Thursday 14 October 2010

Did the Biggest Billy Goat Gruff Kill Him?

Jersey's online community seems to have a missing person. OK, maybe we miss him like an aching tooth, but the poor man has not only vanished, but his tracks are being erased.

I am, of course, discussing my old sparring partner from various websites, Jason “the Maverick” Roberts. Jason used to appear to be a stereotypical internet troll, lonely, angry and snide, defending the Jersey establishment's corner against all those who dared suggest that there were some serious but curable blemishes in our island's approach to certain social and ethical issues.

Jason has gone, though. His memberships of the forum sites have been closed. His Facebook account has been closed, although I still have a message from it to show that it was not a figment of my memory. Remarkably, Jersey's newest blog followers are even starting to question whether the legendary Jason ever existed. Very curiously, the blog that hosted those questions refuses to likewise host answers to them, as if they have a vested interest in erasing poor Jason. And another forum site, once linked to Jason, but supposedly now free of him, has erased reference to that discussion, and even banned one of the members that mentioned it.

Nevertheless, from a hint here and a snippet there I now have a sort of picture of Jason, albeit like a view through a Venetian blind, when you can't be quite sure that the gaps are necessarily consistent with the bits you can see, but those bits are consistent with each other.

So, what do I know, or at least have read, about him? Jason Roberts once published the following details about himself, although in a context where deliberate inaccuracy was wholly appropriate: FULL NAME - JASON ROBERTS
NATIONALITY - BRITISH
GENDER - MALE
HOME/OFFICE ADDRESS - 203 BEACH ROAD, ST HELIER, JERSEY, JE4 6TY.
TELEPHONE - 07797122444
AGE - 39
OCCUPATION - VENTRILOQUIST
However, in his usual trolling guise, he claimed to be a financial services manager, with comprehensive inside knowledge of the industry, busily arranging offshore vehicles for a burgeoning list of squeaky-clean overseas clients.
Stuart Syvret's Blog, an interesting, but not altogether trustworthy source, identified Jason as really being one Jon Haworth. More recently, someone claiming to be Jon Haworth, told me he used to co-write Jason's stuff, but not any more. Very recently, Jon told fellow blogger Rico Sorda that he co-wrote it with a partner now dead.
When I first started blogging, I was warned, by an ex-blogger who had inspired me, to beware of Jason Roberts, a physically intimidating man from the Spectrum Apartments.
The JEP reported the unfortunate death of a certain Yann Roberts, then of Spectrum but formerly of Beach Road, from the after-effects of a scuffle with doorstaff, who had found him physically intimidating enough to need rough handling on the way out.
Gary Cummins, the author of the Haut de la Garenne Farce blog has a similar style and attitude to Jason, is just as evasive when it comes to evidence of his own real-life existence, and gets very hot under the collar at any mention of Jason other than to doubt that he ever was.

I reckon this is becoming enough to start trying to construct some sort of narrative. Doubtless, some of the guesses that bridge the gaps won't be quite right, but I think Jon is smart enough to realise that being guessed about is the price of not letting people know about you. Anyway, here goes:-

Once upon a time, (as stories about trolls should begin) a couple of grumpy young men took a sour look at the burgeoning local blog and forum scene, and decided to brighten their own bleak lives up with a little mischief making. So, they put their heads together to create a mythic anti-hero combining the surly aggression of one creator with the snide argumentativeness of the other. So, from the early triumph of getting their puppet appointed Gay Rights Advisor (sarcastically, I think) by Why Guernsey, they spread Jason The Maverick's presence around all the other local discussion sites as they opened. Forever scorning, forever challenging, and forever ducking counter challenges. Although, Jon as Jason did once engage properly with something I wrote, and it turned out that we weren't all that far apart in our views, when he was being serious, even if we came to them by different routes.

The zenith of Jason The Maverick's success was when Adrian Walsh launched Planet Jersey, and Jason was invited to be one of the original moderators. This gave “him”, or them, more power than responsibility, and they revelled in the scope it gave them to skew the debates. However, they overdid things, damaging the site by driving users away and undermining its credibility by adding further bogus identities to either agree with Jason or disagree with deliberately embarrassing inanity. Eventually Planet Jersey had to declare that Jason had been banned. Curiously, he seems to retain access to the restricted areas of the site, and the committed loyalty of the remaining PJ team. It would be completely unsurprising, if it were to be revealed one day that Jon actually remains an integral part of that team, merely with a lower profile than before.

However, after the public shamings of PJ's repudiation and Stuart Syvret's characteristically nasty exposé, and the unexpected sticky end of the man who gave him half his name, “Jason” lost his appetite for trolling and flaming and faded away over the next few months.

Without “Jason's” scripts to write, poor Jon found his life a little empty, and eventually resolved to take his revenge by creating a new online persona for a more sophisticated project. So, he became Gary “Gazza” Cummins, possibly with a new co-writer, possibly with a fictional one. The partner being “Andy”, perhaps named after Jersey's other prolific troll, Andy “Spartacus” Hurley, perhaps a namesake, quite possibly the man himself. [edit: not the man himself, according to a comment received]

The new project was a blog combining well-written, serious articles taking a heterodox look at Jersey's child abuse scandals, thus cutting his tormentor Syvret down to size, grumpy opinion pieces allegedly by an anonymous, but more likely a fictitious, local politician, and woefully badly written pieces credibly attributed to English-as-second-language Jerriais politician Terry le Main. The articles are finer work than anything that ever went out over Jason the Maverick's byline, but the very lightly moderated comments are for the most part appallingly crass, and strikingly reminiscent of the discussions JTM used to conduct with his own alternative logins on Planet Jersey. There is a link on the left to the HDLGF blog; it is an interesting read for the open minded, but don't look at the comments if you are the sensitive type.

So it seems to me that, after the Biggest Billy Goat Gruff got him, Jason just swam downstream to another bridge, and went back into his old business. We need not mourn his loss, after all.

13 comments:

mac said...

David,

The person who could answer most of the questions about JTM/Jason Roberts/Jon Haworth etc is Adrian Walsh he has always protected him on PJ and used or allowed him to make threats to people on other forums.

If you look back to the end of 2008 when the admin of PJ (not Adrian Walsh) started to delete JTM's duplicate accounts, Adrian took back control of the forum.

I don't know which one wears the the collar in there relationship but I find it quite sad that grown men spend so much time trying to oppress people with a different view to there's.

Anonymous said...

just waiting for the correct time and all will be revealed We know who gazza is and his family are not going to be happy

rico Sorda said...

Hi David

Thanks for this posting should take the heat of me for a while lol.

Look out for the Job Threats owe you a pint

rs

Ugh, It's Him! said...

Rico:
They won't get far with job threats - my employer was an open opponent of the establishment's principal policies for all the 34 years that Concern lasted, so I can't see him backing calls for my head from Gary Who on a blog neither our management nor our customers read.

Nick Palmer said...

I wish the majority of the local bloggers and forum commenters would actually lose the anonymity/pseudonyms and stand up and be counted under their real names.

TonyTheProf said...

Well I have a nickname I was given back in the late 1970s when I was thought to be an eccentric mad professor type by some of my friends(can't think why?) but I don't hide behind it.

There still seems to be the odd JTM clone from time to time, and mostly they tone down their language.

But the anonymity does the Farce blog no favours; they can hardly develop a relationship with BBC Radio and ring up Talkback like Neil and Rico do, or write letters to the JEP like yourself.

They are self-isolated within their virtual world. Even Bridget Murphy is better known to the public (often to their dismay) than "Gazza".

Anonymous said...

I can assure you 100 per cent that I Andy Hurley aka Spartacus have no relationship with Jason Roberts , any of his other personae ,fact or fictional and have no connection with any blog either in or outside of Jersey . The fact that you refer to me as a troll is quite hilarious given the above statement of fact . so do yourself a favour,drop dead

Anonymous said...

You can wish that, Nick, but is it any wonder that we don't, considering that there evil threatening lunatics are out there?

Ugh, It's Him! said...

Asserting that Jason has become Gazza was actually a gambit, to see what reaction, if any it drew. That neither of them has challenged it may mean it is right. It may also mean that it is wrong, but it suits both of them to have it put about.
J[as]on may well be happy to get the credit for something after his heart but beyond his own abilities, while Gazza may want a red herring to improve his cover. After all, the other rumour I have heard orally is that he isn't Jason, but two of his closest relatives are or were senior Law Officers.

Anonymous said...

I would be interested if someone could shed some light on if there is any possible reason that all the timings are removed from 'postings' on the Farce Blog, other than the obvious one that they are all faked, being 'posted' by the one or two bitter, twisted right wingers who are the site?

TonyTheProf said...

I think you are 100% right. If the timings were present, there would be statistically an odd "rush" of same timed comments (rather like that JEP phone poll which suffered attempted vote rigging on proposals for tall buildings).

Incidentally, while the real Zoompad does make postings, there is also a fake version - same name and picture, but no link if you click through to the identity (a sure sign of a fake)

Anonymous said...

I think you are right, none of these internet people are around anymore. Not seen Adrian in yonks and Jon said ages ago it was all crap written about him and his wife said the same.

Anonymous said...

So now we know he does exist and is now £200 lighter thanks to the recent court case.