifying tensions between the former Cold War foes. The Trump administration described its action as retaliation for the Kremlin’s “unwarranted and detrimental” demand earlier this month that the U.S. cut its diplomatic staff in Russia. Speaking at Russia’s top diplomacy school on Friday, Lavrov said Moscow would react to the decision once it has finished analyzing it. Lavrov defended Russia’s decision to cut U.S. diplomatic staff as reciprocal reaction to the U.S. expelling Russian diplomats last December.” http://bit.ly/2euCP2c

COMING ATTRACTIONS — “Outgoing sheriff Clarke expected to take job in Trump administration,” by Andrew Restuccia, Josh Dawsey, and Eliana Johnson: “David Clarke, the controversial outgoing sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wis., is expected to take a job in the Trump administration, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Clarke resigned as sheriff on Thursday. A regular presence on Fox News, Clarke has become a well-known figure in conservative circles in recent years. He is also an avowed supporter of President Donald Trump, and he spoke at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last year. But he has come under fierce criticism amid a series of deaths in the Milwaukee County prison, including that of Terrill Thomas, who died of dehydration last year after guards turned off the water in his cell.

“Trump has been one of Clarke’s most vocal cheerleaders, and even promoted his book on Twitter earlier this month. It’s unclear what job Clarke will take in the administration, but one of the sources said he’s expected to join the White House. Clarke likely won’t be offered a Senate-confirmed role because his nomination would face opposition from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. ‘We have no announcement at this time,’ White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said. In a text message, Clarke said, ‘Will talk about my future plans next week.’” http://politi.co/2vNOLyC

THE NEW 20-DOLLAR BILL — “Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin just put Harriet Tubman’s role on the $20 bill in question” – CNBC: “Mnuchin told CNBC on Thursday: ‘Ultimately we will be looking at this issue. It’s not something I’m focused on at the moment.’ Instead, he said he was concentrating on making sure any tweaks to U.S. currency bills thwart counterfeiters.” http://cnb.cx/2wX8Ffs

PLAYBOOK ON THE ROAD — A VERY BIG THANK YOU to everyone who sent in photos this past month. It has been a blast to see so many readers keep up with Playbook during adventures around the world. Thank you for making Playbook the amazing community it is and helping us continue to grow and expand our reach.

THIS WEEK’S FEATURED PHOTOS: Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review: “Me at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort in Bernalillo, NM.” Photo credit: former AZ State Rep. Adam Kwasman http://politi.co/2gojblb … Suzanne Struglinski, director of membership engagement, National Press Club: “Greetings from the Stella Maris lodge in Tanzania — the school children are starting their day and I am starting mine, coffee and Playbook. Using up the last hours of WiFi before heading out to climb Kilimanjaro on Friday.” http://politi.co/2gv2QyY … Herbie Ziskend, VP at SKDKnickerbocker and an Obama WH alum: “@playbookplus I’ve succumbed to entering into the drawing (from the cafe car!) #playbookloyal”. http://politi.co/2vwXGJv … Jade Chee Riopelle: “Reading about the threats from North Korea in Playbook, while vacationing in Seoul, South Korea.” http://politi.co/2xC9vvl … Karen Collins: “Reading Playbook to [the statue of Mexican] General Mariano Vallejo on the Sonoma Plaza. He was very interested and, I might say, horrified to hear about Trumpism. He was heartened to hear that California was leading the resistance.” http://politi.co/2eKhX40

Other Playbookers sent in pictures of themselves reading Playbook in Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, Wall Street, Southwest Harbor, Maine, Chichester, England, Quogue, N.Y., Canyon Sainte-Anne, outside Quebec City, the Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada, the Grand Tetons, Madison, Wisc., Paintbrush Canyon in Grand Teton National Park, Zion National Park, San Diego, the Moab in Utah, Cortland NY, Raleigh, NC, Grand Traverse Bay, Michigan, up high in the Andes in Bogota, Colombia, Brentwood, TN, Yankees Stadium, Santiago, Chile, Edinburgh, Scotland. The full gallery http://politi.co/2guIRAt

THE JUICE …

— NORTH TEXAS DAILY: “Donald Trump Jr. will be paid $100,000 to speak at the University of North Texas’ Kuehne Speaker Series on Oct. 24, according to executed contracts between UNT and Trump Jr. obtained by the North Texas Daily through a Freedom of Information Act request. The university has not yet executed a contract for the venue, although the contract lists the location as AT&T Stadium.” http://bit.ly/2eJVZ0T

THE FRIDAY NIGHT CONVERSATION — BOB COSTA’S “WASHINGTON WEEK” GUESTS: Phil Rucker, Abby Livingston, Geoff Bennett and Jeanne Cummings

TRUMP’S FRIDAY — Trump is speaking on the phone with President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan at 11 a.m. At 1 p.m., he will receive an update on Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts.

PHOTO DU JOUR: Deidra Cate (left) hugs Vice President Mike Pence at the First Baptist church of Rockport, Texas, on Aug. 31. Cate said parents are extremely concerned about the state of the schools in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey and want to get them running as soon as possible. | Rachel Denny Clow/Corpus Christi Caller-Times, via AP

VALLEY TALK — “Garcetti isn’t ruling out a 2018 run for governor or senator in California,” by Isaac Dovere: “Eric Garcetti started the week toying with a 2020 presidential run on a trip to New Hampshire, but the Los Angeles mayor is still keeping his options open for a 2018 run closer to home. That includes next year’s open governor’s race, and possibly a Senate race, should Sen. Dianne Feinstein decide not to seek a fifth term. ‘I never say no,’ Garcetti said this week when asked about the governor’s race, which he said he’ll make a decision about in September. ‘I realize that I need to, because I have enough people who have said, ‘Are you in that race, or not?’ I need to definitively give them an answer. I need to definitively think it through.’” http://politi.co/2guS0cb

MICK MULVANEY PROFILE – MICHAEL GRUNWALD in the Sept./Oct. POLITICO 50 issue of POLITICO Magazine, “Mick the Knife: The most important player in Trump’s government is the one most committed to slashing it to the bone. Meet Mick Mulvaney, who proudly calls himself a ‘right-wing nutjob’ and is quietly—and radically—trying to dismantle the federal bureaucracy”: “Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump’s budget director, walked into the Oval Office in early May on a longshot mission. The slash-government conservative wanted to persuade the president to break one of his most popular campaign promises. During his populist run for the White House, Trump had vowed to leave Social Security and Medicare alone. …

“Mick the Knife brought a cut list to his meeting in the Oval. ‘Look, this is my idea on how to reform Social Security,’ the former South Carolina congressman began. ‘No!’ the president replied. ‘I told people we wouldn’t do that. What’s next?’ ‘Well, here are some Medicare reforms,’ Mulvaney said. ‘No!’ Trump repeated. ‘I’m not doing that.’ ‘OK, disability insurance.’ This was a clever twist. Mulvaney was talking about the Social Security Disability Insurance program, which, as its full name indicates, is part of Social Security. But Americans don’t tend to think of it as Social Security, and its 11 million beneficiaries are not the senior citizens who tend to support Trump. ‘Tell me about that,’ Trump replied. ‘It’s welfare,’ Mulvaney said. ‘OK, we can fix welfare,’ Trump declared.

“Sure enough, the Trump budget plan that Mulvaney unveiled a few weeks later would cut about $70 billion in disability benefits over a decade, mostly through unspecified efforts to get recipients back to work. That may sound like welfare reform, but the program isn’t welfare for the poor; it’s insurance for workers who pay into Social Security through payroll taxes. The episode suggests Trump was either ignorant enough to get word-gamed into attacking a half-century-old guarantee for the disabled, or cynical enough to ditch his promise to protect spending when it didn’t benefit his base.” http://politi.co/2iL3AAN

SPOTTED: Mick Mulvaney and a group of staffers having dinner and drinks at Mission last night

TRUMP’S WHITE HOUSE — “Trump not rushing to find a permanent head for DHS,” by Andrew Restuccia and Eliana Johnson: “A month after former Homeland Security secretary John Kelly decamped for the White House, President Donald Trump has yet to formally interview any potential candidates to replace the retired general as the head of the department. With large swaths of Texas underwater and top staffed focused on pushing tax reform, the president is taking his time filling the vacant Cabinet post at DHS. Though White House aides have whittled the contenders down to a final shortlist, it could be weeks before Trump finalizes his choice, according to a senior administration official and a homeland security expert familiar with the conversations.” http://politi.co/2eo51QA

–“Trump Energy official who said controversial comments were result of hacking resigns,” by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski: “William C. Bradford, a Trump administration appointee who heads the Energy Department’s Office of Indian Energy, resigned Thursday after claiming this week inflammatory comments that appeared to have been made by him online were the result of hacking. … CNN’s KFile reported this week on evidence that suggested that Bradford made inflammatory comments through an account on the online commenting service Disqus. In response to the story, Bradford told CNN’s KFile that he couldn’t comment ‘on an ongoing federal investigation into multiple cyber attacks and Internet crimes committed against me over the past several years, to include email intrusions, hacking, and impostors in social media.’ The account that appeared to be Bradford questioned Obama’s birth certificate and called the former president’s mother ‘a fourth-rate p&*n actress and w@!re.’” http://cnn.it/2wrVCj1

— “Trump civil rights official listed Clinton attacks as qualification on resume,” by Kim Hefling: “The controversial attorney who runs the Education Department’s civil rights division cited her work attacking Bill and Hillary Clinton at the top of her resume when she applied to work for President Donald Trump, according to a copy of the document obtained by POLITICO. Candice Jackson, who brought a group of women who had accused President Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct to a presidential debate last year between Trump and Hillary Clinton, listed that event as one of her ‘top five qualifications’ for working in the administration.

“At the Education Department, Jackson has taken a prominent role helping Education Secretary Betsy DeVos shape federal policy pertaining to protections for transgender students and the handling of campus sexual assault cases. She drew fire in June for telling The New York Times that 90 percent of campus sexual assault cases ‘fall into the category of “we were both drunk.”’ On her résumé, Jackson noted that she had steadfastly attacked Hillary Clinton’s ‘lifelong corruption and hypocritical claim to defend women and children’ in ads and videos and brought a ‘unique perspective due to also being a gay Republican.’” http://politi.co/2vP65n3

****** A message from the American Bankers Association: America’s banks play a critical role in generating economic growth while delivering safety and convenience for customers. The two million women and men who work for America’s banks safeguard $12.9 trillion in deposits and originate $2.4 trillion in home loans. They provide $331 billion in loans to small businesses and $175 billion in loans to farmers and ranchers. Banks’ fraud protection measures stop at least $11 billion in attempted fraud each year. And thousands of banker volunteers deliver financial literacy lessons annually to millions of young Americans to help them become financially successful adults. Find out more at www.aba.com/AmericasBanks, #AmericasBanks ******

HMM — “Trump Dumped U.S. Ambassador to Amman at Request of King,” by Foreign Policy’s Dan De Luce and Ruby Mellen: “Soon after taking office, President Donald Trump pushed out the U.S. ambassador to Jordan after complaints from the country’s king, even though there was no evidence the diplomat had misrepresented Washington’s policies. King Abdullah II had expressed similar gripes to the previous administration, but President Barack Obama and his deputies rebuffed requests for the ambassador’s removal, backing up Alice Wells, the career diplomat in the job, sources familiar with the events told Foreign Policy. Several former and current diplomats told FP that the Jordanian king had a tense relationship with Wells, mainly because he strongly objected to the Obama administration’s pursuit of a nuclear agreement with Tehran.” http://atfp.co/2wWJeLb

FOR YOUR RADAR — “Republicans Want to Sideline This Regulator. But It May Be Too Popular,” by NYT’s Steve Eder, Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Stacy Cowley: “With the election of President Trump, the nation’s consumer watchdog agency faced a quandary: how to shield the Obama-era institution from a Republican administration determined to loosen the federal government’s grip on business. In the weeks after the election, Richard Cordray, the Democrat who leads the agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, directed his staff to compile stories from ordinary Americans thanking it for resolving complaints. The anecdotes, which he solicited in an email to share with the Trump transition team, could provide a counterpoint to critics who had cast the agency as a regulatory scourge on the economy. And implicit in his request to employees was the belief that some accolades would come from parts of the country that helped elect Mr. Trump — evidence that the popularity of consumer safeguards transcends party divisions.” http://nyti.ms/2gnWFJf

MEDIAWATCH — “Kris Kobach’s new job: Columnist for Breitbart,” by Kansas City Star’s Bryan Lowry: “Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is now a regular columnist on the far-right news site run by President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist. Kobach, a candidate for Kansas governor who is running on a platform of combating illegal immigration, published his first article for Breitbart.com in June — a piece that tied refugees to terrorism. He has published six more pieces since then and more are on the horizon. Kobach, who previously hosted a talk radio show in Kansas City, said Breitbart approached him about writing a regular column in June. … ‘I get paid for my columns … just like you’re paid,’ Kobach said when asked about compensation without specifying the amount he receives per column.” http://bit.ly/2wnrerI

FIRST PERSON – “Death of Diana: Times Journalists Recall Night of the Crash,” by Elisabeth Bumiller, Stephen Farrell, Warren Hoge, Sarah Lyall and Craig R. Whitney in the NYT: “The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, on Aug. 31, 1997, shook Britain and the world. The New York Times asked five journalists who covered the deadly car accident, which also killed Diana’s companion, Dodi al-Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, to share their memories and reflections.” http://nyti.ms/2eohcwJ

SPOTTED — @anniekarni: “Obama and Malia just left dinner at Good Stuff Eatery on the Hill. Tiny surprised crowd on the sidewalk as he left.” … Agriculture Secretary Perdue at the Lindt USA headquarters in Stratham, NH yesterday – pic http://bit.ly/2wnRjqE

SPOTTED at Tom Kaplan’s birthday party last night at Right Proper Brewing Co: Zeke Miller, Matt Flegenheimer, Cassie Spodak, Vaughn Hillyard, Alan He, Lissandra Villa, Alexis Levinson, Walt Cronkite, Liz Goodwin, Rebecca Ruiz, Mary Ellen McIntire, Kailani Koenig, Josh Dawsey, Matt Nussbaum

RNC COMMS SHOP HIRES – Cassie Smedile has been named national press secretary and Blair Ellis as deputy national press secretary. Smedile most recently was comms director for Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Ellis was a press secretary for the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

TRANSITION — Sarah Demarest is joining “CBS This Morning” as a supervising producer, based in Washington. She most recently spent over a decade at the “Today Show”.

CONGRATS — Julie Eddy, Doris Matsui’s chief of staff, an alum of the Clinton White House and a Cherokee, received the National Statesmanship Award from the Cherokee Nation last night. Both her children — Henry, 7, and Lilly, 5 — traveled to Tahlequah, OK at the Cherokee Nation for the ceremony. Pic http://bit.ly/2wos6N3

SUNDAY SO FAR – CBS’ “Face the Nation” (guest host: Margaret Brennan): Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner … Victor Cha. Political panel: Nancy Youssef, Margaret Talev, David Sanger, Ruth Marcus

–NBC’s “Meet the Press”: Sylvester Turner. Panel: Matthew Continetti, Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Susan Page, Kristen Welker

–“Fox News Sunday”: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Panel: Jason Chaffetz, Jeff Mason, Mike Needham, Marie Harf

–CNN’s “Inside Politics” with John King: Michael Shear, Molly Ball, Karoun Demirjian, Sara Murray

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Dee Dee Myers, EVP and director of corporate communications at Warner Bros. and former WH press secretary. What she’s reading:“I’m reading the manuscript of ‘Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution’ by Todd S. Purdum [Dee Dee’s husband, who also works at POLITICO], due out March 6. It’s a fascinating story of a partnership that was somehow unlikely and inevitable. Their music gained a foothold in the popular culture of its day that endures to this day — and it changed American musical theater forever.” Read her Playbook Plus Q&A: http://politi.co/2wshbA3

BIRTHDAYS: Steve Hildebrand … Sam Salkin, the pride of 2140 G Street (hat tip: Joe from the Deli) … WSJ’s Kate Davidson … Xochitl Hinojosa, DNC comms director (h/t hubby Eloy Martinez and Jesse Ferguson) … Politico star Tara Palmeri … Joe Toohey … Liz Bartolomeo, comms director and senior adviser to Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) (h/t Heather Purcell) … Sue Hensley, EVP of comms and public affairs at American Trucking Associations (h/ts Sean Spicer and Stuart Roy) … Rep. Al Green (D-Tex.) … former Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R-Fla.) … C-SPAN Capitol Hill producer Craig Caplan … Bloomberg’s Lauren Kiel … Jackie Falk … John Gundlach … Yolanda Caraway … Al Thomson … Politico’s John Samira … Jillian Sobeck … John Jones … Radio free Asia chief Libby Liu … BGR Dem chief Jonathan Mantz … Neil Volz … Alexander Thomson … Wayne Crews … MSNBC’s Amitai Perline … Sacramento Bee cartoonist Jack Ohman … Kenny Mayne … Mark Hudspeth, producer at “CBS Sunday Morning” … Andrew Satter … Jessica Estepa … Patricia Barba … Susie Saavedra … McKinsey’s Rahul Raina …

… Chris Fleming, media engagement director at Smoot Tewes Group … David Natonski … Christopher Massicotte … Alexandra Dufour … Trevor Thomas … Vanity Fair editor at large Cullen Murphy … Courtney Jamieson Dorning … Bear Tullis … Connie Haddeland … Karl Ahlgren … Dan Bernal … Teresa Martinez … William Beutler … Ryan Smith … Kelly Plunnecke … Debbie Price … June Plunnecke … Richard Howard … Stephen Krasner … Arsalan Iftikhar … Christopher Healy … Al Thompson … Sigurd Neubauer … Jason Atlee … Chip Borman … Ryuta Araki … Eve Gittelson … Eric Andersen … Terry Nicolosi … Grant Woodard (h/ts Teresa Vilmain)

****** A message from the American Bankers Association: America’s banks play a critical role in generating economic growth while delivering safety and convenience for customers. The two million women and men who work for America’s banks safeguard $12.9 trillion in deposits and originate $2.4 trillion in home loans. They provide $331 billion in loans to small businesses and $175 billion in loans to farmers and ranchers. Banks’ fraud protection measures stop at least $11 billion in attempted fraud each year. And thousands of banker volunteers deliver financial literacy lessons annually to millions of young Americans to help them become financially successful adults. Find out more at www.aba.com/AmericasBanks, #AmericasBanks ******

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[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/just-maurice-symonette-aka-donald-trumps-michael-black-man/

Just who is Maurice Symonette aka Donald Trump's 'Michael the Black Man'?

Who is Maurice Symonette? In another charlatan tactic employed by the Trump administration, the individual also known as "Michael the Black Man" is a political propaganda character that serves as a distraction, making Trump and the Republicans look grossly incompetent and devastatingly desperate.

  Since his Phoenix rally earlier this week, Trump has reintroduced us to his new campaign tool – Symonette, a.k.a Maurice Woodside. Many outlets have already profiled the man holding a sign that said, “Blacks for Trump,” digging deep into his background as a criminal, cult follower, and militant negro. Along with holding his perfectly placed sign (right behind Trump in view of all the cameras) Symonette also wore a t-shirt that let the world know, “Trump and Republicans are not racist.” The one-time cult member who belonged to Temple of Love in the 90’s, looks to be a reformed pro-black activist who now makes YouTube videos about the goodness of white people, the dangers of Cherokee Native Americans (who are the real KKK racist slave masters per Symonette) and the evils of Hilary Clinton and her Islamic State connections. The man also considers white people “White Gentiles who are Black Peoples Republican Emancipators,” which is why I am sure he fits right into Trump’s overall plan to win the White House a second term. While I understand but do not agree with, white people’s move in having a token black person as a means to show other black people that they aren’t that bad, it rarely ever works. And when you use any ole person for the sake of “representation” it becomes more of a joke than a serious attempt to reach minorities. Such is the case with Michael the Black Man and Trump.

  A part of me doesn’t even put all the blame on Symonette. The man clearly has signs of someone who deals with mental illness. I would not be surprised if he genuinely believes what he says and Trump and his people happened to stumble upon him and said, “Just go with it.” The other part of me believes that Trump has paid this man to be the face of his 2020 campaign that is aimed at getting black people to finally accept him. But speculation aside, this just looks bad on all sides because instead of focusing on dealing with the issues this country is facing, Donald Trump is on the campaign trail… for 2020.

  The real focus should not be on the black man holding the sign because anyone in their right mind isn't paying him any attention. I actually laugh at the fact that Trump's people thought it was a good idea to let him be on camera. The outrage, anger or however people are feeling about the situation should be aimed at the man who 53% of college educated white women voted into office. Why is the president of the United States, who just took office a little over eight months ago, spending time at campaign rallies? You won Trump! You should be focused on leading this country to greatness, not maintaining or getting support for 2020. I mean, if you were smart, you would understand that being presidential and acting like an adult who holds the important position in America is what will secure a bid for you in the next election. But I digress because the key word here is “smart” and from what I’ve seen, intelligence is just not something at work in the White House right now.

  As I said earlier, this is a distraction. We have become so consumed with the things Trump does, that weighs no kind of significance to the overall well being of the nation, we don’t see these antics for what they are. I 100% guarantee you that white people are laughing at Symonette and if they were wise, they would have no business with him. His presence only adds to the lack of credibility already associated with #45’s presidency. Michael the Black Man is a conspiracy theorist who no member of the sane voting population gives any real thought to because he’s so all over the place. Nothing he says can be considered valid.

  All of this just speaks to the absurdity that is our country’s leaders right now. This is embarrassing. It is not funny and from my point of view, only serves to show how lost we truly are under Trump’s rule. Nobody who is serious about their position as president of a country would embrace this foolery let alone allow it to be a fixture at his rally.

  Alas, what more can you expect from the circus that is America 2017? Maurice Symonette is a non-factor who doesn’t deserve our attention. He doesn’t represent on any level how black people feel now or will in the future about Trump.

5 Facts About Michael Symonette

His Site Gods2.com Leads Visitors to HonestFacts.com, a Site Listing Conspiracy Theories About the Cherokee Indians

Symonette’s site Gods2.com leads visitors to HonestFacts.com. That site is one long page listing strange conspiracy theories about the Cherokee Indians and Hillary Clinton. The first one claims that the “Real K K K Slave Master Revealed & is the Cherokee!” Symonette claims that Trump will “Solve America’s debt” and “make all Indians pay Taxes!” The page also alleges that President Barack Obama, Clinton, and Senator Al Franken are Cherokee and Republican Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, along with Mitt Romney are “White hidden MORMOM/CHEROKEES.” “ Republican Senators who’re against Trump’s HealthCare Policy & all of his Policies are Mormon Cherokee’s. They are the Racist that believe White Gentiles & Black Republicans are Idiots & are not worthy to Rule,” the site reads. Symonette also has a YouTube channel, where he has videos that go with many of his theories. He also refers to the Confederate Battle Flag as the “Cherokee Democrat Flag.”

Symonette Was a Member of the Violent Yahweh ben Yahweh Cult Led by Hulon Mitchell Jr.

According to the Miami New Times, Symonette was a member of the Yahweh ben Yahweh cult. The cult was led by Hulon Mitchell Jr., who adopted the name “Yahweh ben Yahweh” and spent 11 years in prison from 1990 to 2001 on violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Mitchell and other members of the group were convicted of conspiracy in over a dozen murders. Symonette himself was charged with allegedly conspiring in two murders, but he was found not guilty. During the trial, his brother claimed Symonette helped beat a man who later died and stuck a stick in another man’s eye. The Southern Poverty Law Center called the cult a “notorious black supremacist religious sect” and feared it was growing after Mitchell’s death in 2007. Symonette, who was “Maurice Woodside” before joining Yahweh Ben Yahweh, explained to the Miami New Times in 2011 that he first met Mitchell around 1980, when he was 21 years old. He also said he was inspired by seeing Roots. “I was shocked and I was upset, so I became a warrior against the whites,” he told the paper. “I went insane.” Yahweh Ben Yahweh is still a major influence in Symonette’s life, as evidenced by HonestFact.com. He even includes a disclaimer to show that he was not convicted of criminal charges related to the cult. “BLACKS FOR TRUMP founder Maurice Symonette/Michael the Black Man was found innocent in YAHWEH Case after witnesses admitted they we’re lying to get a good Deal from the Gov. So after being questioned by YAHWEH Atty,” his site reads. “Congressman Alcee Hastings who caught Rosier lying about seeing an incident Sept.17.1983 but could not have seen this because Atty. Hastings proved that he was in Jail between Feb.1983 until Jan.1984 in Jacksonville Fla. at the time of of the made up incident in that never happened in Miami! google this!”

  Symonette Also Organized Blacks Behind Obama & Claimed Obama Wanted to Kill Him

In 2008, Symonette made a name for himself as the leader of “Blacks Against Obama.” In an October 2008 interview with the Miami New Times, Symonette also claimed Obama wanted him assassinated. “This was supposed to be an assassination,” Symonette told the Miami New Times. “Obama’s people were behind it.” Symonette claimed that on September 25, he was getting on a bus to go to Mississippi and protest the first presidential debate with 30 other men. A man ran out of the shadows with an AR-15 and grabbed Symonette’s brother. “I bit his leg, right above his knee. He screamed and let the AR go,” Symonette claimed. Symonette told the New Times that two other gunmen came out. He described the scene as if it was an action movie. “I got up and started running in a zigzag, and one of my shoes done came off,” he told the paper. “One of the bullets … grazed my head, on the right side. When I put my hand there, I felt all the blood.” Police did report a shooting and Symonette’s brother Al was taken to a hospital because a bullet went “straight through his arm.” The gunman was identified as Taytreon Edwards, 25, and the two other gunmen were never found. Symonette told the New Times that a friend heard one of the gunmen say, “Where is the guy that Obama wants dead?”

Symonette Said He ‘Completely’ Despises Hillary Clinton

After appearing at Trump’s Lakeland, Florida rally in October, Symonette explained to the Miami New Times why he couldn’t support Hillary Clinton. “One reason is because Hillary’s last name is Rodham, and their family members are Rothchilds, who enslaved 13,000 slaves as collateral,” he told the paper. “She’s also on camera kissing the head of the Ku Klux Klan and saying, ‘That’s my mentor.’ That’s all on my website.” He added, “I completely despise Hillary. I hope the very worst for her chances for the presidency.” Symonette has been charged with four felonies in his life but never convicted. In 2009, he was charged with grand theft auto. In January 2017, he was charged with violating a city ordinance for a noise complaint.

Symonette Once Opened a Rick Santorum Rally & Was Praised by Glenn Beck

Symonette earned the attention of other conservatives before Trump. Back in 2010, MediaMatters noted that Glenn Beck praised him and other “black conservatives taking a real stand in the face of adversity.” The Miami New Times also notes that Symonette was invited to a January 2012 Rick Santorum rally in Florida. Symonette, who was gaining attention among the Tea Party, told the audience that Democrats are “Nazis” in disguise. “The Democrats, they’re the worst thing that ever happen to the black man,” Symonette told the crowd. “They’re the slave masters.” In 2011, The Miami New Times reported that one of Symonette’s nephews, Adolphus, was accusing him of trying to create another cult. “Adolphus is just telling you what he thinks will get him out of prison,” Symonette told the paper.

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