Oliver desperate

The chickens come home to roost. After writing many times that he was not active on RationalWiki any more, he created yet another account, which is now news on the level of “Pope Catholic!”

I had identified this account as Oliver from pattern and interests. It was obvious, Oliver most commonly uses account names from his interests in classics.

Aeschylus.

Yesterday (2/7/2019), he filed a series of deletion requests. He also listed on his user page, articles he had created (and articles he claimed were created by others). Here I will look at his claims and behavior, and why the deletion requests would predictably fail in most cases. From his user page (before the removal of one page, indicated in red)

Clarification of some articles I created on this wiki:

Articles I didn’t create but I’m wrongly said to have created by OpenPsych and/or Mikemikev:

Below, I went over each of these articles.

On 7 Feb 2018 I submitted most of the above for deletion requests, and to merge them to London Conference on Intelligence or OpenPsych.

He did. But by not disclosing in those requests his identity and his motivations for creating the articles, he practically guaranteed that the request would fail. He and his brother have done this before. They create massive deception, people believe it. Well-known, people do not like to admit that they were fooled. So all the highly negative impressions created by cherry-picked and misleading evidence, stand, unless the one who created them owns up to the deception and apologizes. Then they might look again. It’s work to clean up a mess like the Smiths have created.

To correct some further misinformation spread by OpenPsych about me concerning RationalWiki:

  • User:Skeptical isn’t me. (US spelling; I spell sceptical differently, also this user created articles I know nothing about and has some user-boxes I don’t agree with.)

Oh, that’s funny! Oliver can say he isn’t Skeptical, but the evidence is fairly strong. Not “proof.” The spelling thing, though, is highly misleading. “Skeptical” is indeed U.S. spelling but British skeptics commonly use Skeptic for the affiliation. I’ve been through this before:  See skeptic-in-user-name/

In particular, as we can see in the lists of articles below, Oliver admitted being SkepticDave. Which demonstrates conclusively that his name-spelling argument is just plain deception.

Yet, with a name like that, one might be excused for thinking that it is one who has created hundreds of socks, at least. From contributions, it remains possible. Oliver has lied so many times and in so many ways, his testimony is meaningless. I will be developing deeper data analysis and I may be able to distinguish accounts, but accounts with only a few edits can be difficult. Basically, so what?

Despite pointing out for years neither of these accounts are mine, OpenPsych still falsely claim they are.

Claims of account identity are generally based on suspicion, and suspicion is not false, particularly given how much of what they suspected turns out to be true. One of the harms done by Smith behavior is that innocent users may be suspected, though in this case, if the behavior is similar, the problem is? As to illegal defamation, which is where it could matter, Oliver has done so much, so well proven, unmistakeable, that whether or not an account with a few edits is actually him or not is of little consequence. Overall, his activity inspired imitation, by both possible friends and enemies. He’s responsible for the consequences of what he did, and being “falsely accused” of behavior by another, that he also engaged in is trivial.

I will look at each of these claims.

Nearly all of these accounts were previously suspected, many with high probability. It is possible that one or even more of the “also edited by” accounts  are not Oliver. I.e., Nissan was an SPA and showed some signs of not being Oliver to this observer. However, he was suspected. Oliver has lied over and over and when he reveals truth he often mixes it with deception. The real problem here is RationalWiki, which by site traditions, leans toward snark and defamation of anything they don’t like, and that opens them to abuse by a troll like Oliver Smith, who, with his brother, Darryl L. Smith, have used RatWiki for that purpose, even when they often claim they don’t agree with site politics.

For years, targets would come to RationalWiki, believing that surely the community would fix problems. They were harassed and blocked and impersonated. If they mentioned who was doing this, when it became obvious to them, they were banned for “doxxing,” but they were freely doxxed by the Smiths, with impunity. RationalWiki is an “attractive nuisance.”

Lists of sock accounts in various locations often don’t discriminate between Oliver and Darryl, and there has been some crossover, i.e., Darryl editing articles of interest to Oliver and vice-versa, increasing confusion. If the transient impersonation and trolling socks are included, they have, together, created thousands of accounts. And then they will complain that some accounts have been incorrectly identified. That can happen when you become known for being a mass creator of sock puppets.

Last year, I suggested to Oliver that if he wanted to clean this up — he was complaining about being blamed for his brother’s disruption — come clean. Disclose everything he knows about his own activity and that of his brother. He chose otherwise. He is clearly under pressure now, because some of what he has done is quite clearly legally actionable, but his efforts to delete, now, will fail. Why? Partly because he has not come clean about what he was doing. He gives weak reasons for deleting the articles, compared to “the whole thing was harassment.” And harassment is what he did, over and over, his brother as well.

So let’s see what else he claims:

    • Richard Haier (created by unknown SPA with one edit) I would assign a reasonable probability this is Oliver. The article was a single edit of an SPA, Kfotfo , yes, but it was well-formed, showing high experience with RationalWiki and reflecting Oliver POV. Certainly it is understandable why Oliver would be suspected. The article was edited by Octo (Oliver) a few days after WikiWomble, who could also be suspected of being Oliver (but probably not), and also touched by CBH.
    • Richard Lynn (created by another sysop, Jinx) I have generally concluded that Jinx is not Oliver. He revealed his real name at one point, which doesn’t matter here. He has some similar interests, but is not as toxic. This article was edited by EvilGremlin (Oliver).
    • Intelligence (journal) (created by another sysop, Jinx) the collapse of possible fringe science into pseudoscience is a general RationalWiki trope. Intelligence is an Elsevier journal and mainstream. Not Oliver.
    • Mankind Quarterly (created by another sysop, FuzzyCatPotato). Yes. However, many edits by Gelzer and Octo.
    • Davide Piffer (created by Mikemikev to blame on me, also note extensive Mikemikev impersonations/trolling on talk page) Created by Gelzer, who certainly looks like Oliver, so if this was impersonation, it was skillful. Also edited by Skeptical, ColonelKurtz, and various trolls. Gelzer also  created and was blocked for a series of trolling accounts like I have seen from Darryl. Only these were attacking Mikemikev. They appear to be a response to similar trolling by IP attacking Oliver. Perhaps Oliver has forgotten what happened, or if Gelzer was his brother, he didn’t figure that out. Skeptical was active at the same time. See the deletion log.  Skeptical deleted revisions calling him Oliver and retired. Why? Obvious. Because he was Oliver. Less likely, his brother. I went back and forth on that for a time, but have concluded that Skeptical was indeed Oliver. His interests were Oliver interests, clearly, with a little crossover.
    • Julius Daugbjerg Bjerrekær (created by Mikemikev to blame on me; Mikemikev was blocked as article creator) Actually, no, not for that reason. The creator was Schizophreniac, who had an edit August 9, 2018, to an article of Oliver interest.  The creation of the page was revision-hidden by Aeschylus, very odd. See Aeschylus logs. Very busy with Oliver Smith agenda. However, Schizophreniac also created an article, which Oliver (Aeschylus) just salted to prevent creation, Oliver Smith. He was blockef for that, not for creating the  Bjerrekær article. The Oliver Smith article does not reveal anything new about Oliver, and seems like what Oliver might write as pseudo-criticism of himself. The creation of an article like that, on some blog or internet figure, is routine for RationalWiki. So why was this so important that David Gerard personally blocked Schizophreniac as a rare action by him? I’ve seen plenty of material apparently written by Mikemikev about Oliver. This did not look like it. What I’ve seen is evidence that Gerard has been protecting Smith, as some Smith socks have been protected on Wikipedia. Attack dogs. This is more or less the Rome Viharo theory. It’s plausible.
  • Robert Plomin (created by unknown troll, whose edits I mostly got reverted) Maybe.  Created by Jean_Lusaz. Lusaz’s edits seem fairly ordinary for RatWiki. His article on Brain size is almost untouched. However Lusaz created Kathryn Paige Harden, rather promptly deleted. It was indeed pretty vicious, like many Smith articles, see the Talk page.  Chicken coop? Yes, here. Immediately reverted, but then acted upon. RatWiki is downright weird. Was Oliver Concerned? Could be. That would explain the comment about getting the Lusaz edits reverted. The content of User:Concerned was “The hereditarianism and related articles are being destroyed by CBH (aka Jean Lusaz).” Both are Ratwiki user names, which would not be doxxing, but it was deleted as such. This edit of Concerned was bragging about a RatWiki article hitting the news, which Oliver has done before, and it was his article on Noah Carl. He similarly promoted the Emil Kirkegaard article to the media.
  • Eric Turkheimer (created by unknown troll and after I complained – the article was rewritten since it read as a parody…) Created by CBH, attacked by Concerned. Certainly could be Oliver. I’d guess not, but I keep looking. Often evidence appears later. I don’t see where Oliver complained. As whom?

Why is Oliver revealing his accounts and requesting article deletions? There is an obvious possible cause: legal heat. Yet without revealing the full story, he will not protect himself, it is going to be difficult even if he does tell the truth. Spend years attacking people, harassing them, defaming them, cleaning it up is not a matter of a few minutes editing.

Update

Oliver Smith wrote a biography on himself, describing himself the way he wants to be described. It was deleted as harassment. Then, as Aeschylus, he salted the page, protecting it as deleted. Of course, any sysop, realizing that Oliver is much more widely known in the internet than most the subjects of the hit pieces he created, could recreate the article and add to it the usual snark.

Aeschylus (Oliver D. Smith) has been desysopped and indef blocked on RationalWiki by Dysklyver.  Whenever anyone touches a Smith account, I suspect it could be a Smith brother, at least I look. (And Smith accounts have blocked Smith accounts.) Smith brother accounts are normally easy to spot. Dysklyver is not a Smith brother; if he is, it would represent an extraordinary efort, very, very unlikely. I have techniques for comparing accounts. Dysklyver is a known Wikipedian, banned and globally locked, which is not a criticism. After all . . . .

Oliver wrote an article about himself. A copy can be found at http://archive.is/HKZyR.

Just to put this somewhere, Dysklyver is openly Arthur Kerensa, see Steward lock requests. His formal Wikipedia ban. He claims to be a lawyer, and what he did with Aeschylus would match that. However, he did not warn Aeschylus that continued socking could be a problem, and the fact was that a sock immediately appeared, Roberts (attacking a user who commented based on information that probably came from this blog, being obviously Oliver).  The block reason:

21:08, 12 February 2019 Dysklyver (talk | contribs) blocked Roberts (talk | contribs) with an expiration time of π×infinity! (account creation disabled) (Trolling talk pages: Probably Mike)

That’s totally preposterous! Anyone who knows Oliver’s habits and history — and with a little knowledge of Mikemikev — would know this was not Mike, unless he was doing long-term, very sophisticated impersonation, and if so, why would he waste the account just to attack that user? It makes no sense at all, whereas Roberts wrote exactly like Oliver Smith has been writing for years.

Meanwhile, Encyclopedia Dramatica, dealing with another avalanche of vandalism based on a scene that is connected with Oliver Smith, but I never figured out how, the Donny Long mess, has been set to disallow new accounts for some time. But that didn’t stop Oliver.

Bumblebee

How did he do it? Easily. He has sleepers. This one registered 7 January and made several edits the next day, then no more until the 13th February.  The blocking admin, I noticed before, blocks him but leaves his edits in place. So what Oliver did was to ask for pages to be deleted, but while waiting, to add more defamation. Does he actually think this will do him any good? The additions show his intention is still to defame, and he knows the removals won’t happen. The same happened on RationalWiki, with Aeschylus and Roberts.