I find this behavior incredibly aggravating, and I also find the situation so aggravating that I don't even want to read Smapti's wall of text PM. In particular, I agree with Dmatix.
I'm kind of concerned about warning for it, though.
I do agree with asking him to stop making these posts, but I want to be super-extra-clear on why I agree in this case: Because it was totally useless & self-aggrandizing to say "we've already got one" and link to one of his own barely similar pieces. If, heaven forbid, it HAD actually been basically the same exact thing, it might have been okay. Or if (as you suggested in the screencap), bringing actual criticism to the table to back it up.
Plus: Smapti's vote is essentially worthless because he's so inconsistent and doesn't mind being hypocritical (or can't tell when he's being so), and also appears to have bouts of extremely poor reading comprehension sometimes and votes accordingly (then digs in his heels forever), but he does have every right to vote that way.
It's just that this kind of thing makes me a little paranoid by way of 'slippery slope', and I think we should be very careful about it.
Keep in mind we have plenty of old "we've already got one" posts, especially from Bright and Yoric, from before the criticism policy change. While Yoric isn't around much and Bright doesn't do those kinds of post anymore, they could still serve to confuse other users. And the criticism policy posts didn't directly address this, in part because it's such a grey area.
Also:
Honestly, in my opinion, the fact that he is a popular author to whom people would be inclined to listen means that he should be held to standards proportional to the weight of his words.
Isn't this a little bit like holding someone to senior staff standards without also giving them the recognition or the privileges?
EDIT: Okay, now I've read his PM. The tone thing rings true, but not in a good way; I suspect (though I can't specifically recall offhand) that Smapti might be one of our cadre of new users who doesn't really understand what 'tone' means and is operating with an idiosyncratic personal compass … or he could just be referring to articles which do have iffy tone like 173, I don't know. But I've seen 'bad tone' used wrongly so often on the site that I suspect it might be the former. (I mean, I do read scientific articles rather regularly… so it particularly bugs me. But I digress. And I really can't verify it, as I said.)
I'd also like to note that I've received this exact same type of criticism on my own articles from several people, including members of staff, and in some cases referring to articles they themselves have written (see here, here, and here), so I don't really feel that I haven't been doing anything out of the ordinary here.
Can we get the links to his examples? I'd personally like to see them.
Also, in terms of your response & the way he's clearly taking this - I really want to emphasize that this isn't just about his linking to his own stuff, it's that saying 'this is just like mine' & throwing in a link without explaining why is unambiguously useless and self-aggrandizing and therefore against our criticism policy. Worse, it's not even critique - there's no reason we can't have two electrical storm entities that affect technology. If he's going to suggest otherwise, he should explicitly say so, because even though that's wrong criticism, he still has every right to give it. If he just means it's too similar to stand on its own, then he should explicitly say that instead. Etc.
