This was the thread that did it for me. My post number 164 in that thread was my last contribution to the Board until my mother died in June of 2012. So while I can't say that Sunil has kept me away from b.org directly, he did have something to do with it.

A number of my Buffista friendships didn't really survive that thread. My conduct in majority-woman spaces also changed; I hope for the better. I'm a lot quieter and less effusive now.

I tried, folks. Those of you wondering why you didn't speak up sooner -- what happened to me is at least part of why. I found it was easier on my heart to walk away from a community I loved than to insist that I knew a creep-in-the-making when I saw one in the face of my friends' disagreement.

I hope this is helpful, both in illustrating the dynamic at work and for the folks who were hurt. And for anyone who was wondering why I left, I hope it explains something.

I was one of the women in the SPN thread in 2008. In fact, I'm the woman who spoke up and said I didn't need defending and found the joke funny. I had no recollection of the incident eight years later until I read Karl's post here this morning before I walked out the door. I found my part as nausea inducing as others have described. I'm sorry that I didn't support you Karl. I'm sorry that my lack of awareness and encouragement in that post allowed an abuser to grow and flourish. I'm sorry, Karl, if you left because I undermined how you were trying to help. I'm sorry to Matt also who was involved in the conversation.

I'm really proud of the people who tried to speak up then, and the people who are speaking up now.

Me too. I didn't see it in the SFF community, because I'm barely on the fringes, but the cozying up to Rob Thomas, et. al. always rubbed me the wrong way. More recently the non-stop updates of his "Hamilton"-centric NYC trip felt like a calculated measure to get LMM to notice him. But I thought I was being petty, and he was just overly enthusiastic.

My sister was really into Veronica Mars, and I mentioned to her, way back when, when Sunil got a shout-out on the show (his name included in a list that the camera focused on.) She remembered that, and noticed him sometimes commenting on my Facebook, and then, when the Hamilton thing happened, my sister and I were both visiting our parents, and I showed her some of the pictures. Her response was, "How does he get all these famous people to talk to him? Does he just keep bothering them on Twitter until they respond?" To which I could only reply, "Yeah, pretty much."

Posting from a device while on vacation so this will be shorter than it could be....and judging from where I picked up on this thread I've been inactive for years so I don't want to take up too much bandwidth...but the FB group notification got me back here to catch up because this board has always been to me first and foremost the ultimate safe space on the internet and it's deeply unsettling that there is even an issue, given how many years it has spanned and how much life coaching he has received from many people here.

I experienced no specific appalling incident like Jessica had to go through...but....enough uncomfortable interactions that I avoided threads and eventually the board entirely. I didn't want to be mean by refusing a FB friend request or later unfriending but I unfollowed and filtered my own posts to not be seen.

I sit on bench ban. It's not a comfortable bench but it is long and I tried to bring some cushions for y'all with less padding.

non-stop updates of his "Hamilton"-centric NYC trip

I see what you did there :)

Jess, it was my shot, and I didn't throw it away. (I'll stop now. Promise.)

He's protected his Twitter account. If you're not following him, you can't see squat. Super convenient, because the last three tweets I saw were bad apologies for the bad behavior. IMO, it's continued gaslighting. He attempted to apologize, and people were pointed to that, and now it's all gone unless you follow him. I don't, so there's that.

I suspect the spin doctoring will now begin. He'll try to gather supporters and create new sycophants and get them to believe he's really Not That Bad.

We'll see.

I'm sorry that people were hurt.

I'm really sorry that I didn't see. I knew people didn't like him , I did not know why . I am very good at skipping past a lot of stuff on line -- so places where I might have seen, I wan't looking .

Matt and I were away --and i didn't see anything until yesterday. And that was most of our conversation all they way up from San Diego.

Thank you for what you said Strix-- it help me sort out things in my head. And thank you for responding with Grace when you were confronted with a hard truth.

I've got some questions for me --I know my responses to a lot of behavior is dulled - it has to be because I work with the public. At the library we are trying to respond quicker to patterns and it is hard.

I am glad that there is a vote.

I'm curious to know how many people MARCIEd him.

I did, but it wasn't because he made me uncomfortable. It's because I thought he was a tool. He'd also been incredibly rude to a friend of mine who used to post here. I was reading about the Rob Thomas stuff above, and remembered that the reason he first showed up here was because Tim (and maybe, Joss, too?) announced the cancellation of Firefly here.

but I owe an apology to DX for not taking it seriously enough when he expressed his concerns about P-C.

No you don't. I never confronted him the way Karl did. It was all me venting in back channel, and it's likely my dislike for him was coloring my arguments, so I can see people taking some of it with a grain of salt. I remember ita told me I should at least try to point out to him that he was being creepy, but I never did. I should've listened. She was almost always right.

Of course that doesn't mean I don't feel the urge to change my tagline to "I told you so!" :)

Psst still my favorite.

And you're still mine.