RationalWiki talk:All things in moderation/Archive72

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192․168․1․42[edit]

I feel like this person is concern trolling on the bar.[1] Can a mod please take a look? GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 15:38, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

They (not actually an IP, but a user whose name looks like an IP) showed up here, it seems, originally to comment on the WIGO Conservapedia talk page some in 2013. So not a recently-made account. In one of their earliest edits they mention having been blocked from Conservapedia. Since then they've mostly commented on talk pages (I'm defining the saloon bar as a talk page here), and on occasions made constructive edits or reverted vandalism (though seemed active in essayspace, the forum, and debatespace early on too). I don't make any current judgement to the user, just giving a diluted summary of their activity. Chillpilled (talk) 15:58, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
From my perspective as far as "moderation" goes, my main concern with this user is that such has sysop rights. I question that status in light of the recent Saloon Bar messages defending a few quite obvious bad faith accounts that were blocked. Yes, it's "just words", but still... even if the moderation concerns were actually genuine (I don't think they were), it should have been taken up here, instead of extending an obvious concern troll thread. (I personally have tended to ignore this user as it tends to argue for the sake of arguing, but that's not of concern from a moderation perspective, I imagine.) BobJohnson (talk) 16:57, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
Have they used sysop rights to block vandals before? Assuming they have, and assuming they haven't abused sysop tools in the past, the historical net-effect of them having such rights would be at least marginally positive. I agree that particular saloon bar thread reeked of concern trolling, although I also agree that some users have been too jumpy about supposed concern trolls on the saloon bar in the past. It's not totally unwarranted though, since it's been a prime target for perennial block-evading trolls of all stripes. Chillpilled (talk) 17:34, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
Concern trolling would seem to be a minor offense unless it got excessive. Abuse of sysop tools is the main reason to demop. 192․168․1․42 got briefly blocked earlier on April 6 of this year by Cosmikdebris for "Excessively offensive edits".[2] It's unclear what that was about based on the edit history.[3] Bongolian (talk) 18:31, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
I volunteer that we nickname them "pseudo-IP" for ease of remembrance. Unless there are multiple pseudo-IPs. Chillpilled (talk) 19:05, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
I think Pseudo-BoN became more trollish after coming back and being incensed upon finding that our site's attitudes on a great many things have changed, including but not limited to being less slack on blocking policy, with all the terminally-online perennial trolls we've managed to piss off over the years and the increasingly vile and persistent far-right/manosphere trolls who have led us to conclude that benefit of the doubt is almost always wasted on such people (especially since 90% of the former quickly turn out to be a certain Welsh nazi banned here who can't go 5 seconds without calling someone bald or dropping a k-bomb or n-bomb). --Goatspeed. Fossil evidence of my evolutionCircularREmail2.gifasoningSteal my ideas 05:31, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
It might not be 'excessive' concern trolling, Bongolian but I firmly accuse them of excessive sealioning. While this account isn't a habitué of the Bar, they pop up on a semi-regular basis with a identical 'debating' style - sealioning Gish Gallops with the occasional 'Master of the Obvious' thrown in. While they do engage with others, said engagement is fairly shallow and minimal. Two examples which I've dug up from the archives are 'Proposed Assault Weapons Ban' and 'Russia Blows Up Dam'. In fact even then I end up calling them out on their galloping, sealioning, repeated repetition even after it being pointed out and whataboutism which doesn't really respond to critics. There's other times where they don't paste up walls of sealioning, but instead grace us with their condescending and shallow 'explanation' of terms which don't add anything to the discussion. In short; yes, Pseudo-BoN I have noticed your patterns of behaviour and I am neither amused or think it's useful for the wider community.
I don't think this is a hanging offence, but I do think something needs to be done about it. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:31, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
I've been thinking about this topic since yesterday and I know what I'll do from now on: I'll just ignore this petty concern troll/sealioner. Whether we like it or not, this sort of bad-faith is not against the rules, so yeah, we shouldn't sanction or even de-mop them unless it reaches unbereable leves, like, say in UShistoryanalyzer's case. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 13:54, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ There's a reason malicious compliance is called malicious compliance. Perhaps the rules should be amended to include sanctions for persistent and pointless sealioning and concern trolling? Carthage (talk) 15:24, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

FYI, I think there are at least two pseudo-BON accounts currently registered. I'm less certain about there being more than two starting with 192.168. Luigifan18 (talk) 17:17, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Hello there[edit]

I've been on Rationalwiki on and off since late 2007 IIRC. I found reasons to make a few user accounts, but I edited for years before that, and after that without logging in. Much of my recent activity on Rationalwiki has been badgering the community to adhere to epistemic rationality in discussions of politicized issues, with this recent kerfuffle stemming from a new user's complaint providing an outlet for my long-running disappointment in how users have become aggressive and cliquish in opposition to the aspirations of such things as the RW community standards.

This is a long weekend for me, so I'll have time to break all this down in detail, but the short version is that interested parties should have a look at what I've actually said and what the terms used to accuse me of wrongdoing actually mean. The two sections in the Saloon Bar are fairly representative. Since the clear bad faith assumption there demonstrates that Wonderingabout's point is correct, it's obviously not concern trolling, but an accurate critique of the current Rationalwiki culture. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 17:23, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Hm. That is a fair point to make. The problem is that with the brewing cultural storm going on and the alt-right sinking further and further into their "own the libs" mentality and bigoted delusions, well… long story short, there's a lot of people out there who have nothing but bad faith. (It doesn't help that there are some very persistent trolls, like Ken, Mikey, and Grawp, who simply refuse to stop using RationalWiki as their ideological dumping ground.) Obviously, bad faith shouldn't be the default assumption when a new user surfaces, but if they barge in denouncing the very concept of rationality (whether overtly or subtly) and making statements that are not even wrong, then it's understandable that RationalWiki would want nothing to do with them. --Luigifan18 (talk) 17:59, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
"That is a fair point to make." And so, one may consider rereading the related discussions with the ideas in mind that Wonderingabout's perception of bad faith assumption is correct, and that the accusations of concern trolling are incorrect.
"The problem is that" Current standards and guides already cover that. Penalties are to come after misconduct, and it is to be commensurate to the actual misconduct. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 18:46, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
The community standards FYI clearly allow for blocking someone whose primary goal is to be disruptive. That is very clear in the block policy: "preventing disorder is prioritized over following guidelines to the punctuation." Note that very persistent concern trolling can actually qualify for this on occasion (this was part of the issue with USHistoryAnalyzer if I recall). If a person admits to creating a parody page of a long-running drama (Oliver Smith) that generally no one cares about except the Wikisphere, I can see why that is blocked -- most people in that drama are already banned from Rationalwiki, and a post declaring disorderly intent, e.g. deliberately creating a page to tweak Oliver Smith is (per the RW community standards) enough to block. Blocking policy also allows blocking of suspicion of impersonation (as in the case of an account claiming to be Shawn Baker, one of your links).
But again, I honestly wonder if you even give a hoot about any of this; my gut feeling is that you zoomed in on this topic just to sealion. I have severe doubts you have even read the community standards in full at this point, and are just holding them up as some sort of "I'm more moral than thou" badge, like the fundies do with their Bibles. Again: if you have complaints about the moderation, why pollute the Salon? Why not start a thread here?
I know some of the old guard are tweaked that Rationalwiki 2023 is not Rationalwiki 2007, but back then this wiki was essentially Encyclopædia Dramatica for anti-Conservapedia trolls. Had things not changed, this wiki would probably be as irrelevant and unstable as Encyclopædia Dramatica is today. BobJohnson (talk) 20:39, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
The issue is, Pseudo-BoN is that I have done as you have said - 'that interested parties should have a look at what I've actually said' and 'and what the terms used to accuse me of wrongdoing actually mean'. In the two Bar examples I posted above you have provided excellent examples of what 'sealioning' tactics are by doing them, and what's more I could provide a lot more of these if we had a better archive search feature and/or could be arsed to spend hours manually hunting through them to find more examples.
As for complaining of users getting 'aggressive and cliquish', well I cannot speak for others but from what I have seen folks at the Bar have tried to constructively engage with you repeatedly, but my working theory is that they tire of your sealioning gallops and give up. Now, it can be said I as a user don't do much contributions in mainspace and similar, but it's a bonus in this case because I have had a fairly decent ringside seat of your Bar antics for perhaps two years now and the vast majority of your contributions have been in the same tired and bandwidth-hogging style. I can say this because I have been one of those people who have repeatedly tried to engage with you in the past.
I am not going to make comments on your other contributions because I am not familiar with them and to be honest, can't be bothered to familarise myself with them. But in the Bar, I shall say this - I have your number and I'm not going to tolerate it any longer [unless the mob decides I'm overreacting]. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:47, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Response[edit]

"I question that status in light of the recent Saloon bar messages defending a few quite obvious bad faith accounts that were blocked." Considering that I didn't unblock them, why bring sysop rights into this at all? Unless, of course, you intend to block me for being "disruptive" as you outlined below. As for the merits of those blocks, you're welcome to contest what I've said about them, or to be the first to give an actual reason for why the username AK7FAN1992 is unacceptable or "disruptive".

"it should have been taken up here, instead of extending an obvious concern troll thread." As everyone can see now (with the additional example below), Wonderingabout's criticism is accurate. And to quote what I said in that thread when BobJohnson said the same thing previously: "I don't have the time to police bad blocks or other hostility piecemeal, and the damage in those cases is already done. Such blocks are downstream of the site's cultural norms regarding blocks and how users are to be treated, and the current norms violate the written policies rather often. So perhaps this Saloon discussion can serve as a reminder to newer users to read the guides and act with a thought to cultivation of the community." Rather than respond to this in the thread (or at all), BobJohnson merely repeated his statement here. Though he did take the trouble to move a reminder inside the collapse with the obviously-false accusation that it's concern trolling.

"It's unclear what that was about" It was about the Friedrich Nietzsche talk page. I reverted vandalism by an IP editor on March 22. On April 6, Cosmikdebris also reverted vandalism by an IP editor. I assume that, since the version being reverted to was "mine", my username got clicked in the process of blocking the IP editor. The erronious block was recognized and corrected a few minutes later.

"I volunteer that we nickname them "pseudo-IP" for ease of remembrance. Unless there are multiple pseudo-IPs." There are indeed multiple, including an inactive tech. I don't watch closely enough to be sure, but I may be the only one currently active. As for a nickname, these are actual numbers, so "BoN" is accurate. If you want something that's both short and specific, "192" should suffice.

"I firmly accuse them of excessive sealioning" To repeat heretofore-unanswered responses I've made previously to accusations of sealioning: "Sealioning is a term used to dismiss questions that one does not want to to answer, typically with an unstated justification along the lines that knowing the answers to those questions is a prerequisite to being able to meaningfully participate in the current discussion." After this, I gave topical responses as follows: "This and the section above involve me telling people that certain actions are wrong, with questions serving as challenges to either defend the actions or admit that they're wrong." "The current discussion is titled "Russia blows up dam", and refers to a recent event in an ongoing war that no one has taken credit for. Asking "How do you know who did it?" is a reasonable response." So, can you post a quote here of something I've done that constitutes actual sealioning?

"Gish Gallops" To repeat another heretofore-unanswered response: "A Gish Gallop is a form of debate behavior in which (1) rhetorical support for some argument is (2) composed of a large number of parallel points that (3) are individually easy to refute but which (given the parameters of the debate) are collectively difficult to respond to. My response above was multiple independent arguments replying to things that other people in the discussion had said (rather a lot had been said that bore comment, you see). I didn't respond to everything said, and anyone interested in replying can respond to individual topics independently of others." Considering how obviously-inapplicable this criticism is, I suppose it's time to belabor the point. A Gish Gallop is a single argument with parallel components. It's things like "200 Proofs Earth is Not a Spinning Ball" or "101 evidences for a young age of the earth and the universe". There is a single conclusion to be supported, and this is done with a long list of short, individually-easily-refuted items of support. What I do in these extended discussions is much more like a Gish Rebuttal in which I respond to a large number of individual points made by other people with however much it takes to address them to my satisfaction. And despite BobJohnson's claims of my arguments' weakness, he has not responded to my challenge to perform a Single Flaw Rebuttal.

"with the occasional 'Master of the Obvious' thrown in" Sometimes obvious things bear saying. Like in the recent Saloon discussions involving the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, it apparently fell to me to check the actual text of the Amendment and what relevant legal terms mean. Do you have an example of something objectionable?

"While they do engage with others, said engagement is fairly shallow and minimal." Can you give a quote of such shallow, minimal engagement from those discussions? Keep in mind that this is in reference to discussions that included this bit and my responses 1 2 3 4 5 6.

"repeated repetition even after it being pointed out" But, as I said there, not refuted. So, as people repeat previously-refuted points, I may repeat the refutation, reword it, or reference an earlier one. When someone actually tries to refute something I say, I address what is said there. Merely repeating that a point is true (like such and such being concern trolling) does not make it true, and such claims may warrant correction each time they appear.

"whataboutism which doesn't really respond to critics" To repeat yet another unanswered response, "Whataboutism is a deflection of some point to a different point that is not relevant to the discussion, generally of the form, "Statement X," "But what about Y?" The question here is whether or not the Ukrainian government would be willing to destroy the dam in the incident that this topic is nominally about. To answer that question, it is entirely appropriate to consider related issues such as past incidents of the current Ukrainian government's forces destroying other Ukrainian infrastructure, particularly tactical uses of flooding to oppose Russian activities, and that the Ukrainian military had previously attacked and damaged the dam, issuing a statement at the time that further damage to the dam to cause flooding was regarded as an option for future consideration."

"condescending and shallow 'explanation' of terms which don't add anything to the discussion" You mean discussions in which people misuse terms? Like this one? You're free to contest the offered explanations if you wish. But if not, please stop misusing terms.

"I do think something needs to be done about it." How about... people critically examine politicized topics on their own before posting, so it doesn't fall to me to whack people with metaphorical trout?

"The community standards FYI clearly allow for blocking someone whose primary goal is to be disruptive." This is a reference to someone's thoughts, and amounts to blocking for what you imagine someone's motivations to be.

"That is very clear in the block policy: "preventing disorder is prioritized over following guidelines to the punctuation."" This is a reference to observable actions, and the actual blocking policy goes into specific disruptive actions and recommended responses. Things like blanking pages, generic vandalism, and trolling are in the "Short-term blocks" section, with long-term blocks to be given for repeat offenses of those types. Note that this involves actual disruption of Rationalwiki content or operation. Someone merely posting things you do not like to talk pages does not constitute disruption.

"Why not start a thread here?" As stated previously, my original intention was to have a reminder for good behavior in the Saloon in a relevant discussion that someone else had started. After the TL;DR message was moved into the collapse and my reversion undone, rather than have a revert war, I took it to the relevant talk page (as community standards advise) in a section originally titled "Rather than a reversion war". When that section was renamed and collapsed, my plan was to revert it, and if collapsed again, to take it to All things in moderation, but GeeJayK beat me to it.

"Note that very persistent concern trolling can actually qualify for this" It has to qualify as concern trolling before it can qualify as very persistent concern trolling.

The merits of specific blocking cases (at least those more involved than AK7FAN1992's) should probably be discussed in a different section.

"my gut feeling is that you zoomed in on this topic just to sealion. I have severe doubts you have even read the community standards in full at this point, and are just holding them up as some sort of "I'm more moral than thou" badge, like the fundies do with their Bibles." How many examples of bad faith assumptions are we on now?

"In the two Bar examples I posted above you have provided excellent examples of what 'sealioning' tactics are by doing them" Quote a single one here.

"I could provide a lot more of these if we had a better archive search feature" Look through my contributions for relevant diffs. If context is desired, check the relevant page, or use the date to find the relevant archive.

"As for complaining of users getting 'aggressive and cliquish', well I cannot speak for others" "I shall say this - I have your number and I'm not going to tolerate it any longer" Well now, it's not often that I have a vendetta declared against me. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 15:30, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

CircularReasoning saw fit to collapse my response above. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 22:02, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
So, Pseudo-BoN, you say you're not a sealion, that you don't engage in whataboutism and so on. That is to be completely expected, because one of the primary hallmarks of a sealion is to [very politely] to insist that their questions have not been answered, that all the proof of evidence is always with the other party, request proof for said things said and then dismiss them when actually offered.
This is your final draft of good faith from me - that perhaps you are unaware that your whole debating style is fairly representative of being a sealioning troll and so therefore if you desire to quit being accused of being one, you change it. I don't think I am unique in thinking this [I wasn't the one who brought this up here, was I?] and if this is your 'normal style' not the first time you've heard this either. Even now I duly note you're doing your usual tactics; that of walls of text and rules-lawyering. You're also doing your usual tactic when cornered by critics; you shall 'respond' to them by replying to little quotes which gives the impression of you answering them without actually providing genuine answers.
I say you are a sealioning troll. I give as 'sample evidence' the 'Russia Blows Up Dam' topic in the Bar, dated June '23. I am throwing this open to the mob; on this evidence, are the Pseudo-BoN acting like a sealioning troll, who's assumed main goal is to sap the goodwill, humour and time/energy of other users and thus, has a general negative influence on the Bar? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:32, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
So you can't provide a quote of me sealioning. Generally, the burden of proof is on the person making the accusation. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 14:46, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
Bad faith retort; as there is no single quote ever which would show a person was sealioning, and you know this. Sealioning, in it's very nature is a pattern of repeated behaviors. Your desire is that I produce one example, you then argue that you were simply 'questiniong an assumption', 'asking for clarification' or some other excuse and in the lights of your own head have then 'proven' to everyone you are not a sealion. It's one of the reasons sealioning is so insidious.
So no, I am not going to give you a ball to play that game with. Cannot give you one, either. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:58, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
"Sealioning, in it's very nature is a pattern of repeated behaviors." So quote a representative part of that pattern. If "sealioning" as a term is to have an actual meaning, there are things which it is, and things which it is not. I'm asking for a quote of me doing something in the "is" category. As for what that might be, let's consult RationalWiki's entry on it:


So we have:
  • "questions and demands for answers, usually of entry-level topics far below the actual conversation (e.g. "please prove sexism exists")"
  • "results in the "sealion" receiving criticism (for their ignorance)"
  • "any time there is a discussion occurring that involves underlying assumptions, any passer-by who disagrees with one of those underlying assumptions can derail the conversation"
  • "other participants in the discussion have already had those arguments at length"
My challenge is to give a quote in which I do this. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 19:58, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
One need not be either a sealion or a concern troll to be annoying to any given cohort of wikians. Now, I have succeeded to completely overlook your interactions. It is really very easy. Gee is a very nice person, but, I fear, a little too high strung. Still, if the mob doesn't accept it, you can't go on with whatever you seem to be doing.UncleKrampus (talk) 22:35, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
Which is why I say 'put up a vote'. Let the mob speak; is the Pseudo-BoN a sealion or not? KarmaPolice (talk) 09:16, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
I haven't been accused of being annoying here. I have been accused of sealioning, concern trolling, and various other things, though the meanings of those accusations seem to be different from the normal meanings of those terms. If the mob wants to do something, someone should articulate what I'm being accused of at some point. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 14:44, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
On the contrary, my boy. Both of those things are quite annoying. At a minimum, you have been identified as an annoyance. The Fae of legend could be forced to count granular objects, such as rice, when it was dropped before them. Evidently some people can't resist being annoyed by you. Don't be a litterbug!UncleKrampus (talk) 17:55, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
People may find those things annoying, but (1) I didn't do those things, and (2) no one has mentioned "being annoying" as a thing worthy of moderator or mob review here. I suspect you've gotten to the actual root of the matter, but until someone actually says it, there's not much to discuss. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 20:03, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
That sounds like a challenge, Pseudo-BoN. @CorruptUser, @Techpriest, @Plutocow, @Spud and @Bongolian; is being an annoying, rules-lawyering sealion who doesn't know when quit digging holes and simply shut up, listen for a moment what others are telling them and wind their neck in a bit them a bookable offence? KarmaPolice (talk) 17:08, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
I'd say in cases like that, it'd require a mob vote to take action. A vote can start now if you'd like, it's been well over 24 hours since this case was first brought up. Plutocow (talk) 17:11, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure how to set that up and was kinda asking for 'second opinions' to whether said vote should be set up. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:17, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
If we're at an impasse, it's usually better to resolve the issue. Plutocow (talk) 17:26, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
I'd say that harassment, of which Sealioning is a form of, can be a bookable offense. CorruptUser 21:05, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
@KarmaPolice For this specific situation, no not really. As far as I can tell, 192 made a grand total of one annoying thread in the bar that appears to have been an attempt to drag on a finished discussion with a different troll. While I do think the discussion is stupid (*DRINK*) worthy, it as far as I can tell does not meet the bar of dragging someone into ATIM with the evidence provided. I reserve the right to change my opinion on other evidence, but little of what I'm seeing here would constitute hitting them with the mop for the time being. One incident does not a problem make. -- Techpriest (talk) 23:18, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Enough or not with the following in mind too, I'll point out some things about the main other, older incidence, that 'Russia Blows Up Dam' topic that KarmaPolice mentioned. I'm not concerned with specifically "sealion" or "concern troll" patterns, though I feel sure I was trolled in that thread. The most annoying thing though, was the way that Pseudo-BoN added text 5 days after the last edit, on and off about 10 times, preventing archival and making the thread really drag out after others grew tired. But then, that was explained as, "I've lately been posting five days apart because my busy weekend turned into a busy month, and while I would ordinarily just stop posting here for the duration, this is actually an important discussion.". Before I gave up after the last exchange, in which, lacking quotes to make the case that I (and KarmaPolice) had been unrealistically cartoonishly describing Russia as stupid and evil (so that the description must be false due to being inherently too unrealistic), and having been called on that several times, Pseudo-BoN used some dodgy paraphrasing to make it seem so. When I'd pointed specifically to the distinction between a take and his take on the take earlier.

For the rest, I don't think Pseudo-BoN's way of responding can be fit into just one established category like Gish Gallop or sealion. There were elements of several, IMO, but it shifted around. Ignoring larger points made throughout a discussion in order to reframe topics and stances by quoting little text snippets and making them seem like the whole, seem to be Pseudo-BoN's main trick. For example, at the end Pseudo-BoN asked, "So, you think that an opinion piece [...] apparently published in error and promptly withdrawn, is a better indication of the Russian government's grand strategy goals than the speech given by the President of Russia about those goals (which is still online at kremlin.ru)? Why in the world would you think that?", when there were more things than those two data points I was concerned with -- though Pseudo-BoN had rejected beforehand as hearsay all Western claims of knowledge in this matter. Also, in response to me acknowledging that there's no statistically reliable surveys handed out to soldiers on both sides to measure their morale, claiming that then all claims of knowing about morale amount to pretending to have such nonexistent data in hand, as if there's nothing more. There's many small things like that, not so many few big to quote. Sometimes Pseudo-BoN also had what I saw as a basically fair point, but all the rest over time eroded motivation to respond to those further, trying to see if that could go anywhere, as in the end trying made for being trolled harder.

One thing I never clarified then after it was mentioned in the last post (made by Pseudo-BoN, and which made me give up on the discussion), was what I and KarmaPolice believed that Russia seemed to fear which could have motivated the flooding by blowing the dam, what had long been our point on that area. This also explained his response to a link of mine earlier ("Did you copy the right link? It doesn't say what you say it does.); the point was the Ukraine military was looking to cross the river in several places, mainly downstream from the dam, not mainly with a focus on the dam itself. In one of the "paraphrases" at the end, it turned out it had all been understood differently, as "Because they expected attacking Ukrainians to be able to imperceptibly show up and take over the dam before they'd be able to activate the demolition charges". --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 03:06, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm fairly suspicious of accounts, particularly one that is known to be a Conservapedia user, that simply exist to sealioning, particularly when they start sealioning about Rationalwiki moderation. This fits a pattern of certain socks of certain banned users (see USHistoryAnalyzer and other LT socks). While "nothing can be proven" yet, this sort of person is clearly displaying disruptive patterns in the Saloon Bar, and I think a Bar timeout is appropriate given the history of this style of trolling. BobJohnson (talk) 03:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
The issue is, @Techpriest is that it's not simply 'one incident'. Pseudo-BoN has a long history of doing this. It's not openly noticeable partly because the user's attendence at the Bar is infrequent, so it's harder for others to notice patterns of behavior which are not immediately bookable offences [of which sealioning is always a difficult case to prove]. I explicitly pointed out above that I had noticed because I am in the Bar a lot and in fact, was one of the folks who repeatedly 'interacted' with them.
I was in fact gonna let this slide [or with a token trout] but the user's completely tone-deaf responses here has hardened my view of them; they simply sealion the accusations of sealioning - I would have been a lot more lenient if they'd argued that their contributions were on the whole positive, or they'd not meant to sealion, they were trying to play devil's advocate for discussion purposes and so on.
Anyway, the 'pattern of behavior'. This user has gotten my goat sufficiently that I have gone to the lengths to actually show it. Behold; j'accuse!;
  1. lliberals_on_Reddit (Dec 23) [Possible; @OnlySortaDumb accuses them of it, unsure myself]
  2. Welp.2C_Colorado_decided_to_happen (Dec 23)
  3. Trump_goes_Full-on_Fascist (Nov 23)
  4. Russia_blows_up_dam (June 23)
  5. Proposed_Assault_Weapons_Ban (Feb 23)
  6. What_do_you_think_of_xenogenders. (Feb 23)
  7. Might_be_a_useful_video_to_refer_when_TERFs_and_conservatives_ask_this_troll_question. (Apr 22)
  8. In_Need_of_Assistance (Apr 22)
  9. 3d_printed_firearms (Mar 22)
  10. I_shall_play_Russian_oligarchs_the_world's_smallest_violin (Mar 22)
  11. SCOTUS_allows_racist_Alabama_redistricting_because_its_too_close_to_an_election_to_change. (Feb 22)
  12. Mandatory_Vaccination_Policies. (Dec 21)
Now, this is not every contribution 'the accused' has participated in; I have only included examples which their sealion-gallop-whataboutism is in full force. Contributions which were in fact useful or too short were not included - but I shall point out in the latter quite a lot of them showed elements of the above but nobody replied to them [so it didn't grow]. Also note that other users not yet mentioned accuse them of pulling the same shit I have.Oh, and I have also noticed the close-to-necro'ing replieds of topics that Apooft mentioned above [though in this case I'm considering it a relatively minor issue] KarmaPolice (talk) 18:08, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
one that is known to be a Conservapedia user — Well hold on, they were banned from there. I'm not too fond of some of this either but let's not get it twisted. Chillpilled (talk) 13:54, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
"That sounds like a challenge" It is. Despite all those terms you've been throwing around in accusation, no one here except ApooftGnegiol has given an actual quote of something they object to. And with the obvious misapplication of terms like Gish Galloping and sealioning in apparent attempts to justify what comes down to not liking what I say, there is a remarkable lack of specifics. So you find me annoying? What, specifically do you want me to stop doing? I assume you want me to stop correcting you when you say incorrect things in the Saloon, but will you admit to that?
"harassment" Are you accusing me of harassment?
"As far as I can tell, 192 made a grand total of one annoying thread in the bar that appears to have been an attempt to drag on a finished discussion with a different troll." The first thread involved Wonderingabout being accused of concern trolling, but the actions of people in the thread itself clearly demonstrated that Wonderingabout's concerns are accurate. When no one contested that conclusion, I posted a reminder outside the concern troll collapse with the main takeaway of the discussion. When this was moved inside the collapse twice, rather than continue reverting, I took it up on the relevant talk page (the Saloon bar itself in this case) per community standards. And though no one has contested what I said there, that was likewise collapsed, supposedly for concern trolling.
"But then, that was explained as," To give a more complete statement: "this is actually an important discussion. Not the dam itself, which doesn't matter much outside the region, but how the difference between narratives and anaysis is important. A public that buys propaganda lets a government get away with misbehavior. Remember when US government officials lied to justify invading Iraq, which cost trillions of dollars and resulted in destabilizing a country for decades and likely hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths? Contrast media portrayals of what they did and what happened to them as a resut with media portrayals of Putin and Russian actions now. Why do you suppose Western media narratives have portrayed a war between heroes and villains in Ukraine as Western countries have sought to escalate the conflict?" I would remind people that in this discussion, multiple people and references noticed that the destruction of the dam apparently hindered Russian operations, with the takeaway being that therefore the Russian forces are stupid. Without apparently wondering whether the Ukrainian military would want to inflict such hindrance on Russian operations. And that the cause of the dam's destruction being identified via seismographs as "explosives" was used (unsupported by the reference used) to claim that this meant that Russia was responsible. The whole war is obviously flooded with propaganda and political cheerleading, and a lot of people lap it up rather than question whether what they're being told is true. And yes, producing replies when a lot of people say things that warrant detailed responses takes time that I often don't have much to spare for RationalWiki. The alternative would be to not have someone challenge the apparently-unquestioned ideas on display.
"so that the description must be false due to being inherently too unrealistic" It's not that it's unrealistic for people to be stupid, it's that the offered explanations of stupidity had no evidence to indicate why Russian forces would do the particular stupid things claimed. As unsupported claims, there's no particular reason to believe them.
"Ignoring larger points made throughout a discussion" Quote one.
"when there were more things than those two data points I was concerned with" That quickly-withdrawn opinion piece had been used to support the claim that Russia expected victory (specifically "capturing Ukraine") in days. There may have been other concerns, but that was still a silly point to make, and an obviously-silly source to use to try to justify it.
"though Pseudo-BoN had rejected beforehand as hearsay all Western claims of knowledge in this matter." The mention of hearsay was in response to an exchange in which ApooftGnegiol claimed that Russian forces flooded their own forces because they were afraid of imagined Ukrainian forces moving across the river, supported by the assertion that Russian confidence was low and Ukrainian confidence was high. When I asked for the source of this confidence claim and why it should be trusted, KarmaPolice said "effectively all impartial sources" particularly watching military Telegram channels and interviewing POWs. Which raised the problem that this is hearsay. That is, it's reports that people have made claims about confidence, not actual evidence indicating confidence. The people supposedly interviewed presumably hadn't conducted surveys to determine that information, and no reason was given as to why they would have reliable information about that.
"as if there's nothing more." Nothing which would actually indicate overall morale was offered.
"the point was the Ukraine military was looking to cross the river in several places, mainly downstream from the dam" And the given source made no mention of that. It said that Ukrainian forces were trying to distract Russian forces. To quote a translation of the end summary, "Distracting attention and stretching Russian troops along the front is the main task of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at this stage of the ongoing offensive." So I asked if the link was correct.
""Because they expected attacking Ukrainians to be able to imperceptibly show up and take over the dam before they'd be able to activate the demolition charges"." This is a response to this statement in which ApooftGnegiol claimed that Russians panicking over a possible Ukrainian attack was why they self-destructed their own installation (before the Ukrainian attack), flooding the Russian defensive line downstream and causing assorted trouble for Russian operations.
"particularly one that is known to be a Conservapedia user" I have never been a Conservapedia "user". I would check it from time to time to see what was going on, have a laugh, and maybe see if anything of interest was circulating that end of social media. The incidents in which I was blocked involved being blocked from seeing the site at all. At various times, Conservapedians implemented extensive IP range blocks that affected much of the world.
"This fits a pattern of certain socks of certain banned users (see USHistoryAnalyzer and other LT socks)." Because no one else in the world is capable of asking how the conclusion that Russia blew the dam was reached?
"I would have been a lot more lenient if they'd argued that their contributions were on the whole positive, or they'd not meant to sealion" When faced with spurious accusations, my focus has been on refuting them, not on espousing the merits of epistemic rationality (which I'd hope would go without saying here) or admitting to things I didn't do.
"Behold; j'accuse!;" If you had formulated this as an argument (that is, an actual accusation) it would have been an actual Gish Gallop. As it is, it's just links to some Saloon discussions with no attempt to articulate a point. The unstated implication here is something along the lines that "192․168․1․42 has misbehaved somehow". This is effectively an existential claim, as it can be rephrased, "there exists evidence that 192․168․1․42 has misbehaved somehow". As such, a single example of misbehavior on my part would suffice to prove the point. But rather than that, KarmaPolice posted links to twelve discussions involving over 85 thousand words and gave a vague suggestion that there's something in there that supports the implied point. For my part, refuting any individual section is as simple as saying, "no Gish Gallops, sealioning, concern trolling, or other things I've been accused of here." But since proving an inductive negative takes an exhaustive examination of the context in question, doing so would (supposing that people haven't already consulted those discussions to see what went on) involve quoting every single thing I've said in all those discussions and appending that statement to all of them. I could do that, though. Do you suppose it would result in a concession of the point? But let's review:
"Illiberals_on_Reddit" In which people argue over terms without defining them, then I offer relevant definitions and elementary analysis, which OnlySortaDumb doesn't like. Stay tuned to see if we can get to the bottom of that.
"Welp.2C_Colorado_decided_to_happen" In which some people make incorrect or poorly-informed statements about the relevant laws, and I refer to the actual text of the 14th Amendment and relevant legal definitions to clear them up, with reference to a previous discussion covering the same territory.
"Trump_goes_Full-on_Fascist" That previous discussion, in which some of the same people said some of the same things. Though the main topic was about how private citizen Trump saying mean things about political opponents was "full-on fascist" which meant that the current government should prevent people from being able to vote for Trump in an election (in violation of assorted laws).
"Russia_blows_up_dam" In which CorruptUser posts a section titled "Russia blows up dam", and I ask how people know that Russia did it. Which, after a lot of discussion, no one seemed able to give a good answer to.
"Proposed_Assault_Weapons_Ban" In which various people say various things about what they think should be done about gun-related issues, but very little when asked about specific policy proposals. Plus some pretty spectacular own-goaling with references. Also KarmaPolice's statements about Constitutional originalism, which are probably the closest thing to actual sealioning in any of this discussion.
"What_do_you_think_of_xenogenders" In which I point out that odd preferred pronouns such as xenogenders have reached the point of legal enforcement in various places.
"Might_be_a_useful_video_to_refer_when_TERF.E2.80.99s_and_conservatives_ask_this_troll_question." In which the Saloon crowd explores cultural pressure to avoid saying obvious things, and GrammarCommie is the only one who dares to say where babies come from.
"In_Need_of_Assistance" I did not participate in this discussion.
"3d_printed_firearms" In which the state of 3D printed firearms in 2022 is way beyond what some people expected.
"I_shall_play_Russian_oligarchs_the_world.27s_smallest_violin" "And so the current state of political discourse is cheering as governments sieze private assets without legal process due to class-based notions of guilt. Surely this will turn out better than those times it was tried in the past, right?"
"SCOTUS_allows_racist_Alabama_redistricting_because_.22its_too_close_to_an_election_to_change" In which Schrodinger's Racism applies to everything, but only if it's not defined. See my talk page for the end of the discussion.
"Mandatory_Vaccination_Policies" In which we can see how talking points have aged since 2021.
"I'm not too fond of some of this either but let's not get it twisted." And let's not forget what the actual policy is regarding offsite activities.
Anyway, my interest in having these sorts of discussions in the Saloon is that it's popular and visible, so hopefully people will see and consider checking things out before weighing in on them. For an example, consider Ace_McWicked's proposal here [4] based on an incorrect understanding of the relevant laws. Rather than check if it was correct, Vee added incorrect information to the article which stayed in place until I removed it a few weeks later. Of the four people in that discussion, it seems that I was the only one to check what the relevant laws actually are at any point in the discussion. Habits formed in social places like the Saloon can shape behavior elsewhere, and that matters for things like running a reputable wiki. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 16:38, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
@KarmaPolice Cheers. That would do it. Reviewed the evidence, I'm convinced that a boot from the Bar seems in appropriate order. -- Techpriest (talk) 10:42, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Vote on sanctions for 192․168․1․42[edit]

This vote has been closed. Please do not add, remove or change votes.
The result of this vote was: By an 8 to 6 vote, pseudo-BoN is banned from the Saloon Bar.

Pi weeks[edit]

Yay[edit]
Nay[edit]
  1. I'm not even sure about a bar block, much less a site block. Chillpilled (talk) 22:13, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
  2. I am not seeing any rule violations here. -- Techpriest (talk) 23:13, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
  3. Ariel31459 (talk) 00:25, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
  4. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 01:25, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
  5. Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:51, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
  6. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 01:50, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
  7. I'm not vindictive nor can I see a reason for a whole-site ban. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:53, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
Goat[edit]

Pi months[edit]

Yay[edit]
Nay[edit]
  1. Chillpilled (talk) 22:13, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
  2. I am not seeing any rule violations here. -- Techpriest (talk) 23:13, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
  3. Ariel31459 (talk) 00:26, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
  4. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 01:25, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
  5. Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:52, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
  6. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 01:50, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
Goat[edit]

Permaban[edit]

Yay[edit]
Nay[edit]
  1. Excessive and disproportionate lmao --Goatspeed. Fossil evidence of my evolutionCircularREmail2.gifasoningSteal my ideas 21:36, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
  2. Ditto. Carthage (talk) 21:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
  3. Chillpilled (talk) 22:13, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
  4. I am not seeing any rule violations here. -- Techpriest (talk) 23:13, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
  5. Ariel31459 (talk) 00:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
  6. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 01:25, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
  7. Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:52, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
  8. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 01:50, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
Goat[edit]

Ban from Saloon Bar[edit]

Yay[edit]
  1. Worked for Machina’s solipsism fluff. The single-page blocks are a very useful, underutilized new feature that people should use more often for single-purpose bad faith editors tbh. --Goatspeed. Fossil evidence of my evolutionCircularREmail2.gifasoningSteal my ideas 21:36, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
  2. The person's a bar troll. Starve the beast and it'll go away. Carthage (talk) 21:39, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
  3. Seems like the most effective sanction. Bongolian (talk) 22:06, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
  4. BobJohnson (talk) 03:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
  5. You brought this on yourself, Pseudo-BoN. If you'd followed Healey's Maxim ['if in a hole, stop digging'] I wouldn't have spent an hour reviewing two years of your contributions and realised just how negative an influence you are at the Bar. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
  6. -Flandres (talk) 18:16, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
  7. ApooftGnegiol (talk) 18:27, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
  8. Switched vote due to @KarmaPolice's comment. -- Techpriest (talk) 10:41, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
Nay[edit]
  1. Can't see it.Ariel31459 (talk) 00:23, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
  2. Not yet rising to the level of being banned from the bar. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 01:25, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
  3. A very soft nay. But... if this coop drama happens again... CorruptUser 04:29, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
  4. Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:53, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
  5. Monet Ye 21:07, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
  6. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 01:50, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
Goat[edit]
  1. Am I just totally out of the loop? I have no idea what this mod page thing is with the BoN guy. I’ve never even seen this guy post. 🎄Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano🎄Ask about our holiday specials! 23:08, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
    Probably because pseudo-BoN only looks like a BoN, they go under the radar. They've been posting in the Saloon almost exclusively since 2013,[5] longer than most of us have been here. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but it appears to lately be sea-lioning type of posts. Bongolian (talk) 18:15, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
  2. This is all molehill mountaineering. It's unworthy of my attention. Spud (talk) 14:58, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
  3. This is also a soft nay, but personally think that ignoring this person is the best that we can do. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 12:59, 8 January 2024 (UTC) Actually I just saw the evidence Karma brought, which was enough to convince me to remain neutral. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 13:00, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
  4. Doesn't seem necessary. 192 is hardly disruptive as far as I can tell. Don't drag bar fights into ATIM unless they are actually a problem. -- Techpriest (talk) 23:13, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
@GeeJayK @Techpriest Want to review my response to KarmaPolice's comment? CTRL+F "actual Gish Gallop" 192․168․1․42 (talk) 01:50, 13 January 2024 (UTC)


Carthage[edit]

I have noticed a problem where Carthage is being overzealous by blocking IPs when there is little evidence of bad faith. For two recent examples, see here and here (both undone). "Blanking page content" is for trolls that remove a significant amount content from pages for no reason or demonstrably bad faith reasons, not for trolls that remove just one line they don't like or remove a paragraph for a reason you might disagree with. In those cases, the correct approach is to tell them to bring up their proposed changes to the talk page, not to block them for three days. Carthage really needs to be told to stop this, as this is an abuse of sysop rights and can potentially scare away good-faith contributors. Plutocow (talk) 06:19, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I saw someone removing content (an entire section, mind you) with sources. But I'll keep that in mind going forward. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Carthage (talk) 06:27, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
Also three days? I was pretty sure I blocked them for a couple of hours. My bad. It doesn't help that no one bothers to explain the reasoning behind blocking reasons for sysops who registered after those reasons were added. These things aren't intuitive. Carthage (talk) 06:29, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
You can just watch how other sysops do it. Or, you could keep in mind that blocks are only for explicit bad-faith actors or users who have been warned repeatedly. If you're unsure, you can do a partial block of just the page they're a problem on. Plutocow (talk) 06:40, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
I don't know how to do that, and other sysops are not at all consistent WRT blocking policy. Carthage (talk) 06:42, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
I thought this was hasty recently, not a block though. Person never replied to me asking for examples anyway, but was worth a shot. I trust Carthage can adjust a bit without being formally warned, or whatever goes on in here. Chillpilled (talk) 07:28, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, I can adjust. Feel free to slap me if I don't. For future reference though, if someone has a problem please take it to my talk page first. Obviously you do you, but I feel like it would be more constructive to just give a trout first, and then take it to moderation. I had thought what I was doing was well within acceptable parameters, after all. Carthage (talk) 07:30, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
You can review the RationalWiki:Blocking policy. I noticed that the second block that Plutocow cited was for User:2607:FB91:3F37:2B79:D561:448F:B47C:FCD6 but Carthage did not include a range block. For IP addresses of this type (IPv6), non-range blocks are ineffective because they tend to hop around on their own within a specific range (RationalWiki:Blocking policy#Range blocks). If there is anything unclear about the blocking policy, let us know. Bongolian (talk) 17:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
Understood. Thanks. Carthage (talk) 17:59, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
I agree that ostensible erroneous behavior should first be addressed on the respective talk page. Moderators should not be afraid to moderate.Ariel31459 (talk) 00:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
I just want to chime in and leave my two cents. I don’t think Carthage did anything wrong in her intent, she acted in good and genuine conscience. However, I do agree that she should’ve checked the ips or a similar method to ensure they aren’t a vandal sockpuppet. A single ip making a off edit doesn’t necessarily mean that they should be blocked. You have to have a better judgement. Rational Dude (talk) 22:09, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Emil Kirkegaard drama[edit]

Moving this here from Talk:Emily Willoughby, where the topics had to be collapsed due to not being related to the article's subject:

Definite proof CBH is Emil Kirkegaard[edit]

This apparently was missed so I will dump it here since I did not know where else to put it:

User:CBH linked to a document which was hidden by admins here for doxxing before he was banned. I will not link to this document but here is a screenshot (not containing any doxxing info) from same document showing Emil Kirkegaard was dumb enough to not remove his name from the file version history:

I have also been passed very strong evidence User:Boar is Kirkegaard but it would take too long to detail it here and admins apparently are not removing Willoughby's article so it would not be worth my time. 122.10.138.227 (talk) 23:26, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I mean, anyone can name a Google account "Emil Kirkegaard", but that's some decent supporting proof. I considered Kane's testimony one of the more important pieces. Chillpilled (talk) 23:37, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
From what Jonathan Kane said, the document was apparently shared around, so having access to the document is not in and of itself proof that CBH is Kirkegaard. Still, it is clear that even if CBH is not Kirkegaard they are an agent/crony/copycat/meatpuppet of Kirkegaard, and the doxxing alone is grounds for a no-questions-asked permaban. Plutocow (talk) 23:48, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Sudden deletion[edit]

The document has now been completely wiped and its version history erased (there is no doxxing on link but a blank document). It is likely Emil Kirkegaard reads this page and went to remove his name to cover his tracks. I would suggest adding a section to his article to document what happened before he goes on other deletion sprees.122.10.138.200 (talk) 03:48, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

There is a way to retrieve the information using the link or blanked doc that I won't detail. I would avoid sharing it. I can confirm what you said about the doc being blanked is true. Again though it's not excessively well proven Kirkegaard personally did this. Someone will have to take it to his talk page if they want to add something there. I see the talk page is protected, but don't use this talk page as a proxy for his talk page. Chillpilled (talk) 04:01, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

More links of User:Boar to Emil Kirkegaard and Rome Viharo[edit]

Some things that may have been missed:

This all looks high probability that (a) Boar/BUFO are meatpuppets and (b) these two accounts were operated by Viharo and/or Kirkegaard to get Rome Viharo's and Laird Shaw's articles deleted. My personal view is Kirkegaard is Boar while Viharo, BUFO (again note that the latter was already blocked as a likely Viharo sockpuppet).122.10.138.235 (talk) 18:24, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Likely editing by Emil Kirkegaard of his own article[edit]

Talk:Emil O. W. Kirkegaard is locked, so I thought I would raise this below.

Following this discussion, I would like to present evidence Emil Kirkegaard has been editing his own article for years on troll/parody accounts to make dubious edits while subtly pretending to be a leftist and critic of himself and his own OpenPsych journals. Additional evidence is shown that User:D (now banned) who admitted to communicating with EK off-site was also inserting dubious information to the page.

The reason for doing this becomes clear if you view EK's Twitter, now X account; I will provide examples:

Leftist Reddit confused when they find out Ratwiki lied to them.

Here Kirkegaard highlights an error as an attempt to discredit the entire page (despite sections he did not directly/indirectly tamper with, remain factual). The error is that all peer-reviewed publications refuse his manuscripts. This is indeed (slightly) false. Although most peer-reviewed journals were and still are refusing Kirkegaard's manuscripts - he has a minority of peer-reviewed publications.

At some point this inaccuracy was inserted into the article despite originally being accurate:

Because peer-reviewed science journals tend to reject his submissions, he co-founded the OpenPsych pseudojournals with Davide Piffer to publish his own pseudoscience.

This was changed on 8 February 2019 to:

Unable to publish in peer-reviewed science journals, he co-founded the OpenPsych pseudojournals with Davide Piffer to publish his own pseudoscience.

Who inserted this falsehood? Well that was User:D, who was communicating with EK off-site and EK probably told D to make it. Within a short period of time this dubious edit was made, Kirkegaard was mentioning it on social media as to cast doubt on the accuracy of his article:

except that I haven't. I've published >10 articles in mainstream journals.

(Generally good idea to check facts before repeating RationalWiki.)

The dubious edit was later carelessly rewritten in 2020 to read: "...because peer-reviewed journals refuse to publish his work, he set up the OpenPsych pseudojournals" but the error to this day remains in the opening paragraph(s) of the article (which is what Kirkegaard has pointed out on X to discredit the page and this has also mislead readers on Reddit.)

There are plenty of examples of EK directly editing his own page on accounts, to insert nonsense or falsehoods without the assistance of User:D:

  • User:Igobymanynames — edits are very similar to User:CBH/User:Jean Lusaz which are both now blocked EK sockpuppets imitating an ultra-leftist/progressive but going over the top (as to mock leftism or so-called SJWs), e.g., examine this edit on EK's article: "notorious hate-mongering ... swastika-spangled ... Klansmen to publish their hatred and dehumanization of minorities... hate-dripping."
  • User:1 edit — made a single edit which is doubtful. "Kirkegaard is listed as a member of the "All Right Social Network", that also includes white supremacists such as Richard Spencer, Brittany Pettibone, Patrick Little and Angelo John Gage." Aside from the fact none of these people are listed as members, I could not even find Kirkegaard's name mentioned. This questionable edit is still on the page.
  • User:PaultheOctopus — only suspicious edits were on EK's and Davide Piffer's article (Piffer with Kirkegaard co-founded OpenPsych). EK has denied allegations of Nazism/anti-Semitism by pointing to his genetic ancestry as something like ~4% Jewish (which is trivial since it amounts to having a Jewish ancestor about 6 generations back); this account was inserting Kirkegaard's exact same defence.

I have a lot more examples I will post in the next few hours which match his social media posts.206.189.25.3 (talk) 22:05, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

The relevance of all this to this particular article is there, but I'm going to start collapsing these comments after a while since it feels winding at this point (we already know the article creator was probably a sockpuppet of a banned user). There might be somewhere better to put it, but since the Kirkegaard talk page and ATIM are both protected pages I don't know. Chillpilled (talk) 23:06, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
Feel free to collapse this section after the below:
  • @Johns on 18 September 2019 removed some questionable edits about sex from Kirkegaard's article. These were questionable in the sense of being irrelevant to the page. I suspect these were added by Kirkegaard himself to damage the article by making it long and containing irrelevant information. If you search the IP editor 37.120.145.42 for geo-location you discover it is a VPN from Copenhagen, Denmark. The IP editor made no other edits to articles (only EKs). All this points to this IP editor being deceptively him. There were at least 3 other related IPs making similar edits around the same time.
  • @Chillpilled recently removed some questionable edits because they are repetitious and don't add anything of relevance not already covered on the page (Kirkegaard seems to be trying to make the page too long to put off readers). If you search who made those edits you find User:Velociraptor which looks almost certainly like another Kirkegaard sockpuppet. The account voted to keep Willoughby's article and also added the edits about her sexually explicit artwork which a mod later removed and said was inappropriate. More evidence this account is EK's is within days the questionable edits were made by Velociraptor - Kirkegaard was discussing them on social media and trying to shift the blame. This shows he watches his page like a hawk. 167.99.203.83 (talk) 02:11, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Comments[edit]

So while some of the alleged socks can be banned if the evidence against them is strong enough, for now we should keep an eye on those accounts and make sure everything in the Emily Willoughby and Emil O. W. Kirkegaard articles makes sense, is correct, and is well-sourced. One of the troll's claims is that "more than 90% of our parody material about ISIR and the people associated with it has remained basically unaltered", which, while I wouldn't take what they say at 100% face value, if true means that the infestation runs deeper than CBH and Jean Lusaz since all of their material was deleted or rewritten. There's probably more to be said here, as we are dealing with the aftermath of an apparent brigading. Plutocow (talk) 06:53, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Personally I'm mostly content to slowly improve the pages in the topic area and watch for new additions on recent changes. The particulars of the accounts I brought up before were more so people would know what to look for on recent changes, too. But I think I've learned by now that many people were already aware what was going on. So at this point I'm not necessarily on with this goose chase, others can carry it out if they want but I'm not sure how big the return is going to be on it. I think something that will be key for improving articles in the topic area, is how we define hereditarianism, which I raised on its talk page (well actually, Ariel did, I just re-raised it). Currently it may be too narrow. Chillpilled (talk) 07:18, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
Huh. So I was right to be suspicious of Boar back then… --Luigifan18 (talk) 14:33, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
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