One SlimVirgin question answered, while two more emerge in its place. Options

[WordBomb]

There's been a bit of speculation as to the nature of the long-deleted Slimv account.

As I mentioned last week, I have several database dumps, which I've been painstakingly reviewing in search of insights on this and the many other odd deletions made by Musical Linguist in early June of 2006.

Trust me when I say: there is some wild stuff in there.

Wild.

The main SlimVirgin content you'll have to wait for, but Slimv I shall share with you now.

It would appear that Slimv made a single edit in her career, logged November 5, 2004 to the article on Mordacai Vanunu, the guy who revealed the existence of Israel's nuclear weapons program in the mid-80s.

When Vanunu squealed, he was smart enough to do so from England, but that didn't stop the Mossad from capturing and imprisoning him in Israel for 18 years.

Slimv's contribution to the article provided some very unique insights into the role Sunday Mirror owner Robert Maxwell might have had in revealing Vanunu's treason.

Though it's been deleted, you can still see the substance of Slimv's addition by looking at the diffs that previously surrounded it.

When you do, ignore every thing above Line 15, as this is the edit that followed Slimv's. The changes you see below Line 15 were made by Slimv.

Remember, Musical Linguist said that deletion was a result of personally identifying information included in the edit. Either that's the case, or it's not. If it is: whoa. If it's not: whoa.

It's also worth noting that Musical Linguist deleted at least one edit from the Robert Maxwell article at the same time she was deleting the Vanunu edit and Slimv's user page.

One more thing.

Six days after Slimv made her one and only edit, followed a few hours later by SlimVirgin's inaugural contribution, two things happened: Mordacai Vanunu was re-arrested, and Yasser Arafat assumed room temperature. That was a busy week for Israeli intelligence.

This post has been edited by WordBomb:

[The Adversary]

Slimmy has claimed to have "journalistic experience":
http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=U...rev&oldid=27217 : "I'm a Wikipedia editor and have journalistic experience so I'm going to try my hand at Wikinews. "
(Somehow ED managed to miss that quote, in spite of their extensive quote-farm)

Also; one of Slimmys oversighted edits mentioned Ari Ben-Menashe; that is interesting as Ben-Menashes article is one that Slim "owns". That Slim should be interested in him is not surprising; he is after all Jewish, Canadian and associated with the cloak-and-dagger business. However, take a look at the talk-page, and the deleted edits and the archive. Among other things, Slim writes in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ari_Ben-...chive1#Maxwell:

"The distinction tends to be that an informant is not paid, though it varies from country to country. In the UK, the intelligence services apparently won't even buy an informant a cup of tea, in case any allegations about expenses are made, because as soon as payment is made, certain responsibilities apparently kick in toward the informant, and/or the information might be seen to be tainted. An agent, on the other hand, is generally understood to be someone who receives expenses or even a regular fee. An officer is a paid employee"

This is probably pure [[WP:OR]]!!

My guess: Slimmy didn´t even get a cup of tea (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sad.gif)
(However, she possibly got a few millions from Libya from the death of her friend Julian)

Also: note how Steven Emerson is referred to. Steven Emerson co-wrote a book on Lockerbie (which I have not yet gotten hold of). AND Slim "owns" his article, too. Emerson is actually a totally discredited person (he blamed the Oklahoma bombings on "Arab terrorists", among other things), but you wouldn´t guess that by looking at his WP article. Another fine case of whitewashing b y Slim. (see: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Steven_Emerson I am sure Daniel B. can tell us more)

[Adam Smithee]

My guess: Slimmy didn´t even get a cup of tea (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sad.gif)
(However, she possibly got a few millions from Libya from the death of her friend Julian)

As someone who's lurked these related threads, blogs, websites for a good while, that's always been my guess. Applying a little OR (Occam's Razor), LM was an aspiring journalist who was identified by Intelligence agents as a person that could be useful as a conduit for distributing misinformation. Drop a kind word here and there along with a few nuggets of "The Truth" (or at least the "truth" that particular agency wanted to see in the media), and watch the story percolate out there. LM probably enjoyed influencing what was being reported and at the same time, the feeling of importance that was being fed by the agency. At some point LM was no longer useful to them, possibly due to a loss of credibility with her employer. She was cut lose, and as somone that had no official relationship with the agency that was very easy to do. She returned to Canada. As for why she changed her name, I again think the simplest answer is the best. If you accept Byrne's published characterization of her as valid, it's not that hard to speculate that she may have felt some (unwanted) sense of celebrity for her role in Lockerbie. This is pure speculation on my part, but I've known people similar to Byrne's published descriptions of LM, and the people I've known have always been prone to overstatement. Maybe LM changed her name to SM because she felt she was too well known after the Lockerbie/ABC/Salinger events, even if she was not. A new name invokes the romantic notion of a fresh start as a new person, detached from the events of the past. I reiterate that I don't have anything to back this up, but the idea of a young woman caught up in her own romantic notion of changing her name to avoid the unwanted "fame" of her past life just seems a bit more plausible to me then the explanations that seem lifted from the pages of a le Carre novel. Heck, maybe she always wished her parents had named her "S" and the similarity between the old last name and the prefix of the new last name would probably make it easier to remember.

And so, after changing names, the newly dubbed SE laid low for a number of years, until she discovered Wikipedia, and the rest is history. Everybody here is aware of the draw of the site as a forum for pushing pet agendas. For someone who once upon a time had a pet agenda (and a sense of importance around that) that had been forced to lay dormant for years, I have to imagine discovering Wikipedia was like a heroine addict discovering oxyContin. Becoming an admin just sealed the deal. Maybe it is just me, but for some reason I have an easier time believing in a person approaching middle age who is trying to recapture the excitement of the past than a completely machiavellian concept of a former Intelligence Agent trying to utilise a chaos driven website to spread disinformation.

[Kelly Martin]

As someone who's lurked these related threads, blogs, websites for a good while, that's always been my guess. Applying a little OR (Occam's Razor), LM was an aspiring journalist who was identified by Intelligence agents as a person that could be useful as a conduit for distributing misinformation. Drop a kind word here and there along with a few nuggets of "The Truth" (or at least the "truth" that particular agency wanted to see in the media), and watch the story percolate out there. LM probably enjoyed influencing what was being reported and at the same time, the feeling of importance that was being fed by the agency. At some point LM was no longer useful to them, possibly due to a loss of credibility with her employer. She was cut lose, and as somone that had no official relationship with the agency that was very easy to do. She returned to Canada. As for why she changed her name, I again think the simplest answer is the best. If you accept Byrne's published characterization of her as valid, it's not that hard to speculate that she may have felt some (unwanted) sense of celebrity for her role in Lockerbie. This is pure speculation on my part, but I've known people similar to Byrne's published descriptions of LM, and the people I've known have always been prone to overstatement. Maybe LM changed her name to SM because she felt she was too well known after the Lockerbie/ABC/Salinger events, even if she was not. A new name invokes the romantic notion of a fresh start as a new person, detached from the events of the past. I reiterate that I don't have anything to back this up, but the idea of a young woman caught up in her own romantic notion of changing her name to avoid the unwanted "fame" of her past life just seems a bit more plausible to me then the explanations that seem lifted from the pages of a le Carre novel. Heck, maybe she always wished her parents had named her "S" and the similarity between the old last name and the prefix of the new last name would probably make it easier to remember.

And so, after changing names, the newly dubbed SE laid low for a number of years, until she discovered Wikipedia, and the rest is history. Everybody here is aware of the draw of the site as a forum for pushing pet agendas. For someone who once upon a time had a pet agenda (and a sense of importance around that) that had been forced to lay dormant for years, I have to imagine discovering Wikipedia was like a heroine addict discovering oxyContin. Becoming an admin just sealed the deal. Maybe it is just me, but for some reason I have an easier time believing in a person approaching middle age who is trying to recapture the excitement of the past than a completely machiavellian concept of a former Intelligence Agent trying to utilise a chaos driven website to spread disinformation.

This is the most reasonable, and to my eyes the most plausible, explanation I've seen yet of the conflicting mass of data we have regarding the editor in question. It's pretty close to the conclusion I had reached. It lacks the dramatic appeal of declaring her to be an intelligence agent, while at the same time harmonizing with all but the abject denials (most of which come from people who would be in no position to make such denials with authority). And there's no "you must be kidding" reaction to reading any part of it.

It could also be entirely wrong. But until I see something that credibly contradicts some part of it, it's the theory that I personally plan to stick with.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

This is the most reasonable, and to my eyes the most plausible, explanation I've seen yet of the conflicting mass of data we have regarding the editor in question.

I agree.

I have also considered the possibility that the name change was done for professional reasons, i.e., LM was hoping to re-enter the journalistic profession, but switched to SM to avoid the stigma of having been fired by Salinger.

[Heat]

This is the most reasonable, and to my eyes the most plausible, explanation I've seen yet of the conflicting mass of data we have regarding the editor in question.

I agree.

I have also considered the possibility that the name change was done for professional reasons, i.e., LM was hoping to re-enter the journalistic profession, but switched to SM to avoid the stigma of having been fired by Salinger.

Has she actually published anything, other than letters to the editor, as SM?

[DevilYouKnow]

Has she actually published anything, other than letters to the editor, as SM?

What "letters to the editor?"

[Somey]

What "letters to the editor?"

I'm not sure I want to go to the trouble of looking it up, but apparently she wrote a letter to the editor of a Canadian newspaper about a story they published on the Animal Rights movement and their activities up there, or some such thing. It was online for a while, and might be still, though I'd be a little surprised if it is.