Coren is in this photo, from Wikimania 2009 Options

[CharlotteWebb]

Then, again, the LinkedIn guy may not be him. Do a Facebook search for that name and you get a ton of guys.

Okay, do any of them have "friends" easily recognizable as arbcombatants...?

[A Horse With No Name]

Did anyone think to email Coren and just ask, "Hey, is this bearded character in the baseball cap really you?"

[Somey]

There is someone in other Wikimania 2009 pics who has a baseball cap like that, but my confidence is too low to go with it.

That's Leo Fishman.

It's the same guy as the one in this photo, and if you look at the largest version, you can zoom in his name-tag enough to read it.

Apparently he lives in Buenos Aires, where he owns a bicycle. I'd be surprised if he even has an account on the English Wikipedia, but whoever he is, he's probably not Fishman92 (T-C-L-K-R-D) , founder of the "Fishmaniacs Network."

Also, I gotta say, having seen the original photo from which Leo's headshot above was cropped, the South American WP'ers tend to be much better-looking than their North American counterparts!

[Cla68]

There is someone in other Wikimania 2009 pics who has a baseball cap like that, but my confidence is too low to go with it.

That's Leo Fishman.

It's the same guy as the one in this photo, and if you look at the largest version, you can zoom in his name-tag enough to read it.

Apparently he lives in Buenos Aires, where he owns a bicycle. I'd be surprised if he even has an account on the English Wikipedia, but whoever he is, he's probably not Fishman92 (T-C-L-K-R-D) , founder of the "Fishmaniacs Network."

Also, I gotta say, having seen the original photo from which Leo's headshot above was cropped, the South American WP'ers tend to be much better-looking than their North American counterparts!

The Argentinian Critical Mass riders also appear to be much better looking and in better shape (except for that guy in the left foreground) than their North American counterparts. In contrast to their North American comrades, it appears that many of them, if not most, may actually ride their bicycles on days that they're not participating in a Critical Mass protest.

This post has been edited by Cla68: Wed 10th February 2010, 5:17am

[carbuncle]

That's Leo Fishman.

It's the same guy as the one in this photo, and if you look at the largest version, you can zoom in his name-tag enough to read it.

Apparently he lives in Buenos Aires, where he owns a bicycle. I'd be surprised if he even has an account on the English Wikipedia, but whoever he is, he's probably not Fishman92 (T-C-L-K-R-D) , founder of the "Fishmaniacs Network."

Also, I gotta say, having seen the original photo from which Leo's headshot above was cropped, the South American WP'ers tend to be much better-looking than their North American counterparts!

Leo Fishman! Of course it is, how silly of me - I've met him at the Argentinian Nacktreiten meet-ups! I didn't recognize him with his clothes on.

[Coren]

Somey is right, Coren is the speaker at the podium. The video is a static shot from far away so you won't see any more than in the screenshot.

(It looks like I posted my reply just as Mr Brandt was posing his question to Somey. The camera actually zooms out a few seconds into the video so everyone gets slightly smaller. Coren never steps away from the podium. I honestly can't tell if he wears glasses or has a beard, or evn if his shirt has long or short sleeves. )

I probably had my glasses on, though they are frameless and tend to be discreet even in good lighting conditions. No beard.

Incidentally, I have a rather squeaky voice when I talk (and mikes do evil things to it), but I sing a powerful bass. Go figure.

None of the pictures you guys have found are me -- and I doubt you can find any; I didn't see any Wikimania pictures that had me visible except from the back in a few crowd shots. None of the social site pictures either.

I'm half tempted to put you out of your misery by providing a picture provided you do not misstate my involvement with the dirty story site: I am the *system* administrator; saying that I administer it without qualification would be akin to say that the white house electrician administers the presidency.

-- Coren

[Daniel Brandt]

I'm half tempted to put you out of your misery by providing a picture provided you do not misstate my involvement with the dirty story site: I am the *system* administrator; saying that I administer it without qualification would be akin to say that the white house electrician administers the presidency.

-- Coren

Here's my offer: provide a usable picture for hivemind, and a birthdate, and your "Coren" entry with that picture will look like this:

Marc-André Pelletier
aka Marc A. Pelletier
Montreal area, Quebec, Canada
Linux sysadmin, www.uberbox.org
born:yyyy-mm-dd

[Trick cyclist]

Here's my offer: provide a usable picture for hivemind, and a birthdate

As a matter of interest is there a photo of Daniel Brandt on Hivemind? You know, in the interests of consistency and all that? Jus' sayin'.

[thekohser]

Also, I gotta say, having seen the original photo from which Leo's headshot above was cropped, the South American WP'ers tend to be much better-looking than their North American counterparts!

I'm sure that at least some of the grown men attending the 2009 Wikimania conference in Argentina also found this young disciple to be much better-looking than even some of the adult females in attendance. I hope he got his parents' permission to be hangin' with the elders.

[RMHED]

Also, I gotta say, having seen the original photo from which Leo's headshot above was cropped, the South American WP'ers tend to be much better-looking than their North American counterparts!

I'm sure that at least some of the grown men attending the 2009 Wikimania conference in Argentina also found this young disciple to be much better-looking than even some of the adult females in attendance. I hope he got his parents' permission to be hangin' with the elders.

You're sure?

Do you move in those kind of circles Greg?

Or would it be more accurate to say you're guessing?

[A Horse With No Name]

I sing a powerful bass. Go figure.

Aha! Now we know who Coren really is:

[Coren]

Here's my offer: provide a usable picture for hivemind, and a birthdate, and your "Coren" entry with that picture will look like this:

I'm still trying to find a half decent picture of myself that isn't overly old, but I'll admit I'm not so hot about giving you an exact birthday. I'll confirm, though, that I am 40 right now.

I am wondering about something however: in general "hive mind" means a group of people who all think exactly the same way and reinforce that pattern of groupthink to self-perpetuate; the selection of people on your page is about as diverse as one is likely to find on enwp: I see rabid eventualists, heavy-duty content writers, career mandarins, deletionists, hardline BLP enforcers... many of whom found themselves on opposite sides of numerous spats over the years. What, exactly, is the groupthink that is common to all of them? (Or all of us, I suppose I should say).

-- Coren

[Somey]

What, exactly, is the groupthink that is common to all of them? (Or all of us, I suppose I should say).

Good question, but IMO we have to remember that Daniel's main issue is personal accountability. It seems like a fairly safe assumption that everyone, or almost everyone, on that list supports the idea that allowing open/anonymous editing of highly-ranked content is a good thing, either openly or tacitly.

Don't get me wrong - some of the people on the list have actually indicated support for preventative features (i.e., flagged revisions, semi-protection of all BLP's) and/or policies to allow BLP article subjects some measure of redress and control (i.e., opt-out, "courtesy deletion," or even just "default to delete"). Because of that, maybe they don't belong on the list, or at least the same list, with the others - after all, in a true "hive mind" there's little room for contrary opinions on anything substantive. But either way, I'm not going to pretend that BLP-specific preventative features will go far enough, and Daniel is much more of a hard-liner than I am.

So... If I'm not mistaken, Daniel believes that anyone who participates "constructively" at all on Wikipedia, except perhaps for the purpose of ultimately undermining it, is still supporting the system - in other words, "the only good Wikipedian is an ex-Wikipedian."

[Coren]

But either way, I'm not going to pretend that BLP-specific preventative features will go far enough, and Daniel is much more of a hard-liner than I am.

Well, I make no secret of my own position: enwp's inclusion criteria are way too lax in general, and disastrously so for biographies. (This, in fact, cost me some support in my elections). Preventative features will, at least, allow us to control the damage somewhat; but I'd favor a major cleanup.

The trick, of course, is how to manage to make this actually happen. Community projects are, in the end, at the mercy of the collective whim. All I can do, personally, is to push the committee in the "right" direction as much as I can, and hope that the cumulative effect pushes the entire project in the right direction too -- even if it's not as far as I would hope.

The alternative is to give up on the project entirely; and I'm really unable to figure out how that could possibly help. If everyone who thinks that Wikipedia's handling of biographies sucks leaves, the project will simply go on with only people who see nothing wrong with unverified "biographies" of people languishing years with no supervision at the top of Google results.

Daniel seems to be under the impression that this would, magically, reduce the impact Wikipedia has. It wouldn't. It'd just end up with even less control.

-- Coren

[Lar]

What, exactly, is the groupthink that is common to all of them? (Or all of us, I suppose I should say).

Good question, but IMO we have to remember that Daniel's main issue is personal accountability. It seems like a fairly safe assumption that everyone, or almost everyone, on that list supports the idea that allowing open/anonymous editing of highly-ranked content is a good thing, either openly or tacitly.

Not me.

Near as I can tell I'm just on there because I don't take Brandt seriously enough, and that pisses him off.

Daniel seems to be under the impression that this would, magically, reduce the impact Wikipedia has. It wouldn't. It'd just end up with even less control.

How dare you argue with Brandt? Don't bother trying to confuse him with logic or facts. Brandt is Right™ about Everything™ and everyone with any clue knows it. Get a grip, man.

[Somey]

The alternative is to give up on the project entirely; and I'm really unable to figure out how that could possibly help... (schnip) Daniel seems to be under the impression that this would, magically, reduce the impact Wikipedia has. It wouldn't. It'd just end up with even less control.

Well, don't get me wrong, fellas - I'm not really trying to defend Daniel's apparent policy of potentially including all WP contributors, regardless of their positions on BLP and related issues. There have been plenty of times when his insistence on this has been personally frustrating and upsetting for me, and at least twice I thought he was just being completely unreasonable. Nevertheless, I'm not going to say the idea of listing some WP'ers identities is fundamentally wrong, and it may even amount to a form of justice in some cases, and provide a psychological boost for people who are (or have been) at the short end of the stick in disputes with folks like JoshuaZ, Durova, Slimmy, and so on. (Sorry if I've left anyone out!)

I don't think people (including myself) fully understand - yet - the psychological impact of being humiliated in some way by a set of anonymous account names in a Wiki environment, especially when you yourself are using your real name (or even some derivative of it). It's one of the most interesting issues we deal with here, and you rarely see it discussed on Wikipedia at all, other than in passing references on policy talk pages on occasion. The best thing we can do is probably try to convince people that any feelings of humiliation they might experience are unnecessary and unworthy of them, but not all people can be convinced of that.

Anyhoo, if an effective opt-out policy is ever implemented and Daniel doesn't either drastically reduce the length of that list, or remove it altogether, then I suspect most of us will stop supporting him, as I would. But so far I'm still taking him at his word in that regard.

[A Horse With No Name]

What, exactly, is the groupthink that is common to all of them?

Easy: they are all hypocrites.

[BelovedFox]

The alternative is to give up on the project entirely; and I'm really unable to figure out how that could possibly help... (schnip) Daniel seems to be under the impression that this would, magically, reduce the impact Wikipedia has. It wouldn't. It'd just end up with even less control.

Well, don't get me wrong, fellas - I'm not really trying to defend Daniel's apparent policy of potentially including all WP contributors, regardless of their positions on BLP and related issues. There have been plenty of times when his insistence on this has been personally frustrating and upsetting for me, and at least twice I thought he was just being completely unreasonable. Nevertheless, I'm not going to say the idea of listing some WP'ers identities is fundamentally wrong, and it may even amount to a form of justice in some cases, and provide a psychological boost for people who are (or have been) at the short end of the stick in disputes with folks like JoshuaZ, Durova, Slimmy, and so on. (Sorry if I've left anyone out!)

I don't think people (including myself) fully understand - yet - the psychological impact of being humiliated in some way by a set of anonymous account names in a Wiki environment, especially when you yourself are using your real name (or even some derivative of it). It's one of the most interesting issues we deal with here, and you rarely see it discussed on Wikipedia at all, other than in passing references on policy talk pages on occasion. The best thing we can do is probably try to convince people that any feelings of humiliation they might experience are unnecessary and unworthy of them, but not all people can be convinced of that.

Anyhoo, if an effective opt-out policy is ever implemented and Daniel doesn't either drastically reduce the length of that list, or remove it altogether, then I suspect most of us will stop supporting him, as I would. But so far I'm still taking him at his word in that regard.

I would like this opportunity to thank Somey for a rational, concise and well-reasoned response. I understand the form of limited payback a list like Hivemind potentially generates, but I guess I'm a bit leery at the whole idea of "internet justice" in the first place. It's one thing to administrate your own site where you can be god, it's another thing for people like the /b/tards to make people's lives living hell for some rather trivial (in the scheme of things) slights.