Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop socking!

Officially, The Wikipedia Review doesn’t condone, nor does it condemn, the use of multiple accounts on Wikipedia by the same person, for any purpose. Moreover, the author of this blog entry (that’s me!) doesn’t edit or otherwise participate at Wikipedia under any account name. Nevertheless, we’ve collected a variety of useful tips over the years; many of them are included in this forum thread. However, since I have authorship rights on this blog, I’ve included a few of my own here as well:

• Change your underwear between sessions, since this will give you that “fresh” feeling. Also, squeeze a lemon into your underwear occasionally, for added “freshness.”
• If you’re going to use multiple proxies in order to have your accounts appear to reside in widely-dispersed locations, be sure to have a subcutaneous GPS tracking chip implanted in your arm, so that in case things get really confusing you can find yourself later.
• Try to remember that the term “sock puppet” doesn’t necessarily mean you should wear an actual sock over your head while you use the computer. If you forget this and place one over your head anyway, be sure the sock has a breathing hole, to avoid suffocation.
• If you absolutely must create a “cast of characters” who are familiar to (and cooperate with) each other online, it’s usually a good idea to make one of the characters a Neanderthal caveman from 100,000 years ago, since this might lead to your being included in a GEICO commercial. Also, small talking lizard characters are good for this.
• Don’t post a photograph of an attractive female on your Wikipedia user page and then say it’s you, even if you’re an attractive female, and even if the female actually is you. Or, if you do, use Photoshop to superimpose a cute puppy in front of the attractive female. This will serve as a warning message to potential CheckUsers: Don’t mess with me, I have a dog.
• Avoid having your alternate accounts use phrases like “top dollar,” “rock bottom,” or “hard cheese” on talk pages. Instead, use “expensive,” “lousy,” and “dry cheddar.”
• Before beginning your campaign, be sure to read everything on Template:Unpsychlopedia, at least twice. In particular, this article. If possible, “spam” these links to other websites as well, such as The Wikipedia Review.
• Remember that your ability to “role-play” while online is influenced by easily-altered environmental factors, such as the genre of “now-playing” background music, available snack food/beverages, the color of sweater your dog is wearing, and the type of underwear you currently have on (see above). Also, while the human brain cannot comprehend the size of the world or its population in real terms, it’s usually able to comprehend the amount of luncheon meat in your refrigerator, and can use that information for planning future sandwich-making activities. However, once the amount of luncheon meat exceeds roughly 300 lbs., it may be time to buy a second refrigerator.
• Since it’s important that your multiple accounts are seen as editing at different times of the day, it’s a good idea to get up and manually adjust the hands of any clocks that might be nearby before starting an editing session.
• Civility is important, but it’s no substitute for a well-equipped, modern air force.

Needless to say, none of these tips should be used as the basis for any actual cash wager. Your results may vary, which is to say you probably won’t get any results whatsoever.

Lessons Learned (Again)

How much time should pass before you can say, with reasonable assurance, that the media has utterly failed to follow up on a story you thought was important?

It’s been over three weeks since the story of Ron Livingston’s lawsuit against “John Doe” - for using Wikipedia, Facebook, and other websites to spread a gay-rumor hoax - was plastered all over the internet. Maybe that isn’t enough time, but so far at least, the not-so-anonymous John Doe spreading the false rumor has gotten away with it completely. Livingston will probably drop the lawsuit, since the culprit presumably has no money, lives in a different country, and (having been caught) isn’t likely to continue his antics for the foreseeable future. And, by extension, Wikipedia will have gotten away with it too, despite having facilitated the whole thing for almost two years.

It’s fair to say that my own feelings in this regard constitute sour grapes. After all, our intention in researching this situation and in identifying Mark Binmore as the culprit (though WR member Tarantino had the scoop on that, not me) was to point out a serious weakness in Wikipedia’s BLP policy, and by extension, to shame Wikipedia into finally doing something substantive about the overall problem. Every little bit helps, but it looks like anyone who thought this case might be the straw that finally broke the camel’s back, and caused Wikipedia to finally implement preventative features against online defamation, was mistaken.

So what did we learn? Read the rest of this entry »

Lee Dennison

“Lee Dennison” does not exist.

He’s a fictional character, made up by a man named Mark Binmore, a sufferer of something that might be termed “Multiple Online Identity Disorder” - though I prefer the term “Wikiphrenia,” just because I personally own the domain name.

Anyone who appears on the internet claiming that “Casting Director Lee Dennison” is “dating” someone (always a male celebrity) is lying, and indeed, is probably Binmore himself, using one of his many pseudonyms. These include “Lee Kaay,” “Cheekychops,” “Dean Saunders,” “Harry Dennison,” “mickeybloke,” “Ben Humble,” “Jamie Lowe,” “Ram Sweet,” “Pukkabosh,” “nick baker,” “cheekymonkey,” “Fergis,” “Luc Ferrier,” and “Lawrence Davis,” among others. All of these pseudonymous accounts, on Wikipedia, Facebook, and literally dozens of celebrity-gossip message boards and blogs, are operated by the same person.

Binmore himself apparently works for a London-based Alcohol Rehabilitation Program called Foundation66, and also appears to own (at least partially) a Bed & Breakfast in Beziers, France, called the Maison de l’Orb. He has authored a non-existent book of his copious amounts of poetry, and he is also the registered principal of a telecommunications equipment company called “Qualitiwork Ltd.,” the address for which is a mail drop also used by the fictitious companies “Lee Dennison Associates,” “Fushion UK,” “Fushion Pukka Bosh,” and “Kitty Lips.” All of these seem to have been made up out of whole cloth, some with no supporting web presences whatsoever.

In fact, the closest Binmore has been to an actual motion picture production is probably his own basement.

Read the rest of this entry »

When an online encylopedia goes bad

This entry comes from Guest Blogger RMHED, who probably doesn’t really care how you pronounce his name.

There sits on Wikipedia a short biography of a minor British showbiz personality - let’s call him Mr X. It is unloved and unwatched. How do I know this? Well, for over 7 weeks now, the article has contained two paragraphs of creative nonsense about Mr. X’s career. The first paragraph was added on April 22nd, the second on May 14th, and neither of these additions were referenced. Both paragraphs are humorous, especially the longer one, which goes into detail about a very downmarket game show Mr. X supposedly hosted. Needless to say, this game show is entirely fictional, but it was just plausible enough to cause me to actually check to make sure.

These two paragraphs now make up more than half of Mr. X’s short biography. Shouldn’t this poor abandoned biographical article be deleted? Or does its continued existence really help Wikipedia fulfill its mission of encompassing all human knowledge?

Read the rest of this entry »

If you're reading this caption, you ARE the Resistance

I went to see the new movie Terminator Salvation the other night, and I have to say, it was quite the action-packed whizbang smash summer blockbuster! The SWE:SLE ratio (that is, the ratio of scenes-with-explosions to scenes-lacking-explosions) is about as high as you’ll get in a modern motion picture - and that’s saying a lot, these days. However, plot-wise, the movie made little sense. Of course I wasn’t really expecting it to, but it would be unfair to potential viewers to simply not mention it. Frankly, based on the results of this film, I’m guessing that the next installment of the franchise will be entitled Terminator Management Training Challenge.

Despite the plot-related issues, I still enjoyed the movie. Two things struck me about it in particular: First, this is the first major R-rated action film I’ve seen in, quite literally, months that doesn’t include a shot of someone throwing up. These “puke-shots” have become more common than kissing scenes, and nobody seems to know why. Hopefully, Terminator Salvation will be part of a new vanguard of artistically original and cutting-edge films that manage to somehow keep audiences awake for two hours with no vomit imagery whatsoever. And, as an added bonus, there’s no need for anyone to add Terminator Salvation to the International Emetophobia Society’s always-useful searchable puke-shot film list. What a time-saver!

The other thing that struck me about Terminator Salvation, and more importantly for our purposes here at The Wikipedia Review, is how much Skynet - the evil AI-based global network bent on destroying the human race using time-travelling robot assassins who look like Austrian body-builders - has come to resemble Wikipedia. Read the rest of this entry »

I was thinking of posting this directly to Larry Sanger’s blog on Citizendium.org, but it’s too long, and Dr. Sanger would probably object. Also, it’s a bit personal, and I don’t like to be seen as a grudge-bearer, but sometimes you just have to speak out… So, just to follow up on my post from yesterday, I’d like to ask our highly appreciated and valued readers to indulge me, just this once.

Calm down, fellas.

In 2001, I was working for a small Midwestern (USA) IT company, a VAR actually, and one day we were told that the owner was moving to the West Coast and had sold the company to another guy, who we’ll just call “New Owner.” Well, it turned out that New Owner was an Ayn Rand fanatic who would wax ebullient over her “objectivist philosophy” whenever he got the chance, and even kept extra copies of Ayn’s literary masterworks in his desk drawer to hand out to people. (This is how I got my copy of The Fountainhead, which I ultimately threw away after being utterly appalled by the first 80 pages or so). Read the rest of this entry »

The whole debate over whether or not Wikia’s Jimmy Wales should be referred to as the “co-founder” of Wikipedia, along with Dr. Larry Sanger, has always been more than a little amusing. Mr. Wales was the CEO of Bomis, Inc., the pornographic link-farm site/company that employed Sanger to develop an online encyclopedia project from January 2000 to March 2002. As such, Mr. Wales now assumes - perhaps rightly - that he can legally declare anything produced by Sanger during that time to be a “work for hire,” and therefore take sole credit for it. After all, money talks; employees simply get laid off.

Meanwhile, since speaker’s fees evidently make up a large portion of Mr. Wales’ personal income, the reduction in status he could suffer by being commonly referred to as merely the “co-founder” of Wikipedia might make him a less marketable commodity on the lecture circuit. Yikes! Without these fees, Mr. Wales might have to rely on his income as CEO of Wikia, Inc. just to survive - clearly not an attractive prospect, given the nature of Wikia’s business model.

But why all the fuss over one word, “co-founder,” when that word isn’t even accurate in referring to either of these two giants of unpaid-volunteer online content aggregation? Wouldn’t it be better for all concerned to use a term that’s more descriptive of what these two men actually did, like “co-instigator,” “co-conspirator,” or “co-defiler of Western educational traditions”? At least that way, there wouldn’t be all this petty sniping, since presumably there would be less objection to sharing such a title in the first place.

Then again, if people would just use accurate terminology to describe Wikipedia itself (i.e., Multi-User Dungeon, rather than “encyclopedia”), maybe this entire dispute would be unnecessary. Read the rest of this entry »

Wikipedia’s Biography vandalism crisis reaches new depths. This time, for the most watched article on the whole site. What more needs to be said? See here for news coverage. 

(Screenshot taken from Wikimedia’s own site) 

Roundup of some of the activities going on at The Wikipedia Review for the first month of 2009.

Read the rest of this entry »

Newcomers to the Wikipedia Review may benefit from the following glossary of terms, which explains the origins of certain memorable expressions which have found their way into the lexicon here. Each, in its way, encapsulates something essential about the wacky and wonderful world of Wikipedia. Read the rest of this entry »