Should I wear a helmet?

(Chalo) wrote in message . com...
(Dave Kahn) wrote:

chaffsk wrote:

David Ornee, Western Springs, IL USA

Ooh, look! The same "signature bug" that seems to be blighting Tuschinski. :-)

And "jasonaut".

Chalo Colina

Not only is the cycling forums signature bug visible
in half a dozen posts in unrelated threads outside
the "helmet thread," as I've pointed out elsewhere
in this thread, the feature or bug was shut down
a few days ago by the moderator, rendering all of
the well-meant testing in the "signature testing"
thread pointless.

Here's the email that moderator Steve Richards was
kind enough to send me when my message fell between
the cracks:

From: "Steve Richards"
To:
Subject: Signature bug
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 20:24:14 +1100
Hi Carl

I never received an email from you about the
'helmet thread'. I thought it was better to
remove it from our site after I received a
few complaints about our members replying to
old topics. I closed it for a few hours, but
then complaints from our members about it being
closed started rolling in, it was easier to delete
it from our system altogether. Since then I've also
set it up so anything that doesn't receive a reply
for 3 days gets closed.

I also disabled newsgroup signatures as soon as
I was made aware of the bug, which is why they
didn't show up in the sig test thread.

cheers

Steve

http://www.cyclingforums.com

My email asking if I might post this may have also
fallen through the cracks, so I'm simply posting
Steve's private email here and in the helmet thread
on the theory that silence gives consent and that it
explains what's going on to anyone with a reasonably
open mind.

Carl Fogel

(Chalo) wrote in message . com...
(Carl Fogel) wrote:

First put together some
clear evidence of dishonesty--then present it. It would,
frankly, be fascinating.

There are 3 circumstantial criteria that call into question the
authenticity of the flood of posts into this thread from
cyclingforums:

1) They are predominantly from "users" who have no history, zero, of
posting on any other thread or any other group. (Though I have found
at least one sock puppet whose first-ever posts to this thread and
another unrelated thread logged one second apart. That other single
post represented that user's only Usenet history outside this thread.)
You can check this yourself by going to Google Groups and entering:

author:suspiciousnewposter

Use whichever user ID is in question, but do not use the email address
that comes with these postings. It is appended to all postings
originating from cyclingforums.

2) They all originate from cyclingforums. Usenet posts from there are
actually somewhat uncommon in other threads.

3) They all use simpleminded-- and similar-- arguments in favor of
helmet use.

Any one of these criteria would mean nothing. Any two in the context
of this thread would raise my suspicion. In the presence of all
three, I can no longer extend the benefit of the doubt to a previously
unknown contributor.

The sigs appended to the cyclingforums posts occasionally give away
the fishiness that spawned them. I've noted before that the
cyclingforums IDs "Cipher", "531", "DSK", and "Chesapeake Boy" have
all used the sig "Know your limits... Then FK'N Crush'em!!!", which
even if it's a club slogan or the like, is formatted identically in
all those cases.

"Tuschinski" and "jmitting" have both used the sig, "BSA", formatted
the same way.

Sock puppet "jasonaut", when I called him on his ruse, posted in
objection but made the mistake of signing his retort:

David Ornee, Western Springs, IL USA

which is the .sig of a frequent contributor who is helpful and
informative and who always posts under his name. David Ornee has
never posted to a helmet thread in the 3+ years he has been
participating. I contacted Mr. Ornee, and he confirmed that he had
nothing to do with the post in question.

Do you think that "jasonaut" just accidentally used David Ornee's
.sig? To me it looks more like somebody has a buggy, badly automated
system for generating deceitful garbage disguised as normal Usenet
traffic.

The practice of using false identities to skew the perceived drift of
public opinion is known to happen at the behest of business interests,
and when it does, it is called "astroturfing" because it feigns a
grassroots movement. There is a similar phenomenon known as "comment
spam" which appears to be intended to manipulate search engine
rankings.

http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms...roturfing.html
http://www.jayallen.org/comment_spam/

There are examples of corporate interests using shills to participate
in online scientific discussions in order to create the illusion that
new research findings are in more dispute than they actually are.

I don't pretend to know what particular flavor of bull**** we are
witnessing here-- but that makes sense 'cause I'm not eating it.

Chalo Colina

Dear Chalo,

At this point, you do seem to be pretending
to know. And it's ridiculous to claim that
anyone would mistake this thread for a
"scientific discussion."

Cipher is posting in other threads,
including one that shows bigger
tallbikes than yours--in Minnesota,
where his membership info says he
lives. He's selling a bike, too.
He seems to be quite real.

DSK hosts his own extensive web page
in the UK, with the address listed in
his cycling forums membership page:

http://www.angelfire.com/ego2/dsk/index.html

He seems to be quite real.

531 has a dozen or so posts and began
posting on cycling topics months before
the helmet thread appeared. He seems
quite real.

Please use the awkward cycling forums
membership search options to find the
others that puzzle you and tell us more
about them--I did the first three for
you. Remember, if they don't show up
on the easy fill-in-the-blank search,
you have to grovel through the A-B-C
listings. It's more work than frothing.

The signature bug has been extensively
noted--posters from cycling forums without
signatures had signatures from other posters
mistakenly added to posts in a number of
rec.bicycles.tech threads.

Are there any circumstances under which
you and the others would apologize to the
people whom you've called liars, frauds,
and cheats?

Carl Fogel

David Damerell wrote:
: So do I, cut out of a plastic milk carton, so I suspect I'm not Fabs
: either.

he might be me. i don't think so, tho. i've never been a racer and so i'm
pretty sure it's ryan. to be fabs there would have to be a lot of truth in
the character.

you just can't fake that.

the truly clever ruse (the "web-site" w/ resume) nearly threw me away from
ryan.
--
david reuteler

"frkrygowHALTSPAM" wrote in message ...
Carl Fogel wrote:


Dear Frank,

Please name the "many" people and posts that you
are accusing of dishonesty, fraud, and cheating.

Or please explain why you and others in this
thread are unwilling to do this.

sigh First, because most of the posts of this thread are gone from my
newsreader.

Second, because it's not important enough to me to spend time searching
out the examples I've seen. I foolishly neglected to file the many
names of the [alleged] perpetrators.

Third, because I think few people are interested in this issue anyway.

And fourth, because I believe that no matter what evidence I provided,
you would say either: a) "That's not proof" or b) "But that's proof
only in those cases, and those are not 'many' cases."


Dear Frank,

All the posts and the entire thread are immediately available
through google groups.

The names have all been listed in several posts within the
last week.

You were interested enough and are still interested enough
to keep calling them liars, cheats, and frauds.

You still have produced no evidence, just accusations.

Are you saying that there are no circumstances under which
you would be willing to apologize to the people that you
called liars, cheats, and frauds?

Carl Fogel

Carl Fogel wrote:

Are you saying that there are no circumstances under which
you would be willing to apologize to the people that you
called liars, cheats, and frauds?


Dear Carl:

Can you produce any proof that I called someone a "liar, cheat or fraud"
in this thread?

Once you do, we can continue this discussion.

--
Frank Krygowski

On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 22:03:02 -0800, Ryan Cousineau
wrote:
Are you Fabrizio Mazzoleni? Because someone has to be him...

I thought that was either you or Kevan.
--
Rick Onanian

"frkrygowHALTSPAM" wrote in message ...
Carl Fogel wrote:

Are you saying that there are no circumstances under which
you would be willing to apologize to the people that you
called liars, cheats, and frauds?


Dear Carl:

Can you produce any proof that I called someone a "liar, cheat or fraud"
in this thread?

Once you do, we can continue this discussion.

Dear Frank,

Will this do? It's what you wrote two posts ago
in this thread, two days ago:

. . . I can often spot cheating this way:
when two or more students turn in work with the same weird mistake.

I think this is what we've seen from Cyclingforums. Not every post,
true, but _many_ of the posts had the same poor command of English.

It appears to say that you have spotted many
of the posts from the cycling forums as cheats.

Carl Fogel

Carl Fogel wrote:

"frkrygowHALTSPAM" wrote in message ...

Carl Fogel wrote:


Are you saying that there are no circumstances under which
you would be willing to apologize to the people that you
called liars, cheats, and frauds?


Dear Carl:

Can you produce any proof that I called someone a "liar, cheat or fraud"
in this thread?

Once you do, we can continue this discussion.


Dear Frank,

Will this do? It's what you wrote two posts ago
in this thread, two days ago:

. . . I can often spot cheating this way:
when two or more students turn in work with the same weird mistake.

I think this is what we've seen from Cyclingforums. Not every post,
true, but _many_ of the posts had the same poor command of English.

It appears to say that you have spotted many
of the posts from the cycling forums as cheats.


To me, it appears to say that I've seen the same weird English mistakes
in various posts. And it appears to say that I can often use that to
spot cheating. I stand by both of those statements.

However, that's not what I asked you to prove. Try again.

And while you're at it, I'd really like the name of the person to whom
I'm supposed to apologize.

Your demands are pretty specific. Your proof should be, as well.

--
Frank Krygowski

Rick Onanian wrote in message . ..
On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 22:03:02 -0800, Ryan Cousineau
wrote:
Are you Fabrizio Mazzoleni? Because someone has to be him...

I thought that was either you or Kevan.

I really don't think those guys have a pro contract.

They ride ok, but are really just duffing about out there on the bike.

"frkrygowHALTSPAM" wrote in message ...
Carl Fogel wrote:

"frkrygowHALTSPAM" wrote in message ...

Carl Fogel wrote:


Are you saying that there are no circumstances under which
you would be willing to apologize to the people that you
called liars, cheats, and frauds?


Dear Carl:

Can you produce any proof that I called someone a "liar, cheat or fraud"
in this thread?

Once you do, we can continue this discussion.


Dear Frank,

Will this do? It's what you wrote two posts ago
in this thread, two days ago:

. . . I can often spot cheating this way:
when two or more students turn in work with the same weird mistake.

I think this is what we've seen from Cyclingforums. Not every post,
true, but _many_ of the posts had the same poor command of English.

It appears to say that you have spotted many
of the posts from the cycling forums as cheats.


To me, it appears to say that I've seen the same weird English mistakes
in various posts. And it appears to say that I can often use that to
spot cheating. I stand by both of those statements.

However, that's not what I asked you to prove. Try again.

And while you're at it, I'd really like the name of the person to whom
I'm supposed to apologize.

Your demands are pretty specific. Your proof should be, as well.

Dear Frank,

Here's the rest of your post, since you seem
to be wriggling:

Carl, I though you said you were an English teacher.

Although my field is much different, I can often spot
cheating this way: when two or more students turn in
work with the same weird mistake.

I think this is what we've seen from Cyclingforums.
Not every post, true, but _many_ of the posts had
the same poor command of English. For example, are
you claiming Cyclingforums has a bug that somehow
prohibits the use of paragraphs?

I'll concede that the duplicated "logic" ("I know a
guy who rode dumb and hit his head, so _everybody_
should _always_ wear a helment") could result from a
sort of chain-reaction inspiration ("Hey, I know a dumb
guy too!"). But even if someone were inspired to copy
the logic, why would they copy the deficient writing
style? Why would they punctuate badly in the same ways?

Last year, two of my students turned in almost perfectly
identical computer programs, line by line. They claimed
it was coincidence. I didn't buy that story, either.

Are you really claiming that this does not accuse "_many_
of the posts" of being liars, frauds, and cheats? What did
you mean when you likened the cycling forums posts to a pair
of students who turned in identical programs and you didn't
buy their story that it was coincidence?

Here's what you wrote on November 6th:

I realize that post came from cyclingforums,
and is therefore almost certainly another
sockpuppet example.

What did you mean to imply if not that the
post was written by a fraud, liar, or cheat?
If you want the name of the poster, please
look it up yourself through google.groups.

Here's what you wrote on November 23rd:

My guess is that the poorly-disguised sockpuppet
posts are not some company's conspiracy. My guess
is that they're the product of one (or a few) safety
zealots who think they're doing the world some good.

We've seen this before. A couple years ago, there
was one pro-helmet guy who had two or three accounts.
He was a regular poster, but never signed his name.
Eventually, he was caught "agreeing with" his own
posts - that is, posting a follow up from another
account saying how perceptive his previous post was.

Missionary zeal leads to some strange behavior indeed.
The lies are all white lies, in the missionary's view;
they're all for a higher cause.

If you aren't calling the cycling forums posters
liars, cheats, and frauds, what are you calling them
with your "guessing," your example of a fraud (unnamed
as with all your posts in thismatter) caught years ago
pretending to be several different people, and your talk
of "lies"?

In another post on November 23rd, you wrote:

But in all those debates, I have _never_ seen a
similar occurrence to what we have now - that is,
multitudes of extremely similar posts, some even
sharing signatures, etc., all coming from unfamiliar
names, all posting from the same source.

Furthermore, from these debates and from other data -
which I've studied pretty extensively - it really is
highly unusual to have _so many_ people who have _so
many_ crashes. Sure, a very few people crash a lot,
but not _so many_ people.

It's all too much an anomaly to be just a coincidence.

If you're not calling them liars, frauds, and cheats,
what are you calling them?

You never did bother with specifics, so here's the
list of the "many" cycling forums posters that you
owe an apology. It was posted twice in this thread.

1 c 531 11
1 c ATN420 0 registered 11-11-2003
1 c Beastt 5
1 c Brian Welsh 0 registered 07-11-2003
1 c Chotch 11
1 c CycleFrog 6
1 c Dredd 20
1 c DurangoKid 57
1 c Hush 0 registered 10-16-2003
1 c Ilikecycling 1
1 c JSCORNO 5
1 c Jess 9
1 c Jharte ?? can't find this poster, Jerry H. -- ???
1 c Luc Viau 0 registered 07-30-2003
1 c MacLean 0 registered 08-07-2003
1 c MartyReeves 0 registered 08-29-2003
1 c Matt Chanoff 10
1 c Ron Garrett 3
1 c SteveDel 4
1 c TCG 4
1 c Tizer 10
1 c ajcoles 19
1 c augustacycling 1
1 c bdmeredith 3
1 c benbikeboy 0 registered 10-29-2003
1 c bentonbents 0 registered 05-14-2003
1 c bill1591 2
1 c bostarob 15
1 c csroka 1
1 c danlitwora 0 registered 09-22-2003
1 c ejdoo 2
1 c gaiaenviro 9
1 c halfmutt 13
1 c i_pedal 0 registered 05-27-2003
1 c jmandrews 0 registered 10-17-2003
1 c jonnyb 1
1 c kevinpike 2
1 c kneighbour 45
1 c lumpy 50
1 c malfeasance 0 registered 07-21-2003
1 c martynspeck 0 registered 10-18-2003
1 c mt_biker 19
1 c nathan1218 0 registered 11-04-2003
1 c pcthrpy 3
1 c rjapikse 0 registered 07-25-2003
1 c roadgoat 0 registered 10-02-2003
1 c schrocka 0 registered 09-25-2003
1 c silverbasket7 2
1 c stevemtbsteve 29
1 c telrimsky 0 registered 10-07-2003
1 c theallanfamily 0 registered 11-16-2003
1 c tomasbikes 21
1 c uDi 24
2 c Alfaro 2
2 c DebtMan 1
2 c ES1 2
2 c Geewizza 12
2 c Paul_MCMLIX 23
2 c aeon16 22
2 c c40HP 0 registered 10-03-2003
2 c chaffsk 0 registered 07-09-2003
2 c glennjd 7
2 c linzter 1
2 c nancyinky 9
2 c soneca2 0 registered 10-18-2003
3 c Greyfox10025 10
3 c dfwx 9
3 c fuzzball 1
3 c jasonaut 0 registered 10-02-2003
3 c jmitting 3
3 c oldnovice 2
3 c plucky_aardvark 0 registered 08-18-2003
4 c byron27 42
4 c mre 15
5 c CannondaleRider 17
5 c JAPANic 27
5 c zumbrunndbla 15
14 c Tuschinski 3

Feel free to email Andrew Muzi or Dave Kahn for
their opinion on the matter if you want a second
opinion on what you were saying. They behaved like
you, but have had the grace and character to apologize.

Chalo Colina hasn't said anything lately, perhaps
being busy, perhaps thinking things over, perhaps
checking points that have been raised instead of
arguing semantics, perhaps even satisfied (I hope
not). But if Chalo says anything, I'll be astonished
if he claims that he wasn't calling the cycling forums
posters liars, cheats, and frauds. Like all of us,
Chalo has his faults, but he doesn't seem to wriggle.

If wriggling seems unkind, consider that you first
claimed that first you couldn't find the posts,
second it's not important enough to you, third
few people are interested, and fourth:

I believe that no matter what evidence I provided,
you would say either: a) "That's not proof" or
b) "But that's proof only in those cases, and those
are not 'many' cases."

Why have you gone from saying that you could provide
evidence of dishonesty, fraud, and cheating to saying
that you didn't accuse anyone of dishonesty, fraud,
and cheating?

An apology to the cycling forums posters is your
best course. Silence would be contemptible. Wriggling
further would be foolish.

Carl Fogel