Don't De-Anonymize Scott Alexander

previous about the same story:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23610416" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23610416</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23626449" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23626449</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23621466" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23621466</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23617887" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23617887</a>

Can anyone please ELI5 what this is about? What does the phrase &quot;Slate Star Codex&quot; mean? Now that all his blog posts were gone, what topics had he generally written about that attracted so much attention?

This was unexpected (never would occur to me he is a controversial media-person, even though I don&#x27;t agree with most of what he writes myself), and a pity, since I still have a bunch on his blogposts on my to-read list, that now appear to be gone, but what I actually don&#x27;t understand is why journalists still have so much freedom to harass people. I&#x27;m pretty sure these pesky parasites are responsible for more total length of nerves burnt, than all robbers combined. Is there really no legal action that an ordinary, not massively rich person could realistically take against NYT in such cases?

Vice doxxed Naomi Wu a little while back [1]. It seems like reporters are increasingly becoming unethical to push their stories forward (or maybe they were always this unethical?).<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;RealSexyCyborg&#x2F;status&#x2F;1275665325674172417" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;RealSexyCyborg&#x2F;status&#x2F;127566532567417241...</a>

Is this “real name policy” documented anywhere public? I was under the impression that journalists protected confidential sources all the time and a policy of revealing identities could be ruinous to a newspaper’s ability to shine a light on activity happening behind closed doors.

SA was being interviewed for an article -- was this detail not discussed beforehand?<p>Did the NYT violate an informal agreement not to use his real name?<p>Could SA have reasonably expected that a reporter would not <i>trivially</i> find his real name as part of routine research, and thus include it as background?<p>SA&#x27;s wishes should be respected by NYT -- the piece should be abandoned -- but his judgement on entering into an interview in the first place is questionable.

A petition about protecting pseudonymity... and a full name is required to sign it.

i am having a hard time with this one. really. this is getting blown out of all proportions. seeing some names there is very surprising to me!

I don’t really understand this. You can literally find his name by just asking Google for it. Isnt it already deanonymized?<p>Or is this about some larger point?

I signed the petition.

This seems to be the context:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;slatestarcodex.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;06&#x2F;22&#x2F;nyt-is-threatening-my-safety-by-revealing-my-real-name-so-i-am-deleting-the-blog&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;slatestarcodex.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;06&#x2F;22&#x2F;nyt-is-threatening-my-...</a>

He goes by his own full name in a published book, and his chapter names the blog he deleted in the very first sentence.<p>Why wasn&#x27;t the outrage over that? Is that because it&#x27;s a Rationalist Community book, whereas the New York Times is Outgroup?