User talk:EntmootsOfTrolls/RKs big lie

For more on this little bit of trash see Wikipedia:Community_case RK

Regarding http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-August/005975.html While I too have my disagreements with RK, Ive looked at some of your edits, and they may or may not cross the line of trolling themselves. Ironically. (Just as Ed told RK about you -- dont wrestle with a pig--you only get dirty, and the pig is happy to oblige.)

It is difficult to deal with such a habitual liar without taking some shots oneself. I admit to having baited him more than once, but only under the most outrageous provocation. I'm afraid it's a race to the bottom. EofT 22:27, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

So, if the issue is to better deal with RK - you may have to consider that fighting him wont work. Either that or this beef you have with him now has turned into a sort of obsession with correcting someones bad manners, and your just gonna have to let it go -- otherwise... most likely youll just get burned. You seem reasonable enough, and I appreciate the levity you approach the subject with -- but just like it wasnt Zoe's job to be top cop on top of "Michael"-- so too is it not your job to deal with RK alone. -戴&#30505sv 19:30, Aug 21, 2003 (UTC)

I know that. I have fallen back to just restoring the User_talk:RK/ban page and noting that he keeps sabotaging it. I suggested more reasonable compromise, like, archiving the page so it is less visible (but still as part of his own ban record), and merely summarizing its contents (so he is not rewarded for his attempts to hide it) in a non-inflammatory way. Yes there is perhaps an obsession with correcting bad manners, but, what alternative is there? I really do not favour block tactics, unless it is generating wholly unreasonable noise and distracting from the point - which is still writing encyclopedia articles. EofT

User_talk:RK/ban_Archive and User_talk:RK/ban_Archive2 still exist but are now invisible (and the latter blanked). Someone has apparently assisted RK by deleting User_talk:RK/ban whose edit log contained a great many lies that are to some degree preserved in User_talk:RK/ban_Archive2. Also, there are backups of these files now, for reference in a later summary of RK's behaviour. I am satisified to leave that there for now, but, as I said in Wikipedia_talk:Bans and blocks, it is a mistake to let him render these comments invisible, and force those dealing with him in future to be unable to see his track record.EofT

I'd like to ask you to lay off of him, too. Just stop doing this. And *especially* don't bait him with remarks that I think you should have guessed he would reasonably find offensive.

OK, it's got tiresome anyway. I won't bait him any more. EofT

Evidently he considers archiving the comments in the right place to be offensive, or pointing someone at them who had read the falsehoods posted to the mailing list and expressed interest. I take no more interest in what RK "would reasonably find offensive". I will refrain from using him as a bad example if the issue doesn't involve him, which is how I interpret the term "bait". EofT

Here's the thing -- if you've got a problem with RK there's a much more effective strategy. Leave me a clean paper trail. If he's really a troublemaker and if he's really doing bad POV things to Wikipedia, and if he's really unreasonable about accepting changes, then let me know, but keep your *own* house in order and perfectly clean.

User_talk:RK/ban_Archive and User_talk:RK/ban_Archive2, even without *any* of my remarks, speaks for itself. RK has left a trail already. As for his POV, he's no worst than oh say User:JoeM. As for my own record, I don't have much to apologize for, except for that proposed strategy at Talk:Accenture which may be a bit draconian -and the bait of course. But compare my track record for settling disputes versus his - and note that User_talk:EntmootsOfTrolls/ban is **EMPTY**. If it fills up with someone other than User:RK's comments, I'll be sure to pay attention. EofT

But I don't think that's going to happen. I actually think that RK is pretty well justified in being upset with you over this. And I think if you leave him alone, or try to work with him without making accusations, everything will be fine.

I don't agree. First, he lied about the facts, and I'm not clear you ever saw or could see the correction. Second, he view of one ignorant American of Sharia, whatever he has heard about it, counts for nothing. It's not my job to educate him to a higher degree than I did in that note, which was clear, nor answer for ignorant village mullahs who may rise to power playing on hate. Third, he wanted a page in my User_talk space, about himself, he tried to create one several times, eventually I gave it to him. And fourth, I've *left* him alone, but in any Talk: file where we encounter each other, he has inexorably come back to his standard rants: "anti-semitism" this, "harassment" that, "lying" when it's a matter of intent on my part, and lying baldly in ways that are easy to show. All that said, I'll generate your clean paper trail, if you like, I don't disagree with that method. But I can smell this kind of "person" a mile off. They go dormant but they don't really ever change. EofT

Oddly, he seems to be able to work in parallel on some things, without mentioning the disputes. I do not actually believe he is sincere, nor actually upset, I think he is looking to "score points" by pretending to be so. A common trick. But, even if he was "well justified" in being upset, I have the right not to care about his feelings. I care about the quality of the encyclopedia and in those talk files where he does not lie or whine, I deal with him like anyone else. I am at a loss to find a single place where I made any sort of accusation other than to assert he had a political motive for some edit or other. Except for those, it's been simply pointing out the contradictions or assumption-of-authority or assumption-of-telepathy in what he has said. I will scrupulously avoid making "accusations" that aren't evident on the surface, so as to leave a "clean paper trail" as you put it. I want no ambiguity there either. EofT

RK can be prickly. He knows I think so, and he knows I think it's not good for him. But dont exacerbate the problem.

Well, perhaps you are right that /ban pages in fact exacerbate that problem, and maybe it's no coincidence that he feels wronged by their mere existence. I agreed with you (on your user page) that "/ban" is just the wrong concept. EofT

My central advice to everyone at all times is: relax. Cut each other some slack. Recognize that we have irreconcilable political differences but that these need not lead to irreconcilable differences over the content of articles, even on controversial subject. Don't generate more heat than light. Jimbo Wales 20:17, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Well said - you are right on that. Have you read meta:more heat than light, User:Kat's contribution? And Kat's frustrated comments above? It seems we are about to lose a few good people to some of the more "political" processes not improving fast enough. And maybe also a few not so good people, but I will avoid speculating on who those might be. It's not good if we lose people for any reason other than poor quality edits. Even RK, who in general writes good text, but seems to habitually put it in the wrong place or insist on factorings that serve his views. These are correctible faults I suspect. So I'll slack off a bit to see if he self-corrects. EofT 22:27, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I am now less optimistic, as he considers creating an archive an "escalated attack", refers to something which has only fact corrections as "hate-filled", etc.. I will avoid resorting to psychiatry. EofT

Wikipedia:Community case RK * (cur) (last) . . 01:06, 24 Aug 2003 . . EntmootsOfTrolls (revert to last edit by Netesq - reverting vandalism by liar, libeller, whining child etc.)

Come, you did tell Jimbo that you'd stop "RK-baiting" and "slack off a bit". Leave a clean paper troll and stop throwing insults! Please? If you call RK a "liar, libeller, whining child etc" how can you complain when he accuses you of being "mentally ill"? It just degrades the whole thing to the playground level, and we don't make any progress. :-( Martin 01:13, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Heh. A clean paper troll indeed. Well, actually, you are right that whining child is a bit far, he is provably a whiner but sadly beyond child status. As for liar and libeller I stand by those as plainly factual, they are insulting but not gratuitous insults, those words have definitions that RK meets. Certainly I can complain when he calls me mentally ill since that too has a definition, and he has no psychiatry degree nor any access to my state of mind. I refer by contrast only to his communicative behaviour, not his state of mind. He may well be engaging in all this as a sort of game, or a deliberate political strategy to see which fellow-travellers come in on his side. I have no idea what his stae of mind is. But I know what his agenda is. EofT

I did in fact lay what may have been RK bait in commenting on an article he posted in his User_talk space. By the criteria he uses, the article is "hatespeech", "harassment", "sick" and all that. And I noted that I was now "going to have to" do more of my so-called "hatespeech" and "harassment" to "liberals" who the article was trying to invoke on the Zionists' side. I put a smiley on it. But maybe not everyone sees the joke. To me, that's all it was. To me, that's all he is. If you want me to take this process of reviewing a user's behaviour seriously, let's see some comment about outright lies being sent to the mailing list. Until someone other than me cares about that, there is no better than "playground level" here anyway. EofT

But, for the sake of those of you trying to implement due process of a sort, and wanting to have a clear paper trail for say a week with no provocation, I will do nothing but flat reverts with no more than the standard comment from now on, and stay away from all articles that have anything to do with Zionism - which frankly is not an issue I gave a damn about other than in the context of colonialism, until RK came along. I must say I am now a plain old anti-Zionist, thanks to this experience, I agree with Noam Chomsky, having seen RK play every trick in his book. So as I am no longer politically neutral, and for that reason if no other should stay out of this. EofT

Why did you feel the need to make the comments you did on User talk:RK/A Liberal Defense of Zionism? This is RK's own user space, and as such, it is not something others need to do anything with. If you want to talk to him on User talk:RK, you can certainly do it there. RickK

I for one am glad to see you come to your sense(s) and take it down a notch... (engines dont work after redlining them too long) -- I tend to identify with your sentiments-that you are understandably frustrated with the revert wars and the pov bias on RKs part -- but you knew your first time on WP that things were likely to be controversial -- so, whats new? I agree that some greater community action may at some point be necessary, but the irony is that recent challenges to RK may have given him some impetus to clean up his act a bit, and be less quick on the draw.

Perhaps, but, he appears to have little learning capacity. I suspect rather than his entire public image is a deliberate strategy that may have worked on some previous forum, that was friendly to his arguments to begin with, and where he was able to invent spurious 'death threats', 'hate speech', and 'harassment' using ambiguous statements by others, and get them thrown off as he continued to throb. In short, I consider him a plain provocateur and possibly even a paid one. I think he deserves no benefit of the doubt after lying on the mailing list, whatever else he might feel justified in doing. He is not worth saving. EofT

In any case, as evident by the low voter turnout for his sysop vote, as well as the ban vote, most people seem to be clear on the issue == not nice enough to promote, not mean enough to ban. Which is probably the same niche I occupied when I first started getting into it with RK. Jt and I on the potato famine article had probably the most notorious little edit war in the past year outside of New Imperialism, and now we deal with each other in cordial, and often friendly terms. Things change, and often that thing is ourselves. So fighting rock with rock doesnt work here. Theres other things out there that work against rock. Like paper, maybe. -戴&#30505sv 18:03, Aug 24, 2003 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:troll bridge for suggestions of techniques of dealing with such differences that arise from genuine clashes of moral views. But as I say I do not believe that this particular argument arises from such a clash, but rather from the deliberate selection of propaganda techniques and psyops that are designed, maybe subconciously or culturally but still nonetheless designed, to wear down opponents. Signs of insincerity include use of phrases like Seriously, I am not kidding, Please, and repetitive formulaic language used to apply to anything the provocateur does not like: hatespeech, Jew-baiting, anti-Semitic. RK did not invent these techniques. Leon Trotsky was known to use them as a propaganda method to recruit Jews to Bolshevism by convincing them that everything said against him or Communist Jews was in fact an anti-semitic attack of the sort the Czar's secret police used to justify a round of pogroms. It was effective then largely because Jews really were under attack that singled them out. It may be effective here now on certain topics because of the statements of such groups as Al Qaeda that do not differentiate between Zionist settlers and all Jews, which facilitates the absurdity that all Jews are in fact under attack. I will take this up with Osama bin Laden the next time I meet with him in person to discuss our holy war against Americans and Jews. If I need to put a smiley on that then I am surely in the wrong place. EofT