Shooting the messenger

I came across this today on Rationalwiki, on the Chicken Coop, RationalWiki’s central “dispute resolution page.” It was a particularly good example of site bias shooting the messenger.

A man with millions of accounts here (many which are admin) is creating articles with doxxing to harass his personal enemies.

He loses them immediately with “millions of accounts.” There is indeed someone who is creating many accounts, not only on RationalWiki, but on WMF wikis and in many places. And he frequently doxxes his enemies and he does have a lot of enemies. I’ve just begun to study his activity, and boy was he pissed! He seems to think that by attacking me and work I have done in the past, he will discourage me. No, it fires me up!

Not “millions.” I might be a thousand, but I have documented a few hundred. But, hey, what is three orders of magnitude among friends? But he is not among friends, as we will see.

The sock master is called Anglo Pyramidologist on Wikipedia, in their Sock Puppet Investigation page. In fact, there are likely at least two people tagged as AP, reputedly twin brothers, Oliver and Darryl Smith. I have not personally confirmed that identity, but he has directly contacted some people directly (by phone and email) and they have provided that information, and I have seen claims that it has been confirmed in public records. But I report what I find from my own study, and then may link to others.

[Later, I confirmed identity. — August 8, 2018]]

The WMF study was originally written on Wikiversity, but Wikiversity was not well-defended against the massive sock attack that followed, so I moved it to the meta wiki. Here is an archive copy of that study, but after many sock attacks, with resulting locks for the accounts and blocks for open proxy IP, and then the use of mobile IP (which, by the way, was coming from AP’s known location) … it was deleted in a rather strange action, and what I’ve been finding, reviewing logs, is a penumbra of strange actions that often protect this quite vicious sock master. Some are explainable by knee-jerk responses to appearances, but some take on a darker color. He has claimed support, and I’m seeing signs of it. He’s an attack dog, useful to the enemies of those he attacks.

The list of WMF socks taken from that meta study is not deleted, and that was deliberate by the deleting steward, as came out.  (An archive copy just in case.) The study here, linked above, is a bit more complete (and the list of socks from Quack Hunter, mentioned below, will probably add more if study shows identity is likely. )Remember, this is identity with two different users. Atlantid would be the Anglo Pyramidologist brother, and Quack Hunter the one whose best-known account on Wikipedia might be Goblin Face, at least that was a name I immediately recognized.

But all this is foggy. It is as if the anti-quack socks have a manic personality that sometimes displays quite different characteristics (such as very poor spelling or grammar — which he then uses to claim, not not the same!)

I will refer to some of this in commenting on this Chicken Coop affair. The author is Merkel (contributions).  He wrote:

There’s a fellow called Atlantid (I’ll avoid using his real name but you can find all his info by searching Encyclopedia Dramatica) has tons and tons of accounts here. Some examples are User:Krom, User:DougWellerisalunatic, User:PS2, Special:Contributions/Forests Forests, and another Special:Contributions/DinoCrisis Dinocrisis. There’s a ton more.

The headline was sloppy with “millions,” and “tons and tons of accounts is not clear, either, so if he had any hope of getting a point across, he has already largely trashed it. He is apparently not aware of my study of RationalWiki Anglo Pyramidologist sock puppets. It was first created on RationalWiki, and deleted there for alleged doxxing (which it did not do, and such claims are typical for the Smith brothers. Who called them “Smith brothers”? Well, one of them did, creating an article on the “Smith brothers conspiracy theory,” ridiculing it, though the story that there are two brothers involved actually comes from the socks themselves, back in 2011.) It was deleted by an AP sock, and likewise I was blocked by that sock — all outside of normal RW process, but enabled by … David Gerard, in the end. I will tell that story in more detail when I start to analyze how this sock master has been empowered and enabled, by those who are served by the socks’ actions.

He has used “Atlantid” without establishing it. There is no RW account for Atlantid. Atlantid was active elsewhere, and asking users to search Encyclopedia Dramatica is very much a losing strategy. However, looking on Wikipedia, there is such an account, and it is tagged as a sock of Quack Hunter (which is very much an AP kind of name). The account has only one edit, which, from looking at many hundreds of AP accounts, would raise strong suspicion. In fact, it is so blatant that I would suspect an impersonation account, which cannot be ruled out, but AP has never complained about being impersonated. He is following almost everything I write, so he might now!

56 accounts are tagged as Quack Hunter. The names are dead giveaways. To me, this is simply another set of AP accounts, to add to the 190 or so already tagged or identified in the Sock Puppet case page. I will be adding those to the study, those that are not already there. (Since so many names are so similar, I can recognize a name as familiar that is actually a little different….)

As to RationalWik, he claimed “millions,” or “tons and tons,” but only showed five.

  • Krom retired, but still an RW sysop. In my independent study, I tagged Krom here.
  • DougWellerisalunatic  DougWellerisalunatic I had not seen yet, though the name is a red flag. probably impersonating michaeldsuarez, an AP target. I agree with this one and will add.
  • PS2 already recognized.
  • Forests forests is an error. If you are going to shoot the King, don’t miss. He means Forests. Retired 2013, was a sysop, but desysopped after retiring. Yes, from interests, clearly AP. This discussion is fascinating.
  • (There are many clues to other possible accounts.)
  • Dinocrisis. This link was also broken. Retired 2013, like Forests, and was likely the same user.

Dinocrisis was mentioned in this edit by OldWatch, but mispelled as Dinoscrisis:

Krom/Schizophrenic/Forests/DinosCrisis/Goosebumps are all the same person.

All the same guy. He’s a patient at Nightingale Hospital London being treated for Schizophrenia. OldWatch (talk) 20:18, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

OldWatch had four edits on 15 October 2015, and then only this one in 2016. The October edits betray AP obsessions (particularly with Ben Steigmann). AP deliberately creates confusion. The first four accounts listed were AP, likely. Goosebumps? Yes, AP. Do remember that from early AP sock studies on Wikipedia, it is very possible that AP is actually two people, and less likely that there is more than two. However, both were disruptive, and both socked. OldWatch, like most suspected AP socks, was a throwaway account, probably intended to create suspicion for someone like mikemikev.

Because the Chicken coop filing mentioned Atlantid and other socks, it was predictable how it went. Does it not occur to someone like Merkel that if AP actually has many socks, including socks who are sysops (and that is obviously the case, I conclude upon study, and because I had studied AP behavior before I ever said anything about it on RationalWiki — though I did not yet know the extent of it), that one will have one shot to say something, and it might be shot down, and they have used blocking and revision deletion to hide what they don’t want to be seen, so that first shot had better be clean. It wasn’t. It will usefully reveal more about the socks, anyway. He went on:

On the some of the talk pages, he admits it and admits he has tons more.

No links. Therefore useless. Reports his own conclusions but does not even make them verifiable. Yes. One recent obvious sock claimed to be running RationalWiki, with 700 socks. That is believable, but many of them won’t be so obvious and may not be disccoverable, unless someone with raw log access (better than checkuser) decides to take a look, and as long as all those socks are providing useful attack articles, why do it?

The attack articles stimulate legal threats, which then have been used in fund-raising. “Protect RationaWiki against those who hate skeptics!” It works for a certain target audience.

Who is going to bother trying to find those “admissions” without links? Merkel is not terribly smart, which could be related to who he is. He’s outed by a sock…. (The enemies of AP are not therefore my friends! My care and concern and interest is always evidence and  reality, not some point of view. People who might support me in one way, if they lie or do so unskillfully, because of their bias, can be my worst enemies. So far, Merkel has provided practically no userful information, and certainly not enough to arouse the interest of ordinary RatiWikians. That is difficult at best? But this affair demonstrates the power of the AP socks, there. For that it is useful.

The way to tell is this user always has a feud with Mikemikev. It’s a personal feud going back nearly 10 years. He also has a feud with Rome Viharo. This is how he works, he has tons of accounts here and a large number of sysop accounts.

Obsession with Mikemikev is indeed one of the identifying characteristics. Likewise Rome Viharo, who was a target of socks on Wikipedia, and who has long pointed to the “AP” problem. How many sysop accounts doees AP have? Certainly more than one remains. Some became inactive as sysops, and one of these was desyopped, but the norm is that the accounts retain the privilege. I have not carefully examined all suspected AP socks for sysop privileges, but some received them remarkably rapidly. There is very likely off-wiki communication and support. Other accounts with better and less clearly biased contributions languish, sometimes, with no recognition. That kind of systemic bias can be tricky to document and show. But it can be done. It’s only work.

However, anyone who does the work will be presumed biased, operating out of emotional reaction, because this is how most people think. I first saw this behavior more than thirty years ago, with the on-line forum, the W.ElL,L. Even though, for the first time in a significant social setting, the entire history of interactions was visble, when conflict arose, users would not look back, but depended on emotional reaction to the new content. They might often be correct (emotional reactions exist from causes), but this is hardly “rational.” It’s the primitive brain being allowed to dominate and suppress more sophisticated responses — such as the entire process of science and genuine skepticism. Merkel want on:

Well this time he’s on an account Special:Contributions/Dr._Witt Dr._Witt which has really obvious has he created two accounts on his personal enemies Michael Coombs and Eleonóra Dubiczki while also editing the Rome Viharo article and has all but admitted who he is.

Again, broken link for the alleged sock. This guy is allegedly a sysop on Rightpedia. Goes to show, it’s hard to find good help. (Especially for a site like Rightpedia. This may be mentioned later.)

Dr. Witt Dr Witt is mentioned in the RW study, I had come to the same conclusion.

Where Dr. Witt “all but admitted who he is” is not linked. Who will bother to look? With no link and no exact quotation, and 218 edits at this point, even I may not look. This user may be writing off the top of his head. When I research a topic in order to present possibly complex evidence to an audience not necessarily highly motivated to do their own research, I will sometimes state something from personal knowledge, but far more often, I look for a link to evidence. Anyone accustomed to genuine encyclopedic writing will have this as a habit. So I cite the evidence, which can be done as an in-line link for anyone interested. People may still ignore it, if they don’t like it. But … if one makes lousy arguments for the truth, it can cause real damage!

I have seen many places where AP socks effectively admit who they are. Those admisssions are buried in an avalanche, and besides, any one of them might have been impersonation. How do distinguish these? It takes experience with the overall contributions, and almost nobody obtains that experience, they just react to what is in front of them.

Michael Coombs is indeed an AP diagnostic obsession, already observed.

I may mention an account from such an evidence, but the account will need, to be included in my study, more evidence than that. There are a series of symptoms, and I’m not yet revealing all of them, because some he apparently does not recognize, and once he recognizes them, he may then take compensating action to avoid identification. In some cases, he doesn’t care, obviously, blatantly socking and brushing off the blocks and global locks, but in others, he has some investment. What he has found on RationalWiki is that he can be completely blatant, and then the natural human  reaction to it is used to pick off enemies. RationalWiki is effectively highly censored, while pretending the opposite. Sock are allowed, unless the sock is block-evading. But many RW socks have been blocked, so they are all block evading. Someone else socks, they are quickly outed and whacked, often by an RW sock. There is a pattern, and it is through pattern that we obtain deeper understanding of reality. The study of pattern requires far more work than simple reaction. Few will invest the time (which is a rational choice, often).

Eleonóra Dubiczki I had not seen yet. What many of the obsessions apparently come from is those who have frustrated AP’s agenda in some way. I’m an example, and he vowed revenge, and when massive attack socking failed (as it would on WMF wikis, usually), he created the article on me on RW. So I got far more interested in RationalWiki socking and the studies got deeper. He lied about the history, in many places. It simply did not happen as he has claimed, and that can all be shown, but who wants to see the evidence? Rather, the story of personal grievance combined with allegations (false) of belief in pseudosience is an easier story to “understand,” for some. But that is not the point here.

That article would be significant to Merkel. However, this is unlikely to arouse sympathy. As to AP patterns, creation of that article alone, by Dr. Witt, would not be particular suspicious, though with a quick glance I see some signs. The pattern of articles and edits would. That is, Michael Coombs together with an attack on Dubiczki increases suspicion. Registration of an account and an immediate dive into specific topics increases suspicion. The edit to Ben Steigmann is a strong red flag when combined with the rest. Almost nobody knows or cares who Ben Steigmann is, but AP, long-term, has cared very much, and has vowed to track and expose Steigmann everywhere, and created many impersonation socks to attack Steigmann (confirmed by WMF steward checkuser at my request, and documentation of this is what really pissed AP off.) (Steigmann is not a “parapsychologist,” he is a young amateur student of parapsychology and has never claimed to be a parapsychologist. He studies evidence. Parapsychologists test the paranormal and gather and report their own findings.)

Merkel went on:

There’s another user, Special:Contributions/Anti-Fascist_for_life Anti-Fascist_for_life who acts the same and while the user has talked between Dr. Witt, this Atlantid person often talks to himself with accounts.

Yes, definitely an AP sock, totally obvious. Merkel has been somewhat confused by the vast smokescreen AP socks have created. AP is probably two people, sometimes located at the same house (their parent’s) house or meeting at the same location, and sometimes in distinct locations. They sometimes have apparently squabbled or quarreled, but usually they support each other. I.e., like real-life brothers might!

There is also some evidence of off-wiki cooperation that might sometimes bring in meat puppetry.  This would fade into the other confusion: some other people might be interested in the same topics. I suspect that some of the Wikipedia AP identifications may represent this, but the overall pattern, the vast majority of socks — are socks. There are socks clearly identified by both the duck test and checkuser, which starts to approach “proof.”

I have what amounts to checkuser evidence from some of the socks. They don’t know — or don’t care — but when they claim I have no technical evidence, as they often have, using the same phrase “technical evidence,” they are mistaken. I do. I just don’t normally reveal it. Not yet. Not until I’m ready to issue a final report. Then it all comes out.

Well I’d think the fact that someone has a huge sock farm with tons of accounts, many being admins would be disturbing to people here enough, but well there’s more.

He would think that, showing how little experience he has with RationalWiki. First of all, AP has successfully created the impression that anyone claiming a “sock farm” is a crazy conspiracy theorist (which is a misrepresentation of what a conspiracy theory is. I am coming to something approaching some kind of conspiracy, but the sock farm is only a small piece of evidence in that possibility. AP socks have claimed the support of Wikipedia administrators for what they do, and there is recent on-wiki “canvassing,” (which would be open conspiracy, but other aspects would take place off-wiki, and the socks themselves claim to know each other, and defend each other, i.e., they are connected in real life. That could be a conspiracy. Conspiracy is not necessarily bad, but if there is support for attack socks, which lie and impersonate and libel, is that good or bad? Many RationalWiki users, for years, enjoy the lulz (and then complain about others who also enjoy the lulz, attacking AP or Atlantid or “Oliver and Darryl Smith.”)

However, the first accusation of “conspiracy” was by an AP sock ridiculing the alleged conspiracy theory of others, and in particular me, at a point where I was only claiming obvious socking. It was claimed I got this from Rome Viharo, an AP obsession. No, I discovered the vicious attack impersonation socking first, and only became aware of Rome Viharo documentation later. I had seen the attacks on Tumbleman on Wikipedia (and the mistakes Tumbleman had made …. these people have been running this game for years, and newcomers who are naive about how Wikipedia actually works are easily trolled and picked off by them.)

Firstly, Atlantid made the articles using the real names of his victims: Michael Coombs and Eleonóra Dubiczki. According to RationalWiki’s own policies RationalWiki:Blocking policy, these are not allowed:

  • Doxing: Adding personal information about others into a page. This also includes soliciting for such information off of RationalWiki.
  • Harassment: Adding purely offensive material, solely for the purpose of causing emotional harm, into a page.

Even with links, this is not likely to be effective, but without links, it’s impossible. Yes, AP socks routinely doxx users, in many ways. A new user appears and AP will immediately say who it is. This actually was one of the early signs, it’s a standard AP behavior. Even without a real name, it is doxxing (and on Wikipedia can result in an immediate block, if not a necessary part of a sock investigation). However, to make this claim and have it do more than create reaction, requires documentation and evidence, not mere claim.

For doxing, Mikemikev doesn’t keep his personal name that secret but he goes by Mikemikev not his real name. He also is just a random internet troll. Compare his huge article with an article linked from his, Garron Helm. Garron has actually been in newspapers and his article is small. Mike has never been in one newspaper and has no notability and his article is huge. Mike is just a random internet troll, not Lauren Southern, Sargon of Akkad, Brittany Pettibone, or Wife with a Purpose. And for the Wife with a Purpose, that article avoids having her real name in the title even though she’s been in newspapers.

It is doxxing all right. Violators of no-doxxing rules often claim that the person has revealed their real name voluntarily, and this is well-known as not an excuse for the privacy violation. However it might make doxxing legal, i.e., revealing the real name behind an account is a form of journalism, protected speech, if true. Suing someone for revealing your real name would be frivolous. Even if you want the information hidden. But AP screams if anyone says “Smith.” And uses tools to delete it, often.

And the Eleonóra Dubiczki, the woman does not use her real name or anything similar at all. This was stalked up by one person and is secret and doxxing. The article has her real name in the title. Eleo has no newspaper articles and is barely known by anyone. She’s just some anonymous person on the internet and should stay that way.

The argument is cogent, but it is being made to an audience which is largely AP socks (or RW users who are tired of hearing about it and just wish all the drama would disappear). We will see.

Both articles have the real names of the victims in the titles. These are victims which have no newspaper articles, no fame, and are simply the personal enemy of the Atlantid person (again you can find the full history on Atlantid at his Encyclopedia Dramatica article). Atlantid created their articles simply to harass his enemies. These two people have never appeared on any podcasts either. They are very small-time people and simply Atlantid’s enemies. Part of the harassment is so the articles will come up as a top search for their real name.

He is repeating himself, and knows he is going on too long, but apparently did not preview it carefully and did not boil it down. That’s what losers do, in discussions like this. He is right (on this point, i.e., I’d agree with it — and so might a court if someone actually sues, which is unlikely but possible), but being right isn’t enough.

Also the photos in the Michael Coombs article have no licensing information or source and I’m skeptical the copyright policy allows this.

That is called “concern trolling” on RW. The copyright owner may complain, but absent that, RW can host the files under a claim of fair use. If there is a complaint, RW will almost certainly take the image down. Or not, if they are prepared to acknowledge service of the appropriate U.S. District Court.  RW is not Wikimedia Commons, where lack of proper licensing information is grounds for removal. This is a losing argument.

Thanks for reading. Sorry it got long. Merkel (talk) 10:07, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

It didn’t “get long.” He made it long without making it useful. Let’s see the responses:

I’m not too sure about the Michael Coombs one, but there seems to be little evidence linking Eleonóra Dubiczki to those nick/usernames/aliases. All I can find mentioning them as founders are various fora. —Kazitor, pending 10:30, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Kazitor is ignoring the primary issue and focusing on a detail, whether it is right or wrong. He is essentially confirming the concern about Dubiczki. He is not an AP sock, he shows no sign of it, but AP often diverts users into irrelevant arguments. The point was a pattern of creating attack articles. In this case, Merkel has an undisclosed axe to grind, probably, but regular RW users will often fix and remove unsourced claims. It’s not reliable.

The discussion of the Dubicki article belonged on the Talk page for that article, not in the Chicken Coop. An overall negative behavioral issue would belong on the Coop if other efforts to resolve issues have failed. Going to the Coop with a Dramatic Story (Millions of socks!!!) was doomed from the start. If you get any attention at all, it’s likely to turn out negatively

Its nonsense from a troll. Merkel is a neo-Nazi who administrates Rightpedia named “A Wyatt Man”; Eleonóra Dubiczki is the creator of Rightpedia an anti-Semitic alt-right wiki that argues for Holocaust denial, flat earth, Moon landing hoax and other crankery, who formerly ran Metapedia as “Hu1”. She created an account using her first name on Metapedia; there are also blog links that connect her online pseudonym(s) to her real surname, that I can provide. Mikemikev revealed his real name on Wikipedia, Metapedia and other wikis; so its public knowledge. Furthermore, a mere Google-search of “Mikemikev” and you get his real name on dozens of websites, including Kiwi Farms; he even confirmed his real identity here as Michael Coombs, although he’s permabanned. The RationalWiki user “Anti-fascist for life” isn’t me, nor are 5/6 of the other accounts Merkel listed, that are years old and look inactive anyway. Also, I’m not bothered by what idiots write about me on Enyclopedia Dramatica – satire, rumours and misinformation that no-one takes serious; if I’m not mistaken David Gerrard and several other RationalWiki sysops have silly articles there written about them as well. The real issue here is Mikemikev is worried about getting imprisoned for hate-speech since his RW article now documents all his extreme racist internet postings such as him wanting to shoot and kill black people, Jews etc, so he wants his article deleted and is now sending his neo-Nazi buddies here, since he is banned.Dr. Witt (talk) 15:18, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

This response alone would convince me that Dr. Witt is AP. AP socks routinely lie, but sometimes they tell the truth. Is he “Anti-fascist for life.” I don’t know, but it is entirely that one is one brother and the other is the other. Antifascist for life I had previously identified as a clear RW sock (and, yes, I have technical evidence, these guys don’t realize how much is visible if one looks with care and diligence.)

“Doxxing” is normally based on “public knowledge,” and AP socks have often accused others of doxxing for revealing what was found in public records. As evidence for the Dubiczki account claim, Dr. Witt had cited Encyclopedia Dramatica, but now he deprecates it as to what is claimed about him. AP obviously wants to have it both ways,  to prohibit others from doing what he does routinely. That all becomes obvious if one actually studies the accounts and the histories. If not, one will simply react based on whichever story is more knee-jerk appealing.

Did mikemikev “send his Neo-Nazi buddies”? Maybe. I don’t actually know mikemikev, I have had no direct communication with him. I have no idea if he is a vicious racist neo-Nazi or otherwise. I do know that he has very likely been impersonated, at least on occasion, and impersonation socks can then create public records that say what they want to say. Normal wikis will use checkuser and other evidence to detect this, as actually happened (eventually) with AP socks impersonating Ben Steigmann (though Wikipedia still has not woken up to it, nor have I made serious attempts to inform Wikipedia admins. Only one, who has largely disappeared and did not respond.)

RW is not a normal wiki.

There then ensued a conversation between likely AP socks, DangerZone and Dr. Witt. Classic. They ridicule the sock allegations. In the few places where these conversations have taken place with checkuser available, they have either

  • lied about being independent, or
  • were sharing internet access or even the same computer in such a way for checkuser to tag them as “related.”

It is entirely possible that there are two users. Less likely that there are three, as implied by DangerZone:

It is not doxing because it is public knowledge. Real life doxing is posting peoples addresses or contact information, nobody has done that. I also just discovered that “Dubiczki” is not her real second name, only a fake one she uses online. I won’t link to her real second name but it is obtainable online if one looks deep enough. So in conclusion there is no doxing here. Dubiczki is a fake second name she uses. Merkel is clearly a hoaxer trying to stir trouble about other users. I take this seriously because he has been posting false information about a friend of mine, a user here anti-fascist for life. DangerZone DangerZone (talk) 17:24, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

AP socks have commonly claimed doxxing merely because accounts were shown as suspected socks. Then, when AP doxxes accounts — and here claimed a real name even though he later claims it’s not a real name — he more narrowly defines doxxing. The AP theme is that anyone he does not like is wrong. The argument that information that is somewhere, somehow “public knowledge” is not doxxing, is highly misleading. Actual doxxing may be proper under some circumstances. (The WMF issue is “privacy violation.” If the information revealed can readily lead to real-name information, it can be a privacy violation, but violation of what? Privacy violations can be necessary because privacy can effectively be waived by disruption.

The claim that a suspected sock is not so because “he is a friend of mine,” is a common AP argument. In some of these cases, the sock was checkuser-tagged. I.e., “friend” was actually “close friend” or likely, a brother. There are a number of main topics of interest for AP socks, and they can be roughly categorized into two interest areas, with some overlap. The two areas correspond, again roughly, to claims AP socks have made about themselves and “their brother.” Hence a common generic name for the “organizing principle” is “Smith brothers.”

I have some level of suspicion that the entire “brother story” was, from the beginning in 2011, a smokescreen, that there is only one (which some on Wikipedia also suspected). If I had to choose which story to work on, it would probably be “two brothers.” So when one claims that the other is not him, it might even be true, but it is irrelevant if both are pursuing the same agenda, as if completely independent.

I have noticed that when one AP sock refers to another, or to Angle Pyramidologist, the name is often mispelled, which then can frustrate internet searches. Here, DangerZone (contributions) refers to “anti-fascist for life”.

Anti-Fascist for life is the user name. Capitalization matters. The user is a sysop and the rights log shows very rapid assignment, an apparent AP pattern on RW. (As usually those assigning the right are not suspected AP socks, the significance of this is not clear yet, other than AP socks fitting into a pattern of desired or supported behavior.

The Cooping was closed at the request of RoninMacbeth, who is not at all suspected of being an AP sock.

Fairly obvious troll post, I say archive and move on. RoninMacbeth (talk) 18:21, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. Comrade GC (talk) 18:23, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Agreed Bongolian (talk) 18:38, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

This is a standard RW response. However, calling “Merkel” a “troll” may be quite inaccurate. I suspect he was sincere, given whom he is accused of being. His response is not trolling, it is emotional reactivity:

I requested to protect people from harassment, personal information put out, and stuff that would cause problems for them in real life. Saying this is trolling shows how sick some of you are. You are really sick people. Let’s say you get doxxed and harassed online and you ask it to stop and the response from your cyberbullies is to call you a troll. Merkel (talk) 02:49, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Here is what happens: Someone is attacked on RW, with doxxing or libel, and they create an account (or already have one) and they protest, and point to the obvious socking. They are then doxxed and blocked. Merkel was blocked by Anti-Fascist for Life. RW cares nothing about conflict-of-interest blocks. It’s all part of the Drama that they love and hate, far too many of them.

The Cooping was quite premature, and not carefully prepared, if it was to have any chance of success. I have seen far stronger Coopings dismissed out of hand. In fact, I had almost entirely stopped making any contributions to RationalWiki because gross abuse was tolerated. (And effectively encouraged.) At the time, I did not suspect any conspiracy, as such. That view is beginning to shift. There is some kind of organized effort, which also provides an explanation that will allow some of the AP socks to be, instead, meat puppets, fed bullshit privately (mailing list?) which they then post “independently.” All in a good cause, of course.

The discussion on User talk:Merkel is typical for AP socks, i.e., Krom, Dr. Witt, Anti-Fascist for life, and DangerZone. Non-socks (almost certainly): Comrade GC and Cosmikdebris.

This from Dr. Witt is pure trolling, designed to provoke Merkel (or Mikemikev) into more outraged response, so he can again be blocked.

@ Merkel
Mikemikev posted threats or was trying to intimidate me by saying he will show up on my door. The guy is about 10 stone and almost anorexic; he would crap himself meeting me in person. You forget we have what he looks like on video; put in around2: 10 and he was named the “bean-pole Nazi” on Kiwi FARMS. Even the Nazis from the The Right Stuff were mocking his laughable physique. When am I to expect this lanky ugly weirdo on my door-step?Dr. Witt (talk) 04:27, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

He might not show up alone…. Insult enough crazy people for being weaklings, they might show up with a gun.

This is classic trolling, insulting the target to provoke a response. Totally irrelevant to RationalWiki. Dr. Witt is also a sysop, quickly assigned. The Smith brothers, allegedly twins, are young (like Mikemikev and many other targets). This is all testosterone-crazed delayed-development behavior.

(I personally would not show up at his door, that would be stupid. Rather, a constable or process server (I don’t know how it works in England) would show up, if I decided to do anything. Mere insult is not generally enough for legal action, it depends on context. What I do know is that some targets have experience real-life damage because of AP activity, and they would have a cause of action. Whether they take advantage of this legally depends on many factors, but I think it may be coming.)

Step on enough toes and eventually one of these toes will be attached to a fist with weight behind it.

Hey, some woo: Karma!!!

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