This is good news. After a long hiatus, Rebecca Watson is gathering her team of superheroes to relaunch Skepchick. I find her reason personally inspiring.
I’ve long had it in the back of my head that I should relaunch, but depression, anxiety, and life found a way to stop me (or allow me to stop myself). Then, a few months back, a lawyer emailed me threatening to sue me over something one of my writers wrote ages ago. I realized I needed to do something, as I was spending thousands of dollars on server space and now I was preparing to spend many more thousands of dollars on a legal case, all for a website I’d been ignoring for years. I decided I would shut everything down.
Then I talked to some very kind lawyers, who told me the person threatening me was a troll who makes his living scaring bloggers into paying him off in the hopes they won’t go to court. They gave me information on how to go about fighting him, and I thought, “Oh yeah, this is what I love doing.” I love fighting bullies. I love exposing scam artists. And I love providing a platform for other writers and activists to do the same.
So instead of shutting Skepchick down, I decided to relaunch. I contacted our writers and many of them were excited to come back on. You can see the full list of them (thus far) here. You’ll once again see our daily Quickies, and you’ll be able to read voices other than mine.
A troll is threatening to sue her, and instead of caving in, she gets angry and reinvigorated? That’s excellent. That’s what I need to hear, because…well, there’ll be some ugly news I share later.
Thanks for some much needed good news. Rebecca’s voice is one I have missed. And it is good to know the trolls haven’t won. We’ll need to support her.
“That’s what I need to hear, because…well, there’ll be some ugly news I share later.”
Oh dear. Is Carrier appalling…er, appealing?
Wonderful news about Skepchick. I have missed the writers and other contributors to Skepchick. For far too long it has just been Rebecca posting vlogs. Not that I don’t like watching her posts, but some variety would be great.
I thought that a bunch of her writers were on the Orbit now. Is that going to be merged into Skepchick, or will they both keep going?
I’m sure the Orbit isn’t going away. Arrangements will be made. Some people on FtB, for instance, write for multiple outlets, and that’s never a problem.
I’ve really missed Skepchick and I’m sad to hear Rebecca was having such a hard time. The loss of it as an outlet did help me to find some other cool spaces (like this one) but now I get to have both!
Can’t wait to see the new content!
Haven’t looked at Orbit for ages. Just noticed Heina is still active. I wondered if she would be included in the SC relaunch. Maybe I’ll add Orbit back to my read list.
Rebecca’s recent measles post has me all fired up, especially since I coupled an overdue tetanus (plus diphtheria and pertussis) shot with what may have been an unnecessary MMR shot given I had a shot in early 90s, but I wasn’t taking any chances. That post is a perfect example why I love to read her.
let me guess.
“Carrier, round 2.”
If she’s open to it, I’d actually be interested in writing some on Skepchick, but that doesn’t mean I would want to forsake my blog here. I’m going to try to contact her, but not sure how yet. We’ve never met, she wouldn’t know me & it’s not like I even have her e-mail.