A general question regarding Brandt and WP: NPA, One rule for one? Options

[Jonathan]

Why is it that it is okay for members of the Wikipedia Brethren/Cabal to constantly call Brandt all sorts of horrendous names as expertly covered in Brandt's website when WP: NPA is quite possibly the most overly quoted policy used by admins (other than, of course, WP: AGF).

Is it the case that members of the Wikipedia Elite ™ are basically able to do whatever the fuck they want? Cool! In which case, it would be great to infiltrate Wikipedia by becoming an admin, because then you could use your shiny brand new powers to send Wikipedia crashing to oblivion from within. And considering as how Wikipedia will probably be dead and buried in 10, maybe 15 or perhaps 20 years time, just who is going to give a damn when a beacon of abuse and unreliability goes down in flames?

But seriously, the fact that people like Raul, Snowspinner and Freakofnurture and SlimVirgin can do what they like is deeply troubling. I can't understand why Jimmy can't simply revoke their adminship status and ban them forever. Just what the hell can they do?

[Nathan]

That is a very VERY good point.

[nobs]

I been trying to follow this Danial Brandt controversy for a year now. I know he heads Namebase, used to work on the Organizing Committee for the Fifth Estate, etc. I'm gonna try to read his wikibio tonite. But can anyone gimme a thumbnail gossipy scetch what the big feud is all about.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

But can anyone gimme a thumbnail gossipy scetch what the big feud is all about.

I can offer a different one, since I was something of a bystander. It begins with my epic battle versus SlimVirgin, Will Beback, and CBerlet (Chip Berlet,) which concluded with a crushing defeat for me before the ArbCom, thus forever endearing the ArbCom to me. But I digress.

The genesis of the Daniel Brandt conflict may be found at Talk:John Train Salon. I and another editor were using Brandt as a source, which caused SlimVirgin to denounce Brandt:

Weed, I removed Daniel Brandt. He's not a credible source, not a journalist, and seems to write only for his own website i.e. he's a blogger. It's not appropriate to use someone's personal website as a source. There's no evidence that Roy Godson is an intelligence operative and the weasel catch-all phrase "representatives from intelligence-linked funding sources" is typical Brandt and typical LaRouche.

The ever-vigilant Daniel Brandt picked this up in his web scanning, and thus paid his first editing visit to Wikipedia, also on that page. SlimVirgin, true to form, put him immediately on her hit list, while feigning politeness (see this very early edition of User talk: Daniel Brandt.)

Shortly thereafter, SlimVirgin authored the article Daniel Brandt, which became a famous bone of contention.

Brandt responed with an open letter, which was suppressed, but I archived it here.

This concludes my short, gossipy account. Now perhaps Daniel would care to correct it or expand upon it.