"The only method for detecting the country of a poster is via IP recording and checking."

Unless they send an email......

One of the trolls personas was a Mike Cooperson, who claimed he was going to come to the network meeting in Nottingham. He sent two emails - one of which is here:

The initial one did not use an anonymiser and came from a Belgian IP address.

Here is one, from another of his personas , which does have a Belgian IP address:

It came after Mike had already sent his email from a Belgian IP. So far I am unable to track that down - It may well have been deleted from the archive - but copies are likely to exist.

Cooperson is also mentioned in Gehrig's blog at the time:

"I will say here that I am sceptical that Mike Cooperston — a persistent poster for the last month on Indymedia UK — exists. If he does, good for him, and I hope he is able to attend the meeting. If he is merely a persona and is indeed trolling, he should get out of the way and stop wasting anyone’s time."

And in this hidden post he ends off "See at the Sumac"

In other words persistent trolling of the kind that you lucky Bristol readers are likely to be enjoying for some time to come - he's been at this almost daily for at least the last 7 years.

His MO will gradually become recognisable over time. In the meantime I am happy for Bristol to entertain him, and to fill its wire with 'non sw related' posts. It kgives him less time on Indymedia uk which can only be a good thing.

Bristol IMC were at The Nottingham meeting and can this confirm that the 6 characters failed to turn up.

HTML enabled to show this comment is by me

On the thread Further proof of Indymedia uk IP logging I am posting this comment:

FURTHER proof?
author by ftppublication date Thu Dec 27 09:07:14 2012

Let us remember this - NO PROOF WHATSOEVER has yet been offered.

The article claiming that Indymedia uk logs IPs remains defiantly in place - although it is now shorter than it was - as the claim that IMC uk has history of handing over logs to the police and would do so again has been edited out by BIMC on the grounds that: " it contained a allegation without supporting evidence"
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org.uk/article/712082

Leaving aside the fact that should read AN allegation, here's where we are with the rest of it.

It starts off by telling us that "Once again Indymedia UK has been found harvesting IP details"

and goes on to say that:

"It is with considerable regret we have had confirmation that Indymedia UK mods are once again recording and storing the IP details of posters. Moderator 'monkey wrench' wrote in an email,

" the site has been getting so much spam recently we have had no choice but to turn the IP capture option back on. Some of us were unhappy about this and at the very least felt we should make a statement so we don't repeat the whole 303 scandal"

So, the proof is in the email from moderator monkey_wrench. No link is provided, and if you google the text that is supposed to have been written by monkey_wrench, the only hit is BIMC!

Well here is a link that is relevant:

https://lists.indymedia.org.uk/pipermail/moderation/2012-December/001071.html

Its an email from monkey_wrench and it specifically states:

"I definitely didn't write any such emails so I'd be interested to see what evidence BristolIMC have for keeping this post up

monkey_wrench"

And here is another link, and another actual email from monkey_wrench:
https://lists.indymedia.org.uk/pipermail/moderation/2012-December/001072.html

"I've also just left the following comments on the BIMC article

"A section of this article has been removed by a BIMC volunteer as it
contained a allegation without supporting evidence"

It seems BIMC are implying that by only removing part of this post that they have supporting evidence for the rest of the allegations.

I'd be interested to see this evidence as I definitely didn't send the email that I am accused of sending... but BIMC obviously know better :

Moderator 'monkey wrench' wrote in an email,

" the site has been getting so much spam recently we have had no choice but to turn the IP capture option back on. Some of us were unhappy about this and at the very least felt we should make a statement so we don't repeat the whole 303 scandal"

So BIMC should either remove the rest of this post or publish the supporting evidence"

The proof DOES NOT exist. And here's something else that is public record:

"Anyone who was at the open public meeting of imc northern in scarborough may remember the representative from sheffield imc telling all of us about the 'disinfo war' and the methods used in order to catch these pro establishment trolls, last tracked down to an ip address in belgium about 3 years ago as i recall, though maybe someones memory is better than mine."

Thats an email from 2009 written by JimDog:

The claims are old news. Read more here:

No proof was provided then, and none has been provided now.

That's because they are lies.

Indymedia UK doesn't harvest IP addresses. Indymedia UK doesn't store and record IP addresses. monkey_wrench didn't write the email the article refers to.

And yet in the absence of any proof - BIMC keeps the post up - getting more and threads and comments on the subject.

Bristol Indymedia for news you can trust?????

Here is a screenshot of the comment I am about to post to BIMC

html enabled to show it actually is by ftp as comments are being trolled as if in my name on BIMC

.... in the comment above

ex IMC / Mike Cooperson / Sam / Former IMCer author by ftppublication date Thu Dec 27, 2012 09:16Report this post to the editors

Thats because the comment is not by me.

It is however intended to appear as if it IS FROM ME

This is entirely consistent with the way in which the troll works.

An email from five and a half years ago totally unrelated to this thread from a person not involved, that's what you are using as your proof is it 'ftp'.

The links show that this trolling has been going on for years. As is now happening all over the shop on Bristol IMC the troll uses different nicks, including pretending to be mods from IMC uk in order to sow FUD

The longer that BIMC allows its wires to be used as a platform for trolling and posting up of lies, the clearer it will become

In any case it is for more compelling 'proof' than anything that has been produced so far to back up the false claims that IMC uk harvests, stores and records IPs. The proof there was an email alleged to have been written by IMC uk mod monkey_wrench who didn't write it:

And an earlier comment is supposedly written by JimDog. Well here is one he DID write

Anyone who was at the open public meeting of imc northern in scarborough may remember the representative from sheffield imc telling all of us about the 'disinfo war' and the methods used in order to catch these pro establishment trolls, last tracked down to an ip address in belgium about 3 years ago as i recall, though maybe someones memory is better than mine.

Make of it what you will!

... there is a troll pretending to me, suggesting they are the ftp that is a mod at IMC uk, and trying to create friction beween BIMC and IMC uk .......

Next t the troll will protest that I don't own the name and anyone can use it - then they'll post an even more obnoxious comment posing as me, and then once again use their own comment to demand that I be banned

Not only has this happened many times before, its already happened on this thread......

really low grade, sub standard trolling......

Raising standards
author by ftppublication date Thu Jan 03, 2013 14:34Report this post to the editors

is not by me and is clearly a troll intended to cause friction between the two sites.

Perhaps leaving up the first and third comments, knowing they were trolls was counterproductive?

So, it appears that the troll is doing some boundary testing to see what the limits are, whilst at the same time attempting to foster bad relations between BIMC and UK imc - despite it's protestations that it trusts BIMC and not UK, the truth is it doesn't like either site.

The way I see it, the more you leave up obvious trolls, the more worth their while it is to keep trolling the site.

Needless to say, the comment:
Suggestion
author by ftp publication date Thu Jan 03, 2013 17:49
is not by me.

And for " Lots of Bristol people" - I'll 'fuck off' when this troll stops impersonating me on BIMC and stops using BIMC to spread lies about IMC uk

If you don't care then don't bother.

The use of sock puppets to drive home a message is not a new trick - but note the lack of links and evidence to back up claims.

The old Indymedia uk site is archived. As per the Bradford agreement 'a.indymedia.org' which was later known as the Mayday Collective was to run a full copy under a different name. The new collective was blocked at new IMC and b.indymedia.org later known as bethemedia, who were to run the aggregated site insisted on the fork going on ahead without the preconditions being met. Mayday kept the name until bethemedia were prepared to return to consensus. They're still waiting......

Stolen implies that it was someone's property. So that raises the question - who does Indymedia belong to?

It seems churlish discussing the idea that IMC uk was stolen on BIMC without discussing BIMC's part in the whole affair.

So here's a rundown.

Bristol IMC were present at the network meeting where the 'Bradford Agreement' was drawn up.

Decisions included:

We accept to archive www.indymdia.org.uk, indymedia.org.uk and uk.indymedia.org and indymedia.co.uk as static html with a banner on top of each page that says along the gist of "this a archived version of the site For a active version of this page go to , there is also the aggregator at . There will be splash page at / that links to the archive site, site a.indymedia.org and b.indymedia.org We agree that henceforth noone can call themselve Indymedia UK, UK network and UK collective anymore.

So, IMC uk was to be archived - and two new Indymedias were to replace it. The national open newsire was to change its name, as noted in the next decision:

We agree that it's great that there is a national site, and that goes through new imc with a different site and name , and others go on with their projects

So it was also agreed that the new IMC should go through new IMC - (despite the fact it was run by long standing Indymedia volunteers - (in retrospect this looks increasingly like venture capitalists demanding that long-standing employees re-apply for their jobs).

However, bart from linksunten indymedia blocked the Mayday application, and Bristol joined London and Northern in demanding that the fork go ahead without . ie without the conditions being met. Numerous blocks were ingnored and come May 1st a splashpage was put up (I'm told by slacker of BIMC although there is no transparency on this). The splashpage announced that rather than the "national site, and that goes through new imc with a different site and name" the national open publishing site would be at the URL http://www.maydaymedia.org. Although maydaymedia.org belonged to the Mayday collective, we had never agreed to host the site at this URL, and as far as we were concerned implementation of the 'fork' was blocked until the issue with new IMC was sorted.

Mayday responded by pointing the DNS for www.indymedia.org.uk at the copy of the IMC uk site on its own server. BIMC were quick off the mark with an email to IMC process which makes for interesting reading:

uk.indymedia.org and indymedia.org.uk are no longer under the control of the volunteers who have maintained UK Indymedia since its inception. A faction within UK Indymedia, Mayday, composing of individuals who are not members of any full IMC, and who currently have a new-imc application which has been blocked, have taken control of the DNS for the domain of indymedia.org.uk, pointed it to a new server and deleted the access of all non-Mayday volunteers from the system.

It is true that attempts to gain new IMc status had been blocked. However it is hard to see how the Bristol IMC email was within the spirit of the the Indymedia POU which all IMCs are expected to sign up to - (despite they fact they have never been ratified ). POU 1 states: "1. The Independent Media Center Network (IMCN) is based upon principles of equality, decentralization and local autonomy The IMCN is not derived from a centralized bureaucratic process, but from the self-organization of autonomous collectives that recognize the importance in developing a union of networks. yet Bristol started their email be suggesting that there was no equality in light of the fact that members were not part of any "full IMC" - and remember this had been blocked by someone in Germany - so much for 'local autonomy' and the fact that the new IMC working group had turned itself into a a centralized bureaucratic process.

Furthermore the claim that Mayday had "deleted the access of all non-Mayday volunteers from the system." was also untrue - the access was not revoked on the archived site - only on the copy of the site

Bristol IMC went on to state that:

This includes expelling the access of volunteers from accredited imcs including Bristol, Northern England, London and Nottingham [1] along with individuals not associated with any collective and members of Oxford Imc, a group currently going through the new-imc process.[2]

So again stressing 'accredited' (a centralized bureaucratic process) and repeating the falsehood that access for non Mayday members had been explelled - when their log-ins were intact on the archived site as per the agreement.

Bristl IMC went on to request that:

Bristol Indymedia asks that the global Indymedia community request that control of the domain indymedia.org.uk be handed over to the Global IMC DNS working group as a neutral party not involved in the current conflict forthwith.

In fact that request never got made.

Bristol then went onto to make a POU busting demand;

Following this unprecedented and unfortunate action we also propose that all members of the Mayday group have their admin privileges, membership of key lists such as tech-lists, listwork, control of documents servers, indymedia server root accounts and the like be revoked pending resolution of the situation.

POU 8 states: "8. All IMC's are committed to caring for one another and our respective communities both collectively and as individuals and will promote the sharing of resources including knowledge, skills and equipment. yet Bristol were demanding the very opposite - ie that the 'unacredited members' be expelled and their access to resources be removed. This appears to be their response despite POU 6 which states: "All IMC's recognize the importance of process to social change and are committed to the development of non-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian relationships, from interpersonal relationships to group dynamics. Therefore, shall organize themselves collectively and be committed to the principle of consensus decision making and the development of a direct, participatory democratic process] that is transparent to its membership" - yet here they were promoting authoritarian responses in order to use IMC process as a way of excluding one group.

In the end the global network pretty much dissolved as techs refused to implement the demands and began resigning after receiving threats from bart and others.

For mayday members the priority had always been to maintain a national Indymedia with an open newswire - and unsurprsisingly we were unprepared to go along with threats, autoritarian demands and POU busting behaviour. For us the solution was to return to a forum where we could reach consensus on a way forward. But Bristol and the rest of the self-declared in crowd refused to do so, and 20 months later the national open publishing site is still running and still being used.many of the bethemedia crew have now left the network so it seems unlikely that the matter will be resolved through consensus, which would involve revisiting past decisions and replacing them with sound ones which are in accordance with the Indymedia POU

Consensus is needed to change a project - and whilst London and Northern decided that they wanted the open publishing site closed down - they never got consensus for this. They then abused consensus decision making to force a situation where they believed they could expel those who did not agree with them. What they should have done is walked away and set up the project they wanted - leaving those committed to a national open publishing site to get on with doing what they were already doing. They seemed to believe that it was their Indymedia and that if they left it had to close down. I am glad they were thwarted and that the site still exists. In light of Bristol's role to date it is not surprising that they have been willing to keep up blatant lies about the IMC uk site on Bristol Indymedia - and that is why I am here pointing out that there is another side to the story, and dispellling disinformation - which means they have no removed some of the lies - but still allow trolls to post as me and to spread disinformation.

This is of little interest to most BIMC readers, and if it bores you feel free to ignore it. But for those who want to know what is going on, there is a shedload of information which makes it explicit.

It is my hope that Bristol will move towards adopting a more POU friendly approach (and a rather less authoritarian one!) enabling them to live up to their own stated aim which is laid out in the 'Respect' guideline:

Bristol indymedia is intended to represent the world we are striving to create, rather than the world we live in. A cornerstone of this principle is respect for others, therefore articles or comments that are abusive rather than relying on force of argument are not acceptable.

I look forward to the day when they use their own guideline to stop the spread of disinformation about another IMC which is 'unrelated to the SW' and therefore also outside of "the purpose of Bristol IMC [which] is to share local news".

new comment and response

Response to comment: "I am recognised"

reply to :Message for ftp

Message for ftp author by Sick of the ftp'spublication date Fri Jan 04, 2013 13:21Report this post to the editors

The article Post where your information gets the biggest audience is not by me.

Two more articles not by me: The ego has landed and I will not be driven away

Tis almost as if a troll is writing comments aimed at me - so it can respond to them - eg laughing at the claim, not made by me that "Although I am part of the Indymedia UK collective I am the most prominent member"

On another thread another comment not by me: http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/712362?&condense_comments=false#comment58368

Thinks I wrote a fake 'ftp' comment: http://bristol.indymedia.org/hidden_articles.php?sview=712363