Reducing My Hypocrisy

Now that I have identified some of the ways in which I've been hypocritical, it is time to begin making some changes.

1. I'm going to make an effort not to look the other way when I see atheists doing things I consider damaging to our community or for which I would never give religious believers a pass.
2. The "Idiot of the Week" series has been retired. While I will not delete all 124 posts tagged with this label over the years, I have dropped the tag and have no plans to use it again. Calling people juvenile names isn't the answer.
3. I'm going to review some of the recent discussion about civility and tone in the atheist blogosphere to see if I can learn anything that will help me do better in this area. So far, I think that the position Larry Moran outlined here is a good one.
4. It is important to me that people feel welcome here, and I am going to make a greater effort to facilitate that. I expect this will start with a review of the comment policy, which has not been revised since July of 2009.

These will not be the entirety of my efforts, but I think they are a good starting point.

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Possible Reasons the Aan Petition Failed

One of the frustrating things about activism is that it doesn't always work. And when it doesn't work, many are left feeling puzzled and discouraged.

As you are undoubtedly aware, many atheist groups heavily promoted an online petition asking the Obama Administration to intervene on behalf of Alexander Aan, the atheist in Indonesia who was sentenced to prison for admitting he was an atheist. As Hemant Mehta (Friendly Atheist) points out, many are now wondering why no more than 8,000 of the needed 25,000 signatures were obtained. So why could we only manage 8,000 signatures to support Aan?

Source of DMCA Complaints Revealed

After Justin Vacula and Girlwriteswhat received DMCA complaint notices, additional DMCA complaints were received by Elevatorgate, another blog critical of Freethought Bloggers/Skepchick. And now, the source of the DMCA complaints has been revealed as Surly Amy (Skepchick). So now we know.

According to the three recipients of the DMCA complaints, none were contacted via email by Surly Amy and asked to remove anything in advance of receiving the complaints.

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Introducing Skeptic Blogs

I am happy to welcome a new blog network to the atheist community: Skeptic Blogs. The Skeptic Blogs network is the brainchild of noted author John Loftus (Debunking Christianity) and aims to offer something different from what is found at other blog networks or team blogs.

According to their mission statement:

We seek to collectively provide a positive set of voices on behalf of science, reason, and skepticism. We take aim at critically examining the basis of religious faiths, their holy books, claims of miracles, and of the paranormal, without neglecting the adverse cultural impact they have on us. We will do so from a diverse set of perspectives and disciplines of learning.