There is a strange phenomenon going on that may be of interest to those who like the meta, and those who care for the health of this site.
I trust most readers are aware of the amazing meta outburst recently regarding now-banned user The Nephew, who pretended to be a sensitive, young, rich, gay guy who was being pursued by a stalker. As it turned out, of course, he's not young, not rich, not gay--and he himself was the stalker of several. Not only that, but he was deliberately trying to frame me as the "stalker," since I was about the only one bold enough to challenge his authenticity.
This has all been beat to death the last two weeks. At least five of "The Nephew's" sockpuppets have been banned, as I count. You'd think the issue was dying down.
But as I said, there's a weird phenomenon going on. Check out the profile for "The Nephew." It shows he is currently "following" these users: G2Geek, Nada Lemming, LaEscapee, ThatPoshGirl, Neuroptimalian, ConfusedSkyes, bottles, and himself.
Earlier today, I noticed he was following just bottles and ConfusedSkyes.
What's up with this?
Well, first of all it shows a flaw in the DKos4 software. As discussed several times recently at the Help Desk, banned users should not have "following permissions" and should not be able to change who they are following.
Why has the entity know as "The Nephew" (henceforth "TN") and many other names just today started following G2Geek, Nada Lemming, LaEscapee, ThatPoshGirl, and Neuroptimalian?
Well, after being about his biggest supporter, G2Geek has been horrified by what he did to me and others in support of TN, and he has come back swinging very hard in the opposite direction. He and I have reconciled. Suddenly today TN has started following his every comment.
I'm not sure about Nada Lemming, there have been so many thousands of posts on this TN disruption and its aftermath. But if I were that person, I'd wonder why TN started following me today.
LaEscapee is obvious. That person was the last to attack SwedishJewfish, a central person in this scandal. Presumably TN wants to see more of that.
I'm not sure about ThatPoshGirl, in the flurry of so many posts. But if I were that person, I'd wonder why TN started following me today.
I know about Neuroptimalian. Just last night, in SJF's diary, he posted a solid comment inquiring about TN's following activities. Within hours, banned fraudster TN starts following him. What's up with that?
It seems to me like a kind of intimidation. It needs to be stopped. Admin needs to change the site code to prevent this. This could be damaging to some people.
Finally, we're left with ConfusedSkyes and bottles.
Why would TN be following ConfusedSkyes, a brand-new user who has posted something like 700 comments in 10 days? Unknown [somewhat belatedly edited]
And now, the finale, this brings us to the big question of why TN is currently following bottles. Do you all remember who bottles is?
In the years from about 2007 to early 2009, as I recall (it may have been going on even earlier), DKos had a major problem with roving gangs of diary police, who coordinated their attacks offsite, would gang up and swoop down and troll rate to oblivion anybody they thought was weak. It was not a matter of principle. It was a matter of sadism. They acted like "griefers" in online player-vs-player games, who take weird pleasure in hanging around near spawning points for younger players and slaughtering them for fun.
They had a name for themselves: UGOG, and they had a private website where they coordinated their attacks. Much of the text of that website was distributed here quite a few years ago. (Sadly, I lost my copy when a hard drive failed.)
I myself had many run-ins with that gang. The leader was "MajorFlaw" and his main sidekick and running dog was "bottles." It was always clear that MajorFlaw was #1 and bottles was #2. I always wondered why bottles would accept that frame.
As often happens with bullies, they finally overplayed their hand and were banned in February 2009 after they outed somebody. They've failed to get reinstated.
Why are they now haunting the site more than three years later?
Two days ago I commented that new user hankmed (who got absolutely hammered with HRs on his first and only comment) was being followed by just one user: bottles. http://www.dailykos.com/...
bottles then posted a thread on the Help Desk demanding that I be banned for being an asshole. Thankfully the admins had that deleted (and said they're trying to fix the code so that banned users can't post there). What is he doing attacking users there?
Obviously I'm nuts to be concerned with this. But I ask this: WHY IS THE NEPHEW NOW FOLLOWING BOTTLES?
More trapdoors await.
We have pretty good evidence that TN actually does have UIDs under 30,000 (in other words, seven years old) as he has claimed. What is his connection to the UGOG gang? How many malevolent socks are there?