Concerted Trollism: This attack on The Slog is is an attack on free speech – nothing less.

What began as a series of oddly agrressive comment threads 3-4 months ago from a Slogger registered as Bankrupt Taxpayer has, as some have already grasped, turned into a 24/7 attack on The Slog growing in intensity as time goes on.

The piece of photographic artwork at the header of this post is merely a simple method of establishing that this post is from me, the site owner. The image can easily be copied of course: but I’ll know if it is.

I am now back at my own pc. BT’s latest IP addresses have been banned. He/they will soon find others, but it will not help his/their cause. I will post at greater length later on why, but for the time being let me say I retain an open mind (re what has happened here) as follows:

1. The real BT has had some kind of catastrophic mental breakdown

2. He has been cloned and impersonated, and is unable to communicate this fact

3. Poverty has forced him to work freelance for an organisation opposed to The Slog

4. He was a sleeper Trollvirus from Day One.

Up until three days ago, I was 90+% convinced the anwer was a variation on 1 above. This would still be my favourite interpretation, but he seems to have more IP addresses than….dare I say it, BT as in British Telecom. Perhaps this is part of the joke.

I could of course institute universal pre-moderation here, but that’s the objective of this attack: it’s time consuming and a horrendous inconvenience in exactly the same way universal air travel checks are. So I’m not doing that – not now, not ever.

I’m not getting a whole lot of help from WordPress at the minute, so any encouragement aimed at them to do more than stick me on some pointless forum would be appreciated. Otherwise, I will go as high as it takes to stop this.

Keep reading: all the classic signs of concerted Troll attack as outlined by http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/08/the-15-rules-of-internet-disinformation.html are present. I will not be cowed.

Ignore all comment threads using insulting language, and stick with it: whoever started this have shot themselves in the foot with clinical accuracy.

Thanks for your tolerance.

John Ward