Help needed, please use your researching skills..., JzG and others' historical statements on Wordbomb's claims Options

[Kato]

Following this post by Piperdown...

GWH and JzG's are treasures of Wikipedia Review. You guys should put these two into a WR Hall of Fame. Complete with a long list, including GWH's wikien-l diamonds, of their best work. By best work I mean the many ways they can declare the sky green. It's endlessly entertaining, and should keep W-R in high traffic-cotton for years to come.

Now that Wordbomb's long standing claims have been proved correct beyond reasonable doubt, I think it would be a good thing to review the many statements by JzG and others which ridiculed these claims month after month. They are all over the place going back a long time. Here's one from last week :

[Bagley] is an obsessive troll. And I thought we'd learned our lesson about "sleuthing" established editors. It's got nothign to do with that other site you're involved in, other than as the venue for Bagley publishing his possibly fraudulent evidence. I don't know why anyone would give him the time of day, he's so obviously off in laa-laa land on this subject.

and another...

Bagley is a known net.kook and absolutely not above forgery, the "evidence" he presents off-wiki is questionable not just because he is a vicious agenda-driven troll but also because the times have been called into question. In the absence of hard evidence, or indeed of evidence of an actual problem with the edits made by either account, I am strongly inclined to point Bagley in the direction of the colloquial version of Genesis 1:28 and leave it at that.

Here's one from December about the Register article on Judd Bagley:

Both the Register pieces are clearly polemical, the followup parrots Bagley's lunacy completely uncritically

[Kato]

Phil Sandifer here... (please read this article in InformationWeek, which came out two weeks before Sandifer's post, to dispell any lingering thoughts that these Wikipedians have a clue what they are talking about)

it is important to note that Overstock is a money-losing company with a staggering record of despicable actions on the part of its management. These are basic and well-cited facts of the sort that you describe. My wording was strong, but we're making the same point - we are not to be held accountable for Overstock's generation of a long legacy of incriminating facts.

[Castle Rock]

Yes, and that was after he posted this while frothing at the mouth:

Well, the problem is that Overstock is an unprofitable business run by a lunatic who rants about sith lords, with a sociopathic executive who infects his critics with spyware. All of which is well-documented. The alternate position suggested - that Overstock is full of flowers and puppy dogs - is supported by very little in the way of reliable sources. Perhaps if the company were to start turning a profit and were to stop being run by the criminally insane this would change, but until that turn of events there's relatively little to be done on our end. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

That drew a rather bizarre rebuke from Jimmy Wales:

Phil, nonetheless, those comments were inappropriate for Wikipedia, even on a talk page. It strikes me as unlikely to be helpful in terms of creating a calm and loving environment for good editors seeking to create a high quality and neutral article, to engage in that kind of rhetoric. We are not here to condemn Overstock, nor to praise them. The right attitude for a Wikipedian is to leave the emotion at the door, or perhaps to disengage from editing on a topic which causes excessive emotion. We do not hate Overstock. We do not love Overstock. We are indifferent to all but the simple basic facts, delivered in a dispassionate neutral manner.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Their position was far from indifferent though.

[WordBomb]

As long as Phil Sandifer's jerk status is the topic, here's something that still kills me:

When the first Register article came out, Phil offered up this unusually slow, low and outside pitch on Slashdot:

Users of social network talk outside of network, discuss network. News at 11.

I did the right thing by responding:

That might be the case if only Wikipedia were a social network. According to WP:NOT#SOCIALNET/ "Wikipedia is not a blog, webspace provider, social networking, or memorial site."

Instead, Wikipedia is the modern day library at Alexandria, or so they'd have us believe. However, to be included in this library, you need to know the secret clubhouse handshake and sign various loyalty oaths. And never, ever, disagree with the head librarian.

I though that was that. But no...

Rightfully ashamed, Sandifer immediately went to the article on Overstock.com to add a rather gratuitous and negative reference to me (which remains in place to this day).

This is as clear a case of using Wikipedia as a weapon as I've seen.