Comment by viridian
6 years ago
I don't follow your logic, maybe I'm missing something. Let's say I publicly claim to be Scott Alexander. The owner of slatestarcodex with the email address scott@slatestarcodex.com also claims to be scott alexander? Doesn't the latter claim carry far more weight? If so, why is the personage relevant?
> Let's say I publicly claim to be Scott Alexander. The owner of slatestarcodex with the email address scott@slatestarcodex.com also claims to be scott alexander? Doesn't the latter claim carry far more weight?
It's just an email address. It could be Scott or it could be someone else. Yes, common sense would say it's Scott, but the reporter would have to still prove it's him. If you claim to be Scott, too, that will also need to be checked out.
Many people will take that information and run, but if you're writing for a national outlet, where accurate reporting is everything, your editor will say, "Yes, that might be Scott, but how do you know? What proof can you provide? If we get called out for a fact error, can you refute that claim?
How does providing a last name make his authorship of the blog more credible though? And how does publishing it help? I don't see how the reporter or the readers have any way of verifying that the blogger of SSC has a last name matching the one from the article.
Forgive me for the repetition you are about to see, I'm attempting to apply a bit of formality to the reasoning in question:
The Scott who posts at slatestarcodex.com is the Scott who is scott@slatestarcodex.com.
Therefore, the material Scott when attempting to pin down Scott in the context of slatestarcodex is scott@slatestarcodex.com.
Human X out in meat space could or could not be Scott, but that much is immaterial, as scott@slatestarcodex.com has been shown to be directly linked to Scott Alexander the blogger as a means of contacting him.
Thus I ask: what better proof could one have that scott@slatestarcodex.com is Scott Alexander, author of slatestarcodex?
> Thus I ask: what better proof could one have that scott@slatestarcodex.com is Scott Alexander, author of slatestarcodex?
From an editor's point of view, that's not enough, assuming the reporter has not done any form of reporting through interviews, public records and other methods.
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