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There's no good evidence Ron Watkins has actually quit 8chan
editIt seems premature to call him a "former" site administrator. His own statements are the only "evidence" for this. No public person has stepped in to fill the void, so who is its administrator now? Jim doesn't have the technical skills. I think we should weaken this statement, but I have a COI. cc GorillaWarfare Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) please always ping! 19:59, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Psiĥedelisto: That's a fair point—given the amount of doubt cast upon it by sources (already reflected in the activities section) that's probably too unequivocal for the lead. I'll put in a little more detail to give that context. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 21:01, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- @GorillaWarfare: Thanks, the change you made in Special:Diff/1038486723 looks good to me.
Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) please always ping! 21:52, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- @GorillaWarfare: Thanks, the change you made in Special:Diff/1038486723 looks good to me.
Significant understatement in lead
editI think this: Numerous journalists and researchers believe that one or both of the Watkinses know the identity of, or are themselves, "Q"
is a significant understatement about the state of knowledge about Q. Two separate and independent stylometric analyses of Q's posts indicate that Ron Watkins took over posting as Q in 2018 from Paul Furber[1], as originally claimed/speculated by many. It seems now that after these investigations, journalists are a bit more confident in their assertions. Some examples: forensic linguists found that Watkins played a role in helping write 8kun posts from “Q,”
[2], believed by many to have been responsible for the “Q” persona
[3],Q is probably Ron Watkins
[4], Ron Watkins, the man purported to be an architect of the QAnon conspiracy theory
[5], etc.
"One or both of the Watkinses know the identity of, or are themselves, 'Q'", is a bad summary of the state of knowledge right now: Ron Watkins is probably Q, and Jim Watkins probably isn't. Any thoughts on how to reword this? I don't want to hack away unilaterally on a statement that has nine citations attached to it. Endwise (talk) 08:58, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
Ron Watkins as QAnon
editDuring a recent livestream, Null (creator of Kiwifarms and former 8chan dev) remarked that Ron Watkins is QAnon. I’ll try to find the video, but it might be worth stating that Frederick isn’t the only one who believes Q was involved with 8chan 216.9.110.4 (talk) 13:04, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
- What Null thinks about the matter is almost certainly irrelevant for this page. But I do agree that this article understates how confident we should be in believing that Ron Watkins was the person posting as Q; see the section above where I complain about that. Endwise (talk) 13:34, 15 September 2022 (UTC)