“Gay girl in Damascus” has “esoteric” interests

“Gay girl in Damascus” has “esoteric” interests

I’ve been vaguely following the “mystery” surrounding A Gay Girl in Damascus blog. Turns out that “she” is a “he”, a 40 year guy who lives in Georgia. But that’s not why I’m mentioning this. The article linked above is from The Washington Post, and the author notes:

Other links between Amina and MacMaster quickly surfaced. In 2006, both were active participants in a Yahoo message group for people interested in the esoteric subject of “alternate history,” debating what might have been if major historical events had different outcomes.

Now, as someone interested in alternate history dating to the late 1990s (yes, I’ve read Harry Turtledove, and I used to check the Uchronia site periodically) I accept that this topic is ‘esoteric.’ But perhaps if the writers and editors at The Washington Post had more ‘esoteric’ interests they wouldn’t make bizarre errors such as the one below (screenshot in case they fix the mistake):

Here is the entry for “Austro-Goths” in the Uncyclopedia:

The Austro-Goths settled the upper Danube, around modern-day Vienna and are thought to have been much influenced by early Iron Age electronica, such as Kraftwerk. …

Razib Khan