[WikiEN-l] Re: Consumerium and 142

Tue May 11 03:19:56 UTC 2004

Daniel Mayer wrote:
>>Be absolutely clear: you are making real-world enemies here, 
>>Tim Starling. And many real-world enemies do in fact go so far 
>>as to kill to protect what they value. 
> 
> 
> Sigh. So far this guy has issued veiled death threats to Larry, Jimbo, me, and
> now Tim (there are probably others I missed). 
> 
> I've already filed a report to the FBI on 24/142/Craig Hubley's threat on me,
> but have never heard back from them. Perhaps if others also file reports then
> something may get done. 

I thought about filing a report. I even rang up the Canadian police and 
asked them about it, and they told me to contact my local police. But I 
didn't, in the end. This was a couple of months ago by the way -- that 
wasn't clear in my original email.

Making veiled threats is part of 142's standard trolling repertoire. It 
often creates a bit of a stir, in which case he denies it and claims 
that he is the victim of paranoia, racism, bias or whatever. He has 
conveniently outlined this tactic for us at:

http://develop.consumerium.org/wiki/index.php/Spun_threat

What would be really useful is if we could get him kicked off Sympatico. 
Then he would have to use a smaller ISP, hopefully corresponding to a 
smaller range block. I've had 3 or 4 complaints from Halifax residents 
about not being able to edit Wikipedia. Sympatico has a fairly strict 
Acceptable Use Policy:

http://service.sympatico.ca/ServiceDesk/ServiceDesk-Content.cfm?SDID=632&SDCategoryID=113&page=1

Regarding the "driven off by trolls" philosophy, Mark Richards wrote:
 > This is kind of different to the way the term 'troll'
 > has been used before isn't it? As far as I can see,
 > this is an attempt by an advocacy group to get their
 > point of view to dominate certain articles - my
 > understanding was that we were using the term 'troll'
 > to mean users who post to deliberately stir up
 > controversy.
 > This highlights the fine line between points of view
 > we disagree with (and how to integrate them into
 > articles while maintaining an NPOV) and users who have
 > nothing to add except conflict.
 > Mark

No, it's an attempt by a single person who identifies as a troll to 
redefine the term in order to give himself a rationalisation for his 
behaviour. Hurting people for fun can eventually lead to pangs of 
conscience, even for 142. So he attempts to justify it in terms of 
righteous promotion of his beliefs. The actual activities he conducts, 
however, are still the same.

-- Tim Starling