I never heard of Mr. Hiltzik prior to this kerfuffle, but I just read his bio. That a grown man with his experience and credentials would assume fake identities (did each come with a unique voice and personality?) in order to compensate for the perceived inadequacies of his real (or is it?) identity is just a little too Sybil for me.

"It's my firm belief and experience that the quality of discussion improves immensely when people avoid the cheap courage of pseudonymity when tossing around insults."

Perhaps, but isn't this just a little nonsensical? I have commented (I don't blog) under my own name since day one. I chose to do so as a self-editing tool (and even then it doesn't always work) because mine is a one of a kind type of name. If you know someone who goes by the name below, that person's gonna be me.

However, I could just as easily call myself Allison Porchnik. You're satisfied because it's my "real name" (and how do you know it isn't?), but I'm still free to be as cheaply courageous as that little devil perched on my left shoulder would have me be because none of that outrageous behaviour will accrue to the real me. The Internet is an anonymous kind of place. Real names, pseudonyms, who's to say?

Matt/LAT:

I know you are probably thinking that you are taking enough heat already, but I've been onto something concerning Mr. Hiltzik's blog much beyond his using pseudonyms and sock puppets which I find a quantum level worse, and so might you. Such that your editor's statement,

"an internal inquiry found no inaccurate reporting in his postings in his blog or on the Web"

while being technically true, its finding is false. Hiltzik has been inaccurate and worse in his blog, even appearing to overtly lie.

This involves Hiltzik's claims in his Costa Mesa/Immigration post, in which he falsely alleges somethings about what the SS Trustees themselves actually say overtly, and allegedly say via a Table, in their annual 2005 report which Hiltzik refers to:

Hiltzik: "Let's not forget that as the American workforce ages in an era of low birthrates, new workers will have to come from somewhere. What's [the] difference (according to the Social Security Trustees) between a Social Security system on the glide path to insolvency and one that remains fully funded into the distant future? The first is based on annual immigration of 900,000, one third of them classified today as illegal. The second is based on annual immigration of 1.3 million, about half of them in today's "illegal" category. (See this table from the 2005 annual report, and compare the "intermediate" projection to the "low cost" projection." This is a pretty dramatic claim.

But the Social Security Trustees actually say baldly in their intro to the Tables in their 2005 annual report Hiltzik links to:

"The estimates are not intended to be specific predictions of the future financial status of the OASDI program, but rather, they are intended to be indicators of the expected trend and a reasonable range of future income and cost, under a variety of plausible demographic and economic conditions."

It is only a qualitative range the Trustees put forth as likely possible scenarios, given estimates of certain classes of figures, and one not involving dollar cost vs revenue at all. So the SS Trustees don't say that any of the scenarios they present in the Table[s] will produce SS solvency or insolvency, as HIltzik claims. They instead specifically deny they are saying anything at all about the overall financial health of the System.

Much less do the Trustees say via the Table[s] that solvency or the financial health of the System is even very much controlled by the specific immigration numbers they estimate, and certainly not to the point where certain yearly increases in numbers of new immigrants, whether total or illegal, bode the solution to SS woes. The Trustees don't say it, and the Table[s] don't say it.

For example, I don't think there is hardly any way one could reasonably conclude that an extra 400,000 new immigrants in a year would cover the cost of an extra 1,000,000 new SS retirees. But this is exactly what Hiltzik says the Trustees and the Table[s] say.

[Some minor points involving Hiltzik's "accuracy": there isn't even anywhere in the Table Hiltzik refers to that the number of illegals gets very close to the 650,000/yr. total involving the increase Hiltzik refers to as "[the] difference" which will make the System "fully funded into the distant future". Nor does this Table show any year where the illegals would be half the total number of immigrants, which Hiltzik says flatly the table says might occur.]

The claim that certain numbers of new immigrants will determine SS solvency concerns some important issues for the country, making Hiltzik's deception especially galling and even reprehensible, imo. To top it off, he is represented as a "financial" writer.

Matt,

This blog is using typekey -- which allows us to post under pseudonyms, and in fact nearly demands that we do so. I only own one pseudonym, not several, as Mr. Hiltzik did. I use exactly the one and never use my real name. Hence, you can google search my pseudonym and find out anything I've ever posted anywhere anytime.

I've never liked Mr. Hiltzik's commentaries, and wondered why his op-ed stuff was in Business and not in Opinion or California -- where the rest of his friends go. That said, when Mr. Hiltzik returns, please consider putting his column in Classifieds (the situations area would be nice), so I can truly ignore it. And while you're at it, please remove the perfume you guys occasionally add to the Sunday paper -- we have allergies and have to wait half a day after opening the paper before we can find out all the dead news from the day before.

John:

"But it's strange that among all the things we could discuss (a massive challenge to immigration policies; an unfinished, unpopular war; a domestic suspension of various individual liberties; impending environmental crises; oil prices; etc.) this is the one that draws forty-some reader comments. Why is that?"

I'm sure that Jane Yolen would love an answer to the implied question: what makes some threads (or books) "sell" and others just lie there like a lox?

Jane wrote a well-received fantasy novel for young adults -- about a school for witches and wizards. She is a bestselling, Newberry-Award winning author; the book sold fairly well, but not spectacularly.

Certainly nothing like -- what's it called again? -- oh yeah, Harry Potter.

My friend Brad Linaweaver wrote a fascinating alternate-history novel called Moon of Ice, how the world might have changed if Hitler had won WWII. It was his best book, it's been republished a couple of times. But Fatherland (by some other guy) was a bestseller... and Brad has it on good authority that Robert Harris did, in fact, read Moon of Ice as part of his research for Fatherland.

And back in the early 1990s, I published a two-book novel -- Arthur War Lord and Far Beyond the Wave -- that drew heavily upon the mythology of the supposedly "nonfiction" books Holy Blood, Holy Grail and the Messianic Legacy; in fact, I was the first person to really make use of their fascinating (but ultimately cockamamie) thesis that Jesus didn't really die on the cross; he was rescued, fled to France, married Mary Magdalene, and his ancestors eventually ruled Europe as the Merovingian dynasty (the first author other than the sister of one of the authors of HB, HG).

But somehow, a feller named Dan Brown got all the sales -- and the lawsuit -- years later, with some little schmatta called the Da Vinci Code.

So the Hiltzik thread gets a lot of phosphor, but a post about the urgent subject of a "windfall profits" tax on oil companies probably won't get squat.

C'est la vie!

Dafydd ab Hugh <--- (real name)

This discussion is rather confusing, but it seems to me that some feel that the tendency for the blogosphere and commentors to use pseudonyms in the first place are partly responsible for what happened in Hiltzik's case.

I don't care, frankly, one way or another whether someone uses a real name when posting or a pseudonym. As long as I can attribute writings to a certain individual entity, I'm happy. I mean, who here hasn't enjoyed the works of O. Henry? Or even chuckled the Silence Dogood letters?

What bothers me is the intent of the pseudonym. The cold facts are that Hiltzik deliberately created phony individuals to praise his own work. The dead-tree equivalent would be for him to write letters praising his work to the editorial section under phony names and addresses. He has the option of doing both. But the question is, just because he can, SHOULD he?

Simply because someone can send in a letter under a phony or anonymous name does not mean that the Postal Service is broken. Likewise, the ability to use pseudonyms does not mean that the anonymity of the internet is a bad thing. It just needs to be used responsibly. If you did things under a false name for cheap personal gain in "real" life, you would lose credibility. If you do so online, you should be viewed with equal disdain.

In my opinion, Hiltzik did not just engage in shady self-promotion, he violated the trust of his readers. Compounded with his incendiary and rude behavior towards others in the Blogosphere, I see no great loss in his suspension. He lost my respect from his first snobbish post on his blog, and in engaging in this latest behavior, he lost my trust. And I will attach those losses to everything he writes in all mediums from now on.

As I would with anyone who showed no integrity.

"TakeFive -- Speaking of Letters to the Editor, another one of our ideas here is that we may want to eventually harvest some of the Web-comments into the print pages, which as you know requires a much higher level of disclosure, etc."

Not a problem. If you wish to convert a comment into a letter to the editor - send an email to the supplied address. The commentor can accede to your request by providing their name and numbers.

But if you are planning to harvest "letters" without the poster having an opportunity to edit - that would be a problem, for me anyway. You know the rule; write it at night, read it in the morning. Blog comments by nature are rather terse and not always well focused, and I detest having the editors change my writing while my name is still attached Yes, I’m aware of how egotistical that sounds considering that even columnists get edited, but blog comments are like the floor sweepings of our minds.

Perhaps you have some other method in mind?

“While I respect arguments about anonymity in political speech, A) we have no obligation to host it on our site”

No argument here. Not sure why you mentioned this.

“B) I think the real-world chances of being endangered by your political comments on some weblog are infinitesimal”

Cathy Seip mentioned on her blog that Hiltzik has been husbanding a grudge over something she wrote 13 years ago. Something Hiltzik even copped to. Am I worried Hiltzik or his minions will climb through my window because I said something mean? Unlikely. But actions do have consequences and the risk to reward ratio just makes it prudent to give up your anonymity reluctantly.

“C) I frankly suspect you wouldn't be so willing to accuse an entire chunk of the political spectrum of mental illness & the inability to have a simple good-faith discussion if you included your real name.”

I have had several letters to the editor published by both the LA Times and the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. You know the policy: name, address, and phone number - and they have called to confirm. And believe me, my heart skips a beat when I send off a letter highlighting some aspect of union corruption. But I think the newspaper reading community is rather staid and the fiery true believers have long since abandoned the op-ed pages for the web.

Look - I agree it seems like a trite stereotype to label one’s ideological opponents as mentally ill, but I feel the same way about people that insist the Clinton mafia murdered Vince Foster. Or the nut who argues he’s doing God’s work by killing an abortion doctor. The difference is the breadth and intensity of the rhetoric coming from the Left today, particularly at the street level, that causes me concern.

I have tried repeatedly to browse sites like Dailykos, MyDD, or Democratic Underground to get some insight into the Left, but have found them to be unreadable. See, comments like Mr. Cleaver’s are not the exception, or even the rule - for rules get broken sometimes. They are like some sort of catechism required to be a member of the Left today.

And yes, it is an entire chunk of the spectrum when you add in the 9/11 conspiracy theorists, anti-war protesters, animal rights activists, Earth Firsters, anti-globalization types, anarchists, etc., all reliably lined up on the left and willing to use other means to advance their agenda. Like the torched Hummer dealership not far from my home - courtesy of ELF.
Sorry to go so far of topic. Just felt like I needed to justify that mental illness remark.

Patrick:

1) Looking for individual "rules" or "exceptions" for the real name/fake name civil/uncivil thing is a mug's game; the generalization is about an entire board. I'm fully aware that named people can be crazy, and pseudo-mice can be sane, etc.

2) "The experience of Michelle Malkin" is not analagous to the experience of 99.9% of weblog commenters. She is a widely read columnist, book author and weblogger, whose shtick involves writing incendiary things about one half of the political spectrum, defending the Japanese internment, calling people traitors, conflating illegal Mexican workers with murderous Islamic terrorists, and on and on and on. She's an extremely -- and intentionally -- polarizing figure. Michael Moore and Ted Rall get death threats, too; that's part of the price of choosing to be a public & inflammatory political commentator. All that said, I don't begrudge anyone's anonymity; it's just that the anonymous will have a higher bar when leaving comments here.

3) HTML is now enabled.

To what new position will Hiltzik be "reassigned"? With absolutely no credibility, to place him in any position as a "journalist" is to only demolish what is left of the Times' stature as a serious newspaper. Furthermore, I believe that he should be fired simply as punishment for his misdeeds.

Matt--Yes, I know, and I've been reading that thread for a month with occasional interest and/or dismay. Much of it (unlike the Hiltzik conversation above) isn't very informed or useful analysis. This thread, on the other hand, is mainly dominated by calmer, more thoughtful voices, even when I don't agree with them.

But point taken: I should probably be mixing it up over there, where the shouting is drowning out reason . . .

John -- In fairness, there are some 600 comments debating immigration over here....

I do have one question about all this: why on earth Hiltzik would feel it necessary to create pseudonymic personalities in the first place for commentary on his own blog.

Interesting thread, and I have a couple of comments:

Hiltzik's use of psuedonyms in the manner in which he used them is unquestionably unethical. It was intended to deceive others, glorify his own opinions and avoid being held accountable for politically based attacks.

Obfuscation of one's identity out of a fear of reprisal for his opinions is a legitimate non-ethical consideration, but that didn't reasonably apply to Hiltzik's situation, since he posted his opinions under his true name. Hiltzik has received not only the censure and the loss of credibility he deserved for cheerleading his own opinions while illegitimately attacking his critics, but the ignominy of being caught dissimulating to do so.

As to whether or not the punishment fits the crime, I am in no position to judge. It largely depends upon how the L.A. Times views unethical public behavior by one of their employees, and how much harm has been done to the reputation of the paper and its stockholders.

Regarding pseudonyms in general, you can find a discussion I had on the topic with an ethics expert at a website called the "Ethics Scoreboard" (note: the simplest of Google searches will take you right there).

Pseudonymity can be ethical as well as unethical. In Hiltzik's case, it wasn't even a close call.