Dick Strawkins wrote:some guy wrote:Nugent wrote:Coincidentally, PZ did this shortly before the Freethought Blogs Executive Committee investigated and took disciplinary action against one of its bloggers for repeated plagiarism. In light of this, I have now emailed Freethought Blogs to ask for details of the procedures by which I could ask the Executive Committee to investigate this complaint against PZ.
Hmm... I think I see where this is going.
By making this request, he has signaled that he is willing to broaden his target beyond just PZ to FtB as an entity.
After all, FtB has recently shown that they have set ethical standards for the bloggers on their network, and that they can (and will) take steps when those standards are breached to preserve the reputation of their brand. So, in essence, Michael is now putting them on notice that allowing PZ to duck this issue is, in essence, a statement by FtB that such behavior is fine.
What on earth can he expect from this 'executive committee'?
It's just Peezus, Ed, Greta and Ophelia.
They'll either ignore him or tell him to fuck off.
In order for Peezus to withdraw his accusation against Nugent he'd have to admit he was wrong in saying that Slymepitters are rapists.
He's sooner do the Hajj.
Yes, but up until now, it has been easy for others to treat this as a Michael vs PZ "spat" and just stay out of it.
I could be wrong, but my impression of Ed is that (at least relative to most of the other bloggers over there) he is more likely to be able to look past his own biases and prejudices and consider the issue objectively.
In any event, if they blow him off, now the weekly post from the head of Atheist Ireland will be about FtB, not just PZ. It won't be just PZ's reputation that will be tarnished, Michael will ensure that now it will be tarnishing FtB's. Although I'm sure Ed would prefer not to deal with it, I suspect he's smart enough to realize that he has to. Michael shows no signs of going away, and every sign that he will ratchet it up when he can. (And unlike PZ, who has a day job elsewhere, FtB is Ed's bread and butter; he can't afford to let this fester.)
They acted quickly to get rid of Avi not just to preserve some abstract set of standards (they could have enforced them long ago if they had the desire to look sooner), but because the notoriety of his misdeeds now threatened to tarnish the network's reputation. Bad reputation means you will lose viewers, as well as bloggers that have other options.
Given that PZ really does not have a case *at all* against Michael, and has no reasonable defense (that I can see), and there are no diversions they can raise to deflect attention away from the issue, I suspect that eventually Ed will be forced to confront the issue. Either that or Michael will make him pay dearly for PZ's arrogance.