Midsize Jake
Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2020 12:52 am
This will be about and in relation to Midsize Jake, who was Somey on WikipediaReview. On the one hand, a cogent writer, but, on the other, I suspect that the freeze at WikipediaReview was his doing. I wasn't following all that and participated in WPO until banned, probably for critiquing Vagirant. In any case, yesterday, he commented on the Vagirunt and I. He's so FOS that I'll respond interspersed, but my long-term concern is the highly damaged condition of Wikipedia critique, that mostly reduces to hatred and resentment and other disempowering conditions.
This is classic with trolling: in a few words, one can lay charges that will take many words to address. In this sequence, I almost entirely avoided responding in situ, but instead, linked to a page section that addressed the specific claims. I did that for 80 of Vagirant's posts. That's a lot of text! But not in anyone's face unless they choose to look at it. And then I realized what Vagirant was doing. He was scouring the internet for comment by or about me and copying it to a page, anything that might look negative, then he was dropping snippets from that, regardless of context. Very fast and easy. And to respond was taking too much time. I didn't mind it because it's useful for me to cover the claims he was making, but I decided to stop that and only link to a specific short reply that explains and offers to answer any questions that people might have. And that really triggered him.
No, Jake himself is a troll, which is why he loves Vagirunt and wants to encourage him, in spite of the obvious damage. And I don't argue with trolls, so this is not for him. This is about a Wikipediocracy staff member, and is about the long term damage caused by a community tolerating such people as leaders. Or have I misjudged him? Perhaps he is just defending Wikipediocracy, but he wrote about my personality and alleged psychology, classic trolling things to do, but with no actual evidence, and, in fact, in the face of evidence.
Questions? Comments?
Why Vagirant is keeping this up is totally obvious, to anyone who looks at the corpus. There is nothing new about it. For starters, see his Reddit account for the last month. While there had been a drumbeat of contempt for Sucks and me, it was not intense. But when he attacked Jimbo on Reddit -- much to the derision of the Reddit community -- a Redditor asked who this was. And so I answered the question, simply and -- compared to standard Vagirant, mildly. However, honest opinion, to Vagirant, is an intolerable attack. So he began a campaign, joining with the Smith brothers (and often quoting their defamation). He lies, routinely. The crime: describing Vigilant. Very personal, and very obsessed.Eric Corbett wrote: ↑Tue Feb 04, 2020 9:22 pm
When did this become the Vigilant show?
I actually don't understand why he's keeping this up, other than maybe sheer boredom with actual Wikipedia stuff, which (again) I'm hoping is only temporary.
Yes. Unusual, not what Vaginant is used to. Not necessarily at great length. I have never hidden myself from criticism, and I learned years ago to listen to it carefully. But trolling is not criticism, it is intended to upset and anger and create responses that harm the target.That said, Mr. Abd is a very unusual character in Wikiland, in that he not only eagerly responds to all criticism of himself (at great length),
This is classic with trolling: in a few words, one can lay charges that will take many words to address. In this sequence, I almost entirely avoided responding in situ, but instead, linked to a page section that addressed the specific claims. I did that for 80 of Vagirant's posts. That's a lot of text! But not in anyone's face unless they choose to look at it. And then I realized what Vagirant was doing. He was scouring the internet for comment by or about me and copying it to a page, anything that might look negative, then he was dropping snippets from that, regardless of context. Very fast and easy. And to respond was taking too much time. I didn't mind it because it's useful for me to cover the claims he was making, but I decided to stop that and only link to a specific short reply that explains and offers to answer any questions that people might have. And that really triggered him.
Sometimes. Not always, not "everything," certainly. What Jake may not realize was that there was massive promotion for two years of the article about me written on RationalWiki by Darryl Smith, it was being promoted all over the place. It was first hit on Google in a search for my name. In other words, defamation was being actively promoted by two trolls, the Smith brothers. There had been nothing like this before, in my life, only occasional Vagirant farts on Wikipediocracy. But here, Vaginant joined with them, quoting them, etc.he actually promotes it by republishing everything bad anyone ever says about him on other websites — which he controls — and commenting on the criticism extensively.
I don't think so. Jake has never really attempted to understand what I did, back then, or recently. And he obviously is thrilled to have an attack dog on his staff.I assume this is some sort of quasi-intellectualized attention-getting strategy, almost like he's a self-actualizing Streisand Effect Agent, except that Barbra Streisand was at least a good singer.
We always justify our behavior by theirs. And that thread had little to do with actual critique of Sucks, it was almost entirely Vagirant contempt, for Sucks -- and others. He is a total loose cannon.Unfortunately, that puts us in a bind: The "right thing to do" in this case would be to lock, hide, or delete this thread, even though it's in a non-public forum already and we shouldn't have to. We've gone along with it so far because we (or I, at least) felt that people needed a place to vent about WikipediaSucks.co, given that WikipediaSucks.co members have rarely had any compunctions about venting against us in forums that are publicly-visible.
Trolling. And what I'm doing is almost effort-free, for starters. I do not think of "everyone else" as being "wrong.' I do see what people assume and do not personally verify, it's common. What Jake is writing here is a story invented to avoid looking at specifics. Wrong about what? It's all ad hominem, without actual verifiable content.But this is exactly what Mr. Abd wants; this kind of nonstop attention inspires him, and his idea of "the right thing to do" (in nearly all cases that I've seen) is to prove everyone else wrong, no matter how long or how much effort it takes him. I'm afraid this is what makes certain people detest him, though of course he can't accept that himself.
And what have I done that is actually objectionable? Is Jake assuming that Vigirant is being truthful?So unless we all somehow agree to stop, then I guess as long as this thread is open, people will post to it whenever Mr. Abd says or does something objectionable — and since that's pretty much a daily occurrence, this thread will continue to grow, indefinitely. It's a kind of outward-spiraling shitfest, I'm afraid.
No, Jake himself is a troll, which is why he loves Vagirunt and wants to encourage him, in spite of the obvious damage. And I don't argue with trolls, so this is not for him. This is about a Wikipediocracy staff member, and is about the long term damage caused by a community tolerating such people as leaders. Or have I misjudged him? Perhaps he is just defending Wikipediocracy, but he wrote about my personality and alleged psychology, classic trolling things to do, but with no actual evidence, and, in fact, in the face of evidence.
Questions? Comments?