Oliver on Wikipediocracy

There was a thread on Wikipediocracy about an unnamed user using another. It did not name either user, deliberately, it was asking for advice about editing and libel. I had not noticed this thread, but I was tipped off that Oliver D. Smith was posting on Wikipediocracy, and there it was. The thread.

And here Oliver pops in, fooling nobody. Knowing a great deal about the facts and history, I suspect that Oliver might actually believe what he says. The deceptions arise in how it is all interpreted. I find that the second page of comments is archived, in case it disappears.

He makes a claim that all this is a result of “misinformation campaigns against me by OpenPsych.” There appears to be no such campaign. Open Psych is essentially Kirkegaard, and his activity is in court in the U.K. It is likely that Oliver is lying about some facts, where he believes “there is no proof.” It’s all characteristic of how he thinks and reacts. If if could have been someone else, then he may think it is okay to claim it wasn’t him. He also claims that it was easy to know who was creating all those articles on RatWiki. Really? For years, anyone who even whispered who it was, was whacked immediately. Further, the Smith brothers created massive confusion about their identities.

Smith is being sued by Emil Kirkegaard. I have not seen the complaint, but Oliver may be telling the truth that this is not about statements on Wikipedia, but there is also what may be impersonation socking on Wikipedia (which can be criminal), and, as well, there have been attacks on Oliver’s favorite targets. Whether they rise to actionable libel or not is a different issue.

Michael D. Suarez is highly knowledgeable about Oliver Smith, having tracked him for years, long before I ever became involved. Dysklyver, as a RatWiki tech, has become knowledgeable and makes cogent comments.

“Randy from Boise” clearly knows what is happening.

“Captain Occam” does as well.

Dysklyver (openly Arthur Kerensa) has recently come to know Oliver well and acted, actually, to protect Oliver on RatWiki from getting himself in even more hot water. In gratitude, Oliver has been heavily attacking him on Reddit with totally irrelevant claims about alleged sock puppetry that nobody would care about.

Oliver does not seem to have noticed that just about nobody is believing him any more. He’s banned from RatWiki because of the extremity of his reactions. In the UNZ comment (linked) he refers, as he often does, to my blog posts, but he never links to them so that people can judge for themselves if they are evidence-free or are a “crazy paranoid allegation” as he claims. Instead he links to what he wrote on RatWiki which was, again, evidence free on this point. There was actual evidence that Oliver had fed stories to media, which were published with inadequate verification (Oliver often presents a piece of evidence which if, primed to see it saying something, can seem to say it. Especially if you don’t read the whole page!)

I’m not bothering to find it at this point. If Kirkegaard needs it, I’ll look for it. There is a resemblance here to my WMF ban. Oliver has recently claimed he had nothing to do with it, but when I was banned, he may have known about it before I did, because he bragged about his response to the complaint email. The same happened when the news appeared about Kirkegaard. He bragged about exposing the racists.

Racism is a serious problem. Deception and lying are worse, actually much worse, because racism can mature to something better, whereas deception and lying poison the well, and may continue to do so for the rest of a person’s life.

Oliver, in the end, to prove a point, that he did not capitalize his comment submitted to the ISIR site (like who cares?), admits that he organized a campaign to harass Kirkegaard, citing what he did, in fact, put on RatWiki.

He is insane, yet he has had an actual impact, and it is now blowing back at him.

About Lomax v. WMF

In another post, Oliver wrote this:

I’m listed as a defendant purely based on a vendetta. I actually did nothing wrong and Lomax doesn’t substiantiate any of his allegations about me. I never sent any “defamatory” emails to WMF; I merely sent an email asking an admin to remove where Lomax had doxed my name on either Wikiversity or Meta-Wiki; Lomax was warned multiple times not to dox other user’s real names who were anonymous.

Dysklyver commented in reply: “I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the lawsuit actually entails … Mr. Smith.”

Before I go on with the rest of what Oliver wrote, some clarifications:

  1. Yes, Oliver is listed as a defendant, in an amended complaint that was not properly filed, I was unaware that it was necessary to obtain the permission of the court to add defendants. That amended complaint is the subject of a Motion to Dismiss, and at this point I am holding off on actually filing a proper amendment because it may be necessary to amend the complaint with regard to legal issues in the Motion. Technically, the other defendants have not been sued, and won’t be, really, until and unless they are served with subpoenas, and they won’t be until the court issues them!
  2. The email Oliver mentions, sent to an admin, is not relevant to the lawsuit. The fact there was that I was studying the disruption that had appeared and had linked to a page on Rome Viharo’s blog that had “Oliver Smith” in the URL. It was accidental and even though it was on an obscure page, it was immediately deleted. Actually, the whole page was deleted but then restored with that URL removed.
  3. At that point, Oliver was very little involved, it was all about his brother, but because he and his brother are confused on Wikipedia as Anglo Pyramidologist, which had been his account, there was some idea that mentioning AP was mentioning him. As evidence accumulated, I was able to generally discriminate between the two.
  4. However, Oliver sent another email, a complaint to the WMF, later, and he bragged about getting a response on RatWiki. In spite of what he wrote above, that is evidenced. Was this “wrong”? What did he write? I don’t know, but from context and from the agenda of his brother, with which he was cooperating, I assume it was false allegation (because I was not violating the WMF Terms of Use, nor was I creating any harassment of legitimate users.) Documenting Long Term Abusers, which AP accounts well qualify for, is normal for WMF editors.
  5. Another point: it is not necessary to “substantiate” allegations in a complaint. That happens later. If no substantiation appears in discovery and trial prep process (and a plaintiff must aver what they will present at trial), then a motion for summary judgment will succeed.
  6. I am not a lawyer and may make many mistakes and may misunderstand parts of the process. But I am also more knowledgeable than what is common and have successfully written pleadings and have worked with lawyers. I have not formally consulted a lawyer with regard to this case, but was advised by a very knowledgeable paralegal, and have seen comments from lawyers that confirm my understandings.

The rest of his lawsuit is based on wild allegations another user was impersonated.

Another user was impersonated, and that was established by steward checkuser. It is implausible that Oliver doesn’t know what his brother did. In email with me, he seemed to think it completely irrelevant, and that it should make no difference what his brother did. But he cooperated and collaborated extensively with his brother, including lying in an attempt to protect him, then he justified the lying as normal, i.e., protecting his brother would excuse lying.

However even if true, none of this is “defamatory”. There was no defamation posted on the alleged impersonation accounts; all that was posted was someone copying what the alleged real user had posted.

The impersonation created a defamatory effect, and by impersonating, it was lying about identity. This was actually identity theft, with malicious intent. I personally find it appalling that the WMF went after the one who exposed this, instead of taking serious action against impersonation. I was reluctant to claim malice on the part of the WMF, but it became legally necessary, and, legally, “malice” has a somewhat different meaning than ordinary language. I continue to hope that the WMF will actually investigate what happened, instead of assuming that what they did must be right, because they supposedly have a fail-safe process. It’s obvious that they don’t.

So it would be equivalent to someone using my username “Jelly” (or something similar) and copying this message.

So, we know that Jelly is Oliver Smith. What would be equivalent would be someone creating a sock called JellyToo, and quoting him, and adding that he has a stash of child porn that nobody can do anything about. That would be defamation. Yes! It would be similar, though more serious! Oliver is ignorant of the law and of possibilities.

The lawsuit will almost certainly be dismissed.

It’s quite a good possibility, though not at this stage. I’ve read a lot of case law, and dismissal does happen when the plaintiff fails to properly plead what is necessary, but with proper pleading and even “reasonable suspicion,” the case must go forward. And then we often see that the plaintiff requests that the case be dismissed.

Why? Well, it’s not stated, but it is quite likely that, once the defendant understood that this was going into discovery, which may be other than fun, they got serious about negotiation, and an agreement was reached, which will often require non-disclosure.

And if the case is dismissed against the WMF, this would not dismiss a case against the other defendants. Oliver has no clue.