Printable Version of Topic

Click here to view this topic in its original format

_ Editors _ Snowspinner muses about stalking and murder

Posted by: orthogonal

QUOTE
I have mastered the art of surveillance. For the past four years I have meticulously watched the same woman through my telescope. I know every bra and pair of panties that she owns. I can describe, to the millimeter, the location of every blemish on her body. I have also learned endurance - I went the entirety of last March without touching myself as I watched her.

. . . .

In desperate situations, I have learned that I can kill another man. A month ago I went out and found a homeless man. I lured him to the railroad tracks and garroted him. The police have yet to name a suspect. I am confident that they never will. The experience was exhilarating, but not so exhilarating that I would consider myself a psychopath. I am confident I can keep my random murders down to one a month with minimal effort.


http://pulpdecameron.livejournal.com/4282.html

I'm sure Fat Phil will explain he was just jerking around, not revealing his unsavory self.

(Of course, he'll explain that his plea to "give jackbooted fascism a chance" on his user page is just a harmless joke too.)

Posted by: everyking

He's quite strange. Very misanthropic.

Posted by: Selina

More like schizophrenic...

Posted by: blissyu2

Yes, back in late 2004. He also mentions that he can speak Klingon, and it was regarded by commentors as a joke.

I think we are taking this too seriously.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Tue 9th May 2006, 12:40pm) *

He also mentions that he can speak Klingon, and it was regarded by commentors as a joke.


Snowspinner may be the real-life model for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Book_Guy

Posted by: Daniel Brandt

Yes, Sandifer appears to be an English Ph.D. student at the University of Florida. One of his papers there:

QUOTE
"Duh: An Epistemology of Stupidity" Presented at the 2005 EGO Conference at the University of Florida.
Abstract: This presentation will deal with a practical downside of open knowledge projects based around the ideal that "anyone can contribute," namely the fact that "anyone" can and will include a substantial number of idiots. The question, then, is what one does with idiotic contributions, to say nothing of what one does with idiots in the social communities that inevitably surround such projects. How does one maintain quality of content while still allowing people who are detrimental to the quality of the content to contribute? Does one sacrifice quality? Openness? Does one have to sacrifice at all? I will address the problem through the example of Wikipedia, a user- created encyclopedia that anybody can edit and write articles for with ease. Based on case studies and discussions with users of the project, I will offer a picture of how one open project deals with idiocy. From these case studies, I will offer several possible models of how one can establish a working relationship between the demands of knowledge and the demands of openness, and try to offer a new perspective on both open projects and on terminal stupidity.

One of his lines on his Wikipedia user page:

QUOTE
"Deficiency in judgment is that which is ordinarily known as stupidity, and for such a failing there is no remedy." - Immanuel Kant


Posted by: Selina

Lol, superiority complex much...

Posted by: everyking

"Terminal stupidity"...he's so obnoxious and egotistical he almost seems like a caricature. I remember him bragging about what a good arb he'd be based on the "bullshit detector" he'd developed from working with his students. What a guy.

Posted by: Daniel Brandt

QUOTE(everyking @ Tue 9th May 2006, 11:49pm) *

That's great. Thanks to Hushthis for finding that. "Terminal stupidity"...he's so obnoxious and egotistical he almost seems like a caricature. I remember him bragging about what a good arb he'd be based on the "bullshit detector" he'd developed from working with his students. What a guy. Someone should start sending copies of his WP cyber-bullying antics to other members of the faculty/administration there.

If I know anything about how grad school works, it wouldn't take much to put him in a position where he either decides to leave Wikipedia or decides that he doesn't need a Ph.D. after all.

Posted by: blissyu2

Its a pity really. Snowspinner's views on Expert Users are a good thing, or at least close to what I would suggest. Wikipedia needs to move away from the culture of ignorance and to respect people who actually know what they are talking about. Sure, we can all edit on things that we know nothing about, but if there is an expert about, or even someone who knows what they are talking about more than us, then they should be given preference.

But for Snowspinner to extend that to referring to people by the archaic notion that some people are superior to others is just stupid. IQ tests were popular in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's but have long since been superceded by more accurate models, such as Gardener's Multiple Intelligences and the related EQ tests, as well as derivatives. The current normal belief is that we are all overall equal, but that we each are good at some things and bad at others. This of course is not only scientifically a better way of looking at things, but its also a nicer way to go and coincides with most religious beliefs.

So why is Snowspinner stuck 50 years ago? Because he's an idiot? Or at least, this isn't his field of expertise. Who is the joker that gave let him be a PhD student on it?

Posted by: orthogonal

Let me just say that I don't think "outing" Fat Phil as Snowspinner would be the right thing to do. Let's not stoop to his level.

Posted by: Donny

QUOTE(orthogonal @ Wed 10th May 2006, 7:13pm) *

Let me just say that I don't think "outing" Fat Phil as Snowspinner would be the right thing to do. Let's not stoop to his level.

The user formerly known as Snowspinner now edits Wikipedia under the username "Phil Sandifer", and the user page of Snowspinner is a redirect to the user page of Phil Sandifer, so this doesn't really count as "outing".

Posted by: sgrayban

Anyone that writes stuff like this has some serious mental issues hidden very deep... and should be watched

Posted by: God of War

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Fri 19th May 2006, 11:07pm) *

Anyone that writes stuff like this has some serious mental issues hidden very deep... and should be watched


It doesn't matter if he is being serious or not. As it is written, without any disclaimers, this page constitutes "terroristic threats" (has nothing to do with terrorism). This is Illegal. People can and DO get arrested for stuff like this.

Posted by: sgrayban

Which still means he has alot of mental problems when they write this shit. If they enjoy writing it the way he did then there is a real threat that is waiting to be unleashed at some point.

Posted by: everyking

To be fair to Phil, his blog is clearly intended for literary/artistic purposes and I'm sure a claim that it's "terroristic" wouldn't be taken seriously for a second. I will grant that it could be something of an insight into his mind that he would write that kind of thing, but I don't need his weird musings to tell me there's something wrong with his head; I've been pretty sure of that for a good while now.

Posted by: sgrayban

I'm not ignorant...... I was just a shocked as the Uni was and the police.

Posted by: blissyu2

I am not sure if I trust Snowspinner's 2 latest Live Journal entries. I mean, is he allowed to report on something like that in such explicit detail in public? I am not sure if that is permitted. He even mentioned their names which surely is a breach of privacy. Something tells me that we are being set up over this, and that those two entries are fakes.

Of course, if it is true, then it raises another question. Was it right for him to be investigated over such a thing? I mean, lots of people talk about killing someone (teachers, especially high school teachers tend to be the main fall guy, but also parents, siblings, and step parents are high up there) but how many people do it? It must be like 1,000 to 1 for every person that thinks of killing someone compared to every person that did it. And even if we write it down, so what? Does it really mean that you are going to do it? Is it really worth an investigation?

We can say that its "just to make sure" but unless someone actually died, or there was some more explicit source of it, why are we worrying about it? It is the kind of thing that should be used as evidence if someone dies, but without something definite surrounding it, its just a wild guess.

But then, should he then get praise over being "wrongly investigated"? Absolutely not. Next he'll be saying that he is the poor innocent guy that was harassed. Bullshit. He was the stupid idiot that wrote such a thing and then kept it up there when it was like that. I suppose next he'll say that he's been libelled on here and that he is the victim.

I'd rather see us go after Snowspinner for his crimes on Wikipedia, not clutch at straws on something like Live Journal, where we don't know him very well. We are better off when we are experts on a topic, not novices.

And now perhaps we've made things worse.

Posted by: sgrayban

But actions, including history of the person, and state of mind are accountable. Any court of law will agree with that also.

Posted by: orthogonal

Dear god.

Had I know this would get so out of hand, I'd never have posted a link to Snowy's story here.

Don't misunderstand me: I find Snowspinner an unsavory young bully, far to fond of throwing his weight around on Wikipedia, and perhaps capable of overly enjoying writing fiction about victimizing homeless people.

But the operative word is fiction.

Informing the police and his university about Snowy's screwy slash fiction, suggesting it's criminal evidence, goes too far. As I've said before, there's no good in sinking to Snowy's level.

Snowy's an online poseur, a big man when he's behind his keyboard. He's no real-life murderer.


Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 20th May 2006, 7:03pm) *


Collectively they have far more first-hand expereince with real-life murders than any of us.


I don't know - you seem to fashion yourself quite the criminal profiler.

QUOTE(orthogonal @ Sat 20th May 2006, 6:47pm) *

Dear god.

Had I know this would get so out of hand, I'd never have posted a link to Snowy's story here.

Don't misunderstand me: I find Snowspinner an unsavory young bully, far to fond of throwing his weight around on Wikipedia, and perhaps capable of overly enjoying writing fiction about victimizing homeless people.

But the operative word is fiction.

Informing the police and his university about Snowy's screwy slash fiction, suggesting it's criminal evidence, goes too far. As I've said before, there's no good in sinking to Snowy's level.

Snowy's an online poseur, a big man when he's behind his keyboard. He's no real-life murderer.


Creepy as I find your still caring enough about me to be on this thread, thank you.

QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Sat 20th May 2006, 3:24pm) *

I am not sure if I trust Snowspinner's 2 latest Live Journal entries. I mean, is he allowed to report on something like that in such explicit detail in public? I am not sure if that is permitted. He even mentioned their names which surely is a breach of privacy. Something tells me that we are being set up over this, and that those two entries are fakes.


Why wouldn't I be? One is generally assumed to be allowed to report upon and talk about one's activities and conversations.

QUOTE

But then, should he then get praise over being "wrongly investigated"? Absolutely not. Next he'll be saying that he is the poor innocent guy that was harassed. Bullshit. He was the stupid idiot that wrote such a thing and then kept it up there when it was like that. I suppose next he'll say that he's been libelled on here and that he is the victim.


I don't particularly see how being the passive object of a stupid police investigation is worthy of praise.

As for writing such a thing, come off it. Of all the idiotic accusations I've seen made against me on this board, the idea that writing a story featuring a mentally disturbed protagonist means that I myself am mentally disturbed is by far the most idiotic.

QUOTE

I'd rather see us go after Snowspinner for his crimes on Wikipedia, not clutch at straws on something like Live Journal, where we don't know him very well. We are better off when we are experts on a topic, not novices.

And now perhaps we've made things worse.


Well, you've certainly drawn attention to my journal, and given me a hell of a story to tell at parties.

Oh, and hey everyone. Like the color scheme you've got on the board here.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 20th May 2006, 7:32pm) *

Four questions for you, Snow:

1. Have you ever killed anybody?


According to the police, apparently that's inconclusive.

But no, I haven't.

As for the rest of your questions, having spent a good chunk of the last week defending my right to privacy, it seems silly to fritter that right by answering questions here.

Though actually, I'm tempted to open another Q&A thread...

Posted by: kotepho

I can't decide which part of this is funnier, but since it is better if snowy is telling the truth I'll just go with it.
1) Someone cares enough to actually report this
2) People calling Phil's wikipedia actions crimes
3) Phil letting the police into his apartment, and then complaining when they see things and not having a witness.
4) Phil then complaining that they are lying, oh toes!
5) Phil thinking anyone would give a shit even if this was reported by someone he wronged on Wikipedia
6) The blogosphere reaction of FIGHT THE MAN!!!! FIRST AMENDMENT!!!!
7) The bit about comma usage
I can't decide which is the best. =(

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 20th May 2006, 8:09pm) *


It is important that you establish that as a stance. If there are remaining doubts, mature comments acknowledging a community's need to protect its vulnerable members could be useful. If you don't want your fingerprints and DNA on record, that's your prerogative, but you might at a minimum try to consider the police interests in the matter from a neutral point of view. You might at least acknowledge the professionalism of people who knock on your door seeking to eliminate you from their list of potential suspects.


Being on a list of potential suspects would imply, you know, an actual crime - something they did not have.

QUOTE

The easiest way to avoid frittering away a right to privacy is to not "push the envelope" with ambiguous tomes that cause concern among your neighbors who might have unsolved murders on their duty roster. It was you who took us on a non-fiction literary tour of your inner sanctum, pointing out multiple discarded prescription medication containers scattered about. To me, that doesn't suggest a person seeking privacy, but rather a person revealing personal details in a way that could lead to personal insights as a result of group interaction.


I think we have very different conceptions of the right to privacy. I consider it to be the right to choose what I reveal and where. I will reveal that there were, on May 16, 2006, several empty prescription medication containers on my desk. I will not reveal what they had once contained.

QUOTE

The right to privacy does not preclude public interaction. If you were suffering a mental ailment, along with secondary symptoms related to stigma and you are also finding yourself a target of criticism for your administrative interactions, an understanding of your situation could lead to suggestions for improving an administrative process so it won't put such a burden on people in your situation. Instead of us pointing at your picture and based on obvious facial excitation saying that you appear manic, we could approach it with a sympathetic understanding that you suffer mania.


Are you diagnosing me as manic based on a single photograph? Because if so, you're the Bill Frist of mental illness.

QUOTE

Filing in these details could also reveal information that could help us help you understand why your need to push the envelope results in inconvenient situatons for yourself or others. That could lead to a better appreciation on your part of your role in communities, especially in those communities where expectations are not always consistent with your preferences.


It could also cause me to change into an invisible pink unicorn. We shall, however, never know, since I do not intend to fill in these details.

QUOTE(kotepho @ Sat 20th May 2006, 8:58pm) *

I can't decide which part of this is funnier, but since it is better if snowy is telling the truth I'll just go with it.
1) Someone cares enough to actually report this
2) People calling Phil's wikipedia actions crimes
3) Phil letting the police into his apartment, and then complaining when they see things and not having a witness.
4) Phil then complaining that they are lying, oh toes!
5) Phil thinking anyone would give a shit even if this was reported by someone he wronged on Wikipedia
6) The blogosphere reaction of FIGHT THE MAN!!!! FIRST AMENDMENT!!!!
7) The bit about comma usage
I can't decide which is the best. =(


7. Definitely 7.

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 20th May 2006, 9:08pm) *

I'll go with number seven -- he's a grad student in English and still can't satisfy his academic advisor on the simple matter of comma usage.


Not my advisor, to be clear. Director of writing programs, and general administrator of the TAs in the department.

QUOTE

Then, it wasn't written for class. If Sandifer's account is accurate, it's more like sad the English prof didn't have any concerns about ethics in fictional publication.


Good to know your knowledge of professional ethics in my field is as strong as your understanding of the DSM-IV criteria for mental illnesses.

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 20th May 2006, 9:08pm) *


Number two would be funny but it's off target. The only person who mentioned a crime was Sandifer -- as far as I know. It was his writing outside of Wikipedia, "pushing the envelope" in his blog entries, that created uncertainty among police over whether there was a crime committed or not.


Actually, one of y'all described my actions as crimes in a reply on Pulp Decameron.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 20th May 2006, 9:42pm) *



If there were a list of suspects, that would imply an actual crime. In your case, it doesn't seem you were on a list, but instead you published information that led law enforcement officers to investigate reasonable suspicion that arose from your publication. There is no question that there are unsolved crimes and missing persons that might lead police to exercise their right to free speech by knocking on your door and asking you if you meant it when you said you killed somebody.


I don't think their right to free speech is the most important thing protecting their right to knock on my door and ask questions.

QUOTE

Quite obviously. I consider the right to remain regardless how you choose to comprimise your privacy by referring to the untidy condition of your medical supplies. Asking you in no way violates your right because a.) you voluntarily identified yourself b.) you voluntarily provided information that inspired further questions and c.) you suggested you might answer more questions.


Of course asking doesn't violate the right. My not answering, however, exercises the right.

QUOTE

No, I am saying the fixated muscular excitation and red tint of blood coursing rapidly through facial epedermis evident in one image creates an appearance of prolonged excitation not related to an apparent context, which is consistent with manic conditions. Questioning an appearance is far different than offering a diagnosis, but you know that. Your avoidance of the question raises yet more questions, with no conclusive answers.


That did not make your case seem stronger.


QUOTE

Instead, you fill in more information suggesting a tendency to use surreal jest as an avoidance tactic.


Dude. I use surreal jest for just about anything. It's kinda like duct tape.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 20th May 2006, 10:00pm) *

Without a warrant, and without your permission to remain on your property, why did they leave when you rescinded your invitation? Your right to privacy and to protection against unwarranted search and seizure overrode their right to approach you and ask questions. They have other rights they can broker to retain a person of interest in a criminal investigation, but it seems by your account they relied on their basic right to speak. Fair enough that the First Amendment is styled as a protection against prior restraint by a government, but it still cuts both ways in affirming that private persons and public officials alike have basic right to engage in voluntary conversation.


True, if wholly uninteresting.

QUOTE

I'm not making a case. I'm asking questions.


And I'm Xenu the Space Conquerer.

QUOTE

Sometimes as we mature, we integrate aspects of our personality so we don't need so much duct tape. In this situaton, that could mean integrating the part of you that likes to let loose in his blog posts with the part of you that is glad there are people to keep killers off the street. You are glad somebody keeps killers off the street aren't you?


"Let loose?" Which post am I letting loose in?

Posted by: sgrayban

This is funny.... Now where are my wiki power tools....... LOL

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 20th May 2006, 10:52pm) *


The one your academic advisor characterizes as "pushing the envelope" that resulted in police visiting you at your home.


How is that story "letting loose?"

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 20th May 2006, 11:01pm) *


"letting loose" is used as a rough idiomatic synonym here for "pushing the envelope"


Interesting idiom.

QUOTE

I can ask related questions about your perceptions of the context in which that post would publish, but first, the question on the table is:

QUOTE( @ Sun 21st May 2006, 2:14am)


You are glad somebody keeps killers off the street aren't you?



I dunno, I feel like answering that would be anti-climactic after all this.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 20th May 2006, 11:07pm) *

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Sun 21st May 2006, 3:04am) *

I dunno, I feel like answering that would be anti-climactic after all this.


I feel like you avoiding an answer reveals conflicted emotions. Don't make me take it to the thread where your honor is on the line with a promise to answer...


Don't be silly. It's a loaded question with only one possible answer. You want me to give the answer so you can make a reply that starts with some form of "Then why do you..."

I see no particular reason to do this.

Posted by: blissyu2

Oh, by the way, I wrote to Snowspinner to warn him. I probably wrote a bit much on there, but hey. I thought he should know about this.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Sat 20th May 2006, 11:12pm) *

Oh, by the way, I wrote to Snowspinner to warn him. I probably wrote a bit much on there, but hey. I thought he should know about this.


I already knew, actually.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 20th May 2006, 11:25pm) *

That is what I am doing with this line of questioning -- attempting to discern whether your blanket "Thank you" to everyone involved in revealing the controversial blog post was genuine or more surreal jest brand duct tape.


I take kind of a broadly spiritual approach towards duct tape. Everything is duct tape. Nothing is duct tape. There is no spoon.

QUOTE

Do you appreciate the efforts of police to capture murderers, even though their work may sometimes be inconvenient for you?


I don't feel as though the question can be usefully answered in the general case.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 20th May 2006, 11:36pm) *



I can't find much other way to appreciate that except as indifference toward the work of police.


I do not appreciate every action that has been taken in the name of getting murderers of the street. I also do not condemn every action that has been taken in the name of getting murderers off the street. Therefore, the general case is pretty uninteresting.

QUOTE

If I posed the same question about wikipedia administrators, could you answer it in the general case? Do you appreciate the work of wikipedia administrators in stopping damage to the Wikipedia project, even though that work can sometimes be inconvenient?


I pretty much feel similarly.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 20th May 2006, 11:50pm) *

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Sun 21st May 2006, 3:39am) *

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 20th May 2006, 11:36pm) *



I can't find much other way to appreciate that except as indifference toward the work of police.


I do not appreciate every action that has been taken in the name of getting murderers of the street. I also do not condemn every action that has been taken in the name of getting murderers off the street. Therefore, the general case is pretty uninteresting.


Again, I'm not exploring your interest, which you represent as a global interest. I am exploring my interest in your appreciation of police work related to major crimes against persons. Let me try it again, another way. Would you prefer a system where, if a family member was murdered, your only option would be to hire a private investigator? Or are you generally supportive of the fact that we have publicly supervised police trained and ready to investigate homicides?


I am generally supportive.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sun 21st May 2006, 2:06am) *


Q. Was it your intent, posting it on a page where nothing else implied fictional context, to flaunt the line that defines the rituals surrounding our suspension of disbelief?


I did not post it on a page where nothing else implied fictional context.

QUOTE

Q. Or was that an inadvertant result of the way live journal publishes posts -- did it just show up on its own page away from any other fictional posts and you never considered it might not be understood as clearly fictional?


Neither - every LJ post can be accessed as an individual, out of context page, but this is not the way that it would normally be encountered. The issue is probably this blog post: http://www.websnark.com/archives/2004/12/he_calls_it_mic.html which links directly to that story. Though if you actually followed that link, you'd notice that it is prominantly described as fiction there too.

QUOTE

Now, I know I'm piling on questions:

Q. Whether it inadvertantly or intentionally masked the line between fiction and reality, how does your appraisal of some people as "stupid" influence your view of the balance of responsibility between writer and author?


This question does not make sense.

QUOTE

Q. Would you say any person or particularly, getting back to our friends in blue, a cop who was not absolutely certain of the fictional nature of the tome was "stupid" for not immediately recognizing your intentions?


No. I do, however, question the sense of continuing an investigation after the fictional nature of the piece has been pointed out to you. More specifically, I do not believe that self-professedly fictional writing would ever constitute reasonable suspicion on its own.

Posted by: Daniel Brandt

Let's explore who is being "stupid" in this whole case. We're in a political climate where a patron of a public library notices a penciled-in quote from Osama Bin Laden in the margins of some book, and shows it to the librarian, and the FBI is called in and eagerly grabs the records of everyone who recently borrowed that book.

In other cases, librarians have acted more professionally. The FBI serves them with a national security letter (no judge's signature required), and under Patriot Act One they were required to cough up borrowing records. If the librarian told anyone the FBI had been there and done this, it's a felony. (Patriot Act Two has modified this, after much lobbying from the American Library Association, so that librarians have slightly more protection now.)

Now we have Snowspinner. I think everyone acted reasonably in this case. The original complainer may have been sincerely worried, and it is their right to notify the proper authorities. The UF president took it seriously on its face, and properly referred it to the campus cops. The cops followed up and behaved reasonably. Snowspinner properly insisted, to an extent, on his right to remain silent and refuse fingerprinting.

What was unreasonable? Surely something was unreasonable, because a lot of people got activated in a situation where Snowspinner says it was all silly and unnecessary.

Let's look at two hypothetical situations where we have a crowded theater. Someone gets up and shouts, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to yell 'Fire!' as loud as I can. Please do not get alarmed. This is only a test. I'm trying to see how far my voice carries."

In the second situation, the person gets up and just yells "Fire!"

What's the difference? In the first situation we have a meaningful disclaimer. In the second situation the perpetrator is properly hauled off to jail because when people stampede out of a crowded theater someone can get hurt. One is free speech, and the other is a crime.

It is clear to me that Snowspinner should have included a fairly elaborate disclaimer on his blog post. He should have explained that he is a grad student and is exploring creative writing, and assuming the role of an unbalanced and dangerous protagonist in a purely fictional presentation. This disclaimer should have been on top, in a typeface that is larger than the rest of it. Better yet, don't even publish the damn thing on the web. Keep it in a drawer until it's time to show it to your professor if you're looking for constructive criticism. Or email it to your friends. Don't publish the thing on the web. Cops are cruising Myspace looking for child porn leads, and you think your blog is off-limits?

It was stupid to do what you did. I think this stupidity came from the rush you've acquired from being an admin on Wikipedia. You owe your English Department, and the president of UF, an apology for doing something stupid.

By the way, Snowspinner, as someone who has had some experience in these situations from the COINTELPRO days of the 1960s, let me give you some advice. If the next time you decide to be stupid you find the FBI knocking on your door instead of mere campus cops, you should do this: Politely ask them what it's about, and then politely confirm that they are not there to arrest you, and that they have no warrant to search, and politely say that you refuse to talk to them. You see, it's a felony for you to lie to the FBI, but it's okay for the FBI to lie to you and trick you. And they are damn good at it -- they do interviews all day long.

They might present you with a waiver form, and ask you to sign it, and you refuse, and then they say, "Well, can we talk to you anyway?" Frequently it works, because you think you were smart for refusing to sign. What really transpired is that the FBI was smarter, because if you talk to them anyway, it makes zero difference that you refused to sign. This happened to me. In my draft trial, we introduced this issue. The judge would have none of it. He said, "You're a college graduate, and you shouldn't have been so stupid."

The bottom line is this: Don't try to pull your Wikipedia tricks in the real world. It's not worth the trouble it will cause you.

Martha Stewart will back me up on this.

Posted by: Lir

More than one rapist/serial killer has kept a blog about it; its really not terribly surprising that the police would come asking about something like that -- its not like they arrested you.

Posted by: blissyu2

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sun 21st May 2006, 1:06pm) *

QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Sun 21st May 2006, 3:12am) *

Oh, by the way, I wrote to Snowspinner to warn him. I probably wrote a bit much on there, but hey. I thought he should know about this.



I appreciate your outreach work, blissy. It speaks well of you that you started this forum but didn't assume a role where you have any technical authority, prefering instead to accomplish your goals by setting tone, carefully considering contrary views and genuinely trying to expand the scope of dialogue by advising people of the conversation.


Actually, I didn't start this forum. Igor Alexander did. I didn't even have the idea for a paid for version. I am pretty sure that was Lir's idea. I may have had the idea for the name, but that was fairly obvious. I just paid for the domain name. Selina set up the forum, and did most of the work, and deserves more credit than me. Thanks for the thanks though smile.gif. I like to think of this more as a group effort. I won't pay the fees next year, and I hope that someone, or a group of people, will treasure the forum enough to put their hands up to put up the money. I hope so at least. I certainly don't think that something like this should be seen as the work of one person. It is a group effort.

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sun 21st May 2006, 5:00pm) *

http://pulpdecameron.livejournal.com/4282.html, linked from the first post in this thread as I previously cited, where there is no evidence that this is a fictional message. Can you tell us where on this page there is evidence it is fiction? Alternately, did you not realize it had published in this context with no message indicating it was fiction?

I hope it's not bad form for a random person not previously involved in the conversation to answer this one. (I came across this thread via BoingBoing this morning.)

These are the markers I took as evidence of fictionality when I read the livejournal page you link to:

* The final line: "My resume is attached." No resume is attached.
* The copyright and creative commons notices.
* Clicking on the http://pulpdecameron.livejournal.com/profile and http://pulpdecameron.livejournal.com/ links, both of which are obvious if you're familiar with the livejournal interface, but perhaps less obvious if you're not familiar with it. On the user profile page, it's made pretty clear that the posts are works of fiction:
QUOTE

Pulp Decameron is a microfiction writing project. The intent is to create 100 microfictions that play off of ten classical pulp genres ranging from Westerns to Sci-Fi.


If you'll excuse a bad analogy, it's my opinion that confusing that livejournal post for nonfiction is like coming across a copy of American Psycho with the cover and first few pages torn out on the street, and treating that as nonfiction. I should try tearing the cover and copyright notice out of a copy of that book and leaving it somewhere. I wonder how long it would be before the police were called to investigate Bret Easton Ellis?

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(hades @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 10:03am) *

These are the markers I took as evidence of fictionality when I read the livejournal page you link to:

And, uh, I forgot to mention the most obvious one: the name "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulp_magazine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decameron".

Posted by: sudont

QUOTE
"Duh: An Epistemology of Stupidity" Presented at the 2005 EGO Conference at the University of Florida.
Abstract: This presentation will deal with a practical downside of open knowledge projects based around the ideal that "anyone can contribute," namely the fact that "anyone" can and will include a substantial number of idiots. The question, then, is what one does with idiotic contributions, to say nothing of what one does with idiots in the social communities that inevitably surround such projects. How does one maintain quality of content while still allowing people who are detrimental to the quality of the content to contribute? Does one sacrifice quality? Openness? Does one have to sacrifice at all? I will address the problem through the example of Wikipedia, a user- created encyclopedia that anybody can edit and write articles for with ease. Based on case studies and discussions with users of the project, I will offer a picture of how one open project deals with idiocy. From these case studies, I will offer several possible models of how one can establish a working relationship between the demands of knowledge and the demands of openness, and try to offer a new perspective on both open projects and on terminal stupidity.


Well, he's certainly got most of you folks nailed.

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 12:49pm) *

QUOTE(sudont @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 7:36pm) *


Well, he's certainly got most of you folks nailed.



Right -- the way to manage open source publication is to insult people you don't want to contribute, then cry "no personal attacks" at the top of your lungs to cover up who is insulting who.


50 bucks says that sudont will be a WP admin within a month for his comment.....

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 1:21pm) *

Apparently several media interests and some seasoned police investigators were not sufficiently familiar with the interface to appreciate the meaning you derive from that context.

Are you including Cory Doctorow as one of the media interests you reference? He's the "UK journalist" mentioned in connection with this, and it's pretty clear that he understood the piece to be a work of fiction.
QUOTE

Who would guess that of several dozen links on the page, information two links away from one of those links -- a link that said nothing about where it led -- would favorably resolve the question of how deep the dissosiative character depicted on the page in question infiltrates in the mind of a living person.

First of all, the user info page wherein the scope of the fiction project is laid out is linked directly from each individual post, not "two links away". I agree that the link is not obvious. But if your browser displays the target of a link when you mouse over it, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that someone with a modicum of curiosity about whether the page they are reading is fiction or the ramblings of a deranged person might explore a "profile" link to see if there were any clues there.
QUOTE

That he didn't attach his resume isn't meaningful. He's alreay presented as a disorganized mind, so why would one read his work with an expectation that we could determine which part is reliable? Isn't it a good thing that somebody bothers to ask when there is a shadow of a doubt?

You say that he presents as a disorganized mind. I say that he presents as a writer of ultra-compact fiction. It seems that this is a matter of opinion, not objective fact. My first impression of the piece was that it was derivative of something Stephen King wrote in one of his short story collections, but I didn't mention it in my first post because I can't think of what story that might have been. As for asking when there's doubt, I'm all in favor of that. However, I'm even more in favor of taking five minutes to investigate for yourself before calling the police. After all, the post was written in 2004. It's hardly an emerging threat.
QUOTE

This is the real world of reputable sources Wikipedia is built upon. People check things out in real life -- they don't rely entirely on the internet to determine what is real. Here in the real world, people can, should and do conduct original research.

You mean like going up a directory from a questionable web page to see if there's any explanatory text in the parent page?
QUOTE

What does it tell you that most of the contributors here have pseudonyms? That we are fiction writers?

The pseudonyms here don't tell me anything much. But when I'm reading something that feels like a short story in the pulp fiction style, and the author uses a pseudonym that refers to both pulp and a collection of short stories, I think it's reasonable for my first assumption to be that it's a short story, not a confession of a real-world crime. But then, I'm familiar with The Decameron. If you're not familiar with it, I can see how it wouldn't have influenced your initial assessment of the story.
QUOTE

A single page of a book offers prima facia evidence it is not the work of a disorganized, impulsive homicidal mind.

Next time I see a copy of http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0595094724, I'll have to keep that in mind. I'd already figured the author of that probably wasn't homicidal, but it's good to know he's not disorganized or impulsive, either.

Posted by: Lir

QUOTE(sudont @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 2:36pm) *

Well, he's certainly got most of you folks nailed.

Where is the rest of Snowie's paper? I bet it doesn't live up to the expectations set by the grandiose synposis.

QUOTE(hades @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 4:09pm) *

I say that he presents as a writer of ultra-compact fiction. My first impression of the piece was that it was derivative of something Stephen King wrote

Lol! rolleyes.gif Maybe you can get Snowie's signature if you ask nicely!

Posted by: asymondias

Disclaimer: I too came through a link in a blog to this thread and i admit i am fairly ignorant about the relationship between postes in this thread. Therefore i do not believe i'd have any justification for commenting on them; however, there are some things i want to comment on.

Informing the police that you have reasons to think someone is a criminal is a very important act of civil courage, a quality that has become far to seldom in our society where everyone thinks it is "just easier" to idly watch and do nothing about. However, one should keep in mind that doing so might have very serious consequences for the accused and should never be done lightly and without a reasonable amount of research. This holds doubly true if the accusation is a severe one. Everyone has the right to be treated as an innocent human until being convicted -- even if you are convinced that he is guilty. The job of finding someone guilty is the job of a court of law, everything else is tantamount to lynch law and/or character assassination.

I am sorry, but i for one think in this case it would have been perfectly justified to invest a few minutes to acertain if this was a work of fiction or not. In this case it is not that hard; and even if it was, you'd expect that given the potential severity of it investing 20 minutes before crying "witch" are not a too high demand.

But the most important reason i am posting this is because i believe such course of actions very damaging. I know quite a few who work with law enforcement (you tend to get to know a few of them if you live next to a bridge that is frequently "targeted" by drunk drivers) and many of them are among the most decent people i ever met. Yet, exactly such methods are creating a climate in which the most prudent course to interact with law enforcement personel seems to be a most undesireable one: To, in most cases, politely inform them that you will check with legal counsel before answering any questions and request that they return after that has happened.

@Hushthis: Have you ever tried to ask those questions real persons you do not really good to their face? Most of the people i know wouldn't ... appreciate beeing asked those by a stranger.

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 2:41pm) *
All I know about it is what Sandifer tells us, which apparently is second-hand information shared openly by the public servants he claim "harrassed" him by distracting him from his important internet work to see if he had any information about any homicides. We know the story from him or is friends and aliases. "somebody called from the UK, and there has been media attention. "

So your assertion that "several media interests [...] were not sufficiently familiar with the interface to appreciate the meaning you derive from that context", what's the basis for that?

QUOTE
As far as a reader can tell, pulp decameron likes rough literature, Phil Sandifer wrote some and it's on pulp decameron's web page.

I'm afraid I'm still not making the leap from "Phil Sandifer wrote some [literature]" to "Phil Sandifer confessed to stalking and murder". According to your reasoning, as far as the reader can tell, pulpdecameron is a homicidal maniac who has confessed to a crime and then attempted to frame Phil Sandifer by placing a copyright notice attributing authorship to Phil. But the police were called to investigate Sandifer, not pupldecameron. Hmm.

QUOTE
homicide is forever.

Like I said. It's hardly an emerging threat.

QUOTE
As explained in detail in this post -- going through the links only resolves the question for a person who resolves questions about ambiguity in unrestrained publising venues with absolute trust for the writers in those venues.

You don't seem to have had an issue with resolving the problem of ambiguous authorship by placing absolute trust in information found online. I find it interesting that you were willing to do the research to link the pulpdecameron livejournal page with Sandifer's UFL.edu page, and believed that Sandifer was the author of the piece based on that evidence, but present as questionable the belief that a few paragraphs a reasonable person could conceivably read as fiction published on a livejournal with a profile describing it as a fiction project might actually be fiction.

QUOTE
For the rest of us, I'm somewhat glad there are still people in public service willing to knock on his door and find out

And I'm glad that there are still people who apparently believe that the police don't investigate someone without having a good reason to. In these days of dark-skinned people being aggressively questioned for photographing public buildings while white tourists photograph the same buildings without incident, warrantless wiretaps, and data mining of domestic phone call records, it's refreshing to know that there's still someone out there who isn't worried about whether the country is edging towards a police state.

QUOTE
At this junctiure, Sandifer has still failed to answer, in his main identity, whether he intentionally masked the writing, and whether, if it was inadvertantly posted in a way that might confuse some people, he considers it primarly a fault of stupid people who just don't understand him.

I must have missed the part where it was explained how he owes that to anyone. Certainly if it had been me in his place, and someone who didn't understand how livejournal works had taken a short story of mine as a murder confession, I wouldn't feel responsible for their lack of understanding. But I'm not him, and I don't speak for him.

I don't have any stake in your little Wikipedia turf battle. As an outside observer, here's how this whole thing looks to me: in an attempt to retaliate against Sandifer for some online offense, someone here dug up something he wrote which could--given certain mental contortions--be interpreted as a confession of a crime, and passed that information, devoid of context, along to the authorities. You were never really worried that Sandifer had killed someone. You just wanted to get him in trouble for having been on the other side of the battle for control of Wikipedia. All this retroactive justification is just a smokescreen to cover your motivations.

That's how it looks to me. Am I that far off?

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 4:05pm) *
We can only speculate whether police had any information other than the same message that was reposted to this thread. The timing by Phils account almost definately suggest the police interest was in some way releated, but we don't know how that so-called microfiction was circulated in the weeks before it appeared here.

Are you suggesting that the police came across the short story on their own, and on the strength of their investigation decided to lean on Phil for fingerprints and DNA samples? Because it seems a lot more likely to me that someone from this board took to heart Daniel Brandt's suggestion that "http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=1116&view=findpost&p=6135".

I'm not trying to suggest that once the police had a possible lead on an unsolved murder, they shouldn't have followed up on it. I'm saying that if someone from this board reported the short story to the police, that person failed to exercise the minimal initiative required to determine that the short story was most likely a work of fiction, and not a murder confession. If the report came from here, it was pretty clearly a case of retaliation against Sandifer over Wikipedia control issues, not a legitimate concern that someone had been murdered a few years ago and the killer was still at large. The police shouldn't have had to waste their time with this to begin with. If every online short story which contains a murder were reported to the police, they wouldn't have time to respond to legitimate threats. (That the university police http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/22/u_florida_cops_ask_f.html is a completely separate issue.)

QUOTE
Off by half an orbit of the planet. then some. he posted the information devoid of context. I've more than adequately demonstrated the ambiguity of the context in which he published.

Really? Your motives were entirely pure, and in no way related to Sandifer's involvement with Wikipedia? You had only concern in your heart that someone somewhere had been killed? Please excuse me if I find that difficult to believe.

QUOTE
In typical Wikipedia fashion you are casting police in Florida as "meatpuppets" whose sole motivation was to do the bidding of those out to destroy wikipedia.

And now you're painting me as some Wikipedia Cabal sympathizer, when my sum involvement with Wikipedia is making minor edits to maybe five pages. Until I read this thread, I didn't even know that there was Wikipedia infighting. Which one of us has joined a cult of paranoia, again?

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE
And now you're painting me as some Wikipedia Cabal sympathizer, when my sum involvement with Wikipedia is making minor edits to maybe five pages. Until I read this thread, I didn't even know that there was Wikipedia infighting. Which one of us has joined a cult of paranoia, again?


And your commenting here why then? I see the only reason your here is to get into a fight no matter how you came across this thread.

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 4:59pm) *
And your commenting here why then?

I'm commenting here because I find the whole thing fascinating. I have zero interest in the wikipedia infighting, but I am very much interested in someone getting leaned on by the police for writing short fiction. That the police were almost certainly used as a tool of retaliation against an internet foe adds a certain zing. If Phil had dug up something on one of you guys and set the police on you, I'd have the same reaction. (Which is: WTF?)

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(hades @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 5:12pm) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 4:59pm) *
And your commenting here why then?

I'm commenting here because I find the whole thing fascinating. I have zero interest in the wikipedia infighting, but I am very much interested in someone getting leaned on by the police for writing short fiction. That the police were almost certainly used as a tool of retaliation against an internet foe adds a certain zing. If Phil had dug up something on one of you guys and set the police on you, I'd have the same reaction. (Which is: WTF?)


I think you missed the whole point or at least have not read the whole thread either.

The point was that "Fat Phil" wrote something that was questionable and related that to his role as a admin on WP. How the police were involved really doesn't matter.


Posted by: hades

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 5:30pm) *
The point was that "Fat Phil" wrote something that was questionable and related that to his role as a admin on WP. How the police were involved really doesn't matter.

Oh, so the bit where three days after a short story of his was posted here, the police contacted him regarding that story is irrelevant. The real issue is that he presented a paper on stupidity and used Wikipedia (and, presumably, some of you folks) as a case study. I get it now. His writing shows him to be unfit to be a Wikipedia admin, so getting him investigated for murder is a completely reasonable response. How could I possibly have missed that point?

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(hades @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 5:44pm) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 5:30pm) *
The point was that "Fat Phil" wrote something that was questionable and related that to his role as a admin on WP. How the police were involved really doesn't matter.

Oh, so the bit where three days after a short story of his was posted here, the police contacted him regarding that story is irrelevant. The real issue is that he presented a paper on stupidity and used Wikipedia (and, presumably, some of you folks) as a case study. I get it now. His writing shows him to be unfit to be a Wikipedia admin, so getting him investigated for murder is a completely reasonable response. How could I possibly have missed that point?


His "story" was posted well before it was mentioned here in the first place. So ANYONE that read it could have called. Yet you blame us for it...... I don't get it. You say you aren't here for a fight and don't care to get into a inner-wiki fight but yet you make comments like this.

If I wrote a murder "story" on Live Journal that sounded very real and no matter how many times I said it was fiction I am damn sure someone would be making a call. If I wrote a "story" of fiction that was about a fantasy of pedo rape I AM VERY DAMN SURE that the cop's would be called. If we start a thread here that questions the mental state of ANY admin we are labeled idiots and stupid. How rational..........

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 5:55pm) *

His "story" was posted well before it was mentioned here in the first place. So ANYONE that read it could have called. Yet you blame us for it...... I don't get it.

Do you categorically deny that it could have been someone here who sent that story to the university and/or police, in retaliation for his actions as a Wikipedia admin? I admit that I don't have firsthand knowledge that someone here informed on him. But how can you not get that the timing certainly makes it look like someone here turned him in? He posted that story in December of 2004. Orthogonal reposted it here on May 9, 2006. On May 12, 2006, the police contacted him. You don't find that just a little suspicious?

You're acting as if the only issue here is the wikipedia infighting. But by http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=1116&view=findpost&p=6141 (or maybe just threatening to--I'm open to the possibility that nobody took Hushthis up on his suggestion), you've made this an issue of interest to everyone concerned about civil liberties. It's no longer just about wikipedia and who banned who. It's also about thoughtcrime. People (like me) who don't care about your squabbles are paying attention now, and you're not doing your cause a service by ignoring the real world issues involved here.

I'm curious. An open yes/no question to the regulars here: did you report the short story to the authorities?

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE
Do you categorically deny that it could have been someone here who sent that story to the university and/or police, in retaliation for his actions as a Wikipedia admin? I admit that I don't have firsthand knowledge that someone here informed on him. But how can you not get that the timing certainly makes it look like someone here turned him in? He posted that story in December of 2004. Orthogonal reposted it here on May 9, 2006. On May 12, 2006, the police contacted him. You don't find that just a little suspicious?


Life's a b!tch. Don't post something you aren't ready to defend. And WP admin hold everything they can find against a editor they don't like. That is a fact jack........Just read the RfC's sometime. Admin have pulled some of the oldest shit on the internet and use it with there famous words "IN BAD FAITH". Stop being a Jimbo butt licker here and go troll someplace else.

It constantly amazes me when Jimbo's butt-licking wannabee's and admin start crying when we have serious questions about the mental or legal status of some admin. Shame they don't use that effort to defend the little "editor" guy that has been stalked, harassed and/or abused by those moron's.

If its fair for admin to abuse, harass and/or stalk editors just to defend their ban/block or why they should never be allowed back on WP then anyone else can do the same against any WP admin there too. Since they seem to enjoy playing the power game and pointing fingers they had better be ready for the same because somewhere sometime their dirty secret's will be known and posted.

Stop being babies and take it like a "MAN". How does it feel to be in the other shoe now? Being scrutenized and information fished through the internet to be used as a means to question your authority sucks doesn't it?

Posted by: sgrayban

I couldn't have said it any better Hushthis. Your last paragraph should be saved and framed. smile.gif

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 6:30pm) *
Stop being a Jimbo butt licker here and go troll someplace else.

Well, I have to thank you for that one. My wife is now calling me "toadying jimbo-licker".

Let me see, how can I put this so you'll understand? I don't care about your wikipedia power struggle. Until today, I didn't know or care who "Jimbo" was. I still don't care. If you want to think that I have given even two seconds of thought to who is in the wrong and who is in the right regarding whatever wikipedia injustice has been perpetrated, that's all you.

QUOTE
Since they seem to enjoy playing the power game and pointing fingers they had better be ready for the same because somewhere sometime their dirty secret's will be known and posted.

So... someone here did set the cops on him? I'm confused; I thought you were just saying they might not have.

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 7:25pm) *

Let me put this in very simple terms you might understand. Just because someone is involved with Wikipedia doesn't mean police will let them get away with murder.


There. Did that clear things up?


I thought I had basically said the same thing. Maybe we need to point them to SIMPLE.wikipedia.org for words they don't understand still.


QUOTE
Let me see, how can I put this so you'll understand? I don't care about your wikipedia power struggle. Until today, I didn't know or care who "Jimbo" was. I still don't care. If you want to think that I have given even two seconds of thought to who is in the wrong and who is in the right regarding whatever wikipedia injustice has been perpetrated, that's all you.


How can I say this without to many big words you still seem to not understand..... WTF are you here then? At this rate I'm am seriously thinking you have some mental defect going on there.

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 7:08pm) *
Exactly how do you get from my statement that "The timing by Phils account almost definately suggest the police interest was in some way releated," to your way off base question asking "Are you suggesting that the police came across the short story on their own?"
I don't. I get there from "we don't know how that so-called microfiction was circulated in the weeks before it appeared here."

QUOTE
I am saying, based on what phil said police said, it seems almost certain someone who either saw it here, saw it in circulation shortly before it was placed here, or saw it elsewhere at about the time it was placed here notified police.
...
My motives are what they are. I would have never heard of Sandifer if he had not been involved in Wikipedia, but my view of homicidal narratives presented in an ambiguous environment about his "life, fictional or otherwise" woud be the same.
You haven't answered my question: did you turn him in?


QUOTE
presuming that since I frequent a site critical of a controversial literary project, I am solely motivated by my desire to somehow embarass the project.
Ahh, I see the problem now. I always thought Wikipedia was supposed to be a reference project, not a literary one. If you consider Wikipedia a piece of literature, I can see how you might have misread Phil's short story as an admission of guilt.

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(hades)
You haven't answered my question: did you turn him in?


This seems to imply that Fat Phil is guilty...... Is he?

Posted by: sgrayban

Your gonna make me die laughing here...... smile.gif

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 7:37pm) *
Or maybe we could point out a few posts were Wikipedia Reviewers criticize each other for things like apparent anti-semetism, sexism, being to hard on particular Wikipedia contributors, condoning rape as an angry metaphor and publishing pictures of Sandifer or other Wikedians.

Maybe you could point out where Phil or one of his cronies had one of your gang investigated for tax fraud, or something. I'm all set to get outraged about that, too. But until you can show me an instance of someone in power at Wikipedia doing something to another member which has real-world repercussions--that is, something that affects more than just Wikipedia--I really don't care. It's not that I don't understand that you may have a legitimate beef against Phil in the world of Wikipedia. It's that I just. don't. care.

When someone from here brought the police into the argument (and your continued refusal to answer the direct question of whether it was you leads me to suspect that perhaps it was) it became interesting to people who don't care about wikipedia. That's why I'm still here.

Posted by: sgrayban

Your speaking in BIG words again and Mr. Hades doesn't grasp them well. I think we need to speak in more http://simple.wikipedia.org terms still. Mr. Hades might have a seizure if he tries to understand.

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 7:52pm) *
Your speaking in BIG words again and Mr. Hades doesn't grasp them well.

Dude. If you're going launch an ad hominem attack based on my grasp of the language, at least spell "You're" correctly. It's embarrassing.

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(hades @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 7:49pm) *

Maybe you could point out where Phil or one of his cronies had one of your gang investigated for tax fraud, or something. I'm all set to get outraged about that, too. But until you can show me an instance of someone in power at Wikipedia doing something to another member which has real-world repercussions--that is, something that affects more than just Wikipedia--I really don't care. It's not that I don't understand that you may have a legitimate beef against Phil in the world of Wikipedia. It's that I just. don't. care.

Read http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=1263
He is a disbared lawyer still claiming to be one but retired and he is on the ArbCom. At least 2 people banned for making that statement.

QUOTE(hades @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 7:49pm) *

When someone from here brought the police into the argument (and your continued refusal to answer the direct question of whether it was you leads me to suspect that perhaps it was) it became interesting to people who don't care about wikipedia. That's why I'm still here.


You still haven't grasped what we have said...... ANYONE, did you read that? ANYONE could have done it. No one has stated they did here. No one claims to have. Why are you being such a fucktard and not getting that?

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 8:00pm) *
At least 2 people banned for making that statement.

Ok, and the thing he did which affected those two people in the non-wikipedia world was... nope, sorry. I seem to have missed that part of the thread.

QUOTE
ANYONE could have done it. No one has stated they did here. No one claims to have. Why are you being such a fucktard and not getting that?

I get that anyone could have done it. I admit the possibility. I don't think it's likely, because http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=1116&view=findpost&p=6141 that someone ought to do it, and when I've asked him if he did, he hasn't denied it.

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(hades @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 8:12pm) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 8:00pm) *
At least 2 people banned for making that statement.

Ok, and the thing he did which affected those two people in the non-wikipedia world was... nope, sorry. I seem to have missed that part of the thread.


I guess extended reading is to difficult for you. Post http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=1263&view=findpost&p=7014
QUOTE
As we noted earlier, someone who wrote quoting the link and asked Fred Bauder to reply to it was blocked from Wikipedia. When that user made an Arbitration request about the unfair blocking, Tony Sidaway permanently banned him for "harassment".


QUOTE(hades @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 8:12pm) *

QUOTE
ANYONE could have done it. No one has stated they did here. No one claims to have. Why are you being such a fucktard and not getting that?

I get that anyone could have done it. I admit the possibility. I don't think it's likely, because http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=1116&view=findpost&p=6141 that someone ought to do it, and when I've asked him if he did, he hasn't denied it.


Then draw your own conclusions.

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE
And now 10 days later, I'm still making the same argument. And darnit if I'm not about to turn around and post to sgrayban about the general legal history behind prosecution of people for accessory to murder for saying people should be murdered when their statement is found with no reasonable doubt to be related to the decision to commit murder. In civil court, one can win huge damages merely by showing that a preponderance of evidence shows a statement that someone should be harmed was directly related to a another persons decision to harm someone.



Ahh your going after me for my WBC post on my blog? Heh funny...

Posted by: kotepho

QUOTE
When it comes to asking those questions face to face, yeh, I would probably ask phil because he's physically not a very intimidating figure as long as he doesn't sneak up on a person and try to play some fantasy role play i-dont-care-about-your-perceptions game.

He's a big cuddly-wuddly teddy bear and you know it!

QUOTE
[paraphrasing]Did any of you regulars contact the police?

I can only speak for myself, but I did not. I can only think of two people that might have. Of course, this forum has a lot of lurkers also. It could just as easily been one of them.

QUOTE
But until you can show me an instance of someone in power at Wikipedia doing something to another member which has real-world repercussions--that is, something that affects more than just Wikipedia--I really don't care.

I can think of many instances. Things on Wikipedia have far ranging effects.
Daniel Brandt (T-H-L-K-D), Ashida Kim (T-H-L-K-D), etc. It is hard to boil such cases down to a quantizied version but I shall try through an example, Stephanie Adams (T-H-L-K-D).Also note that this is one of the cases that eventually worked out relatively _well_ for those that have been wronged.
There is also the case of admins readily trying to dig up the private information of those that they have problems with or contact outside authorities (See WP:ABUSE (T-H-L-K-D)) but will come to the defense of any admin that has the same done to them (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive90#User:Gator1).

I've tried my best to write in such a way that a complete outsider could understand, but feel free to ask if you need elucidation. It is certainly clear that Wikipedia is not an island, but I am making broad generalizations, leaving out many examples, and glossing over details for the purpose of being succinct.

My opinion is that neither those in charge of wikipedia nor mere editors should have to worry about real-world repercussions for actions on Wikipedia outside of those that are obviously illegal (libel, harrassment, etc). As it is now, those in charge are not held accountable, but the little people are. Which is a more serious offense: some schoolkid vandalizing George W. Bush (T-H-L-K-D) to say that he had sex with Osama Bin Laden (cf. Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (T-H-L-K-D) or a myriad of other cases) or Jeffrey Vernon Merkey (T-H-L-K-D) which is largely source from mailing list posts (See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere/Jeffrey_Vernon_Merkey&limit=500&from=0 for lots of dicussion of this, along with http://Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Waya_sahoni? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/06/wikipedia_bio/ from The Register also covers such interactions. If you do not like your biography (which can obviously have meatspace effects) Wikipedia is likely to ban you and call the dispute resolved, or keep the article around to spite you.

edit: I hate bbcode with a passion; I give up trying to make this look pretty.

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 8:17pm) *

QUOTE(hades @ Mon 22nd May 2006, 8:12pm) *

Ok, and the thing he did which affected those two people in the non-wikipedia world was... nope, sorry. I seem to have missed that part of the thread.


I guess extended reading is to difficult for you. Post http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=1263&view=findpost&p=7014
QUOTE
As we noted earlier, someone who wrote quoting the link and asked Fred Bauder to reply to it was blocked from Wikipedia. When that user made an Arbitration request about the unfair blocking, Tony Sidaway permanently banned him for "harassment".


Was my question unclear? I asked for an example of something that affected people in the non-wikipedia world. A permanent ban from wikipedia doesn't count, see, because it's related to wikipedia. Having someone investigated for murder is something outside of wikipedia. Having someone banned from wikipedia isn't. Are we even speaking the same language?

(on preview)
Thank you, kotepho, for this:
QUOTE
If you do not like your biography (which can obviously have meatspace effects) Wikipedia is likely to ban you and call the dispute resolved, or keep the article around to spite you.
That's the first example I've seen that demonstrates what I was asking for. If the admins of wikipedia are keeping inaccurate biographical entries around and banning the subjects of the entries when they try to correct misinformation, then that does indeed suck, and it's something that can have real-world repercussions. If you have an example of someone losing his job because of inaccurate information on his wikipedia entry, that'd be even more damning, but I can imagine that it might happen.

So, having gotten one clear response to one of my questions, I guess I should retire for the night. I would have liked to get a straight answer from Hushthis about whether he reported the short story to the police as nonfiction or not, but I guess that was too much to hope for.

Posted by: sgrayban

Google for "inaccurate biographies on wikipedia" if your so inclined.

Posted by: hades

Maybe someone can help me out here. I'm looking at http://pulpdecameron.livejournal.com/52492.html?thread=130828#t130828 as supporting evidence for why Phil got what he deserved, and I'm not seeing anything he did in his role as a wikipedia admin that had any effect outside wikipedia. It looks like he banned a bunch of users for what may be petty reasons, and did a bunch of stuff that violated wikipedia policy, but I'm not seeing what he did that affected anyone's non-wikipedia existence.

I agree that the problem of inaccurate (or inconveniently truthful) biographies being kept on wikipedia despite the objections of their subjects is a serious problem, and that there may be an entrenched group of wikipedians who enable this. I'll even grant for the sake of argument that Phil is a member of the clique which is causing the problem.

But can anyone point to a specific action he has taken which had an effect in the real world? Banning a user from wikipedia does not count, unless that user was banned for editing his or her own biography. Deleting an article or template does not count. Reverting changes to an article does not count. Being rude to someone in the course of a wikipedia-related argument does not count. Anything which took place on wikipedia does not count, unless that action led to an action which took place outside wikipedia. Him showing up on everyking's doorstep with a baseball bat, for example, would count.

What, specifically, has he done that warrants retaliation outside the framework of wikipedia?

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Tue 23rd May 2006, 11:53am) *
There are two presumptions to your argument that are nothing but your personal presumptions, and about which you have not acknowledged any reasonable person might have another view. One is that his writing was clearly fictional.

I http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=1116&view=findpost&p=7374 that the interpretation of the piece as fiction or nonfiction was a matter of personal opinion well up-thread. Are you ignoring that intentionally, or did you miss it?

QUOTE
The other false presumption is that it was retaliatory.

Ok, let's presume that it wasn't retaliatory. sgrayban's http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=1116&view=findpost&p=7414 indicates that he'd be ok with taking real-world actions against a wikipedia admin in retaliation for actions the admin performed which were limited in scope to the world of wikipedia:
QUOTE
If its fair for admin to abuse, harass and/or stalk editors just to defend their ban/block or why they should never be allowed back on WP then anyone else can do the same against any WP admin there too. Since they seem to enjoy playing the power game and pointing fingers they had better be ready for the same because somewhere sometime their dirty secret's will be known and posted.
The only evidence of abuse, harassment and stalking on the part of admins I've seen has been limited to the confines of wikipedia itself, and nobody has so far demonstrated otherwise. So my interpretation of sgrayban's comment is that he's ok with taking real-world actions against people who piss him off on wikipedia. What do you think, Hushthis? Ignoring for the moment this particular case, is it in general a legitimate tactic to attack someone in the real world for something he's done on Wikipedia?

Posted by: hades

Fine. If you're just going to answer the rhetorical questions and ignore the ones asking for your opinion or a simple yes/no answer, I don't see the point in continuing. You win; I will go away. You have out-trolled me. Well played, sir.

Posted by: Skyring

QUOTE(hades @ Wed 24th May 2006, 5:09am) *
The only evidence of abuse, harassment and stalking on the part of admins I've seen has been limited to the confines of wikipedia itself, and nobody has so far demonstrated otherwise.

I discovered that when a certain admin in Ireland discovered my name and address he published them on his WP talk page. Soon after he discovered my name and address (like a matter of hours), I found a person peering in my kitchen window in Canberra just after my wife pulled into our carport. This wasn't someone just glancing in through the window as they walked past, this was somebody standing there looking in. We made eye contact and she walked off a few seconds later. The impression I got was that she was curious about me. I strongly suspect that person to be a Canberra-based WP admin.

Some time after this I discovered that someone had driven a nail through the tyre of my daughter's car (the other car in the carport). The circumstances were that it couldn't have got there by accident, somebody had to have hammered it in.

I found it ironic that I was banned for a year for supposedly wikistalking these two admins - in fact all I did was to go through their contributions and fix up the spelling errors of one and the fact and logic errors of the other - but these two collaborated to intrude on my real-world life.

The Irish chap published my name and address and when another editor chided him for this and removed the information, it was reposted and the page protected so the information would remain there. Action was taken at a higher level and the two edits deleted entirely, at which the Irish admin blanked his pages, and declared he had left WP for good.

Needless to say, he is back on WP, where he is happily using his admin powers to win content wars and savagely abusing anybody who disagrees with him.

I'm not going to claim that I am pure as driven snow. Once I worked out that WP wasn't quite the bastion of friendliness and virtue as claimed on the wrapper, I set out to annoy those annoying me, and I had a lot of fun doing it.

My point is not that someone peered into my window and sabotaged my daughter's car (though I take these things seriously), but that actions on WP intrude into the real world through annoyance and stress. A harassing or threatening phone call is just a collection of sound waves, but it is an action that police take seriously. Posts on WP may just be letters on a screen, but when they are intended to harass or threaten, then that too is action that police and courts take seriously.

There is far too much harassment and abuse going on in WP to be consistent with the ideal of a collaborative internet knowledge project. I don't know what causes it, perhaps it is that many of the contributors are nerds and geeks with the social skills of Satan's rectum, but the effect is insidious. By and large those with administrative abilities on WP are able to get away with the same behaviour that they routinely ban others for.

Snowspinner may have felt himself haraassed and threatened by policemen acting on a complaint, but back in the wikiworld, this is exactly what he does. Fingerprints and DNA samples in the real world become IP addresses and text analysis in wikiland.

Posted by: sgrayban

Mr. Hades you are a fool and a true asshole. I never implied a general statement that I would go after anyone that pisses me off. You have pissed me off but I haven't done anything but view your kind of people as mental with sign's of anti-social disorder.

The only thing that I will do is expose all the admin that stalk, harass and/or abuse other wikipedia editors. This also includes other editors that do the same thing and are backed by the low-life admin.

For instance I have already alot of information on a certain wiki admin that was/is involved with pedo material. Now if I turn that sick person into the cops does that make me a disgruntal wikipedian ? Will you attack me as well on your blog for turning that person in? I hope so. It will only give me the satisfaction that I have done something right and good for the community. And lets not forget it will also validate my claims on wikipedia and Jimmy Wales that it is run on majority of sick and mental people.

BTW your wife should teach you manner's. You need to learn some.

Posted by: hades

I wasn't going to post here any more, but I read Skyring's account and wanted to thank him. If someone posts your real life contact information, that extends past the boundaries of wikipedia. That an admin would post your name and address is reprehensible, no matter how much of a troll you may have been. (And before someone digs through my blog and points out where I've done something like that to posters on my site, my defense is that my personal blog and a public project like wikipedia operate on different sets of rules.) That someone would follow up by checking out your house and vandalizing your car is even worse, and anybody who does that will get no sympathy from me.

But I'd like to draw a distinction between "they do this to us so it's fair to do it to them" and "he did it to me, so it's fair to do it to him." I absolutely believe it would be fair play to post the Irish admin's name and contact information somewhere. Posting the information of a friend of the Irish admin, not so much. I would also like to reiterate the distinction between real-world consequences and wikipedia consequences. Being banned from wikipedia is not on the same level as the threat of going to jail on trumped-up charges. It just isn't.

That said, sgrayban, if you have evidence that an admin is a pedophile, I am all for bringing it to the attention of the police. I certainly hope your evidence is more solid than Snowspinner's short story, though. It is technically possible to interpret that short story as a potential admission to a crime, but the only way I can think of to do so is to willfully ignore evidence to the contrary, or to be so tone-deaf to nuances of written language and conventions of fiction (by being autistic, say) that you honestly don't get it. I've played the "how can I interpret this in my favor" game; I know how it works. If your pedophile evidence is legitimate, and not just one very sketchy possible interpretation, then I say bring it to the attention of the police. But if all youv'e got to go on is something along the lines of Snowspinner's fiction, then you'd be wasting the police's time. As whoever reported that piece of fiction to the police as evidence did.

And now, for real, I'll stop posting in this thread. I've said all I have to say, and it's clear that Hushthis is better at selectively quoting and interpreting passages than I am, so I'll never be able to get him to answer the questions I thought were interesting. If you have any further comments you'd like me to read, mail me: wpreview@elsewhere.org. I promise to be civil if you are.

Posted by: blissyu2

Let's not forget that on Wikipedia, being stalked can lead you to get banned as well. Being the stalker, however, can lead to a successful request for adminship.

Cyber stalking victims, like Skyring and Donny, or culprits like Adam Carr, Slim Virgin, Snowspinner, Antaeus Feldspar?

Wikipedia doesn't follow the law. They don't follow any laws. Their No Legal Threats rule makes sure that they never even briefly follow any laws. Whilst they have a lawyer and have introduced their Office Actions policy in order to comply with the law, this doesn't really work. And then Wikipedia admins who want Wikipedia to become disobedient again, make up Wikitruth, and hey presto Wikipedia isn't abidin by the law anymore.

Is cyber stalking the same as real life stalking? As someone who has had both happen to them, I would say that they are different.

When I was real life stalked, for about 4 months I couldn't move, couldn't do anything, and my life was in constant danger 24/7. This sucks. The police wouldn't do a thing, and indeed they went further and started to protect him.

When I was cyber stalked, I lost my job, and had a huge smear campaign against me. Nobody came to kill me, it didn't lead to "real life" stalking. But it did count as real life smearing of my name. People thought I was a paedophile who had raped little kids, and indeed was in court right then and there over it. For 2 years I couldn't get any job working with kids because of it. It still affects my reputation. Of course, I had webpages galore hacked and deleted, I had instant messenger programs destroyed and I had threats galore from people online, not to mention abusive phone calls. But that doesn't really matter.

People say that cyber stalking is nothing, but it is the same attitude that has real life stalking. Cyber stalking is a lot easier to do, and much easier to get away with. But would anyone be supporting Snowspinner's right to stalk if he was arguing about his right to snoop through someone's window or perch on a treetop and take photos? Would they really?

They are the same kind of thing, played out differently.

Police should have taken fingerprints and a DNA sample, just to be sure that Snowspinner didn't cross the boundary. Just to be sure that his cyber stalking, which we all know he is repeatedly guilty of, didn't lead to actual stalking.

Posted by: sgrayban

Cyber stalking is a felony in the US. It fall's under terrorist actions and as such it can and does lead to a long life with "bubba" as your butt buddy.

Posted by: Skyring

QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Wed 24th May 2006, 8:16am) *
Police should have taken fingerprints and a DNA sample, just to be sure that Snowspinner didn't cross the boundary. Just to be sure that his cyber stalking, which we all know he is repeatedly guilty of, didn't lead to actual stalking.


This is a bit rich. I think the cops were trying it on to ask for fingerprints and DNA. This smacks more of building up a database than trying to fit up a suspect with an actual crime.

IF he ever stalks anybody in real life and there is physical evidence (such as fingerprints or, uh, fluids) as well as witnesses or strong circumstancial evidence THEN the police might be justified in seeking samples.

Until then he (and anybody else) should tell the cops to go jump. Rather than pump.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Tue 23rd May 2006, 6:16pm) *

Police should have taken fingerprints and a DNA sample, just to be sure that Snowspinner didn't cross the boundary. Just to be sure that his cyber stalking, which we all know he is repeatedly guilty of, didn't lead to actual stalking.


Since you're now accusing me of actual legal wrong-doing (Since they couldn't have demanded fingerprints unless they had probable cause that I was involved in a crime), I will object. When have I cyber-stalked somebody.

Cyber-stalked. Not banned someone inappropriately, or made personal attacks, or any of the other crap I'm constantly accused of. When have I actually engaged in what is clearly cyberstalking? I'll take one instance, little yet the "repeated" one that you so casually accuse me of here.

Posted by: Donny

QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Wed 24th May 2006, 7:16am) *

Let's not forget that on Wikipedia, being stalked can lead you to get banned as well. Being the stalker, however, can lead to a successful request for adminship.

Cyber stalking victims, like Skyring and Donny, or culprits like Adam Carr, Slim Virgin, Snowspinner, Antaeus Feldspar?

I wouldn't call myself a victim of stalking, at least not by AF. I think my fight with AF was concentrated in only one area, the wiki-fiddler article and the Andrew Orlowski one. I did have a sort of "cyber-stalker" on Wikipedia, but not AF: a user called Dforest used to go through my "user contributions" and come to various articles I was editing. He was fairly annoying, but the situation didn't lead to any big problems. Eventually I told him just to not edit any more articles which I was involved with.

Posted by: Skyring

I don't like seeing people divided up into groups of "victims" and "culprits". To my mind the situation on WP is that both parties usually have a go at each other, but the ultimate advantage lies with those who know the wikiturf or have wikifriends.

The winners on WP get called the cabal, the losers are labelled trolls. After a while it all turns into "us and them" and instead of having reasonable discussions, participants are given labels and their arguments rejected or approved on the basis of the label, rather than their arguments. This is all very ad-hom and can result in a poisonous atmosphere.

With regard to being a victim of stalking, there's no doubt in my mind that yes, I was being harassed and abused on WP and it spilled over into other areas, such as RL and WikiEN-l.

But as Everyking will tell you, it cut both ways, and I was doing my best to give as good as I got, though without any overt abuse or RL adventures.

Two wrongs don't make a right and I eventually tired of the game and made as public an apology as I could. I note that those who were attacking me never made a similar gesture. Perhaps they thought they were in the right.

Posted by: Lir

QUOTE(Skyring @ Tue 23rd May 2006, 3:29pm) *

I discovered that when a certain admin in Ireland discovered my name and address he published them on his WP talk page.

They also located and released my personal information -- they, of course, justified this because the encyclopedia is more important than anything; basically, Wikipedia is a cult, like Scientology.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(Lir @ Tue 23rd May 2006, 10:14pm) *

QUOTE(Skyring @ Tue 23rd May 2006, 3:29pm) *

I discovered that when a certain admin in Ireland discovered my name and address he published them on his WP talk page.

They also located and released my personal information -- they, of course, justified this because the encyclopedia is more important than anything; basically, Wikipedia is a cult, like Scientology.


Remind me where your personal information was released?

Oh, and is it excessive to point out that, in this thread, y'all have tracked down my fiction LiveJournal and my academic webpage, and that someone contacted the President of my University to try to get the police after me? And you're complaining about people who have gone through your contributions on a single website?

Perspective?

Posted by: Donny

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 11:19am) *

Oh, and is it excessive to point out that, in this thread, y'all have tracked down my fiction LiveJournal and my academic webpage

The hounds are afoot!
QUOTE

and that someone contacted the President of my University to try to get the police after me? And you're complaining about people who have gone through your contributions on a single website?

How many websites does he have to go through before he is entitled to feel disgruntled? Releasing someone's personal information or cyberstalking them is never appropriate, but since you were stupid enough to write that fiction LiveJournal, you can't really complain about people "tracking it down". As far as your academic webpage is concerned, I don't really see anything which could cause problems.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(Donny @ Tue 23rd May 2006, 11:22pm) *

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 11:19am) *

Oh, and is it excessive to point out that, in this thread, y'all have tracked down my fiction LiveJournal and my academic webpage

The hounds are afoot!
QUOTE

and that someone contacted the President of my University to try to get the police after me? And you're complaining about people who have gone through your contributions on a single website?

How many websites does he have to go through before he is entitled to feel disgruntled? Releasing someone's personal information or cyberstalking them is never appropriate, but since you were stupid enough to write that fiction LiveJournal, you can't really complain about people "tracking it down". As far as your academic webpage is concerned, I don't really see anything which could cause problems.


I'm not complaining. Shit, you guys doubled my readership. How can I complain?

I do think someone was an asshole here to call the UF President. I'm just saying, what's gone on in this thread is far more stalkerish than anything that I, who apparently cyberstalk people all the time (still news to me) do.

Posted by: everyking

I'd say what Phil does is better defined as cyber-bullying, rather than stalking.

Posted by: Skyring

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 12:19pm) *
Oh, and is it excessive to point out that, in this thread, y'all have tracked down my fiction LiveJournal and my academic webpage, and that someone contacted the President of my University to try to get the police after me? And you're complaining about people who have gone through your contributions on a single website?Perspective?

I had people reading my blog, hunting through my BookCrossing posts, doing Google searches to keep tabs on me. Check my ArbCom case.

What sent Jim Duffy/jtdirl off the deep end last year after he published my name and address is that he was depending on my blog entry where I mentioned a letter to the editor. He found the letter, cut and pasted the name and address, and as soon as he did that I made the blog entry friends only so his link would fail. He was snookered. He blanked his user and talk page, said he was quitting WP, and then did that stupid AULDBITCHLOVESYOU thing, where he vandalised someone else's user page and tried to pin it on me.

I'm quite sure I've got people who hate me looking over my cybershoulder all the time. Pity I'm so lovable!

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Skyring

Posted by: sgrayban

First off Mr. Snowspinner, I'm a notable linux developer who has been in a few major linux magazines and mentioned in many review site's like RedHat's so I am well known in the linux community so its easy to find me.

And because of my problems with Adam Carr and me refusing to listen to his harassement and abuse on WP I have received lots of hate mail, one even said he/she would find me if I went after Carr in a legal suit. But since I live in a locked apartment building it would be difficult for them to get to me, NTM I live on the 3rd floor. I have a 9 year old daughter as well.

So just incase you have any pull on WP you might want to tell Mr. Carr to call off his dogs because in my state I can legal kill a intruder or defend myself in public with lethal means. This isn't a threat either but I will defend myself.

All this over asshole admin that allow Adam Carr to bully, harass and throw under-breath racial comments at other editors he doesn't like. Just look at his RfC that I started before I was banned when he posted a legal email sent by me and my lawyer.

So stop with your "OH FUCKING ME" pitty shit. We all know how much of a joke it is with WP admin. They think its funny, they think its a "good thing" to incourage these type's of editors with there bully tatics back by admin.

And since you think you have been so wronged think about this and what it will do to Jimbo and his precious Foundation...... If any WP admin actions causes the death or near death of another editor because there is bias and not nutrality you all can kiss your sweetasses goodbye. Hiding behind a screenname won't help and you know I am right.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 12:49am) *

First off Mr. Snowspinner, I'm a notable linux developer who has been in a few major linux magazines and mentioned in many review site's like RedHat's so I am well known in the linux community so its easy to find me.

And because of my problems with Adam Carr and me refusing to listen to his harassement and abuse on WP I have received lots of hate mail, one even said he/she would find me if I went after Carr in a legal suit. But since I live in a locked apartment building it would be difficult for them to get to me, NTM I live on the 3rd floor. I have a 9 year old daughter as well.

So just incase you have any pull on WP you might want to tell Mr. Carr to call off his dogs because in my state I can legal kill a intruder or defend myself in public with lethal means. This isn't a threat either but I will defend myself.

All this over asshole admin that allow Adam Carr to bully, harass and throw under-breath racial comments at other editors he doesn't like. Just look at his RfC that I started before I was banned when he posted a legal email sent by me and my lawyer.

So stop with your "OH FUCKING ME" pitty shit. We all know how much of a joke it is with WP admin. They think its funny, they think its a "good thing" to incourage these type's of editors with there bully tatics back by admin.

And since you think you have been so wronged think about this and what it will do to Jimbo and his precious Foundation...... If any WP admin actions causes the death or near death of another editor because there is bias and not nutrality you all can kiss your sweetasses goodbye. Hiding behind a screenname won't help and you know I am right.


I'm trying to figure out what the hell this has to do with any point I've made. Perhaps you can enlighten me?

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Wed 24th May 2006, 12:57am) *


It was you, phil sandifer, who published your personal information. It was you who, using your own name, published an account of homicide that by your account even the president of your university was not entirely convinced was a purely literary exercise.

Now you are so bold as to assume that you know somebody here contacted the University president, who you imply acted as a "meatpuppet" of people who criticize your leadership activities in a writing project. Clearly people here discussed what is an appropriate response to such writing, but your attitude toward that discussion suggests your philosophic appreciation of open publication is limited to that which serves your interests.

Remind me again, what is your complaint about people reading what you write on the Internet? If you don't want your University president to read what you write while you are a graduate student and working at the University, I suggest publishing behind a password-protected portal, or using a pseudonym that you don't attribute to your professional identity.

It seems you want to have your cake and eat it too - you want the fame of publishing in a manner that raises concern of law enforcement investigators, but you don't want people to consider what you self-publish in your own name when they discuss your leadership in a shared, open, high-profile writing project. You relish the fame your questionable publication brings you, but you whine that the school that might award you a degree knows of your fame.


No, actually, that's not what I'm saying at all. Perhaps I should spell out my beliefs on this matter in a nice numbered list.

1) Somebody on this board contacted my University. Don't know who, but it's too much of a coincidence that a blog post that had sat unnoticed for a year and a half suddenly becomes an issue days after a bunch of people discuss how it could be used to make me leave my PhD program.
1a) Whoever contacted my University about this is an asshole.

2) Anybody who sincerely believed that story to be factual is an idiot, or declined to do even a cursory amount of research into it.
2a) I have no particular knowledge of the insincerity of anyone's belief, their idiocy, or their lack fo research, however I do believe these to be the only possible explanations for a claim that the story can be reasonably read as being factual.

3) The writing of fictional stories does not constitute reasonable suspicion for an investigation.
3a. Any police officer who attempts to conduct an investigation based on no evidence beyond the writing of fictional stories is abusing his authority as a police officer.

4) I have never cyberstalked anybody.
4a) The actions taken in this thread towards me are far closer to cyberstalking than anything I've ever done.
4b) Whoever spammed my journal with links about how EEEEEVIL I am on Wikipedia is far more of a cyberstalker than I ever have been or will be.
4c) Anybody who denounces me as a cyberstalker while involving themselves in contacting the University, spamming my journal, or trying to figure out what I might be doing outside of Wikipedia is a hypocrite.

5) Despite the fact that an asshole contacted my University and managed to get University administration to be negligent, stupid, or some combination thereof in the course of a police investigation that should never have happened, my readership has doubled, the UPD has, through a wave of publicity, gotten an important lesson about public accountability, I've been reminded that I have an incredibly supportive department here that respects me and my work, and nothing actually bad has happened to me. Y'all failed pretty miserably to cause me any trouble. I still think you're assholes for trying.

Posted by: sgrayban

Asshole -- that's all you are. A utter fucking moron.

[Ed:Lir -- the above comment appears to be in response to Snowspinner's statement, "1a) Whoever contacted my University about this is an asshole." Likewise, Snowie wrote a whole research paper about how people he doesn't like are thus moronic. When Snowspinner uses such personal attacks, I see no reason why others can't respond in kind; although, to be a prude, perhaps we should all be impossibly saintly in our decorum.]


Posted by: Lir

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 1:43am) *

The writing of fictional stories does not constitute reasonable suspicion for an investigation.

I think its already been established that the typical police officer, lacking a literature degree and thus not having any idea what 'Pulp Decameron' means, would have reasonable suspicion to come ask you whether its true that you have been stalking some poor girl for the past four years. Its not like real criminals haven't posted such things online, and then claimed it was all 'fiction'. In fact, if they saw your website, and then neglected to do anything while you committed further crimes... I think they would probably get sued.

QUOTE(everyking @ Tue 23rd May 2006, 11:10pm) *

I'd say what Phil does is better defined as cyber-bullying, rather than stalking.

Yes, I suspect people picked on him in real-life; and now that he can hide behind a computer, he likes to be abusive.

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 1:43am) *

my readership has doubled

Up to two now?

Posted by: Selina

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 6:43am) *
Anybody who sincerely believed that story to be factual is an idiot

Wow, writing nasty things about your University President on the internet now...

tongue.gif

Posted by: Skyring

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 4:43pm) *
Y'all failed pretty miserably to cause me any trouble. I still think you're assholes for trying.

Don't be a galah, Phil. I've had the cops in my house looking at my stuff. it's not comfortable. I reckon that even though you knew you were in the right on this one, you found the whole process to be embarrassing, stressful, inconvenient and a waste of your time and that of your colleagues.

You're probably right about it being somebody on this board, and I'll bet they have a big happy grin on their face just thinking about the cops poking through your drug bottles.

But the question you should be asking yourself is not who would set out to harass you, but why.

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 12:51am) *

Asshole -- that's all you are. A utter fucking moron.

[Ed:Lir -- the above comment appears to be in response to Snowspinner's statement, "1a) Whoever contacted my University about this is an asshole." Likewise, Snowie wrote a whole research paper about how people he doesn't like are thus moronic. When Snowspinner uses such personal attacks, I see no reason why others can't respond in kind; although, to be a prude, perhaps we should all be impossibly saintly in our decorum.]


Sorry.... I'll look up some latin words on wiktionary that might have been correct 4 or 5 edits ago unless the editor was banned in which case the correct version was deleted by a fucking asshole admin with a hardon for hate. If it wasn't deleted refer to the first reason why it would be wrong.

Posted by: Lir

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 3:49am) *

Sorry.... I'll look up some latin words on wiktionary

biggrin.gif You might wish to try "pompous cabalistic milquetoast".


Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(Lir @ Wed 24th May 2006, 1:54am) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 3:49am) *

Sorry.... I'll look up some latin words on wiktionary

biggrin.gif You might wish to try "pompous cabalistic milquetoast".


Snowspinner is a "prætensus pompous kabbalistic asinus" biggrin.gif

Posted by: sgrayban

I notice that Rebecca/Ambi likes to troll like a true wiki-hobbit on this thread.

Posted by: Selina

I wonder if "Rebecca" is really a man too, after all Ambi is Kelly's best Wikipedia friend. hm o_O

Posted by: sgrayban

Well let's see 2 bump's or 1 lump will we see? Or Ambi is just into that type of sexuality, not there is anything wrong with it but damn it get's me hot wishing I was a fly to watch.

Posted by: blissyu2

QUOTE(everyking @ Wed 24th May 2006, 1:40pm) *

I'd say what Phil does is better defined as cyber-bullying, rather than stalking.


Fair call. There is a degree of difference between what he does, and what they did to me, ringing my boss, having a major smear campaign, publishing fake web sites, hacking all of my web sites and messenger programs, and methodically contacting over the internet every person in the town where I live to tell them lies about me. But just the same, he is in that area. Calling Snowspinner the victim of anything is nonsense.

As he says, Snowspinner didn't lose out from this. His evils are forgotten thanks to this, he gets to lie even more, gets to abuse more people with less questioning, and he has a bunch of people supporting him.

Why, he could even become popular because of this.

Posted by: blissyu2

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 4:13pm) *

1) Somebody on this board contacted my University. Don't know who, but it's too much of a coincidence that a blog post that had sat unnoticed for a year and a half suddenly becomes an issue days after a bunch of people discuss how it could be used to make me leave my PhD program.

I would suggest Ambi contacted your university. She doesn't have an account. Of course, that is a guess, but note that about 20 people read this board for every 1 who has an account. I think it is far more likely that someone who does not have an account was the one who contacted police. I am sure I said why Ambi elsewhere, but just to recap that she has recently gone through a phase of questioning some admins, and stalking this board rather muchly. Of course, in saying that, it is possible that it might be someone on this board. Look for the names of the people who posted early. There's what 4 to choose from. Why not just say who you are accusing? I am sure you'll conclude it wasn't me, since I contacted you to inform you of this and have posted all along how I thought we shouldn't do it.
QUOTE

1a) Whoever contacted my University about this is an asshole.

Possibly. Or perhaps they thought that you should be questioned. According to the new Wikipedia off-wiki personal attacks policy, you could be banned for that.
QUOTE

2) Anybody who sincerely believed that story to be factual is an idiot, or declined to do even a cursory amount of research into it.

Why? Did you have a disclaimer somewhere? You added plenty after the fact, but you didn't write any either on the article, in your live journal information bar, in any comments, or anywhere else. Now I concluded that probably it was a joke, as did most others. But there was certainly enough to suggest that it might have been true. After all "Many a true word is spoken in jest". Why were you writing it if it was total nonsense? And why no disclaimers?
QUOTE

2a) I have no particular knowledge of the insincerity of anyone's belief, their idiocy, or their lack fo research, however I do believe these to be the only possible explanations for a claim that the story can be reasonably read as being factual.

Its funny really how I was told that calling people morons was a personal attack, even when it was in response to actual personal attacks, and I was just saying they were idiots to believe that. Yet you manage to say this kind of thing all of the time, and you not only don't get yourself blocked, but you manage to be an admin.
QUOTE

3) The writing of fictional stories does not constitute reasonable suspicion for an investigation.

I'll put a big asterix on this one. I'm sure you've researched Live Journal enough to note that a number of murderers have posted "fictional stories" on Live Journal which as it turned out were actually them planning murders. Similarly with rapists. And yes, these were considered as part of the police investigation as to the motives for the murders.
QUOTE

3a. Any police officer who attempts to conduct an investigation based on no evidence beyond the writing of fictional stories is abusing his authority as a police officer.

Says you. I'd say that they were being thorough with their investigations. What did they do really, anyway? You weren't put in jail, you weren't charged, you weren't brought in for questioning. OH NOES - they asked you for finger prints! Ack, horrible stuff there. I mean come off it, if you think that's police brutality then you haven't got a fucking clue.
QUOTE

4) I have never cyberstalked anybody.

I'll put a big asterix here too. You have certainly harassed people on Wikipedia, bullied them, followed them around, and abused them. How far have you gone? Who knows.
QUOTE

4a) The actions taken in this thread towards me are far closer to cyberstalking than anything I've ever done.

What actions? We found information released publicly on the internet by you. Oh wow. You already use your real name on Wikipedia, so where is the cyber stalking? Did anyone publish your phone number? Did anyone write to harass you?
QUOTE

4b) Whoever spammed my journal with links about how EEEEEVIL I am on Wikipedia is far more of a cyberstalker than I ever have been or will be.

This is the biggest load of BULLSHIT out of the lot. They were putting in links of proof of a number of your examples of wrongdoing on Wikipedia. How the fuck do you regard that as cyber stalking? You are out of touch with reality.
QUOTE

4c) Anybody who denounces me as a cyberstalker while involving themselves in contacting the University, spamming my journal, or trying to figure out what I might be doing outside of Wikipedia is a hypocrite.

Only one person contacted the university, nobody spammed your journal, and we didn't seriously try to find out who you were in real life, beyond what you release publicly. I certainly didn't try to find out who you were in real life, and I asked people repeatedly not to do that. Please don't think that two people with different views are the same person. You'll get yourself all muddled.
QUOTE

5) Despite the fact that an asshole contacted my University and managed to get University administration to be negligent, stupid, or some combination thereof in the course of a police investigation that should never have happened, my readership has doubled, the UPD has, through a wave of publicity, gotten an important lesson about public accountability, I've been reminded that I have an incredibly supportive department here that respects me and my work, and nothing actually bad has happened to me. Y'all failed pretty miserably to cause me any trouble. I still think you're assholes for trying.

In other words, in spite of the evidence against you being enough to convince people that none of us know that you might have done something wrong, you have found some way to lie about it, manipulate it and bullshit your way in to hiding the truth about what happened.

Good job!

Posted by: Skyring

QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Wed 24th May 2006, 10:40pm) *

QUOTE(everyking @ Wed 24th May 2006, 1:40pm) *

I'd say what Phil does is better defined as cyber-bullying, rather than stalking.
Fair call. There is a degree of difference between what he does, and what they did to me, ringing my boss, having a major smear campaign, publishing fake web sites, hacking all of my web sites and messenger programs, and methodically contacting over the internet every person in the town where I live to tell them lies about me. But just the same, he is in that area. Calling Snowspinner the victim of anything is nonsense.


Someone (probably someone here) caused him to be harassed. I'd say he is a victim in that he got grief he wouldn't have otherwise have got.

Whether he set himself up by publishing some dodgy fiction is immaterial.

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Wed 24th May 2006, 5:40am) *

As he says, Snowspinner didn't lose out from this. His evils are forgotten thanks to this, he gets to lie even more, gets to abuse more people with less questioning, and he has a bunch of people supporting him.

Why, he could even become popular because of this.


A lot of serial killers become famous from blogs. Just in my state, Washington, we have atleast 3 who used blogs set in a "fictional" writing and ended up being convicted serial killers. 2 serial rapists and 1 who killed little boys and raping them after he killed them.

So the police did have a reason. Snowspinner is just being a [[WP:DICK]] and a BABY.

FYI: The biggest of the murder's with "fictional" blogs was the murder of Dillon Groening, and leaving Shasta Groening alive. The asshole that did that one had a blog called "Blogging The Fifth Nail"
http://fifthnail.blogspot.com
http://fifthnail.blogspot.com/2005/04/wrestling-with-demons.html

Joseph Ducan was convicted of killing her mother, and both brother's, and her mother's boyfriend.

Posted by: sgrayban

This thread should be moved to the tar pit where it belongs.

Posted by: Skyring

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Thu 25th May 2006, 8:04am) *

QUOTE(Skyring @ Wed 24th May 2006, 9:56pm) *

Someone (probably someone here) caused him to be harassed. I'd say he is a victim in that he got grief he wouldn't have otherwise have got.

I doubt police who investigated this could legitimately be considered to have harrassed him. It is not harrassment for police to investigate claims of stalking and homicide. If it ever becomes harrassment for police to inquire about possible crimes, we are in trouble.

I take your point. I wasn't using "harassment" in any sort of legal or quasi-legal sense, just as a word to describe how Phil must have felt about it at the time.

IMHO they were quite justified in investigating the matter once it had been brought to their attention. Phil may have been quite sure that the material was fiction, but police aren't mind-readers. Once a complaint had been made it had to be investigated, and the next step after reading the material is to interview the author.

Of course, even if the material was clearly labelled by the author as fiction, that doesn't mean it is fiction. I certainly don't believe everything I read on the net.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 7:57pm) *

QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Wed 24th May 2006, 5:40am) *

As he says, Snowspinner didn't lose out from this. His evils are forgotten thanks to this, he gets to lie even more, gets to abuse more people with less questioning, and he has a bunch of people supporting him.

Why, he could even become popular because of this.


A lot of serial killers become famous from blogs. Just in my state, Washington, we have atleast 3 who used blogs set in a "fictional" writing and ended up being convicted serial killers. 2 serial rapists and 1 who killed little boys and raping them after he killed them.


Lots of serial killers also are single males. Is that grounds for investigation?

I am not denying that serial killers write about their fantasies. I am saying that macabre fictional writing is not in and of itself grounds for suspicion.

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 6:31pm) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 7:57pm) *

QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Wed 24th May 2006, 5:40am) *

As he says, Snowspinner didn't lose out from this. His evils are forgotten thanks to this, he gets to lie even more, gets to abuse more people with less questioning, and he has a bunch of people supporting him.

Why, he could even become popular because of this.


A lot of serial killers become famous from blogs. Just in my state, Washington, we have atleast 3 who used blogs set in a "fictional" writing and ended up being convicted serial killers. 2 serial rapists and 1 who killed little boys and raping them after he killed them.


Lots of serial killers also are single males. Is that grounds for investigation?

I am not denying that serial killers write about their fantasies. I am saying that macabre fictional writing is not in and of itself grounds for suspicion.


Dude I real am starting to think you were born a mental retard.

You have clearly missed all the points stated here that your writing shows a pattern of other serial killers that used blogs to write about them in a "fictional" way.

I pointed out the "Blogging The Fifth Nail" which was a blog written in a fiction/personal way and yet that same person was later on the same sick mother-fucker that killed a whole family and leaving only 8 year old Shasta Groening alive. He brutally killed her 12 year old brother Dillon then raped his body.

So please stop trying to defend yourself as a "poor me", I was victimized. Because you weren't. If you can't see that then you are really more of a asshole then anyone here you have called.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 9:46pm) *

Dude I real am starting to think you were born a mental retard.

You have clearly missed all the points stated here that your writing shows a pattern of other serial killers that used blogs to write about them in a "fictional" way.

I pointed out the "Blogging The Fifth Nail" which was a blog written in a fiction/personal way and yet that same person was later on the same sick mother-fucker that killed a whole family and leaving only 8 year old Shasta Groening alive. He brutally killed her 12 year old brother Dillon then raped his body.

So please stop trying to defend yourself as a "poor me", I was victimized. Because you weren't. If you can't see that then you are really more of a asshole then anyone here you have called.


That's nice.

Please go read my post again, and reply again when you have some understanding of how this completely fails to be a response to what I said.

If you need a clue, the whole thing hinges on the difference between "Serial killers often do X" and "People who do X are often serial killers."

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 6:51pm) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 9:46pm) *

Dude I real am starting to think you were born a mental retard.

You have clearly missed all the points stated here that your writing shows a pattern of other serial killers that used blogs to write about them in a "fictional" way.

I pointed out the "Blogging The Fifth Nail" which was a blog written in a fiction/personal way and yet that same person was later on the same sick mother-fucker that killed a whole family and leaving only 8 year old Shasta Groening alive. He brutally killed her 12 year old brother Dillon then raped his body.

So please stop trying to defend yourself as a "poor me", I was victimized. Because you weren't. If you can't see that then you are really more of a asshole then anyone here you have called.


That's nice.

Please go read my post again, and reply again when you have some understanding of how this completely fails to be a response to what I said.

If you need a clue, the whole thing hinges on the difference between "Serial killers often do X" and "People who do X are often serial killers."


You are a true wiki-admin idiot. If you can't see the comparison how the fuck did you ever get a degree in anything in college? Good grief and this is what they have for admin there. Non-thinking narrow minded stupid fucks.

Even in my MCS program in college I can still relate your blog to Joeseph Duncan's. And I'm a computer geek not a literary one like you.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 9:57pm) *


You are a true wiki-admin idiot. If you can't see the comparison how the fuck did you ever get a degree in anything in college? Good grief and this is what they have for admin there. Non-thinking narrow minded stupid fucks.


I'm sorry, are you making the assertion that "People who do X often do Y" and the assertion that "People who do Y often do X" are sufficiently similar to be worthy of police investigation?

Because if so, I'm very, very glad we banned you.

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 6:59pm) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 9:57pm) *


You are a true wiki-admin idiot. If you can't see the comparison how the fuck did you ever get a degree in anything in college? Good grief and this is what they have for admin there. Non-thinking narrow minded stupid fucks.


I'm sorry, are you making the assertion that "People who do X often do Y" and the assertion that "People who do Y often do X" are sufficiently similar to be worthy of police investigation?

Because if so, I'm very, very glad we banned you.


And now you are insulting and attacking me because you are a fucktard and can't see that..... Nice !

Posted by: sgrayban

I am seriously thinking that Snowspinner either performed sexual favours or was the Uni's poster child to get his PhD degree. Because if I tried to pull this type of reasoning with my professors I would have failed and been laughed at.

He may think he is higher in the brain compartment but he isn't. I am getting my MSC and that takes more logic and analyzing then his little toe can manage it seems.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 10:03pm) *

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 6:59pm) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 9:57pm) *


You are a true wiki-admin idiot. If you can't see the comparison how the fuck did you ever get a degree in anything in college? Good grief and this is what they have for admin there. Non-thinking narrow minded stupid fucks.


I'm sorry, are you making the assertion that "People who do X often do Y" and the assertion that "People who do Y often do X" are sufficiently similar to be worthy of police investigation?

Because if so, I'm very, very glad we banned you.


And now you are insulting and attacking me because you are a fucktard and can't see that..... Nice !


Thankfully, Wikipedia has a lovely article on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrapositive

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 7:22pm) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 10:03pm) *

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 6:59pm) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 9:57pm) *


You are a true wiki-admin idiot. If you can't see the comparison how the fuck did you ever get a degree in anything in college? Good grief and this is what they have for admin there. Non-thinking narrow minded stupid fucks.


I'm sorry, are you making the assertion that "People who do X often do Y" and the assertion that "People who do Y often do X" are sufficiently similar to be worthy of police investigation?

Because if so, I'm very, very glad we banned you.


And now you are insulting and attacking me because you are a fucktard and can't see that..... Nice !


Thankfully, Wikipedia has a lovely article on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrapositive


Which is unreliable information per Jimmy Wales since it comes from Wikipedia.

Posted by: Snowspinner

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 10:25pm) *

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 7:22pm) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 10:03pm) *

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 6:59pm) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 9:57pm) *


You are a true wiki-admin idiot. If you can't see the comparison how the fuck did you ever get a degree in anything in college? Good grief and this is what they have for admin there. Non-thinking narrow minded stupid fucks.


I'm sorry, are you making the assertion that "People who do X often do Y" and the assertion that "People who do Y often do X" are sufficiently similar to be worthy of police investigation?

Because if so, I'm very, very glad we banned you.


And now you are insulting and attacking me because you are a fucktard and can't see that..... Nice !


Thankfully, Wikipedia has a lovely article on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrapositive


Which is unreliable information per Jimmy Wales since it comes from Wikipedia.


Every logic textbook has a similarly lovely explanation.

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 7:28pm) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 10:25pm) *

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 7:22pm) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 10:03pm) *

QUOTE(Snowspinner @ Wed 24th May 2006, 6:59pm) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Wed 24th May 2006, 9:57pm) *


You are a true wiki-admin idiot. If you can't see the comparison how the fuck did you ever get a degree in anything in college? Good grief and this is what they have for admin there. Non-thinking narrow minded stupid fucks.


I'm sorry, are you making the assertion that "People who do X often do Y" and the assertion that "People who do Y often do X" are sufficiently similar to be worthy of police investigation?

Because if so, I'm very, very glad we banned you.


And now you are insulting and attacking me because you are a fucktard and can't see that..... Nice !


Thankfully, Wikipedia has a lovely article on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrapositive


Which is unreliable information per Jimmy Wales since it comes from Wikipedia.


Every logic textbook has a similarly lovely explanation.


Which is obvious you have never read and if you had, never understood it. You're playing the logic game with the wrong person here. My big toe could beat you anyday.


Posted by: Skyring

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Thu 25th May 2006, 12:32pm) *
Which is obvious you have never read and if you had, never understood it. You're playing the logic game with the wrong person here. My big toe could beat you anyday.


I think that at this stage we should regard Phil as playing games. He's seeking revenge for having the cops look at his empty pill bottles, and he's playing to an audience. It's all pretty childish, really.

Phil, go edit an article or two, will ya? [[Pro-Choice]] needs your help.

Posted by: everyking

QUOTE(Skyring @ Thu 25th May 2006, 2:39am) *

QUOTE(sgrayban @ Thu 25th May 2006, 12:32pm) *
Which is obvious you have never read and if you had, never understood it. You're playing the logic game with the wrong person here. My big toe could beat you anyday.


I think that at this stage we should regard Phil as playing games. He's seeking revenge for having the cops look at his empty pill bottles, and he's playing to an audience. It's all pretty childish, really.

Phil, go edit an article or two, will ya? [[Pro-Choice]] needs your help.


You mean go block an editor or two, or stir up a personality feud or two. He doesn't do article editing.

Posted by: sgrayban

There is always [[Depression]] and [[Self-esteem]] that he would benifit from. Fat Phil should also stop reading [[Suicide]] over and over since he hasn't understood its meaning yet. Its not suicide by stupidity its suicide by killing oneself.

Posted by: sgrayban

Guess I scared him off and back to a trolling-hobbit. I was looking forward to some more ways to challenge his logic he seems to profess to have.

Posted by: sgrayban

Well since he seems to have run off maybe I'll pose another X Y theory on him.

If X=blogs that have shown histories of serial killers and Y=fat phil's so called fictional writings then what would be Constant of both that equals Z?

Posted by: blissyu2

This has become our most popular ever thread! At least on the new forum. I think we got up to 16 pages a couple of times on the old one. Certainly this is the most read one. So let's make it count!

Most people who plan a murder do not end up carrying it out, or even in the end trying to carry it out. Its the same kinds of odds as suicide. How many suicide attempts actually work? Precious few. Of course one big difference is that if a murder succeeds, then you can do it again. But I digress somewhat.

The point is that just because someone plans a murder doesn't mean that they are going to do it. Its a huge stretch actually. That guy that planned in minute detail about a year long killing spree, who wrote letters describing it, police didn't even raise an eyebrow over. Of course, they were quite incompetent to not do much, but the thing is that it doesn't lead to very much very often. People say these things, but how often do they mean it?

People who write in blogs about killing people very rarely actually mean it. There might be 10 people who write about it that don't mean shit for every 1 that does.

So we are probably looking at a 1% chance, if we didn't consider any other factors, that someone who wrote a blog post with no disclaimers whatsoever, like Snowspinner did, was actually going to murder someone (or had already murdered someone). 1%. Not very likely at all.

Then we take in to account what we know of Snowspinner. We know his behaviour on Wikipedia, that he bullies people, bans people galore and works to destroy the project, whilst professing to be "above the law".

Now, most people would argue that that makes him less likely to be a murderer. However, some people argue that it makes him more likely.

So, the end result is that the odds of Snowspinner being a murderer, based on what we know of him, and this journal post, are between 0.5% and 2% likely. Not very good odds at all. In all likelihood, he is not a murderer.

However, police are entitled to investigate based on a 2% chance, or a 0.5% chance even. They might not always do it, but they are certainly entitled to, over such a serious issue as murder.

They are not entitled to force Snowspinner to give his DNA and fingerprints. But they didn't force him. They asked.

Snowspinner's refusal, and complaining about it increases the likelihood that he is a murderer, in most people's minds. From a 0.5% to 2% chance, it probably goes up to about a 5% chance. Still, he most likely isn't a murderer, but refusing to engage in a process that could clear his name isn't exactly the actions of an innocent person. Nor is writing to complain of supposed police harassment.

And for a reminder of what real police harassment is - something that happens all over the world.

Real police harassment is like when police follow someone around, ask them questions constantly, hit them, pin crimes on them that had nothing to do with them, bring them in for questioning under false pretences, and put them in jail in the hope that they might talk. Police harassment is very serious, and it happens a lot. It happens in USA, it happens in Australia, it happens everywhere.

But what Snowspinner is describing is not police harassment. He is describing a situation of police acting on a tip off and acting appropriately. You can argue that police shouldn't have checked based on such a slim chance of it being true, but then again you could also argue that they should have done it to be thorough.

Knowing the situation that I went through, I wish that police had been thorough. They could have saved a lot of lives if they'd been thorough. People died because police thought that I was likely making it up. We had the worst mass murder in Australian history because police didn't think to check things out.

When police are thorough, its a good thing. Those officers should be commended. And I hope that they are not frightened off by Snowspinner's bullying, and that they continue to monitor him just in case. 5% is enough to be mindful of.


Posted by: kotepho

Boing Boing ran another uhh http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/24/lawyer_demands_u_fla.html about this and some lawyer getting into it pro bono or something and someone decided to create Phil Sandifer (T-H-L-K-D)

Posted by: Lir

QUOTE(kotepho @ Thu 25th May 2006, 8:21am) *

Boing Boing ran another uhh http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/24/lawyer_demands_u_fla.html about this and some lawyer getting into it pro bono or something and someone decided to create Phil Sandifer (T-H-L-K-D)


Hey, isn't this libel? Its total bullshit: "It looks like the original complaint came from people whom Sandifer had argued with over Wikipedia -- a message-board for disgruntled Wikipedians contains a discussion of Sandifer's story and the mischief that could be had by complaining the university about it, noting, "it wouldn't take much to put him in a position where he either decides to leave Wikipedia or decides that he doesn't need a Ph.D. after all."

Maybe, maybe one person made that quote; it certainly doesn't represent official message board policy -- its just an attempt to create sensationalist journalism, as if we plan to intimidate Snowie until he drops out of school and quits Wikipedia.

Posted by: Surfer

QUOTE(Lir @ Thu 25th May 2006, 3:09pm) *

QUOTE(kotepho @ Thu 25th May 2006, 8:21am) *

Boing Boing ran another uhh http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/24/lawyer_demands_u_fla.html about this and some lawyer getting into it pro bono or something and someone decided to create Phil Sandifer (T-H-L-K-D)


Hey, isn't this libel? Its total bullshit: It looks like the original complaint came from people whom Sandifer had argued with over Wikipedia -- a message-board for disgruntled Wikipedians contains a discussion of Sandifer's story and the mischief that could be had by complaining the university about it, noting, "it wouldn't take much to put him in a position where he either decides to leave Wikipedia or decides that he doesn't need a Ph.D. after all." Maybe, maybe one person made that quote; it certainly doesn't represent official message board policy -- its just an attempt to create sensationalist journalism, as if we plan to intimidate Snowie until he drops out of school and quits Wikipedia.


Well, lots of people are lurking here, any of them could have called the police, say, http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/thread.html#47345 HIIIII there, David!!!

Posted by: Skyring

QUOTE(kotepho @ Thu 25th May 2006, 11:21pm) *
Boing Boing ran another uhh http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/24/lawyer_demands_u_fla.html about this and some lawyer getting into it pro bono or something and someone decided to create Phil Sandifer (T-H-L-K-D)


Looks good to me. The more publicity about how Phil operates on Wikipedia the better. Someone should put together a press release highlighting some juicy quotes that are less than wikicivil, along with diffs so that journalists can check for accuracy.

With the intention of improving the quality of WP management, not of nailing Phil to a cross. It would be best if he were to lift his game by himself, of course, but when he's backed up in his bullying all the way up to Jimmy Wales he doesn't have any incentive to improve.

Posted by: everyking

QUOTE(Skyring @ Thu 25th May 2006, 6:52pm) *

QUOTE(kotepho @ Thu 25th May 2006, 11:21pm) *
Boing Boing ran another uhh http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/24/lawyer_demands_u_fla.html about this and some lawyer getting into it pro bono or something and someone decided to create Phil Sandifer (T-H-L-K-D)


Looks good to me. The more publicity about how Phil operates on Wikipedia the better. Someone should put together a press release highlighting some juicy quotes that are less than wikicivil, along with diffs so that journalists can check for accuracy.

With the intention of improving the quality of WP management, not of nailing Phil to a cross. It would be best if he were to lift his game by himself, of course, but when he's backed up in his bullying all the way up to Jimmy Wales he doesn't have any incentive to improve.


Yeah, that's what I said at the beginning of all this. Put the pressure on him based on his WP bullying, not his blog fiction. He's a cyberbully, not a real life murderer, so focus on the shit he's actually done--there's plenty to work with.

Posted by: Skyring

QUOTE(everyking @ Fri 26th May 2006, 5:05am) *
Put the pressure on him based on his WP bullying, not his blog fiction. He's a cyberbully, not a real life murderer, so focus on the shit he's actually done--there's plenty to work with.

I've had very little to do with Phil/Snowspinner. He was just one more of the thugs sinking the boot into me, not one of the ringleaders, so I don't know the background to his crmes. Maybe we should start up some sort of "rouges gallery" wiki where we can all add and co-operate on dossiers of juicy quotes. It's important to document these things properly, because journalists tend to be lazy buggers who won't get their hands dirty with complex research, and even when they do they hate anything that has to be explained to their readers.

Do the research and pre-digestion for them and they have a story. At the very least it is something they can use to counter the self-serving and one-sided stories Phil is telling. I was thinking it was a shame that the police couldn't tell their side of the story, but it looks like this lawyer chap might be able to get that out in the open, and it would be interesting to hear their reports.

"We entered the premises at 1015. After a short delay we gained admittance. The smell hit us first, suggestive of rotting flesh and yoghurt. The subject, obviously distressed, shrank into a corner. Empty pill bottles were scattered around and a nearby toilet completed it's cycle. Rats glared at us from the litter of pizza box's and Diet Cola bottles in the corner. A computer sat on the kitchen table, it's cord jerked from the socket as it's fan noise died away. We reassured the subject that it was just a routine inquiry, but he was upset and unwilling to meet our gaze, his eyes fixated on my upper body throughout the interview."

Posted by: sgrayban

QUOTE(kotepho @ Thu 25th May 2006, 6:21am) *

Boing Boing ran another uhh http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/24/lawyer_demands_u_fla.html about this and some lawyer getting into it pro bono or something and someone decided to create Phil Sandifer (T-H-L-K-D)


That's funny as fuck......... A dickhead admin who act's like a baby gets a page created on wikipedia to support his legal defense when clearly that violates the "No legal Threats".

Welcome to Soviet Wikipedia co-sponsored by the Nazi Jackboots of the Board of Directors.

Posted by: blissyu2

Having seen actual police diaries, I'd suggest it was more like this:

- 2pm May 11: E-mail from Rebecca ***. Tip off student UFL Phillip Sandifer at pulpdecarum.livejournal.com post 4282 . May be planning a murder and/or committed one.

- 3pm May 11: Opinion of journal entry: may be a warning of a murder. Seek opinion of director before proceeding.

- 4pm May 11: Gained permission to investigate. Sent e-mail response to Rebecca ***. Ask for more information on suspect.

- 5pm May 11: E-mail #2 from Rebecca ***. Suspect has long history of abuse on Wikipedia web site. May be involved in UFL's 2005 unsolved murders.

- 9am May 12: Reviewed case. Will seek additional information and evidence from suspect before proceeding.

- 10:15am May 12: Entered premises. Suspect located near to computer. Suspect immediately shut down computer on entering premises. Suspect claims he is an administrator on Wikipedia web site and that the information was confidential. Requested for suspect to reboot web site to show us web site. He agreed and demonstrated that he had administrator access. Suspect refused to provide information as to what he was doing when we entered premises.

- 10:30am May 12: Located 17 empty pill bottles. Suspect queried regarding drug addiction/supply. Suspect again refused to answer.

- 10:45am May 12: Suspect questioned regarding motivation for entry. Suspect again refused to cooperate. Suspect requested contact with University English department regarding investigation. Permission granted.

- 11am May 12: Exited premises.

- 1pm May 12: Meeting with English department heads and Phil Sandifer. Heads demonstrated possibility that it was a work of fiction. Request for Sandifer to provide evidence that this was innocent. Refused to provide fingerprints or DNA, citing "invasion of privacy".

Sandifer has subsequently published details of this investigation in Pulp Decarum on Live Journal. May violate privacy laws. Details have appeared on web blog "Boing Boing" by Cory Doctorow and on news paper "Gainesville Sun". Has also appeared on Wikipedia article "Philip Sandifer". Further investigation and legal action may follow.

This case is currently under investigation by the director to determine whether appropriate policy was followed, and whether Sandifer should be formally charged, either as a suspect to the murders or in relation to his listing of confidential information in relation to this case.

----

It'd probably have gone something like that.

Posted by: Daniel Brandt

For the record (this was brought up on that locked thread today), I did not edit the comment that BoingBoing quoted. I stand by what I said. However, BoingBoing quoted only part of the comment. The first part was, "If I know anything about grad school..."

The context of my comment was that we had just confirmed that Phil was a grad student at UF. The intent of my comment was more along the lines of my experience with three years in grad school at two different places. If a couple of people in the department don't like you, or feel that you are insufficiently supportive toward their worldview, they can and will sabotage your Ph.D. plans. After years of "all but dissertation," you finally get wise and decide that you don't need a Ph.D. after all.

If someone is going to quote me, I wish they would be faithful to the context in which my comments were made. At that time I didn't have an axe to grind against Sandifer. I just felt he lacked basic good judgment about his real-world political situation in grad school, after making so many enemies on Wikipedia. Now if Sanidfer had been active in playing with my biography, then I would have been more aggressive. But he's never touched it, as far as I know.

I believe that events subsequent to my comment show that I was correct. It didn't take much to raise eyebrows and start questioning what Sandifer was up to. An email from somewhere (it wasn't me) to the UF president, and it was a done deal.

The fact that Sandifer is pumping this issue to get his bio on Wikipedia (why the hell would anyone want their own bio on Wikipedia?) means that his judgment is still very immature. My guess is that the support he thinks he has from his department is temporary. What will count in those "all but dissertation" days ahead is the fact that the UF president had to be bothered. The next time the English department asks for a budget increase, the UF president could decide that he shouldn't have been bothered.

That's how it works at grad school, and that was my main point.

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 27th May 2006, 11:01am) *
About staff here altering posts, as long as the altered posts don't misrepresent my postings, that's their prerogative.

That's fine. I just wish they wouldn't call me a liar and accuse me of faking screenshots when I point out that the posts have been altered and deleted, like Selina and sgrayban did. Can we at least agree that posts in this thread were altered by someone other than their authors, and that I'm not making it up?

Posted by: blissyu2

I wrote an e-mail to Jack Stripling, who wrote the article for the Gainesville Sun ( http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060523/LOCAL/205230326/1078/news ) that is the only source that claims to have evidence of a police inquiry. As part of that e-mail, I pointed out that indeed Daniel Brandt does not have an "ongoing dispute with Snowspinner", indeed that the two have never met and that Snowspinner is not mentioned on the Wikipedia Watch hivemind page (but is listed in his list of administrators). In the thread itself, Daniel Brandt was not the only person to suggest that there was a valid reason for the police to be called, and indeed that, given that we now know that the university had a 10-person mass murder a year earlier, which remains unsolved, then police very definitely should have been called. I mean, consider this - the post was made 18 months ago and by this stage if something was going to happen then it would have, so we can ignore it. But when we consider that just a few months after the post, a 10-person mass murder really did happen at the self same university, then it changes things dramatically. Someone at the university could well have known that and put two and two together to suggest it.

QUOTE(hades @ Sun 28th May 2006, 3:59am) *

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 27th May 2006, 11:01am) *
About staff here altering posts, as long as the altered posts don't misrepresent my postings, that's their prerogative.

That's fine. I just wish they wouldn't call me a liar and accuse me of faking screenshots when I point out that the posts have been altered and deleted, like Selina and sgrayban did. Can we at least agree that posts in this thread were altered by someone other than their authors, and that I'm not making it up?

I am not sure that they were altered by someone other than their authors. People can edit their own posts here.

Posted by: blissyu2

The first thread was made by David Gerard: http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/047345.html

He at least advocates the actual relevant posts being added to the Wikipedia article. I wonder why they censor it?

QUOTE
Seed of story:
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=1116

What happened next:
http://pulpdecameron.livejournal.com/52175.html
http://pulpdecameron.livejournal.com/52385.html

Story at BoingBoing:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/22/u_florida_cops_ask_f.html


Seed of story doesn't warrant mention in a Wikipedia article created solely to document it? Come on now...

Peter MacKay is apparently a troll, due to these two comments:

http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/047399.html

QUOTE
I don't. The person who thinks there's no such thing as bad publicity hasn't been around long enough. IMHO the average reader will see Snowspinner as foolish to post such stuff on the interweb and the police just doing their job. This is the way that news reports on police-investigated internet fiction go, because that's a better story then the other way round. Everyone likes to see an egghead brought down, especially in Florida.


And this one:

http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/047401.html

QUOTE
As Snowspinner said with a straight face: "I was going after just the idea that people who want power are exactly the sort of people you don't want to have it." http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060523/LOCAL/205230326/1078/news


I wonder if The Conctator is regarded as a troll too?

http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/047562.html

Or perhaps this post by Ray Sointage:

http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/047503.html

And in conclusion, they state that Wikipedia Review are indeed murderers for daring to try to expose him. Or at least psychopaths:

http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/047424.html

Good on them, eh? Now, when did we agree to let black become white again?

Posted by: Daniel Brandt

I did not edit my post. Yesterday I read where someone on this forum said they had searched for the BoingBoing quote and couldn't find it. I knew they were referring to my quote, but until then I wasn't aware that it wasn't turning up in a search. Sure enough, it was gone. I then found it on http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=3281633812343.

Good grief, let's be upfront. Someone deleted some stuff once the Sandifer thing became a big story. It wasn't me.

I don't object to this. On the contrary, I believe the forum owners/admins have the right to clean up a thread once it becomes clear that it is being unfairly exploited by enemies of the forum. But at least let's admit that this is policy, and it might happen again, and if you don't like it then go find what you want on some search engine's cache copy.

Why keep this a secret? It just feeds the controversy.

Posted by: hades

QUOTE(everyking @ Sat 27th May 2006, 1:09am) *

Huh. I don't remember editing my comment. I wouldn't completely rule it out, but I don't recall doing it or even wanting to do it. Is it possible someone else did?

QUOTE(Daniel Brandt @ Sat 27th May 2006, 10:23am) *

For the record (this was brought up on that locked thread today), I did not edit the comment that BoingBoing quoted.

QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Sat 27th May 2006, 11:34am) *

QUOTE(hades @ Sun 28th May 2006, 3:59am) *

Can we at least agree that posts in this thread were altered by someone other than their authors, and that I'm not making it up?

I am not sure that they were altered by someone other than their authors. People can edit their own posts here.

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 27th May 2006, 11:43am) *

How about we all agree it might just be a bunch of microfiction published in an ambiguous context and you don't have any right to ask us about it?

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.


You know, after reading a bunch of the links here showing that wikipedia's admins had done things like reverting articles and talk pages in such a way that edits that were inconvenient to them didn't even show up in the edit history, I was beginning to come around to your point of view. But I see now that it's a tactic you approve of, when it's used in your favor. Nobody on either side of this argument is interested in fighting fair, it seems. What's good for the goose is good for the gander indeed.

Whatever. If I don't have any right to ask about it, then I guess I won't any more.

Posted by: blissyu2

QUOTE(Daniel Brandt @ Sun 28th May 2006, 4:24am) *

I did not edit my post. Yesterday I read where someone on this forum said they had searched for the BoingBoing quote and couldn't find it. I knew they were referring to my quote, but until then I wasn't aware that it wasn't turning up in a search. Sure enough, it was gone. I then found it on http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=3281633812343.

Good grief, let's be upfront. Someone deleted some stuff once the Sandifer thing became a big story. It wasn't me.

I don't object to this. On the contrary, I believe the forum owners/admins have the right to clean up a thread once it becomes clear that it is being unfairly exploited by enemies of the forum. But at least let's admit that this is policy, and it might happen again, and if you don't like it then go find what you want on some search engine's cache copy.

Why keep this a secret? It just feeds the controversy.


I agree. We should be open about it. This kind of thing has happened before here, which was why we developed the trash can and so forth. Presumably this was done by Selina, so hopefully this can just be admitted and let's move on from there. Its better just to say the truth. There's nothing wrong with doing it. Its just a problem with when we do it then pretend we didn't.

And that was obviously not a fake screen shot too. It looked very real to me, and when I typed in the entry that appeared in the screen shot, I got the exact same result. So why call it fake?

Posted by: Ben

It's pretty clear, to me at least, what your underlying motivations are Hushthis. Very passive-aggressive of you to call the cops on him. I bet he loved the attention, and his favorite part was telling his friends how he got to stick it to the man and say "I refuse to give you my fingerprints." You just handed him an ego-boost.

Sure, it's important that the police have to know about things like this, but this in particular? It's like calling the cops because "omg there's a teenager outside my house wearing all black and with mascara on" Surely you are more culturally learned than that. Teenagers (and I'll call Phil a teenager, since he acts like one) write stuff like this all the time.

Phil's "resumé" vignette is, quite simply, puffed up and confused. It could be worse, but if I were marking it as a "Write a fictional cover letter of someone interesting" I'd give it a B- and say something like "Good, but you need to focus on the style you are using. Is this a cover letter or a soliloquy?" and "Character seems very scattered. Try to blend your humorous and serious parts so the reader can understand him better."

Bullies like Phil can make you do stupid things to try to find some way, any way, to get back at them. The best solution is to ignore them. You'll never win.

Posted by: Lir

QUOTE(Ben @ Sat 27th May 2006, 2:41pm) *

It's pretty clear, to me at least, what your underlying motivations are Hushthis. Very passive-aggressive of you to call the cops on him.

Huh, what? Did Hushthis say he called the cops?

QUOTE(Daniel Brandt @ Sat 27th May 2006, 1:54pm) *

Good grief, let's be upfront. Someone deleted some stuff once the Sandifer thing became a big story. It wasn't me.

I don't think that should be done.

Posted by: Ben

QUOTE
Huh, what? Did Hushthis say he called the cops?


I thought he said he did somewhere. He certainly implied it a trillion times.

Posted by: sgrayban

I don't have mod access on this forum section so it was not me. I have mod access on the media section only..... I am ruled out by matter of board permissions.

Posted by: Skyring

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sun 28th May 2006, 4:01am) *

QUOTE(everyking @ Thu 25th May 2006, 7:05pm) *
He's a cyberbully, not a real life murderer, so focus on the shit he's actually done--there's plenty to work with.
That's not even original research. It is speculation. A person who makes plausible boasts of homicide wears the suspicions they raise. The only way he could begin to resolve those suspicions is to discuss the ambiguous context in which he published the tome about stalking and murder.
Using this sort of logic, Vladimir Nabokov is a paedophile for writing Lolita, and Thomas Harris is a serial killer.

My off the top of the head guess is that the number of murderers who have written blogs or published narrative about their actual murders is pretty bloody small and the number of people who have written blogs and published narratives about murders that never happened is immense. Just go to a bookshop and look at "Crime Fiction". How many of those shelves of books are written by murderers? My guess is zero.

The chances that Phil, a literature student, is writing about an actual murder, are pretty small. The chances that he is writing fiction about a murderer are high.

Phil's a cyberbully. He's not a serial killer.

Going by the hard evidence we have.

Posted by: Skyring

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sun 28th May 2006, 7:39am) *

QUOTE(Skyring @ Sat 27th May 2006, 9:30pm) *

QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sun 28th May 2006, 4:01am) *

QUOTE(everyking @ Thu 25th May 2006, 7:05pm) *
He's a cyberbully, not a real life murderer, so focus on the shit he's actually done--there's plenty to work with.
That's not even original research. It is speculation. A person who makes plausible boasts of homicide wears the suspicions they raise. The only way he could begin to resolve those suspicions is to discuss the ambiguous context in which he published the tome about stalking and murder.
Using this sort of logic, Vladimir Nabokov is a paedophile for writing Lolita, and Thomas Harris is a serial killer.

My off the top of the head guess is that the number of murderers who have written blogs or published narrative about their actual murders is pretty bloody small and the number of people who have written blogs and published narratives about murders that never happened is immense. Just go to a bookshop and look at "Crime Fiction". How many of those shelves of books are written by murderers? My guess is zero.

The chances that Phil, a literature student, is writing about an actual murder, are pretty small. The chances that he is writing fiction about a murderer are high.

Phil's a cyberbully. He's not a serial killer.

Going by the hard evidence we have.
We have no hard evidence. You don't know what hard evidence is. We have a few published statements, from a newspaper and from Internet sources. That is not hard evidence.
We have hard evidence of his cyberbullying - all we need do is check diffs. We don't have hard evidence of him being a killer.

I'll grant you a minor point in that we don't have hard evidence that he's NOT a killer, but then again, the same goes for every human being on the planet more than a few minutes old.

Posted by: amorrow

As I mentioned previously, the police were just trying to be able to close the item out efficiently and Phil make a well-informed response in not co-operating. It is a basic balance of privacy that is struck dynamically in our American society. If he had just caved when the police made their request, well, that would probably be no big tragedy either. At least it seems to be over as far as investigations by the police are concerned. If the public reports then to "follow Phil around", that is his problem. He is not going to lose any job opportunities because of it unless he broke the law.

I hope that they get creative and move the article to within the Wikipedia: namespace to keep it around as a case study. It seems like the AfD will succeed.

There is another, more subtle effect. Wikipedia already avoids self-reference. One obvious motivation to make a martyr out of Phil and write his article is to provide him with publicity as a consolation prize.

Really, I think that Wikipedia would benefit from a List or Gallery of this admin-troulbe incidents. It is not going to change the ways of SlimVirgin, but othher admin-people should learn from having some "admin careers" to study. It will simply allow them to be well-informed. The obvious ones are Gator1 and Katefan0. I am sure you guys know of others.

Posted by: blissyu2

I think that we need to consider a few points before we get confused as to what is going on.

1) Do we know for certain that Snowspinner was planning to and/or had already stalked and/or raped and/or murdered someone?
- No, we do not. However, we do know that people have written things like this in the past, and ended up doing it. It is enough for someone to consider investigating it. Perhaps some police would have deemed it was not worthwhile to investigate it, but on this occasion they chose to. I have in my life had 2 people who had told me they were planning to kill someone. One of them never did anything, and the second one killed 35 people in a day. Police didn't investigate either. They should have.
2) Why were police contacted?
- Police were contacted because of the chance that this was serious. Sure, we can guess and say that most likely Snowspinner didn't do anything. But they for whatever reason felt that there was a chance. Nobody rang Snowspinner or stalked him or did anything like that. They asked police if they felt it was serious enough to investigate. Police agreed that it was.
3) Why was the board messages edited?
- I don't rightly know. In all likelihood Daniel Brandt's was edited to stop him from being harassed by Wikipedia people, and Everyking's one was edited just to make it sound more clear what he was trying to say. Whilst it is a pity that nobody here has admitted to doing it, there is really nothing suspicious or unusual about it.
4) Was Snowspinner the victim of police harassment?
- No. There is actual police harassment that happens, and when it does it is very serious. When you get police arrest you just for walking home at night, or approach people sitting around talking, then you are talking about police harassment. Someone following a legitimate tip off and investigating something appropriately is not harassment.
5) Was Snowspinner forced to give DNA, fingerprints and to say his source for his story?
- No. Snowspinner was asked. He refused on all 3 counts. If he had given his DNA or fingerprints, then he could have proved his innocence. Because he refused, it makes him look guilty. He also refused to say his source for the story. What if someone he knew really had committed a murder? He is impeding a police investigation and potentially protecting a criminal. He is using the excuse of "police harassment" to get away with it.
6) Why did Boing Boing support him?
- This is a question that really needs to be asked, and far too few people are asking it. A quick look at the Wikipedia article on Cory Doctorow, who wrote the article, gives a rather obvious reason for it. Cory Doctorow is one of few people who have been allowed to make their own articles on Wikipedia as 100% positive advertisements for them. In other words, thanks to Wikipedia, Cory Doctorow is more famous and makes more money than he otherwise would. Cory Doctorow regularly deletes "negative" material from his article. So in payment for this, Cory Doctorow is helping out Snowspinner, one of the people that helped to make sure that Cory Doctorow got such a positive spin on his story. Its a simple case of "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours". Cory Doctorow is far from neutral about Wikipedia - he loves it and is prepared to lie his heart out in order to protect it.
7) Do we care who called police?
- I don't really care. If they want to say who they are, then they will. But police informants should be protected by privacy. Its a bit like how some people wanted to expose the name of the girl who accused the hockey team of rape. We shouldn't find out her name because she will be harassed. Similarly, we shouldn't be trying to find out this person's name. Wikipedia has tried to bully it out, by accusing practically everyone who has posted here of being the person, and then accusing them of lots of things which could not possibly be true.

Posted by: everyking

OK, well, just to be very clear, I did not edit my post. I don't care that much about it, except that I don't want people to get the idea that I was being sneaky, or that I was trying to take back something I wrote.

Anyway, it looks to me like Phil's article is going to survive. It's horrifying. I would vote delete if I could, but they probably would block me for that. Rationally, article content on Phil shouldn't be regarded the same as user issues, but I suppose that argument would be "wikilawyering".

Posted by: Ryan Norton

QUOTE(everyking @ Sun 28th May 2006, 3:01am) *

OK, well, just to be very clear, I did not edit my post. I don't care that much about it, except that I don't want people to get the idea that I was being sneaky, or that I was trying to take back something I wrote.

Anyway, it looks to me like Phil's article is going to survive. It's horrifying. I would vote delete if I could, but they probably would block me for that. Rationally, article content on Phil shouldn't be regarded the same as user issues, but I suppose that argument would be "wikilawyering".


Yes, it is horrifying and laughable at the same time (although right now it seems to be leaning towards delete at 25k vs. 60d). Also, Phil's insistance on what he wants to focus on (see the talk page of the article and elsewhere) is slightly perplexing.

In some ways though it would suck to be Phil. The only real winner of this it seems is Wikipediareview as now that have to, at least indirectly, be mentioned in an article smile.gif.

Posted by: blissyu2

Well, let's go over pros and cons, for both of Wikipedia Review and Phil Sandifer, and perhaps for Wikipedia (Slim Virgin etc):

Wikipedia Review:

Pros:
1. Had 127 visitors at a time, beating previous record of 66.
2. Mentioned in several news sources.
3. General exposure of this web forum.
4. Added perhaps 30 new members to the forum.
5. Wikipedia will have to mention Wikipedia Review now (or will they still find some way to get around it?)

Cons:
1. Wikipedia has a new excuse to censor this forum.
2. Many people at Boing Boing and Live Journal, who had never heard of Wikipedia Review, hate it now.

Phil Sandifer (Snowspinner):

Pros:
1. Got about twice as many people reading his blog than before.
2. Got an article on Wikipedia for himself.
3. Got lots of public sympathy thanks to Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing.
4. More excuses for his vile actions on Wikipedia.
5. Wikitruth wrote an "uncensored" article for him, supporting him.

Cons:
1. Had police seriously consider him as a possible murder suspect.
2. Has a lot of people questioning him at university.
3. Has a lot of people questioning him on Wikipedia.
4. Is something that may never go away.
5. Refused to give finger prints, DNA or even to say why he wrote the story, making him look even more guilty.

Wikipedia:

Pros:
1. They get to demonise Wikipedia Review
2. They can justify abusive practises of Snowspinner and the cabal.
3. They have even more excuses to censor this forum.

Cons:
1. They basically have to write an article on Wikipedia Review now.
2. There is even more public scrutiny about what they are doing.

How many people can look at this issue without considering its implications for Wikipedia? Can they regard this purely as an obscure civil liberty exercise?

And how many people can honestly say that it is wrong for police to ask someone for finger prints, a DNA sample and for them to give a reason for why they wrote a story?

How many people can honestly say that Snowspinner proved his innocence by refusing to cooperate with police?

At worst, police violated a technicality. There was no uproar about Bradley John Murdoch being tricked in to providing a DNA sample so that they could prove that he was the guy that killed Peter Falconio. Nobody gave a shit. It was the proof that was important. And similarly, nobody would have given a shit if police had gotten a DNA sample from Snowspinner.

Like, what are they going to do? Plant DNA somewhere just to pin it on him? How paranoid can they get?

In spite of what they might think, we here do not represent the University of Florida campus police. Yes, we are law abiding citizens, but we are not "stitching him up". There's conspiracy theories, and then there's just stupidity.