muckrights-sans-merde
bonum fabula frat
### how-to-do-the-scooby-doo-maneuver
other pages:
=> evidence-muckrights-is-a-monopoly.html evidence-muckrights-is-a-monopoly
*originally posted:* aug 2021
not many people can be so nakedly hypocritical that its basically turned into a unique style of gaslighting someone, but not many people are roy. this quirk of his makes him more or less the biggest hypocrite ive ever known. im sure there are other people who do this-- i dont think ive ever met another.
```
theres a new dance in town,
its called the scooby doo
roy knows he can do it,
but its not for you!
```
integrity precludes this sort of thing. if you do this, you pretty much have to be apologetic, or shameless.
of course it starts with roy wanting to pander to as many people as possible. narcissistic manipulation BEGINS with pandering and flattery. ive seen him do the same thing to two or three other contributors-- one or more of which (counting carefully because they were different levels of complaint) have complained to me about him doing this.
```
first you change your position,
from side to side
when somebody agrees,
you just let it ride
```
roy is actually impossible to please. there are certain people he needs (proofreading, server maintenance, self-hos... i mean, free hosting) on hand to do work for him, the rest are pawns he can toss aside (or throw under the bus).
```
but later on,
when you dont like them no more
you kick them down,
and you leave them on the floor
```
roy has stated in countless articles and irc conversations when he no longer appreciates a blogger or vlogger who has "sold out" (this is something roy and i often seemed to agree on-- when people, especially on the open source side, would move from being about free software to being shills for various things that exploit the user, such as github).
thats not the problem-- i did the same thing before i met roy; lack of honesty and integrity is a major problem that open source brings to the table in abundance, from paid shills to unpaid ones hoping to get in on the action (either socially or monetarily, or even in terms of proprietary companies employing them later).
roy and i both talked about microsoft using this as part of a scheme to get people to help with their astroturfing. so we both condemned it.
```
now thats not all,
if you want to scooby doo
theres another part,
we can call it part two
```
i didnt invent the term "scooby doo maneuver" for him. i actually coined it to make fun of the way that microsoft will spend years spreading fud about something so it loses value, making it easier for them to take it over. think of nokia, the linux kernel, there are many examples. there are other companies that do this sort of thing, but none are more infamous (or perhaps shameless) than microsoft.
only i noticed roy doing it to me, smearing me for months for an opinion he seems to share himself. like the one about mentioning when he no longer follows a blog in his rss feed. so i was sure when i said:
```
bye, dt
```
after quoting a line where he shilled (by name) for microsoft a little (testing the waters, i think) all i meant was i wasnt going to spend any more time on his videos. thats all. no big deal, roy makes this kind of mention all the time.
but roy saw some opportunity in this?
if you wonder why im writing about this nearly a year later, THIS IS STILL GOING ON as of YESTERDAY. hes been doing this for 8 or nine months. thats why im still writing about it. this is basically hypocrisy to the level of gaslighting. ive known a lot of arseholes, but none that did this...
and here is the very definition of a dishonest question: http://techrights.org/irc-archives/irc-log-techrights-121220.html
```
> schestowitz Re: Fwd: Unfettered Freedom Ep. 12 Dec 12 08:00
> schestowitz >> "Microsoft is starting to change my mind a little
bit" Dec 12 08:00
> schestowitz >> Dec 12 08:00
> schestowitz >> Bye, DT. Dec 12 08:00
> schestowitz >> Can you give some context? Dec 12 08:02
```
he asked me to explain. note i thought the quote pretty much explained itself. ive never written an article about dt, launched anything REMOTELY like a campaign against him, i literally sent roy one message (via email) which he chose to publish. roy publishes A LOT of emails written to (and from) him, though he certainly doesnt publish everything. so he definitely chose to make this public.
i was simply informing him of something dt said in a public vlog that he might want to know about, and stating i wouldnt bother watching him anymore. thats it. i didnt tell roy "OH YOU SHOULD BOYCOTT HIM" and indeed i havent said anything like that. i think people have every right to do that. roy cant seem to always tell the difference between a boycott and a witch hunt, though we have both said that the anti-stallman thing is a witch hunt...
saying "microsoft is starting to change my mind a little" in a positive context isnt really a huge deal, to me its just a bit bullshit and i decided to wash my hands of it.
i would have washed my hands of it, but this was a few months after id told roy he misrepresented me in an article. roy said it was a "misunderstanding", but its clear he took that misunderstanding personally. after all, he said things about me that were not true, in an article. i said i was not going to write for him anymore. and roy kept me on board-- so he could throw me under the bus a few months later (id helped roy out for years by then). lovely stuff.
anyway, since he asked me to elaborate, i did:
```
> schestowitz > Honestly, I lost my excitement when I saw him trash Stallman
during Dec 12 08:02
> schestowitz > cancellation in Sept 2019. I didn't find that video until I'd
been Dec 12 08:02
> schestowitz > watching him for a while, or I probably wouldn't have started
watching Dec 12 08:02
> schestowitz > in the first place. Dec 12 08:02
> schestowitz > Dec 12 08:02
> schestowitz > Anybody who can track all the things he has and known all the
things Dec 12 08:02
> schestowitz > he's demonstrated knowing and can still say Microsoft can
change his Dec 12 08:02
> schestowitz > mind a little is joking around. Not as in don't take him
seriously-- as Dec 12 08:02
> schestowitz > in CAN'T take him seriously. Dec 12 08:02
> schestowitz > Dec 12 08:02
> schestowitz > But just skip to the 5:00 mark and decide for yourself. This
isn't a Dec 12 08:02
> schestowitz > recommendation about your feed, it's just a heads up about my
own. I Dec 12 08:02
```
note how clearly i state that id already had my doubts after i found him trashing stallman during the coup.
note that i was explicitly saying "im not telling you what to do with what you follow, only about what i pay attention to".
i got tired of roys bullshit (for the second time) the same month. i was trying to talk to him about something mincer said-- note that this was only something we disagreed on, it wasnt like mincer did anything wrong (nor did i say so) and mincer and roy and i had all talked before via email. i wasnt active in irc, but ive occasionally emailed about it.
it was never a problem before, or none of this would have happened.
after roy instigated (played stupid) for a few rounds, i got tired of the bullshit and left. i dont have anything against mincer, at the time he was being a bit dickish (condescending) but mostly hes pretty funny. also when roy kept instigating this month after month, mincer really didnt participate in it. neither did the other people roy talked to (except oliva, who apologised for it) when he tried to throw me under the bus several times that month.
i was more annoyed with roy than mincer, and i left because of roys bullshit, not mincers. so of course he spends MONTHS smearing me in emails and irc. and all i said was "bye, dt". you can see it farther up, in the exact context it was said.
what was roys real position at the time? you be the judge: http://techrights.org/irc-archives/irc-log-techbytes-121220.html
```
Techrights-sec By the way, what about DT? He was off to a good start with the
first few episozed but is appear Dec 12 03:08
Techrights-sec *ing like he's manipulated or o=therwise falling for
the M$ trap. Dec 12 03:08
Techrights-sec A lot of people wish to appear reasonable and fear
that calling M$ out for Dec 12 03:08
Techrights-sec being as it is will make them look unreasonable. Dec 12 03:08
Techrights-sec Once a friend and I discuessed M$ court cases with
a third friend and the third one Dec 12 03:08
Techrights-sec kept refusing to believe the events, we had to keep
pointing out that Dec 12 03:08
Techrights-sec these were already settled in a court of law and
not conjecture or hypothetical Dec 12 03:08
Techrights-sec threats. Dec 12 03:08
Techrights-sec He may also be projecting his own civility onto M$
even if it is an inappropriate Dec 12 03:08
Techrights-sec projection and M$ shares none of his values. Dec 12 03:08
Techrights-sec of civility or lawfulness. Dec 12 03:08
Techrights-sec or ethics Dec 12 03:08
schestowitz I have asked for clarifications (DT's remarks and
context). Meanwhile, he's another risk and liability like
Lunduke, can defect at any time for lousy reason. Dec 12 03:08
Techrights-sec Yes, I had taht concern from the beginning, but
have been hoping for the best. Dec 12 03:18
Techrights-sec As for the most recent episode, hed did well enough
previously that I'll write that one off as a Dec 12 03:18
Techrights-sec flub. However, just that one. Dec 12 03:18
Techrights-sec With Lunduke, he had been working for M$ and there
was always the risk of recidivism. Dec 12 03:18
```
so here are two other people with the same concerns i had. like i need to justify who i spend time watching.
but then roy decided to spin the dt thing, and he never let it go. after a solid month of trolling about VARIOUS things he had agreed with me on in the past (thats the gaslighting part) he decided to do a "retelling" of our "conversation" (three email exchange, where he asked a question and i answered) like this:
```
vZS1_2 Where is that 31k URL list? Jan 13 19:46
schestowitz__ figosdev has a list Jan 13 19:47
...
schestowitz__ rage directed at everyone at the same time Jan 13 19:48
schestowitz__ including distrotube, derek taylor Jan 13 19:48
```
including dt... nice.
ive never felt much of anything towards dt at all, other than "this looks like a good vlog" followed months later by "eh, whatever". but this wasnt a one time comment, that was seven months ago.
in that time, i had sent a couple emails telling roy to knock this off. i told him (this was absolutely true) that i didnt want to fight, i just wanted to leave and have him leave me alone.
he didnt. the trolling went on for weeks, then months, and already by january 5th i had started publicly logging these incidents aimed at me (note that roy has logged all of them himself, and im not making a single thing public that he didnt host publicly first). i wanted people to know what gratitude looks like from this lying arsehole i spent two years helping out (often at his request, and flattery). was i a sucker? apparently. do i want other people to be manipulated the same way? fuck no. muckrights is a scam, it is not about truth or activism. roy ROUTINELY discourages (puts down) efforts to make progress. he lies about people and misrepresents things theyve said and done-- he throws other activists under the bus.
then he takes it for himself:
```
schestowitz__ all of CC? Mar 27 22:42
schestowitz__ or just a few people? Mar 27 22:42
MinceR as an "organization" Mar 27 22:43
schestowitz__ yuck Mar 27 22:43
schestowitz__ bye, cc Mar 27 22:43
```
http://techrights.org/irc-archives/irc-log-techrights-270321.html
i noticed that the person he said this stuff to the most was the latest person he was trying to impress. i eventually got in contact with vzs1 and and we have since collaborated on some free-software-related projects:
```
> vZS1_2 It's a shame fig isn't around anymore. His posts on programming
education were good. Jan 27 00:03
> schestowitz he got very upset at everybody Jan 27 00:04
> schestowitz oliva, rms, me, derek taylor Jan 27 00:04
```
http://techrights.org/irc-archives/irc-log-techrights-270121.html
note that part of the reason i tried so hard to contact vzs1 is because he requested it:
```
> vZS1_2 schestowitz__: Could you please send me an email address I could use
to contact figosdev? Feb 02 16:08
> vZS1_2 I tried sending an email to the one he contacted me by but I think
that's a burner address. It doesn't exist anymore. Feb 02 16:08
> schestowitz__ vZS1_2: he keeps deleting his email addresses Feb 02 16:15
> schestowitz__ even the ones he created to scoff at people Feb 02 16:15
> schestowitz__ rms, oliva, me... Feb 02 16:16
```
http://techrights.org/irc-archives/irc-log-techrights-020221.html
dont get me wrong, hes an amazing person and ive enjoyed talking to him.
note how roy starts with my disagreement with mincer and just keeps going relentlessly from there. ive also been relentless in my defence, but i didnt become more ruthless until he started pissing off OTHER contributors (who were complaining to me and i promised to comment) and then roy started lying about things stallman (never) said about systemd.
he continues to mispresent both me and my research, using it to prop up things that are either not true, or half true.
he uses things i said (and never asked him to publish, though at the time i was hoping for a discussion, rather than him running off to make an article out of it prematurely) to prop up his story that its all ibm and gnome foundation driving this coup.
it isnt. ibm is definitely a huge part of it (now that they have red hat) but debian is a gigantic part-- which he never mentions.
he (erroneously, non-factually) insists that gnome foundation, but NOT gnome itself, was behind the anti-stallman letter. you can see for yourself, gnome foundation is prominent but gnome itself is moreso. debian is the "winner" with 108 people-- but a GNU contributor counts 117 debian people (im not going to dispute that, i didnt find 117 but that doesnt mean they arent there).
the point here is that he FIRST discourages you from your own work and findings, then USES them for his own purposes. he dismisses leads, saying things like "we move on" and "we are trying to get away from that actually" and then he runs like hell with them:
```
that thing you spent months,
giving someone shit for?
you take the same thing
and really make it yours!
```
he pretended to have anything to do with me recommending kat walsh as a future leader of the fsf-- which is weird because that was an extremely regrettable choice (not my first choice either) and these suggestions were made well before the stallman coup. ive met kat walsh twice (both times incidental, she was shopping down the street from where i lived once and she was the one who noticed me) and she seemed okay at least. weve never spoken much though. more recently she left the board in protest of stallman returning, and i obviously had her wrong. but whatever.
```
schestowitz what did Kat Walsh do to them?!!??! Mar 26 11:49
schestowitz She's awesome Mar 26 11:49
schestowitz we suggested her as successor to RMS Mar 26 11:49
```
http://techrights.org/irc-archives/irc-log-techrights-020221.html
NOPE!
that was me. roy was not a participant in that discussion, at all. he never said anything about this until months, if not YEARS after i did. he just cant tell my words (and research) from his own.
in april when the gnu.fools coup happened, i got the story out before roy did-- he then downplayed the story in a video. then he said it didnt need to be talked about, but of course hes talked about it several times and even said its important.
and this is what the scooby doo maneuver is: you fault someone for having a position or doing some work towards something, which you then make your own.
for roy, it was repeatedly smearing me month after month and (among MANY other examples) making up a story based on a pretty fucking innocuous comment about dt, then showing who wears the pants around here by repeatedly using the same thing i said like its something he invented:
```
schestowitz__ all of CC? Mar 27 22:42
schestowitz__ or just a few people? Mar 27 22:42
MinceR as an "organization" Mar 27 22:43
schestowitz__ yuck Mar 27 22:43
schestowitz__ bye, cc Mar 27 22:43
```
http://techrights.org/irc-archives/irc-log-techrights-270321.html
this started in december, that was in march. and this week in august, he does it again:
```
Fri 23:32:02 │ schestowitz │ people have come to expect heat sinks and big fans
in laptops
Fri 23:32:24 │ schestowitz │ and when it heat up too much the laptops throttle
the CPU or shut down to save themselves from melting
Fri 23:32:26 │ schestowitz │ bad design
Fri 23:32:33 │ schestowitz │ bye, x86
```
thats friday august 20th, incidentally.
the point of the scooby doo maneuver? that much is NOT unique. its the same with microsoft: YOU do not own your platform. they PROVIDE a platform, and they OWN you. you do what they let you do, and the rest is up to them.
this is why i say muckrights is a monopoly. at least one other contributor has recognised this happening to them. my hope is that more people will realise that muckrights is a scam-- roy is just using people, and if your research doesnt support whatever he wants it to (as he switches back and forth on the same issues to have more appeal, which is an open source trick and nothing to do with freedom) then he will push you aside, treat you like shit, and make literally anything youve said his own to do with (not honestly, and theres the problem) as he pleases.
i never intended "bye, ________" to become a meme the way roy is using it. its just his little flourish to show he can punish (troll) me for months for a reasonable comment, then make it his own, as a "fuck you" and a warning to anybody who stands up to his lying, manipulation and bullshit.
youre never a "guest" author, or a contributor at muckrights-- youre only a "used", just like when you run windows.
i was never a contributor there, but i spent 2 years being a used. if you count the time getting used after i left, its been 2 years and 8 months, at least.
after i left:
```
[09:39] "Summary: March 2, 2021 blog post series from a guest author;"
[09:39] This is untrue
[09:39] I sent them the link to the PDF on Libgen
[09:40] They've been obscure about this. It wasn't a blog post
series. That's what Roy from Techrights changed my paper into.
```
=> https://wrongwithfreesw.neocities.org/roy-the-butcher.html
i expect roy to play dirty, like hes done and will continue to do. at some point, other people may realise that there are no ethics involved. MOST, not all, of the people who have called him out were on the open source side. but it turns out, you dont HAVE to be shill or a corporate fanboy to get used by muckrights. ultimately the readers are also being lied to, which means they are also being used.
its the dishonesty that makes it a problem. lots of people are hypocrities-- this however, goes far and beyond simple hypocrisy to a manipulative and exploitative campaign of bullshit; 32 months and running.
roy first quoted me in 2010, so technically ive known him for 11 years or so. but i paid very little attention until years after systemd took over debian. he still exploits that, too. he would like you to think this is about activism, or informing people. theres a lot that contradicts either of those premises. the one thing that fits? muckrights is simply where roy tells people what he wants them to do-- and some of them do it. its nothing more, or less than that.
muckrights is a platform for making people do things roy likes. if it makes that work, he tells one story. if it makes it work, he tells the opposite. the truth is irrelevant. every truth there, is a framework-- for bullshit, and free labour under false pretenses. thats why i compare it to open source: open source is ALSO about exploiting the movement, to make people do shit for free (or little pay) ...under false pretenses.
roy said himself (years ago) the website was a hobby for him. a hobby, where you lie to people and make them do whatever you say? i would guess thats a favourite hobby, for too many people.
when you spend hours, months, years doing something difficult and free of charge (free software is not about being gratis, but it often pans out in the form of volunteering) you deserve honesty, at the very least. open source cannot deliver, so it scams. thats the exploitation. its a real shame, but it isnt "new" really. its one of the oldest scams in the world.
leave it to muckrights to give it this fun twist!
=> https://muckrights-sans-merde.neocities.org