Before I wrote my previous post, rebutting John Grohol's discussion of an earlier Hungry Blues post on the APA and US torture, I left two comments on his blog on August 11. In my comments I left two bits of evidence that called Grohol's claims into question. A few days earlier, another commentor, Ian Westmore, who maintains another psychology blog, also raised some substantive objections to Grohol's discussion.
Grohol responded to none of our points. Instead, he posted, without comment, an excerpt from the AP article announcing the APA's "stand against torture" and adherence to "existing policy saying that it’s ethical for psychologists to assist in military interrogations."
Since Grohol showed no willingness to engage in informal discussion in the comments to his blog, I posted a formal rebuttal on August 14, at 8:14 AM. Late that night, at 12:43 AM on August 15, after no attempts at sending trackbacks to Grohol's post had worked, I posted a new comment to notify Grohol and future readers of my rebuttal.
This morning I posted a rebuttal to your criticism of my Hungry Blues post:
John Grohol Issues Misleading APA Damage Control
(Note: I recently moved Hungry Blues to my own domain, which is why the link, above, will take you to a different website than the one you link to in your post.)
In my browser, this appeared as the 5th comment in the thread, but it was marked as "awaiting moderation." When my comment was still awaiting moderation this morning, I emailed Grohol with roughly the same information as in my comment, adding, "I think it would be appropriate to release my comment from moderation, so readers of your post can know that I've responded."
As of this writing, Grohol has not replied to my email, he has not released my comment from moderation, and he has not written in his blog to counter my rebuttals of his arguments.
One might give him the benefit of the doubt, supposing that perhaps he has not had a chance to tend to his blog these last few days. Yet Grohol posted to Psych Central twice today (8/16) and once yesterday (8/15).
No, it appears more likely that Grohol does not want to discuss the misleading ways he has downplayed the APA's role in supporting US torture. Nor does he want his readers to know there is discussion of this topic available elsewhere.
UPDATE (8/18): Grohol let my comment through and responded to my rebuttal last night. I will be posting my response to him soon.
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Unfortunately, John Grohol’s words concerning how his Forum’s should be run does not match his actions.
BrainTalk was probably the biggest Forum for neurological disorders. The site crashed for several months. John Grohol tried to hijack BrainTalk with a site mimicking it that he called BrainTalk2.
A lot of people were unhappy with BrainTalk due to the arrogant way in which their Moderators treated members. Discussing their actions was not even allowed. So for the first time, the malice and arrogance of BrainTalk Moderators was discussed on John Grohol’s copycat BrainTalk2. He enabled a major inquest to take place amongst BrainTalk2’s members concerning it.
Most of BrainTalk’s members, finding out what had been going on at BrainTalk completely abandoned it for John Grohol’s new rival. He assured everyone of how well they would be treated. There would, according to him be no arrogance and intolerance on BrainTalk2, which he subsequently named NeuroTalk. They believed him and so left BrainTalk for good. Most of the Forums on BrainTalk are now almost completely inactive as a result of this.
However, since then, John Grohol and his Moderators have become progressively more arrogant and intolerant. Banning has been taking place without the rules being breached. Cogent reasons aren’t given. Questions whose answers make him look bad go unanswered. According to him, his Moderators are beyond criticism. Discussion of his Administration’s failings result in instant banning.
It has become just like BrainTalk- a compassionate and caring facade, with an intolerant and arrogant reality. Arrogance caught up with Administrators of BrainTalk. The same will happen with NeuroTalk, which is already losing active members every week.
Grohol has his fan club comb the web for sites like this one, where there is any criticism of his fiefdom. Rather than addressing or refuting any of the issues raised, they attack the character of the authors, calling them trolls and worse.
If the Neurotalk board is a positive factor, its success will speak for itself. The goon squad of moderators and 2-3 fans do more harm than good. They come acrossed like defensive shrews.