Those following the strange tale of Man Boobz’ recently crowned Troll of the Year for 2012 will be intersted to know that someone calling himself Mikhael_Varpole has done a self-post on the Men’s Rights Subreddit claiming that he’s not MRAL after all and declaring me a liar. Here’s his explanation, FWIW.
I’ll be keeping him banned, in any case; even if this serial liar and sockpuppeter is telling the truth about this (highly unlikely, in my opinion), he’s still a serial liar and sockpuppeter.
Also, for the record, he wasn’t using a “similar” IP as Scooby Doo/MRAL; it was the same IP. And he was using the IP before I called him out for sockpuppeting as Torvus Butthorn — which is what he’s referring to, dishonestly of course, when he talks about doxxing.
He’s clearly just trying to stir up more shit, but it looks like the folks in r/mensrights aren’t biting.
Anyway, I guess we can consider this his Troll of the Year acceptance speech.
What Cassandra said.
Cassandra: Yeah. I agree. The people who aren’t rapists, in fact, but “merely” accept it as, “the way things are” are just fine with making anything an excuse to excuse rapists; which is social control.
They tut-tut, but they actually approve of the effects of the rape they talk about condemning.
Cassandra, I’m really sorry for acting amused about Steele. He has always singled you out and so I can definitely understand why that would be not. funny. at. all to you!
@ katz
Thanks. It’s honestly not just that, though, it’s that I feel like he feeds off of attention and the only way we’re ever going to get rid of him is to ignore him. I kind of wish everyone would do the same with Diogenes, for the same reason (he isn’t as openly creepy as Mr Al yet, but there’s something off about anyone who keeps trying to insert themselves into a community after being told many time that the community does not want them around).
Yeah, I want to apologize for being amused about Mr. Al/Steele too. Even though I got much laughage out of Steele’s appearances here, the fact that he would turn so much brainpower specifically to the task of coming to a place where he wasn’t welcome is … really terrible. I remember that Cliff shared part of a message he sent when he was banned from commenting on Pervocracy, and it was something like “I REFUSE TO ACCEPT THAT YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BAN ME.”
I’m not calling him a rapist, but there is a certain similarity to the mentality…
Hmm, dunno if that makes sense. Let me try again.
Basically my concern about us engaging with people who have a known tendency to refuse to respect boundaries is that if we do continue to give them what they want (engagement, attention) then what they’re going to take away from that is that regardless of what anyone says on the surface they can ultimately get their way if they just keep pushing and refuse to take no for an answer.
You are absolutely right! Trouble is even his most blatant socks take a while to notice and by then you’ve already engaged with him, so I’m not sure how one goes about ignoring him altogether,
I guess I reacted with humor because he just punked us so bad that I (personally) feel like I have to laugh about it or else get angry.
My feeling (and I know that nobody can control how they feel) is that this person deserves nothing from us. Not anger, not compassion, not attention. If people do feel angry though, well, the most effective way to hurt a person like that is to not care about them at all.
He wants to feel important. He’s not important, he pathetic.
There’s, to me, also the issue of what message ignoring something might send to those reading. Diogenes says some pretty cliche awful things a lot if the time and not responding at all can look like agreement or at least like those awful things are not so bad. If all it took was a week or so of ignoring him and then he’d be gone, I might feel differently, but Diogenes really likes to hear himself talk and I suspect that just being on the same topic as the rest of us may be enough to keep him around. I could be wrong on that, though.
I don’t know what else to do with him, since almost every regular has told him to get lost at one point or another. Like cloudiah said, there’s something troubling about a person who just will not accept the fact that people want nothing to do with him, and it concerns me that we might in any way be reinforcing that person belief that they have a right to force people to engage with them, even if it’s not intentional on our part.
I’m willing to try. If it does anything to slow his annoying combinations of things that have been already discussed/refuted and nonsense he pulled out of his ass because research is work/”intellectually dishonest,” that would be AMAZING.
THAT’S what bothers me so much about his willful pretense to be just-another-member-of-the-commentariat-posting. It was easier to engage with Mr SteAl, frankly, because he at least understood that he was here as an enemy. The faux-friendliness is… disturbing.
It can be hard for me to recognize when people cross that line here*, so I’ll try to pay better attention in the future to when other regulars’ boundary-meters are ringing loudly.
*I do find the batting around of trolls that goes on here to be oddly therapeutic, and have learned so much from some of the epic takedowns of the logic/fact fails they spew.
With some of them, like Slavey, it’s totally theraputic. I haven’t found Diogenes in any way entertaining to deal with for a long time. Maybe that’s just me though. Arrogant young men with Dunning-Kruger tendencies are not people who I have a whole lot of patience with in general.
@CassandraSays
There are so many of them, too! In the LotR thread alone there are at least 3 of them!
I used to try to reason with those people. I have learned that doing so is a complete waste of my time. Now I just want them to go be stupid somewhere else.
I think the way to deal with Diogenes is the way we dealt with Ruby/Melissa. When they get to the point they are ignoring their past, we need to remind them of it. Part of what they do is pretend each thread is a chance to start ab initio.
That, or publicly declare why you are shunning them and never again engage them directly.
There is no reasoning.
After-while, I frequently realize this and just stop debating.
I was one of those who was impressed with Mr. SteAL’s long-term sockpuppetry, but you guys are right–it’s more creeptastic than accomplished. Boo on him.
Very far beind here, but seconding this —
“@lauralot89, did you just invoke the name of The Wickerman Remake? That film was god-awful! “THE BEEZ! THE BEEEEEEEEZ!”
The original was pretty good though.”
The original is all the right kinds of creepy.
Morning, all.
Cassandra – ditto about apologies. It’s like cloudiah said, I wasn’t picking up on boundary crossing (and wasn’t around during Mr Al’s time, if that means anything).
I’ve been thinking Diogenes is way over the line even for an obnoxious Dunning-Kruger type for a while, and yeah, like Howard said, the whole “I’m part of this community” bullshit is irritating.
Does anyone else think asking David to ban him would be the right move? Like it’s been said already, ignoring him might not work, or take too damn long, since he’s so fond of the sound of his own voice. I’d just like to see him gone.
“I guess I reacted with humor because he just punked us so bad that I (personally) feel like I have to laugh about it or else get angry.”
Agreed
“The common ‘complaints’ (lol mummy porn!) also come off as rape culture too – “haha, women aren’t supposed to enjoy porn! especially not old hags! haha!””
Mommy porn…mummy porn…I’m picturing gauze here XD
Mummy porn must exist, or one of the basic rules of the internet would be violated.
Yeah, I have no desire to see Al again, because he’s in the same category as, say, Bob Smith. For some reason, it’s the sympathy trolls that really grind my gears. Not the cranks like Martin or NOW, not even the creepers like Meller get to me like that. I mean, they’re bats, but I feel like there’s an understanding that we will never agree with one another. I always figured guys like NWO came to blow off steam, same as us.
But it gives me a special bothering when people come here and try to play the “poor me” game. I don’t give a shit if Al WAS twenty. When I was twenty, I was engaged, milking goddamned cows in New Zealand, and I damn well knew the difference between my rapist and men as a whole. I have expectations of adults. Also, to just go into a place raging and trolling and then U-turn and expect everyone to pat your ass and comfort you is infantile. I don’t go to goddamned MRA sites to troll and then expect them to pat my hands and explain to me that not all men are like that and give me goddamn Common Sense 101. Why the hell should I play babysitter for the opposite?
I hate it so much because it feels so gendered. This space is gendered female (look at how many trolls assume that there are only women posting here) and then men come in and demand we pay attention to their thoughts and feelings above all else. Al used to make so many threads all about him (which happened, but less often, when he was shocking as Steele), Bob did the same thing, and there are definitely others I’m forgetting. I know this point has been made before, but it is worth making again. Men are not entitled to women’s (or other men’s) time and attention!