A considered and evenhanded response to Hedda's continuing Hydra fantasies, from Peter UK, as posted on SWF.
"I always thought Hedda was a much better political analyst than literary critic and this latest rant proves it. I presume that when he says one poster uses 60 names and controls 80 percent of the board he doesn't really believe such twaddle himself and just does it to needle. What a filing system Smiles would need if it were true and he certainly wouldn't have time for a boring old paid job. But the literary argument is the most compelling evidence against such claims. Each of us, when we write, do so in our own unique way, using favourite words, favourite ways of phrasing things and so on, much of this at a subconscious level. It can be hard, even for a professional writer, to disguise his normal 'voice' convincingly - some stylistic quirk or other will usually give him away. For one person to have done it on the scale mentioned above - well, it's laughable. The only poster I'm aware of at SF who really seems to make a career out of multiple handles is the Australian midget and he is too dim to begin to disguise his normal style (or even to use the occasional upper-case first letter in his handles). Smiles actually has a very distinctive writing style. I consider myself to have a good ear for such things and no other poster at SF has ever put me remotely in mind of him. I've never known Hedda to produce a shred of proof for his claims; it's all just the malice of the once-favoured one in exile. I'm pleased to see that bao-bao, the latest poster to be fingered by Hedda (for no more than the crime of agreeing with something Smiles wrote!), is able to take it all in such good part; I'm not sure that I would be able to. I don't think that Smiles has helped his own cause by continually responding to Hedda's jibes - a dignified silence would have been much better. But I have no doubt in my mind as to who the real villain of the piece is. The famed intelligence and wit mean nothing to me by themselves. Recently Hedda saw much irony in the fact that Bush should defend the right to life of unborn innocents at home while pursuing a Middle East policy which takes innocent life. I also see a certain irony in a commentator who advocates high ethical standards in the political domain while showing a complete lack of them in his personal dealings with others."