Removed as a Follower of File 770?

Mike Glyer (right) sitting with Marty Cantor – April 2008.

The other night it occurred to me that I hadn’t received an email notification of any posts on File 770 for over a week. That seemed rather odd to me since Mike Glyer writes on his “fanzine” rather frequently. Frankly, he’s pretty “chatty.” I thought the emails were going to a different tab in Gmail, but no. Then I checked my spam folder just in case, but again, no emails from File 770.

So I looked, and as of this writing, the latest File 770 post is from today. In fact, not a day has gone by when Mike Glyer hasn’t posted something on his fanzine.

I checked my WordPress Reader to see if they showed up there. Nope. Not present. So where have my notification emails been going?

Yes, I’ve been critical of some of the material Glyer has published. That’s part and parcel of being on the internet. Sooner or later someone will disagree with you. Deal with it. But Glyer and his website/blog is supposed to be a really big deal. I mean they hobnob with the really big names in science fiction and fantasy. Compared to them, I’m pretty much a small fry if that. So why notice me at all?

Glyer did send me a strange email a while back, but when I replied asking what he meant, he went on radio silence.

Screenshot from my gmail account.

Could Mike have somehow kicked me off of his list of followers?

As it turns out, such a thing is possible on WordPress. I knew I could ban people from commenting, but I didn’t know I could stop them from following me completely. Mike has accused me in the past (without mentioning my name or blog of course) of being paranoid, and I certainly don’t want to give that appearance, but I really do get the sense that he doesn’t want me following his blog and especially commenting on his content.

Gee, too bad.

I know free speech rights only extend to forbidding the government from censoring you, and certainly Mike can stop me from following his blog if he desires, but he can’t stop me from visiting his site from time to time and posting my impressions on my blog. No, I’m not going to attempt following him again. What’s the point? He’s made his intentions pretty clear. But it’s rather petty of him to do so, echoing the sentiments of a friend of mine who refers to him as “China Mike” for reasons too lengthy to state here.

I guess if I want to care enough about Glyer to comment about File 770, I’ll have to remember to peek in on his lively doings on my own. Since Mike apparently sees himself as such a big deal, I suppose I should be flattered.

18 thoughts on “Removed as a Follower of File 770?”

  1. He is a very petty man, indeed.

    You must have posted something that offended his delicate sensibilities, otherwise known to sane people as – The Truth. You have joined an exclusive club, my friend. Welcome! We have cookies! 🙂

    Like

  2. You know, as I consider this, I may be the reason why he did this. I had mentioned on my blog some time ago that I had people who monitor his vile house of 770 aromas and let me know if something needs to be addressed.

    He probably thinks you were one of them. You weren’t one of those I mentioned, just for the record. But he’s just paranoid enough to think you were.

    The funny thing is, he didn’t need to bother.

    After my recent dust-up here with Camestros, I decided to ban any mention of Cam, Glyer or any of those folks or their websites from my blog from now on. I’m not reading anything from their sites or social media, nor will I respond to them on my blog. A court of law? Yes. But online? No. So if this was their intent, it really was a waste of time.

    Like

      • From what Larry Correia and many others have said, this is what Glyer does. He targets new writers that lean right – or that he just suspects might lean right – and tries to destroy them before they can be successful.

        He really hasn’t succeeded, but he keeps on trying.

        It is to your credit that you try. I did almost three years ago when they started in on me. To this day not one criticism from that lot has had anything to do with my writing or the stories I’ve had published. It’s always been personal attacks and nothing else.

        Like I mentioned above, legal steps are being taken now. I am meeting with my U.S. Senators and congressional reps to see if legislation can be passed to help expose anonymous trolls like Cam, JJ and some of the others on Glyer’s blog so they can be sued in court for their slander and libel.

        This is the better way to combat these vile people, IMHO.

        Like

      • Someone suggested that it may be a WordPress glitch, and that’s been mentioned by more than one person. I guess we’ll see. It’s Friday night. My brain is fried by the trials of my day job. I’ll consider all this again later.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Could be. To be fair, he usually just blocks you from commenting on his site so you can’t defend yourself from his slander. But I still wouldn’t be surprised to learn he did this to you too.

        Like

      • I have tried to engage with you here James but as you witnessed, my last attempted ended with some quite vile and defamatory remarks from a person here as well as legal threats from the same person. It’s difficult to have a constructive conversation in such circumstances. What would you propose as a means of moving forward?

        Like

      • I encourage a lively exchange of opinions, but as you’ve said, this one went over the top. It’s Friday evening and my brain has been fried by my day slave job. I’ll have to give your query some consideration and get back to you when I feel up to it. Regards.

        Like

      • Thank you, but I see below your comments further demands including that I “drop dead”.

        I am happy not to post comments here James if you ask me to stop posting here. Do other commenters here have the privilege to dictate who does or does not comment here?

        Like

    • Three possible courses of action for Cam to resolve our issue:

      1. Post under your real name. or…
      2. Do not post anywhere online where I have posted first (as you have done here) and do not ever again mention my name or refer to me by name or by inference anywhere online. Forget I exist. or…
      3. Drop dead.

      I prefer you select the third option but will be satisfied if you select either 1 or 2.

      And I make no legal threats. I take legal action. So far, WordPress has been most helpful. I hope my pending appointments with my state’s representatives in D.C. prove to be the same.

      Like

      • Every interaction we have had have been initiated by you. Your most recent comments defamed me and included legal threats. This one includes unreasonable requests and further threats. I am stating now as clearly as I can that further contact from you is unwelcome and I will regard it as an attempt to harass me. I am asking as respectfully as possible to please desist from further defamatory comments, harassment or verbal abuse.

        Like

  3. You may be correct about being deliberately dropped in this instance, but I thought perhaps I should let you know that WordPress has a glitch in the system of some kind that occasionally does cause followers to be dropped. I’ve had it happen to me at least 3 times over the several years I’ve been blogging. People with whom i have wonderful relationships and with whom I interact frequently have suddenly disappeared. All posts from them stopped showing up in my WP Reader. After several days, I checked on their sites and discovered that they had been posting regularly, and when I mentioned the problem to them they were concerned as well. Since those bloggers were people who definitely did want to stay in touch, the solution was to “Unfollow” them and then “Follow” again. That fixed the problem. But I had that sort of thing happen with at least 3 different bloggers over the years, and it was not their fault, nor mine. Now, your situation may be different, but just thought you’d like to know that there could possibly be another explanation.

    Like

  4. Richard and Cam, stop! I don’t mind when people disagree but this schoolyard taunting and name calling is out of bounds. I will start deleting comments or closing them. It would be best if you didn’t comment to each other on this blog at all!

    Like

Comments are closed.