Following publication of the piece on 8pm on Wednesday 4th, Andy Lewis jumped in first thing the next day, at 6.15 am, to refute several of the broad assumptions he perceived Kate Wilson was making and strongly asserting that the type of education called Steiner is grossly misleading to parents.
I asked Sue Smith whether someone had complained about the references to "sinister cults", as another commenter had used the word “litigious“ in connection with Steiner schools and why she had taken the comments down at all having chosen to publish on such a known controversial subject.
Ms Smith confirmed to me that she had only cut the thread yesterday morning at around 8 am because a commenter had left “malicious” and “derogatory” comments.
The matter was of personal interest to me as I had made several comments on that thread myself highlighting the fact that Andy Lewis appears to be using the subject of Steiner largely to increase his personal influence and that he is provably doing so at the expense of honesty and children's welfare, in the same way as he has micro-managed the debate on his blog.
But whereas Andy Lewis is happy to seek attention for himself by publicly calling out Steiner for being deliberately misleading, he and his large gang of skeptic friends will not tolerate being evidentially called to account themselves. Tactics include first blocking, then misrepresenting evidential criticism as “harassment” while others come in to troll the target with personal insults, as in this first ever tweet sent to me by Maria MacLachlan, a so-called “humanist” friend of Andy Lewis, and Co-Director of the Nightingale Collaboration, who had just witnessed Andy putting the phrase “Human Rights” into his spam filter.
The widespread and 100% scepticism-free practise of openly targeting people who are also blocked from participating, affords these skeptics the opportunity to frame any further attempt to put the record straight as “harassment”, and “stalking”, ironically using the assumption of skepticism to achieve that.
Such tactics have the effect, therefore, of steadily shutting down all avenues except legal action as the only possible means to try and draw attention to an “award winning Skeptic” dishonestly seeking to dominate a platform under the comprehensive title "What Every Parent Should Know About Steiner-Waldorf Schools", whilst blocking information of immediate relevance to children’s welfare.
These tactics meant that Kate Wilson’s article in the Stroud News and Journal represented an unusual opportunity to politely challenge this behaviour in an open, public forum, which was certainly not wasted and the pulling of the thread was highly co-incidental which is also why I was keen to know from Ms Smith whether or not there had been any legal involvement or advice involved in her decision to pull the comments.
The editor confirmed that it was solely due to the commenter who had posted that morning. Asked why she didn't just pull those comments and leave the rest, Sue said it was her decision to make.
Previous to yesterday’s commenter, the last comment had been up for two days, so whatever was written yesterday obviously crossed a line that other challenging comments, even the one baldly asking for evidence to back up slanderous personal smears Andy Lewis had made at a public meeting, did not.
Such questions were an attempt to challenge a man seeking influence for himself on a dishonest platform while Sue Smith confirmed that the comments that persuaded her to pull the thread were both "derogatory" and "malicious".
It's good to know that Sue Smith, editor of Stroud News and Journal, can spot the difference.
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Deleted comments from the Stroud News and Journal are reproduced in this downloadable PDF.
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