Readymade

Readymade/Bicycle wheel/Sophie Wilder

If you see this on an archive site, be sure to check the original URL for updates, corrections, retractions, etc.

This is a subpage of rationalwiki/anglo-pyramidologist/supporters-and-enablers/, about the RationalWiki account Readymade, formerly Bicycle Wheel, renamed from Sophie Wilder.

I discovered confirmation of gender, looking at this account’s history. What I write below shows the discovery process.

I wasn’t terribly interested in Readymade  until she (I suspect female, which is very unusual and might be incorrect, but there are women who do participate, on occasion, in the otherwise very male RatWiki culture) displayed a series of possible AP traits, so she could fit as a suspect. If so, AP is broadening horizons, as I expect to see. It was once very easy to detect AP socks by characteristic interests, immediately displayed. It may become more difficult.

Readymade is a “returning user” who does not reveal the former account(s). First edit.

Registered Jan 1, 2018, was immediately welcomed by Christopher, a moderator.  Unusual.

Edited the Saloon bar as IP accidentally. Talk talk IP has been used by AP. This does identify Readymade as likely resident in the U.K. The IP has not edited WMF wikis, but I haven’t checked the range. [note added: Readymade is not an AP sock, the probability of that approaches zero.]

With a handful of edits, in 8 days, Readymade was given autoconfirmed, and in another four days, sysop. I have found rapid opping before with AP socks. In this case, she may be an ally, communicated off-wiki. Or it is just a coincidence. [In fact, she was a well-known user to those who had been active up to a few years ago.]

This early edit provided two names:, “testing.” Carole Hersee and Totnes. The latter is a town not far from where the IP geolocated.  Other than confirming probably UK location, I find nothing else interesting there.

She hates doxxing, obviously. Who hates doxxing? Two kinds of people: Wikipedians who want to encourage anonymous editing in spite of the massive problems it creates (this is being abandoned by sites that want to encourage reliability) — the original concept was to allow the expression of unpopular or politically dangerous opinion, as well as to make it “quick” to edit –, and people who attack and libel others. In a word, liars. Journalists doxx, and that is called “fake news” by those who hate it. Fascists hate it.

This edit reveals a likely former account.Notice the use of “bicycle” with no link in the signature. Bicycle wheel used “wheel” in the same way. Then see in the archive Readymade created, [https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/User_talk:Bicycle_Wheel/2017#Just_interested_to_hear these comments] by an oldtimer, definitely referring to Bicycle Wheel as female. And this user would almost certainly be able to communicate with RW sysops off-wiki. The Bicycle wheel account goes back to 2012. There is no sign of AP obsessions.

The first edit of Readymade revealed the gender issue, and that, then, explains the discrepancy with behavior from “normal female” and “normal male,” This was Sophie Wilder, and the edit claims to be a “female trapped in a male body,” and transgender. I have worked with transgender male -> female people.. Behaviorally, in many ways, they — at least one that I knew, who had transformed himself to a sort-of-attractive female, who surrounded herself with female employees, remained behaviorally male, it was obvious.

This is not an accusation, simply an observation. It explains the anomaly I mention above, what was at first weak evidence of being female (the comment about “gender” seen below, would normally only be made by a female, but also by someone transgender, which I had not thought of). I did not know that Sophie was transgender, but that also explains much. I thought she was merely ugly, ah, “unattractive.” — and lots of unattractive people are nice and can be attractive (which is very subjective) in context. Sophie is not nice, as we will see, the photo is above. More to the point is the aggressive communication style. Many women learn to be assertive, but this is far beyond that.

The RationalWiki “community style,” which, in conflict, becomes highly aggressive, is “male.”

I’m sure those more familiar would have known, especially from “Wilder” in the signatures. So she isn’t hiding from people who know RatWiki. Again, this explains the rapid sysopping, even though the pretense was that this was from the quality of edits.;

Bicycle Wheel’s user rights also went from (none) to Sysop quickly. These were actually Sophie Wilder rights, because Wilder, when she had the tools, renamed her account from Sophe Wilder to Bicycle Wheel. I could find no User Creation log entry for either. Bicycle Wheel

Why did I became interested in Readymade?

This edit to User talk Christopher, 20:16, 5 March 2018 mentioned me by name and showed her point of view, aligned with the AP claims and agenda.

These block log entries showed a focus on the alleged Abd socks. And these deletion log entries. (However, some of the impersonations I did not see until now. Because of one action, I dropped a comment on her talk page. (All those impersonation page creations are designed to desensitize the RW community to the truth. It seems to be working.)

Readymade removed the comment with summary: (yeah yeah jimmy jimmy). Rude.

The impersonation sock in this case was CF. The edits Readymade hid on the Salooon bar and on User talk:Christoper were CF posting this:

CF also created pages.  Abd_Lomax_is_being_suppressed_by_Rationalwiki_trolls. The content was this: (bolding added, see below)

Abd Lomax is being suppressed by Rationalwiki trolls

My comments have been supressed on the talkpage Abd ul-Rahman Lomax by a skeptic troll debunking spiritualism. Here was my reply

Abd, if he were going to “attack” like them, would make the posts very brief and would put a URL in them. The impersonation socks are attacking users that Lomax has no beef with, merely because they, say, blocked a disruptive impersonation sock. This is all very obvious and is a widely reported behavior of a certain “family” of socks, obviously becoming desperate.

And now, another IP shows up with an unverifiable stories, repeating what the sock master has claimed. Are they independent? They could be. How would we know? There are ways to know, sometimes, and there are RatWiki users with access to the raw logs that might show more. (Those people can see everything that a WMF checkuser can see and more, raw logs show, for example, what pages are read, not merely those that are edited. For all who access the site.)

Short of that, there is behavioral evidence. If it quacks like a duck…. Lomax allegedly attacked “skeptics,” but, in fact, what he documented was an impersonator. He also, long-term, criticized extreme pov-pushing skepticism (not merely ordinary skepticism) on Wikipedia and mentioned users, but these claims of attacks have never been accompanied by specific references … so that if there were errors, he could fix them. Simply writing that User So-and-So did X, with a diff, is not an attack. Unless someone is trying to hide what is already public.

The first quote, indented, was from this edit. 

The rest is familiar, I may have written this on RW or on the blog. However, the text at the beginning, I bolded it, was by the impersonator. Looking at other sock edits at this point (it included IP edits that I did not make), the framing presented is that I am blaming “RationalWiki trolls,” instead of documenting a very specific set of socks run by two brothers, this is designed to frame all of my work as an attack on RationalWiki and “skeptics.” So, of course, RW users, who generally identify as skeptics, will reject this claim. Which wasn’t my claim. After events in which Readymade was involved, I have shifted to a concept of community responsibility for what it tolerates, not to mention what it encourages. There are still RW users, however, who are active and who have not joined the Smith bandwagon.

(CF also posted that text to the Saloon bar. Creating attack pages or trolling pages is a long-term AP trait, seen elsewhere. In spite of what the socks would have RWikians and readers of my article believe, I have no history at all like this.)

So I responded to Readymade with wishing her luck. She removed it without comment. Readymade is reactive. A sane person would say “Thanks,” even if they thought it was insincere. People who spit in the face of those who are being polite do not do well.

More activity March 5, DS revision-deleted two impersonation sock edits. [] and []

Abd ul-Rahman Lomax‎‎ is being impersonated and harassed by biased skeptic Rationalwiki trolls. It is clearly Tim Farley doing this. This was the same man who has harassed Rome Viharo. Lomax will document all this on coldfusioncommunity.net

This is the story that AP wants to communicate, that skeptics are being attacked. Tim Farley is a well-known skeptical speaker and blogger. Rome Viharo has suspected Farley’s involvement with organizations coordinating — or even paying for, and there is some evidence for that — but I have seen nothing from Farley that rises above a level of minor snarky comment. Farley, I suspect, would very much not approve of what the Smith brothers have been doing., if he became aware of it. He actually confronted a Rome Viharo impersonation sock on Wikipedia as very suspicious and he was asking for checkuser. Which was not done, and if it had been done, what followed shortly might not have happened.

Tim Farley is not behind the Smith brothers. The original heavy disruptive impersonation socking I saw on Wikipedia and Wikiversity, leading to my checkuser request that exposed it, and then massive attack from socks, was by Darryl Smith, evidence is strong. Oliver was either involved not at all, or was minor collateral damage from some coincident IP to possibly two accounts with few edits.

Both brothers are very bad news, attacking, among other things, academic freedom, as well as defaming and libeling their targets. (Much worse than the old RW snark.)

March 14, 2018, DS created a section on Readymade talk with my name, and Ready made commented on a page here. She lied about the page. I commented.  GrammarCommie reverted it, but Readymade restored it to reply. She wrote nothing relating to the issue involved. Instead, just a question:

(As an old-time Rat, she could not resist the urge to get down and dirty.

What in the name of Horatio Ooze Gruntmangler XXIII are you whimbreling on about? Wilder^Bicycle 19:33, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

It was all simple and explicit. But, since she asked, I told her:

Ask a question, get an answer. Readymade, you made false statements about what was on that page. Those falsehoods promulgate the straw man arguments of the most abusive and vicious family of socks I’ve ever seen. You also obviously disliked being reminded of reality, because of [185.125.169.93 this block], which is completely useless, since I’m using open proxies, the most mobile of mobile IP. So you blocked someone else, in the future. Not really a problem, because the site already blocks as many open proxies as it can stuff into the DNSBL. Unless that IP is later not an open proxy. However, if your goal is to ask me not to edit your user talk page, the most powerful method is to ask me not to edit here. I know that conflicts with the Rules of Obey Ma Authorite, but suit yourself. It usually works.

By the way, it was not me who vandalized your user page with that link. I don’t do vandalism, but the impersonators do. Very few socks being blocked as ostensibly me are, including ones with my full name, etc. And, yes, they “push” what they imagine is my agenda, in order to make it look crazy. They have actually done this with many people, they are highly experienced at it. But RatWikians live in a bubble, isolated from the real world, and if someone claims to be a skeptic, GOOD, and if they attack others — even other skeptics — as long as they make “positive contributions,” hey, op them!

If you want to know why the impersonator dropped that note on your user page, I could probably explain. He does whatever he can do to get people fired up and fighting each other. —195.154.250.43 (talk) 02:20, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

ODS and DS, the Smith brothers, blanked that and protected the page. Her response shows what Sophie is made of:

[deleted reply, search the diffs if you’re a masochist]

Abd, I don’t care. You’re a colossal doxing, shitsquirting arse, and furthermore, cold fusion is a load of steaming bollocks. Don’t bother replyong, you’re a ginormous self-regarding twat and I wish you’d see yourself as others see you. Wilder^Bicycle 09:42, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

This is too common for RW users: intolerant of clear exposition and text, very intolerant of detail, heavily relying on ad homimem arguments, snark, and pure insult. This person, not a woman, not a man either …

1. Is literally shit-for-brains.  Sophie knows nothing at all about cold fusion, I doubt that she could say what it is — and what it is not. (I’ve been published under peer review in a mainstream journal. She has what qualifications? RationalWiki editor? She should try putting that on a resume.)
2. As to seeing ourselves as others see us, that is an aspect of training (very useful!) that Sophie would probably run from the room if it started.
3. Welcome back to RW, Sophie. It is appearing that, in general, you deserve each other, and the worst curse I could lay on you is “Be Sophie Wilder and spend your time breathing the RW air.”
4. You are not personally important to what I have been documenting. You are just a big (“ginormous”) toad in a small pond.
5. Your talk page is off protection now. Will I comment? On my article, you confirmed “Make sure not to feed the troll.” She just did it, a number of times.

A number of RW users have complained about all the “drama.” But they tolerate those who massively create it. Since I was blocked, I have edited RationalWiki only a few times, by comparison with all the impersonations. They get what they create. I will probably inform Sophie of this page. That’s actually a courtesy, she could correct errors, if she cares. My guess? She won’t care. That’s up to her, I have no information that Sophie Wilder is her real name, nor am I about to do some extensive doxxing. If Sophie keeps attacking me, she might get mentioned again and then sometimes others feed me verifiable information.

She is the first RW user, not a AP sock, who clearly and repeatedly supported the AP disruption and thus becomes responsible for it.

This is what she is supporting: see an edit to User talk:ODS, a few days ago, pointing an archived copy of  a comment he created on the Forum for Encyclopedia Dramatica, and archived a minute later, and then posted to his user talk page a few minutes later. The full conversation can be seen by any sysop on his talk page, even though it has been hidden by his twin brother, DS.

So you made a jokes about “brother,” in the coop case that DS had opened, that you also closed. The mob has decided to skip with declared process. Was it assumed that I would just roll over and go away if I was cooped? If so, a premature close, which that certainly was, would not accomplish it. However, I decided to treat the indef block — by a Darryl sock, almost certainly, unless Oliver was totally lying in several places — as a “defacto ban,” because nobody is willing to undo it. Christopher’s comment about RW practice was not correct, or the practice has changed. Same as on Wikipedia, there is a crucial difference between a block and a ban, and I took that to the Arbitration Committee and won. There would be a similar difference on RW, and it was proven in practice.

That I am banned does not mean that I don’t edit. It means that I treat the entire community as an enemy of decency and truthfulness, until and unless the community opens its eyes to reality.

This is my conclusion: you have no concern about the truthfulness of what you write. To you, RationalWiki is like Encyclopedia Dramatica. Efforts have been made to pull up the standards … but I noticed that one of the last remaining early editors retired with a concern that RW was being way too lax about libel. This will all be documented on the Rational Wiki study here. Meanwhile Rome Viharo is accusing the RationalWiki Foundation of using possible lawsuits as a fund-raising device. My comment was that by raising funds, the Foundation makes itself an attractive target.  What has protected the Smiths, so far, is that they have no known significant assets to go after. Their anonymity was lost a long time ago, before I was ever involved.

They have also broken British law. It could be argued that you have, as well, by the way. The case is very clear with the Smiths, not so clear with you. Apparently law enforcement is weak on this, and that isn’t surprising. So I expect that some of those who have been defamed will create civil process, which could also, then, lead to criminal process. I expect that the RationalWiki Foundatinon, faced with this, will cave, as it has many times in similar cases. The legitimate goals of the RWF are not furthered by lies and deception.

Demonstration of incompetence

This discussion is from User talk:Readymade.

Abd Lomax

I created a coop about him [1], you can respond there if you like. He has now written about your account on his blog. Debunking spiritualism (talk) 16:53, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

i can’t find a reference to me on his blog. Link please? Wilder^Bicycle 18:16, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

http://coldfusioncommunity.net/category/anglo-pyramidologist/ CowHouse (talk) 04:28, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Ooh, I’m a paid AP sock! How delightful. I’ll let the gender assumption go by for now, it’s part of his obsession that we’re all The Smiths. Wilder^Bicycle 08:49, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

CowHouse was trying to be helpful, but simply gave the link he was using, to a category here. That category had often been posted by Smith socks, as an attempt to prove that I was “obsessed” with AP. It is not a reliable way to find a particular page, but, that day, apparently showed the name ReadyMade, listed, not as an AP sock (much less as paid, and with no gender assumption), as a possible “Supporter and Enabler” of AP socks. Which has been common on RationalWiki. I was a RationalWiki sysop until the Smith affair broke open. I knew and know that most RationalWiki users are not Smith socks (and I have corrected others who sometimes have confused “ordinary RW users” — who can be just as effed up as a Smith brother — with Smith socks. The Smiths have created clouds of confusion for years, so that’s understandable. But the Smith brothers really exist and the evidence is overwhelming, and this, then exposes the dirty little secret of RationalWiki.

It is frequently not rational and it does not employ rational skepticism. It is generally a “believer” community, though that is often denied. The belief is that others are wrong, and that wrong people are also disruptive and to be exposed, and if they show up, harassed and banned. They follow and trust ad hominem arguments, and I could go on and on.

I would say that Sophie lied, except that it’s just as possible that she was terminally clueless and careless. She may believe what she wrote.

There was discussion.

This is a great example of how the sock master lies. DS, here, is that sock master. The link is to the Anglo Pyramidologist category, which is many pages. The specific page that mentions you, Wilder, does so as ReadyMade. It does not accuse you of being a paid sock. It does not accuse you of being a sock at all. However, you have now sealed the matter, because you repeated — or originated — lies about what I have done.

The specific page was [site url]/rationalwiki/anglo-pyramidologist/supporters-and-enablers/

It is archived at http://archive.is/Wf0ZR

There was discussion, I made a comment by IP, see the material in collapse.

Debunking spiritualism is the currently most-active of the two sock masters described, on Wikipedia long ago, as Anglo Pyramidologist, and one of them (not DS) has claimed that most socks (“99.9%”) are his twin brother. The conversations between them on RW clearly demonstrate this.

However, AP would not be able to do the damage he has done without support or enabling from others, or, the least of it, tolerance. There are claims of paid editing, both from the socks created by the “other brother” and by the now-open brother. There is no claim that the enablers are paid, not coming from me. Rather, there is suspicion of an organization involved, and it is certainly a possibility at this point that you are connected with an organization. But you have not been accused of that.

As well, on the matter of gender, there was no assumption of gender on that page. So …

You lied. Why, I don’t know, but these lies (i.e., repeating lies in the presence of clear evidence that is obviously to the contrary) define “enablers and supporters,” so I’ll be documenting that. That page was just a first creation. This is not a “threat of harassment.” Just a reminder that truth has a way of coming out. We can all benefit from such reminders.

If the comment was just a thoughtless error, you could correct it, and that will be noted. As the matter stands, this conversation is also archived and how it goes will be documented. That’s most of what I do, document, with only occasional and what have become obvious conclusions.

I have never been attacking “skeptics” as such. I am, after all, a skeptic and consider skepticism as essential to science. I have never claimed that “we,” — presumably RatWikians — are “all the Smiths.” Rather, there is an extensive list of socks, going back many years, that tend to collectively dominate on certain topics. DS is one of them. There is one more active recently. Not counting the many impersonation socks pretending to be me.

From recent history, this is likely to be deleted and even revision-deleted, but it cannot actually be hidden, and you will see it, unless you choose to turn away. I hold you responsible for the choices you make, which is general for all of us. –185.125.169.93 (talk) 18:15, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

What in the name of Horatio Ooze Gruntmangler XXIII are you whimbreling on about? Wilder^Bicycle 19:33, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

[deleted reply, search the diffs if you’re a masochist] [Diff ]

Abd, I don’t care. You’re a colossal doxing, shitsquirting arse, and furthermore, cold fusion is a load of steaming bollocks. Don’t bother replyong, you’re a ginormous self-regarding twat and I wish you’d see yourself as others see you. Wilder^Bicycle 09:42, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Charming. What I said, above, about gender. After asking me a question, Wilder blocked the IP. She wasn’t asking a question, she was grandstanding, displaying an aggressiveness that is more stereotpically male. It also represents the direction that RW had taken, not caring at all about the site being filled with misleading defamation and libel. This is not rational skepticism, it is a juvenile pissing contest.

I replied to the question, I normally would do that. My deleted reply:

Ask a question, get an answer. Readymade, you made false statements about what was on that page. Those falsehoods promulgate the straw man arguments of the most abusive and vicious family of socks I’ve ever seen. You also obviously disliked being reminded of reality, because of [185.125.169.93 this block], which is completely useless, since I’m using open proxies, the most mobile of mobile IP. So you blocked someone else, in the future. Not really a problem, because the site already blocks as many open proxies as it can stuff into the DNSBL. Unless that IP is later not an open proxy. However, if your goal is to ask me not to edit your user talk page, the most powerful method is to ask me not to edit here. I know that conflicts with the Rules of Obey Ma Authorite, but suit yourself. It usually works.

By the way, it was not me who vandalized your user page with that link. I don’t do vandalism, but the impersonators do. Very few socks being blocked as ostensibly me are, including ones with my full name, etc. And, yes, they “push” what they imagine is my agenda, in order to make it look crazy. They have actually done this with many people, they are highly experienced at it. But RatWikians live in a bubble, isolated from the real world, and if someone claims to be a skeptic, GOOD, and if they attack others — even other skeptics — as long as they make “positive contributions,” hey, op them!

If you want to know why the impersonator dropped that note on your user page, I could probably explain. He does whatever he can do to get people fired up and fighting each other. —195.154.250.43 (talk) 02:20, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

I didn’t reply again, because “never argue with fools.” She never asked. She disappeared in not long from RationalWiki, “butt-hurt.” A retirement template was placed, but not by her. My guess is that she spiked the password, reactive people do that in fits of pique. She responded by IP as her last apparent edit.

I never doxxed her, never looked for RL identity. Describing edits from public records is not “doxxing.” The most I’ve done is to look at the IP addresses she used. The last one pops up Cornwall, remote from AP locations.