The Percepto story

Because no one else is doing it--not even the media.
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ericbarbour
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The Percepto story

Post by ericbarbour » Mon Nov 02, 2020 2:28 am

So far I've only seen this mentioned in Israeli media. (Someone needs to read my material about Israel-Palestine editwarring. This shit has been happening on Wikipedia since the damn thing started.)

https://www.timesofisrael.com/wikipedia ... -scammers/
a US-based retired professor of finance who goes by the handle Smallbones (The Times of Israel knows his real identity)
So do I, you fool. He's one of WP's worst "editthings".
Ask me about his history. Dare you.

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Re: The Percepto story

Post by sashi » Tue Nov 03, 2020 6:45 am

Hm, got history, Eric? You seem to have a starring role as a Wikipediot in Stephen Harrison's "ever developing" web-friction. I learned about this very strange dossier -- so far fairly lacking in the romance and intrigue departments -- via Chief Bones, writing on the WP:NOPAPER stall wall.

There is a Prospero (presumably the narwhal), but no Ariel & no Caliban. That said, there is a very dull Carlos, a caricatural FreeCrow, and even a DocLuke with no spelling trubbles to speak of... but so far, by the grace of penguins, there is no alt-sushi.

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Re: The Percepto story

Post by ericbarbour » Wed Nov 04, 2020 8:05 pm

sashi wrote:
Tue Nov 03, 2020 6:45 am
Hm, got history, Eric? You seem to have a starring role as a Wikipediot in Stephen Harrison's "ever developing" web-friction.
Ha ha, that's awful. Wish there was an award for Worst Fanfiction. Even WP addicts would find it tedious.

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Re: The Percepto story

Post by ericbarbour » Sat Nov 14, 2020 11:13 pm

Ok, since people have asked. Don't blame me if it's unreadable/long. Other people compiled most of this.

"The eXile" was an English-language newspaper published by American expats in Moscow in the Yeltsin era. Mark Ames was one of their founders and Matt Taibbi was a regular writer. I remember seeing material on their website in the heyday, and it was great entertaining reading. Much of it was satirical and not intended to be "journalism" but then only an idiot (and maybe a Peter Ekman?) would fail to realize as much. Because it mocked the Russian regime, along with everything else, of course Putin's minions shut it down. The eXile-related articles are constantly being made as negative as possible (lol) by WP insiders and I suspect Ekman is a major reason.
Smallbones

"Don't wind up a lonely, unemployed, divorced loser"
Not even the dead are safe from diehard Wikipedians. An ideal example: Peter "Smallbones 1 " Ekman,
who became a popular noticeboard and talkpage pest on Wikipedia thanks partly to his obsessive
pursuit of "paid editors".
According to Tarantino 2 : ".....paid editor nemesis Smallbones first showed up on wikipedia because
Dsol and others from the eXile were writing mean things about him into articles. See Requests for
comment/69.253.195.228 3 ." Indeed, the exploits of eXile COI editor Dsol 4 have been little noted
elsewhere, as well as Ekman's past personal disputes with eXile editor Mark Ames. So it appears that
Wikipedia can "thank" the now-defunct eXile for the presence of Smallbones.
Identity
Grant request written by user Smallbones. 5 "Legal name of organization or individual requesting this
grant – Peter Ekman. Grant contact username or email – pdekman@gmail.com.

WP history
He first appeared in April 2005, and edited articles dealing with finance and economics. Some of his
content work was actually not bad, despite a slightly robotic-looking edit pattern. He seems to like
George Soros, for whatever reason. 6 Eventually he was performing 20-50 edits every day, routinely.
In 2005 Ekman was prominently mentioned 7 on Wikipedia's article about the eXile. Considerable
squabbling 8 remains in the talkpage archive, featuring Ekman, Dsol, and other apparent eXile refugees.
The article no longer mentions Ekman as of 2014, although Ekman and Dsol continue to editwar over
content 9 . The article's history is full of battles Ekman conducted, with his own multiple sockpuppets,
against other sockpuppets. tried to fix it and failed, tried to troll it and failed.
In December 2006 he was in dispute with another editor over the biography of stock analyst Robert
Prechter, which led to a March 2007 arbitration 10 . With some justice, he argued that 'Technical
Analysis' (of which Prechter was a well-known advocate) was pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo. But
like many Wikipedian 'pro science' advocates, he carried this over into invective and smears. As the
opponent (almost certainly an employee of Prechter) said: "Overtly negative edits to the biography of a
living person: smears, demonstrable falsehoods, and a calculated overemphasis on quotes of critics."
Whereupon Ekman was banned from editing any part of Precher's article or related materials. Despite
this and other disputes he has had on WP noticeboards and in occasional RFCs and other arbitrations,
he has never been blocked, and managed to avoid any substantial sanctions.
One of the articles he obsessed over for years, "Tulip mania", was made a featured article in August
2008 11 . Otherwise he has gained little notice for his content work.
Ekman has repeatedly made it clear that he despises paid editors of any stripe. He is also a regular on 's
talk page, constantly snapping at the heels of Greg Kohs whenever the latter logs in as a 'banned user'.
Despite years of brown-nosing on WP, Ekman has only managed to gain rollback and reviewer powers.
Thanks to his repeated use of Wikipedia's "banning policy", he was named as a combatant in the 2014
"Banning Policy" arbitration. And Arbcom ordered him 12 to "cool it".
"3) Smallbones is warned to refrain from edit warring and needlessly inflammatory rhetoric in the
future. Further instances of similar misconduct may result in serious sanctions. Passed 8 to 0, with 1
abstention at 17:27, 12 October 2014 (UTC) "
Nonetheless, by 2015 Ekman was "helpfully" removing/censoring items posted on Jimbo's talkpage
that he didn't like. See . Obviously Ekman was now a "Defender of the Wiki", meaning he was a
defender of the status quo.

He doesn't like Greg Kohs
• Posted on WO 19 May 2014 13 : "It would appear that I've driven Smallbones and/or
Coretheapple and/or some other wiki-miscreants to subscribe my home address to any number
of magazines that I did not order. Just got notice Saturday from Smithsonian (by mail) of my
upcoming membership and subscription (pay now to activate), and tonight I received an e-mail
from Outside Magazine notifying me of my one-year subscription." This apparently relates to
the Reliance Globalcom item mentioned at .
• Posted 12 Nov 2014: "It looks like Smallbones is doing his unpaid job of hiding 14 information
about Wikipedia's flaws 15 from the world. Even reverting 16 an IP address from Florida in the
process. I'm not in Florida, so why the revert? I wonder if Smallbones thinks that InsaneHacker
is me 17 , too? Poor Smally... I'll bet he has an ulcer, what with all the "work" he feels compelled
to do."
• Posted 8 January 2016 18 by Greg Kohs, after Ekman removed a photo Kohs had added
Wikipedia and replaced it with an inferior photo he took himself, a clear case of badgering and
"stalking". "Smallbones decided to schlep himself from the backyard of the Pennsylvania
Institute Of Technology all the way to downtown Philadelphia, to take a crappy photo of a ball
field and a backstop fence with a condo building in the background. His photo also features a
gray sky washing out the building's rooftop. Then he decided that his crappy photo would look
nicer on Wikipedia than the existing photo 19 -- which was an intelligently-shot piece that
conveys richness of color and detail for the reader." Note that Kohs took the previous photo.
The pettiness is incredible yet not surprising for a "Wikipedian".
• June 2016: Greg Kohs proposed a serious study 20 to examine the effects on editors of being
banned from Wikipedia editing, and Smallbones showed up to shriek. And had his comments
swiftly removed.

QRpedia
"""Smallbones" aka Peter Ekman (pdekman@gmail.com) may not be a teenager, but he does seem
short of a bob or two, if this 21 grant application is anything to go by:"
Full project name
Congressional Cemetery QRpedia Project
Budget breakdown
$298 - for 62 anodized steel “Garden Markers” used to display the QR codes in a dignified manner
next to the graves and cenotaphs. $84 – for printing and laminating the QR codes (in general 10 sheets
each with 6 codes, printed, laminated, and cut at about $7 per sheet, with 2 sheets mostly spoiled) $30 -
expected additional printing costs for a total of $412.
" Fortunately, my contact at the Cemetery, Program Director Rebecca Boggs Roberts, is a well-known
journalist (see e.g. http://www.culturaltourismdc.org/blog/i ... s-program-
director-historic-congressional-cemetery 22 ), the daughter of the legendary Cokie Roberts of National
Public Radio, and the grand-daughter of Congressional leader Wade Boggs. She is a true Washingtoninsider who knows her way around the world of journalism. She has agreed to review my press
releases and offer a few tips." 23
"From the last time I looked at the article, a few hours ago, I gained the impression that Smallbones 24
thinks footnotes are there to lend weight to his own thoughts, rather than as an indication to the reader
that there is some sort of vague correspondence between what is written in Wikipedia and what the
cited source says. He doesn't seem to be too familiar with that latter concept." --Andreas on WO Sun
Jan 26, 2014 11:26 pm 25

"Disclosure"
From this 26 Wall Street Journal article of 16 June 2014, it seems that Ekman is now acting as a "public
contact point" for issues related to paid editing. Obviously the journalists have no idea of Ekman's past
history.
"Along with the ad seeking paid editing of the page, volunteer Wikipedia editor Peter Ekman of Media,
Pa., said the page shows many signs of biased editors seeking to remove mentions of the company’s
problems with U.S. regulators. Banc de Binary did not respond to requests for comment. “The problem
of paid editing on Wikipedia is extremely serious, as are related activities like hidden advertising, PR
spin, and marketing in general,” said Ekman, who assisted the Wikimedia Foundation with the new
terms of use."
"EKMAN VICTIMS CRY OUT"
From this eXile mailbox 27 :
"Dear Mark and Matt,"
"We are students studying for a BSBA in the John L. Grove college of business at Shippensburg
University in Pennsylvania. One of our classmates found the public service announcement from Peter
Ekman on your site. We found it quite bemusing to say the least. As it turns out, good old Peter is an ad
hoc professor at Shippensburg this year. He is currently our professor for a second level finance
course. He is by far and away the absolute worst professor that any of us have ever encountered. His
lectures are a boring waste of time as he jumps around from one topic to another. He tells stories
about how he goes around and collects loose change in front of the bars that drunk college students
lose. What a winner! "
"Many of us have complained to the department head and deans about how terrible he is. He will
certainly be fired at the end of the year. But in the mean time, we would certainly like to see him suffer.
If you have any good info. on him, we emplore you to send it to the deans of the college of business.
The name of the dean is Dr. Stephen Holoviak and the associate dean is Dr. Tony Winter. Their
information as well as Peter's can be accessed via the web at info.ship.edu. Please assist us if you can,
he has made our lives miserable and we would love to return the favor. I think we would all agree that
Peter Ekman is joke of a financial educator."
"Sincerely Yours,"
"Shippensburg University Students"

"X YEARS WASTED"
From a 2007 eXile item 28 :
"PETER EKMAN, former Moscow Times' neo-liberal columnist and economics teacher. In 1999,
Ames apparently threatened violence against the hefty walrus-mustached Ekman in response to an
attack he wrote against the eXile. The next year, The eXile published a story about how Ekman tried toseduce one of our female employees, causing both the Moscow Times to fire him, and his sugar-
mommie wife to divorce him. In 2004, we wrote that Ekman assassinated President Bush in a special
issue. To this day, Ekman spends his free time - which is pretty much all of his time, since no one will
hire him anymore - writing letters to editors of papers that publish Ames and Taibbi's articles, and
vandalizing wiki pages about The eXile and its contributors."

"A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT"
by Peter Ekman 29 .
"Hi, remember me? My name is Peter Ekman. I'm here to help prevent you from destroying your life.
Last year, I had a regular economics column in the Moscow Times, I was a Financial Educator at the
American Institute of Business and Economics, and I was happily married to a wealthy Russian
woman, whose invaluable material support helped to buffer my intellectual pursuits. My life, in short,
was enviable. Then I made a fatal error. An error that I knew had destroyed others, but that I never
believed would destroy me. I interfered with the workings of the eXile. "
"It all began when I posted a personal attack on Mark Ames and the eXile on Johnson's Russia List in
the spring of 1999, after which Ames personally threatened my person with bodily harm. Things
quieted down until last fall, when I sent Matt Taibbi an unnecessarily rude reply to his request for
commentary on a critical press review he was writing on my column. After that, all hell broke loose.
The eXile, in an article entitled 'Peter Ekman Groped Me', printed an account of how I tried to seduce
their former web project manager, Larissa Gorbunova, and mercilessly pointed out every flaw, mistake
and downright idiocy in my fiercely pro-American-values columns. Within a month, I was fired from
the Moscow Times, my moneyed Russian wife had left me, and my attempts to paint the eXile as a pro-
Nazi newspaper were received with ridicule and silence. Even the lowly Russia Journal refused to hire
me, even without pay. "
"People who once admired me now refer to me as 'Peter Ex-Man'. "
"Today I am an unemployed 48-year-old financial educator living alone in a $200-a-month studio on
the outskirts of Moscow. And I am holding onto this meager existence by the grace of God."
"I blame myself and only myself for this disaster. Others have tried taking on the eXile and failed, but I
paid no heed to their example. Jean MacKenzie, Suzanne Thompson, Michael Specter, Carol J.
Williams, Gary Peach and Geoff Winestock are just some of the people driven out of Moscow for
having ill-advisedly crossed the eXile's path; others, like the Baltimore Sun's Kathy Lally, were driven
out of their minds, while former Stanford educator Michael McFaul was denied tenure simply for
interfering with the workings of the eXile. He now faces possible arrest in Russia."
"So please, don't just take my word, take my example. Don't wind up a lonely, unemployed, divorced
loser. Don't interfere with the workings of the eXile. It may be the smartest thing you've never done in
your life."
"Thank You."
"Peter Ekman"
"Single Unemployed Financial Educator"

Comments by Dan Murphy
Murphy has also had disagreements with Ekman, and posted a summary of Ekman's "career" on
Wikipediocracy:
"Couldn't resist breaking my silence. "Smallbones" is one "Peter Ekman," a formerly small-time"financial
educator" and occasional columnist in the Moscow Times on the right of Moscow's
expatriate scene in the mid to late 1990s. Way back in 2001, he wrote a mean letter to The Exile (a sort
of gonzo journalism/lifestyle/Private Eye imitator paper in Moscow that was eventually shut down by
Putin). Exiles' brain-trust of Mark Ames (who I know slightly) and Matt Taibbi (he of the "vampire
squid") did what anyone with a clue would have expected from them: they gave Ekman both barrels.
He'd handed them plenty of ammunition, thanks to his unsavory character and wooden, binary mind 30 :
"Ekman was a right-wing columnist in Moscow who is pissed at us because, after receiving a nasty
letter from him, we published an ugly story about an incident in which he groped one of our secretaries
in a bar."
"The married Ekman subsequently tried to have the eXile banned from various newsgroups by
describing us as a Neo-nazi organization. Proof of our Nazi sympathies came in the form of a spoof
fashion piece we’d once run entitled “The eXile’s Third Reich Uniform of the Week,” in which a
fictional gay fashion designer breathlessly reviewed the 1938 version of the Nazi Field Bishop uniform.
"It ended very badly for him. His rich Russian wife and benefactor divorced him, he lost his job at
something called the "American Institute of Business and Economics" and the Moscow Times stopped
accepting any column submissions from him."
"Amusingly he first showed up at Wikipedia in 2005 (as 69.253.195.228 31 ) to (wait for it.... wait for
it...) act as a paid editor on his own behalf. Ekman/Smallbone's first edit removed the following from
the page on The Exile."
"In November 2000, in Issue #23 of The eXile, Matt Taibbi published a press review entitled Peter
Ekman Groped Me. The article ridiculed Ekman, then newly appointed editor of The Moscow Times,
for his approach to the economic and political development of Russia. Taibbi characterized this
approach as high-handed, condescending, and arrogant, and went on to mock Ekman personally as a
pompous hypocrite: "Ekman has only one idea ("Russia has a lot to learn from America"), which he
tries endlessly to sell and resell as a varied package of ribald wit and insight." The article also
ridiculed Ekman for describing himself as a "financial educator," and described him as having "a head
seemingly worn bald from improper use." As a finishing touch, Taibbi recounted an as-yet unverified
account of sexual advances made by Ekman to an eXile employee, made at late at night at the Garazh
nightclub in Moscow during a visit from Ekman's mother-in-law."
"Ekman responded by writing in to Johnson's Russia List to claim that "the eXile is fascist and racist,"
that "every eXile issue contains unverifiable stories that smear someone's reputation," that The eXile
"is associated with the fascist party of Eduard Limonov." The accusations of fascism were discounted
by many in part because of the eXile's Jewish roots - Ames, along with the eXile's publisher, deputy
editor and several contributors are all Jews - and because of the paper's satirical editorial bent. It
remains unclear as to whether Ekman did in fact make advances toward an eXile employee, or who
that employee may have been."
"Ekman's hinge, even then, seemed a little unned(sic), as this early attempt to get The Exile article
deleted shows 32 :"
"Propaganda, self-promotion, advertising, libel. Please notice that the so-called Pranks are a record
of criminal activity (e.g. assault) or pure vanity non-sense (e.g. we gate crashed) I have edited out the
libelous material about myself (pde). eXile is the English language propanganda arm of Eduard
Limonovs National Bolshevik Party which is a facist hate mongering organization which also has
engaged in violent activities, e.g. the seizure of St. Peters Church in Riga on the eve of the national
holiday. Limonov has been convicted on felony arms violations 69.253.195.228 03:39, 24 October2005 (UTC)"
"If you want to really feel the spittle-flecked rage that drives Ekman, read Ekman's comments at the old
RFC about him 33 ."
"Smallbones/Ekman was drawn to Wikipedia by his grudges and petty disputes around his failed life in
Moscow. He is the very opposite of a dispassionate "friend of knowledge." Instead, he is like the paid
editors he so despises, but a good deal worse: He is driven by rage and animus. At some point, his
mind leaped from his specific Moriartys (Ames and Taibbi - who have both gone on to great success)
to generalized "self-promoters." His efforts to force in the inferior photograph, which he appears to
believe is part of some noble crusade, is evidence of an ongoing break from reality. Trying to be
compassionate, perhaps Wikipedia makes his sad little life more bearable. It's probably healthier than
being a drunk. But it's interesting that he has been anointed one of Wales' semi-official courtiers. Isn't
it?"

From the Elizabethtown College website
"PETER D. EKMAN 34 "
"Visiting Associate Professor of Finance"
"Office: Hoover 210"
"Email: ekmanp@etown.edu"
"Tel: (717) 361-4752"
"B.S. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"
"M.B.A. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"
"Ph.D. Purdue University"
"Dr. Ekman brings a diverse background in both academia and industry, having taught for more than
18 years in America, Russia, and Hungary and having served as a currency arbitrageur at the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange. Most recently, Dr. Ekman taught Masters courses in corporate finance,
investments and advanced finance at the Central European University Business School in Budapest,
Hungary. He also has taught at Kansas State University, the American Institute of Business and
Economics in Moscow, Shippensburg University and Goldey-Beacom College. Dr. Ekman has been a
chartered financial analyst since 1999."
"Mailing address:"
"Department of Business"
"Elizabethtown College"
"Elizabethtown, PA 17022"

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Re: The Percepto story

Post by ericbarbour » Sun Nov 15, 2020 12:52 am


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