Dysklyver

This study is a subpage of rationalwiki but Dysklyver is not a supporter or knowing enabler of the AP sock masters.

(This page rambled into a longer term discussion of the Smiths, I should probably split this out.)

Dysklyver (contributions, logs) is an interesting case, much more interesting than the general RationalWiki sillysplop. From RW User:Dysklyver:

  • Fairly new, registered 17 June 2018
  • Rights. Autopatrolled 19 June 2018
  • Sysop 12 July 2018
  • Created troll sock 18 August 2018. Nominated himself for moderator. The acceptance speech is actually pretty funny, as a parody. Or is it simply a description?
  • Ninja and Tech 27 November 2018

Personal information: this was all openly revealed. If Dysklyver wants any of this removed, he may request this. Good-faith requests will not be published without permission (an ordinary comment will ordinarily be published, permission is assumed). Commenters here as a message to the administrator reviewing comments (that’s me at this point!) may request that the comment not be published, and this will normally be respected.

However, trolls will be chopped into kindling and burned for heat, it’s cold!

User:Dysklyver (various revisions) and with a little help from my friends:

    • Wikipedia: User:A_Den_Jentyl_Ettien_Avel_Dysklyver very blocked on wikipedia. Indeed. Global account. Globally locked, “(Long-term abuse)”  The block logs do not justify “LTA.” Alternate account on Wikipedia, Arthur Kerensa. Looking at the history of that talk page, and making no conclusion about the legitimacy of his blocks (he requested them?), they [the Wikipedians] are assholes. This is, unfortunately, was becoming very common by the time I abandoned wikipedia (as is common, abandon the project and they community-ban), and whenever I have occasion to look, it seems to have gotten worse. What was the harm of that notice?
    • https://wiki.org.uk/article/User:Arthur_Kerensa chilling on a wiki site. Link is dead, wiki.org.uk died sometime between September 13 and December 1, 2018. Not in wikiindex. Some pages archived on archive.is. Not that one.
    • On IRC (freenode) as Dysklyver@unaffiliated/dysklyver
    • On wikipediocracy as Dysklyver memberlist (requires registration)
    • In and around various sites like Ubuntu, Reddit, TheStudentRoom, and more
    • Lawyer. [Unlikely from age, but may be law student or paralegal].
    • I live in Cornwall, in the United Kingdom.
    • I am the primary sysadmin (not sysop) of World Wiki. (dead link) (So what happened?)
    • On Reddit as Dysklyver.
    • I have a blog called The Wiki Cabal
    • My email address is dysklyver@linuxmail.org
    • Follow me on  Twitter
    • I am on Discord as Dysk#2545

Why is Dysklyver documented here?

He was noticed and mentioned in connection with Aeschylus, an admitted Oliver D. Smith sock, as described on our page, ODS. Oliver Smith has often put up “retired templates,” and he has claimed elsewhere that he wasn’t going to edit RatWiki any more, but . . . he does and has created as many as hundreds of sock accounts, the same as he has done elsewhere.

Dysklyver, reading Aeschylus’ extremely weak plea for deletion, desysopped and blocked him “for [his] own  good.”

Oliver, instead of admitting that he had presented misleading evidence on pages, pursuing personal vendettas, leading to defamation that was not true, not supported by sources, simply had asked for them to be deleted, and users who had looked at the evidence before (very well designed to be misleading), and with any activity attempting to correct it being blocked on sight, and with prior misleading attempts having succeeded in convincing RatWikians that Oliver’s targets are bullies (for example, non-existent email from me was quoted by a Darryl sock, and impersonation socks threatened to sue RatWiki and various sysops), instead of admitting that the stories about the “Smith brothers” were true, simply showed that he wanted the pages taken down because he was being sued, and the response of RatWikians was totally as I’d expect. To put it in RatWiki technical language, “Fuck No!”

Dysklyver has shown that he is aware of the Smith trolling. How much he knows, I do not know. I have not listed him as an “enabler,” because I only use that category for RatWikians who know about the Smiths and actually support them, or who stand in reckless disregard of what they could know if they look at evidence presented to them.

This is amusing for today:

Mr. Clean created an article on Defamation, 19:45, edit summary “(will expand),” with this text:

Defamation is statements that affect a person’s reputation negatively, which are untrue or misleading.

Defamation laws by country

United States

In the United States website owners cannot be prosecuted for defamation for the actions of users of websites they own.

Dysklyver deleted it at 19:48. That was swift.

This conversation ensued:

Defamation

Why shouldn’t there be an article about this? Mr Clean (talk) 19:50, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
You can make a draft if you like (eg. Draft:Defamation) but you are not getting away with starting a mainspace page on such a tricky subject with a two sentence stub where one of the sentences is factually wrong. —

What was wrong? Mr Clean (talk) 20:06, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Dysklyver is entirely too serious for a normal RatWiki sysop. Mr. Clean has a Smith-type username, and the interest in defamation also matches Smith. I would not at this point accuse him of being a Smith, the evidence is too thin. Does Dysklyver realize the possibility? After all, if this is Smith, he’s block-evading.

What was wrong? I see several problems.

The first statement is roughly true. Defamation is a little broader than stated, and can vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but I doubt that Dysklyver was referring to that sentence. Rather,

In the United States website owners cannot be prosecuted for defamation for the actions of users of websites they own.

If we include under prosecution, “civil prosecution” by an injured party, the question is whether or not a website owner can be liable (or criminally responsible, where defamation is a crime, as it is in some places). The user is probably thinking of the Communications Decency Act, which provides qualified immunity to “information service providers.” Whether a “web site owner” can be held liable depends on details. The user’s comment may generally be true, but exceptions may exist, and so the statement, because made as if a blanket immunity, is false.

This, by the way, is a gaping hole in U.S. law, because it allows even blatantly defamatory material to stand even if a court finds the provider of the information (the “user”) to have defamed with it. The situation is very different with copyright violation, where procedures are provided for a formal claim by an alleged copyright owner, and then immunizing action by the provider (generally take-down or an order to take down), and the “offender” may file a counterclaim by providing an address for service of process. With that, the service provider may restore the information until a court orders it taken down. That works, so why not something like that with defamation?

Because laws don’t necessarily make sense, that’s why.

This got more interesting. I speculated that Mr Clean might be Oliver. I still consider it possible, because Oliver lies and he and his brother are perfectly capable of creating impersonation accounts that appear to attack them, in an effort to rally the troops, so to speak. It has often work, and I know for certain that they create impersonation accounts, because I have been impersonated. But wait, couldn’t those be that evil Mikemikev, trying to make them look Bad? In theory, yes, but there is a huge hole in that theory. They have always supported not only blocking those accounts, but also any actual, disclosed socks of mine, lumping them all together. As well, the prolific creation of socks is one of their trademarks, they do it routinely even when there is no necessity, and they have even found that if their target complains, the target is then blamed for fomenting the disruption, just saying anything. After all, if the target kept his mouth shut, they wouldn’t be attacking, right?

However, these trolls have been on the attack continuously for years, if it is not one, then another, and one thing that is happening is that the targets are starting to talk to each other, to share information and maybe, just maybe, legal expenses. So what happened, that encourages this follow-up?

Arcticos blocked Mr Clean, with  (Block evasion: abd lomax, check his insane blog – one of his countless concern troll sockpuppets he creates fake drama with)

He was referring to this page, which speculates that Mr Clean might be Oliver, there are signs, and that Arcticos — obviously Oliver — blocked Mr Clean merely because of the mention here — which was mostly about the legal issues — is merely more evidence that Arcticos is Oliver, as if we needed it. This was “creating drama” with no necessity at all. And Oliver has done this many times, in former incarnations. He is a hair-trigger loose cannon. But he is persistent, and with his brother helping out now and then, he often gets his way.

John66 is back, so Darryl is active again, after a month hiatus. Eventually, I have often found, there is another active account, either on RatWiki or elsewhere.

Arcticos is reading this blog and it’s obvious why.

Lomax claims I’m John66, lol

There are many crazy but entertaining ramblings and conspiracy theories on his blog. For some reason he claims I own the sysop John66, someone that blatantly isn’t me I have zero knowledge of their edits.Arcticos (talk) 04:28, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

I have never heard of this Lomax person before, not sure why he has confused me with someone else. My edits on this website are only on fad diets and cholesterol quackery, I have never written about cold fusion. I noticed Lomax is a cholesterol denialist, perhaps that it why he targeted me. John66 (talk) 04:46, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Let’s start with the lie: I have never claimed that Arcticos owns the John66 account. What I have claimed is that his brother owns it, and that’s been very clear. So how is it that Oliver can read this blog and derive such crazy ideas from it? Well, let’s start that he is actually insane, no joke. But there is no evidence that his brother is so crazy. Did his brother actually read the material? If he did — I would, wouldn’t you?, if there was a whole page devoted to me somewhere — he would know why he was covered. If, again, he were sane, he would understand why there was at least an appearance of his being Skeptic from Britain and renamed accounts on Wikipedia, and all the other evidence pointed to him being a series of accounts. Few people actually look at the evidence that would show that, it’s too much work. Even when someone else bothers to collect it and make it easily accessible, few will look.

Hence extensive knowledge of the situation is a sign of being one of a fairly small number of people on the planet. It’s like someone being questioned by the police who shows extensive knowledge of the details of a crime. It’s not proof, but often enough to lay charges. So I’m blocked on ED, and who the hell cares? Oliver Smith does, he was begging for that to happen. He was being blocked as many socks, “block-evading,” and when I finally made about two edits, I was blocked by an admin there. For what? He didn’t actually say. it was standard ED fare. Because he can, because fuck off, because unfunny. Whatever. I have not attempted to do anything about it. Oliver has another sock, he pulled out of the drawer.

And then Mr Clean rises from the dead:

Ostwelt_Spangler

Who the hell is OS? Initials, Oliver Smith. Why would Oliver do this? I keep in mind that Oliver’s behavior often makes no sense, to an ordinary mind. (And this is used to great effect.) But Mikemikev is actually a troll, long-term, quite the mirror or foil for Oliver. So could he be OS? As I’m writing this, I consider it possible. His first edit:

Hi Dysklyver. I was Mr. CLean. [[User:Arcticos|Arcticos]] just blocked me indefinitely, and took away my talk page access. Is that normal? Can I not get a chance to respond to accusations? I have no idea why hid did this. I was happy to cooperate with you in making the defamation article. I would have made a draft we could work on together. [[User:Ostwelt Spangler|Ostwelt Spangler]] ([[User talk:Ostwelt Spangler|talk]]) 11:17, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Only someone familiar with the Smith history would think Mr Clean was a “block evader.” Which is not actually an offense on RatWiki, they have never developed a clear policy, and don’t want one, because the Lulz.

Now, is OS “Mr Clean”? I have some doubts. The blocking of Mr Clean was by a user known, very clearly, to be Oliver Smith (there really is no doubt about this). That user was blocked by Dysklyver “for his own good,” as Aeschylus, but he also encouraged him to sock. Very RatWiki. The assumption would be, though, that he would not repeat the behavior or write things that could harm him legally. Mikemikev could have noticed this, or still consistent with what I’ve seen, really was innocent. Or this was Oliver blocking himself, having decided that the account was compromised by being noticed here. (This is not the only time he did that.)

[In hindsight, May 30, 2019] I do not think that Mr Clean or Ostwelt Spanger were Oliver, Mikemikev is more likely, but it could also be someone else.]

On the other hand, that has not stopped Arcticos. Like I’ve said, insane. I tend to retreat to known facts, not mind-reading.

12:53 Arcticos blocked Ostwelt Spangler Block evasion: mikemikev trolling

12:54 Dysklyver unblocked. (no real evidence)

So Mr Clean is me, and Ostwelt Spangler is Mikemikev impersonating Mr Clean? Yes, he’s nuts.

My hypothesis. He knows OS is not Mr Clean because he was Mr Clean. So who would it be? Mikemikev, of course, and whenever the thought “Mikemikev” enters his head, he pushes buttons first and thinks later. When he has realized that it has all become too obvious, he retires and starts up a new sock. He’s been doing it for many years.

Is OS Mike? I don’t know, and I won’t ask him. It’s that simple. What I see here is that there is no open evidence, and Dysklyver can see that. RatWiki practice is normally not to block a user as a sock unless the user is not only actually banned, and there is clear evidence that it is the banned user. (Or it’s harmless, the account has no investment. That’s a wiki thing to do.) But that requirement has been waived for sysops with the last name Smith and David Gerard, who have super powers and never make mistakes. David mostly keeps his dainty fingers out of these messes, but a surprising number of his actions benefit the Smiths and their agenda.

What is interesting here is that there is a sysop not swallowing the bullshit. He does seem to assume some things I would disagree with. The general Smith story has been that I write massive attacks on anyone who disagrees with me. It has never been true, mere disagreement is far from enough to create a motivation to spend time documenting this crap. Real-world damage is what can do it.

So then Jean shows up. Jean, 99%, is a Smith brother. So he would be Arcticos (Oliver) or John66 (Darryl).

Arcticos was wrong in blocking Mr Clean as a sock of Abd Lomax, but he was right in blocking that account. Mr Clean/Ostwelt Spangler is a sock-puppet of Michael Coombs (a friend of Lomax), and also a notorious sock-puppeteer. He was recently banned a few days ago on another sock, Radiant Orb. The “Ostwelt Spangler” account, is a reference to Oswald Spengler, one of Mike’s heroes. Spengler’s book “The Decline of the West” is an alt-right favourite. I can’t prove any of these claims right now as so few edits have been done, but I will eventually be proved right. Mike will pretend to be normal for a while like he did on his Radiant Orb account, but sooner or later will reveal himself when he posts crude and obsessive racism. Jean (talk) 12:32, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Who cares if he is right or not? This is, by the way, doxxing. If anyone does this with a Smith brother, on-wiki or even off, off with their heads! Immediate indef, talk page and email access denied. Period. Shut The Fuck Up! Dysklyver is pushing limits by even mentioning “Smith” (but they have done it themselves many times. To be sure, they often later delete or hide the revisions.) My emphasis:

@Dyskluver Yes, it was a few lines of crap and like you said mostly inaccurate. And “Twist Spanker” is Mikemikev’s new sockpuppet. Once exposed as him, he quickly creates new accounts. Notice also these latest accounts appearing very recent fixate only with my edits – Atlantis and now UKIP… not suspicious (sarcasm).Arcticos (talk) 13:55, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

I am not in the least surprised given that you focus only on the same topics he does, that you are obsessed with finding his socks rather than waiting for them to say anything much, and that you are almost certainly filed under “sock of the smith bros” in Trolloland. I think you are doing a good job with the British politics articles, but when it comes to the trolls, be aware there is no practical limit to the number of accounts they can create, so there is little point blocking them early. — Dysklyver 14:02, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

And as if there was any doubt, Arcticos confirms that he is Oliver Smith.

@Dyskluver we only focus on the same topics, since I influence Mikemikev. He can’t think for himself and has been robbing my opinions and interests for past 6 years, he’s like a puppy who follows me around. [. . .] Arcticos (talk) 15:21, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Six years. 2012, when Oliver was Atlantid on Metapedia. There is only one person on the planet who would have written that honestly, and Oliver is often “honest,” i.e., spills the beans about himself. Then he lies to cover it up. Someone doxxes his brother, he attacks them for “attacking his family,” thus confirming that it was his family. The guy really does not know how to shut up.

If Radiant Orb was Mikemikev, he had obtained sysop tools and would “rationally” restrain himself with that account. Unless he has other access, and doesn’t care. It is quite easy to get sysop tools on RatWiki. Basically, write something coherent and don’t challenge any sacred goats. Shut up about the goats, already! (But it is appearing lately (May 2019) that Mikemikev is also obsessed and not at all clever.)

Oliver goes ballistic if anything smells like Mikemikev. Or me. Or Rome Viharo (though Viharo was more of an obsession with Darryl). Or Emil Kirkegaard. Or Michaeldsuarez. There are others as well. This sequence is actually common. Oliver is arguing with someone and needs to disclose “the truth” so that the person will agree with him. He is explaining, here, why he and the alleged Mikemikev are interested in the same topics. Which is actually irrelevant, in this case, except that interest in those topics could create suspicion of socking or “alternate accounts.” Standard on wikis, don’t dox a user as “Real Name So-and-so” unless it is both provable and necessary. It will get you blocked on Wikipedia, quickly, though they do tend to warn first (and rev-del the comment).

Dysklyver doesn’t buy it. He is the first RatWiki sysop I have seen confront Oliver on the obvious. There have been a few trout-slaps here and there, but nobody really seemed to get what was going on.

I know D has seen this page, but I don’t know that he reads it. It’s entirely up to him. When a RatWiki user is impersonated here, and they have not been informed before of such, I’ll notify them. It’s easy enough. And if they delete it and block the IP, I simply won’t notify them again. I have not harassed RatWiki users, all such apparent harassment has been impersonation. And if anyone has questions about that, they can ask. I will not acknowledge any covert socks (which will not be disruptive), but if a sock allegedly was disruptive, I will either show that it was not disruptive, or deny that it was me, if it was not, or admit it and apologize for the error.

To be clear, I am not identifying socks without necessity. The long-term activity of the Smiths has made it necessary for their socks, because part of how the disruption is identified is through long-term patterns. The Smiths have created massive long-term disruption on RationalWiki, about which I would care very, very little, except for the damage done in the real world.

When I was a sysop on RationalWiki, faced with Smith socks and Smith troll socks, I did not identify them by name, nor did I block the “functional accounts,” and only a handful of obvious trolls.

One more event for the day:

12:12, 24 February 2019 User account Twist Spanker (talk | contribs) was created
13:34, 24 February 2019 Talk:United Kingdom Independence Party ‎ (→‎Organisation of article)
13:27, 24 February 2019 United Kingdom Independence Party ‎
14:03, 24 February 2019 Arcticos blocked Twist Spanker  with an expiration time of π×infinity! (account creation disabled, cannot edit own talk page) (can we please just get rid of mikemikev?)

The edits were mild and not definitive at all as being Mikemikev, if they were, he was not displaying his trademark racism. However, to Oliver, it would look like trolling. Trolling for what? For an over-reaction, of course, that is what real trolls do. If so, Oliver played right into it, being predictably a loose cannon. Recent events have shown clearly, to anyone watching, that Oliver will tag as a sock of an enemy anyone who even looks like they might be poking them.

Will someone have the cojones to dsysop him? He’s done far more, in a short time, than many others who have been desysopped. (Look at my history, for example! What did I do, actually?)

Here is what he will do if it happens. He will disappear and simply create a new account. His current user page says that he created that one article. In fact, he has created hundreds of articles, some reasonably legitimate. He is recognizable if anyone has looked at the sock collection.

But many of the articles are attacks on external enemies, and Darryl has done the same, based on outside personal conflicts. Then, if the targets show up, they are harassed. If they are not disruptive, many impersonation socks appear, pretending to be the target and making it look like the target is disruptive.

They have found that it works. It even worked on Wikipedia, which is how I discovered these brothers. I blew it up by realizing what had happened and requesting steward checkuser.

Yes. Impersonation socks, also, with other socks, demanding action against the alleged abuser. That is how I became a Smith target, by documenting that sequence. My original interest was how Single Purpose Accounts could trigger enforcement action without anyone actually looking at the SPAs themselves. I was interested in how they had corrupted Wikipedia (and Wikiversity) process, deluding and deceiving users including administrators (and, by the way, those original impersonations have never been identified on Wikipedia, they are still blamed on the target, even though, on meta, this was demolished by stewards.)

If these three accounts are actually Mikemikev, he is doing a service by being a sniper target, exposing the sniper. But I don’t know yet. Sometimes it becomes clear. And, of course, sometimes some people have ways of identifying socks. I know that I have some that I won’t reveal, but I doubt I would block a user based on those traits, because they legitimately raise suspicion but are not necessarily strong evidence.

However, when multiple weak signs coincide toward the same conclusion, it becomes strong enough to stand on, as long as one attempts to see all the evidence, and not just what points in a single direction.

Update, March 4, 2019

Dysklyver activity of interest here.

Dysklyver has commented here, as can be seen below. He is the only RatWiki sysop to actually contact me, in recent years, other than Oliver Smith. There have been various troll contacts, which could be Darryl. Oliver denied being them (and massive trolling does appear to be Darryl, generally, rather than Oliver. Except on Encyclopedia Dramatica).

One of the remarkable traits of common wiki maintenance is administration by force, instead of creating cooperation where possible. It became increasingly common on Wikipedia. Commonly, users are assumed to be either good editors or useless trolls or “POV pushers,” to be blocked.

The long term damage to Wikipedia was to neutrality policy. Neutrality is not a thing. There is no “neutrality meter,” it is subjective, and if the group consensus excludes people of a point of view — which Wikipedia, over and over, trended to — it becomes warped. Wiki theory did not account for this. The fundamental error was in assuming that people who push their point of view should be banned, ipso facto.

Rational Wiki has no neutrality policy. It has a site point of view, often aligned with the “SPOV” faction on Wikipedia. However, RatWiki used to encourage and allow dissident points of view, and even gave sysop privileges to people of different stripes. I was a sysop there, from 2012, until I was personally attacked on the wiki by Darryl (as “Marky”), after the user who had run impersonation socks on Wikipedia was discovered as a result of my actions, and I was threatened with what did ensue, massive harassment, and deletion of all my work.  They did not actually succeed in deleting all my work, because cooperative administration and site backups allowed it to be preserved. Darryl then took this to RatWiki, creating the article on me, and I was quickly “promoted” by David Gerard, who had attempted this before, previously stopped by a moderator.

Once upon a time, the moderator’s action would be normal for RatWiki. I had mostly abandoned RatWiki, just making scattered edits, because I had found it was like trying to communicate with a heap of testosterone-crazed teenage Lilliputians. And RationalWiki was mostly harmless. That all changed. Some people read the articles and believe what they read. The Smith brothers, in particular, are masters of finding “bad-looking quotations” that are presented out of context. They have discovered that most wiki editors rarely actually verify sources, i.e., by reading the whole source (if any of it at all). The Smiths look for “bad” to toss mud. And if I have pointed that out, this proves I am some kind of monster because I “support” [fill in the unsupported claim: fascists, child rape apologists, pseudoscientists, diet woo promoters, etc.]

Dysklyver, almost alone in this, has been attempting to restore the old standards. So far, he has not run into serious conflict with actual old-timers, other than the Smiths. These are some of his edits and actions.

Arcticos (Oliver Smith, I have no doubt, this is not Darryl), added the title of “King of the Trolls” to my article. (It was sourced to a post by a single anonymous user on lenr-forum, long story. This would be a source with no reliability at all. The Smiths have claimed over and over that I have been banned for trolling all over the internet, but, in fact, I have not been banned anywhere for that. It is an empty claim, the reality is quite different. There is really only one significant ban, the WMF Office ban, and that is going into court. It was triggered by complaints and it is clear that the complaints were from the Smith brothers, and from a few others scared up by the Smiths by searching for possible enemies and canvassing for it.

Dysklyver removed that. This has been extremely rare, other RatWiki users rejecting Smith edits. The article has errors that were pointed out much more than a year ago, nobody looked, apparently. Snark takes high priority over accuracy. (It used to be that editors sought to be accurate in facts, and snarky only in interpretation. That largely disappeared, certainly where the Smiths are involved, which is with a lot. (Though not as much as the Smiths claim I report, one of their favorite tactics is straw-manning.)

https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Abd_ul-Rahman_Lomax&oldid=2044980

Standard RatWiki discussion by the Smiths. Smith misrepresents a fact, RatWikians do not check it out, do not find out what actually happened, and respond as if the fact were true, because it confirms the impressions the Smiths have created with a year’s drumbeat, impersonation socks, etc.

Bongolian, though, does have sense enough to recognize that “King of the Trolls” might be a teeny bit exaggerated. The alleged trolling has almost all been on RatWiki by impersonation socks, commonly blocked by naive RatWiki users as me.

There are a handful of real socks. In the first months of my indef block on RatWiki, I disclosed socks, either with the edits or on this blog. For quite a while, I disclosed any IP edits, and I actually used a proxy service for a month. What I was doing, for the most part, was informing RatWiki users that they had been impersonated elsewhere, probably by the Smiths (probably Darryl). Because disclosing the socks generated no value at all, because users never thanked me for disclosing impersonations of them, I stopped doing it, but I also stopped editing RatWiki, almost entirely. Impersonation socks continued.

An account, Street scoop, with only one other edit, added a link to explain material that had been added by Arcticos. The only other edit of Street scoop was similar, adding a link to explain what a Smith brother had claimed, so that anyone could verify it.

This was promptly reverted by Jean, a very inactive account, likely Darryl, with (Undo revision 2043420 by Street scoop (talk) sock of abd lomax). The only basis I can see for the identification is that Street scoop was already tagged by Street guy as Abd, for doing something similar before, and a Smith assumption that anyone actually providing evidence must be Abd, because nobody else would care.

This is thoroughly ironic. If Abd were to edit RatWiki using a pseudonym, and reverted an edit as being by “Oliver Smith,” he would be immediately blocked for “doxxing,” but it is routine for Smith socks to dox others, and rare for anyone to object. What became obvious to me as I researched this was that there is behind-the-scenes support for the Smiths. (How is it that obvious trolls were able to coordinate a WMF Office ban?) I have some idea of where it might be coming from, but nothing adequate to create certainty, only hints from various validated Smith comments.

The article was then protected by Arcticos, Excessive vandalism. If that edit were “excessive” vandalism, what would ordinary vandalism look like? Adding correct punctuation? There is nothing about that edit that remotely resembles vandalism, from any point of view, unless the point of view is that any accurate information relating to Abd in some way is against the purposes of the article. The comment added by Arcticos was about an article allegedly created by Abd (and, I did, in fact, create that article, but it wasn’t an article, it was a subpage of the Oliver Smith article, with some special information, which had been common on Encyclopedia Dramatica.

Arcticos reports that I was blocked, what he does not report was that he was being blocked as many socks, over and over. I have not appealed that block, though I certainly could, because I really don’t need to edit ED. But the article is of high interest, I would think, to any RatWikian who wants to know what is really going on, and it relates to claims that Oliver D. Smith was making before being blocked “for his own good” by Dysklyver. The link is still there in history.

(Smith is currently being sued, and as part of this, asking for deletions in a way guaranteed to fail, admitted that accounts were his where he had previously ridiculed Abd for expressing such suspicions. In fact, anyone who studies the history of these accounts can become skilled at recognizing them. There are some signs that are easy to spot, but, of course, I’m not going to mention them. Before claiming an account is a Smith brother, I have seen multiple signs, and I always consider that it could be someone else with a similar point of view.

However, with experience, the points of view of the Smiths become recognizable as highly idiocyncratic in themselves. It is not at all that any skeptic is accused of being a Smith, but they create so much confusion that some sites documenting the Smiths do err. Given that I have documented hundreds of accounts, there are probably some errors, but — none of such have ever personally complained. The Smiths, long ago, learned that when an account has been identified, it is easier to just abandon it. On RatWiki, they routinely abandon sysop accounts. There are quite a number still holding privileges, as I recall.)

The Smiths routinely lie to the RatWiki community.

Debunking Spiritualism, for example, was not hacked. He simply lied. His behavior in those last few days was completely in line with his agenda, with special craziness at the end, that’s all, but RatWikians do not actually research these things, they just react, knee-jerk, like any stupid non-skeptics.

It worked. His goal was to delete certain admissions, particularly by his brother Oliver, and to attack an enemy (Wyatt) but to make this not so visible, he needed to bury them in a flurry of activity. Many of his actions were reversed, but certainly not all. The Smith brothers have learned how to manipulate the community, they know how people will respond to confusion, and the tactic works. It even works on Wikipedia to a degree.

And then Arcticos corrected the spelling error that Jean had brought back in by reverting.

Dysklyver removed the protection with (the vandals interested in this page are sysops already)

To be true, this statement defines Smith brother accounts as vandals. There was no recent vandalism, but there had been in the past, and it was impersonation accounts by the Smith, who were sysops. (The obvious vandals were not sysop accounts, of course, but it is totally obvious to anyone who studies this who it is who would have the interest and inclination, and sometimes there is timing evidence.

In this case, Dysklyver unprotects the article. Now what would Abd want? Let me ask him. I got a quick answer: I’d want the article unprotected so anyone (including me) could correct it, or at least assert an edit with sources or evidence. But there is someone who wants it protected, who wrote it (or his brother wrote it with a few additions by him). This is not Mikemikev and it is not Abd. It is Darryl Smith, with a smaller possibility of it being Oliver. It is much more difficult to identify transient impersonation socks. It happened on Wikipedia (because I was able to request and obtain  steward checkuser). This was Darryl, then. Oliver disclaimed knowledge, and I found that believable. (But he was involved, see anglo-pyramidologist/oliver-d-smith-evidence/oliver-and-the-wikiversity-affair/

So, as completely predictable, two impersonation socks show up to vandalize the article. They are Lomax is back and Coldfusions. Predictably (within the narrow world of RatWiki normal practice), Bongolian semi-protected.

And then Arcticos full-protected (sysop required). better protection since Lomax is creating fake accounts pretending to be someone else and getting autopatrolled.

(There was only one account about which this could have been claimed, and only one edit arguable. And what is a “fake account”?)

But what is he protecting? Content that his brother created originally, and maintained with many accounts, vandalized with other accounts of his, and that has not been edited by Abd or anyone reasonably resembling Abd (in actual edits) since one edit allowed to stand in 2017. The “vandalism” has all been impersonation accounts, designed to look like Abd to someone who doesn’t actually know how he works. “Creating fake accounts?” What is a “fake account”. The fake accounts here would be the Lomax impersonations, probably Arcticos’ brother.

This is how RatWiki has worked for many years. Make some positive edits, you get autopatrol and can edit what is semiprotected. So for the kind of drive-by vandalism done by the impersonation socks, semiprotection is adequate. An autopatrolled account has “paid for” the possible disruption by making some good edits. If one becomes autopatrolled, any sysop can still remove that right. If a troll gets an account, or a banned user, it’s trivial to stop destructive editing. Indeed, if someone becomes a sysop, still, any sysop can remove it and, as well, block the user. This was remarkable, though:

02:44, 4 May 2018 Bongolian (talk | contribs | block) changed group membership for Abd from (none) to sysoprevoke (presumptive hacking in addition to everything else)

What was the basis for presuming hacking? It would be that Debunking spiritualism (clearly DS, Darryl Smith) went on a sysop action spree, going after pages his brother had edited to reveal that, indeed, he was the brother, and the like, going after at least one Smith enemy (Wyatt), creating a massive log that most RW user will look at and say “maybe tomorrow,” and then he claimed he had been hacked, but any sane hacker would have changed the password, not left it so that he could retire.

Bongolian got classified before this as an “enabler.” That was translated by the Smiths into “accuses Bongolian of being [fill in the name of alleged Smith sock].

Had I hacked the account, how would sysoprevoke have any effect on that? RatWiki pretends that being desysopped and blocked are “promotions,” and they are actually correct (I used to argue that about Wikipedia), but they don’t really believe it, because they use rights management to punish.

The hacking story was a way to encourage the community to not look at the whole sequence of edits, which were quite in line with a Smith agenda, I covered this in detail, but the only RatWiki editors who read this blog appear to be the Smith brothers. And, now, maybe Dysklyver. (And also, now, EK).

The Smith brothers freely spend sysop accounts for some short-term purpose, knowing that they can get another quickly. I have followed hundreds of these accounts. The longer-term accounts, with more than a handful of edits, often retire, which is, of course, a lie. They have “retired” at least dozens of times. Oliver has gone onto Encyclopedia Dramatica and claimed he wasn’t editing RationalWiki any more — so please delete his article — but he never stops, he just creates new accounts. He also wrote the same to me by email, published here.

Now, Oliver is literally insane. Darryl does not appear to be so, just massively vicious and unethical. John66 is his current relatively open account, and this is quite clear. So we see this on Talk:Abd ul-Rahman Lomax:

First something older I never commented on, I think:

Who is this guy?

Noticed this guy mentioned my name on his blog saying I’m someone I’m not. What a nutcase. Octo (talk) 20:36, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

He is lying and it later became undeniable. Unless [very complicated and highly unlikely explanation]. Octo knows exactly who I am and has had direct email communication with me. The article was, however, created by his brother Darryl. Octo is definitely Oliver, there are huge red flags, long-term traits, that Oliver-watchers recognize and sometimes talk about. More than one is suing him.

@Octo, he was a long-time editor here who did actually make some good edits. He’s a bit nutso about cold fusion, hence the title of his blog. He was permabanned earlier this year for doxing people, something he’s continued to do on his own blog. You can read about some of his antics on his talk page:[1] Bongolian (talk) 20:54, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I am published under peer review on cold fusion and, having a physics background, developed a reputation with the involved scientists after being banned on Wikipedia on the topic (at that point I had no strong opinion on cold fusion, I was just confronting admin abuse and a article that had become quite imbalanced, with the strongest sources being excluded systematically, and weaker, older sources being kept. Real science changes!)

RationalWiki and Wikipedia both remain smugly unaware of the level of serious research that is ongoing. Yearly funding may exceed $50 million in some years. That’s five percent of the hot fusion budget, and cold fusion has actually shown stronger results, but is not understood, and controlling what is not understood is difficult. Cold fusion is not known to violate any laws of physics, the idea that it does arose by assuming it was a particular reaction which it probably is not.

That reaction is very unlikely, my opinion. An unknown reaction, which this was called from the start, cannot be analyzed theoretically, other than by very general principles, and there are known examples that show that at least one kind of “cold fusion” is possible, so . . . why is what is testable (and this is) called pseudoscience on RatWiki? In fact, the RatWiki article acknowledges there is real science involved, but the Smiths, writing my article, paid no attention to that.

I did not actually doxx until indef blocked. Long story, and if someone wants to know, ask! It was all, as I came later to recognize, a Smith brother setup, they have done it to many people. And if you mention it on RatWiki, you will be quickly blocked. Even if you are a sysop, you will be “promoted.” [Dysklyver later totally smashed this restriction.]

Bongolian has seen enough, one would think, but maybe he is really a blockhead. His RatWiki editing patterns show that he treats it like a full-time job (He is obviously not a Smith brother, I showed that conclusively.) (Later, Bongolian clearly accepted Dysklyver’s conclusions.)

As I find below, Dysklyver broke the mold, without actually mentioning Oliver and Darryl Smith.

He seems to be saying there is one person who owns about 1000 accounts here, including mine. I know this not to be true, at least for mine. It also seems unlikely one person owns that many; his blog also presents zero evidence.Octo (talk) 21:12, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

But I have not said that. One of the habits of Oliver is straw-manning, claiming that someone has said something that they did not. His peculiar genius is choosing claims that if someone quickly looks for confirmation, they may find it! In fact, however, I have identified, on all wikis, many hundreds of identified accounts, and list them always with contribution links. Some of the lists, especially the older ones, did not discriminate between Oliver and Darryl. I have identified nowhere near a thousand accounts as belonging to Oliver.

They have been running this con since roughly 2011, see the Wikipedia SPI case archive. (which only shows a fraction of their accounts.) But he is referring to RatWiki, let’s say that started in 2012. That’s seven years, about 2500 days. So one account every couple of days. What, exactly, is “unlikely” about that? But, in fact, it’s two persons, and I’ve seen a half-dozen trollsocks show up in a day. So I don’t know what the number is, but I will eventually compile a page on it, probably.

On Wikipedia, they often say, when blocking a sock, “See contributions.” Obviously that takes some knowledge. But a fanatic will say “no evidence,” even when there is plenty. Oliver socks have easily identifiable characteristics, and anyone who actually studies the record can see them. I can see a major one on this page, copied. Oliver tends to edit sporadically, and I am accumulating long-term review of his accounts and edits. For Oliver, then, edit timing is not so important, but he also edits in other places and I am collecting that data. Edit timing is very interesting with Darryl, see below.

There are many transient trolling or impersonation socks, often making only one edit, and often several of these appear at around the same time. There are two examples above. Some of these make no edits at all, the user name is the message. To make a thousand accounts, then, over, say, seven years, which is 2500 day, is one every 2.5 days. To create a trolling or impersonation account takes a few minutes at most. What’s difficult? Further, there are two people involved. Oliver is not the source of most of the accounts, probably, but at one point he did claim responsibility. My conclusion was that his brother was pissed off that he had revealed so much, so he was trying to make amends. He and his brother lie routinely. Nothing from them can be fully trusted, and even when it can be verified, this must be done with caution, checking to see if sources have been cherry-picked, quoted out of context, etc.

He’s made unsupported/unsupportable claims like that before as I recall. It sounds rather paranoid. Bongolian (talk) 22:22, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

It sounds paranoid because, I suspect, Bongolian has never actually checked. What “unsupported claims”? I actually have long been accused of writing too much, and the reason is that I provide evidence. There is actually, for communication efficiency, too much support. I did not come to the conclusion of hundreds of accounts first and then look for evidence. It was the other way around, I started collecting lists of accounts, staring with the massive trove on Wikipedia. Then when I identified an account on RationalWiki by a connection found on Commons, I started looking at the articles edited by this person and what happened when they stopped editing, and patterns appeared. I have still not completed this work, it is massive: these are two editors who have been very active for seven years. My impression at the moment, without checking the databases, is that over 30,000 edits are involved.

Where there are accounts with many edits, edit timing correlations start to shine. I did one study where I compared the edit timings of Bongolian with Darryl Smith socks. It is trivial to see that they are distinct. Bongolian, I concluded, edits from a particular time zone, and with regular habits. The Smiths edit from the U.K., and have irregular habits, there are days where they, especially Darryl, edit into the early hours, and, if one does not look at a sufficiently expanded time scale, it looks like they edit at all times and must be more than one person. However, what can be seen by a closer look is that if they edit late into the night, they may not edit the next day, or not until late.

He looks at article edit histories and for some odd reason thinks only one person can edit an article.Octo (talk) 22:29, 29 August 2018 (UTC)\

Of course I don’t think that. With some articles, it is almost entirely one person. With others, only a few edits are Smith socks. And, remember, there are two Smiths. They mostly do not overlap (i.e., edit the same article) but there are exceptions. On Wikipedia, they would be, and often are, whacked quickly. But they have learned how to escape notice for extended periods of time, and it is not uncommon for them to “retire” before being found, and after the checkuser window, it’s impossible to tell. They also use TOR nodes and open proxies to confuse checkuser, but they do make mistakes, and it only takes one to take down a sock.

Bottom line, Octo was lying to the RatWiki community, and why? Here, Aeschylus, very clearly Oliver Smith, the person being sued for defamation, admits to creating articles that were created by Octo.

I had identified Octo as Oliver by tracking prior accounts suspected or known to be Oliver, and Octo had continued their agenda and showed many signs of being the same person. When I would see something that looked like Oliver, I would look at contributions and check for “collisions,” coincident articles. This is not at all an assumption that everyone editing an article is a Smith brother. I’m familiar with RatWiki regulars, and I looked at many less-familiar accounts that might be a Smith brother and concluded that they were probably not. There is more that I am not revealing, but what I’ve described is basic sock hunting. Remember, I was very active on Wikipedia, and was a Wikiversity administrator, and was very globally active, studying global bans (the routine ones issued by stewards, 5000 in a three month study period, almost all of them legitimate, mostly spammers, but a handful that were questionable, maybe five. All of them by one steward with only 70 actions in that period. I had not reported the results, I had made no accusations when a friend of that steward suppressed the entire study for violating privacy. (There were stewards and global sysops interested and supporting the study.) It was all compiled from public logs and did not violate privacy! But stewards have little practical supervision, and if one becomes abusive (and this one had), the stewards still circle the wagons, just like admins on Wikipedia and other wikis.

And hardly anyone cares. Too much trouble. The problem is not abusive administrators and stewards, the problem is the community!

Tracking socks was not my long-term interest, but I had done it on a few occasions. Here, when I was strongly attacked and threatened for some very simple documentation of an LTA (not doxxing), I knew I was onto something. I had never seen anything quite like it before.

And then, on the same page, but more recently:

Lomax claims I’m John66, lol

There are many crazy but entertaining ramblings and conspiracy theories on his blog. For some reason he claims I own the sysop John66, someone that blatantly isn’t me I have zero knowledge of their edits.Arcticos (talk) 04:28, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

I have never heard of this Lomax person before, not sure why he has confused me with someone else. My edits on this website are only on fad diets and cholesterol quackery, I have never written about cold fusion. I noticed Lomax is a cholesterol denialist, perhaps that it why he targeted me. John66 (talk) 04:46, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

This is Oliver (Arcticos) talking to Darryl (John66). He did not ping “John,” But John shows up in less than 20 minutes. Why? Oliver would know that his brother Darryl has the article watchlisted (and I assume that these brothers copy their watchlists to new accounts, when those become active accounts), so he would not need to ping him. Darryl created that article as revenge for documenting his impersonation socks on Wikipedia, Wikiversity, and, later, Meta.

This is ironic, actually. Oliver, with one of his hundreds of Encyclopedia Dramatica socks, which I had not been watching, dropped a note on my talk page that he was going to tell the followers of Malcolm Kendrick that I was Skeptic from Britain. Who? I had no idea who this was, so I looked. Oliver later claimed he was just joking, and of course he was. It’s called “trolling,” but it was quite stupid. He knew that SfB was his brother, and admitted it in a conversation with MichaeldSuarez that MDS published.

(He calls me the King of the Trolls, but trolling is most of what he does, and he is actually famous for it, on the internet.)

So I looked at Skeptic from Britain, a Wikipedia account that had then gone through two name changes and retired, claiming he had been outed on the internet. This was another example of where a Smith brother develops a brilliant scheme to attack an enemy. Setting aside Oliver’s trolling on Encyclopedia Dramatica, which nobody was paying attention to but me and MDS, there was only one person being accused, by real name, of being SfB. He was innocent, he had criticized SfB on Wikipedia. So I dove in and cleared his name, and was able to see, quite clearly, who SfB was. It was Darryl, moving just slightly out of prior interests, but not far. Darryl was heading for some sanctions, I suspect, and so went out in a blaze of glory, so to speak, not quite getting to the point of being blocked, and because the field of interest had shifted a bit, nobody recognized an Anglo Pyramidologist sock.

I created a spreadsheet with edit timings the known Darryl accounts and Skeptic from Britain. SfB had been prolific, which makes this kind of study easier. SfB had become most controversial with an AfD on Malcolm Kendrick. There was not enough reliable source on Kendrick for an article, but SfB massively insulted Kendrick in the AfD, calling him a quack, as I recall. Kendrick is a very popular author with his followers (I had never heard of him before). This created a huge flap on blogs and on Twitter, Jimbo Wales got involved, etc., and various obvious Darryl socks had appeared in those discussions.

And then I noticed John66. That account was created in November 2018 and began articles on the same field as SfB was working on, and an article on Kendrick was started. I added those edits into the spreadsheet and they fit like a glove. You can see where the focus of the sock master shifts from one account to another by edit delays. Then John66 went quiet, as SfB and the successor account became very active. And then, after SfB retired, John66 started up with the same interests, same names of articles, etc., very substantial overlap, now on RatWiki. So I simply added John66 to the list of suspected socks. I consider it strong (though evidence for Oliver socks is truly overwelming. For John66, maybe 99%). I have many more socks to add to the database now from various sources. It takes time and I have other stuff to do.

Bottom line: Oliver was lying, I do not and did not claim that he owns John66, and I have never thought that. His brother Darryl owns the account. And Darryl was lying as well. He knows who I am, he wrote that article, and they are putting on this show for the community.

Other accounts appearing:

Mr_Mark suspected Darryl, but looked closer, concluded not.

Muslim_guy blocked by Dysklyver (Ban evasion). Likely Darryl, who has used names like this before. Kirkegaard is not WP “banned.” He is ArbCom blocked, my guess is that someone informed them of the lawsuit and they decided to block until resolved. SOP. Mikemikev would  not have written this or this. Arcticos responded — and remember that Oliver is banned from Wikipedia! But he has friends!

Herman_Rose (deleted edits, at least one archived.) probably Mikemikev, my opinion. Blocked by John66. John66 also full protected Talk:Emil Kirkegaard.  John66’s claims of no knowledge are BS. He is revealing his affiliations. Dysklyver reduced to semiprotection (correctly by standard procedures).

02:09, 26 February 2019 Dysklyver blocked ODS with an expiration time of π×infinity! (autoblock disabled, cannot edit own talk page) (LANCB: Abandoned account, user has returned under a different username.) Dysklyver clearly knows what is going on. I have not seen this before from a RatWiki sysop. If they know, they conceal it. ODS is, of course, Oliver D. Smith. He has many other “retired” accounts, as does his brother.

Ostwelt_Spangler

The sequence here is amazing. I may create a page on this one. Oliver jumped the shark over this. Clever, that Mikemikev, if this is Mikemikev. Create a non-disruptive account that actually addresses an issue of importance, and watch Oliver come completely unglued. The block log is astonishing. If I had done anything like what Oliver did in this sequence, I’d have been cooped and toast Toot Sweet! It is hilarious to see a serial defamer, long-term intense harasser of anyone who gets in his way, complain about Mikemikev. I’m not defending MMV. He’s pretty intense. But Oliver is utterly insane and clearly believes he is in charge on RationalWiki. Dysklyver is up to something. This conversation on User talk:Articos, NekoDysk is Dysklyver:

Invitation

Hi, if you aren’t too busy I have some things I would like to discuss which are best discussed in private, regarding your editing here. The IrrationalWiki cabal discord would be a good place, or if you are more stone age you could email me. I would email you, but you don’t seem to have enabled that option. kthx — NekoDysk 01:33, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

I’ve got your email address from Lomax’s blog who creepily lists all your personal information, so I’ll email you. Note that once Lomax gets your personal details he starts creating fake/impersonator accounts, so watch out. Mikemikev does same thing; it’s an old troll tactic.Arcticos (talk) 02:08, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. — NekoDysk 02:11, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

I have never created a single impersonation account. What Oliver is describing is what his brother does, and maybe Mikemikev does. I am certain about Darryl’s impersonations, which are designed to cause harm to the target, and which often have. (Impersonation socks are designed to create an impression that a person is disruptive. They are especially used against users who have been blocked. An example would be the accounts created above, using my name and the name of my major field. An impersonation sock used my street address, telegraphing that they knew it. (I have never hidden, I have a low-cost nonprofit corporation, and so a public address. I also just filed a lawsuit and one can easily get my address and phone number from it.)

The information about Dysklyver comes from what he published on-wiki. These pages are studies, they collect information. When I posted that information, I informed Dysklyver that it would be removed on request. He has not requested it, and actually gave me more information. Oliver could have obtained the information directly but turns everything into an opportunity to claim Evil Abd.

Dysklyver knows who Arcticos is. I have my suspicions about what he’s about. At this point, I’ll simply say that he is interesting and continue this study.

On February 26, Oliver had gone way overboard, with deleting the page on Defamation that Dysklyver had encouraged and had edited. That could have been an interesting article, the source that Spengler pointed to was quite good.  Oliver was wheel-warring with a series of sysops.

After the conversation above, Arcticos retired and Dysklyver removed sysop.

John66 (Darryl Smith) continues editing.

Desert Heat, see this edit, is definitely Oliver again. Small possibility it is Mikemikev. More likely, Darryl has been stirring the pot on blogs about cholesterol and statin denialism, links to RatWiki articles,  and someone came in from that and used Dinocrisis, not knowing about DinoCrisis (an old and well-known Darryl account). Dinocrisis was blocked and encouraged to register a new account name, and it looks like the choice was Boglin Collector, which is hilarious. I.e., that would definitely be a Smith impersonation, only Oliver, if I have the memes right. Is this Mikemikev? And so what?

Then BoglinCollector (no space) was created for no apparent reason, this appears to be Mikemikev or an impersonator.

Desert Heat also went after Liberosaurus Rex as Mikemikev, and then got whacked by the Edit Filter. CircularReasoning put Oliver’s argument in collapse. Ah, the indignity! Do they know who he is? Surely if they did, they would be quivering in their boots, or socks as the case may be.

No problem, he simply took up as Tremors.

Liberosaurus Rex was blocked, and took up as Defemation Rex. It’s easy to think this is Mikemikev, but I’m suspecting it is someone from the huge HFLC diet community that John66 has been attacking so intensely. Some of them might use the phrase “cultural Marxist.” He is taking on people with resources, this may not turn out well for him. Much more dangerous than what Oliver did. Yes, looking, this is not Mikemikev at all. Those people are not wiki-savvy.

Oranges Oliver. edits re mikemikev, complains about the edit filter. Blocked as troll.

Air_Force_One about mikemikev, this is Oliver. Of course, any of these could be mikemikev attacking himself, but I don’t think so. Oliver really is paranoid, insane.

Mini_boglins classic Oliver name, impersonation or Oliver? If so, poking Dysklyver. Creating many socks was Oliver’s behavior on Encyclopedia Dramatica. Several a day.

Brachiosaurus is obviously Liberosaurus Rex. David Gerard  blocks: (Ban evasion: Mikemikev’s latest weird kick) Maybe, but much more likely a new user refusing to shut up. Gerard has no idea what a hornet’s next Darryl (John66) has stirred up off-wiki.

This is very odd. Bongolian asks Dysklyver what he thinks about Liberosaurus Rex. Dyskyver reveals a great deal. It’s a bit confused, but the Smiths create massive confusion, and Dysklyver’s analysis is better than any I have ever seen from a RatWiki sysop. I only got involved quite recently. Oliver (as Air Force One) says he has never impersonated, and that might be true. I got involved because I came across impersonation socking to defame, confronted it, and then collected information about the issues and was heavily attacked and threatened, and that was all Darryl Smith (now John66, he lies extensively in this conversation). At that point I knew nothing about the “Smith brothers.” For example, I don’t claim he is paid. I claim that he once bragged he was paid, and his brother claimed he was paid, and then his brother claimed he had lied, and that it was all him, and that he had lied to a named person, who would be the contact to an organization that might pay. I report what I witness, which is what I have seen and what I have been told (the latter is attributed, I do not state as fact what I have merely been told). I do not know if what I have been told is the truth, and especially not if it comes from Oliver, who is literally insane.

Dysklyver claims to be aware of “85+ existing accounts.” Setting aside transient trolling and impersonation accounts, I think I could come up with more than that as names. The Smiths have been doing this for years, and anyone who pointed it out was whacked quickly. GethN7, the RatWiki Discord moderator, at one point confronted the Smiths, but eventually gave up, realizing that this was very, very dangerous. Dysklyver may be aware of accounts I have not yet noticed. Darryl, in particular, may partition accounts carefully, and he claimed that he was doing that on Wikipedia. I know more than I’m willing to say at this time. As accounts continue to edit, evidence continues to accumulate and it is actually possible to do much more than guess. Does the RationalMedia Foundation want this mess? David Gerard has clearly been supporting it. What I see is that Dysklyver realizes how difficult the situation is. The whole community has been warped by Smith activity since 2012.

Dysklyver blocked 6 accounts in one session

Continuing:

1972 links to docket for the suit I just filed. Not me! I was not ready to announce it, but obviously someone found it, someone who regularly Googles my name, now, who could that be? Blocked for “legal threat,” by Dysklyver, the weirdest thing I’ve seen him do. I don’t see any threats. RationalWiki is weird. Also 1972 created a page on Abd v. Wikimedia Foundation (deleted), which was just a link to the docket.

What could be the threat? Well, the suit includes Does 1-9, and I suppose someone could think that this was threatening users of RationalWiki. I suppose it could happen, but I doubt that it was 1972’s intention to threaten. I have no idea who that is, other than suspecting a Smith brother, because they are the ones who would be stalking me.

Reviewed to 00:42, 5 March 2019

April 2019

The events of the last two weeks have been amazing. Oliver Smith is banned on RatWiki, and now, in particular, Dysklyver is going back and blocking old accounts with familiar names to any Smith watcher. This is little short of astonishing. Previously, the official RatWiki line was that the RationalWiki Smith brothers conspiracy theory was complete bullocks. That came unravelled when Oliver was sued in real life and asked for his articles to be deleted. What he did not do was admit how he had laced them with deceptive “facts.” He did not admit that he had created them to harass, and so the Rats were defiant. They were not to be intimated by legal threats! (But they had not been threatened, that was a Smith story backed up by impersonation socking). Anyway, the blocks:

Why have I bolded DS? Because that was not Oliver, it was Darryl Smith. This account went nuts in early May 2018 with a series of deletions and blocks and wild behavior, and then claimed he had been hacked, and it was then believed that this was by me, and so Bongolian added me to sysoprevoke. But that “hacked” story was all a smokescreen to cover up several blocks and the hiding of various edits where Oliver had revealed that DS was his brother.

Others blocked earlier without being identified as socks of a specific user (and notice that Dysklyver does not specifically say “Oliver” in the block log.)

And Oxyaena blocked as Smith:

A note about impersonation socks.

It is not always possible to distinguish between an impersonation sock and the impersonation target, nor to know with certainty who the impersonator is; however there are patterns that can be recognized.

Any disruptive or trolling account that flagrantly displays identity can be properly suspected of being an impersonation, if an apparent purpose could be to attract action against the possible impersonation target (i.e., against other accounts).

Long-term accounts are rarely impersonators, it is too much work and they are too easily exposed. There are accounts that I know for certain were impersonators, because I was impersonated. That, by itself, does not prove who the impersonator was, but when combined with a long-term agenda of revenge and harassment, beginning before the involvement of any possible “impersonation impersonator,” my own identification becomes clear as to the strong preponderance of evidence, and I have been able to adduce technical evidence on occasion.

 

12 thoughts on “Dysklyver”

  1. Update with news of blocks of a long series of Oliver socks on RationalWiki.

    I suspect that the massive socking and attack on Dysklyver (and me) on Reddit may have had an effect. (I am organizing material on that Sock Avalanche. It has generated much of interest.)

    Darryl Smith *may* have been lying low, or not. I suspect that most of the Reddit socking was him, not Oliver. With patience, much is revealed, but the best reward of patience is patience.

  2. I noticed Lomax v. WikiMedia Foundation, Inc. et al

    I am not registered for PACER, and the difficulty of getting registered without a US address is rather prohibitive. However I am very interested in the case. So I thought I would ask to see if you could send me some details.

    I will also follow with interest to see how the WMF fares on their home turf of US jurisdiction, given how much they screwed up their last case in Germany. (Waibel v Wikimedia).

    1. You are, to use the RatWiki technical term, fucking brilliant. I do have a PACER account and will also be able, I think, as a plaintiff, to access all documents. I have not researched this yet. I will be setting up a case page as I did with Rossi v. Darden. I will immediately email you the complaint, from my copy. The defendant has not yet been served, I should be handling that tomorrow, sending them a waiver of service form.

      You can be sure I read that German case, and many others, before filing. For some time, the WMF has deviated from their original strong protection, and I was (long before being globally banned) warning them about the dangers. They are, I’m afraid, rather obtuse. We will see if they actually talk to me, which they refused to do, which is an open invitation to get sued. Refuse to talk to someone with a complaint? Brilliant!

      With global ban targets, they do that star chamber process routinely, and have for some years now. I know many globally banned individuals. There is never a warning, there is no cease-and-desist, and explicitly they say there is no appeal. Now, they may have the right to globally ban anyone, say because they don’t like their looks, or they have the Wrong Opinion on the Origin of Macaroni Noodles, but do they have the right to claim — or imply, and defamation can be through implication — that the person violated their terms of service?

      It is quite obvious that this ban resulted from private complaints, probably misleading at best, and I have a pretty good idea of who complained, but I needed to keep this filing simple, it can be amended later to add named defendants.

      I can anticipate some of the WMF arguments, they will move for dismissal based on this or that. We will see. I have not yet publicized this, so how did you know to look? Inquiring minds want to know.

      Thanks for commenting. If you want more details, respond to my email with the complaint copy.

  3. See http://coldfusioncommunity.net/rationalwiki/anglo-pyramidologist/ods/#On-and-on for information about a troll comment dropped here. The Smiths are true trolls, tirelessly active poking enemies, insulting them, attempting to create outraged response. They are claiming I’ve been blocked many times for “trolling.”

    Actually, I have rarely been blocked for trolling, as such, and never clearly banned for it, and I have rarely trolled at all. When I have, there are a handful of occasions, it was indeed to provoke someone into acting rashly, and it has been effective.

    I trolled Oliver Smith once on RationalWiki. As expected, he came unglued and revealed information that was useful.

    There was a very popular admin on Wikipedia, famously arrogant and willing to violate conflict of interest rules, and he’d been getting away with it for years, and I saw other admins give up in disgust. The guy was causing Wikipedia to bleed administrators, not to mention many users alienated, long-term sock masters created, etc, because of his provocations. So, long story short, he declared a ban of me from Cold fusion. He had no right to do that, but he was an admin, so . . . pending resolution, I did not edit Cold fusion. Instead, I filed an Arbitration case. His friends piled in and it looked pretty bad (when two dozen editors show up on some point, it can look like OMG! Consensus! But two dozen editors is actually a very small number, and Wikipedia is structured in such a way that a minority faction can easily pull it off, motivated enough. And they were, by this time, highly motivated. It does not require off-wiki coordination. If, in fact, decisions were made as guidelines suggest, based on evidence and arguments, rather than numbers of commenters, it wouldn’t matter so much, but numbers do count, in more than one way. If you have a faction, you can basically provoke edit wars and win them. it’s rare that anyone can pull of enforcement against a faction. I saw a highly regarded functionary file an ArbComm case against the same faction that tangled with me. He prevailed, but the result was little more than a slap on the wrist, maybe they lost one admin, there was no real change in how the faction operated, and it continued to grow in power.

    In any case, he claimed that the ban was still in effect, and if I doubted that, I could test it and find out. Of course, not being a Total Brain-Dead Idiot, I saw the opportunity. So I declared that I considered the ban a nullity, of no effect, and that I was no longer committed to following it. Nobody said boo! even though this was on an ArbComm talk page. So, next day, someone asked a simple question on Talk:Cold fusion, and I answered it with a link to where the question had already been answered. Nothing offensive in the least. And then I went to bed. In the morning, when I looked, all hell had broken loose. I had been blocked by him, I had been unblocked by an arbitrator, and they were considering emergency desysop. They didn’t do that, but the final decision removed his tools. By letting myself be blocked, I was the canary that demonstrated convincingly and efficiently that the air around this guy was toxic. It was more efficient than weeks of compiling evidence and arguments for the case, which was mostly useless anyway, I’m not convinced they were read.

    I never thought it was that important that I personally edit Wikipedia.

    1. I decided to approve this comment after letting it sit for several weeks, to show the kind of trolling that arises when the Smith brothers are involved. Only a Smith would have written this. He is not a “Chinese Communist,” and the email address used here begins with “chinesedude,” a Smith sock on The Encyclopedia Dramatica forum used “Asian dude.”
      1. Kirkegaard is not banned from Wikipedia. He is Arbcom-blocked, reason not disclosed. “LOL” is trolling, as is “RACIST BOYFRIEND.”
      2. Smith has a history of canvassing users to complain to the WMF or to other administrative bodies. They sometimes act without notice to the user — or explanation. However, as an ArbCom block, the user may appeal to the Committee. Email has not been shut off, so this is definitely not a ban. It is a measure taken where there are privacy or legal issues, to avoid possible harm. It is like an injunction issued by a court without trial, based on allegations, like a restraining order. It may then be appealed, and I do not know if Kirkegaard has communicated with the Committee.
      3. Racist edits would not be a normal cause for an ArbCom action like this, even if they were racist. Kirkegaard is not clearly racist. He may be racialist, see the Wikipedia article for the difference. Those who claim there is no difference are ignorant about the diversity of human opinions and stands. Racism depends on racialism, but not all racialism is racist.(I also disagree with racialism, but treating it as racism perpetuates conflict, actually retarding progress.)
      4. The WMF would be unlikely to refer complaints to ArbCom, unless it decided to suggest this action to reduce disruption. Something is definitely going on.There may be legal issues. Oliver Smith is being sued, and Kirkegaard may be involved.
      5. Private complaints to the WMF and ArbComm may be subpoenaed, my opinion, if an action is filed for defamation. That is conceivable, not that I would recommend it in this case. ArbCom has not defamed Kirkegaard, but others may have.
      6. Why am I supporting (alleged) racists? Again, classic trolling. A single alleged incident is asserted as if fact, and claimed to be a pattern. As it happens, Smith has lied about and defamed many people, and some of them are racialist or racist. I consider the worst enemy of humanity to be, not racism, but hatred, a willingness to lie about others “for the cause,” a willingness to seek to smear others with differing opinions, as essentially evil human beings, not worthy of communication, to be silenced and censored. Racism is in retreat. Fascism grows when people do not defend others from lies and oppression, because the others are different. Even liars should not be attacked with lies.
      When I was young, Racism was open and unashamed, there has been a vast shift, even though, certainly, racism is far from dead. To answer the question, I am supporting people because they are human and do not deserve to be lied about, which is standard Smith behavior.
      7. I cannot tell if the ArbCom action was correct, or not, but procedurally, if they perceived a risk from inaction, and a risk of harm if they openly discussed the affair, they acted correctly by issuing a block for no disclosed reason, and if they actually do allow appeal, this is correct. An ArbCom block is far less aggressive and disruptive than a global lock, and in this case, the user retains email access (and others can email him, if he has email enabled, and he can do so, or disable it if he wishes.
      8. Deleet’s last edit voted for indef block. for MjolnirPants.
      9. MjolnirPants would be a classic Smith username. He was highly combative, and was short-blocked for a time. He ended up blanking his user page, using the account, MPants_at_work. The edit was suppressed (oversighted so that even admins cannot see it), and both accounts were indef blocked as an “oversight block.” This was the edit summary for that edit: Replaced content with ‘I do not have the patience to deal with POV pushers, the ranks of whom are filled with more and more fucking nazis damn near every time I log in, and then be…’
      10. While that looks like Darryl Smith when he gets frustrated (as in the last edits of RW Debunking spiritualism), I have not seen enough evidence to accuse MP of being a Smith brother. But how would the troll here know what MP did? He might not, these trolls routinely lie, and attempt to create attacks by one person on another. The IP was a Tor node.

      The block was added to the RatWiki article, on Kirkegaard, 26 February 2019, by Arcticos (Oliver obvious),

      Kirkegaard is permanently blocked from editing [[Wikipedia]].https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User%3ADeleet

      Within a few days,and after Dysklyver had a private conversation with him, Arcticos “retired” (Smith does this frequently, then simply starts up new accounts), and Dysklyver removed his sysop tools, with the comment, LANCB / diallos martesen falswas LANCB is “leaving and never coming back,” and the phrase is Cornish, meaning something like (incapable; incompetent)(possibly)(cheater; fraud; impostor).

      Smith knows that most readers will not understand the difference between an indef block and a permanent block. There actually is no such thing on Wikipedia as “permanent,” but there are blocks that are actually the result of bans, and some bans are declared as permanent, but even they can be appealed and overturned, at least in theory. Smiths’ goal is always to use facts to make the target look as bad as possible, and “permanent” sounds drastic, and, indeed, it would be. But that is an ArbCom block, and is explicitly appealable, and talk page access and email were not blocked. This is not what is done if the intention is a permanent block or ban. ArbCom decided there was some hazard, and that describing it could be problematic, so they did a private block like that, perhaps pending investigation or discussion. It cannot be used to create any assumptions about the behavior of the user, it could even be to protect the user, under some conditions.

      1. Well that comment there by not-really-Chinese-Communist guy is fairly typical of the crap I get sent from random “burner” email accounts. But idk how much of it is Smith v/v Uncyclopedians angry for their Wikia termination and other Nazis who hate me for other reasons. However, Mikemikev did send me a really very polite email saying it wasn’t him.

        MjolnirPants is highly unlikely to be Smith in my opinion, but they are someone I have written about and interacted with to some extent in the past. They are an American, and were part of the Bishonen clique/Trump cabal.

        The oversighted content and MjolnirPants were detailed on Wikipediocracy, but that forum may have just died, since it shows as suspended by their host. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ MjolnirPants was doubling down on some pretty drastic personal attacks at that point, but I can’t remember exactly what he said.

        The MjolnirPants thing is pretty recent, so I expect it was just dragged in to confuse matters, rather like that numbnut on RationalWiki claiming John66 and Bongolian are the same person despite the fact there is a subpage here somewhere showing in detail why that isn’t true.

        1. Thanks. I do urge you to be careful about communications about the Smiths. You are welcome to email me.

          When someone appears to them as an enemy (and anyone who shows they don’t buy the lies is an “enemy,” but especially if they write about it), they may amp up the harassment, and occasionally, they enroll others in that. They have been skillful at getting administrators to block their enemies, and domain hosts to shut domains down. They do harass families by email, and the mother of the Kiwi Farms owner lost her job as a result of “private complaints,” and Oliver’s answer to that was “I didn’t ask for her to be fired.” In other words, he acknowledged emailing her employer. Oliver is not terribly swift, except that he is persistent and dangerous, or, perhaps more accurately, insane. Few people have encountered someone like him and his brother. (His brother does not so readily incriminate himself.)

          I just know that there are patterns of harassment including impersonation socking, that appear when Smith is involved. That does not prove that all of it is them. But by the duck test . . . .

          The Smiths claim I am “defending” racists, meaning Mikemikev. But I have only pointed out evidence that he is not the owner of a series of obvious impersonation socks. He is probably racist, but racism is actually quite common, though, of late, most racists deny it. Others are proud of it. And none of that makes them worthy of excommunication from the human community. Virulent “anti-racism,” in my opinion, retards moving beyond it, by alienating racists, who simply go underground.

          It’s tricky: toxic racism is intolerable, particularly when it affects public policy, but extreme knee-jerk hatred of racism deters the open communication that can heal it.

          Anyway, Mikemikev, I wrote, has never lied to me. He is not going to disclose to me real accounts, and I don’t ask him, but where it was important, he did deny a few, basically confirming what I already strongly suspected. Those accounts pursue a standard Smith agenda, to make his targets look as bad as possible. You can see how the Smiths use that in the 2nd aborted cooping of on RatWiki, I describe it at length. The idea that I was threatening RatWiki with lawsuit was grossly exaggerated, and that meme was spread by impersonation socks, targeting individual RatWiki users (there were many more socks than documented on that page). (If I were going to “threaten” to sue the RWF, it would be by registered letter, not anonymous socks.) Threat by sock is one of the Smith tactics, in fact. I was threatened with retaliation by Darryl, as a sock, and then the retaliation appeared in many forms, including the RW article creation

          I agree that MjolnirPants is not likely a Smith, but, as I wrote, there are a few evidences. Darryl claimed, years ago, to have many Wikipedia accounts, and he could easily create long-term sleepers and “good hand” accounts. As I wrote however, I do not have any clear evidence and would not accuse MJP. Suspicion is not accusation.

          The Smiths routinely lie about what is on this blog. The lies stick because of the long-term impression they have created with impersonation socks, as well as a general Rat tendency to believe that if someone allegedly “believes in woo,” they are crazy and might do any crazy thing. Confirmation bias. They also know that most wiki users do not actually check sources in detail, and are intolerant of deep examination or actual evidence. This is far from mature skepticism.

          The claim about John66 being Bongolian has a clear purpose, to discredit any claims that John66 might be a known and highly disruptive “returning user.” The Smiths have learned by long experience how to manipulate wikis. Yes, I did an edit timing analysis for Bongolian, and compared it with known Darryl socks. I can say with complete confidence that Bongolian is not Darryl or John66. I may do such an analysis with MjolnirPants, but I will probably not do it until have collected more edit timing information on Oliver, who has many more accounts with low edit counts. Darryl has been far easier to track. The idea that “RatWiki editors are being targeted just because they edited a page” is complete nonsense. Given the number of identifications, it’s quite possible that there are errors, but with time, these sort out. Studying the entire history (from 2012 on) provides quite a clear picture, and then looking at articles leads to other suspects, but these are never “accused” unless the overall pattern of editing confirms the suspicion, often beyond any reasonable doubt.

  4. He uses his real name on his public twitter account Arthur Kerensa so you should not be scared to use it! This is all PUBLIC info.

    He also created his own user-page on everipedia with his full name and details.

    https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/arthur-kerensa/

    He is one of the few Rational wiki editors to use his real name on the internet but he does hide behind a mask. He is not a real lawyer! He was born in 1997. He owns the company WORLD WIKI LTD – basically from his bed-room.

    He also identifies as “pansexual” WTF is that?

    1. RationalWiki sucks, it is an “attractive nuisance,” but I don’t approve of hatred. Dysklyver is relatively sane. Yes, I saw that photo of him a few years ago, and immediately thought “Nice-looking kid, but, lawyer?” On what planet? It is not impossible, but extremely unlikely. Maybe he is a law student. Born March 1997, he’s 22 years old next month. Smart kid. World Wiki died, apparently. Pansexual is just a little more general than bisexual. Relative to many others on RW, he seems to be a straight shooter. What I will be warning him about is the Smith brothers. They have friends in high places, and people who confront them tend to mysteriously end up banned. Once they have decided that someone is an enemy, they harass the person indefinitely, using every modality they can find, including impersonation. And RationalWiki has been happy to support them.

Leave a Reply to Arthur Kerensa Cancel reply