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

[Kato]

Following this post by Piperdown...

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

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

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

and another...

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

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

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

[Kato]

More JzG historical quotes

On the other hand, I will freely admit to being if not enraged then certainly disgusted by Bagley. His vile smear campaigns against people he dislikes are simply not the kind of thing that earns my respect.

here...

The Register is unreliable in this instance, not only because it repeats the harassment meme that Bagley invented,

here JzG actually links to Gary Weiss's blog O-Smear, taking everything in it as gospel...

...given the [http://o-smear.blogspot.com/2007/04/wikipedia-assault.html long history of abuse] by Bagley we're going to need some pretty solid sources before we even think about letting his POV creep in here.

here...

I don't know about the NYT piece, but The Register is absolutely inappropriate. It is not even tabloid journalism, it's not journalism at all, just polemic, strongly inspired by Bagley's manipulation.

here...

It's a completely absurd suggestion. We absolutely must not succumb to the paranoid fantasies of banned abusers of the project. I have no agenda whatsoever in respect of overstock, as a company it holds little interest for me. What is not acceptable is for people who have been banned from Wikipedia due to abuse and harassment, to be allowed to dictate who may and may not engage in respect of content. It looks to me very much as if the measure of NPOV being applied above is that the article will be NPOV when it reflects Bagley's POV. Sorry, no. His cynical manipulation of The Register (with which, admittedly, they seemed to co-operate gleefully) does not change the facts: Bagley's allegations against Weiss have no substance any more than his Holy Jihad against naked short selling is an excuse for the poor performance of overstock's stock - that was, as has been pointed out by many impartial observers, easily explained by reference to their consistent failure to show a profit.

Here...

Bagley's attacks on people are pretty base; we should rely in every case on how reliable secondary sources describe Weiss and the dispute.

Here:

You're sure doing a lot to give the impression that you prefer your friend Mr. Bagley to my friend Mr. Wales.

Here:

I do not think it does your credibility much good to come here, as a well-known Wikipedia Review member, supporting Bagley, another Wikipedia Review member. What Bagley says about anybody is relevant to Bagley but not provably relevant to the targets of his harassment.

Here...

We already know that Bagley uses disinformation and harassment against anyone who does not uncritically support his company, we can scarcely say that a failure to repeat that harassment here is a failure of neutrality.

Bagley is as polemical as you can possibly get, and the material is stated in terms that are functionally indistinguishable from an outright attack. So, unless we can find better sources and better wording, we shrug it off as "vituperative piece by vituperative person" and ignore it.

Here...

Bagley is a vicious hatemonger whose approach to anything other than uncritical adoration is reliably to harass and attack.

Here...

the Register does not make a fair point, it parrots Bagley's idiocy uncritically.

[Kato]

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

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

[Proabivouac]

It's JzG who's swallowed the Weiss memes hook, line and sinker.

[Kato]

It's JzG who's swallowed the Weiss memes hook, line and sinker.

This is the quote that best illustrates how Guy sabotaged any dispute resolution moves and managed to cause so much damage to Wikipedia:

You're sure doing a lot to give the impression that you prefer your friend Mr. Bagley to my friend Mr. Wales.

Guy reduces encyclopedia writing to that : You are either with us or against us.

JzG's terrible judgment and bad behavior on the Gary Weiss subject is replicated over many topics where he has caused chaos across the site.

Over the last year, he has surpassed SlimVirgin as the one editor who has created the most problems for Wikipedia. It seems that the whole site is now vulnerable to the whims and tantrums of a clearly unstable man in England. He is the God-King now. And he's off his rocker.

Could JzG be the first person to be banned from Wikipedia for his own health? He banned himself last year to try and deal with his addiction -- but it didn't work, he came back to wreak more havoc. Someone else will have to stop his activities somehow, to save the site. When that comes, it won't be pretty.

[Cedric]

It's JzG who's swallowed the Weiss memes hook, line and sinker.

Indeed. And what is even worse for Guy is that he has not received even the first penny in compensation for all of the rather considerable time and effort he has spent on these NSS issues. Weiss/Mannisox may well be a paid shill for the brokerage houses behind the NSS fraud, which would go a long way toward explaining why an author and reporter formerly known for exposing Wall Street frauds is now a fanatical promoter of a particular species of stock fraud. However, we can be fairly confident that Guy has not been bought off. That was not necessary. He was already a true believer and a pronounced wiki-addict by the time Mannisox showed up on WP. All he required was a nod from Jimbo.

I'm afraid Guy has become the poster child for how WP ruthlessly exploits the mentally ill and people with addictive personalities.

[One]

Good stuff. I like the ones where he says the claims against Weiss are no more credible than Overstock's claims against naked shorts (which incidentally won another small victory yesterday and is headed for full trial).

These diffs might be useful for Cla68. I hope he reads this site.

This post has been edited by One:

[Jonny Cache]

Not that I would stem the tide of mind-numbing particularism that is drowning The Wikipedia Review in wave after wave of wiki-pet peevish faves'n'raves fan-cruft, but doesn't this thread belong under Editors : JzG or somewhere?

Jonny (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif)

[Castle Rock]

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

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

That drew a rather bizarre rebuke from Jimmy Wales:

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

Their position was far from indifferent though.

[WordBomb]

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

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

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

I did the right thing by responding:

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

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

I though that was that. But no...

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

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

[Kato]

David Gerard back in December. Gerard implies that Judd Bagley's campaign was aimed to spam WP in order to "garner ad banner hits". Gerard knew full well it was a legitimate complaint about a journalist, Gary Weiss, owning articles on Overstock. Gerard was a major contributor to the WP article on Bagley after all.

I submit there's not a lot to learn from an
article rewriting a spammer's press pack (Judd Bagley's been shopping
that lot around for a while now) apparently in order to garner ad
banner hits.

[GlassBeadGame]

I though that was that. But no...

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

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

WordBomb: I am puzzled by the characterization of "Spyware." My understand is that the methods you used would only provided information indirectly related to the identity (IP address) of people who cloaked themselves with anonymity/pseudonymity. Also that you made no representations or put no policy forward that would have given anyone the expectation that you would not collect this information. Finally it is my understanding that you collected no information about the web browsing habits (other than visits to your own sites of course), or the contents of any files on anyone's computer. Please confirm or correct my understanding here. If this is the case I would think "Spyware" is not a fair characterization.

[Proabivouac]

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

Sandifer should be sacked for that alone.

Most of the other BLP cases indict Wikipedia as structurally negligent. Here, it's neither structural nor negligent: the most powerful Wikipedia administrators painted a bullseye on Bagley and Byrne's names, and tripped over one another to land the most vicious shot.

[WordBomb]

WordBomb: I am puzzled by the characterization of "Spyware." My understand is that the methods you used would only provided information indirectly related to the identity (IP address) of people who cloaked themselves with anonymity/pseudonymity. Also that you made no representations or put no policy forward that would have given anyone the expectation that you would not collect this information. Finally it is my understanding that you collected no information about the web browsing habits (other than visits to your own sites of course), or the contents of any files on anyone's computer. Please confirm or correct my understanding here. If this is the case I would think "Spyware" is not a fair characterization.

BINGO! You are 100% correct. It's part of Gary Weiss's effort to taint the discourse. He's recruited several other bloggers whose job it is to use my name and "spyware" in the same sentence at least once a week.

And yes, they are working in coordination with the people who filed the countersuit that named me.

In fact, the countersuit pulled entire groups of sentences from Weiss's blog.

Oh yeah...the countersuit was filed by the hedge fund that's easily one of the most prolific illegal naked short sellers.

Anybody notice any patterns emerging?

[Kato]

George William Herbert in January on Wordbomb and Piperdown.

They are not banned because of any conclusion as to the merits of their position on the issue. They're banned because they behave sociopathically and abusively towards editors here, tracking down real names, calling their homes, their employers, their friends, trying to get them fired, urging others to stalk them in real life, threatening violence, etc.

Crum375, January 2008:

I think letting Piperdown edit Wikipedia, pending more abuse and harassment of more editors is simply ludicrous. If a psychopath who violated your mother and your sister, say, wanted to live with you, would you let him, until he violated your wife too?

[LamontStormstar]

Don't forget that JzG, SlimVirgin, Gary Weiss, and others like to give out WordBomb's real name in violation of Wikipedia's privacy policies.

[Kato]

Don't forget that JzG, SlimVirgin, Gary Weiss, and others like to give out WordBomb's real name in violation of Wikipedia's privacy policies.

One thing you have to say about this case, is that every man-and-his-dog at Wikipedia is now going through Manatanmoreland's contributions with a magnifying glass and openly speculating on its relationship with Gary Weiss. Examining everything from vacation times to queries about Weiss's wife! Admins are doing it. Arbcom are doing it. Even Jimbo's doing it.

This is all Wordbomb and people here had been doing for 2 years. But if Wordbomb does it, he is a "sociopathic", "violent" "stalker"?

[jorge]

One thing you have to say about this case, is that every man-and-his-dog at Wikipedia is now going through Manatanmoreland's contributions with a magnifying glass and openly speculating on its relationship with Gary Weiss. Examining everything from vacation times to queries about Weiss's wife! Admins are doing it. Arbcom are doing it. Even Jimbo's doing it.

I doubt that many people really are still trawling over his edits. Those that would do that did it long ago. I think there are very few people left that believe Gary Weiss is not Mantanmoreland/Samiharris/Tom Stoner etc. etc., it's just they can't admit it because they'll look either corrupt or stupid if they do.

Of course, the real reason why Weiss was protected, the elephant in the room that no one has dared yet utter, is that he took a strongly pro Israel and pro Judaism stance in his editing. I don't know whether he really does believe that Martin Luther was responsible for the holocaust IRL, but espousing such views certainly helped him remain invulnerable for so long.

[thekohser]

This is all Wordbomb and people here had been doing for 2 years. But if Wordbomb does it, he is a "sociopathic", "violent" "stalker"?

Don't forget the implied "wife raper".

[Moulton]

If this sordid saga isn't an instance of inter-tribal warfare, I dunno what is.

Wikipedia is not only an MMPORG within its own internal fantasyland universe, it's also a battlefield upon which real-world skirmishes are fought.