subpage of rationalwiki/abd-ul-rahman-lomax/

Work in progress

This is a review of the revenge article written about me on RationalWiki, by a sock of the user known to Wikipedia as Anglo Pyramidologist. I am here commenting on it. At the time that this article was written, I had (from many years earlier) sysop privileges on RationalWiki, which were nearly useless. I had given up on doing any serious work on that wiki, it was so overrun by trolls and contemptuous pretend skeptics. It was a place where some users from Wikipedia would come to freely express how they thought, showing how depraved they actually were, depravity that would get them blocked in most places (and some were administrators, and they would face desysop on Wikipedia if they were so free there). Snark reigns on RationalWiki. It’s a policy, effectively.

The RatWiki article has been extensively revised, almost day-by-day and blow-by-blow (someone is definitely obsessed) and I intend to supplement this coverage.

The material here was copies from the version of 3 December, 2017.

I have edited the links below (to notes) to point to that version, because later revisions make mincement of the links.

---

Abd ul-Rahman Lomax

Abd ul-Rahman Lomax^[1][2] (a.k.a. Daniel Lomax or User:Abd) is a Muslim, conspiracy theorist and crank who is a proponent of pseudoscientific cold fusion.

Lomax has a history of being banned on forums and wikis for trolling.

Lying from the start. Yes, Muslim, I hope. Conspiracy theorist is a lie, created by the troll who started this article, and maintained by a series of sock puppets. Identification of sock puppets is not “conspiracy theory,” though it is a theory of sorts. Evidence? Fake skeptics don’t care about evidence! It exists and has been heavily documented by me and by others (some is private information, which may be revealed if necessary). This is being covered on other pages, as well, as, for the WikiMedia Foundation socks, on the meta wiki (because it was cross-wiki socking). Even short of the technical evidence that exists, which is definitive, the duck test is totally clear. Most WMF socks are identified by the duck test.

Crank is opinion. I’m 73, self-expressed and assertive, and that can look like “crank.” Or cranky people, of any age, may consider as a “crank,” someone who is assertive with different opinions than theirs.

 Proponent of pseudoscientific cold fusion is misleading.  I am a proponent (hopefully, facilitator) of scientific research, published in the mainstream journal system where possible, into what is popularly called “cold fusion,” which was a misleading name from the beginning, for the Fleischmann-Pons Heat Effect (FPHE). It was misleading because there was evidence that the reaction, if real, was not what was ordinarily understood as “fusion,” and there still is no definitive and confirmed explanatory theory, except the simple one I will mention below. Pons and Fleischmann themselves, in their first paper, called it an “unknown nuclear reaction.” “Nuclear” because they were chemists and, to them, this wasn’t chemistry. Others disagreed. More below. While there are “believers” in cold fusion, whose opinions might be called “pseudoscientific,” I am not one. Rather, I have claimed that the preponderance of the evidence is that the FPHE is real, and that it is nuclear in nature, because it has been found and widely confirmed to produce a correlated nuclear product. That is simple science, fully falsifiable (though not easy to test), not “pseudoscience,” except to a pretend skeptic who doesn’t actually understand the words he uses, but knows what is “bad” on RationalWiki.

(Both United States Deparatment of Energy reviews of cold fusion concluded that more research was appropriate. Contrary to popular opinion, they did not reject “cold fusion.” They merely considered that, in 1989, the evidence was inadequate, and in 2004, the panel was divided, but unanimous on calling for more research. So what I am called “pseudoscientific” for allegedly “promoting,” was a unanimous recommendation of a panel of experts.)

As to being banned for trolling, this is a Lie. In fact, the idea that I am extensively banned results from squinting and only looking at a few bans.

I was banned by a cranky moderator on the vortex-l mailing list. It was not for trolling, it was the opposite. It was for responding soberly and carefully to a troll. The ban said DNFTT, for which see Wikipedia.

I am “community-banned” on the English Wikipedia. One might notice that there is no Sock Puppet Investigation case for me there. That’s because, while I did sock for a very short time, in 2011, those socks were not disruptive, except for being block evasion. Except for one, they were self-identified, no need for checkuser. On the other hand, the author of this article, and supporting socks which continue to edit it, has almost 200 identified and blocked socks on Wikipedia, has now a series of globally locked accounts, and most recently has been editing using open proxies, and starting up a new one as soon as globally blocked. And cries about “why isn’t Abd banned?” (This is covered on other pages here.)

I was banned from LENR-forum. That’s not dissimilar to what happened on en.Wikipedia. I confronted abusive administration. Long story. “Trolling” was not the reason. However, before being banned, I was called a troll by … a troll. Of course he will quote that! (That is common with RatWiki hit pieces. Anyone expressing a negative opinion of the target, they are likely to find it and quote it as if a fact.)

 I am not “banned” on RationalWiki. That would take a Cooping, and the last thing AP wants is to call attention to the situation. I could easily sock around this, but instead prefer to document the behavior, here, thoroughly. I don’t need to use that RW account. And if I ever want to edit Wikipedia, I would follow policy to request unblock. There, I have a set of dedicated enemies (at least one of whom is still ranting about me after my being gone for six years, because … I set up an ArbComm case that got him reprimanded. Unforgiveable!  And I set up a case where a good friend of his was desysopped, which is rare for a non-administrator to accomplish)– but I also I have friends with weight. By the Standard Offer, I should qualify. But I don’t want to edit Wikipedia. Why should I?

Counting blocks, and having been very active, I am banned on two forums and two wikis. Is that a notable characteristic? I am not banned or blocked on 483 WMF wikis out of 484 where I have accounts with one or more edits. (There are countless fora besides wikis, where I have participated on occasion and have not been blocked. I am occasionally very active on Quora, with strict administration (and which requires real-name accounts). I’m in good standing and have three million Answer views and 1600 followers. And the troll who created this article is blocked and banned in many, many places, including all the WMF wikis (at least under some accounts). So this is hilarious. 

Contents

♦ Religious views
♦    Islam
♦        Numeric miracles in the Quar’an [sic]
♦    Martin Gardner
♦ Pseudoscience
♦    Cold fusion
♦    Parapsychology
♦    Diet_woo
♦ Internet antics
♦    Catfighting
♦    RationalWiki conspiracy theory
♦ External links
♦ References

Lack of qualifications[edit]

Lomax claims to have studied undergraduate physics at the California Institute of Technology; he has no degree. He admits he never “graduated from any college or university.”^[1][3]

Redundant, eh? However “no degree” is not “lack of qualifications,” it is a lack of certain credentials.  I became engaged in real life, running a community and businesses, having a family, and never went back to ordinary school. “Claims to have studied.” That could be verified, but it is meaningless and useless. I’m not claiming any authority from it, it is dicta, explaining why I could read scientific papers and have a clue, unlike the fake skeptic who wrote the article, who has never shown any serious scientific understanding. He just trolls enemies (which readily includes anyone who interferes with his attacks on others, as I did on Wikiversity), and when he is blocked for it, he simply creates new accounts. The School of Hard Blocks. He’s still not particularly good at it, considering the length of time he’s been doing it. It’s Obvious Obvious, if anyone looks. He also seems not to have learned much about legitimate process, or he is simply lying in his recent edits. He doesn’t learn because he has no consequences from errors, he just grabs a new open proxy.

However, he writes on websites he attended Cal Tech lectures, studying with Richard Feynman (1961-1963), further that he has knowledge of physics.^[4][5][6][7]

Right. I sat in the “Feynman lectures,” when they filmed him to make the book. I got decent grades in those two years. I’ve said that I learned how to think from Feynman, that noted safe-cracker, draft-evader (pretending to be insane!) and wise guy who acted like he was smarter than everyone else.

At Cal Tech, at that time, all (or almost all) undergrads learned how to pick locks. That’s a bit of esoterica that anyone who was there, then, could verify.

I have, as one might expect from that experience and continued reading, and, later, occasionally, discussion, with physicists, oral and written, (my Current Science paper was written on invitation by a physics professor), I do have a general knowledge of physics. Any degreed physicist would know more, in general, but not necessarily in special cases where I have specific knowledge that the physicist does not have. I do not call myself a “scientist,” because of the lack of credentials, but I love science and the scientific method, and apply it all through life. But it is not everything, because we need, routinely, to make decisions and don’t have the opportunity for anything like controlled experiment.

He also claims to have taken Linus Pauling‘s freshman chemistry class.^[2] Despite, or perhaps because of this, Lomax has previously asserted that formal teachings are unnecessary for him, because he is able to “learn by writing”.^[8]

I did, but I only remember what Pauling looked like. After all, this was over fifty years ago. As to learning by writing, what an idiot this author is! To get a PhD, what does one have to do? Read a lot of books? Take tests? No, one must write a thesis and defend it. So I’ve done something like that, informally, and it has been best on fora where there are many truly knowledgeable participants. It is not simply “writing.” It is actually researching a topic, as directly as possible, reading sources, comparing them, and then writing. Not terribly useful on RationalWiki, for sure, except for learning about the depths to which dedicated trolls can sink. And, as well, with some trolls like Anglo Pyramidologist, how to handle this in functional communities, and even in partially-dysfunctional ones, without getting blocked oneself.

Formal teaching can certainly be useful, but is not truly necessary for everyone. The author did not pick up my involvement with the “independent learning” movement, which is, like many of the topics I have engaged in, outside the “mainstream.” I see the results, up close, with my children, who are generally more successful, in ordinary terms, than I. I have six grandchildren and at least one more is coming, and I expect great-grandchildren soon. Crank? Maybe. Winning the game? So far.

Religious views[edit]

Islam[edit]

Lomax converted to Islam in 1970^[9][2] and claims to have “become a leader of a spiritual community”^[10] as a successor to a popular mystic Sufi named Samuel L. Lewis

He made hay out of the word “spiritual.” It’s been removed, but he claimed this was evidence that I was a “spiritualist.” Different meaning of the word. Very different. He thinks it means the fifth meaning here.  Merriam-Webster falls on its face, though, in its definition of “spirit.” A simple synonym for the meaning I was using would be, indeed, “meaning.” Or “core meaning.” And what is the meaning of “meaning”?  The way I used the word, that is a spiritual question, though answers may or may not be spiritual. Carl Jung, famously in correspondence with Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, said that alcoholism was caused by a lack of “spirit,” or meaning in life. Ah, the world is far larger than AP has dreamed of.

During 1978-1979 Lomax associated with Abdalqadir as-Sufi, Islamic founder of the Murabitun World Movement. He was asked to leave the group, later describing it as a “shady cult”.^[11][12][13]

The source doesn’t support that. The “group” did not exist at that time. I have not found a source for the founding of the Murabitun. What actually happened was complex. As part of the sequence, Abd ul-Qadr said, “… then you must leave.” It was quite odd, because the apparent cause was something missing that, in my opinion, was missing from most of his followers, but I spoke about it. I was told, “Don’t worry! Many of the fuqara — followers, loosely — have been asked to leave and a few weeks later, it made no difference. Stick around!” I was horrified, actually, at the idea of ignoring what the Shaykh had said, and I knew a great deal about the history of Islamic tasawwuf (“Sufism”). There was a case of a man who was told by his Shaykh to leave, and he traveled for the rest of his life, staying in a condition of “leaving.” What actually happened in my own life was that entire worlds re-opened up to me, as I was no longer leaning on the hobbit-company of the followers. I did travel. I also contacted the Shaykh later and he gave me his full blessing.

This, quite simply, is not the story that the author of this hit-piece wants to tell. He wants to make it into some kind of humiliation, isn’t being “asked to leave” a sign of something bad? In the ordinary world, perhaps. My life was not quite so ordinary. I’ve been fired from a job and it was the best thing that happened to me. (I’d blown the whistle on my employer committing fraud, and, fired, I was forced to develop and deepen my own design business, which still provides residual income many years later.)

Being banned from Wikipedia was like being released from prison. And on and on.

I did not describe the Murabitun as a “shady cult.” AP is just looking for dirt, not actually reading sources.  

Numeric miracles in the Quar’an[edit]

[sic]

Lomax does not deny the possibility of miracles but has disputed the claims of Rashad Khalifa regarding numeric miracles in the Qur’an.^[14][15]

And what is a “miracle”? RationalWiki, in the linked article, gives a definition: “A miracle is what you call it when something occurs that you can’t explain and you’re too impressed to try and figure out exactly what happened.”

Not too bad, but it suffers from the classic RatWiki mindreading. “Too impressed” is not exactly it. Rather, with a “miracle” we know what happened, at least outwardly. Hey, I got my iPhone back when it was stolen, and I actually made a profit in the affair. However, I also know exactly what I did to get it back, and to make that profit, but it was indirect. Why did it work, it could have failed in a thousand ways? Miracle. All that means is “I don’t know.” I do know that “miracles” like this are common in my life.

However, existence itself is a miracle. That is what fake skeptics don’t see, they often believe that they understand life and reality, when the people who have studied reality most deeply end up saying, in the end, “We know little.” Normal skepticism is “I don’t know, and I’m not convinced yet.” Pseudoskepticism is “I know, and they are wrong.” And often, “This nonsense is not worth looking at,” but, oddly, they may spend enormous effort promoting that it is not worth looking at. Odd, eh? They are actually a kind of believer.

Pseudoskepticism is skepticism that forgets to be skeptical of self (or of group-think).

Concerning Khalifa, Lomax has written:

“Dr. Khalifa’s claims, at best, fall into the category of pious fraud. … Had God intended the Qur’an to carry a code verifying its perfect preservation, he could have done it much more effectively and simply than the complex, arbitrary, and inconclusive ‘code’ claimed by Dr. Khalifa.^[16]

I did write that, as I recall. This was Martin Gardner quoting me. The term “fraud” there does not imply that Khalifa knew what he was promoting was false. I knew him. He believed in his own work. But the effect was pious fraud.

He was also involved in a long internet debate with Edip Yuksel on numeric miracles in the Quar’an. The debate was printed in book format in 1995 and republished in 2012.^[17] According to critics, Lomax is notorious for ad hominem.^[18]

Martin Gardner[edit]

Lomax’s scepticism about numerical miracles was positively cited in a book by Martin Gardner.^[16] Lomax cites Gardner on websites so as to prevent himself from being labelled as a pseudo-scientist for his unorthodox views about cold fusion.^[19] However, what this actually shows is stopped clock.

My motive and “Actually” is obvious opinion, mind-reading, not fact.

This has nothing to do with cold fusion. It only shows that I wrote some serious skeptical coverage of an idea that Gardner thought worth looking at. My views on cold fusion are “unorthodox” only among the ignorant. They are based on a careful review of experimental evidence, which is science, not pseudoscience, and what I have concluded is fully testable and falsifiable. There is no contrary work in mainstream journals in recent years, and, in fact, there never was; present understanding explains, rather well, work that was considered “negative” over 25 years ago. But there still is no satisfactory theory of mechanism.

And I don’t really care what people call me. I’m going to die in not very long, I’m very aware of it, and “people” can go take a hike. I’m actually a writer and journalist/blogger (not a “scientist” or “pseudoscientist”), and my dedication is to accurate and deep reporting. My expenses are currently paid for that, by people who want the coverage. If my ability to work were damaged by the lies in this article, I’d sue. So far, I have seen no hint of damage. If that changes, I won’t just be writing about it, I’ll be finding a lawyer, though I also have some experience and success with representing myself in court. It might be fun. At this point, this is not a threat, for the reason I explain: no actual damage. That some twit expresses Bad Opinions about me on a no-account web site, I would not even be bothering to respond, if not for the damage this troll has apparently actually caused for others. 

So I’m countering lies with documented research, not simple ad-hominem arguments, as AP will claim.

Lomax might be rational about one thing, but is irrational or cranky about others.

Only one thing? Isn’t that rather unlikely? Now, exactly where am I “irrational?” There are no examples in the article that don’t depend on knee-jerk, ignorant reactions to the name of a field, often twisted badly as presented.

In the absence of evidence for irrationality on any point, the stopped clock metaphor (which I often use) fails.

Pseudoscience[edit]

So consider the RationalWiki definition.

Pseudoscience describes any belief system or methodology which tries to gain legitimacy by wearing the trappings of science, but fails to abide by the rigorous methodology and standards of evidence that are the marks of true science.
Promoters of pseudoscience often adopt the vocabulary of science, describing conjectures as hypotheses, theories, or laws, providing “evidence” from observation and “expert” testimonies, or even developing what appear to be mathematical models of their ideas. However, in pseudoscience there is no honest attempt to follow the scientific method, provide falsifiable predictions, or develop double blind experiments.
Although pseudoscience is designed to appear scientific, it lacks all of the substance of science.

Cold fusion[edit]

In 2009, Lomax was topic banned from editing the Wikipedia cold fusion article for “disruptive editing”. Two years later he was community banned and received an indefinite block.^[20][21]

This is only slightly misleading. The author who wrote this has not been “banned” from Wikipedia, but he has caused a hundred times as much disruption there as I was even accused of, and he is indef blocked as hundreds of accounts. I have two, Abd and the one mentioned below that only edited for a short time, carefully NPOV. (I have a few other disclosed socks, that were special-purpose.) 

I was topic banned by ArbComm in a case where the primary cause for the case I filed was confirmed. They often shoot the messenger. Setting that aside, the ArbComm topic ban expired, but by that time I declared a conflict of interest on cold fusion and no longer edited the article in any way that could be considered disruptive. I was then topic banned on cold fusion by the “community,” a process that avoids the relatively careful deliberation of ArbComm. Actually, rereading it, I have been mistaken. The actual ban was issued as a result  of the community discussion and it was cited, but it was actually issued under General Sactions, which is technically an extension of an ArbComm remedy. However, I asked for specific reasons. They were elusive and vague. I think I understand the real reason. An ArbComm majority wanted to get rid of me even before they decided the case I’d filed against JzG. Because that case provided them no excuse, they were looking for one. I don’t know that the banning admin was at all involved in this –and probably not. I asked him for clarification of exactly what was banned, he did not respond. I’ll tell this story in more detail on another page. Always, before, I had focused on the claim that I had disruptively edited meta, but I was not blocked there, and the request I had filed, considered evidence of my “writing too much,” would not have been successful if I had not explained in detail, and it was successful (and remained so, that blacklisting was never renewed).

There were actually two operative bans, then, one on cold fusion and one that was terminally vague, the ban on commenting on disputes where I was not a primary party. When passed, it had a mentorship provision, and an arbitrator actually volunteered to be my mentor. He was told that he could not do this, but that telling was private, not public. Who is controlling the arbitrators? They make decisions in secret, on a mailing list. It was hacked, so the wanting to ban me predating the excuses became public.

The bans were being interpreted to make them more and more strict, and eventually I bailed. I was blocked for some silly business and decided to test what I had proposed for others, at least to see how it worked. And then, when range blocks and revision deletion were rolled out to prevent non-disruptive edits (as shown by many of them, self-reverted, being reverted back in by another user), I created one sock. And this showed part of what I had suspected — this was before that mailing list was hacked. An arbitrator checkuser blocked this account. Based on what disruption? Basically, the older checkuser guidelines and policies were being ignored, to Stop Abd. And then JzG, who had gotten a black eye in the first Arbitration Case where I was a party, proposed a Community Ban. By Ban Policy, decisions are to be made by “uninvolved editors.” That Policy is routinely ignored. Nobody looks at the histories of participants for signs of involvement. So the faction I had exposed in the next case after the JzG one came out in force. There was no real consensus in that discussion, as can easily be seen. 

As well, a community ban from one sock, and a little IP editing, was quite unusual. But I wasn’t “usual.” The faction I had confronted for abusive administration really wanted me gone. (But JzG continues to complain about me, years later.)

I was not invited to defend myself then, which would be normal procedure. I was not even informed that it was happening. But I never appealed. Remember, I had abandoned Wikipedia, having exhausted reasonable due process. I moved on.

Lomax is the owner of the pseudoscientific “Infusion Institute” which he formed in December, 2013.^[22] It is not a recognized scientific institute, he is the only member. In 2015, he wrote a paper arguing for cold fusion that was published in the peer-reviewed journal Current Science.^[23][24]

Technically, I am the sole officer at this point. Not exactly the “owner” It would be unlawful for me to embezzle funds for private profit. Is there a basis for considering Infusion Institute, Inc.,  “pseudoscientific” ? What would that be? In any case, III is quite well-enough funded, to cover my expenses, and the bulk of funding has come from sources interested in real science. That paper was a peer-reviewed review, which would theoretically be — by Reliable Source policy — golden for Wikipedia. However, there are many such reviews in mainstream journals, all, so far, almost totally ignored when it comes to the Wikipedia article. The RationalWiki article, in spite of the snark, is slightly better.

Current Science does not publish “pseudoscientific cranks” unless, of course, they write a paper that passes peer review. Papers are not generally reviewed based on ad hominem arguments. The review was by no means some automatic rubber stamp. There were two reviews, the first by the section editors, and one of them, a physics professor, had actually invited me to write the paper. The other didn’t like something I wrote, but I managed to mollify his concerns. Then came the standard anonymous reviewer. He really didn’t like the paper! He had all the standard reasons that physicists have for rejecting cold fusion. So I rewrote the paper to very specifically meet his objections. He then helped me write the conclusion, which is what this troll quotes from:

According to Lomax:

Cold fusion is real, and it is time that serious work is funded to study the conditions of cold fusion and other correlated effects, gathering the evidence needed to understand it.^[25]

This is clearly a call for scientific research, not “pseudoscience.” Consider: a favorite organization of “skeptics” is CSI, the Committee for Scientific Inquiry. Just how much “scientific inquire” does CSI do? It was founded as CSICOP, the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. If the thinking of this troll is followed, CSICOP was “pseudoscientific.” We will see the claim below that “parapsychology” is considered “pseudoscientific, but the subject of parapsychology is and has always been precisely the subject of CSICOP. More on this below.

At least one news report has incorrectly described Lomax as a “physicist”.^[26] Lomax has made a number of far-fetched claims, for example he has stated that with further development “cold fusion could supply clean power for humanity indefinitely.”^[27]

I am not responsible for the error of that journalist. I have never claimed to be a physicist. Nice find, though, I had not seen that story. Obviously it stood out from among 34 papers for that person. Scientists in the field have told me that the paper is important; it was mentioned very positively in the keynote address by Michael McKubre, probably the top researcher in the field (retained in 1989 and until very recently to investigate cold fusion, through SRI International, by the electric power industry originally, and then by U.S. government agencies, and some others, at ICCF-20 in Japan in 2016.

That is far from a far-fetched claim. In 1989, when what came to be called “cold fusion” was announced, it is said that half the U.S. discretionary science budget was being spent on attempting to confirm the effect. Why would they do that? Precisely because of the possibility I mention. My statement has been taken out of context, as seems typical for hit pieces written by this troll. Here is a fuller quotation, it’s from my fund-raising page (a successful campaign, by the way, I still have money left after the trip expenses, it will last me into next year, when I have several trips to make, to visit researchers and to go to ICCF-21 in Colorado.) 

Cold fusion is a popular name for a physical effect of unknown mechanism, largely rejected in 1989-1990, because of theoretical objections and replication difficulties, but research has accelerated over the years and much more is now known.

No practical applications have been confirmed, but it appears possible that, with appropriate development, cold fusion could supply clean power for humanity indefinitely.  Supporting the necessary basic research, as recommended by both U.S. Department of Energy reviews of cold fusion (or LENR, Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions), has been a major focus of mine for many years.

A paper of mine was published in Current Science, Replicable cold fusion experiment: heat/helium ratio . The work suggested by that paper is under way in Texas, see announcement . It is fully funded.

The situation with practical applications is a little worse than might be implied from what I wrote then. It is very clear now that the claims of Andrea Rossi were fraudulent, which is a story that I spent much of 2016-2017 reporting on.

Now, why would some very smart venture capitalists spend about $20 million (plus legal expenses when Rossi sued them) to find out, definitively, if Rossi had something real or not? The answer is obvious. If it was real, the technology could be worth a trillion dollars, so a few million, pocket change for them! Those investors routinely toss $25 million into LLCs, a high percentage of which fail, but when they succeed, they can make hundreds of millions in profits, and they have built a $2.5 billion corporation this way.

Parapsychology[edit]

Lomax is supportive of research in parapsychology but claims he is not a “believer” in the subject.

I do claim that. And I am not “supportive of research in parapsychology,” but rather of academic freedom. I would not donate a nickel to parapsychological research, as such. Well, maybe a nickel! But I have worked intensely for academic  freedom for years, which includes the freedom to investigate and study what I might think is nonsense, or at least fringe. Let’s see what evidence this troll comes up with! The language here is strange. Parapsychology is the scientific investigation of claims of the paranormal. That’s the same as what genuine skeptics seek and do, on occasion. What is the “paranormal”? I think the Rhine Institute might be some authority on that. My emphasis.

Parapsychology is the scientific study of interactions between living organisms and their external environment that seem to transcend the known physical laws of nature.  Parapsychology is a component of the broader study of consciousness and the mind.  Parapsychologists study 5 broad areas: [and then there is a list of topics, being telepathy, clairvoyance or remote viewing, precognition, psychokinesis, and survival studies — i.e., survival after death.]

Crucial word: Seem.

Parapsychology is not a “belief” in the reality of these things, but the scientific investigation of them.  The general term for these areas is the “paranormal,” which linguistically means “beyond the normal.” Paranormal may simply indicate phenomena that are not understood, or it could indicate the “supernatural.” I acknowledge only one nature, not many, so I generally reject the “supernatural.“

Do I “believe in the paranormal”? There are many things I have seen in my life that seem to defy ordinary explanations. There is one parapsychological study I have seen that shows an effect that is casually dismissed as a product of using a pseudorandom code instead of true randomization. (Because the effect went away, apparently, when true randomization was used. That is an explanation that is amazing!!! But all this means is that something might not be understood. “Not understood” does not translate to “proven.” Far from it!

If some people want to use scientific tools to investigate the paranormal, that’s fine with me! And there are people interested in this, willing to fund research. The problem is?

He has argued against skeptics who dismiss parapsychology as pseudoscientific and refers to skeptics of parapsychology as “pseudoskeptics“.^[28][29] Lomax argues that:

This is a highly misleading attempt to lead genuine skeptics to think I am accusing them of being pseudoskeptical. And Isn’t that bad and therefore this is a personal attack and an ad hominem argument?

First of all, pseudoskepticism is common. Pseudoskepticism is belief disguised as skepticism. I can be pseudoskeptical like anyone else, on some topic or other. The term “pseudoskepticism” was coined for modern usage by Marcello Truzzi, one of the founders of CSICOP, who resigned when he saw CSICOP being overrun by “debunkers,” who are certain of their own world-view. A “debunker” is a pseudoskeptic. Genuine skepticism avoids that kind of confident certainty.

So I am here claimed to be saying the same thing as Truzzi said. I’m honored. The troll’s understanding is warped. Parapsychology is a science. What does it mean to be skeptical of a science? There are people who think that parapsychology has not found proof of the existence of the paranormal phenomena mentioned. However, it’s quite incorrect to claim there is no evidence, which is a common pseudoskeptical claim. Rather, a skeptic is not convinced. Not being convinced is not pseudoskepticism. It’s just one’s condition! As to the paranormal, at least most of it, I am not convinced. However, life just isn’t that simple. I’ll give an example.

I was at the dentist, because a tooth had broken and it was being extracted. The dentist was working at it, and getting frustrated. The tooth didn’t want to come out! So I told him to stop, and then spoke to the tooth. “Thank you for being such a faithful tooth for so many years! It’s time to go, it’s okay to let go.” And then I told the dentist he could start again. He did, and the tooth came out immediately. He was astonished! It’s my body and maybe it listens to me as I try to listen to it, and something often happens when I use language like that. This is not “belief.” I did not “believe” that the tooth would come right out.

That is just a story, not a proof of anything. But it’s true, that is what happened. 

Nobody is wrong because they are pseudoskeptical. However, the social context of discussions can be relevant. When someone clearly demonstrates that they are entrenched in pseudoskepticism, which is correlated with a strong belief in rightness and the wrongness of others, I may make a decision to end discussion (just as a skeptic might decide to end a discussion with a fanatic believer. Key term here: fanatic.

What does it take for this troll, who created this article, to be so motivated as to find so many sources about me? And to create a large pile of sock puppets, and to continue massive disruption, even up to just the other day, on the WMF wikis? Strong motivation! I don’t think he is a skeptic at all, he’s pretending and saying what he thinks his audience will approve, using key words that he imagines will get them excited so that they will defend him in his agenda to attack his enemies.

Now, what did I actually say? Let’s look at it. I’m not always right, for sure, and I don’t even accept “right” and “wrong” as generally useful. Statements are ideas and ideas are tools, not reality. What is the effect? Truth is often, with many ideas, unverifiable, but effects can be studied, both personally and socially.

Parapsychology is, by definition, a science.^[30]

This is despite the fact the vast majority of scientists consider it a pseudoscience.^[31][32]

Those are not contradictory statements. They are two arguments, and both could be true. The first relies on the definition of parapsychology, which is quite old. The second relies on the knee-jerk opinions of “scientists” even if they know nothing about parapsychology as a science. And then we could argue about the implications of these two arguments. Endlessly. 

That was actually a discussion of that exact claim, and was only one small part of the argument. This was a Talk page, not any authoritative pronouncement. Again, it is taken from context. A fuller quotation:

Above, it was pointed out that you are welcome to contribute. However, it seems that you want to do is to accuse an entire field of study of being a “pseudoscience,” but you could never get this through review in a real journal. It’s all popular fluff (which can fly on Wikipedia, because of how reliable sources are defined.) Parapsychology is, by definition, a science.You have not shown that you have understood this. Parapsychology does not assume what you think. To be sure, some students of parapsychology may hold pseudoscientific ideas. However, what is not science is not parapsychology. And then people, real human beings, make mistakes. All science is subject to this.

The Wikipedia article on parapsychology has been a battleground article. It’s not neutral. Parapsychology though, is not “belief in psychics.” It would include the investigation of paranormal psychic phenomena, and “psychic” basically means “of the mind.” But it is then used by non-scientists, not in a scientific way. Is that “pseudoscientific”? Only if scientific claims are made!

He has worked with psychic Craig Weiler in promoting paranormal studies on Wikiversity.^[33]

Weller worked on the parapsychology resource, as can anyone. Noticing the RatWiki article on Craig Weiler, I checked the history. Yes. This was an article edited by AP socks. More grist for the mill.

Was I “promoting paranormal studies”? No. I have long been promoting the creation of resources on Wikiversity, where users may study almost any subject at all. In particular, users who have been blocked on Wikipedia, because they came into conflict with other users, can explore topics safely on Wikiversity. 

I set up the Parapsychology resource with this stub. This was in response to off-wiki email discussions, I saw a need. Resources like this draw disruption and conflict away from Wikipedia, that is one of the functions. Sometimes creating a resource on a controversial topic will create Wikiversity disruption, but there are ways to avoid that. Part of this is that the top-level resource in mainspace must be rigorously neutral, hopefully with high consensus.  Hence what is truly controversial is taken down to subpages where they become attributed opinions and personal studies. There is no particular limit to the number of these, and they need not be neutral, as long as attributed and placed within a neutral structure.

The first user to edit the stub was DeanRadin, who appears to have no other WMF edits. But he is the notable parapsychologist, Dean Radin.

Soon the Nobelist in physics, Brian Josephson showed up.  And then Ben Steigmann, a young man who had been blocked on Wikipedia, enthusiastic to do a study of sources. Craig Weiler made a handful of edits to the resource. The information from the troll is radically imbalanced. Anyone with a Wikipedia account can edit the resource, and IPs can edit it too. And many have. There have been efforts to warp it, but all by SPAs, which tend to go nowhere fast. Where they have made reasonable suggestions, they have been accepted. There is custodial supervision, which has not been a problem. Wikiversity runs on consensus, something that trolls hate.

Diet woo[edit]

Lomax is an advocate of the Atkins Diet, a low-carb fad diet that most of the medical community have rejected as quackery.^[34]

An “advocate of the Atkins diet”? I have generally followed the Atkins Nutritional Approach since roughly 2005 or so, as I recall. I looked now at the Wikipedia article. It’s hilarious.

Although the commercial success of Atkins’ diet plan, weightloss books, and lifestyle company, Atkins Nutritionals, led Time to name the doctor one of the ten most influential people in 2002,^[1] there is no good evidence that his diet is an effective approach to weight loss.

The sources cited for that final claim do not support the claim, it is synthesis, a common Wikipedia editor fault, where an editor reads what they believe into the source.

The reality is that the Atkinis approach was not particularly new. And when I talked with my doctor about diet, he went into his office and pulled out a book from the 1920s, that recommended a low-carb diet for type 2 diabetes. Nearly every medical professional I talked to said that the “Atkins diet works.” What that Wikipedia statement overlooks is that there is “no good evidence that” any diet “is an effective approach to weight loss.” Key word may be “diet,” which implies restriction and some kind of deprivation.  However, there are principles, and the subject is far more complex than this troll could possibly understand. Gary Taubes recognized the situation and started writing about it. For those that don’t know Taubes’ history, he wrote Bad Science, an extensive debunking of cold fusion. Best book on the history there is. He was a bit narrow-minded; the real evidence for cold fusion being more than pathological science was not covered in his book, was not published in a peer-reviewed journal until around the time the book came out. But he works hard, and he identified the “scientific consensus” on the cause of heart disease and obesity as … Bad Science, and then he wrote several books and articles on the topic. Atkins was a hero. The statement “there is no good evidence” is only arguable by deprecating the evidence that does exist, claiming it isn’t “good.” But what is better evidence? and in the real world, we need to eat most every day. It turns out that there has been very little truly “good” research. Mostly “nutritional science” is a pile of commonly accepted opinions, not actually scientific. Taubes started the Nutritional Science Institute to fund and facilitate good research. That’s what someone interested in real science does. I’ve been in contact with him and he is an inspiration. And his is not a fanatic Atkins fan. He simply knows that for many people, it works. But what are the long-term effects? Nobody really knows for sure; people vary greatly. I’m finding that losing weight now, at 73, is far more difficult than it was fifteen years ago. That seems to be a common experience, it has to do with metabolism, and Atkins was looking at metabolism, as did Taubes, later.

In any case, the RationalWiki article on Atkins does not dismiss it as “woo.” This is simply the troll trolling. What “woo”? A very low carb diet, shifts body metabolism, it’s quite striking to anyone who tries it. One starts burning fat instead of glucose. (The body still can make some glucose even with practically no intake, but burning fat, after a few days, is quite a different experience than burning carbs. In particular, the body has high fat stores, and my experience is that I don’t get hungry, even when I don’t eat. I still have an “appetite,” but it is no longer hunger-driven. So you will see some critics “explaining away” how Atkins works by “appetite suppression.” Is that a problem? And I enjoy food enormously. Just not, usually, high-carb foods. I might eat a baked potato once in a few months.  (Like Atkins.) With lots of butter and sour cream. Yum!!! Eating fat with carbs slows down the digestion — as does fiber. Atkins is not a “high protein diet,” as some think.  It is low-carb, moderate protein, and high fat.

And, yes, Atkins was called a “quack.” But … that has mostly disappeared. Science moves on. The RationalWiki article claims that high fat low carb diets “work,” but are “dangerous.” I have seen no evidence for the danger for people without other severe health problems. The “danger” has to do with ketoacidosis from, not an LCHF diet, but a high protein diet, which the RatWiki article has confused with low carb. I monitor my ketone levels with test strips, sometimes. I have never seen anything more than “benign dietary ketosis.” 

The source for my being an “advocate of the Atkins Diet”? Hah! Wikipedia, a talk page edit from 2005, my third Wikipedia edit, when I had just learned about and started following the Atkins approach. (and lost 30 lbs, easily and quickly). This troll really worked hard to make his case. (at that point, I didn’t know how to sign comments…. then I tried to construct signatures manually, then, forehead slapped, I noticed the signature button….)

That edit was a report of my early experience with Atkins. Is that “promotion”? I can read that today and feel reasonably happy with what I wrote. Apparently, the troll believes that describing one’s own experience is “woo.” Yeah. This is someone who lives a very constricted life.

Internet antics[edit]

Catfighting[edit]

Lomax is a forum troll. He tends to pick fights with users until he gets banned or gets bored (and then rants about why he is leaving forever and ever). Wikipedia, Lenr-Forum and Vortex-L banned him after he insulted other users and fought with administrators.^[35]

As I point out above, I have rarely been banned, and never for trolling. I have also rarely declared LANCB. I did,. more or less on RationalWiki, with few edits after that, until the disruption of AP appeared on Wikipedia and Wikiversity and meta, and I tracked some of the accounts back to RationalWiki, and then Marky, there, an obvious AP sock from many signs, including technical evidence, created the article….

Wikipedia, LENR Forum, and Vortex-L did not ban me for the reasons given. The first source he gives is a post of mine covering users banned on LENR Forum. It does not cover the claims. That was written after I was banned, so what is there could not have been the cause of the ban. Then he points to my last post before “leaving.” In that post , I announced that unless the problem of arbitrary deletions of content with no way of recovering it was resolved, I was boycotting the Forum. That was not actually “leaving.” I was then promptly banned, with no explanation. Complaint about moderation practice is common on LENR Forum. However, the particular moderator is knee-jerk reactive. I do not know if it was him who pushed the ban button, but I do have a friend who is an actual administrator there who told me that the staff situation was, I think “hopeless” was the word he used. Long story. I was, at the time, one of the most active users, and users have done far worse than I (that “rant” was not even offensive) and, if they are blocked at all, it is normally only for a short time. “Permabans” are very rare. I think in the review there were two, and they undid the other one. No, the cause of the ban is quite obvious: it was personal.

(The arbitrary deletions stopped. So I would have returned to posting. But … in spite of user requests, the ban was never undone. A good deal of the blog content is commentary on discussions on LF. That works for me. I know that some of the best LF writers read the blog, because they comment there and sometimes refer back to it. For a time, right after the ban, LF would reject all referred content requests from CFC. I simply set the site to not provide referrer information. And LF admin apparently realized that this was dumb, so it was fixed. But that took an admin with domain access, showing that someone on high was supporting the ban. Clumsily. It merely made them look stupid. LF moderation has improved somewhat. But it is still relatively useless for building content. Discussions become monstrous, essentially unreadable, with no way of refactoring or organizing access.)

Wikipedia banned me for a single sock (which violated the cold fusion ban, though not disruptively. The sock identification did not arise from any noticeboard or SPI request. It was by an arbitrator using checkuser, without a request. That’s what I was looking for, among other things, evidence of bias. Later, the ArbComm mailing list was hacked and published in part, on Wikipedia Review, and revealed more. That’s all ancient history, and being banned helps keep me from being tempted to waste time rolling the boulder up the hill. 

The Vortex-l ban was by the single owner of that list, who had been totally absent when there was extensive disruption by a user also banned. Others had insulted this user, not I. I had responded to the user’s claims, examining them in detail. So the reason for the ban was DNFTT. I had actually phoned him to attempt to get his attention to the situation. He shot the messenger. Funny how people do that, sometimes. When he saw the situation, he shut the mailing list down. So I created an alternative list (newvortex) for when the regular list was down. (it had been using a very unreliable host). That list proved very useful for a time. However, with the first LENR Forum ban (before the “permanent one” — which was undone with an apology — I had created the blog, which is far, far more useful.

On October 4, 2017 Abd attacked a skeptical Wikipedia user “JPS” on his website and posted personal information about this user. In December 2, 2017 he was warned about harassing Wikipedia users and he removed his slanderous article.^[36] Similarly, he joined the Thunderbolts woo forum to complain that astronomer Joshua P. Schroeder (JPS) is a “pseudoskeptic”.^[37]

In the notes, AP refers to an archived copy of the article. I am removing that link here, because if this article is harmful to JPS, and if it is not necessary at the moment, it should be taken down. I can always restore that content if needed. It is not an “attack.” The title of that thread is “Joshua Schroeder on pseudoscience on Wikipedia.” I did not “complain” about JPS. I simply documented his Wikipedia name changes, and where he had gone with his career, which included changing his name in real life, apparently. JPS has long attempted to cover up his identity, and claims to have been harassed in real life. I have not harassed him and do not support harassment. However, he is continuing to edit Wikipedia in similar ways as before, and I decided to clarify his identity. When AP started pointing to the page (which was private when written, and only made public about a month later; when a post is edited, the date does not change.) What happened on December 2, was that AP started pointing to the posts, on WMF wikis and in the RW article. And he archived the posts. In other words, if this was harmful (which is questionable), AP, the one writing here, made it much more difficult to fix.

“On December 2, 2017, he was warned…” is passive. What was the action, i.e., how was I warned and by whom? What happened on December 2 relating to this? See the AP IP sock activity in the meta study that AP has been attacking (and the RW article was obviously an attempt to retaliate for that study)

117.20.41.10, began attacking Ben Steigmann on Wikipedia. This user revert warred on my meta user Talk page, but  the IP was then globally blocked, at my request, as an open proxy.

Immediately, 117.20.41.9 took up the cudgel, and trolled me, December 2, this would be what he calls a “warning.” Because that post linked to an archive copy of my description of JPS accounts and activity, I requested that it be revision-deleted, but that wasn’t noticed when a steward removed a later post from this IP, as part of globally blocking it. Because I may eventually make sure it gets rev-del’d, I’m copying the content here (with the link removed)

Your abuse and stalking of skeptics

You have been doxing and stalking a well known skeptical Wikipedia editor and old friend of mine on forums [8] [link removed] and on your personal blog. He has now changed his Wikipedia name [9] [link removed] because of your abuse. Don’t worry he knows you have been doing it. Won’t be long until you get in trouble. You seem to spend your entire existence attacking people on the internet just because they are skeptics. This is uncalled for and harassment. There is no need to stalk people and try and get their personal details. It is creepy. Btw your best friend Ben Steigmann is a self-admitted anti-Semite. Do you hold extremist views yourself? 117.20.41.9 (discuss) 04:20, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

I have kept the link to the alleged admission. Steigmann has apparently admitted to being anti-Semitic in the past, and while I have not investigated that history, my impression is that he is a target precisely because he changed his position. From AP’s point of view, he would be a traitor. But that is speculation. I have had no interaction with Steigmann that would indicate anti-semitism. And it’s completely irrelevant, but this is simply AP doing what he does most commonly: trolling, accusing, blaming, and asking questions with incorporated assumptions. He substitutes “is” for “was,” and, in fact, this is common in the many articles he has created on RationalWiki. His allegations about my alleged “diet woo” are based on discussion in 2005, but presented in the present tense — and that post itself did not support his claim. To express an opinion, casually, as I first was learning about a topic, isn’t the “promotion” he claims.

Notice: “Forums.” He cites one, though an archive.is copy. “Stalking” has a meaning on WMF wikis, and I have not done that. I actually have not followed JPS editing, just his name changes and real life information, created by him. Nevertheless, I recognize a legitimate concern and so I immediately took action to take down the material, such as I could. I could not, however, take down the archive.org copy immediately, without harm. I requested that the thunderbolts forum delete my two posts there. Emailed JPS, through his new Wikipedia account, helpfully pointed out to me by this troll — I did not know it, because I have not been stalking him — and offered to cooperate in removing all the material. His response was not good, but we are still communicating. He obviously has not taken steps to remove references to this alleged “doxxing” from WMF wikis (and I could also provide him with a list, that is easy for me, but I’m not going to do it unless he asks. Preferably cooperatively instead of with blame. Does he want it fixed or not? Telling me it was unethical to post the material doesn’t encourage me to support it being taken down, but high skill in interpersonal relations is not his strength.

The Archive.is copy is time-stamped 30 Nov 2017 02:36:09 UTC. From RationalWiki contributions, a new account, Astrophysics, first edit was at 30 Nov 2017 02:38 to the article on me, and he linked to the archive.is post at 02:44, 30 November 2017. Conclusion: Astrophysics is the user who archived the Thunderbolts post. I have other technical evidence linking the open proxy IPs to archiving, and technical evidence also leads to other AP socks. From the content and time-coincidence, This is all one user, or, alternative hypothesis, there are multiple users closely coordinating. I find this quite unlikely at this level. The two brothers hypothesis is possible.

This is standard AP behavior, attempting to stir up enmity between users. There are many examples.

Basically, the Thunderbolts post had this on “pseudoskeptic.”

All this information (and more) is available in public documents. Schroeder is one pseudoskepic out of many, why has he aroused such outrage? It’s easy to see in his Wikipedia interactions. He did not just argue for following Wikipedia policy, he argued massively and at length, over many years, against neutrality policy, and he clearly violated policies to oppose other users, especially civility policy. He stirred up conflict, often trolling others into reacting and then being blocked or banned, thus warping the consensus process by which Wikipedia hopes to achieve neutrality, and I know of an example where the damage was truly enormous, with a possible lost opportunity cost from delay in recognizing old errors could be a trillion dollars per year. Or maybe not. Those are questions that are being resolved in time, and how important Wikipedia is in this is questionable.

(JPS was site-banned for quite some time for his policy violations, and how he came to be unbanned is quite interesting for those who want to understand Wikipedia politics. However, the post was not, more than making some claims that could be documented, but weren’t, that are mild compared to what AP has done, over and over.)

Abd’s original article that attacked JPS was entirely changed. In the new post, he now blames another skeptical user for archiving his original blog post, claiming this is ‘harassment’.^[38]

Skeptical user of what? In fact, I simply report that there is clear technical evidence pointing to AP socks as having archived the material. It’s remarkable. I made a supposedly improper post. So I removed the allegedly improper material, not because I was warned (that was not a warning, it was blame and attack).

Archiving allegedly doxxing posts so that they cannot easily be deleted is a form of harassment. However, his intention here was not to harass JPS, whom he claims is an “old friend.” (JPS claims to not have any idea who he is. But, essentially, if that’s true, JPS has not been paying attention.)

The intention would be to harass me, and that is obvious from the edits of the IP on WMF wikis and AP socks on RationalWiki. He is attempting to stir up support for an attack on the Anglo Pyramidologist documentation, and he obviously was quite upset that I turned his links to my blog post into exposure of his activity, but he tries to make hay with it. Of course, I have archived the meta documentation. I have mostly avoided linking to it, but it is becoming a far easier way to refer to WMF disruption by these socks, than other alternatives. I would move it here if necessary. AP is attempting to bully his way out of the mess he has created. His reputation is that he never gives up. We can see that with the recent IP edits. When blocked, he simply created a new open proxy, and made no attempt to conceal this. Five open proxy blocks now. He did that with registered accounts, blatantly vandalizing and attacking. I’ve lost count of how many of those.

Now, this is about the CFC copy of the material. Yes, I edited it. It’s a WordPress blog, and when a post is edited, the original post date is kept, which was actually about a month before I made it public. That archiving also created technical evidence that leads, once again, to a single user (as defined on Wikipedia, which can include more than one person sometimes) creating all this mess.

RationalWiki conspiracy theory[edit]

Lomax was perma-banned from RationalWiki for doxxing and trolling.^[39] He now uses his personal blog to spread a paranoid conspiracy theory and misinformation that a group of RationalWiki editors who live in the same house (yes, you read that correctly) created and edited his RW article.^{<https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Abd_ul-Rahman_Lomax&oldid=1899980/#cite_note-40″>[40]}

Lying, again. He is talking about this study, covering obvious Anglo Pyramidologist socks on RationalWiki. (It is possible that some identifications there are incorrect; however all of these would appear in a normal Wikipedia sock puppet investigation as suspected. Some are completely blatant.) I have technical evidence in a few cases, however, mostly, that is not being published to avoid informing AP of just how obvious his behavior is, once one knows how and where to look.

The word “house” does not appear on that page, and the page is not doxxing, in spite of claims by AP. It is routine for AP socks to doxx others. A new account will appear on RationalWiki and immediately, an AP sock will announce the real name. Examples abound. Occasionally, a non-AP sysop will block. Usually not. It is accepted behavior. But if someone does less than that — pointing to evidence of sock puppetry, which is not doxxing — and if it is against an AP sock, they are often blocked, and many examples, again, could be shown, not just mine. Some of these have told a story of a family and mentioned a house. I have not. I have, instead, elsewhere, pointed to the fact that Wikipedia checkusers may identify as a single user, more than one person if they are accessing the internet in the same way. And AP socks have claimed to be brothers. But that is all what AP would have in mind. He did not find it on that page.

A more recent version (than when I was banned for “doxxing” here) has this:

There are indications or claims that more than one person is behind the AP socks. It would also be easy to imitate them (though not so easy to get steward/checkuser identification). There is much information — or misinformation — on the internet about the AP socks, and about the supposed “Smith Brothers” behind the family. What is happening on RationalWiki is that what is totally obvious is effectively banned there, but quite irregularly. AP socks are tolerated for an obvious reason: it serves the purposes of those who dominate that wiki, and that is the same reason why behavior by some on Wikipedia is tolerated. so when a target user comes to RationalWiki and points out the obvious obvious — and the socks will create a huge ruckus so that it is truly obvious — that target can then be sanctioned for “outing” or “doxxing,” whereas outing or doxxing from the AP socks is routinely tolerated.

I have not been “permabanned” from RationalWiki. I am indef blocked by one user, on the face, Skeptical, about which see this study. This is blatantly an AP sock, as was Marky, who created the article on me. I also have technical evidence on Marky. I’ll let him worry about what it is. I will provide one hint,. because it may help show others the scope of the AP socking. Marky used IP 86.14.2.77, which geolocates to what others have claimed is his location. He used that IP to edit Wikipedia, with AP obsessions. Also RationalWiki, the same. 

He was blocked on RationalWiki for “legal threats.” That was actually an error, he wasn’t making threats, he was pointing to one of his enemies who has been claimed to be making legal threats. However, the contributions display shows the obsessions. A steward blocked this same IP 02:49, 15 October 2017 for “long term abuse.” The abuse is not obvious from Wikipedia contributions. From the steward’s log, however, the steward was looking at the recent AP sock barrage, blocking this IP immediately after locking a typical AP disruptive sock,  Stop old metally ill internet stalkers in their 70s from internet acess. The steward also blocked, the minute before, Skeleton Bone, obviously another AP sock from the name and from the steward action (lots of AP names are “creepy,” like Goblin Face. Skeleton Bone was never used to edit. 

AP does not spell particularly well. Stewards will not associate user accounts with IP addresses, it’s privacy policy. But often one can discern the intention.

As to “doxxing” RationalWiki has a definition, linked by the author. It is decent. What I have done does not meet the definition, as I have generally pointed only to anonymous accounts (Including “Anglo Pyramidologist,” not real names or phone numbers, addresses, etc. I have recently pointed to involved IP, as is common on Wikipedia SPI investigations. (But I had not done this then, as I recall, And AP has done this many times there). AP has more seriously doxxed himself, with RationalWiki Smith brothers conspiracy theory, created by one of the socks. Discussion of this page was then used to attack me for doxxing, and the page was then deleted, by David Gerard, no less, and he removed my sysop tools, which then allowed Skeptical to block me. I will study this elsewhere. It has wide implications. Maybe there is a conspiracy! But that is not what I have been documenting.

That “conspiracy” page was created by MrOrganic. It was taken to AfD by Marky. AP sock opposing AP sock? They do this frequently. The edits of MrOrganic reveal the topic obsessions of AP. Then the AfD was deleted (very unusual) by Skeptical, and his deletion log is full of deletions for “doxxing.” Doxxing of whom? Him, of course. (But he started by deleting pages created by him, as one of the other socks. Then he went on to the real purpose of the account. He didn’t find everything…. And, of course, he couldn’t stop me here, no matter how much he pounded his little fists. 

Notice that Marky, MrOrganic, and Skeptical, like most other AP socks, simply stopped editing. These socks charge in, fired up, with a clear agenda, no fooling about, make many edits, and then … disappear, as more socks appear. This makes identification a little more difficult, but I don’t need conclusive identification to list a sock as suspected. I’m compiling as full a list as possible because then other analytical tools can be brought to bear. Absolutely, Anglo Pyramidologist or whatever we want to call him, wants to stop this documentation.

He is unlikely to succeed. I warned him, as this all started, that I was like the Tar Baby. Attacking me wasn’t good for the health of the attacker. If he had not harmed so many people, over the years, I’d have simply gone on, but a major factor was also the continued attacks and their insane intenstiy. It seemed he had stopped WMF activity, at least as to what was clearly visible. And then he created the RationalWiki article. He’s drawing fire. Why?

He has claimed he is paid. Who would pay him? There are suspects but I don’t know. He has been real-life-named (by many) but I have no personal evidence on that, only general location. Information from his edits is unreliable, he frequently lies. As an example, see this plea from an AP sock, quickly blocked as an LTA. He was lying, and checkusers knew that. The plea was internally contradictory (as is not uncommon.) He just says what he wants people to believe, it isn’t rational. Or see this plea just before it. Lying, lying lying.

(The latter claims that checkusers will identify all the claimed accounts as one, but he claims to have personal knowledge that they are at least four users. Him being one. I.e., he’s admitting disruptive socking. However, I keep in mind that, as AP socks have impersonated others, others can impersonate AP. None of what these attack SPAs say can be trusted. The AP sock who claimed 700 socks on RationalWiki may have been lying. It might only be a few hundred. I don’t know yet and may never know. I’m only identifying the ones that appear reasonably possible (or sometimes very obvious) from the duck test, mostly.)

External links[edit]

• Lomax’s blog
• Quora profile

The new AP sock tried to remove the blog link. It was restored by FuzzyCatPotato, who might be a bit fuzzy at times but who has at least one redeeming quality: He is not Anglo Pyramidologist! It would be normal to link to an article subject’s blog.

References[edit]

I am not keeping the jumpbacks. Too much work for too little value here.