If you are reading on an archive site, be sure to check the URL for possible updates, corrections, and retractions.
This is a draft, incomplete, to be expanded.
The realization that there was a family of disruptive users, and that one of them was Oliver D. Smith, goes back to at least 2012. Many of the targets of the Smiths were marginal in some way, fringe or provocative. However, the level of sock puppetry was quite unusual, and the intensity of attacks and harassment. Early documentation was often not clear on which brother was involved in a particular incident, and there were impersonations (both by the Smiths and possibly impersonating them as well), creating a veil of confusion, and there were deliberate actions to create confusion.
Nevertheless, it is possible to see reality through confusion. Such perception may not be free of error. Consider looking at some scene through a dirty window, one particular snapshot may be almost unintelligible. But if we move, we can see through the visual noise, by what remains constant behind it. The AP socks do not come with ready tags when we observe them (usually). It is much easier to, however, consider them as if the same, to distinguish the sock family from others who might resemble it in some way or other. When an account has substantial edits, I have become sufficiently familiar with the traits to identify “AP socks,” and, as well, there are two obvious general families of interests and modes of expression.
I did not develop this facility by reading what others have written, I developed it from integrating the study of the account behaviors with my own experience and confirmed knowledge. As an example, there has been massive impersonation on RationalWiki, including impersonation of me. I know it wasn’t me! So for my own purposes, I don’t need to find specific evidence for that, I may assume it. As well, I concluded quite some time ago that Debunking spiritualism was Darryl L. Smith, and have covered evidence for that. When Dubunking spiritiualism continued some patterns of behavior, becoming more and more extreme with them — not abruptly but more or less gradually — and then appears to have realized how much he revealed, he then told the story that his account had been hacked, and probably by me.
The story did not match the actual evidence of his behavior, but on RationalWiki, studying actual evidence is deprecated in favor of snark and quick judgments.
Here, some other web pages have been pointed out to me. I will link to them here and make a few comments. Listing here is not an approval of those sites, and those pages may have many errors. Few of them, in my experience, are lying. (It is a common Smith practice to call documentation of the behavior of the brothers “Lies.” He does not specify which statements are lies, or if he does, it’s misleading. I.e., if some source misidentifies the activity of Darryl as Oliver, say, Oliver will call it “lies” and Darryl will remain silent. Calling a possible error a “lie” is common among fanatics and trolls.) To the pages:
The archive.is search for *Oliver Smith returns almost 55,000 pages. Oliver has filed Google blocks for many sites, I documented those on another page; these affect google results, but not archive.is searches. *Darryl Smith returns over 8,000 pages, but almost all are not the same person as is of interest here.
Encyclopedia Dramatica.
That project is down at the moment, it may be restored [note 5/11/2018: it’s back up], but many pages are archived. ED has long been a parody site, for the lulz, not to be taken seriously. This was commonly obvious from articles themselves, but it was also well-known. The site was somewhat cleaned up recently, the pornographic and pop-up ads were removed, but some of the pages linked here, through archive copies, are NSFW. (All of the pages linked here are for information and further research, they are not “approved” other than for possible usefulness, to be confirmed, later.)
In listing pages, I may comment as to the general content of the page, without necessarily approving all the content. Anyone may point out errors to me, and I am committed to correcting what I cannot personally confirm. As well, my intention is to allow the Smith brothers the right of comment, if comment comes as verified. (I.e., Oliver Smith has a known email address. He can write me and I know it’s him. — and if someone spoofs that address, he’d still see it when I reply, as I would.)
Other comments will be approved based on my discretion.
Oliver D. Smith as of 4 Feb 2018, recent version of the article, which is sarcastic, lulzy and dramatic. There is factual basis underneath.
Oliver D. Smith/Connecting the dots 15 Jun 2016. This was well-organized but defective in one way: the author does not apparently realize what is now seen as a probability that Forests was Darryl, not Oliver. In order to link them, the author depends on an assumption that conversations between the accounts was faked to divert researchers. A certain level of common article and mutual support would be expected from the brothers.
There are some who believe, apparently, that there is “no brother,” and that it is all Oliver. It is plausible, but, because it is known independently that there is a brother of the same age, Darryl, it must be interpreted as “the brother is not involved,” not that he doesn’t exist.
This is inconsistent with many claims from Oliver, except a very recent one where he claims he was lying to everyone for many years, including lying to a possible supporter of Darryl’s work. Tim Farley. (Farley has claimed to not know the Smith brothers, as I recall, but he has not yet been asked more specifically.)
To me, there are visibly distinct personalities that can be seen. On the other hand, Oliver claimed at one time to be schizophrenic, which could create very erratic behavior.
Oliver D. Smith Brothers in spite of the displayed capture date in 2012, shows that it was last revised 20 December 2016. It begins with a description of the brothers:
The Oliver D. Smith Brothers are a duo or trio of brothers involved in massive online arguments, sockpuppetry, impersonation, deception, and harassment. Of these brothers, Oliver D. Smith is the most prolific, as well as the only one whose name is known. Topics of interests to the brothers include Rightism, Racialism, Atlantis, and the paranormal. Known pseudonyms used by the brothers include Anglo_Pyramidologist, Atlantid, Boglin, Dan Skeptic, Jake Speed, DinoCrisis, Cassiterides, and Krom, as well countless others. Oliver is a former Neo-Nazi and a former British Israelite, whose autism and bibliomania lead him to keep changing his political and religious views. Oliver is “hetero-demisexual” and lack of interest in sex leads him to wage an online war against what he calls “sex pests” and other immorality despite the fact he claims to love violent video-games and once watched Cannibal Holocaust. Oliver’s internet history traces back to least 2005. He also has a disturbing history of impersonating people and inventing personae on forums and is a pathological liar who will blame his impersonations on his enemies, apparently unaware of how transparent his efforts are. As “Atlantid”, Oliver was a sysop on Metapedia, while his brother (“DinoCrisis”, “Forests”) was a sysop on Rationalwiki. Oliver, as “Krom”, later became a RationalWiki sysop as well. Together, they’ve upset various people with their edits. Hundreds of the brothers’ Wikipedia accounts have been blocked.
“Neo-Nazi” is a problematic claim, possibly an exaggeration (but there is evidence for it). I have seen clearly racist comments from Oliver, but that was years ago, on Metapedia, and he claimed to have changed his position (which then is roughly consistent with the article description). I consider the allegations about his sexual interests irrelevant, other than his having a penchant for accusing others of pedophilia based on statements that reflect normal male sexuality rather than anything pedophilic.
I suspect that Oliver has been impersonated, but it is clear that the Smiths collectively employ impersonation socking to defame, there are many examples. From circumstantial evidence, the most extensive impersonation socking was by Darryl, not Oliver.
In the list of interests, they were all Oliver’s interests except the “paranormal,” which was Darryl. This distinction of interests is found back to Wikipedia in 2011. Interest in the paranormal can slide into interest in pseudoscience and fringe science (which some skeptics call pseudoscience, though that is clearly a misapplication of the term) and then we see claims that racialism and associated intelligence studies are “pseudoscientific” (which some may be). As well, the brothers communicate and help each other out, as is described in the ED pages.
RationalWiki
RationalWiki has a salted page, Oliver D. Smith. Only a sysop can create a page with that name. Why? It was never created. I don’t know the history. However, the Smiths claim that there is no “Smith brotherconspiracy” it is all a paranoid fantasy by crazies.
Oliver claims to have been harassed, meanwhile he and his brother create many articles on RationalWiki about their enemies
Further, someone is creating massive impersonation socks on RationalWiki, and it unlikely to be Mikemikev and it sure is not me!
In the most recent craziness, Debunking spiritualism went on a massive revision deletion and blocking spree, and then, next day, retired the account and claimed it had been hacked. Meanwhile, though most of his actions were reversed, some were not. Here is a page from RationalWiki today:
He blocked Merkel, Oliver’s harassment target (for which Calimachus had been blocked), and he also unblocked Calimachus, and both actions are standing.
User:Merkel (history). The current text was added by Merkel January 9, 2018.
Vindicated about Oliver/Atlantid[edit]
I mentioned this fact and everyone flung venemous insults at me. He later admitted it. He never apologized for lying nor did anyone else.“I’ve used this site since the beginning of 2012;” he finally admitted.Dr. Witt and User:Anti-Fascist for life put that they retire on their user page at the same time. The second account didn’t get its sysop powers removed like the first.
This user is banned indefinitely from editing RationalWiki.
The reason given is doxing, impersonating and posting libel about a RW editor; also off-site harassment.”Why I permabanned this editor:
Doxing and posting libel about a RW editor.
Ongoing harassment: Merkel is a sysop on the neo-Nazi wiki Rightpedia.
He uses Rightpedia to dox and harass the same RW editor.
Merkel has also impersonated the RW editor.Debunking spiritualism (talk) 22:09, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
So that was reverted, but the block was not.