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_ David Gerard _ David Gerard

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(bambi @ Sun 14th September 2008, 11:01am) *

Can we start a subforum for Gerard? He's getting http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2008-September/095473.html.
QUOTE
Poetlister sockfarm nailed
David Gerard dgerard at gmail.com
Sun Sep 14 14:54:54 UTC 2008

2008/9/14 FT2 <ft2.wiki at gmail.com>:

> Provisionally, treat that as interim, not final. I'm still working on this
> case and Poetlister is quite keenly aware where I'm at on it.
> He knows the focus of this investigation, and I've spelt out how I will
> progress it if I'm not personally convinced it's cleaned up and ready to be
> put to bed. The rest can probably be most effectively followed up by private
> discussion, so I probably won't say much more here. Just to say,he is
> dealing with people who weren't fooled first time, or second time. So we're
> getting on with it. How much that involves, is ultimately in his court not
> mine though.


As I noted at the wikisource URL above: the other problem is he's
played the same tricks at Wikipediareview as well. This was stupid,
because they have a proven track record as questionably stable
sociopathic arseholes who attempt to destroy the life of anyone who
crosses them - whereas we just want him to stop being a jerk. And
everything we know about him is actually from public information - so
if we know it, they can find it out too. So the very best thing he
could do right now is come completely clean, because they will attempt
to destroy his life if he doesn't. I wonder if he will.


- d.




Okay, let the Gerard Forum start with this Valentine from him to us at WR. Hi, David.

You will notice, Mr. Gerard, that the main complaints about the "life destroying" properties of this forum are coming from SlimVirgin? Who is incensed that somebody at Cambridge managed to look up her student name and give it to Daniel Brandt? Well, that person was MB, the Poetfarm sock you're calling merely a "jerk". That incident was not particularly connected to this forum. It's between you-guys at WP and Mr. MB, and Mr. Brandt. Have at it. tongue.gif

If WP would stop promoting its present policy of BLP which forbids living subjects from opting out, which allows WP to continue in its present incarnation as a revenge platform, and a place for Jimbo Wales and his lackies to collect money and sex in exchange for lotion-jobs on biographies (you know-- the sort of jobs you do on your own bios?), then any WR attacks on WP editors will greatly decrease.

The second problem, as you know, is anonymity on WP. We have some WP editors who edit here under their own names. Strangely, we haven't tried to destroy their lives. However, when it turns out one of your anonymous editors is seriously into some cult or kinky activity in his or her real life, and pushes that as a POV in Wiki-related articles, don't you think they at least need a userbox on their userpage, proclaiming their interest? Otherwise, here at WR, we seriously begin to wonder when somebody is blocked for opposing them, if there's not something going on, on the side, to make this person a rapid scientologist or BDSM fetishist, or Mormon, or something. Here at WR we don't mind people being any of those things, or gay either. It's just that if you are, please show some evidence that you're recusing yourself as an administrator when blocking somebody for a POV which opposes your secret lifestyle? Thanks. When you do, we'll also get along a lot better.

One of the reasons we've refrained from trying to psychotically destroy your life, Mr. Gerard, even though of course we'd like to, is that you edit under your own name, and your own interests are pretty open. Drat. Perhaps you could have a word with your fellow abusive administrators to have them consider doing the same?

That would pretty much pull our fangs, you know. That, and fixing the BLP thing so Jimbo can't get his rocks off with it, or make money from it, as mentioned.

Thanks a lot,

Milton Roe
Local Sociopathic Arsehole on WR (userbox not up for this yet, but working on it).

Posted by: Castle Rock

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Sun 14th September 2008, 3:48pm) *

Okay, let the Gerard Forum start with this Valentine from him to us at WR. Hi, David.

You will notice, Mr. Gerard, that the main complaints about the "life destroying" properties of this forum are coming from SlimVirgin? Who is incensed that somebody at Cambridge managed to look up her student name and give it to Daniel Brandt? Well, that person was MB, the Poetfarm sock you're calling merely a "jerk". That incident was not particularly connected to this forum. It's between you-guys at WP and Mr. MB, and Mr. Brandt. Have at it. tongue.gif

If WP would stop promoting its present policy of BLP which forbids living subjects from opting out, which allows WP to continue in it's present incarnation as a revenge platform, and a place for Jimbo Wales and his lackies to collect money and sex in exchange for lotion-jobs on biographies (you know-- the sort of jobs you do on your own bios?), then any WR attacks on WP editors will greatly decrease.

The second problem, as you know, is anonymity on WP. We have some WP editors who edit here under their own names. Strangely, we haven't tried to destroy their lives. However, when it turns out one of your anonymous editors is seriously into some cult or kinky activity in his or her real life, and pushes that as a POV in Wiki-related articles, don't you think they at least need a userbox on their userpage, proclaiming their interest? Otherwise, here at WR, we seriously begin to wonder when somebody is blocked for opposing them, if there's not something going on, on the side, to make this person a rapid scientologist or BDSM fetishist, or Mormon, or something. Here at WR we don't mind people being any of those things, or gay either. It's just that if you are, please show some evidence that you're recusing yourself as an administrator when blocking somebody for a POV which opposes your secret lifestyle? Thanks. When you do, we'll also get along a lot better.

One of the reasons we've refrained from trying to psychotically destroy your life, Mr. Gerard, even though of course we'd like to, is that you edit under your own name, and your own interests are pretty open. Drat. Perhaps you could have a word with your fellow abusive administrators to have them consider doing the same?

That would pretty much pull our fangs, you know. That, and fixing the BLP thing so Jimbo can't get his rocks off with it, or make money from it, as mentioned.

Thanks a lot,

Milton Roe
Local Sociopathic Arsehole on WR (userbox not up for this yet, but working on it).


I see your problem, you're assuming that reality has any bearing on David Gerard's decision. He's in a whole different plane than the rest of us.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

As best as I can tell David Gerard is an adherent to the culture of irresponsibility that underlies much of Wikipedia. From that self-entitled vantage point any effort to make people accountable for the actions might seem to be "life destroying." Of course that is overblown hyperbole. WR hasn't destroyed any lives, of course WP has, both through BLP defamation and the facilitation of internet addiction among it's editor cadres.

By the way, I'm channeling a message from Warren Zevon to girl in the pic that MB misappropriated for his "Poetlister" character: Enjoy Every Sandwich once again.

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Sun 14th September 2008, 4:13pm) *

As best as I can tell David Gerard is an adherent to the culture of irresponsibility that underlies much of Wikipedia. From that self-entitled vantage point any effort to make people accountable for the actions might seem to be "life destroying." Of course that is overblown hyperbole. WR hasn't destroyed any lives, of course WP has, both through BLP defamation and the facilitation of internet addiction among it's editor cadres.

By the way, I'm channeling a message from Warren Zevon to girl in the pic that MB misappropriated for his "Poetlister" character: Enjoy Every Sandwich once again.

Me too. And I saw David Gerard drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's! And his hair was perfect.

Posted by: Selina

I wouldn't be surprised if he secretly wanted to achieve this with the trolling, but yeah ok.

Posted by: dtobias

QUOTE(Castle Rock @ Sun 14th September 2008, 6:58pm) *

I see your problem, you're assuming that reality has any bearing on David Gerard's decision. He's in a whole different plane than the rest of us.


Does he get frequent flyer miles on it?

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(Selina @ Sun 14th September 2008, 4:42pm) *

I wouldn't be surprised if he secretly wanted to achieve this with the trolling, but yeah ok.

I would not want to deprive him of the pleasure of being able to claim that we're personally after him too, now.

It wouldn't be fair. Everybody needs attention.

You're Queen for a Day, DG!

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Sun 14th September 2008, 4:45pm) *

QUOTE(Selina @ Sun 14th September 2008, 4:42pm) *

I wouldn't be surprised if he secretly wanted to achieve this with the trolling, but yeah ok.

I would not want to deprive him of the pleasure of being able to claim that we're personally after him too, now.

It wouldn't be fair. Everybody needs attention.

You're Queen for a Day, DG!


Oh, and for those who wonder WTF we're talking about, a primer (don't pronounce it PRIGH-MER, you dolts, it's PRIM-er):

http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/David_Gerard

There is shockingly, a certain amount of, well, integrity in the way Gerard is just honestly out there. There, I said it. But due is due.

Now, perhaps we could get back to the important business of how Gerard got himself into bondage by the likes of Mantanmoreland/Gary Weiss. Maybe Gerard just hates Utah. But how could a man like this not like Utah? huh.gif

And we'd like to know why UK-WMF is so completely screwed up as to not be able to file a document. Are these BDSM people too freaky to be able to create documents that normal banks can read? That's one mystery. And we know FT2 is somehow tied up in it, ahem.

Mr. Gerard, why don't you take drowsiness-producing lessons from Mr. Sinclair, and Mr. Sinclair, why don't you take some zOMG I'm-goth-in-real-life-too lessons from Mr. Gerard? If we could turn either of you partly into the other, perhaps the result would be someone the banks could deal with. tongue.gif

Posted by: Daniel Brandt


Image
"We'd like to open a bank account."


(This caption was suggested by Proabivouac in another thread — a thread that discussed why Wikimedia UK was disbanding after organizational problems. These problems included opening bank accounts and applying for status as a charitable organization. I nominate this caption under this pic as the funniest thing I've seen on WR in a long time.)

Posted by: everyking

I like the way Gerard is thinking here: we should indeed seek merely to stop people from acting like jerks, without destroying their lives. It's funny, though, because Gerard is just the sort of person who most needs to stop acting like a jerk.

Milton, please don't link to an ED article and tell us that it's a useful "primer" on anything.

Posted by: Proabivouac

QUOTE(everyking @ Mon 15th September 2008, 4:59am) *

I like the way Gerard is thinking here: we should indeed seek merely to stop people from acting like jerks, without destroying their lives.

I believe the common "noble" stance is Wikipedia should only seek to minimize disruption internal to the project, while damage caused by the project to third parties is alright, especially if they don't know it's being done. From this viewpoint, it doesn't matter if MB continues to impersonate people, but only that he sticks to one account; attempts to prevent the former can only be vindictive attempts to destroy his life. I'd go further and say that if he'd had only one account and contributed uncontroversially, the most that would have happened is that the photograph would be deleted.

QUOTE(Daniel Brandt @ Mon 15th September 2008, 4:28am) *

(This caption was suggested by Proabivouac in another thread — a thread that discussed why Wikimedia UK was disbanding after organizational problems. These problems included opening bank accounts and applying for status as a charitable organization. I nominate this caption under this pic as the funniest thing I've seen on WR in a long time.)

Thank you, Daniel!

Posted by: Selina

QUOTE(everyking @ Mon 15th September 2008, 5:59am) *

I like the way Gerard is thinking here: we should indeed seek merely to stop people from acting like jerks, without destroying their lives. It's funny, though, because Gerard is just the sort of person who most needs to stop acting like a jerk

Yeah, I'm fed up with the hypocrisy and demonising from wiki people.

Posted by: Somey

Heck, I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for Dave Gerard's own sociopathic attempt to destroy my life.


(OK, maybe I'm exaggerating, but only just a smidge.)

Posted by: Viridae

QUOTE(Daniel Brandt @ Mon 15th September 2008, 2:28pm) *


Image
"We'd like to open a bank account."


(This caption was suggested by Proabivouac in another thread — a thread that discussed why Wikimedia UK was disbanding after organizational problems. These problems included opening bank accounts and applying for status as a charitable organization. I nominate this caption under this pic as the funniest thing I've seen on WR in a long time.)


OK that's hilarious!

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(everyking @ Sun 14th September 2008, 9:59pm) *

I like the way Gerard is thinking here: we should indeed seek merely to stop people from acting like jerks, without destroying their lives. It's funny, though, because Gerard is just the sort of person who most needs to stop acting like a jerk.

Milton, please don't link to an ED article and tell us that it's a useful "primer" on anything.

Ummm. But what if it actually is? The Beautiful People article on ED nailed the MB sockalcaide far better than we did, and long before. Even including Blissy's hard-on for it, as a subtext. Only when they started rewriting it to remove some of the lulz did they (ironically) begin to get it wrong. The MB sock horde really was everything the first article proclaimed, and in fact even it didn't go far enough. Reality here was truly mindboggling, far beyond what ED could produce.

Is there anything in the ED Gerard article you'd particularly like to disagree with as being over the top? ED is most useful when discussing things that cannot really be effectively satirized, because they're already out there, right at the end of oddity. The PoetGuyHorde was one. Gerard is another. The only difference is that the PoetGuyHorde was deep in the closet, whereas Gerard is just out there, being who he is. As I've said, I cannot keep myself from respecting him for that, a little. If only he was as non-judgemental of others, as he relies on them being, about himself. He's not the first stone-thrower from a house of glass.

I'll take info wherever I find it. Even from ED.

(And yes, I do know some things about Gerard independently of ED. And ED is, for Gerard, so far as I can tell, pretty much spot on. You may not believe this, and I know it's hard to believe ED is ever spot-on. But never say never. It's like some articles in The Onion really aren't hyped, because you can't make up stuff any better than reality.)

Posted by: Ottava

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Tue 16th September 2008, 4:33pm) *

Ummm. But what if it actually is?


I have to agree. ED can be utterly awful, or very spot on. It just depends.

Posted by: Crestatus

Ed is filled with Howard Stern wannabees. A few do OK, but most don't.

Posted by: everyking

QUOTE(Crestatus @ Sat 20th September 2008, 11:01pm) *

Ed is filled with Howard Stern wannabees. A few do OK, but most don't.


Even when Howard Stern is funny, you wouldn't want to rely on him for accuracy.

Posted by: flash

I don't think David Gerard is really worth having a forum on. If WP is really run by teh CIA, as I supsect, of coruse their press officers will be harmless drongo volunteers. This is clearly DG's role.

When SlimVirgin banned Wikigiraffes as a dark force of docmartincohen, curiously DMC was spared for several months to continue annoying the philosophy types on WP. But when one of these annoyed philosophy-types (Jeremy Strangler) complained to DG, he immediately banned DMC.

ergo, DG is not in the hallowed inner circle that Slim operates in, ergo he is not really very important.

He's also really not very clever, and that's borne out by the level of his comments and edits. He is clealry a 'front' or even a 'dupe' for WP and no more. Nothing he does has any significance.

This can be seen as a week or so after blocking docmartincohen he replied in his other capacity as 'press officer' to a 'Doctor Martin Cohen' about an article DMC was writing for a UK national magazine. Here is the text of the reply - I think this shows he is indeed 'honest', doubtless a bit of a fool, and really not worth having a forum on...

QUOTE

2008/8/6 Martin Cohen wrote:

> I'm just finishing off both an article on Wikipedia for publication later
> this month, and the same issues arise in a section on WP I have for a new
> 'philosophy' book. I have a few small queries:
> 1. How active is Jimbo?
> He appears to pop up from time to time 'fire fighting' controversy, eg.
> Essjay, the sexist admin last week. I emailed him about two weeks ago and
> have not received any reply.

[DG]
He does actually read and reply to his mail for the most part ... I've
cc'ed this response to him in case it's slipped through the cracks. I
do know he gets a LOT of mail.

He does keep an eye on things, but mostly tries to intercede as
little as possible and let things run themselves. Because it's a
volunteer enterprise, not a corporation with a CEO. There's 10-15
Foundation staff running the site and the umbrella nonprofit, and tens
of thousands of volunteers, doing whatever they damn well please.


> 2. It states that WP is not hierachical with no cabla. However, there
> appears to be a hierachy as follows:
> 1. Jimbo 'dictator for life' as he quips...
> 2. Arbitrators
> 3. Adminstrators
> 4. Editors
> 5/ 'Anyone' - non-established users
> If you can explain this, or else pass me on to Jimbo, appreciated.


The factor not allowed for there is that this is a volunteer
enterprise. No-one can actually tell anyone else what to do. So it's a
massive exercise in nurturing volunteers, which is basically like
herding cats.


- d.





As he holds these 'real life' get together in London, it would be better for someone to go along and take him down a peg or two or three, just by pointing out what he is and gets up to there to his audience of Wikipinnies... but as I say, since he seems to be just a weirdo, not worth any analysis. WP itself contains mysteries - he's not part of it...

Posted by: LaraLove

QUOTE(flash @ Mon 27th October 2008, 7:39am) *

As he holds these 'real life' get together in London, it would be better for someone to go along and take him down a peg or two or three, just by pointing out what he is and gets up to there to his audience of Wikipinnies... but as I say, since he seems to be just a weirdo, not worth any analysis. WP itself contains mysteries - he's not part of it...

The only mystery is how he, of all people, managed to get the 'press officer' position. huh.gif I mean, really!

Posted by: flash

QUOTE(LaraLove @ Mon 27th October 2008, 1:19pm) *

QUOTE(flash @ Mon 27th October 2008, 7:39am) *

As he holds these 'real life' get together in London, it would be better for someone to go along and take him down a peg or two or three, just by pointing out what he is and gets up to there to his audience of Wikipinnies... but as I say, since he seems to be just a weirdo, not worth any analysis. WP itself contains mysteries - he's not part of it...

The only mystery is how he, of all people, managed to get the 'press officer' position. huh.gif I mean, really!


No, LL, really that bit makes sense - they need a fall guy... a harmless duffer up front... trouble is, he's so full of hmself he's become a 'duffer-up' at the front!

Posted by: dtobias

In last year's "BADSITES wars", he took a position against the sorts of flat link bans the likes of SlimVirgin, ElinorD, and MONGO were fervently advocating, so I've never shared the hatred of him some WR regulars have.

Posted by: LaraLove

QUOTE(flash @ Mon 27th October 2008, 8:53am) *

No, LL, really that bit makes sense - they need a fall guy... a harmless duffer up front... trouble is, he's so full of hmself he's become a 'duffer-up' at the front!

He just seems like an odd choice for a sort of public face for Wikipedia.