User Tisane, this could end badly Options

[tarantino]

The Libertarian candidate in 2008 for Virginia's 1st congressional district and and one of Abd's former mentors [1] had another account blocked August 11 2010.

He recently spent 14 months in prison for threatening to kill the president, and has just now decided not to comply with his conditions of supervised release.

His autobiography is here, and the letter sent to his probation officer is here.

[1]

I had some good mentors early on, most notably an editor known by many names, a long-term Wikipedian who, for his own reasons, kept dropping accounts and starting up new ones, though under (originally) no sanctions. He never used two accounts simultaneously, never went back to old accounts, and all were acknowledged or blatantly obvious, far from concealed. One of the names was Sarsaparilla, it's not hard at all to find another going back about two years before I met him. Older accounts he never revealed even to me, and he had real-life reasons to avoid disclosing them, he claimed.

[Somey]

As if further proof was needed, this incident clearly illustrates what Jack Handey has been telling us all along: Friendly and considerate though he may seem, the court-appointed psychiatrist is not necessarily your "friend."

Presumably, the same goes for the friendly US Attorney, the friendly Secret Service agent, the friendly warden at the friendly Federal Penitentiary, the friendly members of the Parole Board, and so on.

[Subtle Bee]

As if further proof was needed, this incident clearly illustrates what Jack Handey has been telling us all along: Friendly and considerate though he may seem, the court-appointed psychiatrist is not necessarily your "friend."

Presumably, the same goes for the friendly US Attorney, the friendly Secret Service agent, the friendly warden at the friendly Federal Penitentiary, the friendly members of the Parole Board, and so on.

Just consider the word - "friend" -ly. Not actually a friend, just like a friend, superficially. Friend-ly.

If you don't get it, you deserve what you get.

[Somey]

If you don't get it, you deserve what you get.

Well, life is like a box of chocolates... (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/mellow.gif)

I realize this probably isn't what Mr. Tarantino intended or hoped for with this thread, but I was just thinking, if I were to be asked what I consider the "typical Wikipedian" to be like, I'd probably say a male, in his 20's, with varying degrees of narcissistic tendencies; fairly opportunistic though distrusting of formal authority; in possession of decent (but not spectacular) writing skills; reasonably well-educated but almost certainly not as smart as he thinks he is; leaning towards a libertarian (or maybe "libertarian-ish") sociopolitical ideology, but not as affluent or well-off as one would expect from someone espousing such an ideology... This User:Tisane feller would be such an extreme example of those things, you'd have to say that guys like him make it very difficult for the other WP'ers to push the median/stereotype in a different (and I would say preferable) direction.

And in this case, it's difficult to say "I'm sure he's a really nice guy if you meet him in person" - it's probably just the opposite, IOW he's much nicer on the internet than he is in reality. Wikipedia is the perfect place for him, to be frank - and I suspect that's why he keeps coming back.

[Abd]

And in this case, it's difficult to say "I'm sure he's a really nice guy if you meet him in person" - it's probably just the opposite, IOW he's much nicer on the internet than he is in reality. Wikipedia is the perfect place for him, to be frank - and I suspect that's why he keeps coming back.

Well, I've spent a lot of time on the phone and in direct communication with him, and with his family.

He's one of the smartest Wikipedians I've met (though I never met him in person). He quickly taught me a great deal about how the place works. (And how it doesn't work!) But he's also got, shall we say, a problem. He's crazy. I don't know the diagnosis, but he's possibly bipolar.

He's also suicidal, from time to time, and did start talking about violence, though never directly to me on the phone, it was always in other writings he pointed out to me.

He can be extraordinarily functional for a long time, then ... he tosses it all away in a burst of intense activity that results, for example, in his being banned on Wikipedia. The first times, it really didn't make sense, he was banned for doing stuff, minor pranks, that would normally hardly raise an eyebrow. But he had tweaked the bear, that was the reality, he'd offended the power elite.

And then he gave them excuses to ban him. Blatant excuses. It was in some ways like what he did with the threat to assassinate the President. He sent it to the Secret Service and then waited for them to pick him up. It might possibly have been an alternative to suicide. Harder to commit suicide in prison. It made his life much simpler. No internet.

I'll try to contact his sister tomorrow.

I completely agree with the decision on Wikipedia to block the account. They really had no choice, and that was based on current behavior, not on the old ban.

I couldn't access Libertapedia for a bit, but now I see the letter to the probation officer. They will simply pick him up and lock him up, no question about it. He may be safer that way, unless he really does have firearms, in which case, he might not live long. Damn.