Baen's Bar, File 770, and People who Carry a Grudge for a Loooooong Time

 Back in 2001, I wound up on Baen's Bar. I started out just reading, got drawn into the discussions, became a Barfly, contributed more than I care to think about in various place, fixed a few things for some authors ("So if you're not careful with that great big mass driver, and your heroes miss, they're going to pith the Earth like a frog hit by a 22, and they'll have blown the whole point of the series. Ooops.").  

Along the way, I got to observe Jim Baen's methods of running an online forum, and wound watching as more than a few people were given the boot for assorted forms of misconduct.  One memorable kid, for example, figured out how to quickly change screen names to emulate various other people while commenting and posting. Unfortunately, he practiced this one morning while I was online...and he used me as one of his test cases. Screenshots were taken, moderators were invoked, and he wound up booted. What probably would have saved his butt is if, rather than apologizing for us noticing, he'd apologized for impersonating various people in the first place.  Bad judgement call.

One person who I watched get escorted to the door was a "gentleman" named George Phillies. I honestly don't know what's become of him, but at the time he wasn't someone I would have suffered to have around.

So, enough pre-history.

Last year, there was a small hubbub after a vile little turd who I will not name decided to take a shot at Baen's Bar, in an attempt to prop up his own notoriety. Here's Eric Flint taking the whole thing apart as the hit piece it is.  Seriously, this is a classic application of the "some asshole" theory. The Bar was shut down briefly, the turd's allegations were reviewed, they were determined to be completely without merit, and dismissed wholly and completely, as they should have been.

Which leads to this:

https://file770.com/baens-bar-returns/

A lovely little bit of skirt-clutching fear and slander.  Except... notice the byline at the bottom?  Yep, one and the same. 

I never really had a good opinion of George then.  But to carry a grudge like that for, what, nearly 15 years?  That's just ridiculous.