About ten years ago, he told a story in Natter (or maybe Bitches) about following a woman through an airport, and then not long after, after people told him that he shouldn't do that, told another story about following a woman through a supermarket. I've never understood why so many people seemed to accept him after that.

I remember that, too. I remember going over to LiveJournal to backchannel about it, because it upset me, a lot. When we told him that he shouldn't do that, he posted that he was crying and felt really bad about what he'd done, and people comforted him and told him that he was learning what it meant to be a good guy in a world full of bad guys.

and it is 10 years later and....

Drag Me to Patel â€@ghostwritingcow 2h2 hours ago I believe that I have caused women emotional harm and I am deeply sorry. I truly wish to understand my behavior and change it, stop hurting.

he wishes to understand his behavior and change it.

Thank you, DXM and Barb.

He posted 2 or 3 tweets about being sorry and wanting to change. Considering he said exactly the same thing 10 years ago, I'm not inclined to believe him now.

I'm so sorry that happened to you, Jess.

Kate speaks for me here:

I know in the past I've noticed behavior from him that bordered on creepy, but nothing that I thought rose to the level of something that the community needed to address. But it does make me inclined to believe those speaking out now, and I'm horrified to think we've lost community members because of him.

Way back when Sunil first joined the board, I bristled at what I considered stalkery behavior toward Cindy, but as she didn't make an issue of it at the time I chalked it up to youthful exuberance/awkwardness I was overreacting to, and assumed that he'd corrected course with maturity over the years. But hearing about the effect he's had on other members of the community casts that in a new light. And Jess' experience, despite not being recent, is a concrete confirming account that I trust. I'm not comfortable with the posters on Twitter demanding that any complaint of harassment be acted on unquestioned as a matter of principle, but when a pattern emerges from multiple sources and is corroborated by first person account within the community, I do think action is called for.

Jessica, I'm sorry that happened to you. Thanks for telling us now. eta: Sunil's behaviour towards you was completely unacceptable

I remember the things DX mention, and I remember DX saying somewhere that his behaviour and his presence were one of the reasons that he stayed away from the Board. But I don't really interact with him in many threads, and don't have any offline experience with him. So I am not sure what else to say, but I am reading, listening and learning.

I sincerely hope he does change(although I am a skeptic) but the question is whether we want him to do it on our time or not.(And maybe he's just upset that his literary friends have taken him to the woodshed, but I like to believe that people can reform, eventually.)

Yeah, Matt, that's me, too. He has always rubbed me the wrong way, and I remember some of the early stuff, like "You changed your tagline." And I trust Jess.

I hoped that like a lot of twenty-somethings he had learned when people told him he was being a creep. I don't believe everything I read on the internet, but it seems like there's a lot of smoke out there. It's ten years later and he still hasn't learned.

That was more than ten years ago. Around 2003. (I'm remembering how it lined up with when I graduated college.) I thought I was overreacting, then.

I hoped that like a lot of twenty-somethings he had learned when people told him he was being a creep. I don't believe everything I read on the internet, but it seems like there's a lot of smoke out there. It's ten years later and he still hasn't learned.

I believe the women who are reporting behaviors I can back up with my own memories. Like I said, I cut off all contact, but based on what I'm being told now, nothing has changed.