My name is Jeff Heikkinen. That's relatively easy for me to say because unlike many people here, I have nothing in particular that I'd need to hide. Male, cis, straight, etc - I'm an atheist, which I guess would be an issue in some places, but that's about it. Relatively minor mental health issues round out the picture, but it's still a pretty straightforward and "normal" one compared to many here, I'm sure. (History of abuse, too, but in the far distant past. It's not an ongoing issue and both myself and the former abuser have turned out more or less okay.) As I live in central Canada (and no, Toronto is not "central", look at a map people), I don't think I've ever been a target of prejudice in any serious way. That said, like our host, I'm old enough to have caught flak from time to time just for being an ally. I'm here because I've been acquainted with Seebs - in a strictly online way - since the late 90s mostly via Usenet and this is someone who says more intelligent things per minute than nearly anyone else I know. I probably won't be around all that much and when I am it would most likely be in discussions of D&D, "consultantgate" and so on if any of those should end up taking place here. It was a link to Seebs' lucid and well-researched writings on that topic that brought him(?)[1] back to my attention. I probably won't be much of a presence in gender discussions or anything like that, because that's clearly a topic where I have a lot more to gain by listening than talking. Might or might not be a presence in some of the autism stuff because some of my own issues lie in that general neighbourhood. I'm here mostly because I wholeheartedly approve of the idea of this place, even if I don't personally end up contributing much. And also tumblr's UI sucks nuclear weasel penises and I'd much rather be on something like this. [1] I know Seebs doesn't much mind what pronouns you use but I feel like I should at least acknowledge that gender isn't a straightforward thing in this case.
So, funny thing, at one point recentlyish you said you were "jeff h" and I was very confused because my boss's name is Jeff (last initial H), and I was not aware that he read my blog. I checked back in rgfd once and found out that Michael Brown had conceded that, in fact, 3rd edition D&D was intended to use Team Jersey alignments all along. Heh.
Heh. We're everywhere. (I once left my ex-roommate Jacob Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog in his work cubbyhole as a gift around his birthday, but I just signed the note "J". I assumed he'd recognize my writing but he didn't, and in our department so many people's names started with J that it was a running joke. It was like a year before he found out it was me, and only because of an offhanded comment I made that made him piece it together. I peek in there like once a year. Haven't posted in probably close to a decade. Last I checked it seemed to be mostly Keith's house rules. I was going to say hardly any of the old guard were left, but that would be misleading - there were very few people there period, but the ones that were mostly were familiar names. I did extensively re-read some of the threads in rgf.advocacy that I was involved in recently. Sometimes I miss what it was like at its best, but there was definitely a downside. I realize he's minor league compared to the abusers some of your readers deal with, but Mark Hughes remains my personal paradigm of an asshole. Haven't heard a peep from or about MSB since he announced he was leaving the group for work reasons, which has to be over a decade ago now. Still Facebook-friends with Bradd and I want to say I still see the odd forum post from a few of the others. Hong comes to mind, but then of course we're all Hong. EDIT: Oh, and of course Justin Bacon aka Justin Alexander (I didn't realize until fairly recently that they were the same person!) has his blog, The Alexandrian, that I read occasionally.
