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I tracked down my impostor

theguardian.com

231–240 of 248 posts

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#231
post #6

Reminds me of something I experienced on HN and Reddit, though my case was a far less significant level. I posted a comment on HN in response to some article about Emacs. Later that day I saw someone had copied my comment word for word in reply to the same article on Reddit. I still have no idea why someone would do that. I thought at first it was some kind of karma farming operation but the post history of the Reddi…

Happened to a friend of mine. He'd posted an article on a website devoted to a specific form of fluid dynamics discussion. This was a site with less than 50 active users. Someone submitted the article (edited to sound more academic) to a journal - and with extra authors added. The journal almost published it, but they didn't because at the last minute one of their reviewers felt they recognized the content as having…

Could be for a US H1-B VISA. Skilled category counts things like published works...

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#232
post #151

I have been a victim of this, and it is still an ongoing matter. If you don't want to find yourself a victim of these kinds of people, then you better keep these two links as a reference, and always take them to heart: Narcissists Online: http://www.issendai.com/psychology/narcissism/narcissists-on... What to Remember When Dealing with a Narcissist: http://www.issendai.com/psychology/narcissism/narcissists-wh... Peop…

A popular label they pick these days is Moralist. https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-cruel-moraliser-uses-a-halo-t...

Really enjoyed reading this. Fantastic essay.

I disagree that the label is "moralist". The essay outlines various types of moralism, which I think is important to distinct them. Such as vain vs cruel and pure vs impure moralism.

However, regardless of all that, there are two important questions to ask when dealing with moralism. First, what's the motivation? Second, what's the method of implementation? A cruel moralist is motivated by self-validation in moral superiority, and a vain moralist is motivated by group-validation (vanity) that uses moralism as a tool (their method of implementation).

In this case, it is vanity that is the motivation, but narcissism in how they go about doing it. Moralism is neither a motivation, nor a method of execution.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweet, sweet karma. And then you go sell the account.

Interesting. Do you know what the marked value is for karma? Is the value tied to something practical, e.g. easier to pass spam filters with an account?

Karma? It doesn't get more valuable after you have enough to get you past the "you didn't register your account yesterday" type automod filters. Anyone buying accounts for "huge karma" didn't fully research how Reddit works. If you have low karma in one specific sub (because you are trolling or spamming), no amount of shameless repost karma in r/funny will protect from the "you are posting too frequently" message you'll only get in the sub you are getting downvoted in.

Accounts that will likely get big offers will have a large number of followers, mod large subreddits or targeted subreddits.

Having an active account before the 2016 Russia thing is also worth something. When you want to spread misinformation or do shill marketing, it helps a lot to see any of the following when checking a user's Reddit profile:

- the user didn't register a month ago.

- the user didn't register just to talk exclusively on this subject/product.

- the user registered before Russia's IRA became active on Reddit.

- the user didn't stop exclusively participating in porn or sports subreddits just to make this comment.

- the user is writing enough quality comments that they don't feel compelled to delete most, if not all, of them.

- the user is not making contradictory claims (there is a famous example of someone claiming to be a cis woman in computers who had clearly cis male comments in several cis male oriented subreddits, one of them called something like "semen rentension". They were called out.

- the user posts in subreddits that are on good terms with the subreddit we found their suspicious comment in.

Source: I'm a Reddit moderator and work at a marketing startup.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a comparison between his tattoos and his imposters There is nothing very special or original about his tattoos. Just about everyone has tattoos that look like this nowadays. Anyone can walk in and select these out of a flash book. This is like complaining that someone is wearing the same t-shirt. Yes, I realize the imposter is mimicking other aspects of his personality, but I see a dozen copies of this guy walking…

I'm enjoying the comments from people who have read a couple of comments here on HN and looked at the pictures in the original article and come to hold forth on how "it's probably just a coincidence". They're apparently so excited that they can slag off an academic for having tattoos that are, in their minds, Not All That, that they are excusing themselves from the difficult work of reading TFA. "Yes, I realize the i…

I read the article. I agree that there is a creepy imposter after this guy.

I was only commenting on his tattoos, which are unoriginal and a dime a dozen. The imposter getting those same tattoos is - in this day and age - equivalent to having an identical wardrobe.

Yes, in addition to the actually bizarre and creepy copying of the academic work.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a comparison between his tattoos and his imposters There is nothing very special or original about his tattoos. Just about everyone has tattoos that look like this nowadays. Anyone can walk in and select these out of a flash book. This is like complaining that someone is wearing the same t-shirt. Yes, I realize the imposter is mimicking other aspects of his personality, but I see a dozen copies of this guy walking…

Where do you live that just about everyone has a hand tattoo with some sort of rose and the word "more" on the knuckles?

Any major city? These are trends. It's like asking where do you live where just about everyone is wearing a Nike shirt.

Do an image search for "more knuckle tattoo" and "hand rose tattoo" you'll see tons.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm enjoying the comments from people who have read a couple of comments here on HN and looked at the pictures in the original article and come to hold forth on how "it's probably just a coincidence". They're apparently so excited that they can slag off an academic for having tattoos that are, in their minds, Not All That, that they are excusing themselves from the difficult work of reading TFA. "Yes, I realize the i…

I read the article. I agree that there is a creepy imposter after this guy. I was only commenting on his tattoos, which are unoriginal and a dime a dozen. The imposter getting those same tattoos is - in this day and age - equivalent to having an identical wardrobe. Yes, in addition to the actually bizarre and creepy copying of the academic work.

It's interesting the extent to which people are so moved to pontificate about "how unoriginal someone's tattoos are' to the extent that they can no longer draw common sense inferences about the world.

Yes, the "similarity' of the tattoos is just a completely unconnected coincidence to the weird academic stalking and no-one could possibly see any kind of link between the two.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#238
There's the consideration of lawful behavior. There's the consideration of restoring social justice. And then there's the consideration of compassion for the victim but also the perpetrator. The perpetrator is clearly in pain, which doesn't justify their wrong-doing -- they are in pain though.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#240

For the curious: this emerged as a twitter thread back in Jan https://twitter.com/mattlodder/status/1350192856154198016 . In it, Dr. Lodder posts a comparison between his tattoos and his imposters, as well as a talk his imposter gave based on his work, while dressed as him. Creepy.

Interesting how the test score is 80% in the twitter thread and 95% in the article.

In the original Vice article it's even 90%! https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp4gx/professor-catfished-b...

So, we've slowly grown from 80%->90%->95%.

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