"Sock Puppet Accounts Locked" Topic

There's an old saying: you can make as many laws as you like as long as you don't try and enforce any of them.

I'm – as ever – not talking about the law (in England or anywhere else). Truely, you have no idea what name my mother gave me. I understand that: I'm neither stupid nor baldly informed.

What I try and be, however, is honorable. "John Treadaway" is the name I 'go by': on the web, in the real world and everywhere else.

Consequentially, to preserve something worth more to me than money or the opportunity to talk nonsense from the hidden mask of the web, I use my 'given name' here, there and everywhere to gently remind me that the consequences of not being decent, legal, honest and truthful would be the loss of that thing that I value very much.

That would be my reputation.

Vacate the high horse? Nope. I will gladly ride – and/or flog it – to death.

John "The view's mighty fine from up here" Treadaway

EDIT – one of the things I have discovered on my time on this mud ball is that the 'law' and a person's honor are only very rarely connected in an meaningful sense. On the internet they seem to be connected hardly at all. So I may be foolish trying to conduct myself on line as I would do in the 'real world' but I see nothing wrong with it.

I also see little wrong with drawing my own conclusions about folk who think that the web is some special place where you can write what you like without anything you say biting back at you. There are, I accept, a number of other places where that is true.

Toilet doors spring to mind…

As we say in America, Mr Treadaway, you hit that one straight outta the ballpark!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Thank you Leland.

It's not a panacea for all ills, I fully accept, but I believe my take on this is a reasonable starting point.

It works for me, anyhow.

And – frankly – with the way that things are heading in the real world, between international terrorism and its use of new media, under-age dweebs on Facebook posting (and looking at) massively inappropriate material, and trolls (not the good kind – like the Olog-hai – but the bad kind who poke fun at the parents of kids who've just topped themselves) I suspect that – sooner or later – any attempt to maintain web anonymity will be removed once and for all by our governments*, whether we want it or not.

Might as well get used to it now, I figure!

As I've said before, there are reasons I'd want to post anonymously, I'm sure. For example, if I lived in Afghanistan/Syria/Yugoslavia at the moment and wanted to tweet my hatred of my government/religious leadership/etc (delete as appropriate), I'd probably be using a sparklingly clever comedy signature like "Heinz Good Aryan" (or indeed anything other than 'John Treadaway') as my pen name.

But – as I am located elsewhere – I, er… don't see the need.

John T

* Who – if they really want to – can find out who we are at the drop of a hat. I mean, if Bill can do it on TMP, then GCHQ probably has my phone in a big fat file somewhere, I'm sure.

An interesting article:

link

Well done Mr. Treadaway.

"Well done Mr. Treadaway"

+1 :)

Please don't conflate all people who use casual aliases on web forums with deceivers, trolls and spewers-forth of opinions they only dare speak anonymously. I do it mainly out of apprehension for data-mining web spiders operated by unscrupulous people and companies. It's to some extent a generational thing, I think. A lot of people of my generation (I'm in my early thirties) are very apprehensive of where the web data mining and collating industry is going to be a decade or three from now. Also, to people like me, places where anonymity isn't the norm – such as Facebook – are places where one does not want to be seen geeking out all too much over hobbies that are easily misconstrued (especially in the context of one's professional life) as juvenile, anti-social, glorifying of violence or any number of other negative things.

TMP is a place with an unusually high proportion of people who post under their real names, but then again, it also has a high proportion of older-generation posters. Neither generation is necessarily right or wrong, it's just about different norms. A bit of a cultural clash, really. Go to the Lead Adventure Forum – just about the friendliest, most troll-free, uncontroversial, sincerely positive corner of the online miniatures wargaming community – and you'll see a much higher proportion of people who, perfectly casually, post under aliases.

Of course, running a business anonymously or under a made-up identity is a different matter.

I'm maddaz it's an old nickname from a long time ago.

I'm 111, not because I'm that old, but when I used to game online with the same nick .. the other variants were taken.

It is no secret that I am actually darren Lloyd Webber, and I am the owner of the beasts of bolsover.

If I criticize other figures, it's because I,don't like them, if I criticize other rules, it's because I don't like them.

I hadn't heard about the storms in teacups or the train wreck on here… but if Bill wants to show anyone the door (or the window) then it is his right. His house, his rules, no explanation asked, needed or given.

Is sock puppet a bad thing, (?) I'm not sure, and allowing traders a personal account as well as a business account, with an asterisk or something that allows people to see that there is a link.. but falsely praising your own products, and bashing other people's products is wrong… And if abusive needs to be stopped..

Surely this has got to be the funniest thread on TMP ever? Site favourite Khurasan Miniatures, about whose toys members get extremely excited, turns out to have been site villain Larry Dunn in a nefarious disguise, the rascal! Enraged by having been fooled in this way, former fanboys turn on him, Piers Brand rejects an entire gaming genre so deeply has he been wounded by the subterfuge!

I look forward to Bill's next revelation that the Perry Twins are in reality Big Mean Elf and the actual suicides the news will doubtless prompt among TMP users.

Nice words john

And lots of nicely missed points.

It's nothing to do with it being Larry. It's not even the self promotion of his threads by his sock puppets. It's the negative crap against so many other manufacturers! It's the cross links, it's the khurasan does it better links, it's the oh so cute for hobbits links, it's the can anyone tell me about their casting when a poor cast has been accidentally sent etc etc. Look at all the sock puppet names. Go read their posts. Then come back and have your say again. Tell me if you had a business this behaviour towards you would be acceptable? Then ask all the other manufacturers

I can't imagine why a grown man would give two hoots that someone had a sock puppet account or even ten sock puppet accounts. The impact those, rather feeble, accounts had on anything at all I strongly suspect to be zero.

But it's funny that Larry Dunn hoodwinked everyone for so long, and turned his naysayers into customers willing to pay him lots of money.

And ludicrous overreactions like Piers' are also funny.

Sometimes its good to look at things in a glass-half-full kinda way…

Whoosh

Reputation is everything and honesty cannot be divorced from that.

Surely a principle that under-pins this site.

You are right, in real terms it probably had very little effect in either boosting his sales or indeed detracting from the sales of competitors, which makes the necessity of it even more confusing.

The use of one alternative name, to be able to give personal opinions on topics (or figures) wearing the hat of a wargamer rather than a competing manufacturer is perhaps understandable – as a wargamer I may have my own opinion on the quality of an item released by a competing manufacturer and it can be hard to be recognised for giving an objective opinion as a modeller and wargamer rather than as a competitor, especially where that opinion is negative. I choose to do so with my company name on display such that my comments may be viewed with that in mind, even where they are, to my mind at least, detached and objective.

However the use of multiple names which seem to be created purely with the intention of promoting your own items on the threads of competing manufacturers, directly slagging off competitors products and/or boosting threads talking about your own products so they they push competitors threads further down the page just smacks of unnecessary pettiness.

It damages the reputation and integrity of both the individual and his company and, while he may produce nice toys (and I have often looked at getting some – despite owning QRF my own armies contain mixes of many manufacturers) it has certainly made me think again about including KM in that list. It just leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth.

I saw the post count on this thread and thought, "It must be thread necromancy, but I've never seen this one that I recall." The last time I saw that many posts in so short a time was back in 2008. But the cause of this hullabaloo is surely the most shallow imaginable. Sock puppets are adorable….

I can't imagine why a grown man would give two hoots that someone had a sock puppet account or even ten sock puppet accounts

To exploit what Leland Ericson said earlier on, as you say in America: "Now that's what I'm talking about!"

But then, when you go under the moniker:

Frothers Did It And Ran Away

Well… that is what I'm talking about.

"I can't imagine why a grown man would…" Pick a name like that to hide behind.

"I can't imagine why a grown man would…" give any credence to the opinion of someone that chooses such a pen name.

Er, so I won't

Now, where did I hide that stifle button…?

John T

"I can't imagine why a grown man would give two hoots that someone had a sock puppet account or even ten sock puppet accounts. The impact those, rather feeble, accounts had on anything at all I strongly suspect to be zero. "

So one thing that the sock puppet accounts did, and it is proved on this thread, is possibly damage the reputation of people. When he posted as Chief Lacky Rich people might not notice the difference between that and Chief Lackey Rich. Indeed, even Chief Lackey Rich didn't detect the difference even when the context indicated otherwise.

That certainly could be damaging. It was meant to be deceptive. It even confused the person being defended badly enough for him to threaten a lawsuit on this thread.

Think what any other person might think with just a quick glance at the author.

And even if people don't care that the person was sock puppeting for whatever reason, they may care that they are doing business with someone who repeated tried to vandalize a wikipedia page for the seeming purpose of damaging a business he did not like.

TMP link

What is really apparent is the fact that some posters have no idea about owning a small business in a niche industry and the harm sock puppeting can do. Then add to that the camaraderie enjoyed by the 15/18mm producers and to learn that one of their own is sabotaging their efforts by his sock puppet comments has to be, at least, unsettling.

…see, even Pictors got confused there. He does, of course, mean between Chief Lackey Rich and Chef Lackey Rich, a name chosen for no other purpose than to create confusion and add credibility to the sock puppet comments.

John Treadaway said:

stuff

I think you should probably have a cup of tea and a sit down.

"There is a vendetta here, however. This company has used its customers and/or sockpuppets to attack my user page (see my user page -- it is currently semiprotected to stop these vandals operating at the company's instruction) in retaliation for my removal of their linkspam from a wiki page. Right before the vandalism of my user page began, the proprietor of the company threatened me that he would "consider his options" if I persisted in removing his spam. I can post the contents of the e-mail on request.
Bottom line is this company and its various sockpuppets has been engaged in blatant spamming of the wargame miniatures pages on wikipedia, and I am trying to bring these pages back to planet earth, despite the attendant hassle"

That's just funny…..in a perverse way

Question ? Is putting fake comments on a rival restaurant ok?

Odd the post was deleted ?

I don't see Apple whining about Microsoft or Android or Coke bitching about Pepsi when any of them put out an ad that belittles their product…

Oh, they do…

Justwannapaint's account is already locked.

…membership length, 3 days…

Can you ban an ip?

Bill, as this may be significantly important, can you please just confirm or deny if that account was locked because it was associated with the same IP.

Oh, they do…

And the key difference is that when Apple creates an ad depicting an anthropomorphic Windows as a stuffed shirt and an anthropomorphic Apple as a cool guy, they always let the viewer know the ad was made by Apple.

Question ? Is putting fake comments on a rival restaurant ok?

link

"The matter ultimately came before the High Court in London, where Sir David Eady (sitting as a High Court Judge) handed down a landmark judgment that the Defendant (the account holder) should pay the Claimants in excess of £100,000.00 GBP in respect of damages and costs. Indeed, had the claimants not capped the level of damages that they were seeking the Court made it clear that the award would have been much higher.

This decision makes it clear that, should there be an appetite to do so, there is a remedy available to any entity that is on the receiving end of malicious and false negative reviews. Furthermore, the Court has sent a clear message that it will look very dimly indeed on those individuals who post such false reviews whether for fun, or for more mercenary reasons. "

Quite !

and the size and income of the business should matter not

Many years ago when I was posting on the old THC forums there were quite a few there that would what we termed "spoof" another member's nickname by changing the name in some way or another. They would do it to sock puppet or to mislead others into thinking that they were the original. I had a few there who had problems with me or didn't agree with me or what I said that spoofed my name to cause problems.

in the US:

Golb Convicted, Making Sockpuppets Criminals
The case of New York lawyer Raphael Golb was bizarre from the start. It was a fight over scholarship, with Golb going underground when his father, a University of Chicago professor, was frozen out of the scholarly conversation about the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was a ridiculous case to try.

Remember those funny parodies, where wags would scarf up names like Eric Holder and post all manner of things that would be very embarrassing, but for the fact that everyone knew them to be a game played by online jokesters? Not so funny now, eh? Of course, Eric Holder isn't Lawrence Schiffman, and would likely laugh at the meme. Schiffman apparently can't take a joke.

The bad news is, Raphael Golb was convicted.

A scholar's son was convicted Thursday of using online aliases to harass and discredit his father's detractors in a heated academic debate over the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

A Manhattan jury found Raphael Golb guilty of 30 counts against him, including identity theft, forgery and harassment. He was acquitted of one count of criminal impersonation.

I was just quoting from the post by Bill that had these:

"Tango 01, John the ORM, Chief Lacky Rich "

listed as the sock puppets.

Its somewhat Off Topic but:

interesting too note that whilst the Law in both countries has not yet caught up to run off the current terminology – both the UK and USA seem happy to use existing laws to rule on such issues…

"fitting in" things like fake reviews and sock puppetry to existing offences, until more relevant (or specifically worded) laws are passed and enacted.

There's a fair few other pending cases around the world also… but there's more going on out there in the courts than I imagined.

So it seems as though the law in both countries is slowly catching up with life on the internet.

But it's funny that Larry Dunn hoodwinked everyone for so long, and turned his naysayers into customers willing to pay him lots of money.

In other words, "Nya, nya! You're all a bunch of suckers! Nya! Nya! I'm smarter than you!"

Really?

Then you tell Mr Treadaway to, "…have a cup of tea and a sit down." after he pointed out a little thing called *principle,* something you seem to find less than important if one were to take your comments on this matter at face value.

If this was indeed someone acting in a less than ethical fashion by engaging in deception, and you find that funny, what does that indeed say about you?

As for Frothers, I took a quick look to see what their chatter was on this event, and as predictable as the Genoa to Naples Express in 1938, it's the usual fare of misogynistic vulgarity and smug self congratulation that is the Frothers community clown car. Wow. Intelligent, mature adults? Yeah, right.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Furthermore, the Court has sent a clear message that it will look very dimly indeed on those individuals who post such false reviews whether for fun, or for more mercenary reasons.

We must bear in mind that there may be a distinction between objective criticism (or even irrational personal dislike) and a false review. An individual has a right to dislike something, but where it appears to have been done so through multiple false names, some of which are clearly intended to deceive by their similarity to prominent names renowned for speaking their mind, or designed to deliberately steer a would-be customer to the secretly disguised true owner, then one has to consider that the intention is one of malice.

As indicated, the true loss is not relevant (and not really quantifiable), it is the intent against which the remedy is awarded.

In the UK such action could have you struck off by the Law Society as behaviour not becoming and drawing the industry into disrepute…

One of the more interesting things abut Khurusan (does not deserve a spelling check!) is that the company does not name an owner or have a mailing address anywhere on there website. In the US, that's AOK…which is where they are. In the UK, to quite so much, at least from what I am told. Many US companies give up such information willingly simply because it is the right thing to do. Not sure why the anonymity for KM/Larry? I guess it does not matter now. Looks like he might be back to being a full time lawyer again…assuming that is actually what he is.

In the UK it is a legal requirement to display a geographical address.t

Treadaway said:

There's an old saying: you can make as many laws as you like as long as you don't try and enforce any of them.

? Relevance dear chap?

I'm – as ever – not talking about the law (in England or anywhere else). Truely, you have no idea what name my mother gave me. I understand that: I'm neither stupid nor baldly informed

Good to know. So you accept there is no need to use your 'own' name on the web?

I use my 'given name' here, there and everywhere to gently remind me that the consequences of not being decent, legal, honest and truthful would be the loss of that thing that I value very much

And you therefore imply that to use a name other than one's 'given' name is to be other than legal etc etc etc? Strange assumption.

Vacate the high horse? Nope. I will gladly ride – and/or flog it – to death.

John "The view's mighty fine from up here" Treadaway

Excellent news. And not surprising.
Carry on.

Bill, as this may be significantly important, can you please just confirm or deny if that account was locked because it was associated with the same IP.

Not because of the IP, but because information submitted indicated the person was an intentional troll.

In other news…

The Khurasan Miniatures listing on Linked In shows attendance at New York University: link

Larry Dunn also attended New York University; link

You may form your own conclusions…

Page 7!!!! Whooo hooo!!!

This thread continues to not disappoint.

@Pictors Studio

An interesting article:

link

Agreed: a superb piece. "Required reading at the Academy" (as the good Captain would say).

Thanks for pointing it out.

John T

Well KM left NY uni 11 years before Larry Dunn was admitted. Gosh!

Yeah, I´m sure good old Larry wouldn´t lie about that.

That's admitted as a solicitor, not admitted to university…

Aha, so maybe good old Larry really wouldn´t lie about that.

Well KM left NY uni 11 years before Larry Dunn was admitted. Gosh!

googlefu suggests:

Larry Dunn is shown with a BA at New York University (81-85).
The LinkedIn profile shows attendance at NY Uni (81-85)

11 years later Larry Dunn leaves New York Law School with his law degree (1996)

So the dates and places match.

Edit: yeah, googlefu shows Lawrence Anthony Dunn (jr) has been an attorney for 19 years as of 2015…so he qualified in '96.

----

You would need to ask a US attorney if Larry Dunn's J.D qualification required a prior degree – as the LL.B in the UK does (post-graduate Law, requiring prior degree).

I never could work out if the US J.D. (Juris Doctor) was post-grad or not… i think it used to mean post-grad, but now it just means "first law degree"..dunno, ask an American :-)

So Mr Dunn is Khurasan Miniatures, there's no reasonable doubt about that by this point. The more important question now is, can we entice him to re-engage with the community, and to apologise for the acts of sock puppetry that were done with harmful intent to his market competitors?

I mean, what's the hoped-for denouement, here? Normalised relations? Or to chase him out of town?

Personally, I'm hoping to reach a point where I can order from Khurasan and not have that feel like a betrayal of his rivals, all of whom I greatly respect and appreciate. That point would come sooner if he would apologise sincerely. I do want his products. I had even made concrete plans (prior to this scandal) to order the new spaceships as soon as they're released.

The other controversies – that old Wikipedia war and everything to do with that – I'll let go of.

The present state of affairs, with the Facebook page that keeps updating like this whole controversy doesn't exist, is kind of absurd.