Comment trolling

subpage of anglo-pyramidologist/darryl-l-smith/skeptic-from-britain/

Skeptic from Britain retired with this remark.

[…] Unfortunately regarding the Malcolm Kendrick thing I was doxxed by some of his associates such as Tom Naughton, Jimmy Moore etc and these people including Kendrick have posted my real life name etc on various social media platforms and low-carb websites. Jimmy Wales spoke to some of these people via twitter but they ended up insulting him. They are not to be reasoned with! I will leave them to their irrational conspiracy theories. I will be leaving Wikipedia. I have requested a courtesy blanking of my username. [[User:MatthewManchester1994|MatthewManchester1994]] ([[User talk:MatthewManchester1994|talk]]) 00:01, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

The account had been renamed,  December 15, to MatthewManchester1994. It was renamed , December 20, to Vanisheduser3334743743i43i434. This is a common tactic when disruptive users “vanish,” they want to make it difficult to find them. (The request will generally be granted, though I have seen the name change reversed when it was later considered to be an attempt to avoid sanctions. Nobody had started any sanction process for this user, one of the signs that nobody with wiki experience was concerned.) However, to find such a user’s new name, find a talk page (or process page, like Articles for deletion), and the old signature will generally be there and then the new name will be in page history.

So, had the real name of Skeptic from Britain or MatthewManchester1994 been revealed? Because the person named is innocent, I’m avoiding using the name, but it’s not difficult to find. Some of the comments may have been deleted by blog owners, but others still exist. Let’s start with the real person behind, not SfB or MM, but this alleged sock master. There was interaction with SfB on  his talk page. In the light of what ensued, this was remarkable.

As well, this edit, December 15, shows me that SfB, obviously an experienced user, was preparing to bail from Wikipedia. He would know that it is totally unnecessary to call someone a troll to remove a comment from one’s talk page, even if it were trolling, and that comment does not appear so. That, all by itself, could have gotten him blocked. He had been warned about outing in the previously linked discussion, and there was a  suppressed revision, undone 01:54, 15 December 2018 .  On that AfD page, there is discussion of the alleged outing, and someone claimed to have seen it. The only “outing” I have seen claimed that SfB or MM were the fellow who had been arguing with SfB, which would mean he was truly and blatantly socking. Yet he is still an editor in good standing.

So I want to see the “outings.” Other than what I have seen on the blogs of Naughton and Kendrick, I have little clue. So I’ll start with those. Naughton first.

Naughton had written:

A few people I follow on Twitter have speculated that Skeptic from Britain is working for Big Food. Maybe. But I have my own two-legged theory: 1) Skeptic from Britain is a disciple of The Church of the Holy Plant-Based Diet, and 2) Wikipedia has been taken over by social-justice warriors.

Both suggestions were, ah, incorrect. Skeptic from Britain is a “skeptic activist,” of the kind that focus on debunking whatever they believe is pseudoscience. They aren’t too swift. There is no clue that SfB was vegan, but picked a target who, in the past, was vegan and so that epithet could be tossed at him. The pseudoskeptics, a better term for them (Kendrick is a sceptic — notice the British spelling. British debunkers call themselves skeptics.)

This is nothing to do with SJW’s. It is because quacks like Malcolm Kendrick are anti-science. Low-carb dieting is not supported by mainstream science, it lacks robust peer-reviewed scientific evidence. Carbohydrates are not bad! LCHF is a fad-diet and pseudoscience, nothing more than repackaged Atkins bullshit.

Malcolm Kendrick is a liar, he says cholesterol levels have no effect on cardiovascular disease and gives dangerous medical advice. He writes nonsense to sell books.

I am glad these low-carb diet nutters are getting deleted from Wikipedia. They are anti-science like this website is!Perhaps Skeptic from Britain will delete a few more of you guys? Hopefully Tim Noakes.

Michael Greger and John Mcdougall are happy about all this

This is all so familiar. Later, a post of December 20, Naughton wrote:

Nailed it. Someone identified Sceptic From Britain. An online profile listed him as a naturalist and vegetarian. (He also appears to be about 12 years old.)

EDIT: Ignore that profile. I’ve received emails from the person profiled, from someone else claiming to the real Sceptic From Britain, and from a third person claiming to have proof that yet another person is the real Sceptic From Britain. Bottom line: we’ve got a weird case of cyber revenge going on in this whole matter, and any name mentioned is likely to be false.

Okay, the person profiled also commented on this blog.

As well, that person is still a Wikipedia editor, though he has not edited since December 22. He had confronted Skeptic from Britain and was obviously not that editor. Emails from the “real Sceptic from Britain” (how did he spell his name?) would generally be fake or highly deceptive. Don’t trust that any email is from who it claims to be from unless there is no reason to suspect otherwise, or you verify the address and have a back-and-forth, otherwise any email address can be spoofed. The “third person” would probably be me, and I’m a little disappointed that Naughton would simply dismiss what I revealed as “likely to be false.” There is a huge difference between a person who is not only open, but also some level of public figure, and people who hide behind anonymity to defame.

December 21, Naughton went on covering further developments, but this was all after the fact.  The claim that SfB was a particular person (not Darryl L. Smith) appeared to have originated as a comment on his blog, which has been removed. I copied this one to the Skeptic from Britain page, where I could surround it with caveats

I have been unable to find any earlier mentions accusing the target of being Skeptic from Britain. The name change to MatthewManchester was at 16:01, 15 December 2018, I don’t know what time zone the Naughton blog is using.

April 8 2019 Update

I found some more socks.

The following might be or are legitimate, there is a long-time editor Bilby and what this user wrote is genuine information about Wikipedia process, not the garbage written by the trolls.


Ongoing socking on Kendrick’s blog

There has been occasional socking over the last few months. But today, there were many trolling socks.  Because what was suggested could be dangerous to Dr. Kendrick’s cause, I responded, and I was not surprised to see the avalanche that followed. What does surprise me to some degree was that Dr. Kendrick approved the comments, but that is his business. If he does not want me commenting on his blog, he’s free to ask, I would respect his choice. (He has written before that he won’t approve more such comments, but he did, and now he has repeated that. Again, his choice. Kendrick is in favor of open dialog, which I understand. But there are limits.)

  1. Jamie Veal March 7, 2019 at 12:16 am asked about work details for Dr. Kendrick. I commented suspecting Darryl, and many very negative comments were posted by others, including Dr. Kendrick himself. No sequelae. No other comments by this user
  2. Waller MU Joel March 13, 2019 at 9:14 pm “David Bailey as you are an admin on the Skeptiko podcast could you ask Alex the owner if you could interview Malcolm Kendrick? I think this would be a great way to promote Kendrick’s ideas and get publicity for the statin debate.” There are many signs in this post that this is Darryl Smith. The name is the first red flag. There is a Waller Joel and there is a MU, but the only simultaneous usages of those names have been impersonation socks, in affairs heavily linked to Darryl Smith. So I commented, warning Kendrick that this would be stepping into a trap, and I explained why. As predictable, more apparent trolls appeared. David Bailey also responded, not taking the bait.  No other comments by this user
  3. Irreligious Survivalist “vegan” trolling. Pushes the idea of a youtube debate. (Generally a Bad Idea, for reasons that would be involved to argue. Debates will be used by enemies, who can cherry-pick any comment that might look bad, so unless one has very high experience and skill at live debate, they can have a negative effect. other than shown below, no other comments by this user.
  4. IrreligiousSurvivalist attempts to pin opposition to low carb on vegans, a known strategy of Skeptic from Britain. I also responded. Other than comment shown above, No prior comments from this user.
  5. Magic Master  just Googled your name Abd Lomax you appear to be a bit of a nutcase, banned all over the place for harassment issues. Why is every single comment you do on Kendrick’s blog is about an imaginary person called “Smith”? It needs to stop dude. Not healthy. Just stop and chill out. As to “very single comment,” this is an obvious lie, common with the Smiths. He cites encyclopediadramatica.rs, a NSFW joke wiki. The article he cites was written by Mr Strong, i.e., Oliver D. Smith, the brother of Darryl Smith. See this and this. (I was not watching ED, but got an email because of the comment on my user talk page.) These are trolls, and Oliver is literally insane, and often does things that end up outing his brother. That comment led me to look at Skeptic from Britain, and because I’d been tracking Darryl for over a year, looking back over many years, I recognized that this was Darryl, and that was then confirmed in many ways. Mr Strong was blocked on that and countless accounts there. Crude photoshops are common from the Smiths, see this. The “Smiths” are far from imaginary, and have been documented by many. Oliver D. Smith has an open identity, and there is public record showing a brother, the same age, living at the same address. There is an article on Smith on ED also. The brother story came from the brothers themselves, on Wikipedia. If it is a lie, then Oliver D. Smith created it, and persisted in it, and has two quite different personalities and sets of interests. And then, on that claim I was SfB, Oliver knew it that this was his brother. No other comments by this user
  6. Tim  Goes on about how Waller Joel is a real person, but no evidence is presented that the real Waller Joel wrote that post. No other comments by this user
  7. DuceMoosolini ‎ There is a RationalWiki sysop by this name. (from prior experience, this is probably an impersonation.) I just checked the RW user talk page, and found this. The comment was, as suspected, an impersonation. What this troll wrote is discussed below.
  8. Ari Silverstein  gives the appearance of a real name, but is almost certainly an impersonation. Notice the clear pattern: many comments appear in a short time that have never commented before. The names are likely impersonations or merely meaningless. And they attack real-name people, citing sources creating by anonymous people with no responsible publisher. No prior comments. See below what he wrote and a detailed analysis.
  9. Vegan dude an obvious troll, not a vegan, pursing a common Smith strategy, to get his enemies fighting with each other. Common Smith name: “[affinity] dude.” John66 (Darryl Smith) has lied about all this on RatWiki, claiming I am behind all these socks. But who is he? I’m a real person, anyone can verify that. No prior comments

Real (who provides evidence, and more on request) vs. Anonymous Troll (who hides and obviously lies, again and again). Who wins? It is astonishing that in some environments, whoever lies the most and longest, wins. RationalWiki is especially vulnerable to this.

Ari Silverstein (see above for link)

Mr Abd Lomax why are most of your posts on here attacking other people? – RationalWiki is a biased skeptic website written by extreme left-wingers, you should stop linking to it! Why link to it when you have your own entry? [link to rationalwiki.org/wiki/Abd_ul-Rahman_Lomax]

I.e.,. I should not link to relevant pages there, but he can? No, this is classic Smith. He starts with a lie, that “most of my posts” are “attacking other people.” I am highly and very personally interested in the work of Dr. Kendrick, and comment in line with that and my own personal research. I comment here on likely (or obvious) Smith socks because that work is under attack by Darryl Smith. While it is possible that one of the troll commentors is someone else, it’s quite unlikely, the patterns are so clear. It is up to Dr Kendrick whether or not he approves that trolling (and the trolling is not always immediately obvious: for example, the suggestion about a Skeptiko interview could look legitimate, but notice how the person who was addressed, David Bailey, has responded and could also respond about “Waller MU Joel” if I was not correct.

You are trying to link the owner of the Skeptiko website with pseudoscience but your statements are incorrect. Please check their recent podcasts. Michael Shermer a noted skeptic was interviewed by Alex Tsakiris! The Skeptiko podcast is not a pseudoscientific podcast. Speak to David Bailey, he comments here. I am sure he would endorse Kendrick appearing on Skeptiko.

The website is “linked with pseudoscience,” not by me, but by RationalWiki, as I showed in the links “Ari” objected to. I google “skeptiko pseudoscience” and I get 3900 hits. I was not claiming that Skeptiko actually promotes pseudoscience, which is often poorly defined. That Shermer was interviewed does not establish anything (other than Tsakiris being willing to debate a skeptic, perhaps), but I have not listened to the podcast). Consider this (about another skeptic interview. ) I have no opinion at this point on whether Skeptiko is “pseudoscientific,” but I often disagree strongly with that offensive categorization of fringe science or non-science as “pseudoscientific.” Looking at recent posts, the site is certainly interesting. I supported the Wikiversity resource on parapsychology, not as a believer, but as a classic skeptic, who was in favor of exploration and education that is not based on conclusions but on genuine investigation. Darryl Smith’s activities arranged for the deletion of countless hours of work by many people on Wikiversity (that’s not an encyclopedia, and individual research and report of opinion was allowed), that is how I got involved with the Smiths, by exposing what they had done. And then they attacked me, intensely.

For a list of the recent guests http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/forums/discuss-the-show/

I personally would like to see Dr. Kendrick on more podcasts. It is not a crime or trolling to suggest such a thing. Waller Joel also known as “MU” is a regular poster on Skeptiko. He is a close friend of Alex Tsakiris.

David Bailey can certainly correct me. I have not claimed that it was a crime to suggest that. One is free to suggest harmful courses of action to enemies. My only purpose was and is to warn Dr. Kendrick that an appearance on the podcast would be used, there is no doubt about it, by John66 to amplify and extend the “evidence” against Kendrick on his attack platform, RationalWiki. There are also other skeptics who might form the same impression. As I wrote, the decision would be up to Kendrick (and Tsakiris). It would be used against both of them, by the way.

As to Waller Joel or MU, this is actually irrelevant, except for the probable impersonation here.  However, see below, section MU..

DuceMoosolini impersonation

Classic socking was the creation of multiple accounts to create the impression of wider support for a position than really existed. Impersonation socking of this kind is like that. DuceMoosolini is an ordinary Rat, likely to support what was written. But he did not write it and had no idea who might have done this. Even though it’s obvious. Rats generally don’t care to find out. On to what was written:

I am convinced that statin denialism is pseudoscience, it does not make testable predictions. On RationalWiki (I am a contributor) we have recently created an article on Statin Denialism, it is only in the early stages of creation, but any suggestions welcome. Lomax is banned from editing our website because of abuse but anyone can sign up and post/and or make suggestions if you are civil. DuceMoosolini‎

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Statin_denialism

This is trolling because it is a comment made solely to provoke the people called “denialists,” a derisive term, not a part of any rational discussion. When DuceMoosolini says “we,” he is referring to John66, the continuation on RationalWiki of Skeptic from Britain, which is quite obvious when edit timings are studied, as I have done, not to mention point of view, special interests, etc.

K._Peters_BSc(Hons) attempted to correct that article, and was harassed and blocked by John66, unblocked by a regular, and then blocked again by David Gerard, continuing a long-term pattern of Gerard supporting Smith socks. They claimed this was Mikemikev, a long-term enemy of Oliver Smith. It is not impossible, but it would be trolling, then, by making legitimate edits to show and prove how this is prohibited. (This is why I asked about Peters and other users on the blog page. Nobody has responded.) I am suggesting that supporters of Dr Kendrick contact me, because I know how RatWiki works (and the same about Wikipedia.) Those not familiar with how those wikis function will often be quite ineffective. Things are not always as they seem, and certainly not as one might expect.

Contact me through a comment here, and I suggest requesting privacy. I must approve all first comments, and if you give me an legitimate email address, I will email you and then communication will be private. The comment will not be published if privacy is requested. Trolls, however, will be roasted and served to the rats for lunch.

RatWikians are highly uncivil. Someone who does not agree with the site positions (and RatWiki is explicitly not neutral) will commonly be insulted, sometimes doxxed (i.e., claims will be made about their real-life identity), arbitrarily reverted, and blocked with insults. Wikipedia can be almost as bad, but pretends to be neutral (and, overall, the community will support neutrality, but has never figured out how to deal with aggressive factions, including administrators, that support popular positions among the editorial community — or even just within the faction.) On RatWiki, if someone expresses an opinion or even points to something created by a “banned user,” they are then commonly blocked as a sock puppet of that user. It’s far worse than Wikipedia.

Which should not be surprising. RatWiki has long been dominated by juvenile pseudoskeptics, “debunkers,” with a totally naive idea of what science is. I was told, there, to “go fuck your kids,” and that was considered by the moderators not to be offensive. After all, isn’t this how people normally talk? (i.e., “people like us.”) At that point (this was in 2012) I simply stopped almost all contribution there. So the comment about “if you are civil” is hilarious, RW is one of the most uncivil wikis I have seen, though Encyclopedia Dramatica can be just as bad — but ED is openly for the “lulz,” not for serious purpose, as RatWiki pretends.

My alleged RationalWiki ban is described here.

MU

When I first encountered Darryl, and exposed massive impersonation socking and trolling by him on Wikipedia and Wikiversity and the meta wiki, sock names included various favorites, and the same on RationalWiki. I have not independently researched the person behind this, more than a little, more than a year ago. This is what I find on RationalWiki:

Talk:MU_(internet_troll) was created by Waller MU Joel Abd — remember, this is a troll who created a page on a troll. None of this can be trusted.

This person Waller Joel (previously known as MU) did an interview with Roberta Grimes a few years ago [1], he appears to be on a lot of forums with many different alias names. His latest username on the Skeptiko forum appears to be mat barns, with an agenda to mock physical mediumship. He has used hundreds of fake names such as Andrew B. Chung, Tyler Snotgern, MU!!, Lars, Waller, Frank Camper, Merrick Forrester, abd etc all with the intention of trying to damage the idea of spiritualism or make a mockery of it. All I know is that he is from Florida and in his 60s. [1] I know that this person Waller Joel was also behind the MU trolling and countless impersonations amongst the spiritualist community. He still does this. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Talk:Andrew_B._Chung/archive1

MU!! has been trolling numerous websites and newgroups, Usenet in particular, for over a decade. Do a Google search on names like “Ari Silverstein”, “Frank Camper”, or “wilburn” (preferably in combination with “Usenet”, e. g. [“Ari Silverstein” Usenet], [“Frank Camper” Usenet], [wilburn Usenet]) to see the full dimension of his trolling. As for Frank Camper: There is a real person with that name who is a former American soldier and mercenary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Camper). MU!!, under his various names, often claims to be this person (or uses sockpuppets to create rumors about himself to that effect). However, he does the same with remote viewing researcher Courtney Brown so it’s most probably just bullshitting and attention seeking in both cases.

The link to Talk:Andrew B. Chung led me to the main article for that, which has been deleted. It was created by Ecology, which looks like an early Darryl sock to me. It was deleted and restored by Forest, a very well-known Darryl sock. Talk page archive 1 (linked above) is astonishing.  It is riddled with Darryl socks, and this rant is remarkable. There were accounts there, appearing to argue with each other, that may have been the same person. It would take a lot of work to figure it out! Archive 2 has more.

Of course, the mention of Ari Silverstein sounds the klaxon. That is not proof, but obvious grounds for strong suspicion — which I already had.

If I did not already  clearly know that John66 is Darryl, and behind all (or almost all) of the socking, I would have even stronger evidence. I frequently look at the block log on RatWiki, I find all kinds of interesting stuff there.

22:00, 15 March 2019 John66 (talk | contribs ) blocked Verifier (talk | contribs) with an expiration time of π×infinity! (account creation disabled, cannot edit own talk page) (Block evasion: Abd Lomax sock)

Verifier is the account that asked DuceMoosolini about the Kendrick comment. There were no other edits from that account, and talk page access was cut off. The edits would be obscure, not easily noticed in the avalanche of RatWiki edits. However, Darryl follows my every visible action (at the same time as he accuses me of being obsessed. This page, mentioning the response of Verifier, was posted at 21:33 UT. The only person who would care about this would be a Smith brother. He very much does not want Rats to know they are being impersonated.

An account on RatWiki registered as Verifier, and asked DuceMoosolini about whether or not he had written the comment on Kendrick’s blog.

Then:

  • 22:44, 15 March 2019 John66 (talk | contribs) blocked Verifiers (talk | contribs) with an expiration time of π×infinity! (account creation disabled, cannot edit own talk page) (Ban evasion: Another Abd Lomax sock)

This is, again, typical Darryl behavior. If they want an action to not be noticed, they create a series of socks. Verifier had accomplished his or her purpose and would not create a sock to do what would be unnecessary. Verifiers lied, pretending to be me, attacking Bongolian and David Gerard., with preposterous allegations. And this shows how Smith gets away with this disruption: RWRW enabled talk page access for Verifiers, with “Ban evasion: lets see if he replies to talk page message)”. This was an obvious troll, blatant, not even questionable. But at 22:00, John66 blocked Verifier, Verifiers registered at 22:38, made quick, repetitive trolling edits — very unlike Verifier, and was blocked by John66 at 22:44. This kind of timing I have seen from Darryl in the past. He creates a flock of impersonation socks, and blocks them very quickly.

  •  22:59, 15 March 2019 John66 (talk | contribs) blocked Randoms (talk | contribs) with an expiration time of π×infinity! (account creation disabled) (Block evasion: Abd sock)

Randoms was created at 22:53, edited User talk:Some random smith, lying (Randoms is Darryl Smith), and he also lied to David Gerard. I certainly did not give any account to anyone.

So from account creation to two quick edits to block is 6 minutes. That is a strong indication that this is a single person. You can see how it worked.

Once again, Darryl has a clear pattern. If he wants to hide something, he buries it in massive socking or massive edits that nobody will take the time to disentangle. It even worked on the meta wiki with stewards!

Another troll sock appears: A random guy, and drops some text from this blog on User talk:David Gerard. Of course, that will be blocked. But it isn’t. Again, what Darryl is creating is an impression of massive socking by me, which has never been the case. He did do one good thing, though, dropped a link to this blog, to a page that has a massive list of alleged Abd socks compiled by Darryl, showing which ones were actually me. Very few! But David Gerard, I’ve come to believe, knows exactly what he is doing, and I would not waste time asking him for anything. I’d rather send him certified mail, if I ever decide it’s worth the effort.  In this case, the block was by Dyskliver, who knows, I think, what is going one.

John66 commented in the DuceMoosolini/Verifier conversation

Was this you?

Comment on Malcolm Kendrick’s blog by DuceMoosolini‎ March 14, 2019 at 6:27 pm. Verifier (talk)

19:23, 15 March 2019 (UTC)No, it wasn’t. I have nothing to do with the cholesterol articles, and I’m not sure why someone picked me to impersonate. Especially since they don’t seem to have said anything under my name that I particularly take exception to that I can see. Weird. DuceMoosolini Your friendly RW dictator moderator 20:08, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. It’s not weird, it is common behavior for certain trolls, has happened to many. If you want to know, I have enabled email. –Verifier (talk) 20:58, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

I tried to notify the commenters that it’s not DuceMoosolini, but stingy log-in and password is annoying like usual. Can someone else do it? –It’s-a me, LeftyGreenMario!(Mod) 21:27, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

The impersonations are being done by Abd ul-Rahman Lomax or a troll related to him, probably Mikemikev. Lomax is a cholesterol and statin denialist who has written about a million words about me on his blog, accusing me of being someone else. It appears I am his latest victim. He has gone after David Gerard, Bongolian and now it is my turn. Lomax has been on the web for the last two weeks (on discord, reddit, Twitter and blogs) trying to stir up a flame war between vegans and low-carbers. The “verifier” account above is Lomax. John66 (talk) 22:03, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

I have not posted to Discord, Reddit, or Twitter for quite a long time. The original attempt to stir up a flame war was by Skeptic from Britain, i.e., Darryl L. Smith, who clearly moved his activity to RationalWiki, while claiming on Wikipedia he had been outed, at a point where the accusations on blogs and Twitter were pointing to someone who actually had confronted SfB, who had, at one time, been a vegan. It was working until I blew it up by pointing out what had actually happened.

Verifier offered a method of verification to DuceMoosolini (and, in fact, to anyone with an email-enabled RatWiki account. There are many accounts being claimed to be me, that aren’t. )

If anyone needs to know, I can be contacted through  comments here. Some RatWiki accounts of mine have email enabled, and so, as well, anyone can ask the account. You could even email Abd through his RatWiki account. John66, I notice, does not have email enabled.

And he just keeps going: Journalist. Same crap, repeating some text from this blog, claiming to be me, with disruptive edits. He has done this over and over.

There is a vast difference between trolls who hide their identity and real people. Yes, there can be reasons for maintaining privacy, but someone who hides identity should not have the same credence as someone with whom direct communication is possible. People may give anonymous tips to the police, but the police will verify them, and nobody is ever convicted based on evidence like that. At most they will investigate.

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