1,238 Matching Annotations
  1. Apr 2019
    1. Even being a Muslim-American, when the U.S. is under attack from Muslim terrorists and when Americans are overwhelmingly Christian, is pretty much impossible.

      I am an American, born here. I am also a Muslim, my religion is rooted in the Qur'an, which is the core. Who the hell is he to say I am impossible? Islam is also under attack from "Muslim terrorists," and they have killed far more Muslims than Americans. He is an idiot.

      (There is no oath of allegiance intrinsic to Islam. There is only a witnessing, a declaration of faith, and, then, a sharing of this.)

    2. You cannot be a Somali-American, because to be an “American” involves rejecting pretty everything that could possibly be associated with Somalia

      He simply makes this up.

    3. I look upon a Roman Catholic as an enemy in his uniform

      And, of course, this was a major argument raised against John F. Kennedy as a Catholic, as it had been raised about Catholics before in American politics. This guy is not merely conservative, he is positively reactionary.

    4. a bit like a spy.

      To someone who is paranoid, for sure. And if someone believes that to be an American, one must betray the truth, one will then consider anyone who stands for truth to be an enemy. Not a great way to live, but this is quite what he is arguing for.

    5. here does indeed exist a “social norm” whereby we strongly dislike and distrust those who appear to support two teams.

      Yes. But this tells us nothing relevant. He is explaining why some people might not trust Omar. Basically, xenopobia and prejudice about Muslim women. He is then collapsing reactivity with intuition, which more properly belongs to a deeper, reflective response that identifies reactivity, makes an assessment of a need for emergency response (which is what reactivity is for), and then chooses functional behavior. He is creating an argument for stupidity.

    6. The only way around this, for foreigners, is a highly exaggerated display of loyalty to the adopted group: the complete rejection of the former group.

      "The only way" is his fantasy. That is never a reality.

    7. should be

      "Should" is a basic ontological error, when not based on the full human intelligence, but only on primitive reactivity. Perhaps he means "we might be expected to." He is correct that this kind of thinking is "normal." That is far from making it wise, promoting life.

    8. Hence people’s reactions to foreigners, and especially foreigners who fail to fully integrate, is so visceral

      Yes. It is literally visceral. Xenophobia is instinctive, my opinion. That does not mean that we "should" be run by it. Xenophobia properly leads to a measure of caution. Out of balance, it can lead to murder and loss, even death for one's entire family.

    9. the existence of a social norm

      There is a social norm. Is it therefore an absolute reality?

    10. You Can’t Root for Both Teams!

      But you can root for more than one team, when one sees the teams as part of a larger team, call it Team Human. The reactive brain sees the world as a zero-sum game, so if one wins, the other loses. It is in that world that the conflict arises. And that is a world that is doomed to misery and failure. As humans, we have a functional mode that is not just that lizard brain, that survival brain, designed for emergency action. We can identify these reactions and choose to follow them or to set them aside, and there is training in how to do this safely. All this is outside of the world he is describing.

    11. n times of serious danger such as war, people who seem to have dual identities are seen as a threat.

      In other words, when in danger we may become xenophobic and reactive. We also might kill someone we see as threatening us.

    12. no different from any other,

      She is obviously different and also the same.

    13. arry a Y chromosome yet be a female

      And who defines these terms? Y chromosome is relatively objective, but is "female" so objective?

      He is defining what he wants as if it were a universal truth, when language itself is invented, not absolute. He believes that his concepts are real. To be sure, this is common!

    14. Swedish people.

      Who defines what is "Swedish"? If someone born in Sweden moves to Africa, can he or she be Swedish and African? And if someone born in African moves to Sweden, can this person be both, or which one are they?

      Welton is demonstrating racialism, which, by the way, is not wrong, in itself, but he is making assumptions about race that show it as real in ways that are no longer accepted, and for good reason. Race remains a social reality, depending on context. There is also population genetics, which is real in a different way. These are conflated and confused.

    15. two very different things at once

      Fundamental ontology: Any two things are the same and they are different.

    16. dogmas we are supposed to accept

      "supposed to" according to what standard? Welton is looking at unexamined assumptions, in the light of other unexamined assumptions, but he thinks of one set of assumptions as true.

    17. Two Masters—Islam and the U.S.?

      The question assumes a contradiction between these masters. What if the two masters had been stated as "God and Country" Or "Christ and the U.S." Or "Reality and Nation"? Or for that matter, "Race and the Constitution?"?

    1. appears

      The link is to my blog, but is defective. (a link that works is this, but this is to all occurrences of a tag.) Elsewhere, I found the page that the author was attempting to cite. Here I am not. The text is confused. I have never seen Oliver write "under his brother's name," but he has mostly claimed his brother is different, and then he claimed that he was lying about that and had been lying for years, then he took it back. Liars lie, no way around it. If a liar says "I'm a liar," a sane answer is "Not always." After all, stopped clock.

    2. They are a democracy that has been overthrown by schizophrenics, psychopaths, deviants, and people who’ve never really grown up.

      Bingo. Right on!

    3. Smith’s targets have done an excellent job in unearthing exactly who is directing a particular “Black Op” of the many that are underway.

      Thanks. Because I stood for an individual targeted by Darryl Smith, I became a target, thus a canary demonstrating a toxic atmosphere. I am happy to stand for truth and honesty, and also for diversity. Which includes what is "politically incorrect," and what is "SJW." It is not advocacy that is so dangerous, it is lying and deception and suppression of divergent points of view. I was an officer in the ACLU at Cal Tech, and I have been attacked for "defending" X and Y and Z. But wait! Isn't the ACLU a "liberal organization"? These so-called SJWs are attacking free speech and those who defend it, which is precisely why I call them "fascist," which causes them to froth at the mouth. So to speak.

    4. destroying Western civilization, facing no consequences whatsoever.

      Or whatever they don't like.

      Indeed, no or few consequences, and they can simply create new accounts, and as long as they can preserve anonymity, they can do this for years. If they learn to align themselves with "site POV," they may warp and distort and lie, and if anyone points it out, they are then blocked and banned, as "POV-pushers," and, on Wikipedia, "not here to build an encyclopedia." And gradually, the community becomes more and more warped, if there are no compensating mechanisms. And any attempt to build such was crushed on Wikipedia.

    5. at least to some extent

      That is a journalistic hedge, a sign of professional writing. The observation is accurate. It is obviously not true for many "Wikipedians," but look at the ones with extremely high edit counts, and high involvement with controversy. Many of them are downright weird.

    6. you have the typical Wikipedia writer.

      "Typical" may be a stretch, but the thesis is interesting.

    7. When such “spiteful mutants” become numerous, the rapid collapse of complex societies ensues.

      cause and effect? Variation is preparation for collapse. Prevent variation and collapse can lead to extinction.

    8. mutants attain positions of social influence and are able to potentially corrupt the norms of civilization, causing others to behave in a maladaptive way in the process

      The author gives a hereditarian explanation. I've been reading a little Edward Dutton lately, one of Smiths' major targets. This would be an explanation from that world-view.

      There may be a truth to it, but problems arise when one then treats mutations as "deleterious." Rather, mutation is simply how life adapts to new environments. they are neither good nor bad. Some don't survive, that's all part of the process. Some do. Under conditions of safety, variation will increase, preparing the population for changes, because a diverse population is less vulnerable to extinction.

      This author fully dives into the "good-bad" story of reactionary conservatism, which is under heavy attack.

    9. Clearly, Oliver D. Smith is, well, odd.

      Yes. I do not equate "odd" with Bad.

    10. Hyposexuality is common among schizophrenics

      An interesting speculation.

    11. he became an SJW at the beginning of 2012.

      More accurately, he began attacking the right wing, racialism and racism, and hereditarianism. He has claimed to be anti-SJW and to hate the RatWiki site bias. His brother was already on RatWiki, I think, but I'd need to go over this history. I've been working on a detailed compilation of accounts and edits. Patterns appear when this is done.

    12. claim he made this up.

      This is a link to my blog, the URL is broken, though. The core points to this, a tag. Searching that display for "schizo," I find eventually material copied from this page: Authentic Darryl Smith on himself That page is Darryl making the claim of "made up." Recently, socks on Reddit -- probably also Darryl -- have repeated the claim that Oliver denied "schizophrenia," but I have never seen Oliver openly deny it. And it makes sense.

    13. Schizophrenia is strongly consistent with his Leftist bias, as schizophrenics tend to be very low in systematizing but so high in “empathy”—reading signals of people’s minds—that they become paranoid and delusional

      This is accurate as to schizophrenia, but it is more general than just "Leftist bias." It is common to any firm attachment to ideas. This author is sophisticated, that's clear.

    14. Smith has admitted to being a pathological liar who suffers from schizophrenia

      He admitted schizophrenia as Atlantid on Metapedia, but what this author found is even deeper. Now, a liar says "I am a liar." Is he telling the truth?

      The link is to archive of his admission on Kiwi Farms. It's amazing. It's hard to find this crap!

    15. wrote of the Columbine killers

      The link is currently broken, but this is an archive of it.. This was as "Scionic Evil," and Oliver was about 16. He later renounced his earlier views, often with historical revisionism.

    16. The following year,

      The link does not work. This does This links to an old version of "Oliver Smith Brothers" frpm Encyclopedia Dramatica (Warning: NSFW), It is the most thorough version I have seen, it was meticulously researched and later taken down, probably due to harassment of the author.

    17. gets worse from there.

      Correct. Gigantic Dog Whistle.

    18. Smith has created Rational Wiki articles about most of the academics involved.

      Yes, he has. He later attempted to get them deleted because he was being sued. That failed, of course, for obvious reasons if anyone understands RationalWiki. What he did not do was to admit that they were attack articles, designed to defame, and with misleading sourcing. What the sequence revealed was what I had been claiming: these numerous accounts were all Oliver. Which the Smiths had called "lies," and the Rats believed them.

    19. March 17, 2017

      Rome Viharo, who first tangled with "Dan Skeptic" who became "Goblin Face" on Wikipedia, later unmasked as an Anglo Pyramidolgist sock. Angle Pyramidologist was Oliver, very clearly, but those records show a brother, and Oliver confirmed the brother story in many places. They claim impersonation for all of that, but it is radically implausble. Oliver also claimed he was lying about the brother, it was all him, then he retracted that claim. and then they blame anyone who wrote anything "wrong" about them, but they deliberately created confusion. The truth does come out, with patience and attention.

    20. accessed January 11, 2019]

      Encyclopedia Dramatica is not a relaible source, but the screenshots are probably authentic. The author here treats them as such.

      The Smiths will scream "there is no evidence," but there is evidence. Could this have been faked? Yes, of course, it is possible, but reviewing the activities of the Smiths over time, a sense can develop of what is fake and what is real. Fake commonly does not fit into a coherent picture, the formation of which is how we interpret and distinguish reality from illusion.

    21. According to British public records

      This is consitent with what I have seen, though much more detailed, and I assume that the author has verified what he reports. Some of this information I had only seen through a long-term enemy of Oliver Smith, Michael Coombs, whom I have not considered to be a reliable source (so I did not report it), though I have not seen him lie as to fact. He used the information to troll Smith. He lives close to Smith and may have verified it personally, but this report is relatively reliable. Smith is already being sued and has presumably been served, so there are people who know where he lives.

    22. Smith is a truly amazing character; you really couldn’t make him up.

      Yeah, but his brother is even more amazing and more dangerous, my opinion, because not quite so obviously insane.

    23. 28-year-old

      Born in 1990, I think we have a birth date, but it doesn't matter.

    24. our increasingly violent

      The enemy of humanity is hatred iitself, that is intolerant of diversity. Telling the truth is not hatred, ever. Rather, hatred will live in reaction and emotional drive. I am under attack from the Smiths because I told the truth, it began with simple lists of the findings of WMF checkusers, and the names of identified sock puppets, and my purpose was studying the influence of "SPAs" on wiki process, an account that appears to attack someone, and the editors in the discussion focus on the target, because of the dog-whistles blown, instead of looking at the accuser with proper suspicion. It worked, communities were moved to attack the target. And that was causing damage. And immediately I was attacked by an avalanche of such accounts. I refused to be intimidated and the rest is history. It's all there if anyone cares.

    25. Nerdish Leftists

      The Smith brothers are not exactly leftists. They are opportunists who found that they could use RatWiki to attack personal enemies. They use dog-whistles that appear to some whom the author of this article will call leftist.

    26. the entry is also likely to be taken seriously by less skeptical readers.

      There is an attack article on me on RatWiki, written by the brother of the Smith featured in this article, as revenge for exposing his impersonation socking and vicious activity on Wikipedia and Wikiversity. I am seeing a woman my age, and she has children, who googled me and believed the RationalWiki article. They intervened to "protect" her from me. Sp what is being claimed here is true. It happens.

    27. Scientific

      The so-called "skeptical" faction on Wikipedia, also represented on RatWiki, denies NPOV (neutral point of view), openly, which is really odd for a Wikipedia administrator!, and claims to hew to SPOV, there meaning "scientific." Which is an oxymoron. Science does not have a point of view, and rather questions and tests all "points of view." In theory. In practice, scientists are human and develop and become attached to personal opinions, so real science is constantly struggling against that, and entire fields can go astray for long periods of time, because of this. Add in the influence of big money, it can get really nuts and can cause enormous damage that can take decades or longer to sort out.

    28. its entries openly mocking their subjects, not even pretending to be neutral.

      correct.

    29. they

      RationalWiki was created by refugees from Conservapedia. It was anti-fundamentalist conserviative, juvenile, snarky. What could be called SJW arose and dominated later, my sense.

    30. September 30, 2018

      everyday business on Wikipedia, bleeding out into social media. Anonymous editors. The core policies created this.

    31. “doxing” them; revealing their true identities and everything they can discover about them.

      Wikipedia decided to rely on anonymous editors. Instead of using anonymous informants as journalists do, hiowever, they allowed anonymous administration, thus guaranteeing an unreliable system, and creating motivation for doxxing. It was cheap and quick, and worth every penny paid for it.

      People who work for nothing don't. Some have very noble motivations, at least initially. But some have agendas to pursue. The policies made Wikipedia into a battleground, and then anyone who treated it like it is, was violating policy. Even if they followed every policy.

      My opinion is that in certain unstable people, Wikipedia literally drove them crazy, and I believe there have been suicides. This article ends up being about someone who has claimed to be schizophrenic, and it's probably that his editing obsessions contributed.

    32. actually help to shape science itself.

      Yes. This happens.

    33. levels that defy belief.

      What I have seen, I could not have and would not have invented.

    34. online skirmishes over Wikipedia’s non-PC topics are particularly vicious,

      Yes, and it is "vicious" that prevents genuine consensus from forming, when there is no adult supervision.

    35. reasonable people and Leftism

      "reasonable" means "agrees with me." The author is expressing a battle from within one side, not as an overview, not as how a peacemaker will see it. A peacemaker will see all sides, from above, as it were.

    36. they are crazed Social Justice Warriors—and a growing threat to political and scientific discourse.

      I have always disliked the epithet SJW. There is something wrong with fighting for justice? Actually, yes, there can be. It can be fascist, suppressive, when it goes beyond establishing justice and instead attemptis to suppress opinion, and especially when it believes that the 'end justifies the means," such that it is acceptable to lie in order to attack "Bad."

    37. Lunatics Take Over Asylum: Oliver D. Smith, RationalWiki, And The Wikipedeans

      The image above is from Emil Kirkegaard's blog

    1. Mankind Quarterly
    2. Edward Dutton
    3. pseudoscientist[2]

      The source does not readily establish "pseudoscientist."

    4. alt-right

      source shows he appeared on an alt-right podcast. To the Rats, this proves affiliation. It would be necessary to listen to the podcast to assess this.

    5. appeared on Mark Collett's alt-right podcast

      No actual link to evidence, However, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY4LEWs7I4I

    6. writes for VDARE

      Standard. One post in 2012 becomes present tense "writes for."

    7. eccentric

      Standard RatWiki snark, "eccentric" meaning "anyone who does not think like me or ordinary people." Dutton calls himself the "Jolly Heretic," and most people and especially most Rats, are neither Jolly nor Heretical (within their comrforable and narrow community, they are conformists.)

    8. It was 93 per cent of foreign rapists in Finland are Muslim.

      "It was" flags to me that this could be a correction of a prior statement. The significance of the statement is unclear. This is on Twitter. There is a remarkable statistic provided from Finnish police sources, but it does not appear to be as Dutton states. To someone looking for dirt, a statement like that looks racist or bigoted. But my question is always "Is this true" and then "what are the conditions, what are the facts." Not "what is the political of the person who said it." This was on Twitter, which is not known for careful speech, correctly phrased. There is something remarkable there, and Dutton may not have stated it well. Or he really is confused about the distinction between nationality and religion. I'd really need to read his book on the subject. The meaning of the statement is vague, the source may be about charges, whereas the statement is conclusory about rape, and what are the underlying numbers?

    1. Gary Taubes

      Gary Taubes, one of the strongest science journalists on the planet. "Refuting" is how pseudoscientiists and pseudoskeptics write. Real science does not write like that.

    2. short lifespans, high infant mortality,

      Rats carry around many common misconceptions. There were high rates of infant mortality for many reasons, but survival beyond infancy tended, from what I've been reading recently, to approach more modern standards. The shift to agriculture was not without heavy costs, including vulnerability to communicable diseases and various deficiency disorders probably related to a less varied diet. Agrarian societies were stronger in other ways, and in particular, such cultures were able to dominate and control smaller tribal cultures. But that is not about individual health.

    3. In a nutshell

       This is what the Rats miss with their snark

    4. At least one death has been attributed to a high-protein diet

      Once again, paleo and similar diets are not high protein, but individuals might practice them that way. High protein is dangerous for many people. There was research a century ago studying a man who came back from living with the Inuit, reporting that they had a diet that was totally meat, and were healthy. He lived in hospital isolation for a year, eating only meat, originally lean meats. He started to get sick, and they realized that the Inuit ate the entire animal, including what we call "offal." They also ate copious amounts of fat. When they added in organ meats and other details, he was healthy.

      Anyone changing their diet radically, even if they think it is "healthier" should do so with the advice and monitoring of a physician, unless the change is not drastic, and still one should be on the lookout for possible issues.

    5. conducted by a panel of around 30 nutrition and medical experts

      Rats love facts like this. Now, RatWiki is allegedly anti-authoritarian, and this is a clear reliance on authority.. That was one review for one year, and one panel. How was the panel chosen? Did it include a diversity of opinions and approaches? What Gary Taubes has pointed out many times is that "consensus" arose in the related fields, not by conclusive science, as neutrally reviewed, but by an information cascade, and he has shown that some of this was related to astroturfing (but also other non-scientific factors.) and then a particullar Rat points to sources that claim Taubes misprepresented evidence. I've looked at that. He did not -- in a significant way -- misrepresent information. He has presented an enormous amount of information and it was possible to find errors there. And that is what has happened. He has been attacked for not being perfect.

    6. the advantage of a paleo diet, like any other diet that emphasizes unprocessed foods, is in the satiety

      Rats readily state conclusions as if fact. Certainly the factor mentioned here cold be significant, but there are many others.

    7. Calories in versus calories out,

      Yeah, that's what it is called. It sounds reasonable, but might be utter bullshit, in spite of many claims that this is basic physics, which it is not and for the reason they state! Stopped clock moment? Well, that;s rude.

    8. nothing suggests that the body cannot handle foods we've sourced in the last 100,000 years — in proper amounts, at least.

      the problem is that we actually do not know the "proper amounts." Most of what is written about this is not rooted in research, and dietary compositions produce different effects, i.e, what are called "food calories" are not, as many seem to assume, thermodynamic calories, they have been adjusted by study of actual caorlies produced from eating foods and examining all the inputs and outputs. More than a century ago.; And dietary context may vary this, but this has been little studied.

    9. only grass-fed ruminants, pastured poultry, etc.

      One may practice principles without making them into rigid, insane rules.

    10. Cutting them out will naturally lower one's calorie consumption drastically.

      that assumes that what replaces the cut-out foods is not higher in calories. This is all really dumb. Fat, in particular, is much more calorie dense. The reality of nutrition is far more complex than the cartoon understanding of these editors.

    11. A bout of food poisoning could lead to dramatic weight loss as claimed.

      It is much less likely than these brainless nerds think. For starters, we can smell, we are actually quite good at detecting spoiled food. Salad greens, with refrigeration and proper containers, can easily be good for a week. Fiber is the most important part of salad for meals, which will not be lost, and a decent diet will be getting plenty of fiber.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/well/eat/do-prepackaged-salad-greens-lose-their-nutrients.html

      Yes. Some loss. Not important in a week, and the basic advice is to avoid wilted greens, they should still be crisp, and they will be. If some of it is not, it can be picked out. Have these Rats ever maintained a kitchen and do they know how to cook?

    12. his expertise is tangential to the topic.

      Right,. whereas the authors of this junk are PhDs in the field, right, such that they can pass judgment on the work of a mere exercise physiologist PhD. They all have high training in science journalism and are very careful not to introduce any bias. And if you believe that, wait till the tooth fairy comes tomorrow!

    13. [49]

      The article is significant;y more nuanced than that. Yes, that's the conclusion. Which is largely meaningless. In the field that passes for "nutritional science," one will find in almost any area "several assumptions" where evidence is weak, which these authors call non-existent, which is BS. Paleo is an approach, but it has been made into a specific set of ideas that may come from specific authors. The approach is actually common sense (and may indeed incorporate useless assumptions, people do that.) These authors are totally naive about fat.

    14. several of the premises of the Paleo diet

      I'll read the article, but this is common, a confusion between a practice and "premises" on which the practice might be thought to be based. It is a confusion between theory and reality. It'm not getting a good feeling about the article. "No evidence" is usually false. Rather, the author may judge evidence as weak and interpretation speculative, but people rarely believe or assume anything with no evidence at all.

    15. the Paleo diet is not a miracle diet

      Doesn't that depend on context? If one has been eating in a way that simply doesn't work, and starts eating paleo -- which is a general principle, not a specific diet (except that there are forms based on specific books) -- one may experience a "miracle." or not. This is an experiential reality, very common: expect miracles and you will see them. Not necessarily the miracles you expect! "Not a miracle diet" is not a scientific statement, it is an ordinary, non-scientific popular conclusion, unless "miracle" has been defined.

    16. Does the paleo woo work, and is it based on science?

      Answers are incorporated in questions. Idiots add leading questions. Ask about "woo" you will probably get woozy. Pseudoskeptics generally don't look for what works about something, only for what is wrong.

    17. in contrast to high protein diets such as the Atkins Diet and the South Beach diet,

      again, clueless. High fiber consumption is generally recommended in HFLC diets, which resemble paleo diets, milk probably being a major difference. (And some people cannot tolerate milk, it's an adaptation.)

    18. more satiety per calorie, compared to a Mediterranean diet

      I found the study frustrating but interesting anyway. They studied a "paleo diet" that avoided fatty meats. Indications are that fat was highly prized and preferred by hunter-gatherer peoples, and most anywhere that the low-fat propaganda has not penetrated. All this shows that the article was not written by a serious student who would recognize obvious confusion.

    19. little if any difference in protein intake between diet groups.[

      So high protein was BS/

    20. diet based exclusively on whole-wheat bread

      Which has nothing to do with a paleo diet.

    21. the paleo diet, even in a 'high meat' form, is not necessarily high in protein

      indeed. None of this is clear. Numbers?

    22. Protein and fat take longer to digest, leaving the dieter with a sensation of being "full" for a longer period of time.

      Probably bullshit. First of all, eating to "full" is generally a bad idea. However, being aware of hunger and appetite is part of a sane food plan. However, the major effect is from the fact that after a few days on a ketogenic diet, like 'Atkins one is burning fat for fuel, instead of glucose. Glucose is rapidly cleared from the blood by insulin, resulting in blood sugar crash, which is experienced as "hunger." A keto diet stops that cycle, and the common report is that one simply does not get hungry in the same way. My experience is that I have a more developed appetite, I salivate in anticipatiojn of eating, and I enjoy food more than I ever did before, but "over-eating" is unpleasant, undesirable.

    23. produces more sense of satiation

      no study cited. Probably bullshit. (i.e., 'more" compared to what? And what is satiated? I have a strong impulse for "crunch," which meat and fat do not generally satisfy. So I make baked cheese mixed with chia and flax seeds. Nice and cruncy, low carb and very high fiber.

    24. will not desire food, especially "snacks", for longer periods of time

      It is well known that high fat consumption suppresses appetite. Nothing in the sources was about human "snacking." Anyone with experience with controlled eating will be aware that snacking is a complex issue, a habit (and generally considered to create danger of weight gain. But what one eats matters.

    1. community ban of Abd from English Wikipedia

      I've seen this before. Contrary to what the Smith brothers claim, I have not been commonly banned. This ban is like another that they also cite: if I retire, claim that I'm not going to edit any more, as long as a certain abusive situation continues, they then ban me. "You can't quit, you're fired!" This is all social dysfunction.

    2. strong consensus

      Wikipedia pretends that the community does not vote, rather, decisions are to be made on the strength of arguments, which can be quite subjective. When involvement is considered, the consensus was far weaker than he suggested. What I would say is that the ban was within his discretion as a closer,. He was correct, that the discussion was a waste of time. Subsequent history proved this, because something that few, if any, in the discussion seemed to realize. If the goal was to prevent disruption, it would not be prevented by declaring a ban. I had clearly abandoned any further participation on Wikipedia, but if I did intend to continue editing, being banned would not have any effect. Not being banned might make it easier to revert edits,but nobody seems to have noticed that no reversion was necessary for what I did. So what this discussion did for me was to demonstrate how hopeless the Wikipedia community was. But not just the Wikipedia community. It was the generic wiki community. I did work for some years on Wikiversity, and there were some exciting possibilities there, but it would take a community effort and vigilance to create them, and I never managed to iinspire that, though I did accomplish a lot. When I realized that Wikiversity was vulnerable to what the founder of Wikiversity called "Wikipedia Disease," and I called Wiki disease because it can happen on any wiki without protective structure, and attempts to create protective structure will be resisted by the oligarchy that has formed, existing wikis are intrinsically dangerous. Something else is needed. I see no sign that Wikipedia will be able to break the paralysis that increasingly afflicted it.

      And I am so glad that I bailed when I did. It was a simple move, and made my life far easier than struggling with that mess.

    3. reinstated via discretionary sanctions

      I don't think that was true.

    4. antithetic to the concepts of Wikipedia.

      I don't know what talk page, but "Wikipedia" began with a set of ideas and ideals that were not intended to be fixed, hence WP:IAR. However, that's where it went, such that this person could believe that "the concepts of Wikipedia" are a fixed thing. That is the beginning of death, but I do not know how long it will take.

    5. none of his other socks have been blocked

      Yes. I had disclosed socks. I don't recall what I said then, but I just checked, there is such a sock still unblocked. I stopped the experiment because the purpose had been achieved and, yes, it was causing collateral damage. That he thought I was delighting in it was his projection, and that this fellow would say that demonstrates what is all too common. ABF rules.

    6. Support

      involved. sad case.

    7. IP editing before and after his block

      No, not true. I did not sock to evade blocks. I openly socked, dislosing the edits, initially on my talk page, which was quckly blocked (and, yes, I know the policy and why), then on Wikiversity, on a user study page. The IP socking was from 2 May to 8 May, By the end of that the enforcement, mostly by T. Canens, as I recall, was becomiing draconian, causing collateral damage. I was done, I had collected evidence that these idiots completely overlook, without harming anyone or any content, actually making positive contributions. Then I created one sock. What I wanted to observe was how a neutral editor, carefully avoiding disruption, would be treated. I found out. The old protective policies were dead. But, in any case, I did not disclose that account at first, for obvious reasons. The account EnergyNeutral, made 98 edits from May 19 to May 31, and then went on "wikibreak." It was blocked on 3 June. There were no furhter edits of Wikipedia by me. Calling a period of editing of one week,19 edits, with a defined purpose, designed to minimize disruption, as "extensive editing" was misleading, but misleading evidence and arguments are routine on Wikipedia from administrators and editors in good standing>

      there is no adult supervision. JzG, however, was recently reprimended, his mojo must not be working, and he has been gone for about a month, from previous intense activity. But if history is any guide, he will realize that he can ignore this and carry on as if nothing happened, with maybe only a tiny amount of caution. At this rate, perhaps before he dies, he will stop telling users to fuck off.

    8. block evasion

      If block evasion had been my purpose, I would have created an account from the beginning and disguised my IP. Instead, this was all open, and very restrictted and time limited. I never claimed that the admin had no right to block me. In fact, I made it trivially easy to identify my edits.

      When a banned user who was popular with the faction made edits under ban that were "harmless spelling corrections," many of the same users going after me thought it was ridiculous to block someone for making harmless edits. I invented self-reversion as a way that he could make those spelling corrections, easily, and without complicating ban enforcement, if the policy had been amended to legitimate this. I proposed it, and the proposal sat there for a time until someone actually used self-reversion and then the screams rose up A ban is a ban is a ban." And to hell with WP:IAR.and to hell with encouraging cooperation.

      That user -- it was Science Apologist -- angrily rejected the proposal because "why should he revert a perfectly good edit," and the answer was meaningless to him, "to make ban enforcement uncomplicated by cooperating with the ban." He did not want to cooperate with the ban, he wanted to make any admin who reverted him look silly. And I then confronted this and he was site-bannnd for a time. This guy, though, highly disruptive, has a faction that just loves him. ArbCom site-banned, he came back through a community discussion, and he went right back to his old behavior, which is usually accepted because he has friends.

    9. chronic editing through IP accounts

      For a very short time, in a way as to cause minimal disruption. There is almost no notice of that. There was only disruption from the enforcement effort, and that only for a short time. This was actually a demonstration of how enforcement can cause more disruption that the original problem. but admins don't want to look at that.

    10. I take words out of context

      Experienced Wikipedia administrator does not know how to assume good faith. It is all too common. What T Canens said took what Silverseren had written and intepreted it in a way that was not implied.

    11. POV-warring

      I never did that.

    12. single sock

      He noticed!

    13. trying to point a finger and laugh at him

      In fact, fast-forward to 2017-2019, this ban is pointed to as proof of how disruptive I was, by people allied with JzG and that whole faction. There was no necessity for this ban, it did nothing but allow others to claim I was not merely indef blocked, but "banned." It did not prevent one edit.

    14. Support

      Very, very involved

    15. en edit-warring block

      This would require that I edit war, which is not what I ever did.

    16. s that it enables the formal 3RR shield for reversions.

      What is brilliant about this is that the examples cited of bannable behavior were not edits that required any reversions at all, originally because they were self-reverted. Because those edits were also self-identified, ban enforcement was made easier. If these users actually looked at that experiment with an eye toward seeing if there was anything of value there, they'd have seen this. If I actually cared about this, I might end up being really pissed and then creating massive disruption But I don't and that is not ever what I have done.

    17. Was that lifted from a political "trial" in Maoist China

      No, from a political trial in fascist Wikipedia. Now, here is how this works: A user who was highly involved in conflict with me, who, in fact, held a grudge and commonly blamed me for everything wrong with the cold fusion article, for years later, filed a request to consider a ban. His friend pile in and there are many comments in support from them. that then attracts other users who want to be a part of the community, or who are inclined to agree. Few of these will actually consider evidence, fewer still will consider contrary positions and ideas. So process on wikipedia, discussions like this without the protections of evidence collection with RfC or ArbCom cases, and without any protection against presenting even radically false arguments and deceptive evidence, will tend to go with the early responses. Reversal is unusual.

      There is no penalty for being part of a pitchfork=weilding mob, I have never seen it, and I have seen maybe hundreds of ban discussions.

      And these process defects are larded through Wikipedia. The adhocracy worked wonderfully for quick building of an encyclopedia, but not for making it reliable in any way. POV pushing is allowed if the POV is a popular one, which then pushes the project away from academic neutrality, toward a popular belief that what most editors believe is neutral, and any other POV is not neutral. So you can push a skeptical position, can insult a medical professoinal as a quack, with no sanction, but if you point out that this is not a neutral comment, you might be dinged for POV-pushing. Identifying administrative abuse was crucial to the development of a neutral project, but the reality is that they shoot the messenger.

    18. Wikiversity to refight old vendettas

      no evidence was alleged of old vendettas, what is he talking about?

    19. ignorance of anti-socking policy

      I was fully aware of the policy

    20. COI material

      never on Wikipedia, I was topic banned before the COI developed.

    21. Support

      very, very involved

    22. Support

      involved

    23. rest of us to handle it

      Why is someone knowing they are right (or incorrectly believing they are right, or appearing to be so) a cause requiring any handling at all?

    24. Support

      Very involved, prior conflict.

      Ban policy (I checked) still requires a consensus of uninvolved editors. I contronted a rather large faction, over administrative abuse. It is utterly unsurpising that they would vote for a ban.

      This was, remember, a process where I was not allowed to defend. It really made no difference to me what the outcome was. It did not stop me from editing, what stopped me was my choice not to waste any more time.

    25. Support

      very involved.

    26. Support

      involved, I think.

    27. I'm not cooperating any more, period.

      Yes. I finished some work of personal and larger interest, and then left Wikipedia entirely alone.

      These fascists have no idea of how to create cooperation. It never occurs to them to ask a user what their intentions are. When they decide to unblock a user, commonly, nothing is put in place to help the user stay unblocked. When ArbComm admonished JzG, there was absolutely no structure to monitor his behavior to ensure that he heeded the warning. Commonly, when a user is sanctioned, no help is put in place to guide them to more productive behavior. No, it's all about punishment which is called "protective," but which is very inefficient at actual protection. As I wrote, if I had chosen to retaliate, I could have. Scibaby could easily create far more work than it took him to sock, once one learns how to do it. Yes, it may be necessary to block, etc., but for starters, Flagged Revisions to reduce the need for immediate attention. There is no coordination of monitoring of Recent Changes, it is all ad hoc and wastes vast amounts of editor time, it probably take fifty times the labor compared to what would be necessary with a little focus and a little developed responsibility. Wikipedia will eventually be eaten. That's my prediction. Meanwhile sane people move on, once they see the reality of the cabal. Meanwhile, ah, paid editing. Do they think that won't happen because they declare a policy against it? The system encourages paid editing, in fact, by not creating reliable review. If there were relaible review, there would be no problem with paid editing. It would be like news media prohibiting press releases. The early community had some great ideas, but little long-term vision. Not surprising, in fact.

    28. were I to treat it as a battleground

      which I never did.

    29. With due process exhausted, my compliance becomes no longer a matter of obligation

      that's correct. It becomes voluntary only. That full statement should be read. I stopped cooperating. However, that does not mean that I would continue to edit Wikipedia. Why should I care about sewage floating in a cesspool? Wikipedia can be beautiful at times, but overall, it is not a useful place to work on content. Horrible, actually. Wikipedia process requires a willingness to engage in vastly inefficient process. It took weeks to get consensus for putting in one freaking link because JzG kept reverting it. So I created a review process. A lot of work. It showed that the community wanted the link, and armed with that, he stopped removing it. Weeks of work for one link. And, of course, eventually it slid into the muck.

      What I put in became this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Martin_Fleischmann&oldid=357342538#Conference_proceedings

      This was not a "peer-reviewed" source, it was Fleischmann's own description of why he had undertaken his work. To use something like that requires consensus, and with substantial effort, consensus was obtained. So, for a time, readers of the article could find that source. One editor removed it in 2016 without discussion as part of a much more extensive edit. Nobody noticed (because, remember, I was banned, but there were others who had that page watchlisted and who knew.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Martin_Fleischmann&type=revision&diff=743068690&oldid=731418542

      The edit was generally good. But this editor had no idea why that text was there, and likely did not look at the talk page archive. Wikis are unreliable, unless they have far better protective structure in place.

    30. shows no signs of stopping is

      there is no sign because he did not look for what was in front of his face.

    31. This topic ban is still in effect, and Abd has absolutely no intention of abiding by it.

      Mind-reader. By the time of this discussion, I had completely stopped editing Wikipedia, and never again editied it. (There are apparently two exceptions, I documented this on the Wikiversity user page mentioned, where, much later, I apparently accidentally edited something by IP. So what?

    32. I propose a community ban for Abd.

      What he did not propose was any right of the banned user to respond to charges. "

      Well aware" is how wikis go south, because popular impressions are created based on quick impressions. One might notice a factor missing from all this discussion. Not an administrator, I took two administrators to ArbCom and the first (JzG) was reprimanded and the second (William M. Connolley) was desysopped. In the second case, there were dozens of editors calling for me to be banned, as there were two dozen users in the RfC that preceded the JzG case calling for my ban -- compared to only a dozen actually reading the case and supporting it, which case was eventually supported by ArbCom. Two dozen editors violated policy. Nothing done about it, nothing would ever be done about it.

      Bottom line? I was wasting my time with Wikipedia, it was a lost cause. But there are other wikis and more to be learned. I have just opened up a wiki and my first two users were notable scientists, with Wikipedia articles.

      I'm having fun.

    33. Seconded, since I am not aware of it

      Thanks, Guy. One point, maybe you can use it some day.

    34. Abd is really to that extent compared to the usual criteria we hold for community bans.

      Usually it requires extensive disruption. The basis for this ban was a short period of socking and one actual sock. Definitely there was a basis for continuing the block. However, the community can ban whatever it wants through a consensus of uninvolved users, at least that was policy. In reality, I have never seen an analysis of who was involved or not. JzG and Raul654 would be very involved, from prior disputes.

    35. Rdfox and Raul, not Jzg

      It is possible that JzG was a participant in the much later private complaints to the WMF that led them to globally ban me, he was involved in the deletion discussion on Wikiversity that was connected with it.

      I was never close to a community global ban. For starters, I was only banned on one wiki, en.wikipedia. I was blocked for a short time on meta, that was lifted. I had activity on hundreds of WMF wikis.

    36. he was community banned

      topic ban from cold fusion, yes. And I respected that ban until I abandoned wikipedia.

    37. Abd is already (permanently) community banned.

      He lied.

    38. back in the delegable-proxy day

      that was a proposed experiment that would have been voluntary, involve no policy change, but that might create the collection of information to better assess consensus. This was considered a net negative, so negative that it was proposed to delete the proposal (not my proposal, by the way, but I was an off-wiki theoretician with delegable proxy). That sequence revealed to me how dead-set Wikipedia was in preserving the status quo. Anything the might show a better way (or not!) was to be "terminated with extreme prejudice." The vehemence was astonishing to me. I really had high hopes for Wikipedia, but knew that it would need to develop more reliable process. By 2011, I had competely abandoned that idea. This was unlikely to happen with Wikipedia, the Iron Law of Oligarchy had taken over. I see mo sign now (2019) of any move to actually empower the full community. Wikipedia runs for the interests of what Jimbo called the "Cabal." And denies that there is any cabal, only by pretending that the only kind of cabal is one with guys with moustaches rubbing their hands in an evil conspiracy. In fact, the wiki structure encourages factions to form and to advance factional agendas, it's trivial. Watchlists and no restraining community review process that actually works.

    39. BUT you can't actually revert the edits more than once, else you risk running afoul of EW and eventually 3RR

      and if the edit was constructive that you reverted, you have damaged the project simply in order to enforce a "rule." This situation does not actually change if the user is blocked or banned. This all points out how far the admin corps has gone from wiki-sanity. He is looking for a rule to justify reversion. Yes, someone could, in theory, create multiple accounts but this had nothing to do with the experiment.

    40. somewhat similar experiment

      Knowing Guido den Broder, I doubt it was actually similar. Self-reversion can be done disruptively. Yes, it was an experiment, but once the WP admin response had played out, I was not going to continue it and only did one more experiment, also not disruptive. (But some will argue that any block evasion is disruptive. Regardless of conditions. to put this bluntly, WP:IAR is dead.

    41. User:Roadcreature (GdB)

      later ANI

      Without a link, this would be useless in discussion. Guido den Broeder was a PITA on Wikiversity.

    42. alternate approaches to editing whilst banned from a WMF wiki

      He gets it better than others. The approach was invented before I was banned, and it worked. To work, however, requires that a policy be established that self-reverted edits, identified as made under a ban (and therefore to be carefully examined before reverting them back in) would not be ban violations, not in themselves. If the edits were otherwise disruptive, like "So-and-so is poo!", self reversion might not avoid sanction.

      The real point of self-reversion is that, to work, cooperation must be set up.

    43. you can buy all the components and try it yourself

      Yes. that was ready and available by the time the web site was up. I still have all those components, but largely abandoned that project. There is more known, now, and I might restart it. This is for experiment, i.e., for study and learning, not to "prove" anything. But these WP admins have some weird idea about "believers" in pseudoscience. I have been published under peer review in a mainstream journal on the topic. They probably believe that such publications don't exist, and why? Because all reference to them has systematically been expunged from the WP article! One of the last things before I was topic-banned was getting a declaration from WP:RSN that a particular peer-reviewed secondary source was usable as reliable source. That was attacked extensively, but the decision was, yes, reliable source. This was the most prominent review of cold fusion ever. Excluded. Why? (and I am not claiming that the conclusions of that article are "true." Verification, not truth, right?

    44. the actual working model

      This kit would not be called a "working model." It was a collection of materials to be used to replicate a SPAWAR experiment, claim to produce a few neutrons (very few, but this kit was optimized from various reports of theirs to crreate, possibly, as many as thousands of proton-knock-on tracks and a few "triple-tracks," which are diagnostic of neutrons. I thought it was a cool idea. I did not expect to make a profit, rather it was designed to break even, covering necessary labor at a modest rate.

    45. have the kit available yet,

      where did he get that. The materials were available for sale, making what could have been difficult, easy.

    46. advertising their COI

      Disclosing. WMF policy requires disclosing COI. Is that "advertising." I suppose. But this was an educational resource, and the kit was designed to replicate a notable experiment.

    47. we as Wikipedians can force that decision.

      In any case, he was correct, except for one thing. A collection of "trusted" Wikipedians could privately complain and if a user was actually violating the terms of use, they could convince the Office to globally lock. Even more, they could have a user not violating the TOU be banned, by presenting misleading evidence or worse, since the WMF has a star chamber process.

    48. vendettas

      I was not carrying out any "Wikipedia vendetta." Those were not allowed on Wikiversity, and I was part of the defense against it. But a Wikipedia vendetta spilled over onto Wikiversity, and Wikiversity was largely defenseless.

    49. Wikipedia Review

      This was misleading. Wikiversity was for educational resources, and included learning-by-doing, and people could study whatever interested them. Some people have been interested in "wiki studies," and that can include criticism. As a WV sysop, I acted to prevent personal attacks on Wikipedians. Later, one of my blocks came, if I recall correctly, when I used revert warring to call attention to persistent outing and personal attack against a WP sysop. It worked. In other words, where a major policy required breaking a minor one (3RR). I went for major instead of minor. A more general application of this principle is in WP:IAR. Admins, however, come to not actually care about improving the project, they care about enforcing rules and their own ideas of what "improvement" means. And once opped, they become almost impossible to remove. They can become incredibly disruptive and nothing is done, and if somone points it out, it can be wiki-suicide.

    50. anyone is actually listening

      Well, I write to learn and I write for the future. And out of my Wikipedia experience, I was able to be paid as a consultant. That drives them crazy! But it was not a violation of policy.

    51. f he's quietly editing some non-cold-fusion-related topic with socks, then what's the harm

      Indeed. But the fascists actually want to punish. And if you look at what I was banned for around cold fusion, it was not for POV-pushing. It was for allegedly writing too much on the Talk page. And the example given was a request to lift a global blacklisting on meta (not on Wikipedia!) That had started simple but, guess who! JzG made it complicated by lying about the facts, so I needed to present evidence and that gets long. The request was successful. So I was banned for a successful request on meta. Go figure. These fascists do whatever they want and invent excuses for it, and they have high experience at presenting popular excuses.

    52. Jimbo stepped in and shut it down

      That intervention occurred before I was active on WV. However, it had consequences. When Jimbo parachuted in with a meat-axe, it had massive negative consequences on that community, which prized academic freedom. So a WV sysop filed an RfC to remove Jimbo's Founder powers. It was doing poorly, running about 2:1 against, because of long-term users like Raul654, did he vote? I don't recall, but his vote would have been obvious. Jimbo apparently did not notice that many long-term users had voted to remove the tools. It had, in fact, been heavy-handed. So, perhaps emboldened, he went to Commons and started deleting porn. The way I have summarized this later was "Academic freedom? Who cares? But don't touch our porn!" The issue was really the same, the right of the local wikis to autonomy. Cross-wiki disruption could already be handled by stewards, but there were ways to preserve neutrality and avoid cross-wiki disruption without destroying academic freedom. I was very careful about that project not to cause any damage other than what was created by over-reaction, and that was limited. By the time of this discussion, I had ceased all editing of Wikipedia. As typical for these fascists, had I been banned, it would not have stopped me. They imagine that they have super-powers, being admins really does go to their heads.

    53. nor should they, since his actions aren't vandalism, they're just the cold fusion topic area)

      While I did do a lot of study of cold fusion there, it was not the bulk of my work, for the longest time. The documentation of my socking -- which was part of a larger study of the use of self-reversion to avoid ban violation -- was presented for deletion and consensus was to keep it.

    54. until the folks over there decide otherwise

      And so it went. But I was eventually banned from Wikiversity. If you look at it, a whole drawer of socks appeared to harass, a 'crat who had been very inactive appeared and said he had received private complaints, Some Wikipedians piled in to comment and attack, and I was unilaterally banned by him on some trumped-up excuse that had never been used before, the length of my block log. I had been extremely active on Wikiversity, practically ran the place for a time, had been abusively blocked by a rogue probationary sysop, and there were other events. I even made some mistakes and was short-blocked. All fairly normal. But I had already concluded that Wikiversity was unsafe and I had stopped working there. I only was editing to confront impersonation socking. That 'crat called it a "vendetta." In fact, he was colluding with them, that's become more and more obvious (it is more than admitting to private contact, which was bad enough.)

    55. and how to impose a ban on him on all WMF projects

      And Raul654 was a very large presence with that faction, having created, with WMC, one of the largest sock farms ever by simply banning someone because of their global warning point of view. He created an entire industry to detect edits mentioning cow farts, he blocked large swathes of the internet. By a year or two before this, functionaries were telling me he had to go.

    56. I wonder if it's possible to arrange a *global* ban from all WMF projects

      At that point, no. This user had no idea of global policy and how and why it was very different from Wikipedia. Wikiversity has a neutrality policy, but was neutral by inclusion, rather than exclusion. That is academic rather than encyclopedic. In academia, people do original research and argue for their ideas, and that is protected. But I was not "pushing a cold fusion POV on Wikipedia. That was a myth created by my confrontation of the pseudoskeptical POV pushers who resisted my very conservative editing of that article. I was not a "believer," but I was putting in information from reliable sources, which the faction (that included JzG and William M. Connolley later) revert warred to keep out. Connolley lost his tools over my first cold fusion ban, but the faction continued to push for it, and if you have two dozen editors, including some administrators, pushing a position, it does not take off-wiki collusion for it to happen. They will wear anyone down.

    57. turning topic ban evasion

      what the project was about was as a demonstration that it was possible for banned users to make positive contributions, making enforcement easier, and this idea had been approved by an arbitrator, before. The method was to self-revert the edit, as being subject to a ban, with identification of the user. The proposal was that such self-reverted edits would not be considered ban violations (as they would be harmless and would only come back in if explicitly accepted.) This actually worked, and created cooperation between banned editors and the very editors who had wanted them banned.This study stopped because it was obvious that admins would do anything to enforce a ban, including blocking innocent users, creating massive range blocks, creating edit filters to prevent the user from identifying himself (with many false positives), and using revision deletion to hide perfectly good edits.

      Nobody looked at balance. That is what Wikipedia had become, an inefficient mess, needlessly pissing off people so that they become LTAs, and not actually caring about the impact on neutrality of differential blocking based on POV,

    58. inability to accept that he is anything other than 100% right?

      Personal attack. But who notices and cares?

    59. to evade ArbCom sanctions

      It was not an ArbCom sanction. JzG is so careless with reality that he might as well be said to be a liar.

    60. cold fusion ban,

      Yes. A community ban, that was interpreted beyond the original intention.

    61. Given EnergyNeutral (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) following on from an unsuccessful appeal of the topic ban re Cold fusion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), I am assuming that Abd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) is now considered banned? It's probably best if someone else tags the user page and links to the various sockpuppets. Guy

      Why someone else? Well, Guy (JzG) was highly involved with me, I had taken him to ArbCom and he was reprimanded and never forgave this. He implies that I was ArbComm banned. I had been but it expired and was replaced by a community ban. I appealed to ArbCom and I was blocked during the appeal, and it became obvious that ArbCom was not going to do anything, and I considered I had exhaused due process and I was going to be blocked and banned if I jaywalked, and so I abandoneed Wikipedia. But first I tested a procedure I had developed whereby banned users could non-disruptively make positive contributions. That required some socking, so I did that. When it became obvious that the WP admin coomunity no longer cared about WP:IAR, but had become fascist, I then did one final test, to see how a carefullly neutral and non-disruptive user would be treated. That was Energy Neutral. Look at contributions. No conflict. Yet, abruptly, banned by an arbitrator. I had taken no steps to disgusie my IP. But once upon a time, they would not checkuser you unless you were disruptive. I had now learned that the community had abandoned the traditions that originally built Wikipedia. So I never again socked. So one actual sock puppet in 2011.

    1. I'd have thought that that is exactly the sort of thing for which discovery is needed.

      And he would be right. Legal process actually makes a great deal of sense, usually. That's "common law." Discovery is mandated by court rules, largely intended to facilitate the "discovery" of evidence by an orderly process, to reduce surprise at trial, to make the whole affair more reliable as to genuine fact-finding.

      It is actually possible, in California, to file interrogatories prior to filing a lawsuit, at least that was the rule when I was in California. In a case where I was not personally involved, but was assisting a close friend (ah, give me a moment to remember how drop-dead beautiful she was!), I wrote interrogatories that were then served on the plaintiff. When the plaintiff saw them, they suddenly became amenable to settlement, and the case quickly settled for far, far less than they had been demanding. (this was a case where the plaintiff was an insurance company under subrogation from a landlord, for a fire accident claim, and the attorneys had a fixed-fee arrangement that did not contemplate extended litigation. It became obvious that this was going to involve much more than they expected.

    2. et's not assume his motives are completely malign.

      What is commonly seen, amazing for a project with Assume Good Faith as a policy, is Assume Bad Faith, it's rampant and routine.

    3. they could recover legal costs and bury him.

      Extracting blood from turnips is not economically feasible.

      Rreally, :"arbitrator" now means little more than "Randy from Boise." they used to be, most of them, highly experienced, or seemed that way.

    4. If this proceeds to any extent, he'll need to fly out there.

      I doubt it. But I have children land grandchildren living in Marin County and it is always nice to visit them.

    5. Section 13 of the Terms of Use requires

      this is not an action under the Terms of Use, it did not arise out of my usage of the site (as far as I know!). Even if the TOU governed, they were written by the WMF and that the WMF would libel me was not contemplated. Self-serving terms can be defeated. Obviously, I considered the jurisdiction issue, My prior usage of the site under the TOU was not a consent to the WMF libelling me with those limitations on jurisdiction, which would be unconscionable as interpreted. In a real MTD for improper jurisdiction, we would cite arguments and authorities, but I'm pretty sure that I'd prevail. And I could be wrong, and much depends on the impressions of the judge, more than I'd have expected, in my experience, than from legal principles. Law is a human endeavor, and I just might have a leg up precisely because I'm pro se at this point.

      As near as I can see, the proper venue for this case is a U.S. Federal court where any of the parties reside, as a Diversity action, which is how it was filed.

    6. abuse

      this is an arbitrator? I certainly did not state that!

    7. It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.

      This says a great deal about this troll. He is neither feared nor loved. What I would fear is being someone like him. Fate worse than death.

    1. Abd will lose less than a $500 while costing the WMF several thousand dollars in donor money and a bunch of time. Does that seem true to you?

      Yes, that's how it looks to me.

      This would be if they refuse to negotiate and rely on an MTD, and prevail. But they could spend that and fail, easily, wasting it, needing then to spend much more in discovery and trial. And I may be able to raise funding to cover my costs, and might raise enough to retain a lawyer, or might find pro bono counsel. At this point that is not necessary.

    2. vexatious litigants.

      I am not a vexatious litigant. I know the rules and I'm not even close. Vigilant is a blowhard troll, always has been. Vicious, too, what he did to that wiki started by what's his name, the partner of the WMF CEO, was disgusting. And these people talk about me, throwing stones, living in glass houses. The Smith brothers point to a single Wikipedia sock (an experiment, not disruptive) and they have created hundreds of tagged Wikipedia accounts, highly disruptive, and most of their accounts have never been tagged. He would criticize David as a "disruptive adolescent stone-throwing publicity-seeker" ignoring Goliath, as if Goliath were a harmless pastoralist.

    3. There is absolutely ZERO

      Woo! A challenge! Fun!

      I accomplish fun no matter what, it's independent of conditions.

    4. The local counsel will already know everyone in the local jurisdiction's court system.

      And the local counsel will meet with me, face-to-face. I do well in such meetings, generally. I have actual people skills, which most involved with the wikis do not. I do not talk like I write.

    5. The fact that Abd opted for a non-jury trial means that they don't have the unpredictability of 12 random ding dongs to deal with.

      That cuts both ways.

    6. They'll evaluate his fiscal state to estimate how long he can afford to litigate.

      And they will see, "for the rest of his life, and beyond, because he has heirs and assigns (and they have money, by the way). As to rest of his life, we never know, but it easily could be twenty years. My mother lived well into her nineties. My father died a bit before my age, but of lung cancer, he was a smoker.

    7. I strongly suspect

      To a witchsmeller, everything smells like a witch.

    8. compelled to give him a defined reason for his ban

      Not exactly. They don't have to give a defined reason, probably. I will consult with counsel before deciding that as final. If the case survives MTD, they will be required to provide all documents, and depositions may be required from officers. Again, I suspect that their counsel will be smart enough to negotiate, and the contents of that cannot be fully anticipated. But this is what a lawyer will normally do Those who insist on "this is ridiculous and I ain't talking to this troll" do not do well.

    9. in California it's doubtful.

      I used to live in California and was successful in court there. But this case is filed as a Diversity action in Massachusetts, with the U.S. Federal Court 20 minute's drive away.

    10. Ding, ding, ding.

      If this is BURob 13, a great example of someone raised beyond competence by something or other. This guy is actually an arbitrator. Standards have been falling, though they were never that high.

    11. I'd grind him so fine

      Way too much testosterone, poor guy. I know many lawyers. Lawyers who talk like that fail, big time. Would this guy actually dare face me in court? With a threat like that, he would not be allowed near the place.;

    12. the office bans are a total block box is to make a lawsuit like this hopeless

      Beeblebrox is probably correct. However, they did not do complete work in setting up protection, creating defamation here and potentially in other places. $400 is actually a lot of money for me, but I expect to obtain full value, even if only as a learning experience. One thing I learn is how many idiots there are ready to issue mindless, ignorant opinions.

    13. I'm aware of at least one such case.

      Do we know who BURob13 is, that his personal knowledge is any kind of evidence? If this is Wikipedia BU Rob13, perhaps. But there is no verification of identity, and there are people who do impersonate. But no details were given, and the existence of a case does not demonstrate that it is common, and if rare, the basic objection raised would be valid.

    14. associations to it could negatively affect people in real life.

      Indeed. I know for a fact that the impressions of the general public about a ban like this is that it impeaches the character of the person. Many will not realize the political possibilities, will assume that the WMF is benevolent, and must have had sound reasons, the ban must really have been necessary for protection. Even though it protected nobody, it was only punitive, as far as I can see.

    15. Has a SanFranBan ever been rejected because someone outside of T&S disagreed with it?

      The reality of the situation: Making a decision to reject the proposed ban will create controversy among staff, it will take time, and staff time is money. Few will make waves. But they might. The community is only represented through the Board, which is weak (as it is in many organizations, I've seen this up close. The Board depends on the Staff, and any Board member who offends staff will often be ousted as a troublemaker.)

      But, bottom line, this is irrelevant. The WMF has very poor ban process, not transparent, hidden, star chamber, and not appealable. I can see no basis for that, there could be the possibility of appeal that would still protect privacy.

    16. You said that, not them.

      It does not matter what they said. If an action will be readily interpreted with defamatory effect, if this would be reasonably anticipated, and if the action continues on notice, the action can be considered defamation.

    17. cannot have defamed him

      The announcement of the ban, unnecessary for legitimate purpose, is a defamation, or certainly can have that effect, and it is effect that matters.

    18. a declaration that he is so abominable

      Considering what they do allow, especially. What I blew the whistle on was actual impersonation-to-defame, followed by threats of retaliation, actually carried out with the assistance of the WMF. If nothing else, this will expose that, bring it into relief, and very possibly make it into media, i.e., reliable source. At that point much of the reputation damage will have turned into a positive effect.

    19. Several people outside of Trust and Safety must sign off on any action they take

      The reality in such organizations is that such people may not themselves carefully investigate. The case probably must look good to them, trusting what was reported. But this is all speculation. Yes, I know what they claim about the process. Claims are like assholes . . . . What I see here, and it is common, is that because something is a stated policy, it actually happens.

    20. snowball's chance in hell this reaches discovery.

      I guess we find out how the temperature of Hell and the melting point of snowballs compare. I agree that it is unlikely that this goes to discovery, because it is likely that it will be settled before then. But that's up to the WMF. If they insist on stonewalling, first of all, if they do that, I win $200,000 do not pass go. No, if they don't negotiate, they may waste money on an MTD. In spite of the opinions of legal ignoramuses here, an MTD is likely to fail, because there is an issue of fact that will require a trial to resolve: is the publication of a ban an act of defamation? My opinion is, yes, but what matters is not my opinion, but the adjudication of a court, upon consideration of arguments, and have these trolls ever read the legal principles for adjudication of a Motion to Dismiss? I have and I watched actual process.

      The defendant must show that there is no fact alleged that could possibly result in a judgment in favor of the plaintiff. That is actually quite difficult in most cases, which is why most motions to dismiss fail in federal court. We have a case here where a published ban actually was used to defame.

      No, by the time a Motion to Dismiss appears, if it does, I expect to have professional assistance. Right now, I filed pro se, keeping expenses at a minimum. I have not decided what I would settle for, and if I did, I would not announce it, but this much is clear: a reduction in my expenses will not increase my demand!

    21. they are legally entitled to bar

      Probably. There are issues that have never been tested, but this case does not directly test them. Not as filed.

    22. His only claim about the WMF in that filing is that they globally banned him.

      Ah, you gotta read carefully. I claimed that they published the ban. Without the publication, both to the public and to the compainants, it could not have been used to defame.

    23. no statements about Abd publicly except to say he's globally banne

      Correct.

    24. that will play in front of a judge

      One cannot play one's imagination in front of a judge. I have actually stood in front of judges, having filed motions, and the judges were smiling and joking with me, and my motions were granted. Vigilant probably assumes that I speak like I write, but those are very different contexts, and in person, I'm focused on connecting with the audience, and I'm good at it, at least so far. I'm actually trained. Vigilant is a self-important opinionator, self-appointed as Witchsmeller Pursuivant, wearing a very weird breastplate, as if a warrior. This guy would not last ten minutes in court before they toss him out. Well, maybe ten minutes!

    25. imagine the deposition of Mr Lomax

      Honi soit qui mal y pense

    26. don't have to even give a reason

      that is correct, they don't, but they also do not have to publish a ban to create and enforce one.

    27. bury him in lawyers.

      ooo! How many can talk at once? Do they jump on the plaintiff, do they lie down on him, and how deep do they bury him. One, two, three lawyers deep? At $300 per hour each? For how long do these lawyers assume this position? Uh, is this legal?

      I'm amazed how dumb this long-time troll is.

    28. an injury to his reputation

      In these discussions, Vigilant and others have shown injury to reputation. Vigilant particularly by citing the RatWikik article as if proof that I'm a "net.kook." .

    29. real money.

      He noticed, and so did I. Oliver Smith does not own the pot he pees in. I'm not sure about Darryl. By involving the WMF, they involved an entity with assets, which was not bright. But it worked for them, for a year! Oliver is already facing a lawsuit from another one of his targets. If this gets going, Darryl has offended many people with assets, and so this just might get expanded, if it continues. I do not control the future, even if I declare it, sometimes. Man proposes, Reality disposes.

    30. shit out of luck

      I don't need luck and I don't believe in it.

    31. a reasonable basis for his banning

      Weird. The ban protected nobody, had no effect on what I was doing, and only served the purpose of defamation, exposing the WMF to liability. That was 'reasonable?"

      In any case, I don't know what the basis was. I assume, in fact, that it looked reasonable to them, based on what they believed happened. But did that actually happen?

      Perhaps the "clownfuckery" was believing the reports of "valuable volunteers" like JzG and Joshua P. Schroeder"? Or the Smith brothers? Or who else?

    32. Being Abd

      In case anyone has not noticed, he is not Abd.

    33. force the WMF to disclose the basis and evidence on which he was banned

      Well, probably not exactly. I.e., they will probably claim privacy protection requires that remain confidential. However, there are ways to deal with that. I learned a lot by paying close attention to Rossi v. Darden, with claims of privileged communication and skilled lawyers on both sides. Disclosure to a magistrate was ordered, who decided if it was to be revealed.

    34. does quite often work as a smear tactic

      It works in a context where there is no ordered examination of evidence. It works much less in a court environment.

    35. the purpose of seeding doubt in the (potential future) judge's mind about whether or not he's actively violating the WMF terms of service.

      Yeah, this joe job could possibly be intended for that. Stupid, though. If this case gets to the point where violation of the terms of service is relevant -- it is not a core issue -- there is no evidence those are me. And I'd be in court, testifying, and I'm told I have a great smile. I don't think I will look like a liar. I know not to get obsessed and upset by the lies of others. It will be visible. Don't mistake my documentation for upset and complaint. Trying to judge people by text, online, is quite hazardous.

    36. interesting

      thanks.

    37. Old man yells at cloud on steroids.

      There is no yelling allowed in court.

    38. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Abd_ul-Rahman_Lomax

      People who eat excrement tend to not think clearly.

    39. suicide by court.

      Vigilant has no life, so knows not death. Yet.

    40. a $10M liability.

      It could be $10 trillion and make no difference.

    41. the WMF can bury him alive

      To bury me alive will be expensive. The court is not likely to award unnecessary costs. How many lawyers are needed to respond to this action?

    42. that WMF legal moves to dismiss

      That might not even be likely.

    43. He's pro se vs real lawyers.

      Yes. David v Goliath? Place your bets!!!

    44. brought the WMF and their legal team into this

      Not yet. They have not yet acknoweldged service, so I may have to send a process server.

    45. $200K in damages

      Plus expenses and punitive damages if so adjudicated.

    46. The WMF don't owe him or anyone else access to their servers.

      That is more or less correct. However, I have not claimed that they owe me access to the servers. I have access, and it is not prohibited. What is this idiot talking about? What is prohibited is write access. Of course, they could not prevent it if I choose to ignore the ban. But it would muddy my case.