"Mel Etitis" and "Peter J. King" Options

[anon1234]

I was curious about who User:Mel Etitis was lately. Mel Etitis is an admin on Wikipedia and claims to teach philosophy at Oxford. This Mel Etitis guy sure has a lot of time to edit Wikipedia. It turns out that Mel Etitis is Peter J. King (an article that he contributed to Wikipedia himself as documented here.) Mel Etitis is interesting in that his bio article, Peter J. King, has received a lot of loving attention from SlimVirgin (see this, this and this.) If you read the bio article it actually is filled with inane ego-stroking vanity, for example:

He attended St Mary's Catholic Primary School, then Boston Grammar School. After leaving school, he decided against his long-standing desire to go into the theatre, becoming involved instead in the poetry scene in London, centred on the National Poetry Society in Earls Court Square, and running his own small poetry-publishing company, tapocketa press.

Gaining first-class honours, he went on to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he read for the B.Phil., a postgraduate philosophy degree, taking papers in philosophical logic, philosophy of science, and the seventeenth-century rationalists, and writing a thesis on "The Ontology of Possible Worlds".

His research interests include moral philosophy, the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophical logic, the philosophy of parapsychology, René Descartes, David Hume, and John Stuart Mill. In addition, his teaching interests include African philosophy, political philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of science (including the philosophy of physics and of biology), the rationalists, and the empiricists.

What made me interested in Mel Etitis was his strange role in defusing a few SlimVirgin related conflicts. In a few instances Mel Etitis arrived on the scene of a SlimVirgin conflict and proclaimed to be a neutral party by weakly questioning what was going on. Soon as SlimVirgin presented her side, Mel Etitis quickly agreed with her with minor reservations and considered the matter closed. Mel Etitis appeared to serve as a false "third party" opinion. For an illustrative example, see this mild initial criticism and this quick change of position. Another example of his strange behavior can be found in his recent attempt at mediation on the New antisemitism article. After coming on the scene proclaiming to offer his assistance to diffuse a long simmering argument that SlimVirgin appeared to be losing, once the mediation got underway he appeared to lose all interest. His loss of interest was convenient for SlimVirgin though since the only results possible from the mediation would have been changes to the article that she had been opposing.

[Somey]

First class research, man!

So looking at the logs for the talk page, it looks like someone decided to "out" Mr. King - presumably User:Courtierson, which appears to have been a single-purpose account.

I guess someone doesn't like the ol' fella?

I'd noticed the latest hubbub on the New_Antisemitism article too, actually... I wonder if the two incidents are related? Slimmy's opponents are definitely getting smarter, but something tells me it still won't be quite enough.

[Skyrocket]

There need to be some articles in the mainstream press about the specific deception/propaganda/etc. techniques used by Wikipedia administrators and their kin. It's one thing to say "Wikipedia is subject to inaccuracies," or "many eyes constantly look for errors," and another to show how malicious members of management actually diddle the content to conform with their self-serving wishes.

Wikipedia is newsworthy. The doubts about it get a lot of press. The iron is hot for being more specific.

[BobbyBombastic]

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Peter_J._King

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Peter_J_King

I've decamped to Citizendium, in the hope that it will do what Wikipedia should be able to do but can't because of its toleration of disruptive and non-community-spirited editors. Maybe it will work, and maybe it won't, but I'll do my best to help it. It would be good if other philosophers (and editors in other fields who are similarly frustrated by the battle against those for whom Wikipedia is cheap therapy) would come along too. It needn't be instead of Wikipedia, of course, though for me it is.

[anon1234]

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Peter_J._King

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Peter_J_King

I've decamped to Citizendium, in the hope that it will do what Wikipedia should be able to do but can't because of its toleration of disruptive and non-community-spirited editors. Maybe it will work, and maybe it won't, but I'll do my best to help it. It would be good if other philosophers (and editors in other fields who are similarly frustrated by the battle against those for whom Wikipedia is cheap therapy) would come along too. It needn't be instead of Wikipedia, of course, though for me it is.

Going through these two contribution histories (here and here), I notice that the edit times appear to interleave perfectly suggesting that they are the same user and this user has a serious Wikipedia addiction. Seriously, check out the times, its like he is switching back and forth between Citizendium and Wikipedia.

Someone should look over the evidence as well, just to confirm. It means that he is engaging in deception with the two separate and contradictory user pages (User:Peter_J_King and User:Mel_Etitis) on Wikipedia. But it does reinforce the perception that deception is a key component of Wikipedia, while Citizendium is at least a step above.

[BobbyBombastic]

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Peter_J._King

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Peter_J_King

I've decamped to Citizendium, in the hope that it will do what Wikipedia should be able to do but can't because of its toleration of disruptive and non-community-spirited editors. Maybe it will work, and maybe it won't, but I'll do my best to help it. It would be good if other philosophers (and editors in other fields who are similarly frustrated by the battle against those for whom Wikipedia is cheap therapy) would come along too. It needn't be instead of Wikipedia, of course, though for me it is.

Going through these two contribution histories (here and here), I notice that the edit times appear to interleave perfectly suggesting that they are the same user and this user has a serious Wikipedia addiction. Seriously, check out the times, its like he is switching back and forth between Citizendium and Wikipedia.

i came to the same conclusion...i also wondered if this is a "monkey wrench" in citizendium...this Peter J. King/Mel Etitis seems like a seasoned wiki cult member to me...any contributions that he would make to Sanger's project I wonder about.

in that case i may be reading too much into it but at the very least i find it strange.

the people that are found out don't even do a good job hiding their tracks, it makes me wonder who the ones are that actually do a good job of it.

[Poetlister]

Whoever Mel Etitis is, he isn't fully briefed on the SlimVirgin position, or he wouldn't do this to my good friend User Newport:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=121905192

[Jonny Cache]

Whoever Mel Etitis is, he isn't fully briefed on the SlimVirgin position, or he wouldn't do this to my good friend User Newport:

User Talk:Newport ...

I have to confess, after all this time of ½way listening to the buzz and hymn about SlimVirgin's Realpolitik, I could not tell you which side of any issue she would come down on, except for something about Positron Emission Tomography Assay that is simply over my head. So I don't find it surprising that any ½way rational player would have trouble knowing what to bet.

Jonny

[Unrepentant Vandal]

So.... SV read graduate philosophy at Cambridge, and would therefore have had plenty of opportunities (through extra curricular activities in that field) to meet up with professors in the other place, such as Peter King.

Interesting.