I know we've had already several discussions about misogyny in the atheism movement, at least I remember clearly the very long discussion we had about "Elevator Gate," possibly the most polite and rational discussion I have seen about misogyny in the atheism community (at least, in the English-speaking atheism community). I was reluctant to bring this new storm up, basically because I do get tired of "Yes, but..." type of answers, they make me lose a little bit of faith in humanity. And I don't mean "faith" as in belief in the absence of evidence", but as in "confidence", and "trust". Briefly, a 15 year old girl proudly posted a picture of herself (her smiling face only) holding her very religious mom's Xmas gift to her: a copy of the book "The Demon Haunted World" by Carl Sagan. Nice! A sign that her mom is respecting her daughter's position and even stimulating her to read interest stuff by a prominent scientist and freethinker. All is good. But, no, she was immediately assaulted with comments about her appearance, and what the various losers in that forum would like to do to her various orifices (read this post if you are interested in the very lewd, violent details, if you feel an urge to get your stomach turned). When somebody points out she is 15, well, the jerks continue by saying that in some countries 15 is legal, and that in any case it is her fault for posting a picture of her face, not just the book! According to these guys, this is a sign of female stupidity because guys would have photographed just the book cover, not their faces! (of course, several picture immediately brought up pictures of humans looking very much like males, holding copies of books they got as presents or they love!).

So way to go, guys! A young girl becomes an atheist, wants to join the discussion, and instead of feeling welcome, she gets bullied and sexualized in a violent manner. And, as Greta Christina says, please no "Yes, buts..," anything that starts with "yes, but" is the wrong response to misogyny. Read her entire post, it is really very good).

The problem that started on Reddit at r/atheism has spread into Freethoughtblogs.com and is really a shame, because now that we finally got rid of Mabus in the online atheist community, we have now to deal with a new "baby Mabus". according to PZ Myers, although this time the lunatic is an atheist who has been bullying many people, not just women, in several atheist social networking sites, including Atheist Nexus.  His true identity has been outed by PZ Myers, here. I do not agree with revealing any personal information in the internet but if you follow several threads, in this case it may have  been justified, because of the threat of stalking at an actual atheist convention. Apparently the "atheist Mabus" has his own site and a band of followers who have been targeting prominent female atheist bloggers and the men who take the female bloggers' side, such as PZ Myers. If you want to read more about what's happening at Freethoughtblogs.com, you can read the excellent blog post by Lousy Canuck, or Ed Brayton's post, or JT Eberhart who tried to stay out of the misogyny in the atheism community messy subject as much as possible.

The reason why I'm bringing it up (reluctantly) is two-fold: 1) because it brings up the interesting point, worthy of debate and careful thought of what constitutes censorship and what doesn't, as in "why is moderation needed in online forums", and I personally think that while censorship should be avoided as much as possible, however moderation is needed to stop bullies, to ensure that everyone feels welcome and that the site doesn't get taken over by trolls who don't have a life or any sort of social skills and/or too much time in their hands; and 2) because I'm proud to say that nothing of the sort could have happen in our social networking site, because we would have nipped it in the bud, and I think I speak for all the administrators and moderators here.