Fontaine's Misrepresentation Of This Review On Sysfling

Dear fellow Sysfling members

Perhaps I should be flattered that 'The Blogger' has set up an entire blog for the sole purpose of discrediting me and the ideas I put forward in a paper from 2017. However, I don't appreciate it at all. I certainly have no objection to people disagreeing with those ideas, or to showing where I was wrong, misinformed or otherwise rubbish. However, this personal attack not only makes me feel very bad, I feel it is very bad for our community for a single person (presumably?) to anonymously attack someone without any recourse for dialogue.

I am pretty sure I know who has done this. This sort of thing has happened before. I can't imagine what I've done to deserve these repeated misrepresentations and personal attacks but I hope this person realises that this kind of thing has career destroying potential especially at a time when evaluations of work can be done by searching online. Luckily I'm at the end of my career so I don't care too much but if anyone who is an early career academic gets this treatment by 'The Blogger', it could ruin their chances of getting promotion, getting invited on projects etc.

If anyone is close to 'The Blogger' please encourage this person to think carefully about the damage they are doing to academic discussion in our community, not to mention to individuals.

Here is the website in question: https://lexisasmostlocalcontext.blogspot.com/

with best wishes

Lise

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading, because it is untrue. To be clear, this blog is a review of Fontaine's 2017 paper, using scholarship and reasoned argument, and demonstrably not an attack on her person. It shows where Fontaine was "wrong, misinformed or otherwise rubbish", which Fontaine here claims she has no objection to.

By misrepresenting the content of the blog as a personal attack, Fontaine has herself made a personal attack on the blogger, the very thing she herself deplores. This then encouraged others on the Sysfling list who also deplore personal attacks to join her in making similar personal attacks.

An intellectual response to the content of the blog, as opposed to a personal attack on the blogger, is to present reasoned arguments to invalidate the reasoning on the blog.

[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue. There is provision on the blog for making comments under every single post.

[3] This is misleading, because Fontaine has produced no evidence of any misrepresentation whatsoever.

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personal attack (plural personal attacks)

1. An abusive remark on or relating to somebody's person instead of providing evidence when examining another person's claims or comments.