From the Prick’s Mouth

So in my spam trap I found a comment from Robert Farago that had been properly sorted.

Actually two, because there is another of him bitching that “I didn’t post” his first. Sorry Robbie, but I don’t control that, your comments are spam, and I have no control over that.

Still I’ll post it for fun.

We’ve dealt with the plagiarism issue. I’ve publicly apologized for the post that was inadvertently lifted by one of my editors. The images we copy from other sites are covered under fair use, but removed at the originator’s request. I’m not going to refight that battle here. You’ve made up your mind and that’s that.

I do, however, object to your accusation of “lukewarm” support of gun rights. Anyone who reads the site on a regular basis knows that I believe that all Americans have a Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. I am against any and all registration of firearms or firearms owners. I believe felons who have served their time should have their gun rights restored. Etc.

To quote My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, you judge me you make yourself look bad. If however, you want to end this needless feud, I would be happy to discuss how we can help channel some of our traffic to your site and, I would hope, vice versa. As odious as you may find it, we are on the same team.

First we’ll start at the middle. Robert claims he’s on our side of gun rights, rather than the truth, he’s in it for ad revenue and T&E guns. Its simple, Robert, I can keep telling people I’m the King of Spain…won’t make it true unless I can back it up.

As for his BS about not wanting to be a plagiarist and a general thief I’ll supply a link to Robert’s Site (if you want to take that down, Robert, I’ll just re-post a screen cap of your site, the internet is forever). Odd, I expressed my displeasure in Robert’s use of my image (provided generously by the awesome bluesun), and you can see in the comments he very kindly tells me to pound sand.

This is Robert’s MO, Hell I shook the guy’s hand at the NRA Convention in Pennsylvania, and then immediately asked him why he had been so vocal about open carry…and he lied to my face that he had no recollection about such a post. Nice, huh?

As for the promise to “Channel Traffic” here A) I don’t want his garbage, and B) He’s already laid that crap-hand on the table.

Oh and Linoge has sent me his letter to the Second Amendment foundation, full of links to many of Robert’s bullshit. I’ll post it below the page break if anybody cares.

I judge you as a scumbag because that’s what you are. All that makes me look like is rational. If you want to make peace with me, sell The Truth About Guns, just like you did your shitty car site and let your only talented Blogger Nick Leghorn run the show, and go find some other cause to SEO and troll.

I really don’t care if you choose to accept my terms, because I really don’t much care for you, for obvious reasons.

Begin Letter:

The purpose of this document is to collaboratively create an uber-post documenting all of the reasons the gunblogger community has a generally negative perspective on Robert Farago. Please add your own accounts, experiences, and interactions, appropriately screen-capped and cited as necessary, or feel free to expand on the below skeleton.

Thanks!

—–

COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT:

Robert using Benjamin Toombs’ photographs without prior consent, and then refusing to take down the image when requested (the complaint was put up by one of Mr. Toombs’ friends): facebook.com/thetruthaboutguns/posts/246219508778817. I particularly like his, “if it’s on the net it’s fair game” comment.

This incident actually made it to Reddit: reddit.com/r/guns/comments/nbxqw/gun_blog_the_truth_about_guns_uses_image_without/?sort=old

And Shooters Journal felt it necessary to clarify their position: shootersjournal.net/shooters-journal-reaffirms-photographers-rights/

Then we have Robert lifting an image of Say Uncle’s from AmericanRifleman.org, and saying it was “Courtesy of” that site, though no permission was granted: saysuncle.com/2011/10/23/hmm-let-me-take-a-stab/

He has done the same thing to Alan Andrews: snarkybytes.com/2012/09/03/sleazy-is-as-sleazy-does/, and then claimed he had no way of embedding a link back to Alan: snarkybytes.com/2012/09/03/the-internet-youre-doing-it-wrong/. For an former editor of “The Truth About Cars”, I find it dubious Robert does not know how to use HTML.

PLAGIARISM:

Moving on, this post was copied entirely from Tamara Keel: thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/04/robert-farago/a-modest-proposal-the-disposable-gun/#comment-36005, and Robert’s response to her expressing her displeasure was to offer her a job.

Then this post was lifted wholesale from her as well: saysuncle.com/2011/08/19/internet-serious-business/#comment-306825. In this case, Robert did not do the copying, but as editor for TTAG, he is responsible for his author’s actions on the site.

MISREPRESENTATION / LIES:

He does know how to edit other people’s comments on his site; however, and not publicly disclose that he did so, which is terribly dishonest in my opinion: 3bxsofbs.infamousanime.net/?p=4627. Robert eventually banned Bob S. from TTAG simply because Bob S. had the temerity to apply Robert’s criticisms of Oleg Volk’s work to Robert’s work instead.

Bob S.’ have not been the only comments summarily deleted/edited: exurbanleague.com/misfires/2011/12/05/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ttag/.

Speaking personally, Robert took one of my “graphics matter” images, posted it on his site without permission (which I do not mind, since I said as much in the post it was featured in), and then proceeded to imply/indicate that it was a product of the Brady Campaign, despite my copyright being quite clearly stamped on the side of the image. When called on it, his behavior was… less than impressive: wallsofthecity.net/2011/11/dont-be-a-robert-farago.html

PERSPECTIVES ON FIREARM OWNERS:

Finally, I hate to link to their site, but in one post, Robert basically states that if your home is broken into and your firearms are stolen and you did not have a safe of some kind, it is your fault that the guns are stolen – in effect, blaming the victim for being a victim (thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/02/robert-farago/irresponsible-gun-owners-of-the-day-anyone-who-doesnt-lock-up-his-guns/). In a later post, Robert posits that only “high risk individuals” should receive firearm-related training, and then proceeds to ridicule those who undergo training on their own dime but who do not meet his lofty requirements (thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/07/robert-farago/question-of-the-day-ofwg-gun-training-whats-up-with-that/).

INTERACTIONS WITH OTHERS:

Speaking of, however, you may be interested in this Twitter conversation I just had the privilege of having with Emily Miller: https://twitter.com/EmilyMiller/status/253489381766217730 That link should show you a tweet from Sebastian at “Shall Not Be Infringed” all the way through Emily saying, “I hadn’t seen that so thank you for sending it to me. I thought he was creepy and unnerved me but talked to him for 10 min.” and “He freaked me out, jumping out at me in the hall alone. Pounded me with Qs about carrying.” in reference to Robert Farago. When I sent her the link to the explanation for the “blacklist”, her response was “WHOA! No integrity. None.” (https://twitter.com/EmilyMiller/status/253490279615692800).

(See FIGURE 1)

MISCELLANEOUS:

And, finally, Farago’s behavior prompted one of my readers to craft a new term for people who behave like him: “faragosis” – wallsofthecity.net/2012/01/quote-of-the-day-peter.html.

Just to end on an amusing note, Robert was convinced that a number of us gunbloggers had conspired not to link to him (in reality, a few of us came to the same conclusion independently and then shared notes one day), and his whinging about this so-called conspiracy resulted in an honest-to-God blacklist being created… which, of course, omitted TTAG: weerdworld.com/2011/last-bit-on-butthurt/.

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15 Responses to From the Prick’s Mouth

  1. Erin Palette says:

    Don’t forget the stealth edits to posts written by others in order to stir up controversy, or the way he refuses to pay his contributors because it’s all “for the glory of it all.”

  2. Tango says:

    I love you,Weerd!

  3. Tom says:

    I’ve grown lukewarm on the TTAG site because of the predictability of the content and comments. I used to read it as an aggregator of gun-related news, but I’ve since found better ones. Now that I see some of the underside of TTAG, I’ll be spending even less time there.

    Now, back to greasing the Sig.

  4. Tom says:

    I’ve been using Shooter’s Choice on my P220 mainly because I can get it at the Cabelas nearby.

  5. ExurbanKevin says:

    One would think that an internet content wizard would be familiar with Akismet’s spam rules and not have his comment fall into junk mail …

  6. Bob S. says:

    I’ve thought about this situation for a couple of days now and realized what has been bugging me.

    It is simply they gave the award to the Individual and not the site. Had they chosen to honor “TTAG”; I could support that. There is a considerable amount of good work being done there; unfortunately it is buried in lots of fluff.

    Instead they, in apparent ignorance, chose to honor a single individual with questionable ethics and morals — ironic especially considering the site’s sub-title.

    Robert’s own words from the conference shows his intention — his intention isn’t to support gun rights; it is to draw visitors. How does he plan to do that, again his own words “”….Simply by doing one thing; putting out content”
    Unfortunately he isn’t too picky if the content is his own or his writers or belongs to someone else.

    He is much like Mikeb302000 in trying to pump up the numbers — look at the number of times he’s flip flopped on issues. He’s for mandatory training, he’s against it, oopps wind changed direction, he’s for it again.
    All the while claiming “People who are for gun control are unleashing a great evil”.

    Maybe the SAF just couldn’t find information about Robert himself on the site; between Robert’s stealth edits and the avalanche of 14 posts per day, I’m not surprised.

  7. Linoge says:

    One thing Weer’d neglected to mention (mostly because I did a crappy job explaining it) is that the “letter” above is actually an outline for an uberpost a large number of gunbloggers are helping assemble, documenting all of our legitimate complaints against Farago and his behavior in the past.

    If you want to help with said uberpost, let me know, and I will share the Google Doc with you.

    Regarding the asshole’s comment, I am quite amused it was spamtrapped; I am not at all amused (but neither am I surprised) that he opened with a lie and went downhill from there. This is not about “traffic”. It never was. And telling someone they have done something demonstrably and factually wrong is never wrong either, now matter how much he might try to play the victim card.

  8. Pingback: Gun Control Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry | The Truth About Guns

  9. Hamski says:

    Thank God there are more of you out there. I thought I was the only one who thought Farago was a creepy, egomaniacal lunatic. Between the constant unnecessary links to international models and the rambling personal commentaries on Jewish firearms ownership (hint, Robert: we don’t f#@%ing care), this site has almost completely lost me.

  10. Kyle says:

    It seems like rather much ado about very little. TTAG is a relatively big site with a lot of helpful and interesting content. If people withheld business or reader/viewer/listenership from any entity about which unsavory things were whispered online, I assume we’d all be naked, hungry, and bored.

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