As far as I remember, the controversy started like this: the person in question is called Scott Alexander Siskind (which he has said himself publicly in his first post on the new ACX).
In his previous work as a psychiatrist as a hospital, he went by Scott Siskind (which seems to be the name he uses with family, on identity documents etc), whereas in rationalist circles and his old blog SSC he went by Scott Alexander. He has explained why it is a problem for a psychiatrist to have a known identity beyond the usual "blank slate", that his clients can project onto. Indeed, his real name being associated with his online one led to him having to leave his former job (albeit more "by mutual agreement" rather than "fired" as I understand).
It seems that the NYT, despite having a "real names" policy, is more than willing to bend it when it is convenient to them (for example they are more than happy not to mention birth names of transgender people even if they haven't gone through a full legal name change process). But they weren't willing to do it in this case, just referring to "the rules". The cost of this was that Scott lost his job (although he now makes more on Substack than he used to as a full-time psychiatrist), and the benefit ... I really don't see what benefit there is for NYT readers to know the surname of Scott-the-psychiatrist, when the article was about Scott-the-rationalist.
In his previous work as a psychiatrist as a hospital, he went by Scott Siskind (which seems to be the name he uses with family, on identity documents etc), whereas in rationalist circles and his old blog SSC he went by Scott Alexander. He has explained why it is a problem for a psychiatrist to have a known identity beyond the usual "blank slate", that his clients can project onto. Indeed, his real name being associated with his online one led to him having to leave his former job (albeit more "by mutual agreement" rather than "fired" as I understand).
It seems that the NYT, despite having a "real names" policy, is more than willing to bend it when it is convenient to them (for example they are more than happy not to mention birth names of transgender people even if they haven't gone through a full legal name change process). But they weren't willing to do it in this case, just referring to "the rules". The cost of this was that Scott lost his job (although he now makes more on Substack than he used to as a full-time psychiatrist), and the benefit ... I really don't see what benefit there is for NYT readers to know the surname of Scott-the-psychiatrist, when the article was about Scott-the-rationalist.