Wikipedia Review in the news
July 27th, 2007 by blissyu2Yesterday Wikipedia Review’s RSS feeds picked up on an interesting news article titled Wikipedia and the Intelligence Services: Is the Net’s popular encyclopedia marred by disinformation? written by Ludwig De Braeckeleer for OhMy News International. This article was picked up by no less than 3 of our RSS feeds [1] [2] [3] and seemed to be relevant. This was a news story that seemed to be of a similar stature to the Seigenthaler Sr. vandalism controversy, the Essjay lying about his credentials controversy, the creation of Wikitruth (administrators disastisfied with Wikipedia), and of course the Wikipedia administrator suspected by school campus police of being a murderer (later changed in to “police harassment”). All of these cases had Wikipedia articles created about them, and all of these cases had first been uncovered on Wikipedia Review. Yet on none of these occasions would Wikipedia admit that Wikipedia Review uncovered them. In this case, however, the main set of information was posted on Wikipedia Review, and used as the basis for this case, so surely this time they will admit it?
Not necessarily.
Wikipedia had an article on John Seigenthaler Sr. that was vandalised, and they soon added information about the “hoax” and then created a separate article specifically about the “hoax” (at one point they also had an article on Brian Chase, the person responsible for the hoax, but eventually they took this article down, leaving it as a redirect). Given that Daniel Brandt had first posted the information on Wikipedia Review on 29 November 2005 (using our old ProBoards site, which is no longer accessible), you would have thought that Wikipedia Review would be mentioned somewhere in the article. After all, that was where it was broken. It was on Wikipedia Review first, then in major news articles. But no, Wikipedia refuses to acknowledge it.
The next major incident that affected Wikipedia Review was the creation of Wikitruth, which became hugely popular after prominent Wikipedia critic Andrew Orlowski had written a piece about them. Yet Andrew Orlowski was previously planning to create the article about Wikipedia Review, but changed his mind for some reason. Wikipedia, however, has never mentioned this fact in their article on Wikitruth. Whilst they mention Andrew Orlowski’s article, they don’t mention us. Andrew Orlowski actually joined Wikipedia Review (on the old forum, posts now deleted), in preparation for this. If only he’d written about us instead!
The next major incident was when Wikipedia administrator Snowspinner (now called Phil Sandifer, his real name) was visited by campus police at the school he attends following his creation of a LiveJournal entry where he said that he was going to be a murderer. In this incident, it was first brought to public attention in a Wikipedia Review post. This soon led to a Wikipedia article. It has now been deleted, but Wikitruth have restored the deleted text. And even in this, most obvious of cases, still Wikipedia refused to mention Wikipedia Review. Instead, they said “to a message board devoted to criticism of Wikipedia and its administrators”. It didn’t say it was Wikipedia Review! Why not?
Then the next major incident was when Wikipedia administrator Essjay was found to have lied about his credentials. In this case, Daniel Brandt (again) contacted the New Yorker to state that what his real name was - a real name that he had already posted on a Wikipedia Review post, which he linked to when showing it to the New Yorker newspaper! Yet Wikipedia’s article on the Essjay controversy doesn’t make a single mention of it. Daniel Brandt had written in Wikipedia Review on 27th July 2006, well before the New Yorker had run the article on Essjay on 1st March 2007, and on that basis he wrote to the New Yorker to make a correction, which was published on 8th March 2007. Yet Wikipedia makes no mention of it. Again, they are happy to mention Daniel Brandt, but even though in this case a whole thread and a bunch of people on the site discovered his identity and helped to make the correction, Wikipedia Review wasn’t mentioned at all. Indeed, Wikipedia Review was accused of being an “outing” site for daring to find out the identity of Essjay.
So now Wikipedia Review is mentioned in the news in a major way. In this article, in the breaking article itself, it mentions Wikipedia Review. However, it doesn’t say “Blissyu2, Selina and Daniel Brandt”, nor does it link to the correct post that discusses it. On 12th May 2006, Daniel Brandt (again) began what ended up being Wikipedia Review’s longest ever thread, in which we all went to lengths to uncover not only SlimVirgin’s real name (which was Daniel Brandt’s aim), but also her agenda (which myself and Selina discovered). Indeed, there are many other threads, by many other Wikipedia Review members, such as this beauty posted on 26th September 2006. Indeed, SlimVirgin got so upset that she even wrote an e-mail to Wikipedia Review, claiming it was an invasion of privacy, and defamatory. Of course, we ignored her, and lo and behold they were empty legal threats. And of course there is the web page created about Chip Berlet and SlimVirgin, which also refers to yet another Wikipedia Review post.
So Wikipedia, will this be a scandal? We have already discovered through discussion on our forum that Ohmy News International has their own Wikipedia article, and that the creator of the article, Ludwig De Braeckeleer, has written approx 100 articles for Ohmy News International, none of the others about Wikipedia. Indeed, he is primarily concerned with the intelligence community, more recently with the Lockerbie Bombing, something which was SlimVirgin’s first ever edit (now deleted), and was manipulated by SlimVirgin to alter truth, and to get all other editors of the Lockerbie Bombing article to leave Wikipedia. It was also one of the first ever (ab)uses of the Oversight command, to make sure that nobody could see who she really was. Luckily, Wikipedia Review kept copies before they were destroyed.
Surely this time people will sit up and take notice. And hopefully now SlimVirgin will leave Wikipedia, and Wikipedia’s truth-changing will come under some serious scrutiny.
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If you like this then please subscribe to the Posted at 1:02 pm, July 27th, 2007 by blissyu2 in Administrators, Articles, Editors |
July 29th, 2007 at 3:44 am
0 comments for our biggest story ever :(. Perhaps it was because I was self-congratulating there. Anyway, I thought I’d write the first one. See if it can attract more.
July 29th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Maybe Wikipedia Review gets slighted in mainstream media because it is run by someone who makes Linda Mack look level-headed and considerate.
Just a thought. A soon-to-be-deleted thought, I suppose!
lol
July 30th, 2007 at 2:02 am
I thought it got slighted by Wikipedia only, not by mainstream media. Wikipedia avoids WR because they are being exposed by WR.
July 31st, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Mr. Dillinger might be referring to the fact that a recent New York Times article on WP mentioned that SlimVirgin was under attack from Encyclopedia Dramatica, and didn’t mention us at all. That’s probably because ED is a wiki, and is therefore more “search-engine friendly” than WR. Our “Editors” forum is hidden from search engines completely, mostly because we like to think of ourselves as “level-headed and considerate.” That’s why we’re the 8th result for “SlimVirgin” on Google, below ED, WikiTruth, and AntiSocialMedia.net, as well as Wikipedia itself.
There could also be a massive WP-Google conspiracy involved, of course. Never assume anything!
July 31st, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Yep, WR isn’t very search engine friendly. In fact, its own search engine doesn’t work very well with it. Why, you can find editors with a reasonably countable number of comments credited to them - under 100, for example - but WR’s search engine will return even fewer comments than they are listed as having. Funny, that.
August 1st, 2007 at 2:52 am
http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=93&nav=messages&webtag=ab-judaism&tid=4074
August 1st, 2007 at 11:33 am
I find WR’s search engine very handy. I suppose there are better ones about, but its a hell of a lot better than what you get on a free ProBoards one. I don’t know if its search engine friendly or not. A lot of the posts turn up on search engines quite happily, so I don’t see what the problem is really.
August 1st, 2007 at 12:39 pm
The problem is that comments have been selectively deleted and hidden.
August 1st, 2007 at 1:14 pm
http://gtds.gov.sk.ca/gtds.cgi?esearch=&view=detailed&sortBy=name&for=people&attribute=name&matchMethod=is&searchString=Linda+Mack&objectId=43431
Has anyone called her? For myself, I don’t think she holds down a real job. I think her father died when she was young and insurance proceeds have left her comfortable. I’m not sure how prevalent parental deaths are in Schizotypal Personality Disorder, but I suspect there’s some link.
August 1st, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Why would anyone call her? Speaking only for myself, I certainly don’t have any intention of starting a business in Saskatoon.
And as for comments being selectively deleted and hidden, are you referring to the name redactions? Those have been the only modifications made within the last year or so… I suppose a few threads have been tar-pitted, though that’s usually because they contain verbal brawling. People have complained about the redactions, and maybe they were a mistake, but since you presumably know the name already anyway, what’s the problem?
August 1st, 2007 at 8:59 pm
There are also some comments that have disappeared because they refer to censorship undertaken by Selina.
Bear that in mind whenever you criticize the abuse of oversighting at Wikipedia.
August 3rd, 2007 at 11:46 am
First off, referring to someone’s phone number is not on. We should delete that comment that lists Linda Mack’s phone number. Identifying who she is for the purpose of trying to expose her corruption and history-editing tendencies is one thing, but getting her phone number so that you can call her, and presumably harass her is like stalking.
Rightly or wrongly, the intention of redacting the names was to try to protect SlimVirgin’s privacy, to prevent any thought of her being stalked.
As for topics and comments being removed by Selina, I think you’d best ask Selina about that. She is on holidays right now and I don’t really know anything about it so can’t comment on her behalf.
August 3rd, 2007 at 1:59 pm
One SlimVirgin herself has complained about not being contacted for verification for the OhMyNews article, and she’s right about that.
Comments all over this forum are made (miss-guidedly, in my opinion) about mainstream news outlets picking up the Linda Mack story; did you think that they wouldn’t look up people named Linda Mack in central Canada and ask them, are you the Linda Mack who went to Cambridge and later worked with Pierre Salinger at ABC? Are you SlimVirgin who edits on Wikipedia?
I frankly don’t think that Linda Mack the Saskatchewan government employee is Linda Mack the Wikipedia harridan. But, someone (not originally me, by the way) having posted the information on the Saskatchewan government employee on the web, and this site being the primary repository of Linda Mack = SlimVirgin information on the web, might it not make sense to protect the Saskatchewan government employee from harassment by verifying that she is not SlimVirgin, and making that prominently clear here? Also, it should be made more prominently clear here that Linda Mack Schloss is in all likelihood not SlimVirgin, by the way.
As for talking to that (expletive deleted) Selina, if I had to bet between Selina and SlimVirgin being the one manipulated by “Intelligence Services,” my money would be on Selina.
August 5th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Linda Mack Schloff is not Linda Mack, they are very different in ages. A number of people, briefly including myself, made that mistake.
I don’t think that the Linda Mack in Saskachewan is the same one.
Linda Mack, the one that we are talking about, no longer goes by the name “Linda Mack”. She now goes by the name “Sarah McEwan”, after getting her name changed in court. Henceforth anyone who currently goes by the name “Linda Mack” is a different person.