Protecting Conflict Of Interest, You Know Who's COI Mistress Options

[Jonny Cache]

Somey,

Your post on the Gary Weiss / Mantanmoreland business called to mind some general issues that have bothered me for quite some time, but I did not want to get involved in a tangential discussion on the Essjay thread.

My notice of the problem goes back to the days when I first cited one of my own papers in the same way that I normally would in any journal article. I found out quite quickly that Wikipedia's pseudo-policy on what was then called WP:VANITY is mostly designed to browbeat the honest editor and to curry favor with those who manipulate the system from behind the cover of polymorphously perverse pseudonyms. This is all in addition to the Personality Envy that is all too rabid and rampant among the Wikipedian Pseudonymphs.

People kept reciting the Wikiparty Line that Wikipedia policies never depend on knowing the real world referent of any username, but then they kept right on writing a host of pretentious pseudo-policies that are so obviously unenforceable in the absence of any accountability checks. We all know the end result. The dirtiest tricksters run rampant while the honest players get royally screwed.

So, in particular, what is the current state of the assertion, "Gary Weiss = User:Mantanmoreland"? — since even the briefest scan shows that the latter freely edits the article on the former, while SlimVirgin, operating as the Jimmy-On-The-Spot, frequently protects the article against any editing that appears to run counter to what a reasonably circumspect — not to mention circumloquacious — observer might speculate could, just possibly, be some variety of joint interest.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Tue 6th March 2007, 3:56pm

[Duke53]

The following exchange between myself and one of the Wikipedia 'faithful' pretty much sums up what they are all about.

Sad, on many levels ... and it smacks just a bit more of 'Alice in Wonderland' than I care for.

p.s. This exchange is still up on my talk page over there.

This post has been edited by Duke53: Mon 5th March 2007, 7:01pm

[Somey]

...what is the current state of the assertion, "Gary Weiss = User:Mantanmoreland"? — since even the briefest scan shows that the latter freely edits the article on the former, while SlimVirgin frequently protects the article against any editing that she does not favor.

There have been some developments in the Weiss-Wordbomb Wikipedia Web War, or "Big 5W" for short. Mantanweissland claims to have identified Wordbomb, even going so far as to plaster a big photo of him on his blog. (I'm not planning on repeating this claim out of deference to Wordbomb, who's still a member here, but just do a Google search on the right keywords and you'll find it right away.)

To be honest, Weiss is probably right about who Wordbomb is - at least I wouldn't want to waste much time disputing it. Of course, he almost certainly obtained that information through WP CheckUser data supplied to him by Jayjg. But even that's not really the main issue, for us at least...

Personally, I don't see how anyone in their right mind could possibly doubt now (or ever) that Mantanmoreland is in fact Gary Weiss, based on all that's happened and on his WP behavior. The only other possibility is that he's employed by Weiss to edit Wikipedia, which if anything would be worse, at least from the Wikicult's perspective. And if we grant that Weiss's identification of Wordbomb is also correct, then we have a situation here where not only Wikipedia, but Wikipedia Review and several other websites as well, have become an ongoing battleground between these guys, with both sides using tactics that are questionable at best, and at worst, utterly shameful. (Among other things, Weiss has reposted content from this website on another site without permission, not that anyone's likely to care all that much. He also accused Wordbomb of posting IP-tracking images here on WR - so I've since removed all of the offsite image references from Wordbomb's postings here, including his "Bart Starr award" sig image, just in case.)

Putting all that aside, though, the question for me is simply this: Who started the Big 5W? I think the record shows quite clearly that Wordbomb only got into it with Weiss on Wikipedia when Weiss posted his autobiography there (is there such a word as "autohagiography"?), along with his junkyard-dog protection of Naked_short_selling and the highly-biased edits he and Slimmy made to the Martin_Luther article. Mantanmoreland's first edit to "Naked short selling" was Jan. 28, 2006, the Weiss bio was posted by Mantanmoreland on April 13, and User:WordBomb didn't show up on WP until July 7. They both might have used AnonIP's or different accounts prior to that, of course... who knows? But that's a fairly clear indication of who got there first.

The essential fact is, Mantanmoreland/Weiss successfully made a deal with Slimmy and Co. to help him protect his interests on WP, in exchange for his helping them smear both Martin Luther and Patrick Byrne. Wordbomb failed to make the necessary deal(s) to protect his interests, and look what happened to him.

But the only reason I bring it up now is that in order to improve his ability to smear Martin Luther, Weiss is claiming religious education credentials he simply doesn't have. As Gary Weiss's own biography on WP states:

Weiss grew up in New York City and attended public schools, including the Bronx High School of Science. He received degrees from the City College of New York and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

And so, you have a situation quite similar to Essjay's, all still going on right now - with the full knowledge of Jimbo and the "cabal." The only difference is that Weiss isn't claiming to have a Ph.D. or a professorship, he isn't an admin, and he's also a much nastier person. But Ph.D.'s are now mostly going to be treated as suspect from now on anyway, Weiss doesn't require adminship because he has SlimVirgin, and of course, nastiness is a non-issue as far as WP is concerned - nine times out of ten, at least.

[Jonny Cache]

The following exchange between myself and one of the Wikipedia 'faithful' pretty much sums up what they are all about.

Sad, on many levels ... and it smacks just a bit more of 'Alice in Wonderland' than I care for.

p.s. This exchange is still up on my talk page over there.

Hah !!! Yes, it's clear that the rules are a mighty joke indeed there. For a while I was actually Rube Enuff to byte that bit about WP:IARDEE IAR IAR. On the face of it, it did seem like a respectable way to leaven the severity of the rules with a bit of heuristic tolerance. That is, until one fine day when somebody — I think it was User:Kim Bruning — nudged me into actually using it. You all know what I found out. It's the WP:3rd Rail of the WP:Cabal Car for anybody who's a Wikipiddling Wikipeon. But I did get my current christening out of it.

Speaking of SF ...

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Mon 5th March 2007, 8:04pm

[Dudley]

Why do you refer to Weiss as Mantanmoreland, when both he and Jimbo deny it, when you won't conceded that WordBomb is Judd Bagley, director of social media at Overstock.com, even though he has admitted it on stock message boards?

You don't even seem to care that Bagley planted spyware on this website.

Why have you totally fallen for a corporate smear campaign? Wikipedia is just a venue for Bagley. He couldn't care less about Wikipedia. He is just out to "get" Weiss because that is what his boss Patrick Byrne hates.

You do realize that Bagley has engaged in smear campaigns in the past, as an operative for the Jeb Bush administration in Florida? Are you a fan of Jeb Bush? He was a hatchet man for Jeb Bush and now he is a hatchet man for another right wing operative.

Really odd to see Wikipedia Review climb into bed with a CEO and a Republican smear tactitian out of blind hatred for Wikipedia. You should be careful who you climb into bed with.

[Jonny Cache]

Why do you refer to Weiss as Mantanmoreland, when both he and Jimbo deny it, when you won't concede that WordBomb is Judd Bagley, director of social media at Overstock.com, even though he has admitted it on stock message boards?

Who me? All I did was ask a question about the current state of information on a particular assertion. You will excuse me, I hope, if I seek WP:VERIFICATION with regard to any statement that Jimbo Wales makes?

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Mon 5th March 2007, 9:06pm

[Dudley]

Why do you refer to Weiss as Mantanmoreland, when both he and Jimbo deny it, when you won't concede that WordBomb is Judd Bagley, director of social media at Overstock.com, even though he has admitted it on stock message boards?

Who me? All I did was ask a question about the current state of information on a particular assertion. You will excuse me, I hope, if I seek WP:VERIFICATION with regard to any statement that Jimbo Wales makes?

Jonny

Sorry by "you" I meant Somey.

[Jonny Cache]

Flash !!!

Breaking News !!!

Prediction ?

They will chew their gums over this till the cows come home ...

Then one quiet midsummer evening when the media has been lulled to sleep by the buzz and hum of their good intentions, they will slaughter and barbecue the cows.

Wikimania, anyone ?

Jonny

[anon1234]

It's all established out in the open over at antisocialmedia.net. There was even coverage in the NY POst or NY Sun a while back.

[Dudley]

It's all established out in the open over at antisocialmedia.net. There was even coverage in the NY POst or NY Sun a while back.

That's right. Here is the New York Post article. Bagley later confessed to being ASM a few days after this story appeared. He later talked about being WordBomb.

Read the story below. Bagley/WordBomb is all about fighting Patrick Byrne's critics. He doesn't give a shit about Wikipedia. He is a right wing nuts and he went after a reporter in Talahassee for his boss, who was a commissioner in the Jeb Bush administration. He boasted about ruining her career.

My point is that this cracker is a corporate hatchet man and GOP thug and if you push his cause you are niot reforming Wikipedia but you are helping a CEO fight his enemies.

Here is the Post article.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01022007/busin..._roddy_boyd.htm

OVERSTOCK LASHES OUT AT CRITICS ON WEB

January 2, 2007 -- Internet retailer Overstock.com's war against its critics is taking an ugly new twist, as a Web site aided and supported by its management is leveling sharp charges against two Internet message board posters.

The site, AntiSocialMedia.net, launched bitter attacks last week on the message board critics, accusing them of participating to various degrees in a conspiracy to malign the anti-naked short selling movement that Overstock.com supports.

ASM's targets, Floyd Schneider of Newton, N.J., and Darl Dumont, of L.A., are critical of Overstock.

ASM accused Dumont of "marginaliz[ing] those who've spoken out against the practice of strategic failure to deliver." It accused Schneider of something sharply more serious: bashing stocks like Overstock "for compensation and in coordination with hedge funds shorting the stock (or worse)." It also said Schneider makes a "living out of lying."

Dumont, a computer programmer, told The Post that he got into message board posting about Overstock as a result of other message board "flame wars" with naked short-sale activists like the National Coalition Against Naked Shorting co-founder Phil Saunders.

The allegations against Schneider, a mortgage broker, are a different matter. Long known to investigative reporters and federal law enforcement types as an expert Internet sleuth for his ability to ferret out long-lost documents on the Web, he said the charges are nonsense.

"I work for nobody and don't get a dime for what I find and post online, from anyone, ever," Schneider told The Post.

ASM's work has been vocally supported by Overstock's controversial Chief Executive Patrick Byrne in at least a dozen of his Web posts on the InvestorVillage Internet message board and Judd Bagley, another Overstock executive. sed to being antisocialmedia.

[Duke53]

Flash !!!

Breaking News !!!

Prediction ?

They will chew their gums over this till the cows come home ...

Then one quiet midsummer evening when the media has been lulled to sleep by the buzz and hum of their good intentions, they will slaughter and barbecue the cows.

Wikimania, anyone ?

Jonny

Amazing how 'jimbo' found internet access in this time of need. Do You Believe in Miracles? The Story of the 2007 Wikipedia Team

If you recall, he made the claim a few days ago that he was enroute from India to Japan (or EBF, Egypt, or somewhere, I can't recal) and wouldn't have internet access.

Odd that he now refers to the essjay incident as the essjay scandal'("Nowadays, I bring back the proposal for further consideration in light of the EssJay scandal".) now ... must be he found an attorney out there in the wilds also.

[gomi]

Really odd to see Wikipedia Review climb into bed with a CEO ...

Speaking only for myself, I am only interested in this to the extent that it reveals the misdeeds of SlimVirgin in protecting certain users on Wikipedia from what would otherwise be normal scrutiny.

The identities of WordBomb and Mantanmoreland are a mere sideshow to this.

[Dudley]

Really odd to see Wikipedia Review climb into bed with a CEO ...

Speaking only for myself, I am only interested in this to the extent that it reveals the misdeeds of SlimVirgin in protecting certain users on Wikipedia from what would otherwise be normal scrutiny.

The identities of WordBomb and Mantanmoreland are a mere sideshow to this.

Bagley made his reputation in Florida, working for Jeb Bush. If Wiki was big in 2000 he would have used Wiki for Jeb Bush.

Are you saying that is OK as long as he is on the side of right and goodness on the "more important" issue of SlimVirgin?

If he quits Overstock and goes to work for his fellow right wing Mormon Mitt Romney and pushes his cause on Wiki that is OK, if he says the right things about SV? I mean, what the fuck????

Is that ALL people here care about?

This post has been edited by Dudley: Mon 5th March 2007, 11:09pm

[Duke53]

"You don't even seem to care that Bagley planted spyware on this website".

He planted spyware on this (wikipediareview.com) website?

Pardon me for asking, but how and when?

[Dudley]

"You don't even seem to care that Bagley planted spyware on this website".

He planted spyware on this (wikipediareview.com) website?

Pardon me for asking, but how and when?

You're kidding. Do you mean to tell me that nobody pointed this out before?
The details are on two sites. The first is a blog devoted to the Overstock.com smear campaign and the other is the Weiss blog article that broke the story. You can Google for more but the O-Smear blog has got THIRTEEN articles mentioning the Wiki Review web bugs, which traced back to his pals at a company in Utah.

http://o-smear.blogspot.com/search/label/Wikipedia Review
http://garyweiss.blogspot.com/2007/01/judd...is-friends.html

Also you should go back and look at this message thread:
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=3360&hl=

Bagley calls me "Gary" (as in Gary Weiss) and throws an IP at me. It wasn't mine but it weirded me out so much I stopped coming here.

It later turned out that he got a whole bunch of IPs by inserting spyware in his posts! That way he knew the IP of everybody reading his post. Somey said in his post earlier that he took out the spyware bugs but I don't understand why WordBomb/Bagley's ass isn't being kicked out for spying on you and me and everybody else at this site.

Bagley also posted web bugs elsewhere. It's really illegal and it is really shitty. This guy is a RIGHT WING UTAH NUT working for a CEO. I don;t give a shit how much he's been banned by Wiki. He is a bad person. If Hitler was banned by Wiki would you embrace him here?

This post has been edited by Dudley: Tue 6th March 2007, 12:16am

[Somey]

I thought that might bring you out of hiding, Gary Dudley! Welcome back!

I'll admit, you have an good point - the folks who administered this forum back in July 2006, for the roughly ten minutes per week they were available to administer it, probably were blinded by their dislike of WP to want to do much of anything at all to stop Wordbomb, much less go to the trouble of denying him the privilege of posting offsite images. However, this so-called "spyware" has now been removed (and to be fair, it could have just been an innocent little .GIF - do you still have a copy?)... Maybe we'll even ban him for it one of these days, not that I suspect he'll care at this point. What's more, I'm also accepting your assertions about who Wordbomb is, though I suspect there's a slightly greater chance of him being misidentified than, say, Mantanmoreland or SlimVirgin.

The real problem is that you're both telling the truth about each other, aren't you? Both of you are dirty-pool players, using and abusing otherwise well-meaning public websites like ours and Wikipedia in the pursuit of your personal, financial, and business agendas. After all, other people's interests are of no importance - there's money involved! And as far as Wikipedia is concerned, you won, and he lost. You got there first, made the right friends, and emerged victorious. YAY!

So why would anyone remain on his side, you ask. Fair question... I'll admit the Mormon thing is troubling, just like the Jeb Bush thing, but we're only supposed to be concerned with issues in the context of Wikipedia here, as much as that probably disappoints you... So, maybe it's because he wasn't trying to smear a major religious figure with the ham-fisted WP "undue emphasis tactic," just to get in good with Slimmy and the so-called "cabal"?

That's not to mention the whole question of... wait for it... why go after Martin Luther in the first place? Would you call me a "loony conspiracy nut" if I suggested to you that, given the timing of the whole business, it might be at least partially because of this?

And you folks wonder why so many of us are pissed off!

Still, if you'd like to help us answer some of these vexing questions for the nice people, rather than just the ones that help you in your ongoing crusade against Overstock.com, then I'm all ears. (Or eyeballs, as the case may be.)

Nevertheless, Gary Dudley, you're still a member of our forum, and to the extent that you've been psychologically or emotionally hurt by all of his accusations and suchlike here during that period, I apologize on behalf of the site's (current) administration. (However, please note that for legal purposes, we're a service provider, not a publisher.) Of course, that's far more than anyone here at WR will ever get from the likes of SlimVirgin, Jayjg, FeloniousMonk, Will Beback, or any number of other "black hats" who seem all too willing to let people push their culturally-damaging personal agendas on WP, driving away a lot of decent, talented editors in the process - and for what? For an extra couple of "reverts" in some stupid-ass edit war?

Long story short, if any of this results in fewer edits like this one, just two days ago, being made, then maybe all of this silliness is worth it... By the way, it really is high time they banned Hitler from WP. What a troll that guy is!

[gomi]

Bagley made his reputation in Florida, working for Jeb Bush. ... Are you saying that is OK as long as he is on the side of right and goodness on the "more important" issue of SlimVirgin?

If he quits Overstock and goes to work for his fellow right wing Mormon Mitt Romney and pushes his cause on Wiki that is OK, if he says the right things about SV? I mean, what the fuck????

Is that ALL people here care about?

Yes. I give more than $100,000* to Democrats every election cycle, and my conscience is clean.

This is Wikipedia Review, not Running-Dog Capitalism Review or Democracy Review or anything else. Plenty of Wikipedia editors are scumbags and hold reprehensible views, but I am not concerned about any of them, except those who misuse administrative power to perpetuate the underlying myth of Wikipedia, that it is a reliable source of information.

Oh, and if a self-important and self-aggrandizing idiot, even one of a sympathic political stripe, gets trampled in the process, I will shed no tears. You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Gary.

(*) Ironically, only a fraction of what I made shorting OSTK from $70 down to $30. Isn't life strange?

This post has been edited by gomi: Tue 6th March 2007, 1:02am

[Dudley]

I thought that might bring you out of hiding, Gary Dudley! Welcome back!

I'll admit, you have an good point - the folks who administered this forum back in July 2006, for the roughly ten minutes per week they were available to administer it, probably were blinded by their dislike of WP to want to do much of anything at all to stop Wordbomb, much less go to the trouble of denying him the privilege of posting offsite images. However, this so-called "spyware" has now been removed (and to be fair, it could have just been an innocent little .GIF - do you still have a copy?)

You posted earlier that you removed his software bugs. Don't pretend now that they are innocent GIFS. He spied on this site. Why don't you kick him off?

Why not read the links that I gave before making any more ignorant comments.

P.S. If I was Gary/Mantanmoreland I'd have been here gloating like hell on this site when this was everywhere on the Internet except this site. But you seem to swallow everything this corporate con artist says, so I don;t expect rational stuff like that to matter to you.

[Somey]

He planted spyware on this (wikipediareview.com) website?

"Spyware" is an exaggeration. All members here are allowed to include offsite images in postings - maybe we should restrict that, but we'll decide that later - but the fact is, any offsite image can be used to obtain the IP address of anyone who requests the page, and since that request includes the page referrer and (obviously) the name of the image, someone looking for a particular IP address could cross-reference their server's traffic reports to see if a particular IP had requested that image. This is hardly "spyware," nor is it technically illegal, though it certainly "isn't very nice" if used for that purpose.

In this case, Mr. Weiss is accusing Mr. Bagley of using a (now-deleted) image from his site to determine if another IP known to belong to Weiss had visited this site - at the time, Weiss had not indicated any knowledge of our existence. Since then, User:Mantanmoreland's behavior alone has confirmed that he's Weiss - frankly, nobody else on the entire planet shares this particular obsession to bash away at Patrick Byrne and Overstock.com at all costs, no matter who gets hurt in the process - so "tracking" him here should hardly have been necessary.

[Dudley]

He planted spyware on this ...

In this case, Mr. Weiss is accusing Mr. Bagley of using a (now-deleted) image from his site to determine if another IP known to belong to Weiss had visited this site - at the time, Weiss had not indicated any knowledge of our existence. Since then, User:Mantanmoreland's behavior alone has confirmed that he's Weiss - frankly, nobody else on the entire planet shares this particular obsession to bash away at Patrick Byrne and Overstock.com at all costs, no matter who gets hurt in the process - so "tracking" him here should hardly have been necessary.

I just wanted to focus on the last paragraph and make this observation: Are you serious?

Do you have any idea how controversial Patrick Byrne and Overstock are?

Do you know that he has promoted an idea called the "65% solution" that would shortchange our educational system and has been rejected by state after state?

Do you know that he has blamed a Star Wars character for his company's troubles?

Did you know that his company is practically bankrupt?

Did you read the New York Post article I quoted? Do you think it is OK for Bagley to stalk people on message boards who criticize his boss?

For you to say that "only Weiss" finds Patrick Byrne loathsome is staggering. Just because he comes on this board and strokes you does not make him a good person.

What you say about images is just flat wrong. There is nothing in an image that will provide the identity of a user unless a specific code is placed in it. For you to track users to this site is one thing, for him to find out who is reading his posts is actually screwing YOUR SITE as well as violating your users privacy.