Manton wrote about the events of the past days, that implicate him because of something of my doing. He wrote about it here: Enough.

I wasn’t made aware of these events until I have seen a post by him about being personally attacked (not physically).

I wrote a post about the specific event here: Silence.

Before I go further, I took time to read other blog posts about this and I am now at the stage where I think I owe a little bit more context on the events, without throwing anyone under the bus. I appreciate everything that was written, bad or good.

Some words were thrown around, like harassment, bigot and fascist. I think the dictionary makes it clear what all these words mean, so look them up. Unfortunately these words are charged trigger words in today’s climate of online discourse and are thrown around like free candy at the candy store.

There is a lot of nuance that is just, most likely purposely, not portrayed and I never wanted to share these. With the incident last year, and accepting that I was wrong, I moved on. It’s not my business to name people or point out their flaws and skewed distorted reality.

However, I must write about it now because it’s the right thing to do, and want to make sure that we all have a little bit more information which I strongly believe is not being shared.

There also seems to be this consensus that I deleted my initial blog post that I named “Sorry” (more on this later), amongst some other posts also (and the post I took down within a few hours or day that started all this). This post was made early May 2024, and I think it was the 1st. This was posted to my OMG Mastodon account. I still hold an account there, even though I let my names expire now.

There were a few other infractions through the years that I made that were pointed out within their discussions, for example my confusion of why I am being warned and have to confirm about something I am watching on Disney+ before I could actually watch it. It was Fantasia, something I watched so much as a kid on VHS that it just got destroyed from all the rewinding. Good times. Again it was pointed out to me by a user on Micro.blog — we didn’t fight about it and I believe the discussion was civil.

Now we come to an emoji. The family emoji. They were colourful and playful and I loved it so very much — there were so many choices! But they (Apple?) changed it. That emoji always felt part of my own identity as a father and a husband. But now it doesn’t. So I was a little sad about it. They took the human out of the human, merely a shape of silhouettes. To be honest, I don’t understand why this was even mentioned or brought up. But I get it... everyone will have an issue with something. Just like me with the emoji.

Understand that I held the OMG account for a few years, I believed in his mission, and he did a lot of good stuff that I have pointed out to him on occasion, even during the heated debate in our email exchange regarding the incident last year. Not to mention several quotes of his that I shared on my blog over the years. I won’t go into detail of all the good stuff he advocates for, I think you can seek it out yourself and make your own mind up.

I expressed my desire to create an app for him over the past years, although it never got any further — as a developer it’s easy to over promise or sometimes be very optimistic. I had a name, ROFL, and a general idea of the direction.

Which brings me to my first point. If I am what I was labelled, I would have never created an account nor ever shown any interest in him or his mission. Zero.

Both Micro.blog and OMG were THE best place to be away from the heated politically fuelled big socials. Both communities are, and have been, fantastic. There’s numerous fantastic people on both platforms.

Between, but after, the incident on May 1st and come around a few days into June, the person affected was blogging on Scribbles normally (serving from memory) — we had some good support emails before that time as I was inviting folks. They were also actively working on widgets for Tinylytics right up to the last week — I believe it was for Astro.

I don’t want to jump around here, but it’s in my head now. I was told I was given the benefit of the doubt about this incident at the time (according to the owner). Except the exchanges with the few individuals on the thread, I was never contacted by him, nor the person that was affected, nor the community manager at OMG. There are guidelines of discourse that are set out that I overstepped, but I was given no warning, no email, no slap on the wrist. I expect to be held accountable and when I break a rule the platform owner needs to enforce it. From my point of view, both were silent about this issue for over 4 weeks. From my point of view I deleted my original post because two individuals put me right and that was it.

Yes, I agree that I am liberal with deleting posts. After all it’s my content and I can do what I want with it — there shouldn’t be any rule about what I do with my own content. There are many reasons for deleting content, one of them is to acknowledge that yes that was wrong. It’s not to cover my tracks and “fire and forget”. I could go into way much more detail how the past 10 years on social were basically just ephemeral in nature and I auto-deleted so many posts — namely because I didn’t feel comfortable with big social platform owners owning my content for so long (there is more to this mindset, but I think it’ll sway from the discussion).

In the late night of June the 2nd, I was working on Scribbles and by pure accident came across a post by this person on the Explore section, titled “Trans rights are human rights”. I won’t share the contents. It was aimed at me directly as the “platform owner”. I was in shock. Confused on why this person has written this. I removed the post from the Explore section and disabled the discoverability setting for the given blog (I manually curated this exact blog to show up on the homepage also because I liked the content).

I wrote an email titled “Your post...” that night (close to midnight my time) and asked what brought them to write that post and that it was a shame. Here is what I wrote:

— — — —

Hey [REDACTED],

Wanted to ask you what brought you to write your post? https://[REDACTED]/post/trans-rights-are-human-rights

I really don't know what to say except that it made me really sad to read what you wrote — I also am human with feelings and never have I said anything that would make anyone think that, especially you (?) — such a shame.

You don't have to explain of course, it's fine — your motivation can be personal I guess — and that's fine. I'm not one to judge.

I removed the post from the Explore feed for now and also the blog — because I need to clarify what the intention here is.

Also, I've been enjoying watching you create the Tinylytics web components and am very happy what you've been doing, which has pushed me to get on with creating a public page with all this cool stuff like plugins, themes and others (been planning this for a while). Fun fact is that the SPA version of the script was motivated after someone emailed me about Astro... However it seems you've cancelled this also?

I am unsure what to say, and because you have given me money on top, I can look at offering some sort of refund for Tinylytics and Scribbles? It's going to be difficult for me ($149 doesn't come easy), but will try and do that if you so want — if you can wait a little (mid-month).

If anything, just let me know about the refund.

— Vincent

— — — —

I saw that all over sudden I had this person write that post about me, especially after everything that has been transpiring over the past 3 - 4 weeks.

Being me, I wrote a post that I seemingly was “cancelled”. I blog because when I am frustrated or don’t understand it’s because I have to let go, process it — I am unfiltered, you get the raw person when you read my posts. I was venting. This is why I blog. It’s therapy.

I never mentioned this person by name. I have never engaged with the person about this article publicly. The email above is my correspondence regarding the article. And to put salt into the wound, I have never ever spoken to this person regarding the events I am accused of.

The person did a social post on their own instance that “some guy is harassing” them and that they just deleted the above email.

The next morning I wrote two more emails:

— — — —

Hey [REDACTED],

I refunded the payment for Tinylytics and Scribbles. It will take up to 10 days to appear in your account — let me know if not.

Adam has made a few comments about this and I deeply apologise for whatever post has upset you.

Wishing you all the best.

— Vincent

— — — —

And my last email on that day:

— — — —

I also refunded the shoutouts payment — sorry that I didn't spot that. Should be also 10 days.

— Vincent

— — — —

I do not understand what is harassment here. Something the OMG owner is adamant about. If anything, I was emotional about the cancellations and that it was so confusing because it came out the blue. Granted, I didn’t handle this as well as I should have — that’s really the first time something like that has happened.

As you can see above I was, until that day, absolutely clueless of what brought about these events.

The owner of OMG set me right about that cancellation post — and we emailed about this and I think it was a fair exchange. In fact, I’d share it but I would have to ask him if I can, because actually he’s being super nice about it in our exchange. This all happened between the evening of June 3rd and going into the 4th. However, here is my last email to him:

— — — —

Got it and understand.

I asked for account deletion not because I don’t support it — actually it is why I created an account in the first place because I don’t publicly ever talk about it.

The reason for offering cancellation is that I really don’t want anyone that was similarly offended to feel uncomfortable that I am still there — I feel [REDACTED] needs a save space that shouldn’t have the likes of me included. I have first hand experience of being identified as a Nazi in school (different to ones identify, yes).

I speak my mind before I add a filter… and I don’t think that fits your nice community (and this century). I really want to avoid offending anyone, no matter how they identify. I grossly overstepped that.

It was a mistake to write that. It truly was. It was insensitive and offensive. I realised this too late.

There was already a big LGBTQ+ community in England before I moved away more than 10 years ago now, and a lot of my good friends in my flying circle identified like this. Flight attendants and pilots. They were, and are, really fantastic, caring and understanding.

I did delete the social.lol account this morning, and will keep the OMG account (so I can work on stuff).

Thank you [REDACTED].

More communities like yours must exist.

— Vincent

— — — —

Because I wasn’t yet sure why this has all happened, I wrote a post titled “Sorry”. This post was meant for the person affected, and only them, and not for public consumption. I wrote it because I knew they trashed my emails, ignored them. It is important to know that I didn’t know the root cause. And it is also important that this was my attempt to reach them.

Unfortunately that lead to more discourse within the thread and I think here we have an escalation of events. And you know, it’s fine. The owner wrote a post about this because I think he also got annoyed. That’s human. That post destroyed 50% of my business that week (but that’s not the point) and 80% of Scribbles. I refunded most cancellations without asking even if it was at great financial loss.

On June 5th I wrote another email to him (To the owner) titled: “Quick follow up”. The contents:

— — — —

Hey [REDACTED],

Just a quick follow up regarding the past few days.

In your public replies you said I was given the benefit of the doubt by [REDACTED] (or you). As you know, and gathered, from our discussion, that was not true.

I wish that either of you reached out privately instead of staying quiet (especially you), that would have been the professional thing to do — I have scoured through my emails and messages, but didn’t find anything that was sent to me. Granted, I should have not expressed my opinion as I did (and in the first place) — you know my take.

If in future I am in the wrong, please just let me know instead of letting it go unnoticed.

You have your community guidelines for a reason, so use them.

Thanks for reading my replies the last few days.

Wishing you the best of luck and thank you for providing a safe community ✌️❤️

— Vincent

— — — —

On June 6th I wrote the following email to the person affected, titled “An apology”:

— — — —

Hello [REDACTED],

I'd like to apologise what has happened from the bottom of my heart.

I have grossly overstepped the trust and respect of you specifically, the community and all people that identify as LGBTQ+. I made a mistake by my own doing and disregard of other people’s feeling and identity.

It was incredibly stupid, childish and disrespectful of me to make that comment, which I realised on the day as rightly pointed out by the community. It was irresponsible, insulting and insensitive to all — and rightly have been called out for.

It was never my intention to hurt you or make you feel this way. It is, and was, very out of character of me to say what I said and there is nothing I can say here to make you feel better.

I made a terrible mistake. I ask for your forgiveness.

❤️

— Vincent

— — — —

Now I understand fully I could have handled a few things much better. For example not writing that post in the first place. Nor the cancellation post. Cool heads prevail after all.

Because of the private discourse between the two, which they have never replied to nor acknowledged, I looked into the mirror. Thought hard about my blogging habits going forwards. If you have followed me for a while you know that this has been tugging at me for over a few years. This is what change looks like. And I am willing to change and adjust to become a better human being.

Now I find myself in the middle of this again and I think it was important to add those notes. I don’t take it lightly that I shared the emails above, they are personal between them and me, but I feel at this time there is no choice.

To round it off, I also want to address my use of X. But before that know that I find it super strange that I am now getting stalked about what I write. Obviously someone went out their way to visit the place they don’t like (so maybe don’t visit then), and take a screenshot on a device that is run by a company that has also been coming into the questionable light the past few weeks because of their CEO (so don’t use it). I know it’s a sour note, yet it is how I see it and it’s hard for me to comprehend that I am not allowed to express joy of human technological progress. I love rockets. I love the idea of traveling the stars one day. I’m a geek!

So my use of X is this. I deleted my account when I was with Micro.blog all those years ago. In fact I motivated others to also delete theirs. I am in love with the community. They are the most accepting people I have ever come across. There is years of history here that I want to go in to, but I won’t.

Around 2 years ago there was a spicy exchange on the platform, and it was me who stepped in (my mistake for stoking the fire). And for me that was a sign. A sign that unfortunately that euphoric evergreen feeling of human progress to accept each other and their choices crushed that was clearly so dear to me and the community. Both Manton and Jean know about this and I emailed them privately instead of taking it further publicly. It’s also the time I started work on Scribbles, because I just wanted something away from social.

So, I decided to look elsewhere. Mastodon was not the answer for me, I tried many times, but certainly not anymore. So I tried X again. Followed a few developers that also build in public, then rocket launches... and because I really don’t like ads, I eventually bought the Premium package — plus I could experiment with articles. I wanted an escape from seemingly increased hate in the place I love. And yeah, I get that X is not the place for many because of exactly that reason and I do not blame you for that. My experiences here are now different. The Twitter of 2019 was just terrible and so politically charged and I wanted nothing to do with it. It was disgusting.

Ultimately because of the way things were going, I also stopped working on Gluon because I didn’t want to contribute to the madness anymore. I tried though! Last year during the above incident I had enough so I formally just shut it all down (there were other factors at play about this decision). Manton knows this, or maybe not, but I was very close to just leaving and do something else.

I am being labelled for something I am not just because I happen to tag someone to congratulate them (not for a “oh look at me I’m gonna take a screenshot”). I am not responsible for the actions of others, only my own. I own my mistakes, but I cannot heal the world or other people. Because I tagged someone in the past, but that person somehow offended you in the future because of the way you perceive actions shouldn’t be my fault. The issue is between you and them. Not me.

I do not know what is next. I really don’t. I didn’t re-read the post above and will just stop here. There is so much detail that would make this post just too long.

Thank you for reading. This is my last post on this matter. I won’t mention it again. I will have to let bygones be bygones. I cannot hold a grudge, it’s not me. I usually sleep on it and the world is already a better place when I wake up.

Something is clearly broken here but I do not have the answers.

Onwards.