Sockpuppets on t'other forum

[brazil nut]

Oh this made me laugh out loud. There's a thread on the "other forums" about Ellie's predicament regarding deselection, on the SE23 one The Ruler has posted "There’s also a discussion about this on se26.life and as *someone* pointed out there, Ellie might prove a poor choice of target for deselection" and it links to the "someone's" post on the SE26 forum. The *Someone* being a clear sockpuppet of The Beach's. Are the forum users happy with this duplicity I wonder? The sock puppets on there are in plain view (I will defer from saying what it is that makes them so obvious as The Beach himself will no doubt be reading this and self awareness is clearly not his forte and I do find the sock puppet thing rather amusing so I'd be happy for him to carry on for my selfish amusement). AidenH, MichMich, Sammy75, SabrinaF are all obvious ones. Does anyone care? Does anyone actually go and look on there? Or are CB and his posse of wooly friends just merrily chatting amongst themselves without any inkling of how ridiculous it makes him look?

[stuart]

Please don't read this unless you have a well developed sense of irony and history:
https://se23.life/t/threats-cyber-stalk ... chrisbeach

Stuart

[brazil nut]

I'm intrigued Stuart - do please elucidate on your irony/history comment....?

[stuart]

Well that thread has burst the banks on the emotional front which can obscure a detached forensic analysis of what the first post disclosed. Here's my take YMMV.

First it's obviously a private email betwen the protagonist DHG to someone they believe, rightly or wrongly, is CB but pretending to be someone else. Then it was apparently passed by a stranger to SE23 to the right target [CB] who wasn't explicitly identified in the email. Also control of their accounts. Possible, but certainly questionable.

Then personal information disclosed by CB but CB doesn't want made public - is made public by CB on at least three forums and various Twitter accounts. If it was perceived as a genuine known threat (and CB disclosed he knew who the correspondent was) then getting that sorted is the one many correspondents recommended rather than contaminating the 'crime' scene. But, i guess, doing the right thing when angry is hard.

Yes, I know, my sceptical rating is high - but that should be the default setting for a moderator/admin which is hard to shake off even when one has been retired for many years. It's their job to try and see whether it be justified or not. I don't envy the SE23.life moderation team finding the answers to these questions - difficult and delicate. What to then do about it - even harder.

And for the avoidance of doubt I think that email unwise. It could be seen as threatening even if it wasn't intended so.

Stuart

[brazil nut]

So it appears that the sender of the email suspected that the Flava Baker Twitter account was a CB sock puppet account? The email was sent to Flava Baker's email address. What I can't understand is how the email, which contained no information that would identify CB to a stranger, was "passed over" to CB as he claims? And why would a social media manager give access to their client's accounts to a stranger, as CB has again claimed? As well as a complete lack of professionalism, there must be some GDPR breaches involved there too, surely? It all seems very strange and doesn't add up at all, unless of course CB is Flava Baker. But why on earth would he do such a thing? I know he has a history of using sockpuppets on this forum and on his own, but it's really quite something to set up a fake SE23 business account and dupe the local Twitter community?

I agree with what you say about the email. But if they'd sent an email saying "Hello, I suspect you're CB, can you kindly confirm?" that wouldn't have achieved the intended aim. And it is important to note that it was sent to the Flava Baker email address, not directly to CB.

What a sad, sorry (and rather confusing!) state of affairs.

[stuart]

What a sad, sorry (and rather confusing!) state of affairs.

But also an opportunity. Sockpuppetry - or suspected sockpuppetry - is toxic to good open community discussion. Let's hope the mods can dig down, root it out and rebuild the trust all good forums need.

It would be good to be able to return there together with others who were amongst its earliest supporters.

Stuart

[brazil nut]

Do you feel the same way anonymity out of interest? I, of course, don't go by the moniker Brazil Nut in real life. Is there a distinction to be made?

[stuart]

I'm greatly in favour of anonymised monikers. Mine is a compromise - identifiable by people who know me in real life but totally generic if you are on a Google hunt. The outrageous attacks by a certain individual on our Admin and was an example of how they are a good and effective defence against continued harrasment in real life.

As you know there is an awful amount of cyber-bullying about or just that people want privacy online, particulary women. After all on forums its the words that count far more than who you are - unless you are seeking to deceive.

Which is why in my time I always put sockpuppetry right at the top of the list of misdemeanours that meant instant exile. Please note that doesn't include multiple accounts - they can be good. Some people may be speaking as, say, a party member or organisational chair - and what they can say is more restricted than as an ordinary person. So home/work accounts are OK - as long as you use one or the other in a particular thread.

When you start ganging up or deliberately misleading people then its the duty of any good moderator to spot and stop.

Stuart

[brazil nut]

Yes, CB employs two unpleasant forms of sock puppetry. First are the sock puppets designed to gain access to online spaces he's blocked from, which is what happened here on STF recently with that Lawrie Park sock puppet that got weeded out, if I remember correctly? Second are the sock puppets he uses on his own forums, such as I mention at the start of this thread. I'm guessing that there are, in turn, two situations in which he would choose to use such sock puppets, namely to generate the illusion of conversation so that the forum appears more active than it in reality is, but also to steer conversations in a direction of his choosing. Three quite different situations, all equally distasteful (because of the deception involved).

Goodness knows what his intention is with this Flava Baker sock puppet account on Twitter, however (if indeed it is a CB sock puppet)? I'm very interested to see how this all pans out and whether the phantom bakery ever opens. A dispute with a social media manager is surely not enough to stop a business opening! I wonder if Lewisham Council would have any information about this mystery business? I wait with bated breath (and lots of popcorn)!

[RJM]

This current business strikes me as having an element of catfishing to it, although the whole thing is an absolute mess. There appears to be an element of "if you're not with us, you're against us" which makes it all rather unpleasant.

As for names - these are my real initials, but I don't think that would get you very far if you didn't know me in real life!

[stuart]

which is what happened here on STF recently with that Lawrie Park sock puppet that got weeded out,

No - I think he just beat a speedy retreat when he was challenged.

This current business strikes me as having an element of catfishing to it,

I had to look catfishing up! [sad]. I doubt there is a romantic element despite further down that thread where 'JumpingCaribou' attributes “I love you, please keep following me” to DHG. I really hope JC isn't another sockpuppet or things are getting really seriously weird in SE23!

Stuart

[RJM]

Ha, SE23 is of course weirder than SE26 , but I meant something set up to try and catch out another person rather than the romantic side!

[stuart]

Yep looks like the cat caught something that bit back rather harder than expected. In which case who is the victim?
Wikipedia (and myself) have no doubts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfishing

Stuart

[brazil nut]

You learn something new every day!

[brazil nut]

No - I think he just beat a speedy retreat when he was challenged.

So is CB actually banned from this forum?

[stuart]

So is CB actually banned from this forum?

Many times I believe. But then another fake account pops up ... sounds familiar?

Stuart

[brazil nut]

Do you know what deed or deeds he was banned for? I've heard rumour of him having been banned from every local forum around, but I've never known what for exactly. Obviously there was the vitriol he posted regularly on SE23.com, but was that what got him banned? I recall there being a number of nasty bits of work on that forum, he was obviously the worst and achieved a certain level of infamy for it around south east London (of which I suspect he was proud), but nastiness seemed to be tolerated on there so I always wondered what he did to get banned.

[JGD]

Chris Beach has been banned on three instances from this forum.

Once as Chris Beach and once each for two sock-puppets that he created, "LawriePark" and "dnsyd". Watch out for the next pop-up.

For each of his identities he irrationally attacked, amongst others, Admin, Stuart and me - uttering untrue accusations that were without foundation or subsequent substantiation by him. His pants were truly smoking on each occasion.

There is no self-created subject matter or scheme created for artifice that lies outside CB's and his choir's bounds of decency if the accusation is considered by him to significantly elevate the outrage or opprobrium that will be heaped on his target.

And yes, as far as I am aware, he has been banned and/or blocked from every forum that operates in areas geographically co-located to his .life fabrications.

The .life sites are dying on their feet. This week alone has seen a sudden upturn in new registrants most making benign first time comments, some of them purporting to support and commend CB for his actions. Real or fabricated new users - it's for the individual to judge.

As for FlavaBaker - not only is it a sock-puppet creation with a presence created for the purposes of attacking another CB target. Several people are questioning the existence of FlavaBaker as an entity that, despite having a back-story of a Twitter presence, does not in fact exist at all as a business. Does anyone know the putative owners or the business itself?

Chris Beach links to a NewsShopper piece about moderator/founder on an adjacent forum to presumably compare his own virtues and difficulties favourably when compared with the other guy.

It is regrettable that moderation on forums and facebook pages linked to .life entities fail to match the exemplary standards set by the other guy on his forum and indeed the stellar standards set by SE23.life's originators when that forum was launched .

It is no coincidence that few of the originators with substantial measures of integrity no longer participate in or moderate the .life forums in SE23 and SE6. It is noted one more has resigned this week.

Community participants in the .life entities must view the virtues of honest and effective moderation with some envy.

[brazil nut]

For each of his identities he irrationally attacked, amongst others, Admin, Stuart and me - uttering untrue accusations that were without foundation or subsequent substantiation by him. His pants were truly smoking on each occasion.

There is no self-created subject matter or scheme created for artifice that lies outside CB's and his choir's bounds of decency if the accusation is considered by him to significantly elevate the outrage or opprobrium that will be heaped on his target.

So what makes one a Chris Beach target? Admin and Stuart is obvious, dirty tactics to bring down the competition I assume.

[JGD]

Oh - anything or nothing in particular.

A comment here, a rebuttal there, any commentary outside his rigid political dogma - or it might just be that his affliction on any given day gets so bad that it means he dislikes or perhaps only misunderstands the first post or poster that he comes across.

One substantive and guaranteed trigger is to challenge his overbearingly authoritative view that he can tell you what to do and how to behave even outside his own petty little forums. Any such incursion, perceived by CB, into those rights will also garner the extra benefits of the renowned twofer attack from his far-flung choir member and recently re-instated moderator in Norfolk. Any hint that criticism of CB or his actions is being discussed anywhere where he cannot control, censor or block the discussion drives him into a self-confessed paroxysm of hyper-frustration.

But as Stuart pointed out a few weeks ago - you have to be guarded about being an ingrate.

You get all these special treatments for free and without having to try hard to earn them.

i was and probably still am, the only member of our local communities who has had a thousand year ban imposed upon them. But equally I am one member of a smaller group in our communities who is numbered now in the order of a baker's dozen or so who are targets of Chris Beach and repeatedly "get the treatment".

What munificence I hear you say.