Why did this reporter have to go and publish Scott's real name when Scott requested him not to? It's just not a nice thing to do, simple as that. It may be easy to find if you go looking, but most people don't have any reason to go looking, so the pen name serves its purpose of providing anonymity. The NYT author makes it seem as if publishing the guys real name in a widely read paper is the same as it being googleable to someone who looks. Its a COMPLETELY different level of exposure.
The other key point is that doxxing someone who has been writing anonymously for decades is very different than believing that people should not have the right to write anonymously. Scott began writing under a pseudonym, under the expectation that it would stay anonymous - and so the space of things he said was much more controversial than what it would have been if he expected to be doxxed one day. NYT shows up to the world of blogs 10 years later, knowing nothing and starts pulling the rug out from under people who began writing in a different world, under completely different norms. Its just a shitty, shitty thing to do.
> I woke up the next morning to a torrent of online abuse, as did my editor, who was named in the farewell note. My address and phone number were shared by the blog’s readers on Twitter. Protecting the identity of the man behind Slate Star Codex had turned into a cause among the Rationalists.
One paragraph after detailing why Scott requested his name to be kept out, the reporter complains about the online abuse he received, which could have easily been prevented by not using real names.