Analysis

If you are reading this on an archive site, be sure to check the original URL for corrections or retractions.

Oliver D. Smith recently claimed that I harassed him by email. While I had password-protected a prior version of the page supra, as a result of that harassment claim, I found it essential to publish the emails. As well, these mails reveal much. Links below are to sections on this page. In each section, the headline is a link to the original email. To the analysis:

    •  

    • individual email analyses: 

      January 24, 2018

      announces kirkegaard attack blog, conversation with journalist(s). 

      January 25, 2018

      Denies Wikiversity socking, “99.9% of those accounts are my twin brother.” Denies being Goblin Face or Dan Skeptic. “We both have different qualifications, interests etc; for example I have no interest in debunking the paranormal, while he does. What little I do know is that he is linked to ‘skeptic’ organisations, supposedly is either paid or works with other people. I do not see any ‘real world’ harm by what he does though, if he’s just refuting or criticising spiritualists or ghost-believers where is the harm?”  

      January 27, 2018

      gives blog URL, claims I’m siding “with neo-Nazi paedophiles like Kirkegaard.” 

      January 30, 2018

      reports blog is up. It was. Taken down quickly, but the latest archive is here.

      Denies harassment, but, in fact, he admitted it to harassing email in his attempt to get his ED article taken down,(claiming that he did not “get” Joshua Connor Moon’s mother fired, he merely sent an email to her employer. He also clearly complained to the WikiMedia Foundation, because he was proud of the response he got. “Pretty much everything you’ve written about me is misinformation and lies” — but he is not actually specific. He argues that he would not waste money on a phone call, but, in fact, his actions and those of his brother are not easy to separate. And phone calls are cheap.

      He complains about IPs listed that were not his. The Identity page he refers to is now password-protected, but it covered possible Wikipedia socking, and lists one account as probably him,  In_an_archive. The others were clearly listed as suspected, due to editing of the Atlantis article, a special interest of Smith, not as specific claims that they were him. This is typical of Oliver: a statement of a reasonable suspicion is called a “lie.” (In the attack on the original Anglo Pyramidologist studies, what amounted to lists of checkuser and other SPI findings was also called “lies.”)

      January 30, 2018

      He claims to be an antinatalist  and considers that I have seven children “disgusting.” [Five were from my first marriage, two were later adopted.]

      “I’ve made the Kirkegaard page because it made mainstream newspapers and people contacted me over it.” Or he called them. His blog cites the mainstream media, but they obviously got the idea from the RationalWiki article, which Oliver wrote. A sock bragged on RationalWiki about how the article led to those press reports. I’ve seen the same circular “evidence” in other cases.

      “We simply have used RW to document and refute pseudo-science. No laws broken.” Impersonation to defame is illegal. Defamation is illegal in the U.K., where Oliver lives. Calling a scientist a “pseudoscientist” could be defamation, particularly if it causes career or other harm. In a mail linked above, Oliver calls Emil Kirkegaard a “pedophile.” That is obvious defamation, clearly illegal. (There is no evidence that even approaches supporting that, and Oliver is clearly intending to defame by it. Criminal, including mens rea.) 

      January 30, 2018

      denies that there were any impersonations, even though some are absolutely clear. He used the name of a target of his brother to create articles on RationalWiki (and probably to create enmity between his enemies, because there was “overlap” here, i.e., parapsychology and former right-wing views). He then denies it was impersonation, using arguments that will amuse a jury if it ever comes to that. Suggests that he might have his brother edit my RW article. (Why his brother? Because his brother created it and has been the major editor of it, by far.) 

      January 31, 2018

      Reports his brother as saying that everything he wrote in my RW article was the truth. At this point, what is crucial here is that the brother did write that article, which is what I was claiming all along — which was called “doxxing” and “lies.” (I was originally documenting AP, which, while the original AP account was Oliver Smith, came to refer to both brothers.)

      Oliver claims that most socks on the “AP sock archive” — referring to the Wikipedia archive — were not him. And I would agree, as to what I have inferred. Most were his brother. However, the specific report he refers to was probably 21_January_2018

      Alleged “lies” by an accuser would be irrelevant. Is it possible that an enemy emailed the checkuser? Yes. So? The accounts were confirmed as socks of one another, so the question would then be of whom, and the accuser is irrelevant. The checkuser filed it as AP because of interests. The indications are very strong that this was Oliver. So he’s likely lying.

      Is he claiming that Kirkegaard created a sock to attack himself as a “child rape apologist”? Kirkegaard is a regular Wikipedia editor and would be risking checkuser identification. Further, the damage to a supposed enemy (Oliver) would be small, Oliver is already irremediably blocked from Wikipedia. If Kirkegaard is planning legal action — and he might be — then any funny business could seriously damage his case. No, this is not plausible. Someone is being highly disruptive and Oliver’s position is that it’s not him, and he blames it on Rome Viharo or Kirkegaard, but without a shred of evidence..

      February 14, 2018

      “None of the comments posted on your blog are mine. Would appreciate if you stopped impersonating me like a nutcase and writing foolish things, or ban the trolls (if you’re not impersonating me) to prevent them posting there and misattribute these accounts or comments to me.”

      At this point, I was being furiously impersonated on RationalWiki. These emails were actually harassment (in many places, such as the “disgusting” remark about having children, or claims that I have been lying. That is classic trolling. To be sure, here he states it as a possibility. I did not attribute any of the comments to Oliver. I clearly identified them as trolls, but the massive use of troll comments, including impersonations (it got worse!) is a long-term Smith tactic. And, to be sure, probably Darryl. Or is it? In a few months, see below, Oliver will claim that he has been lying since 2011, that all the activity was his, not his “innocent” brother.

      “For example I’ve never been a “fascist”. My politics has always been ‘populism’ and I’ve supported parliamentary democracy and pressure groups that want more direct democracy (e.g. proportional representation/ referendums/ an English parliament) for as long as I can remember. You present zero evidence for your fascist smear. Plenty of other falsehoods about me on your blog, but I don’t like wasting time typing out long responses to your nonsense.” 

      As is often pointed out by the Smiths, there are many, many pages on this blog relating to Anglo Pyramidologist. Generally, each page has comments enabled. Many times, Smith has claimed “lies,” and his brother, previously, did the same, but never was specific, i.e., an exact quotation, at least, something that will allow finding the alleged error (or “lie”). So where is this claim, what actually was written? My general position has become that the Smiths are like fascists, that is, they are intellectually dogmatic and authoritarian and attempt to suppress views contrary to theirs. It is not enough that Kirkegaard is, say, “racialist” and “hereditarian” (perhaps), he is to be called a “neo-Nazi racist child rape apologist.” The Enemy is to be attacked by any and all means. I found clear evidence that Smith was racist (in 2012, which is the same time period as the Kirkegaard post abused as evidence for “child rape apology”). Certainly his comments appeared that way!

      As I understand the matter, and anything I write is open to specific correction, Oliver was a supporter of the British Nationalist Party which is called “fascist” by Wikipedia.

      That is more direct evidence he was “fascist” than the evidence Oliver has cited that Kirkegaard is “neo-Nazi,” which is thin indeed. But the details of Smith’s opinions has not been the focus of my study and reporting. It’s the socking and impersonation and defamation, going far beyond any legitimate critique. 

      April 4, 2018

      Oliver offers a “truce.” He has apparently done this in the past, I found a number of examples where there was conflict that stopped. I am not the first person — by far — to uncover Smith socking and disruption. Many are willing to let the whole thing go if Smith will stop harassing them. However, he then moves on to other targets. Cutting him slack frees him to cause more harm.

      My analysis is that he and his brother were starting to feel the heat. They had used Google as a weapon for years, and they mostly attacked people without many defenses. Gradually, though, the exceptions started to pile up. It’s interesting to search for “Oliver D. Smith” using google.uk, from a UK IP and to see how many reports he filed to have search results suppressed. I understand. It can damage career and reputation to have prominent Google results showing misbehavior — whether the allegations are true or not.

      His brother, until I began to point to the brother, had mostly remained invisible, most pages claimed the problem was Oliver D. Smith, Darryl L. Smith was relatively unknown. But in certain areas, Darryl caused more harm. If the impersonation socks were his, he was also involved with criminal defamation even if the defamatory opinions were not enough, and there is quite good evidence on the impersonation socking. Remarkable here, though, is that the attempt to fix things on my article on RationalWiki was done, not by the known Smith account (at this point, Agent47) but by Debunking spiritualism, which would be Darryl, and DS claimed he was in communication with me. Was he lying? Or, another obvious possibility, DS was also Oliver. I vote for a misrepresentation, in spite of what Oliver claims below.

      The attempts were doomed, because the Smiths did not admit what they had done. They claimed to want to clean up the mess, but had, in fact, convinced the rather dull, knee-jerk reactive RationalWiki community that Abd had fangs, and that the effort to delete or revise was only coming because Abd had bullied them, so they were rejected,which is what I’d totally expect for RW.

      April 5, 2018

      since I have access to a sysop account I can just rewrite them completely and remove your and Rome Viharo’s photos etc. “The problem is Viharo has annoyed a lot of people including David Gerrard and since he’s the main admin on RW there’s no way he will want Viharo not to have an article there. The solution though is just to rewrite.

      He has a very naive idea of the powers of a sysop on RW. I was an RW sysop. It counted for nothing when Darryl (probably), complained to David Gerard. Gerard, no doubt, has a level of authority. In fact, that’s an important point we will be making. He’s on the Board. But so is Spud and so is FuzzyCatPotato. None of the Board members are openly dedicated to the kind of attack the Smiths have promoted. Gerard, however, has rushed to action requests from the Smiths. I’m not reaching beyond reasonable suspicion at this point. And then it gets truly bizarre: 

      April 7, 2018

      Ask Rome Viharo to see the last email I sent him. There is no brother. I’ve just had fun misleading people, like yourself stalking me as have other RW sysops who have tried to protect their identities. It’s a problem though that you would target and dox an innocent family member of mine, based on this. Ask Viharo to see the full email, or I can post it here later. The “Smith brother” conspiracy theory is a joke.

      I did ask and Smith’s emails to Rome Viharo are below. This is internally contradictory. There are only two people whose identities are revealed on this blog, Oliver D. Smith and Darryl L. Smith. We are here communicating with Oliver D. Smith, that’s totally clear. So the “innocent family member” would be Darryl L. Smith, which contradicts that “there is no brother.” It may be a joke — very funny! — but it has been called, by the Smiths, “paranoid,” but the only difference here, if Oliver were to be telling the truth, would be one person behind all that socking and impersonation and defamation, not two.

      There is a distinct conspiracy theory, that one of the Smith brothers is associated with and possibly paid by a skeptic organization. There is definitely a “skeptic organization” that is organizing and promoting the editing of Wikipedia to promote skeptical views. So the claim is plausible, and not only did Oliver repeat this claim, but it existed in prior claims by the AP socks.

      In the Viharo emails, Oliver gets more specific.  

      To Rome Viharo, April 6, 2018

      The problem is Lomax wrote articles on his blog, not only about me, but 5+ other sysops, including other doxes. None of these people now want to help, which is understandable. This is the same thing with you, so for example David Gerrard will never vote to delete your article. The only solution is to rewrite the articles. Therefore the offer is to unblock you and Lomax, at least temporarily to say what you want rewritten.

      There was no “doxxing” of “other sysops.” Rather, I started to collect notes on “Supporters and Enablers.” It seems that RationalWiki sysops think that it is acceptable to make outrageous allegations about others, but if what they have done is simply shown, with little “attack” involved, if any, it’s reprehensible. However, the opinions expressed on RW about me were based on the behavior of the impersonation socks, more than anything else. The Smiths created that situation and are, then, responsible for it.

      I now have a page with the Board members of the RMF listed. This is open information, and relevant to the page where that information exists. 

      To Rome Viharo, April 6, 2018

      Abd lomax has resorted to posting yet more defamation about me such as on Wikipedia sucks, and sending me abusive emails, so the deal is off to help him. The guy is clearly nuts to attacks me when I try to help him and resolve this. 

      Frank and honest communication, to Smith, is “abusive.” The emails he is referring to are shown below each email for these mails: [1], [2].

      This would be the thread on Wikipedia sucks: Abd banned from the WMF projects . Oliver showed up there (as “Catapult”), linking to the RationalWiki article and repeating many deceptions.

      So he is surprised that I responded?

      He — or his brother — also PMd me, as Catapult, with links to the lulu book (the Smiths created a series of them, and there are clear links to Oliver involved) allegedly written by Rome Viharo, showing an obese  naked man with Tim Farley’s face pasted on it. And apparently he trolled others and was banned for it. The admin wrote: “It is my theory that Catapult was Oliver D. Smith and his brother tag-teaming a single account, and that one of them decided to go full troll this morning.”

      The other account commenting that was likely a Smith was “Max.” On this page.  (three posts there). There is a lot there, supporting what may become legal action. Another post here, and my reply to Max.

      (By the way, it is not impossible that there was another person involved toward the end on Wikiversity. Darryl was working with an organization, and two complainants were well-known Wikipedians (both highly disruptive, by the way). However, Max repeats standard AP cant. I see no clear evidence this is an independent person.)  Max lists six complainants to the WMF. (How would he know the details he gives?)

      1. Myself (Public IP 74.175.117.2 on Wikiversity)
      2. IP 82.21.88.44 (privately confirmed his identity to the Wikimedia Foundation)
      3. Joshua P. Shroeder (claims Abd sent him harassing emails)
      4. Guy Chapman (Wikipedia admin JzG)
      5. Oliver Smith (actually leaked one of the emails)
      No proof of this one, but it is obvious (I have emailed him):
      6. Michael Umbrecht – (Username Mu301 – Bureaucrat on Wikiversity)

      Yup. So Darryl Smith would be in there, which leaves one possible mystery. What was the IP complaining about? There was a checkuser request filed that listed the IP as suspect. That’s all. That is not doxxing.

      I published the Schroeder emails. They were consensual, and he never objected.

      JzG was still pissed that I filed an RfC that led to an Arbitration that got him reprimanded, still blaming me nine years later, and attacking what had been non-disruptive — no revert warring, no deletion discussions, nada — the cold fusion resource on Wikiversity.

      Max is effectively claiming he is Darryl Smith here. He knows more about that sequence than I would expect Oliver would know.

      In any case, my latest response on that thread refers to this sequence of mails.  

      To Rome Viharo, April 7, 2018

      This mail is astonishing. Oliver claims he invented the brother story to get unblocked on Wikipedia, and then continued it as a smokescreen, he lied to Tim Farley (why?), that his twin brother is completely uninvolved. However, he does not address the massive impersonation socking. He claims that he is now admitting all this because he wants to move on with his life. However, the story is thin. He openly called Debunking spiritualism his brother on RationalWiki. He created the image first used in one of the lulu book impersonations (that’s conclusively evidenced). Who canvassed for complaints to the WMF? Who created the RW article on me?

      Essentially, he now claims it was all lies. But if he was lying, frequently, since 2011, why should he be believed now?

      This is more plausible: he is lying now to protect his brother, and he toys with Rome Viharo in the next letter, and shows that he thinks that protecting his brother would be laudable. Okay, if the police show up at the door, is he going to say, “I did it all!” to protect his brother? If this is not a lie now, the only way to recover is to tell the whole truth, and both Rome Viharo and I have been saying this to him, which he calls “abusive.”

      I’m not saying it’s impossible it was all him, but that his saying so is poor evidence at this point. The testimony of an admitted long-term liar is not worth a great deal. 

      To Rome Viharo, April 8, 2018

      I don’t see any evidence for harassment. What I said is I would try to delete some RationalWiki articles, so people stop writing about me on their blogs, or other websites. Time to move on, it’s now 2018 and like I said I’m busy and don’t want to be involved with anymore squabbles or drama.

      Telling people who have been harassed — or even if they merely believe this — that “I don’t see any evidence” is not going to impress them. For someone who allegedly wants to move on, he’s continued the charade on RationalWiki. Five days after this, today, Oliver is still flogging his stories on RationalWiki about Rome Viharo. (Contributions). Quite some time ago, I reviewed how Rome was outed on Wikipedia. Did Oliver do that, or was it Darryl? It was not a deliberate admission of real name. I think I’ll document that history…. The continued comments on RW are dense with deception. 

      To Rome Viharo, April 11, 2018

      You should understand everything you’re saying about me,-I’m saying about you. Your latest article is filled with misinformation, lies and false allegations. 

      First, this is Oliver writing to Rome Viharo. When I began to document “Anglo Pyramidologist” socks, based on impersonations and then tracking back one of the blocked accounts to RationalWiki and from there back to Wikipedia, I did not know who they were. I was just, on WMF wikis, documenting WMF activity. There was no accusation that it was Oliver or Darryl Smith. Yet it was called a “vendetta.” And it’s been called a “feud.” The Smiths used RationalWiki as a platform to attack enemies. “Latest article” would be RationalWiki is gas lighting, lying, & covering up cross platform harassment

      (It is common for the skeptic community, not just Smith, to refer to blog posts as “articles.” They also referred to the Wikiversity cold fusion and parapsychology resources as “articles.” Blog posts tend to be opinion. We would not call a newspaper editorial an “article.” Wikiversity resources were that, educational resources, neutral at the top level, which might be merely a stub linking to subpages, and then subpages may be various kinds of studies. I use “pages” on this blog to collect and organize (not very well, sometimes!) information and evidence. Posts are active, often designed to be brief polemic. Pages can be very long, because evidence may be extensive. Etc.)

      While I remain skeptical about some of Viharo’s claims, I also recognize that he has been continuously confronting what is an obvious POV-pushing faction on Wikipedia, and those editors have managed to (1) openly proclaim an agenda, a mission that is not neutral, and (2) harass and ban anyone appearing to have a contrary point of view. This AP affair is bringing out that it is very possible that their success has been due to off-wiki organization, with TOS violations. Certainly at points the Smiths claimed that one of them was being paid. Now, Oliver is claiming that he was lying since 2011, to everyone, including Tim Farley. Why would he claim that, when, before, he was claiming that most of the activity was that of his brother?

      The possible motive is obvious.

      Notice: claims of “misinformation, lies and false allegations,”: but no specifics. And Oliver claims, as he has before, that providing specific information is too much work, a waste of time. So he will cry “Lies,” but won’t correct them or at least identify them, and won’t provide the truth, i.e, what he knows about what actually happening. Instead, he repeats old and clearly deceptive arguments, such as “no doxxing.” Viharo was doxxed! It’s obvious! His name was accidentally revealed by some odd editing mistake and this was then picked up and repeated. That was a violation of Wikipedia policy. At that time, Viharo probably did not realize how to handle it, he was, as he admits, not highly skilled as a Wikipedian, and the faction took full advantage of his inexperience. But they are tough adversaries even for expert Wikipedians.

      Lomax and yourself are not being honest when you state you will correct lies and mistakes. So that’s another reason debating the content is a waste of time. As an example, Lomax says on his blog I attended London University. I never studied there, nor have been there. This is a rather trivial mistake, but Lomax refuses to correct it.

      No “debate” is required to correct errors. An error is not a “lie,” and is not necessarily even a “mistake.” Reasonable suspicion is connected with rational skepticism. Assuming the truth of a suspicion, other than in an investigational process, would be an error, and if knowingly done, would be a “lie.” Each page normally has the comment facility turned on. Anonymous users may make comments on this blog. They must be approved if the user has never had an approved comment. Instead of in-place corrections, vague claims like the above are made, they are “vague” because they don’t point to where the alleged error occurred.

      Smith seems to assume that his claims should be taken as fact. Obviously, he would know if he every atttended London University, but I don’t recall ever claiming he did. I noted, as I recall, that he — or his brother — could have visited the library, and a single impersonation edit from there could have created a “Mikemikev” sock finding. This was probably on this page: MIkemikev SPI archive, which was created because of a Smith sock claiming on the Hatewatch blog that Mikemikev had hundreds of socks on Wikipedia. Mikemikev, very likely, did sock on Wikipedia, particularly early on. What impersonation socks do is to imitate the target, to create more “suspected socks.” First of all, the numbers were exaggerated, because they included IPs. For various purposes (mostly informing RationalWikians that they have been impersonated on blog comments) I have made many IP edits to RatWiki. Because I will be blocked on sight there, these IPs will generally be blocked immediately, so I use a proxy service and reset it to a new proxy. Does this mean that I have as many “socks” on RatWiki as IPs I have used? I think not! (But the Smiths claim that.) Many or most IPs are not stable. They are not “accounts,” and it is accounts that are more generally considered “socks.” But Wikipedia SPI cases are not necessarily careful about language, and lists of IPs are documented, because patterns can help identify sock masters.

      So, looking at recent SPI filings, I wrote this:

      10_April_2017 IP 193.61.48.26 blocked based on subject area (which would also match Oliver D. Smith) and geolocation to Birkbeck College could also indicate a Smith brother, it’s close to where they live.

      I don’t know where Darryl L. Smith lives. My understanding is that Oliver D. Smith lives with his parents, in Radlett. (Oliver frequently claims that I have personal family information on my blog. He has me confused with Mikemikev, who does have a page from a directory. I had text copied from that screenshot up for about a day, and took it down as unnecessarily overbroad. The names of his parents were not, at that point, necessary, all that was significant was the names and ages of the two brothers. The street they live on was not necessary, all that was needed was geolocation for comparison with IP evidence. So I redacted everything else, and quickly.)

      What is above is still correct. It does not state what Smith claimed to Rome. “Close” was not defined. I meant, by it, “close enough for a visit.” However, continuing to look, further down the page:

      15_December_2017 leading to the block of 69.123.131.248 This is diagnostic. Oliver D. Smith has been impersonation socking. I’m not checking now, but he has been a student at London University. 

      Oliver graduated from Roehampton University, and then studied at Oxford Learning College. As I wrote, I wasn’t checking (because it wasn’t that important). “Diagnostic” was referring to the sock identification, through weak evidence, as Mikemikev. .Reporting an IP as an SPI case based on two edits is diagnostic of strong POV maintenance. Notice that Mathsci (a factional editor!) doesn’t think it was Mikemikev. “London University” was dicta from Mathsci, and the comment about Oliver was not actually related to this SPI finding, it was also dicta. My comments in this case were confused. I have corrected this.

      As to the overall point, however, Radlett, where Oliver lives, is 17 miles from London University. By public transit, it’s about 45 minutes. So if Oliver wanted to visit, perhaps to drop into the Birkbeck library and do a little Wikipedia editing, he could certainly do it. As I’ve said, I don’t know where Darryl lives, but Oliver has a favorite topic of racism, and is obsessed with Mikemikev.

      So the basic concept is plausible, and for “reasonable suspicion” of impersonation, it’s not a “lie.”  Remember, Oliver Smith has just confessed to lying for seven years, so lying, to him, is “normal,” and he expects it from others. Oliver went on:

      I don’t own this [i’m a separate person to mikemikev and none of the socks filed on his archive are mine, according bizarrely to Lomax though these are my accounts, potentially defamatory since there’s holocaust denial, racism and other crazy stuff on all these]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Mikemikev

      Oliver does this commonly: radically misrepresents what is claims. There is no doubt that Oliver Smith and Mikemikev are separate persons. There is no claim that the accounts listed in the SPI case for Mikemikev are Oliver Smith, generally, such that Oliver would become responsible for the offensive views. Except some of the accounts — how many is unclear, but this would be, likely, more recent and I only reviewed recent reports — might be impersonations. There have been highly disruptive impersonations of Emil Kirkegaard, both on Wikipedia and on lulubooks, and on RationalWiki. Who would do this? There is one reasonable suspect, and one less reasonable, but possible. Mikemikev is unlikely. From long-term interest, to the point of obsession, from an acknowledged pattern of lying (one way or another!), the obvious suspect is Oliver. However, most of the impersonation socking that I first saw would, by interest, be Darryl. Whoever invented impersonation socking, they learned from each other, because it worked.

      Wiki administration can be astonishingly naive. (For blocking purposes, it doesn’t matter if an account is a block evader or an impersonator, both would be blocked. But sometimes there are consequences where accurate identification is important.): 

      To Rome Viharo, April 11, 2018

      I don’t have an exact figure, but I’ve created around 300 RationalWiki articles since the beginning of 2012. 90% of my article creations are not on people. And of the 10% (about 30 people) I created articles on I’ve only had trouble with 3 or 4 people.In other words, an extreme minority (1%) of my articles have caused controversy.

      The statistics are warped, but even if this were true, it would be irrelevant. It was not Rome’s task, nor was it my task, to evaluate all of Oliver’s work. Nor it is easy to compile a list of articles, so that one could study the overall performance, even if it was considered important. 300 articles, okay, maybe. But with how many accounts? I identified certain articles as being likely AP-edited, and sometimes noted who started the article, and a common AP pattern was an account that creates an article with the first edit. The articles are on characteristic topics — and these were mostly on persons, there are only a few exceptions. If Oliver created many articles on “not people,” how would I find them? “AP” accounts mostly created a handful of articles, then disappeared and new socks appeared. I.e., the pattern is designed to avoid the very kind of overall assessment that he is now blaming Viharo and I for not making.

      Yet someone may have many excellent article creations or other content creation and end up globally banned by the WMF, as an example, because of other behavior. There are some astonishing examples.

      If one does a crime, one will often do the time. Sometimes, as to consequences, other beneficial work will lead to a reduced or suspended sentence, but it does not excuse the crime. Oliver, young and internet obsessed for far too long, doesn’t know about life.

      So of course I’m being misrepresented on your or Lomax’s blog. Why don’t you or Lomax discuss 99% of my other edits? Why cherry pick those 3 or 4 people (like in your saloon bar article)? You’re lying and must know you are yourself.

      On the face of it, Smith is trying to get Viharo and I to stop writing about him and his brother on the basis that we are lying. Does he believe this? He has just admitted lying for seven years, early and often. So, suddenly, he claims that he had been lying. Does he expect to be believed now? Why? He’s crazy, has no concept of how to negotiate with real people, no skill at it, and believes that so many people hate him, and UNFAIR! This is the argument of an arrested-development adolescent — or even earlier.

      (Saloon bar article? Oliver is language-impaired as well. That would be about this comment.  There is no “cherry-picking” in that comment. It does not make any claim at all about “Oliver Smith,” but does mention an FBI report on an individual. Smith is claiming to be that individual.) From RatWiki:

      Dude, your FBI threat was damage control. I first reported you to the police for online harassment (all the defamation and doxing of my family on your website). Less than a week after I did that (and I can confirm this with my emails etc) you said you reported me to FBI.[[User:Agent47|Agent47]] ([[User talk:Agent47|talk]]) 16:01, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

      Viharo protested against being blocked for “making legal threats.” GammarCommie wrote this:

      You threatened to sick the FBI on us. And given the FBI is a law enforcement agency, any threat involving them is ”by definition” a legal threat. {{User:GrammarCommie/sig}} 21:35, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

      Comments like that are why GrammarCommie was listed as a “supporter and enabler” of AP socks. Rome made no such threat. He stated that he had filed a complaint (and I think this was old news), he did not threaten the RW community, nor anyone.

      The irony is vast. If claiming that he reported an individual to the FBI was a “legal threat,” so too was the comment by Agent47 (obviously Oliver Smith). In the email, Oliver went on:

      As for myself lying about Dan Skeptic, I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether I’m really him, or protecting a brother as Lomax thinks. Should I be criticized for the latter?

      Again, remarkable. Smith apparently believes that protecting a brother who has defamed and damaged other is laudable. Yes, it’s understandable. In fact, that’s the point! Smith lied about Dan Skeptic, either in 2011 and on, or now. One way or another, he is starting to experience blowback and is trying to avoid consequences. Does he believe what he claims? Sometimes, it’s plausible. Sometimes it is not. People sometimes believe preposterous claims, in spite of clear evidence that they would reasonably be expected to know about. I’ve seen it, and the man I have in mind died for what he believed, he was assassinated. He believed it. He wasn’t lying. Merely wrong, deluded.

      Oliver is “punishing” others for what, in some cases, they did not do. He has wasted years of his life, pursuing this. People were harassed, and if he harassed them, he is responsible for the consequences, and if his brother did it, he is still responsible if he lies to protect his brother.

      His brother, though, as to what has been important to me, was far more damaging. Action to ameliorate the damage, which is being taken, is not going to vanish because Oliver, without believable evidence, says “It was me, I’m responsible, so if I disappear, you should be happy!” As I wrote to him before, and he considered it abusive harassment, what will remedy the situation would be full disclosure, abandoning lies entirely, not taunting and trolling and teasing those who were hit with the harassment. 

      To Rome Viharo, April 12, 2018

      I’m completely done and have nothing else left I can do. All I can advice is if you further mention me in articles, that I tried to delete your article and I have no (further) involvement.

      That’s not advice, it is a claimed fact. “Tried” is a common excuse for failure. He tried in a completely crazy manner that would fail on any wiki. He did not disclose the truth, he continued to cover it up. at this point.

      As I said I wasn’t interested really in content of your article and would prefer to just delete everything to end this, that failed, but if you want to change stuff to your article (the page has been unprotected now) create an account or leave a comment there, or at the above page, where someone mentions if there are “inaccuracies”.

      This was terrible advice. First of all, the Rome Viharo article is full-protected, sysops only. (But Viharo would be expected not to edit it.) Secondly, after Viharo was told that the Talk page was the place to address inaccuracies, the Talk page was semiprotected, which would prevent any non-autoconfirmed account from editing it. The autoconfirmed privilege is granted to users, ordinarily reasonably freely, but generally not to anyone considered a “crank.” Further, Viharo’s new sock was blocked, talk page access removed by Debunking spiritualism.  (previously by GrammarCommie.) Block log. Based on a blatantly incorrect claim of legal threat.

      The problem with the article is content. RatWikians are not going to remove it, generally, if the person is reasonably notable and the article is considered on-mission. By presenting all this as a personal problem, Smith made it very unlikely that anything would be done. Instead of pushing for Viharo to be unblocked on one account (or simply doing it, Smith has claimed to still have a sysop account (and I think he may have several), or asking his brother to do it — or his friend, Debunking spiritualism if that is not his brother — he made a minor suggestion of unblocking, which was likely to be ignored.  No, he did not want the problem of the article to be resolved, and that article is a small part of Viharo’s concerns. It is a symptom, not the underlying problem.

      To Rome Viharo, April 12, 2018

      You are already blocked on rationalwiki on your account you made today. I’m just putting a leave template on any accounts I have left up and won’t further post there.

      This is a different kind of lie, a statement of intention that is then ignored. No leave template has been added as far as I could see (I might recognize an account in Recent Changes, but he has many accounts and not all have been identified). However, I looked back to April 8 and saw no retirements. It’s unusual for an account to retire by posting a template. Most simply stop editing, and a retirement template is one of the signs of an AP sock which made relatively significant contributions.

      Agent47 posted on Talk:Rome Viharo again the next day (April 13), with more attack.

      It is not clear what Oliver means by an “account left up.” He has stopped editing on many accounts. Generally, accounts exist, remain “up,” even if inactive. I have no list of Oliver accounts, only “AP” accounts that have been suspected, and only in a few cases are these confirmed as to identity. (i.e., Oliver has clearly acknowledged being certain accounts, such as Krom. Krom is still a sysop!

      See his user page as he left it. And his farewell message. He lied, at least in part. He continued to use RationalWiki for his own purposes. I have not done an account timeline yet. However, he “retired” October 1, 2015. On February 11, 2016, he used an impersonation account to create an article on John Fuerst and two weeks later, one on Emil Kirkegaard (he has acknowledged creating those articles, thus the impersonation is also acknowledged, but see his denial).

      And if I didn’t exist – you would invent me. You’re trying to make a profession or money-making scheme out of claiming to be against “online harassement”. for that to work you need an aggressor.

      Aggressors exist. And if he were doing that, “should” it be criticized? <– irony!

      The problem is you chose the wrong person. I was criticizing online harassment, doxing and defamation etc, having been a victim of this long before your campaigns.

      Notice that one of the common attacks on Viharo is that he is “playing victim.” That’s quite what Oliver is doing here. Was Viharo “doxxed,” and is that a bad thing?

      Doxxing exists on levels. Journalism doxxes, commonly, and revealing the real name of a public actor (and wiki editing is public action) is not necessary a harm or tort in itself. Doing so for the purpose of harassment could be. It is against Wikipedia policy to, on-wiki, reveal the real name behind an account without the person’s permission or open acknowledgement. The Wikipedia account Tumbleman was outed as Rome Viharo, and instead of relying on old impressions, having read the material months ago, I will document it, the page will be here: Wikipedia/Tumbleman. (no content there as this is written.)

      (It is not necessarily against Wikipedia policy to doxx elsewhere, it would ordinarily need to rise to a level of serious harassment to qualify for sanctions. But if there are private complaints to the WikiMedia Foundation, the WMF does not follow policy and acts as a star chamber, with no process, no opportunity to correct behavior, or to explain and defend, and no appeal.)

Leave a Reply