A "Tl; dr version" can be found in post #2.
I am writing this topic as I strongly believe that Ratimov has no place in DT1 group. I made this opinion during years and, as time went by, his actions only strengthened my thoughts. I will present below my arguments for this statement and I will try to be as objective as possible. Please bear with me, as this will be a long reading.
I know that multiple threads were created in the past attacking him (stating the truth about him?), but due to the fact that the authors were trolls, alts or various users expressing their rant, the materials were ignored. However, I hope that if this topic will be thoroughly read by DT (and also non-DT) users, they will observe that I presented everything objectively and that I presented evidence / proof / arguments for all my statements.
This topic will
not be one about Ratimov's plagiarism, although this subject will be touched, as it is conclusive for the topic content as a whole (I will also explain below why I slightly touched this part as well).
So first of all, let's remember how Ratimov reached his actual position, which is a position of intangibility: it seems that he obtained so much power that he intimidates everybody to dare to say anything contrary to his opinions. When such things happen, the respective users get distrusted by him or receive baseless negative feedbacks, in some cases also with no reference links and usually consisting only in insults, which is against
the correct use of Trust system. I spoke to many users about Ratimov's behavior and, although they agreed that his behavior is not normal, nor according to a fair DT user, they felt intimidated by him to stand against him.
For example, take these 3 feedbacks left by him, full of insults, with no reference link, 2 being negative and 1 neutral:
Now you may understand why he intimidates so many people.
But how did he get in this position of power.?
All was possible by creating a false impression about him and using sophisticated methods to lie and cheat the system until he impressed more people than necessary. If I remember well, his first unmerited prize was the title of Newbie of the year, in 2019. How did he cheat the system? He created multiple topics, all containing the work of other authors but he presented the materials in a manner looking like he wrote them. This was done using Ratimov's notorious introduction "
In this article I would like to touch upon such a theme [...]".
airfinex was the first (or the first who found the courage to speak up) who noticed this sophisticated method of plagiarism and
exposed Ratimov. There were many debates whether he plagiarized or not, considering that he mentioned though a source of his articles, somewhere well hidden in the body of his topics. I remain at the opinion that this was a very well hidden plagiarism.
The fact that mods did not ban him back then is irrelevant, as almost nobody gets banned for plagiarism for a while. MinoRaiola admitted himself that he plagiarized and he was not banned! Even Lauda
was caught plagiarizing and she was not banned. But do you remember what she did?
Unlike Ratimov, she never attacked, she never insulted bitcoinchan (the one which caught her); she actually replied with
Thank you for reporting these.. and later she left the forum for good (also unlike Ratimov).
So the fact that Ratimov was not banned for plagiarism does not mean he did not plagiarize. He did plagiarize and this brought him tons of merits until he was caught (about 3000 merits or so). And with 3000 merits you build a solid image about yourself inside the forum.
Furthermore, he also broke another forum rule in his plagiarist era, as he used automatic translators for his texts. He admitted this by himself:
I cannot create completely English texts myself, without auxiliary tools.
This is forbidden by
forum rule 27.
For the situation to be even more ridiculous, he even admitted the fact that he stole other authors' materials:
Here, really original content, maybe 10%, the rest is all a copy-paste of finished materials or partial use of someone else's material.
Now picture this: let's suppose this is a SF forum. And I come here and write topics with all sorts of stories or novelettes of various well known SF authors, such as Isaac Asimov, Orson Scott Card or Jules Verne. I introduce all my texts with "
In this article I would like to touch upon such a theme [...]". I hide a minuscule source somewhere in my articles,
but the SF stories I present in my topics are presented as being written by me. Forum users believe I wrote all these and shower me in merits. In a few months I become one of most popular forum user. End of story. Does this make sense?
This is what Ratimov did for obtaining thousands of merits. Even furthermore, as some argued back then that he did not plagiarize,
I will ask this question: if what he did was not plagiarism (thus he was not risking being banned) then why did he stop using that introduction ("
In this article I would like to touch upon such a theme [...]")? Why? Ever asked that yourself? (Here I don't mean that he stopped the disgusting copy-paste in his topics -- he kept doing it! He just stopped using that introduction!) And I will ask one more question:
even if we suppose he did not plagiarize, does a copy-paste deserve thousands of merits? What would happen if we were on a SF Forum and I would post all the 19 nooks of Orson Scott Card's
Ender's saga? Or what would happen if I start posting all Satoshi's posts, introducing them with Ratimov's introduction, thus meaning I wrote them? Will I be showered in merits? /s I hope that now many others see how ridiculous was the situation when Ratimov managed to determine so many people to believe he actually wrote all that stuff.
Perhaps eddie13 said best remark about all these:
3000+ merits for using Google translate eh?
Now let's move forward. Ratimov already created a very good impression about him, he earned already tons of merits, mods did not ban him so he got away. At that time he also became part of DT1. This gave him even more power.
He continued working on his (false) reputation using various lies and schemes, and many were naive enough to believe him. For example, let's remember his bunch of topics where he was bragging himself:
My 100 days on BitcointalkFirst Newbie of 2019 who received 1000 merits !!!Reaching 2000 Merits + Merit GiveawayRatimov - 2 Years on Bitcointalk + Giveaway !!!1000-Day Legendary7k Merit Club. When is Legendary ?Seriously? How pathetic can be someone to brag himself with 6 (SIX) topics?! (Needless to say, the forum even has
a topic for achievements, but why use it, when you gain even more visibility and popularity by bragging yourself?) I also remember that someone else noticed this too, but I can't find that post anymore.
Together with plagiarism / copy-paste / bragging himself, Ratimov also became a merit source. As a merit source he managed to organize an army of minions supporting him in many ways, because he was meriting them.
So all these helped him obtain his actual position, the position from which he manages to intimidate almost everybody. Most people look at users with tons of merits with respect, although in Ratimov's case they have no idea that they actually respect various authors which wrote the texts from Ratimov's texts. Those addicted to his sMerits always talk nice about him, in order to receive merits. Those which disagree with him don't dare to speak, in most of times, as they know that if they do it he can add them to his distrust list, leave them negative feedbacks or they risk to lose the precious merits they may earn from him.
So far I explained how Ratimov obtained his position of intangibility. I hope you all understand why I also talked about his plagiarism -- it was a relevant part regarding the way he obtained his position. And it was an important part, as with a few thousand merits you make yourself a very good image on the forum. So the plagiarism (call it copy-paste if you want) era was an important factor in Ratimov's ascension.
Now let's move forward to see the reason for which I believe this user should not be part of DT.After he entered in DT1, by luring various users to add him to their Trust lists, Ratimov started showing his disgusting character in other ways. He started abusing Trust system the way he wanted: leaving feedbacks consisting only in insults; leaving negative feedbacks with no reference links (while all sane and fair DT users know that reference links are a must for positive and negative feedbacks, in order to be relevant); using retaliatory feedbacksl using retaliatory inclusions and exclusions (if someone distrusted him he also started distrusting that person); and so on.
One of his first such miserable attack was against airfinex, the user which exposed him for plagiarism. On September 8th, 2021, Ratimov created a topic, hunting airfinex and attacking him as being someone's alt or a bounty cheater. DireWolf and The pharmacist were very vocal against him and scared him enough thus
he deleted all his posts inside that thread and hid the thread in Archival board, hoping that nobody can see it anymore and people will forget about it. However, everything is still accessible with
ninjastic.space.
That topic was still accessible until 2-3 weeks ago. I tried to open it now again and it seems it was deleted. Perhaps Ratimov remembered that what was inside that topic was incriminating him and he begged some mod to delete the topic. By pure chance I had the topic opened in a tab so I could make some screenshots. DireWolf's and Pharmacist's posts are most relevant.
This is how Ratimov's topic appeared after he deleted his topic text, like a coward (in the image you can see that the topic was in Archival board):
Here are the relevant posts I mentioned above:
^DireWolf spoke very well here, as indeed, Ratimov when he is unable to state something to defend himsef (I mean something true) he usually attacks the accuser. This will be proven a few more times within this topic and it's a disgusting manner and a futile attempt of trying to get the attention of the public off you and direct it to someone else. Ratimov always does these, as I will show below.
^Probably, this statement of The Pharmacist -- a very important member of the forum -- was what determined Ratimov to try to hide his disgusting attacks toward airfinex, attacks which were only meant to distract public's attention from his plagiarism and redirect this attention toward airfinex.
^Last 2 images are words of wisdom from LoyceV. First of all he also notices the way Ratimov leaves retaliatory feedbacks. Ratimov wrote on airfinex's Trust page the following: "Stupid troll &shitposter. An errand dog [...]"..
Again, a feedback consisting in insults, with no reference link.. But after LoyceV's post he deleted it. Why? Because he is also intimidated by a very few users, such as The Pharmacist or LoyceV.
Then LoyceV highlights another negative feedback left by Ratimov for revenge, this one being on wool_loow's profile. In fact, he left also a neutral feedback. What happened? Ratimov deleted these feedbacks as well.
And now he also managed to get rid of this incriminating topic, which shows his very low character. So after The Pharmacist informed him that he will distrust Ratimov; after DireWolf dotted the I a few times; after LoyceV exposed him for his miserable character of attacking someone who said something about him, after all these he deleted all his posts from the thread and the thread content too and his the topic in Archival board. Surprise: 2-3 weeks later the topic fully vanished!From this episode everybody can see how Ratimov acts: he always attacks if someone dares to say something about him and, if there is reputable audience seeing his miserable behavior he tries to hide it.
And everybody could also notice what kind of feedbacks Ratimov leaves: the kind of feedbacks that have nothing in common with the correct use of Trust system. What he did (and still does) is Trust abuse.Moving forward, let's see some more feedbacks left by Ratimov in the past, which are all evidence of Trust abuse:
Stupid troll & shitposter. An errand dog that runs after its owner, if only he drew attention to it.
Moя личнaя coбaчкa, кoтopaя тeпepь бeгaeт зa мнoй, чтoбы oбpaтить нa ceбя внимaниe.
My personal dog, who now runs after me to attract attention.
Stupid lying idiot and whiner.
Бecпoлeзнaя тyпaя иcтepичкa, кoтopaя зacиpaeт paздeлы Tpeйдepы и Пoлитикa cвoими идиoтcкими пocтaми.
Useless dumb hysterical bitch, littering the Traders and Politics sections with her idiotic posts.
Диaгнoз: Дoлбaёб c пpoбитoй гoлoвoй. Пocлe тoгo кaк eгo изнacилoвaли вce coтpyдники WEX, зaбpaв вce eгo мaмкины кoпeйки, oнo cлeтeлo c кaтyшeк и cтaлo cpaть. Чeм гpoмчe opёт, тeм бoльшe нa нeгo нe oбpaщaют внимaниe. Oднaжды eмy пpoбили гoлoвy и вce дpyжнo тyдa нaccaли и пoтoм пpитyшили пaпиpocкoй, чтoбы нe pacплecкaлocь, пoэтoмy ecли читaeтe eгo выcep, тo тeпepь знaeтe, чeм oнo дyмaeт. Tpoлль, aльт кopнepa, флaг и тpacт aбyзep и мoя личнaя coбaчкa нa пoбeгyшкax, пocвящaeт мнe вce cвoи пocты, лишь бы yгoдить cвoeмy xoзяинy.
Diagnosis: A fuckhead with a broken head. After being raped by all the WEX employees, taking all his mother's money, it went off the rails and started shitting. The louder he yells, the more he's ignored. Once he got his head bashed in and everyone pissed in it and then smothered it with a cigarette so it wouldn't spill, so if you read his shit, you know what he's thinking now. Troll, alt-corner, flag and trust abuser and my personal doggie on an errand, dedicates all his posts to me just to please his master.
Obviously, he deleted also all those feedbacks once he realized that users with high reputation are all watching him. Among others, DireWolf dotted the I again:
Yeah, the wording of some of the posts made it sound like he wrote the articles, which is deceitful, in my opinion.
Is that deceit intentional? I don't know, but I don't like plagiarism. It's theft, plain and simple. It takes little to no effort to make it abundantly clear that you're quoting the work of others, yet it seems like Ratimov doesn't overly concern himself with giving others credit for their work. I suspect that the amount of merit he's earned indicates that most people aren't aware the work he posts is not originally his. I can't recall another member who's earned so much merit by quoting the work of others, and certainly not when it was clearly the work of others. [...]
I don't see how he's made himself trusted enough to be on DT1. Most of his recent left-feedback is retaliating against those who've called him plagiarist, which is not how I believe the trust system should be used.
The discussion goes on in this topic as well. But the most important aspect (besides DireWolf's wise remarks) consists in the feedbacks left by Ratimov and given as example.
Moving forward. Some may say that all these happened in the past. It's true, they happened in the past, but Ratimov's disgusting behavior and abuse of Trust system continued all this time. He kept leaving inappropriate feedback to punish users which dared to speak in fornt of him and then, realizing he is incriminating himself, in most occasions, he reached to some understanding to those users -- thus if they delete the feedbacks left on Ratimov's Trust page he will also delete the feedbacks he left on their Trust pages. Those naive users which fell for this did it without understanding that, in fact,
he was protecting his image by doing so thos his inappropriate feedbacks, full of insults and with no reference links go unnoticed by DT users which could exclude him for Trust abuse. But those which received such feedbacks from him were happy to have those feedbacks removed as negative feedbacks coming from DT users impact them very bad (they lose credibility, they can't enter in signature campaigns, they have Trust issues when trying to make deals and so on). So what Ratimov did all this time was to hide his misery by deleting evidence. Fortunately, some evidence still exists and I can present in in this topic.
Let's go forward to recent past.
Let's remember also one more recent case where he abused his DT powers once more, in a very similar manner:
I am talking about the
recent incident he had with BitcoinGirl.Club. Because BitcoinGirl.Club dared to leave him a neutral feedback where he stated
2022-03-19
Reference An absolute merit whore. His famous, "In this article I would like to touch upon such a theme"
Please double check before meriting him.
-- practically he wrote exactly Ratimov's used words.
So for that feedback Ratimov left him another retaliatory feedback, accusing BitcoinGirl.Club of being a trust abuser, writing false feedbacks, a two faced person with double standards and, aaaaand (the best part comes here!) a plagiarist! LOL! So as you see, once more, he accuses the one stating something about him for the same thing. The same ridiculous way of trying to distract the attention from him towards the one he is talking to, as I explained above. And, of course, presenting no evidence.
2023-07-06
ReferenceTrust abuser.
Writes false tags because of his grievances and thirst for revenge. Once I told him not to spread his flood in my topic, and after that he harbored a grudge against me and began to look for any reason to hook me somehow. In essence, a
two-faced person who has double standards. What he condemns in others, he gladly does himself. On the forum, he showed himself as someone who does not know how to protect his digital property, so his account was hacked. He is also
a plagiarist who managed to escape punishment because no one noticed him.
Eventually, BitcoinGirl.Club deleted his feedback then Ratimov also deleted the feedback he left to BitcoinGirl.Club so once again he got away, without more evidence incriminating him of Trust abuse.
Moving forward.
About 2-3 weeks ago, out of nowhere, Ratimov popped inside AOBT thread, which is a group of translators and started accusing them of incompetence, because they don't update their translations. Porfirii (OP)
kindly asked him to bring some evidence for his accusation but, Ratimov did not present any. He had no evidence at all; he was there just for blood.
Seeing his baseless accusations
I reminded him that he also made a translation for a topic of mine which he never updated. After the issue with Imgur images I contacted personally all the translators of that topic and I told them that I updated the image links inside my thread and that I kindly ask them all to update also the image links from their translations by using the new links I provided.
From all these translators only Ratimov never replied, nor updated those links.So when I reminded him this aspect he became irritated, asking if he was supposed to reply to me (LOL! it's common sense to do that!) and
I told him that while he came there to call others being incompetent for not updating their translations (and without bringing any evidence to that)
he falls in this category, in fact, as I just gave him an example where he made a translation and did not update that topic; not even I personally contacted the translator for this purpose.
Among others, he even said that he is not a translator, thus he had no reason to update his translations, whiule he build a few thousand merits career through translating and copy-pasting texts!He became more and more irritated and now his focus was all turned to me. When, among others, he stated that
he writes only original content I warned him that he is on a thin ice, and I linked a post of him where he admitted, in the past, that maximum 10% of what he writes is original content. Obviously, this only infuriated him even more, so he went directly to ad hominem attacks towards me.
Among others, he used these expressions (some of them are archived
here):
You have big problems with the perception of reality, GazetaBitcoin, so just go fuck yourself
You stupid motherfucker, you still won’t calm down. Not only are you an offended idiot, but you are also a fucking whore
Dumbass [...] you are a clueless idiot [...] Provocations, creating dramas out of nowhere, littering topics, eternal copy-paste of other people's works, spam translations without experience interacting with services - this is your ceiling for your worthless forum life.
(As you noticed, here he started also accusing me of what he did / does -- the copy-pasting.)
Degenerate, I understand that you are stupid from birth
You see, whore [...] you will not stop being a useless crypto idiot who is only capable of collecting rumors and copying other people’s thoughts. Deal with it GazetaCopyPasteWhoreBitShitcoin.
This is what distinguishes annoying whores like GazetaBitcoin from ordinary people [...]
I already told you to fuck off [...]
you fucking degenerate [...]
By the way, interesting fact: GazetaCopyPasteWhoreBitShitcoin was copied at conception
(I have no idea what he meant here but, as you can see, he continues accusing me of what he did, in fact: the copy-paste which brought him tons of merits. This is a dumb way of trying to distract readers attention from him towards someone else -- me, in this case. This is the same behavior used also by TimeLord.)
Ha ha, stupid motherfucker [...] son of a Romanian whore who was gang-raped.
Son of a Romanian whore
TranslatedWhore [...] you fucking idiot
TranslatedWhore, you're still here, fuck you again.
Eventually, after I got also very irritated by his words (
and everybody can observe that in all this while I never swore at him, although he insulted me, my mother, my family), I did what I should have done a long time ago: I left him a negative feedback for being a plagiarist. I am the only DT user which ever dared to leave him such a feedback! I know mods did not ban him back then, but, as I stated above, this is irrelevant since even the plagiarists which admit they plagiarized don't get banned anymore.
Anyway, at this moment he became even more aggressive and,
as he usually does, he left me not 1, but 2 negative retaliatory feedbacks of zero value (plus a neutral one), having also no ref link but still, 2 negative feedbacks from a DT. He wrote all those 3 feedbacks one after the other.After he made all this shit, the next day he deleted almost all his posts from AOBT thread (at least those where he was insulting me badly) but all his posts are accessible with
ninjastic.space.
Later on he returned, offering me a deal: to delete the feedback I left him and he will delete the feedbacks he left me. Meaning his usual behavior.
In this moment I realized, once again, what a disgusting person this guy is. I will explain: he did not delete his posts because of his good heart, nor from good heart offered the deal. He just realized that he exposed himself in front of a big audience for a miserable character he has; he realized that all the posts where he badly insulted me and my family could affect his reputation; and, more important, he realized that those baseless feedbacks which left me, which are only insults and have no ref link, can only incriminate him in the eyes of any DT user, which could exclude him because he just abused Trust system again. Negative feedbacks must not be issued for insulting someone or someone's family and they should always have ref link.So after he calmed down and he realized what a mess he did inside that topic
and to himself as well he tried to repair the mess.
And about the expression "two faced person", used for BitcoinGirl.Club, let's see also what feedback he left me:
"
A two-faced trust abuser, who believes that he is allowed to write various offensive nonsense in trust, and then is surprised that the same techniques are applied to him, which he considers correct. He considers himself a forum king here who does everything right. Avoid any relationship with this user."
His other feedbacks to me were the following:
"
Stupid degenerate, liar and shitposter. He creates conflicts out of nowhere and writes various nonsense that initially has nothing to do with the topic itself. Shitposter and collector of various rumors, which he then broadcasts in the trust, thereby using it as a weapon due to his personal grievances."
"
This annoying cretin who will write all sorts of nonsense to you until the very end, even if you make it clear to him that you no longer want to talk to him. An absolutely incompetent moron who knows nothing about crypto except translating other people's texts. Avoid this idiot and don't engage in dialogue with him because if your point of view is different from his."
Later, on Sept 29th, he deleted the above feedbacks and posted me another one, also with no ref link:
"
Liar and provocateur, PM spammer. He creates conflicts out of nowhere and writes various nonsense that initially has nothing to do with the topic itself. Shitposter and collector of various rumors, which he then broadcasts in the trust, thereby using it as a weapon due to his personal grievances."
Probably he believed that this feedback, with less insults, is less incriminating him.
Question to DT and non-DT users: is this the way Trust system should be used? Are these the kind of feedbacks which should be left by a DT user?
Last, but not least.
I know that LoyceV
may argue that bad and rude language is allowed, together with retaliatory feedback, since it breaks no rules. (I also
noticed his second post, where he explained that he is not in favor of such language though
) I do not contest that. If such language is allowed then so be it.
Ratimov's unpunished plagiarism is also not the problem here. I repeat that again, although I stated it at the beginning of this topic.
The problem is the abuse of Trust system made by Ratimov, for years. For years in a row he leaves incorrect feedbacks -- negative ones consisting only in insults and in many cases with no reference link. He uses Trust system as a weapon against anyone which would ever dare to say something about him.
Question to DT and non-DT users: is this the way Trust system should be used? Are these the kind of feedbacks which should be left by a DT user?
I will end with a quote from a post made by suchmoon and one from a post made by lovesmayfamilis.
This has not really about the Russian language. Ratimov was copy-pasting texts that just barely technically didn't qualify as "plagiarism" according to forum rules and/or moderator interpretation but it would have been plagiarism for a reasonable observer. Whether he has done anything like that since then (this was 2-3 years ago IIRC) - I don't know, probably not, he's one of those adaptive sleazeballs except when he flies off the handle and starts attacking people who dare to call him out.
Definitely not DT material but it has little to do with DT members being afraid of him as the useless shitpuppet OP is alleging. If you look at Ratimov's DT1 "sponsors", there is quite a bit of backscratching going on, Russian members supporting him for whatever tribalism they have going on there, and a few others who probably can't be arsed to research whom they have in their trust lists (and arguably shouldn't be in DT1 themselves, I mean Best_Change LOL).
So suchmoon also observed, excepting the disgusting plagiarism, the fact that Ratimov managed to build an army of minions by using Trust and Merit systems as his weapons.
It is generally accepted that people switch to obscene language when they run out of other arguments. In ordinary life, fists follow. A person who swears shows not strength but weakness. Anyone who knows that he is right is always calm. The freedom to express yourself the way you want speaks volumes about your personality. Intelligent and well-mannered people know the limits of what is permitted, which cannot be said about those who, in any situation, begin to get irritated and let slop out of their mouths.
On the other hand, if a person uses obscene words, it indicates that his psychological state is not at a normal level, and one should not condemn such people but rather feel sorry for them.
After all these, I believe that I presented enough
objective evidence of misuse and abuse of Trust (and also Merit) system(s) by Ratimov. If anyone considers this evidence good enough, feel free to add him to your distrust list.
