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My apology is for claiming that you were a known Darwin alt, rather than a suspected one.
At no point in this conversation have I claimed or even implied that you are a liar. You have stated that you are not a Darwin alt, and I have accepted that claim at face value, and offered an apology for mistakenly claiming otherwise, which seems to me to be the exact opposite of accusing you of dishonesty. A big part of the reason I'm willing to do that is that Darwin's previous alt made no particular effort to deny his identity when asked directly, so the denial and subsequent argument isn't a good match for his pattern of behavior. Unfortunately, you appear to have interpreted my willingness to withdraw the claim as proof that I made the claim flippantly with zero evidence, and then interpret my offer to explain the evidence prompting the claim as proof that my apology is insincere.
Imagine that everyone at this book club wears masks and voice-changers to conceal their identities. Imagine that part of the job for the people running the book club is to identify people who've been kicked out for bad behavior and are trying to sneak back in, to prevent them from causing more trouble.
The situation here differs in several particulars.
Someone else starts a conversation about how the authorities suck, and how they kicked out Bob, one of the best members the book club ever had. I point out that Bob was actually quite badly behaved, and also that he was not kicked out and actually is still here; he stopped wearing the green mask, and now sometimes he wears the orange mask, and sometimes he wears the purple mask. You, in the purple mask, say, "Hey! Don't call me Bob! Why would you call me Bob! I'm not Bob!" I apologize and state that I appear to have been mistaken about the purple mask, you do not accept my apology, and the above transpires.
It seems to me that there are some crucial differences between these two descriptions, and that mine is considerably more accurate to the nature of the preceding conversation.
Beyond this, you have written much here, but it seems to me that the matter is quite simple. You can accept my apology or not, as you please, and you can ask for the evidence that prompted the original statement or not, as you please. I am still not clear on whether you would like it presented, or whether you would consider that a further attempt to smear you, and I am attempting to respect your wishes to the extent that is possible.
It is obvious that you have strong feelings about the matter, but it is not obvious why I should share those feelings. If you think I am a coward, that my apology is made in bad faith, that I am a bad mod, a flippant asshole, deliberately attempting to drive out blues, breaking the rules, making statements that beggar belief, etc, etc, that is your prerogative; I do not prefer that people hold such opinions of me, but I have also learned that my control over the thoughts of others is sharply limited. If you think I am violating the letter or the spirit of the forum's rules, report me to the other Mods, or make your argument to the forum at large, as you please. If you want to know what the Darwin pattern looks like, I'll note again that I've linked a previous discussion above and have offered to discuss it with whoever is interested. If you want to know why I (and apparently others) have mistaking you for Darwin, ask for details and I'll attempt to provide them. As it stands, you appear to be stating that you find the offer of such details extremely offensive, and also find the failure to present such details extremely offensive, and it seems to me that you cannot have it both ways.
At the end of the day, your emotions are your own business and I decline to involve myself in them further.
An apology where someone can't explain the negative consequences of the behavour they're apologizing for is no real apology. I will reiterate that I find this behaviour cowardly and unbecoming. Since you seem to be confused about my preferences I will again state them openly: apologize if you really, legitimately think you did something wrong and understand what it was and can articulate it to me. Don't if you don't, and defend your claim appropriately. Since you are unwilling or unable to do the former up til now, I have to assume that your apology is insincere, as your defense of your behaviour implies. So do the latter full throatedly instead of half heartedly and provide your evidence.
edit: apologies like yours have no predictive power about your future actions. Since in your words your error was merely "overconfidence", not an attempted lie/smear, and you haven't demonstrated an understanding of how such actions could affect me, I don't see why you would feel the need in the future to not do exactly the same thing over again.
I find your mincing of words to be inaccurate and offensive. You have somehow "not claimed or even implied that I am a liar" while claiming that you "know" that I am someone who I claim not to be in public, and have done so previously. What would you call this, if not claiming that I am a liar or dishonest?? You have "taken my claim at face value" while defending to the death that there was nothing wrong with your initial observation except "overconfidence".
You did make the claim flippantly with zero evidence. This is an undisputed fact that you are free to rectify at any time, you have not provided a single shred of evidence other than your vaguest feeling that our posts are similar somehow. Make your effort post about my contributions to the forum to prove your case. What I find offensive is your flipflopping on the matter. According to you, you have both A) done something wrong and b) your analysis is actually good, you were merely overconfident, you have no systemic bias in your moderator actions, and it is somehow me being overly "emotional" to request a sincere apology.
You are still dancing around the consequences of your behaviour. You haven't answered: Why did you decide to smear my account like this? What are the consequences of discrediting my account by sharing false information?? Could it perhaps be that you wanted to produce a chilling effect and discredit the words that I write with no legitimate basis? If this is not true, attempt to explain how it is not. You have not done this.
If you refuse to either apologize sincerely or defend your claim in proportion to how inflammatory it is, I will indeed pursue other avenues or be forced to throw up my hands and accept this cowardly treatment. At the end of the day, your behaviour as a moderator is not your own business.
Edit: you have also decided to substitute your own altered version of my thought experiment instead of engaging at all with the meat of the issue: what effect do you think your words have on people who speak like Bob? Is it acceptable to you to unfairly impugn anyone as being Bob who's not willing to go to the lengths I have to reply with paragraphs and paragraphs to extract a half hearted apology on the matter? Does your apology say anything about how you will treat other people who speak like Bob? How should the book club authority's behaviour change to avoid this happening?
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