Impersonators
The latest scourge on the comments of this blog appears to be impersonators. Many who are reading this right now would know of Nigel Gohl, a person who was the subject of The Spin Starts Here’s flame thrower around the same time as me last year, and much like me, has had to deal with the fallout ever since.
As I mentioned recently, I have a responsibility as the publisher and owner of this website to monitor comments, avoid defamation, etc etc etc (click the link for the full details)…around the time that I posted that notice a new user signed up under the name “Nigel Gohl” with a Gmail account which, at first glance, looked legitimate…in fact, I admit, I was fooled, I thought the real Nigel Gohl had decided to come here and agree with my stance on comment defamation.
The timing from the impersonator was impeccable, the day before I went to Sydney, just enough time for me to fall for their trick, have their initial comment approved, and then get free reign until I got back.
Just to make it even better for this impersonator, the spam filter picked up the initial comment, so I only noticed it a couple hours before I left for Sydney, I approved the comment and then sent an email to the impersonator (who I thought was the real Nigel) apoligising for the delay.
Hi Nigel,
Sorry about the delay in getting your comment online. The spam filter picked it up for some reason (first false positive for a while), and unfortunately that meant I didn’t get an email about your comment.
Thanks for the comment and support, I hope the after effects of being “featured” on TSSH haven’t been too bad for you.
Cheers,
Samuel
Of course the first comment from the fake Nigel should have been a dead giveaway, because in it he said that he had been following my blog since 2CC’s Mike Welsh interviewed him in October…if Mike had interviewed Nigel Gohl in October I would have known about it, but being 2am at the time I thought that I may have missed it, not realising that I had been able to listen to the radio at work for virtually all of October.
There were more hints later on when the fake Nigel started saying things about John B1_B5 being a client of his, a claim I found hard to believe, a claim denied by John, and a claim which was enough for me to send an email to the real Nigel via the email address listed on his website.
Dear Nigel,
I’m trying to work out whether an account on my blog belongs to you or not. Currently there is an active account with the name “Nigel Gohl” and email address nigel.gohl54@gmail.com and URL http://www.nige54.com/index.html?seminars.html&3
I’m just a bit concerned that this might in fact be an impersonator. If it is, please let me know and I will take action to have the account and associated comments removed at once. If, on the other hand, the account really is yours, that’s fine, I just thought I should check.
So far, this user has left comments on the following articles:
http://samuelgordonstewart.com/2006/11/blog-housekeeping
http://samuelgordonstewart.com/2006/11/john-kerrs-terrigal-lunch-1200pm-tuesdayI apoligise for the intrusion, but I am currently dealing with multiple account issues and I need to check the authenticity of some accounts.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Nigel soon confirmed that the account did not belong to him.
Hi Samuel,
Yes that is definitely an imposter!
Thanks for letting me know as that is definitely NOT me writing on your blog – obviously it is some loser with too much time on their hands.
Cheers,
Nige
I then removed the account and deleted the comments.
Meanwhile in impersonator land, which appears to be the same place that many banned ex-contributors to this site live in, the Nigel impersonator came up with a dead giveaway email in reply to my initial email apoligising for the delay in getting the initial comment online.
Hey what gives? Have I fallen through the thin ice? This aggression won’t stand, man!
If the comments hadn’t already adopted the writing style of certain banned contributors, this email had…I then broke from my standard conventions and policies and let fly with an email which outlined my exact feelings. (The email had the actual words, not the obscured obscenities you see here)
F*** off, I’ve had enough of you and your mob of half wits…and do you really think that I believe that you’re the real Nigel Gohl? Sure, I did at first, but your comments were suspicious so I sent an email to the real Nigel Gohl and confirmed that you are a fraud, an imposter, and a waste of my f***ing time.
Now go away, and don’t come back.
I’ve avoided swearing at people in reply to rotten emails received shortly after being yelled at by a bunch of car hoons before…and on that day I really felt like unleashing a string of expletives, but managed to hold back…so this is quite a rare and extreme occurrence.
So why am I telling you all of this? Well firstly I want to make it absolutely clear that the Nigel Gohl you may have seen in the comments on this blog is not the real Nigel Gohl, and I apoligise to the real Nigel Gohl for the incident. Secondly, the email I sent to the fake Nigel Gohl will undoubtedly appear somewhere else on the Internet very soon, so I wanted you to hear it from me first.
While I’m at it, I might as well address the most ridiculous comments posted on another website by banned ex-contributors to this site. “The Beige Baron” pretty much sums up the general feeling amongst the expelled (including the fake Nigel).
I always used to admire Sam because I identified with him for being different. Now he is just like every other fascist regime: agree with me, say harmless things, or get f***ed.
Well, watch the tumbleweeds blow through there now. I know the comedy of Charity from Sydney isn’t going to keep the hit meter turning over.
The kid needs to get out occasionally, see a movie, go on a holiday overseas, get a girlfriend. He’s a fraud… commenting on such broad issues with zero life experience is humourous for a while and sad afterwards. The kid was sweet, he’s now a vindictive egotistical opinionated bully whose last resort in a failed argument is a summary execution.
But his biggest fault of all is a complete and total lack of a sense of humour.
Send that to your Friday Funnies.
OK, there is an awful lot to address in there, but I think I can summarise it. I have said time and time again that I enjoy a good debate, I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, and in fact I would encourage people to disagree with me on various issues as I like to see how “the other side” thinks…but, the banning of people has nothing to do with disagreements, and has everything to do with an inability to at the very least be civil to other contributors and not veer completely off topic at every single opportunity that you feel like inventing. Occasional off-topic forays are fine…but I don’t want an inbox full of garbage comments every day.
The mere fact that The Beige Barron thinks that he and his friends are the core readership here and that tumbleweeds will appear now that they are gone shows what sad egotistical individuals they really are. The vast majority of readers of this site are people I have never met, and probably will never meet or have any contact with. There are plenty of people on this planet other than The Beige Lunatic err Baron.
I’ve been through the whole “life experience” debate before…I’m still amazed that people think they read my entire life on this blog…thankfully there are people who don’t, like the person who randomly announced his enjoyment of this blog to me (and others) this afternoon.
And as for a lack of a sense of humour…I think the mirror might show them who they are really talking about!
On the plus side, at least they are using their own website for their rounds of pointless bleating.
Samuel
11 comments November 30th, 2006 at 10:14pm