If you are less than Thirty years of age then you must accept that you are generally unable to contribute to a discussion or debate because your young age means you do not have the necessary life experience that would make such a contribution worthwhile.

Dismissing people and their contribution to a topic or debate will certainly have a positive influence on the next generation whom so many older skeptics agree are those that educational outreach must focus on to pass on the importance of critical thinking. By simply dismissing young people when they try to voice their opinions is a sure way to encourage them to openly question things for the rest of their lives.

If you also happen to be female then you must show an interest in the male skeptics around you or people shall start to suspect that there is something terribly wrong with you – like that you might like ladies instead. If you are not publicly interested in the array of men around you then you are a gay, a ‘frigid bitch’, or a ‘cock tease’. If you do not feel comfortable, or show an interest in discussing crude sex things around people that you hardly know then you are obviously a gay or frigid bitch and people have every right to discuss this about you. This is just how it is. You must accept this.

If you should ever receive abuse from other people and a male comes to your defense in the conversation it is because he wants to get nuddy with you and make hay. It is not possible that he is a friend who is coming to your defense, for he is a man and you are a woman and therefor he wants to do the dirty with you. There are no two ways about it.

When you share your critical thoughts with others, when you voice your opinion and speak your mind do not be under the assumption that it is okay to do this because this is attention seeking behavior and others will see through your wicked attempt at gaining an ego boost for yourself. By even contemplating writing your thoughts on your blog you are clearly attempting to make a name for yourself and make subjects all about you. Any negative reaction you receive as a result of sharing your thoughts is only deserved and you only have yourself to blame for being young, female and daring to be vocal.

The first important lesson you can learn about being a young, female, vocal skeptic (as outlined above) is that you must simply accept from the start that you are an attention seeker whose input cannot be valued because of the few years you have been alive, and any attention you receive as a result of all that you do is your own doing and simply a result of the other person having a penis.

The second important lesson for you to learn is that you must never listen to anybody who tells you these things because they’re lying and what they’re telling you is offensive and cruel and not worth the time it takes to read the words involved.

Blog if you are young, old or middle aged. Be vocal no matter what gender you are, and learn to accept that sometimes your work gets attention because people value your opinion – not because they want to fuck you. I used to fall for these lies and felt that I had to just accept such treatment. Never again.If these few words I have written can help another person avoid falling into that trap of self-doubt, then I’ll die happy.

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This post, Lessons in Being Young, Female and Vocal, originally appeared on She Thought on April 25, 2012.
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Are you good in blog? A calling for all Skeptical bloggers; this is my response to an idea put forward by SheThought.com.

How to start a blog? This question has replaced the old “what should my website be about?” and although it is easy to setup a blog with services such as Blogger.com, WordPress.com, Squarespace.com ect. Actually “starting” the blog is another thing all together. The truth is that blogging is not for everyone, it is a personal thing and you need to find a topic that you are interested in and be willing to state your opinion on them. If you are at the point where your seriously considering a blog then you already fill this prerequisite. If you want to write about something then the best advice I can give is to just do it, write something; anything. You don’t need to be perfect or even good because your can always improve in the future, however you can never succeed if you do not start.

Dealing with Trolls. There is an old Usenet saying “Please do not feed to trolls” and it still holds true to this day most trolls are seeking attention and will give up when they do not receive the attention they are seeking. The best thing to do is ignore them don’t take the bait they lay. If you must take on the trolls do so with reasoned debate and any onlookers can draw their own conclusions. The Troll will most likely show themselves up early on; especially if they are anonymous and too cowardly to stand behind what they say.

Why blog at all? As I said before, blogging is a personal thing and it is not for everyone. Some people prefer to spend their time in silent observation, for every blogger there are hundreds more people participating in discussion forums such as SGU-Forums and many thousands more silent observers. But the primary idea behind blogging is to voice an opinion and doing so has opened public debate in ways that where unimaginable only 10-15 years ago.

How has the recent UK libel case vs Simon Singh changed blogging? The recent victory of Simon Singh over the British Chiropractic Association has sent a strong message to suppressors of free-speech that criticism cannot be silenced with lawsuits. I find that when people go running to their lawyers rather than public debate it is because they nearly always have something to hide. Never trust anyone who chooses to file lawsuits rather than addressing their critics; they are hiding something. Fortunately the Streisand Effect ensures that it does not remain hidden for long.

Dan Buzzard publishes Dan’s Journal of Skepticism – A Skeptical View from Perth, Western Australia

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This post, Good in Blog #10 – Brief Opinions on Skeptical Blogging, originally appeared on She Thought on April 22, 2010.
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How do you start a blog, pick a name, get and keep readers, and deal with  trolls,  cliques, and  flame wars?

I have had a blog in the past, but I rejuvenated my blog by changing the name to Jin-oh – Atheist|Geek|Nerd|Social. I chose this new name as I needed to get back to basics and also pick some topics to talk about. So it was logical to choose the first, four words that describe me. Atheist, Geek, Nerd and Social.

I now use the following intro around the web Jin-oh is a free thinking Atheist with a keen interest in social anarchy. Considered both a Nerd and a Geek, but with more social skills. This pretty much sums up who I am and also what my blog is a about.

My blog is fairly young so I’m still in the early stages of getting and keeping readers. Along with my blog, I also started a Facebook Fan Page or should that be a ‘Like‘ page now and use Twitter (@JinOhChoi), which I use to post quick links or comments.

How has the recent UK libel case vs Simon Singh changed blogging?

I quote from the BBC as it echo’s my sentiments on the issue.

Other scientists, science writers, bloggers, investigative journalists, human rights activists – all get threatened with these libel suits…

And at the end of the day, the people who lose out are the general public because we don’t get to find out the real truth because these libel suits just stop good journalism.

Chiropractors’ libel case dropped against Simon Singh

Why blog at all?

Because, I can. And it gives me a chance to engage with people from around the world about issues I care about.

How is blogging different from journalism?

I don’t really have an answer for that one at the moment.

I do feel that this post is a bit short, so no doubt I will more again.

Jin-oh is a free thinking  Atheist with a keen interest in social  anarchy. Considered both a  Nerd and a  Geek, but with more  social skills.

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This post, Good in Blog #8 – Am I Good in Blog (Different Post, Same Title), originally appeared on She Thought on April 22, 2010.
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Today is international “We Only Like You Because You’re Good in Blog” (WOLYBYGIB) day where sceptical, or skeptical, bloggers are invited to discuss their approach to and views on blogging.

I’ve explained before how I began this blog in direct response to Channel 7′s “The One, the search for Australia’s most gifted psychic” “competition”, a sort of “Psychic Idol” where every entrant was an embarrassing failure. Except for Podblack, few people seemed to be blogging about it and I couldn’t say everything I wanted to say about the show in their comments sections.

I’d been reading sceptical blogs and forums for a while so the time had come to jump in feet first.

WOLYBYGIB asks the questions…

I had an earlier blog on an unrelated subject so I just started a new one. Blogger is free and easy and you don’t need your own hosting service so that was straightforward. Choosing a name was not so straightforward. In fact, I muffed it by misspelling the name I wanted (I wanted “Thinking Real”). So Blogger allowed me the name and I began. I realised the error after a few posts then discovered “Thinking Real” was already taken – bummer. I would not be able to live with a spelling error in every URL on the site so I tried a few other names before ending up with the current title “Thinking is Real”. So I copied the articles across to here and carried on.

There’s a little bit of geek somewhere deep inside me so I messed with the CSS code until I made the Blogger template a little bit more “mine”.

I try to be funny, or at least sarcastic, in my writing and I occasionally throw in a cartoon or two but some subjects piss me off so much I find it difficult to find a humourous angle.

I have no specific reader management approach because I don’t think I have many readers. I have a few regular commenters, to whom I am truly grateful, and my stats suggest there are others who either lurk or pass through but nothing overwhelming. I turned on comment moderation a few months back after a spate of spambot comments. Flame wars? I wish.

I’m an opinionated bastard and the BCA vs Singh case has provided me with a lot of opportunities to express opinions. The BCA’s public comments were difficult to ignore and deserving of derision – so I derided.

It’s also interesting, or not, that the chiropractic issue generated the longest comment thread on this blog as Australian chiropractor Simon Porteous stated the case for his colleagues (Australian Chiropractic spotlight! ). It was interesting and I have to thank him for being civil and engaging – and not threatening to sue me.

The threat of a defamation suit is constantly on my mind – especially after one of the contestants on The One actually did send me a warning. That resulted in some sleepless nights. The mere prospect of a lawsuit has often caused me to withdraw articles after a rethink and has prevented me writing many, many others.

So why blog at all? Because I think people need to know what I think about things – and to agree with me. If they disagree with me, they need to read what I write all over again until they agree. Wouldn’t it be great if it worked like that?

I also hope the blogs acts as something of a link enhancer for other bloggers. I try in most articles to link to some of the better articles around the blogosphere on any given subject. If we all link to those same articles, we can see important sceptical viewpoints on alternative “medicine” and paranormal phenomena rise to the top of Google searches. There was no better demonstration of this than the fast rise of Robert Lancaster’s “Sylvia Browne” site after he lost his original domain whilst recovering from a stroke.

Blogging is what you want it to be. If you want to write “balanced” stories on current events then you are probably doing amateur, freelance journalism and who knows, you might get a job doing it for pay. Modern day “journalism” seems to have lost any respect for perspective so homeopaths are all too often treated as if they are as qualified as brain surgeons and the reader is left with the impression there is controversy in areas where no serious controversy actually exists.

I’d guess most sceptical bloggers are not trying to tell both supposed sides of a story but are expressing opinions, hopefully based on logic, evidence and data. Telling both sides makes sense if there is merit to both sides but when one side is idiotic there seems to be little value in promoting it as if it was worthy of consideration.

Sometimes my articles are as much about asking questions as expressing opinions.

I don’t look at my stats very often but I’m pretty sure my most read article has been What would the BCA do? after Jack of Kent linked to it and described it as “an excellent blogpost”. Makes  it all worthwhile.

I should add, even though the question wasn’t asked, that Twitter has had a profound effect on blogging – both good and bad.

Throughout the time I’ve been working on this blog, Twitter has become huge. I see definite benefits from this in the fast dissemination of information across the globe and in the rallying of troops but I also perceive a downside for blogging.

It seems to me that a lot of sceptical bloggers have now shifted a good deal of their conversation to Twitter. That conversation does not always find a place in blogs. That, I think, is a shame since Twitter is all but unreadable from the outside and has little, if any, archival value. Some big stories appear to have received far less blog coverage than they might have two years ago and I think it’s because of the exchange of views taking place via tweets.

I came to this view because I don’t tweet and I know that I have sometimes missed out on news, views and opinions of bloggers whom I respect because those views were being expressed via tweets, not blogs. I’ve also noticed that several of the blogs in my blogroll – blogs that used to update regularly – might now lie dormant for months while those same bloggers are active on Twitter .

Two years from now, blogs about the Singh vs BCA case (as just one example) will still be accessible to the casual Googler. Tweets are essentially unfathomable to the non-tweeter within hours, or even minutes, so if that conversation isn’t blogged, and widely blogged, then millions of people will miss the opportunity to follow or understand it. I think that’s a great loss.

Please, if you tweet, don’t forget to blog too. There are people who will need to read your views one day – and they aren’t following you on Twitter.

More from Andre on Thinking is Real

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This post, Good in Blog #7 – Am I Good in Blog?, originally appeared on She Thought on April 22, 2010.
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How am I in blog, baby? Naked. If I had to pick just one word to describe my blog, my writing style, my approach to my online persona, that’s the word I’d pick. (Fortunately I don’t have to choose just one, or this would be a really short post.) SheThought.com is holding “We Only Like You Because Your Good in Blog” as an opportunity for skeptical, rational bloggers to write about what we do, and the how, and the why.

Remember in middle school, when adults used to always say, “Just be yourself?” I hated that. How the hell was I supposed to know who I was anyway? Between growing up in a cult (not exactly a nurturing environment for carving your own path or unique identity) and having mental illness, half the time I didn’t even know if I was real, much less who or what I was.

It’s only been in the last year that I’ve been blogging that I’ve started to understand myself. Bafflingly enough, as I’ve poured my heart out, confessed my “sins”, and let all of you in on the crazy ramblings and Bad Thoughts in my head, in the last year I’ve started to like myself.

I’m a mix of many things, passion and drive and sloth; humor and blasphemy and a catalog of Monty Python quotes; empathy and sadness and anger. Naturally, since blogging naked is my goal, all of these come through. I love single topic humor blogs like CakeWrecks and the exceptionally immature (and therefore hilarious) AccidentalDong, but I know I’d get bored too quickly if I tried to do something like that. And humor isn’t all of who I am, although you might not guess it from looking at my list of 100 Questions for True Christians. I think of myself as an activist and humor is the way I cut through compassion fatigue, and also how I give my readers a little bit of an emotional break, after sharing with them the child sacrifice in Uganda, anti-choice measures around the world, and deaths of children at the hands of faith healers. (Oh yeah, and the Catholic church. Is there anything they can do that doesn’t make me wanna shove my fist through a stained glass window?)

The best advice I could give to new or aspiring bloggers is this: Treat it like it’s your job. If someone asks me what I do, I say “I’m a blogger” before I confess to being unemployed – after all, which is the one I “do” every day? My own blog has suffered a bit of neglect as of late, and I’ve missed it. I know when I make the time and write something – whether that’s every week for you or every day for me – I feel better. If I’ve accomplished nothing else in a day (besides those other unpaid jobs I do, like cleaning my house and paying bills) I feel satisfaction when I know I’ve put something good at there. That being said, don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good. Not every post will be a masterpiece, but as long as every post does some good – brightens someone’s day, brings awareness to a cause, or gets me one page closer to my goal of writing a book before unemployment benefits run out – then it was worth it.

The second piece of advice I’d give, especially to autobiographical bloggers like myself, is don’t WHINE. We all have our burdens, some larger than others. Being open and real about those is important, and healing, and can help someone else with the pain of their own life, or with understanding the pain of a friend or lover. I try to be an alchemist – turning the manure-coated straw of my life (the abusive childhood in a cult, horrible marriage, and multiple mental illnesses) into gold. Depression may not be avoidable, but optimism, activism, and just making yourself do one thing everyday, even if it’s just writing a post that says, “I feel like hell, but I’ll be back tomorrow” ARE choices we can all make (or not) every day. Will my blog help someone else? Then it’s time to click post. Is it just self-serving whinging? Then maybe it needs a few edits, or I need to take a few deep breaths, or at the least I can include a link to the Suicide Hotline.

My goal with blogging is simple, yet hard to pin down. I want to write. I want to communicate with the world – to connect – and I want to invite people to connect with me, and each other, as well. Whether I’m Messin’ with Mormons, debunking Christian apologetics, or confessing how woefully unskeptical I have been most of my life, it’s a way of connecting.

For me blogging is about being naked, being real. I think it can be tempting to paint ourselves beautiful – to treat blogs like resumes and only show our “good” parts, but that’s not the connection I’m looking for. I want to show all of who I am, and be able to be proud of it. Blogging, and knowing I blog, keeps me honest. As a Sunday School teacher in my early 20s, I used to ask myself, “Is this something I’d be embarrassed to have the kids know about?” Now I ask myself, “Is this something I can tell the whole world about with no shame, no airbrushing, no creative reinterpretation?” Living my life openly helps me to lead a life I can be proud of, because I am done with secrets and shame.

I’ve talked about painfully personal things – my failed marriage, my mental illnesses, my status as a rape survivor. I’ve talked about controversial things – my stance against spanking in the home, my anti-theistic outlook on religion, my recent abortion. I talk about everything. I reject the idea that a blog must only be about one thing, or one topic, or one cause, or one style. When I hear about something upsetting and important, something which needs our action, I write about it. And when I’m in desperate need of a laugh, I compile all my favorite blasphemous stand-up in one place.

My name is Angie and I am an autobiographical blogger. This is the story of me, told through words and pictures, stories and songs. This is how I see the world and how I see myself. It’s not an approach for everyone, but for me the benefits aren’t counted in blog hits or YouTube subs or ad revenue. The benefit of blogging is meeting other real people, with real strengths and weaknesses, passions and pitfalls, who see me for who I am and still say, “I like you.”

So, my Anteaters, was it good for you?

More open and honest naked blogging on http://angietheantitheist.blogspot.com/

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This post, Good in Blog #6 – Blogging Naked by Angie the Anti Theist, originally appeared on She Thought on April 22, 2010.
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Don’t forget to check out the latest Token Skeptic Episode: On How We Only Like You Because You’re Good In Blog – Blogging Skeptically.

Submission for ‘We Only Like You Because You’re Good in Blog’ Day!

…what we will NOT tolerate are veiled threats or references to violence or sex acts such as those above. Those may be tolerated or even seen as funny on other sites throughout the blogosphere, but they are not deemed so here. You can be snarky, and you can be insulting, but violence and sexually explicit suggestions are where we draw the line. If you submit comments such as these to our blog from here on out, they won’t even make it through moderation, and you will be banned with no chance for reinstatement – no questions asked. We will also record your IP address for further action, if needed. – “Laying Out a Comments Policy” – You’re Not Helping Blog.

About an hour ago, when I began writing this, I had a meeting with one of my thesis supervisors. As usual, as we scrolled through the sections that I’m writing, we brisked quickly over the Literature Review. ‘You really like that section, X could see that! He really likes it too,’ she said, not for the first time.

This is because since 2008, I’ve been writing that Literature Review. It was the reason why I started this blog.

I wrote an email to myself which I have printed out over several work-areas (I like to keep my options open when it comes to finding a good place to think):

“At least four times a week, write on something strongly related to what you have to produce for your degree, using as much current or influential research as possible. Aim to have at least one post a week that is over 400-500 words, with correctly-formatted references. Do this for a time period of just over three years of part-time study, or at least until the conclusion of my thesis deadline, fairly consistently.

“Aim to use my traveling-experiences and work to enhance my writing, by keeping logs and accounts of what I do and find related issues to paranormal and pseudoscientific investigations wherever possible. Contribute to Science, Feminism and Skeptical blog carnivals and try to maintain a standard that would not have my posts out of place with others of a similar educational background.”

So, what do you think, Mabus? Apart from ‘****the Death of Atheism!!***‘? Ah, it’s another Depeche Mode video, what a lovely distraction… He’s so thoughful.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t think much of my site, but then, he hasn’t thought much of me at all, since I was first thrown onto the end of a mass-mailing list including the likes of Randi, Radford, Shermer and Saunders, back in 2006. Some consider being lumped-in with that kind of company to be some sort of honor. I just find it irritating.

Sometimes it feels that way if I don’t remind myself that I’m only a human, on the other side of a screen – and so is everyone else. That there’s plenty of people that Mabuse would rail at, if he had access to their blog-comments. If I find myself caring too much beyond my initial purpose for this site, it defeats me and it defeats my focus. So, it’s only recently that I’ve become more engaged with the comments on my site – and yet I also find myself retreating more and more from personal opinion and networking.

Self-protection? Maybe. Self-discipline? Perhaps. Self-indulgent? This is the internet, people. It’s not that difficult to become famous online, for that legendary fifteen-seconds (or 15K of cleavage.jpg) – but it takes a damn sight more to complete a research project, write up a thesis and contribute to a body of knowledge…

…so I snap myself out of it and get back to editing that eleventh-draft of the Method section. The death-threats can wait until tomorrow.

The ‘write your Literature Review‘ goal has, as regular readers know, is not something that I’ve strictly adhered to. On the few occasions that I have deviated, and done surveys of my audience, I’ve discovered (funnily enough) that they much prefer it when I maintain my original goal!

More on paranormal belief and research, please! Less on parenting, it’s nice, but it’s not what I’m here for. Literature? Well, it’s okay, but what did you find recently about aliens? The result is a great many entries, most of which I’ve catalogued in the menus of my site.

Since 2008, I’m very pleased to note that there have been more and more blogs created – that do tackle subjects like parenting. I even contributed to a blog-carnival on the topic of Skeptical Parenting, when it ran. I’ve seen more independent female bloggers. I’ve noticed more Australian bloggers and even ran for a year, an Australian blog-carnival called ‘The Skeptics of Carlos’. It lasted exactly a year, but the people it introduced me to have been in contact ever since.

It was through that blog carnival that I met great people like Andy, Jack, Elliot and got to know the ever-inspirational Dr Karen better. Soon after was the advent of the Young Australian Skeptics site, enabling me to contribute one of the first articles to help start it off. I was one of the earlier adopters of Twitter – which led Stephen Fry to befriend me, back when he was adding anyone who added him.

Twitter and my blog contributed to my ability to both research and find people for interviews on the Skeptic Zone podcast. The Skeptic Zone podcast started its own blog, where I’ve occasionally contributed – and the fabulous Dr Rachael Dunlop has her own popular site, which focuses specifically on alt-med claims.

You can hear Dr Rachel Dunlop on the specially-created episode for the Token Skeptic – Episode Seventeen – On How We Only Like You Because You’re Good In Blog – Blogging Skeptically. My site even occasionally features videos of my adventures – all of which you can see on YouTube.

I’ve contributed blog-entries to other sites, as mentioned – my most recent is my ‘Curiouser and Curiouser’ column, found at the official CSI site. That has probably been the most wonderful opportunity, as I am now featured on an official skeptical site as a contributor. I plan to keep on writing articles for sites when I can.

Because – after all? This is originally about contributing to my studies. On occasion I have to make myself firmly step back and adjust my priorities, check my watch and close the laptop firmly in order to get some sleep.

It’s not worth it becoming too worried about other’s opinions too much, when the internet does magnify and make harsher what could be a well-meaning comment. You can’t lose sleep over a ‘Tweet’, nor think that just because someone didn’t respond back to your email today, that they didn’t actually read it.

This is meant to be what you make of it. I choose to make it about working on my writing skills and keeping one foot on the ground. After all, what really sets my goat on fire is knowing that in one way or another, whether or not I have this site or not – I work towards making a difference in a variety of ways.

Podblack Cat, Kylie Sturgess, has been described by Dr Ben Goldacre in the Guardian as one of four blogs that, compared to mainstream media coverage of Dore, “win on timeliness, accuracy, relevance, effort, ethics, and stupid names”.

Featured in The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs 2008 and What Do I Do Next?: Leading Skeptics Discuss 105 Practical Ways to Promote Science and Advance Skepticism.

Reporter for the Skeptic Zone podcast and host of Token Skeptic podcast.

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This post, Good in Blog #5 – When David Mabus Is Your Biggest Fan (aka Nostradamus Sets My Goats On Fire), originally appeared on She Thought on April 22, 2010.
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