Huffington Post: Anonymous has already beaten Scientology: “In other words, for all their supposed higher-brain functions, compliments of L. Ron Hubbard’s questionable teachings, they can’t win this one. A group of internet savvy kid vigilantes has, to some extent, already beaten them. ” February 10th, Join the protests at Churches of Scientology Worldwide

How I Escaped Scientology: A well-written, honest account of the experiences a former upper-level, inner-circle Scientologist who spent 20 years in what he describes as a “slavish” cult. He also gives the insider’s scoop on the formation of Scientology.

And for Good Measure: Secret Documents of Scientology

Anonymous’ Second Address to Scientology:

Honk if you Hate Scientology:

Still, today, I see the bigger picture and the algorithmic changes aren’t going to do what Digg wants – they aren’t going to give the newer or less frequent Digg users more of a chance, and here are some of the reasons why:

1) Veteran users get a lot of stories to the front page with good reason: they are trusted by others to submit top content from around the internet on a variety of subjects. This trust is built up over time. It is only natural that users who submit and participate more will have higher quality submissions worthy of the front page.

2) Spammers can easily fill the void when veteran Digger submissions can no longer rise to the top. In fact, they can do so with much less effort since their submissions require fewer votes to succeed.

3) With blocks to top Diggers they are forced to result to the same tactics spammers use: mass shouting, begging for Diggs, submitting only the craziest and most offbeat content. This simultaneously lowers the bar on quality content while also forcing quality users to work harder and arguably less ethically to get good content to the front page of Digg.

At the end of the day, we have seen the introduction of shouts and algorithm changes that have resulted in more and more poor content reaching the front page of Digg. Worse yet, quality submitters like CosmikDebris (who specializes in scientific and space-related links) suffer from low frontpage ratios because their content – while very interesting, newsworthy and educational simply isn’t sensational enough to compete with shout-spammers who focus primarily on offbeat news. This isn’t about top Diggers having their egos bruised, it is about people who invest time and effort to bring good content to all Digg users having their hands tied and about the mainstream everyday Digg reader seeing worse and worse stories on the front page.

There are of course other issues at hand right now and many of them are longstanding. The infamous autobury list remains in full effect and Digg’s creators remain in full denial despite the overwhelming evidence (it kind of reminds me of creationists denying fossils). Top users still remain banned for unknown reasons. Many other users have simply left Digg because of all of the uproar. Digg’s Alexa stats are suffering and frankly if they don’t work out a serious overhaul soon they will be vulnerable when the Next Big Thing comes along.

So what is it really like to have a canned cheeseburger?

You kind of have to wonder if Osama isn’t winning this war, since his goal was (in case you forgot) to bankrupt the United States.

What kind of world do we live in where the city sues you for being environmentally friendly.

The Soviet Union may be gone, but many amazing ruins remain.

Description Includes:

Established blog with prime keywords that appear on major search engines. First page of Google, Yahoo and MSN for the keyword make money and how to make money.”

I was skeptical, checked, and he’s not on there … others were too, criticized him, and he responded:

I am still on #1 page on Yahoo, MSN and Google. If you don’t see it, maybe you just need to look for the word Make$ Money$

Someone then responded to him:

Very good point. I am on page one on google for the term:

£($&^(MMORTGAGE)”^(*”

A cop came by a few minutes later, asked if we knew the guy. He also informed us the guy was carrying a gun, which may have been used earlier in the day to fire 7 shots around the corner – a revenge-shooting for some gang activity south of town. I happened to have been around when those shots were fired. He also took a moment to inform us we live in a ‘bad neighborhood.’

Do we? Really? Most of the crackheads are nice folks. No one has shot at me or in my general direction. Hard to say. What do you think? I suppose its time I added a ‘crackhead’ tag to this blog.

He has continued to post about me – naming me by (fortunately my fake) name and naming my website – while the few times I have posted about him I did so anonymously. He has contacted people I know, have worked for, am acquainted with, and so on – while I have only contacted him and one other blogger (who was repeating his misinformation). I have asked him to stop writing about me, to me and to people I know repeatedly – but he persists. Perhaps most revealing: this all started because he was violating the law and I notified him about it.

So, OK, maybe I’m nuts but, it seems pretty clear who is stalking who here.

Anywho, this will be the last post abot the stalker directly anyway. So glad Allsux.com is bizarre enough to pick up a creepy fan following. To all you stalkers, though, don’t forget: I am both related to and friends with lawyers … get extra-creepy on me at your own risk ;)

This all started a few weeks ago when someone copied a full blog post – hotlinked images and all – from a website I contribute to. I contacted him and firmly but politely asked him to remove the copied content, warning him that his actions were against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines (though I didn’t even mention they were also illegal). Apparently, though framed as well as I could considering the circumstances, he took this as a personal threat. Here is my account of the interchange, though feel free to skip ahead to where I point out that he is breaking the law and I can sue his [noun removed].

His response was caustic, and the situation escalated though I attempted to keep my cool throughout. The conversation became too funny and I eventually posted about it here on Allsux, which he claimed (though I made no false statements and did not name him) was defamatory. He eventually started writing defamatory posts about me on his blog and has attempted (albeit futily) to sabatoge my (hilariously dubious) online reputation.

I have been polite throughout this exchange, almost to a fault and certainly beyond my natural inclinations. Each request and response has been level-headed and more kind, in my opinion, than a content thief deserves. I have, however, reached the limit. He just emailed me again out of the blue to threaten me with legal action, etc…. The following is the final email I have written him, somewhat stripped of nicities:

Look. You’re clearly [adjective removed] if not entirely [adjective removed], and I realize that if you come after me with a AK-47 I only have myself to blame, but I feel I would be disregarding my duties as a citizen of Earth if I didn’t set you straight on a few thing, so here it goes.

(1) What you did was illegal. I linked you to a source showing it was illegal. I politely warned you to remove illegally copied content and warned you of consequence of your actions rather than reporting you for them. Call it a threat, call it whatever you want, but you did something illegal and I did the best I felt I could do by telling you what steps would be taken if you didn’t fix the problem.

(2) What I did wasn’t illegal. I wrote about you anonymously and factually. By any and all legal definitions under US and Canadian law that is not illegal. First of all, everything I wrote was my opinion – I made no false statements of fact. Second of all, by not naming you I did nothing to ‘defame’ you – as defamation implies that I publicly harmed your character.

(3) What you are currently doing is, again, ironically illegal. By falsely and publicly accusing me of a crime I did not in fact commit, you are defaming me. I did not defame you – your accusation fails on two criteria, both of which are required to make something defamation. I have at least two criminal acts I could currently have you prosecuted for, and you have nothing on me.

Frankly this has been fairly entertaining but it’s getting old. Acknowledge what you did wrong, apologize for it and cease sending letters to third parties not involved in this dispute. Otherwise, I will be forced (take it as a threat if you’d like) to pursue legal action on my own behalf.

Now, how great is it that I write a blog named ‘Allsux’ so I can post entirely random crap like this and get away with it? I love you all, my loyal readers.

Is there really that much hatred for the homeless, or are these just one-off idiots who have lost their head (or have noheart)? A follow-up post received far fewer responses – because it was less controversial, or because it put those first commenters in their place? It seems hard to believe that people will possibly find the most recent post on graffiti murals as Belfast as controversial, but I guess the comments above go to show that you never know.