Anglo Pyramidologist

This was the original page here: List of articles edited on RationalWiki.

When this study began, I was aware of claims that behind the Anglo Pyramidologist socks was Oliver D. Smith, and some sources included his twin brother Darryl Smith. I did not mention those claims because I had not verified them. Eventually, I found enough evidence to assert it. It is not necessary to have absolute proof to state a position or assert a claim

One of the factors that weighed in favor of asserting it was that there was no contrary evidence. That is, there was no sign of the real Oliver D. Smith appearing and denying the claims. As well, some of the people making the claim were reasonably reliable. (Some were not, or at least did not appear so..)

I had identified the real Oliver D. Smith through his interest in Atlantis. He had published a peer-reviewed paper on that topic and all this was detailed on various sites . He had a public email address, he responded to what I wrote, and I quoted and covered that response on Emails.

(Later, he claimed that I harassed him by email, but he wrote me, and when he stopped writing, so did I. Oliver Smith is either a liar or insane. Toss a coin. He could be both.)

In those emails, he said he was writing a blog post to answer the claims of Emil Kirkegaard, and that post did appear. As was easily anticipated, the post was taken down, but was archived: http://archive.is/afNnI

These sources are from Oliver, not from some impersonator. (I have always allowed the possibility that some posts that appeared to be Anglo Pyramidologist were actually impersonators. And AP socks commonly impersonate, as well).

However, Oliver has a twin brother, this is reasonably verified. Otherwise it would be possible that the brother story, which was revealed on Wikipedia by an IP sock in 2011, was itself just one more lie. Most commentary on Oliver D. Smith says little about the brother, but it would appear that the strong interest in “pseudoscience” and parapsychology and the paranormal, was the brother. I find it reasonably likely that the Wikipedia and Wikiversity activity that originally triggered my investigation was by Darryl. However, there is much cross-over. Oliver claimed that “99.9%” of the identified socks were his brother, but that was obviously an exaggeration — because I have not identified a thousand socks. Not yet, anyway!

[Note added May 3, 2018: Oliver claimed, in April, that the “brother” story was a lie, beginning with the AngloPyramidologist Sock puppet investigation on Wikipedia. I conclude that this is just one more lie. There is a brother, that’s apparently public record, Oliver previously indicated the brother was being paid by an organization, and in his “confession,” he claimed that he had lied to Tim Farley, who is connected with two major skeptic organizations, which is pointed out for that fact, to connect the dots, not to accuse Farley of anything.

Recently, a new AP sock has been repeating the claims that the “RationalWiki Smith brothers conspiracy theory” is a paranoid fantasy. Nobody on RationalWiki seems to be checking these claims. In general RationalWiki users have supported AP socks — though sometimes they revert and block them, especially but not exclusively impersonation socks. It still remains the case that the article on Oliver D. Smith has been salted on RationalWiki — without any article having been attempted. He is being protected. Protection also has been seen on Wikipedia, Wikiversity, and meta.wikimedia.org.

(To notice the protection on RW, not logged in, try to create an article with a nonsense name on RationalWiki. I just did this, and I get an option: Create the page “[nonsense name]” on this wiki! Trying that with Oliver D. Smith, no name. This is why:

JorisEnter protected “Oliver D. Smith” 3 November 2016

Following up on this, looking at JorisEnter’s talk page to see a request (I didn’t find one), I do find:

a comment by one HamiticResistance. This would be a Smith brother, very likely Oliver. That comment was waving a big red flag, “Oliver Smith.” It links to a blog devoted to Mikemikev, with the name “Oliver D. Smith.” The blog is pure AP attack and misrepresentation (including “pedophile,” about which it is internally contradictory.) Looking up the user mentioned, Thorwald C. Franke, I find many likely Smith socks. The article on Franke, deleted by discussion (Smith had over-reached with that article), was archived. It is an obvious AP obsession.

HamiticResistance contributions were quacking like an AP duck, of the Oliver type. The talk page for Thorwald C. Franke has a conversation with Oliver (as user Gorgonite). Naturally, Franke is blocked, blamed on Mikemikev. Franke thus joins a substantial list of people who knew that AP socks — attacking him — were Oliver and who were blocked for mentioning it. Notice: not warned. Blocked.

In spite of all the cats being totally out of the bag, the most recent sock I’ve identified [when this was written, there are many more now, in March, 2018) is EvilGremlin (a typical AP username). My comments would not ordinarily be notable for an article on the London Conference on Intelligence; however, Smith is attempting damage control:

Internet troll and conspiracy theorist Abd ul-Rahman Lomax published a blog post in February 2018 defending Emil Kirkegaard and the London Conference on Intelligence.[87] Lomax posts a bizarre claim that a single individual named Oliver Smith is responsible for all of the news sources and RationalWiki articles that document the UCL conferences:

The tragedy of this is that “mainstream media” repeated accusations from RationalWiki, which then cites those repetitions and highly biased analysis — not mentioning where the newspapers got the information, which is obvious. RationalWiki. So Oliver Smith created a media nightmare and then cites it as proof that the nightmare is true. Nice trick. Not.

However, there’s no proof newspapers relied or quoted from RationalWiki, nor that a single individual was responsible for all mainstream news sources hearing about the London Conference on Intelligence. Contrary to Lomax’s delusions, the sequence of events that led to newspapers and the media to discover the London Conference on Intelligence:

Smith tells stories that omit relevant facts, including what he has previously admitted or even bragged about, and says “there’s no proof,” even when there is overwhelming evidence. That’s a characteristic of believers and pseudoskeptics (not genuine skeptics) and liars. (The real world runs on preponderance of evidence, not exactly “proof.”)

Notice the fake news trope: “All.” The way that the stories appeared indicated that some event triggered them. The event was very likely what Oliver or Darryl claimed: direct contact to media, pointing out the RationalWiki article. That article then points to very obscure “evidence,” taken out of context. A sloppy reporter might not check carefully. It happens.

The issue is not “hearing about the LCI,” but, for me, the wild, misleading, and exaggerated claims about Kirkegaard, often conclusory, with very thin circumstantial evidence.

His tactics include exaggerating or misrepresenting the statements of another, which then he can shoot down easily. What I actually claimed was that the original stories in Private Eye and London Student were largely taken, in certain aspects, from the RationalWiki article on Emil Kirkegaard, and I have most specifically in mind the accusations that Kirkegaard is a “pedophile” — a common AP claim about enemies, for which there is zero evidence that I’ve seen — or a “child rape apologist,” which is based on a totally obscure blog post of Kirkegaard years ago, which was only as described if one neglected the context. And that is what an unskilled and immature reporter will do. Quick and shallow research, and for Private Eye, looking for scandal. The same language was used in the stories as on RationalWiki. I will cover details below.

And Oliver D. Smith acknowledged having written those articles, and a sock bragged about it. From his email to me:

Someone informed me about the allegations about myself on your website. I’m not the person leaving messages on your website, and they read stupid. I have a new blog where I will cover my side of the story to Emil Kirkegaard; hopefully this post will be up in the next few days. The problem is explaining myself in more detail or clearing myself of other allegations, because this will take a longer period of time. The reason I am focusing on Kirkegaard is because he was in the newspaper headlines recently, and some journalists contacted me, and I may be of help to the UCL inquiry. All will be explained in my post.

As I replied, he might be telling the truth about those trolling comments. It might be his brother — or even someone else. However, he ends up, in the sequence of emails, repeating the same claims. I found him unwilling to be specific about his claims. This is all circular. Why was Kirkegaard in headlines recently? Maybe his brother contacted the newspapers. Remember, AP is not one person, it is at least two. But he knows what his brother is doing, reasonably well. He ends up, in the emails, defending his brother’s totally outrageous actions. If they were the brother’s actions. Nothing any AP sock writes can be fully trusted. They lie. This is not ordinary disagreement, it is deliberate and willful deception, there are voluminous — and common and frequent — examples.

Most telling, and the basis for what I wrote, was this comment by a recent and very obvious AP sock, SkepticDave (contributions). First the comment header:

RationalWiki to thank for shutting down conference attended by racists and paedophiles

RationalWiki allows AP to make accusations of another being a pedophile. More often, AP backs off from that to some degreem when challenged, with “pedophile apologist” which is a label often applied by hysterics about anyone who points out the definition of pedophilia or asserts that pedophiles or suspected pedophiles might have civil rights. So here the text is:

Lots of stuff in both national and local papers today about Emil Kirkegaard and John Fuerst who RationalWiki first documented and exposed as far-right extremists and paedophile-apologists: [and then a list of sources] . . .

The person who wrote those RationalWiki articles sent a tip-off to some newspapers. The story now has national coverage. SkepticDave (talk) 23:07, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

The Emil Kirkegaard article and John Fuerst articles were started by Ben Steigmans (contributions) and are among the Favorite Topics that identify AP socks, see the RW article sock list for Kirkegaard and Fuerst. (And Ben Steigmann is a favorite target.) Oliver Smith has admitted being the originator of those two articles.

Diversion

Many Darryl socks use “skeptic in the name,” including the most recent one identified, Skeptic from Britain, on Wikipedia. (That account was renamed and renamed again, in an obvious attempt to suppress scrutiny, see this Twitter comment, the current name is Vanisheduser3334743743i43i434)

Why did Skeptic from Britain “retire”? Well, on Encyclopedia Dramatica, Oliver claimed I was this user, so I looked, and saw many red flags, this was an Anglo Pyramidologist sock (specifically Darryl L. Smith). Oliver also claimed he was going to tell a crowd of Twitter users who were demanding to know who this troll was that it was me. (Oliver is insane, did he think I’d be frightened?) Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Darryl fled, which he has often done. Nobody on Wikipedia seems to have realized who he was. And Wikipedia will not care, unless someone files a checkuser request, which might not be actioned, “retiring” often will be given as a reason not to bother. So it’s used as a defense, in spite of the value for later analysis. They don’t think about it. They just want to know to block or not block.

Why did Oliver out his brother? He’s actually done it many times. Oliver is obviously unstable. Maybe he was angry with something, this happens in families. The brother retires his accounts when outed, if it is noticed. I’ve seen many. Darryl has never talked about his brother, at least not recently. He has, as a RationalWiki sysop, deleted his brothers’ comments, many times.

The last contribution of this sock:

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

He was lying. Not only was I unable to find his “real name” posted by those people, there is an apparent troll who posted the name of someone who is very likely innocent, and this would be the Smith MO: stir up anger against someone innocent, proving that their targets are stupid “conspiracy theorists.” The name mentioned is “Michael Ellis,” or “Michael C. Ellis,” and there is no evidence he is involved. (I will take his name down here on request, but this is declaring him not involved, and may help correct the spurious claims.)

The post on Tom Naughton’s blog:

skeptic from Britain has an Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mixxster/

his name is Michael C Ellis . he is a vegetarian SJW, but oddly claims to eat red meat twice a week.

Tom Naughton did not post any real name that I’ve been able to find. Naughton questions the source for this. No response. The post was by “James,” anonymous. This is typical for AP socks. No evidence, just an allegation, including an allegation of hypocrisy, based on what?

This was then picked up by a commentor on Kendrick’s blog. He thinks he’s being helpful, he does not confirm the identification.

Another comment appeared on Naughton’s blog:

Low-Carb Man

Because Skeptic from Britain got outed as Ellis he changed his Wikipedia username and claims to be leaving the website because he was doxed, but he has sub-mitted your Fat Head movie on Wikipedia to deletion, so you must have touched a nerve of his!

You should check Malcolm Kendrick’s blog comments various vegans have turned up to defend Ellis. This was no doubt an attack from vegan SJW’s and they claim this is only round 1. You were right.

This time Naughton was sucked into agreeing. Notice, however, that this was after the claim that Naughton had outed him. AP socks are expert at feeding people “information” that may confirm their preconceptions. Of course people would defend Ellis! There is no evidence he was this troll.

Using an name like “Low Carb Man” is classic Darryl Smith activity. This all confirms the identification. I have documented many such names, single-purpose accounts that appear to make a trolling comment.

Back to the RationalWiki comments (before the Diversion)

Toby Young at the beginning of January 2018 made news headlines for sending sexist and other inappropriate tweets.[88][89] On 9 January 2018 he resigned his position on the Office for Students regulator for making the offensive comments and apologized.[90][91][92]

Immediately after resigning, journalists looked into Young’s Twitter history and discovered he had mentioned in December 2017 his attendance to the London Conference on Intelligence, that he was told to keep silent about: “[I was] asked not to share the information with anyone else…”[93]

On 10 January 2018, the magazine Private EyeWikipedia's W.svg published an article[94] that mentions: “What he [Young] kept to himself was why the conference he attended was so secretive” and names a few of the white supremacistseugenicists and sexists (including Richard Lynn) who were speakers at the UCL conferences.

After the publication of the Private Eye article, London Student the same day published a more detailed exposure of the far-right extremists and racists who had attended the conferences.[95]London Student informed UCL and the university responded they were investigating.[96]

On 11 January 2018, mainstream newspapers and other news sources reported the story; some of these credit Private Eye and London Student.[97][98][99][100][101]

Developments

“ODS”, the first open RationalWiki account for Oliver D. Smith, claimed that Google had de-listed Kirkegaard’s blog. I saw nothing of the kind, but an IP user on RationalWiki, accessing google.uk from UK IP, saw the existence of filtered results and pointed to them and to descriptions of the requests, which are documented on this page.

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