The Fine Art of Backstabbing

Actually, another title might be “A Lesson in Hypocrisy.” Either way, what follows below is a prime example of creepy “Uncle” Ed Poor at his best. Or should that be worst? However, before we embark on this sordid little tale, a little bit of background info is required methinks.

Amongst the chosen few who act as “administrators” - please forgive the “”, it’s just that the one thing these goons don’t do is any actual administration. Probably due to a lack of machismo – it’s fairly safe to say that paranoia runs rampant among them. Well, except for Rob Smith and Ken DeMyer that is… they only suffer from paranoid delusions. This paranoia manifests mostly itself in off-line discussions about anything CP related, lest they dare show a divided front to the three non-clickbots that actually visit their site. The attempts by Terry Koeckritz and Brian Macdonald to block every IP-address outside the USA are clearly another symptom. Then again, Terry does a great job of fuelling the collective paranoia with his frequent references to “vandal sites” – none of which can be named, but nevertheless, does send a steady stream of members to RationalWiki. Which is just what Terry wants, of course.

It also should not come as a surprise that the CP sysops have their own little hangout, where they can chat about how the liberals are destroying their world, whilst ignoring Ken’s rambling screeds about how he intends to destroy atheism / abortion / evolution / homosexuality on the internet. Actually, the Zeuglodon Blues is their third little club house, after the Special Discussion Group and Quagga Prime, both of which were shut down after Terry Koeckritz leaked the private messages therein to all and sundry. Strangely, not long after Terry was admitted to the Blues Room, their contents were leaked too. Coincidence?

But once again, I digress. Getting back to paranoia and sysops’ chat rooms, it should come as no surprise to learn that there is  yet another secret chat room, used by the so-called (or rather self-named) senior admins. It’s called something like the Fabulous Five, or Super Six (or some horrible Enid Blyton story anyway) and is populated by Andrew Schlafly, Ed Poor, Brian Macdonald, Terry Koeckritz and possibly Rob Smith or John Patti. Given that Ken was never allowed to play in the SDG, it’s hardly likely he’s made it into this little playpen. It would appear as if it’s here that the head goons police the other goons, so to speak. Clearly, some admins are more equal than others are. Orwell would be so proud.

However, as Bill Cosby would say, I told you that story to tell you this one:

Once upon a time, there was a CP admin. She was funny, intelligent (well, as intelligent as somebody who willingly contributes to CP can be), got on well with other editors, tried to nurture editors rather than punish them and felt that some people on CP were using the ban hammer too freely. Sadly, several factors counted against her – she was female, non-American, was *gasp* not even Caucasian and she saw right through Terry’s bullshit and called him out on it. Needless to say, her days were numbered and she was soon “politely shown the door.” Curiously, her exit marked CP’s demise from a vibrant – albeit odd – online community to a small cluster of old-school admins, lurking within their laager, whilst the parodists ran amok. Then again, given Ken’s recent focus on “machismo” and Spanish ladies, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to identify just who the parodists and the insane are.

However, she might have been gone, be she had not forgotten and she fired one final salvo to the one sysop who had shown interest in her – Ed Poor. We’re still not sure if his interest was due to her being a Christian Japanese, or just because she was a young lady… although I think she was possibly too old for Ed’s tastes. Either way, it was Ed that welcomed her, commented on her work and even asked her to consider returning to CP after she had been defrocked. Actually, “defrocked” probably isn’t the best word to use when commentating on Ed and young ladies, but you get my point.

In the mail, she set out a list of complaints, with examples, of Terry’s online behaviour and asked Ed to take action, as Terry was – and continues to – breaking almost every commandment CP has. An excerpt from Ed’s reply is illuminating.

“I have to let you know that Andy and I both feel that he makes a valuable contribution, and that therefore it is unlikely for him to be dropped despite what you say below. In short, it is useless to "make a case" for his dismissal. That is not how we work around here. Stay with the project, continue to contribute well, provide sound advice.”

He also went to her talk page – since deleted, of course – and used the example of how he continued to edit at Wikipedia after his rightful, and long overdue, demotion, as he tried to coax her to return.

Now, remember the underlined bit well, and hang onto your seat. It was long suspected that her demotion was as a result of Terry Koeckritz running like a whining bitch to Andy, after Jessica challenged Terry when he came up with his “liberal multi-culturism” block reason, which was just another ploy on his behalf to drive editors away from CP. However, although Terry’s grubby little paw prints are clearly evident, it was somebody else who ran to Andy.

That somebody was Ed Poor. Thanks to a source within the Fab Five (see, Terry, I told you they wouldn’t believe you’d leak the contents twice) we can see Ed’s message to Andy:

“TerryK and I are fed up with JessicaT. She's not pulling her weight in the project, and she's bad-mouthing TK. Her historical views are liberal leaning and take longer to correct than it would take for me to write original articles.”

Now there is so much wrong with that statement. Clearly Ed and Terry (who apparently act as each other’s proxy on CP… one wonders what else they do together) got together to plan this, but Terry was too much of a coward (there’s that missing machismo again), or had too much of a guilty conscience, to do it himself. Strangely, Ed’s message looks surprisingly like somebody “making a case.” But it can’t be, because “That is not how we work around here”. Also, I suppose that if you were making a case, you should provide evidence. And how terrible that she bad-mouth the vile little Terry Koeckritz. I bet he ran wailing to his mommy’s lap when he read how she’d bad-mouthed him.

Btw Terry, I’m confused. How can you be allegedly jet setting all over the US and meeting famous people, when you have to rely on relatives to pay your rent? People want to know.

However, it’s the blatant lie about “not pulling her weight” that astounds me. This was an editor who virtually created everything in the Japanese section of CP, although sadly, the only place to view her contributions now are in the deletion log of resident parodist DouglasA. These included five featured articles, created back when that meant something, instead of Andy’s Rant-of-the-day drivel. As for his “take longer to correct than it would take for me to write original articles”, well considering most of his articles – such as the brilliant ‘Two meters’ – consist of a quote and maybe a reference if you’re lucky, which can be thrown together in a matter of seconds, one wonders just how long it would have taken Ed to correct Jessica’s errant ways.

Now, Terry jumps in and plays the paranoia card. First he hints that because she’s editing from the same country as a member of RationalWiki, she must be him. Remember, this is the rocket scientist who thinks that no two people can edit from the same IP address. Then he comes up with the following:

“That LearnTogether and PJR pushed for "Jessica" being made an Admin, was troubling enough. In my absence from CP she gained a foot hold, even though some of her "Japanese" articles have such gems as making the U.S. at fault for the war with Japan, and stating we never gave any warning whatsoever to the Japanese before dropping the Nukes!”

Firstly, he issues a blatant lie (Surprise! Surprise!) about the US starting the war. I’d like to ask the lying weasel to point out such an edit, but thanks to the work of Douglas, that’s no longer possible. And due to Terry’s lack of machismo, he wouldn’t do anyway. The last time I asked him to explain his actions, he pouted (prettily, though) and said I could pound sand… whatever that may mean. The second makes me laugh. (I’ve preserved the talk page here, because I’m sure it’ll mysteriously vanish once Terry reads this). This all boils down to Terry being butt-hurt, because he replaced a reference Jessica inserted, claiming there was only a warning after Hiroshima, with a link that said the same thing. Once this was pointed out to him, he then deleted the talk page, only to have it restored by Andy’s brother, Roger – who also appears to have given up on CP. Oh yes, it was LearnTogether, Philip Rayment and CPAdmin1 who spoke out against Terry's promotion. Clearly little Terry-kins can bear a grudge.

However, the penultimate word in this little sage must go to Brother Leader, He Who Rules All, Andrew Schlafly, seeing as only Andy giveth and Andy taketh away. Like the true manager and people person he is, he reviews the “evidence” present by Tweedeldumb (Ed) and Tweedledumber (Terry) and says, “OK, but what reason should I provide?”

At which point creepy Uncle Ed buries the knife between Jessica’s shoulder blades (possibly whilst thinking of burying something else somewhere else) and says, “Too many arguments with senior admins and failure to support the goals of the project.”

Fuck you, Ed Poor. Fuck you very much.