The Herschelkrustofsky ban revisited, SV and her posse at work Options

[dtobias]

Psychological projection, anyone?

Gadzooks! — where is that emeticon when I really need it?

Ah, there it is —

Ja Ja Jaaaaaaa

I said psychological projection, not projectile vomiting!

[The Joy]

Psychological projection, anyone?

Gadzooks! — where is that emeticon when I really need it?

Ah, there it is —

Ja Ja Jaaaaaaa

I said psychological projection, not projectile vomiting!

In SV's case, is there an e-diff-erence?

[Heat]

What I don't understand HK is why, given the number of people in the LaRouche movement, it wasn't possible for LaRouche supporters in different cities to organize themselves and edit wikipedia in much the way the Hasbara people have. This would have bypassed the sockpuppet allegations that ended up getting you banned permanently. Meat puppetry is much more difficult to prove than sockpuppetry, particularly when a movement is involved.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Your logic is plausible, but your conclusions are incorrect. First of all, according to WP:MEAT, meatpuppets are treated the same as sockpuppets, so it doesn't really matter. Secondly, the LaRouche organization has had no organized response to Wikipedia beyond issuing this article as part of a mass-distribution pamphlet. I am puzzled by this, since Wikipedia is probably the highest-profile platform that Berlet has ever had. I suspect that the reason for all the pro-LaRouche WP accounts in California is that California was the birthplace of the LaRouche Youth Movement, and people in their 20s are far more internet-oriented then the oldsters.

[Jon Awbrey]

Your logic is plausible, but your conclusions are incorrect. First of all, according to WP:MEAT, meatpuppets are treated the same as sockpuppets, so it doesn't really matter.

Which means of course that they are treated with the same double standard as everything else in Jimbo's Wiki-Peanut-Butter {{Fact}}ory.

Jon

[Kato]

You all claim to care about BLP. Chip Berlet and the article about him were attacked on Wikipedia by Nobs, HK, and friends, in a way that was absolutely deplorable. Nobs even implied Chip had some connection to a very serious criminal offence, at one point -- I won't post details here because it would be libel. Chip put up with it for two or three years. Did anyone here, anyone who cares about BLP so much, help him, even once?

I think you fundamentally misunderstand the prevailing (I hate to use the term "consensus") members' position here on BLP articles, SV. If Chip Berlet had asked to have his article deleted, I think most of us would have supported that wholeheartedly - I know I would have, and I think I might have even said so at the time.

Likewise, if the article was being vandalized, someone should have protected it - and as I recall, someone did do just that, at least twice that I can recall, just off the top of my head. But if The Chipster's ultimate objective was to have the article protected in a state he personally and explicitly approved of, then that's not something anyone here should care much about, other than to point out that it's unfair to all the other article subjects who don't have friends among the admins.

As for helping him, don't be ridiculous - we were helping him, by pointing out the insufficiency of the existing BLP policies, advocating for opt-out, and proposing other kinds of reforms. He might not have recognized that we were helping him, but that's only because he was being told by certain people that WR was a "nazi hate-site" and other such nonsense. Also, Daniel Brandt was here, and he doesn't like Daniel Brandt.

I guess it would be nice if you took the time to properly understand the culture here, but I understand that you wouldn't want to risk being drawn in to the point of actually having some degree of appreciation for the place.

The biography of Chip Berlet should be deleted. He is barely notable and no encyclopedia worth anything will miss it. Berlet also requests the deletion in this Articles for Deletion debate.

It is claimed that the article was originally created by Herschelkrustofsky, and I'll take Slim's word for that.

Interestingly, if you look at that old Articles for Deletion debate, where Berlet adds his request for deletion, there are a few BLP extremists resisting for their own reasons. Including the later disgraced John254.

Someone should try again, giving the rationale that the subject and the creator want the biography deleted, and stating the facts that Wikipedia is simply incapable of handling a biography on such a figure who has spent years claiming that Lyndon LaRouche is a "neo-fascist anti-Semite". Deleting the bio on Berlet would be a step towards closing that shameful LaRouche / Wikipedia episode.

[Somey]

Quite so. However, I must correct my earlier post - discussion of the Chip Berlet AfD on WR begins here:

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&sh...ndpost&p=116676

And while IMO most of the participants agreed that the article should be deleted, I didn't personally chime in on that subject at the time.

[Kato]

Quite so. However, I must correct my earlier post - discussion of the Chip Berlet AfD on WR begins here:

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&sh...ndpost&p=116676

And while IMO most of the participants agreed that the article should be deleted, I didn't personally chime in on that subject at the time.

Nor me, though I have the excuse of having abandoned this site at that time in protest at Poetguy's continued presence.

[It's the blimp, Frank]

The biography of Chip Berlet should be deleted. He is barely notable and no encyclopedia worth anything will miss it. Berlet also requests the deletion in this Articles for Deletion debate.

There is a problem with that proposal, which is that Berlet is used so extensively as a source at Wikipedia that people who read the articles need to have some idea who he is, so they know whether to believe his claims.

Slimvirgin: Please address, in a non-evasive way, your relationship to the Sunsplash and Sweet Blue Water accounts.

[Jon Awbrey]

Quite so. However, I must correct my earlier post - discussion of the Chip Berlet AfD on WR begins here:

Post 116676

And while IMO most of the participants agreed that the article should be deleted, I didn't personally chime in on that subject at the time.

Nor me, though I have the excuse of having abandoned this site at that time in protest at Poetguy's continued presence.

I should think that all such cases are generically covered by WR:CORNSENUOUS To NOB RULE, my earliest acronymic e-mortalization of which goes back to August 2007, though I'm sure the idea was hardly original at the time.

Jon Awbrey

[Jon Awbrey]

You don't even try to disguise the hypocrisy. Decisions about what's right and what's wrong are based entirely on whether you like the parties or not. It's sad that this is the standard of intellectual debate about Wikipedia.

Psychological projection, anyone?

Gadzooks! — where is that emeticon when I really need it?

Ah, there it is —

Ja Ja Jaaaaaaa

Once again, we have the Toxic Waste Superfund Site calling the Backyard Compost Heap e-fluvious.

But you know I don't care all that much about one darn individual after another — if it were only Jimbo's Wiki-Prevarications or SlmVirgin's Wiki-Projections it wouldn't really be all that big of a deil. But what we've got here is what anthropologists call a Tribal Face — it's a Way Of Looking @ Everything that imbues, infuses, pervades the Wikipediot Cult so through-&-though that you can't help asking that old Chicken and the Egg question about which engenders the other.

Jon Awbrey

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Revisiting all this history has made me nostalgic. Here's a vignette from the Golden Age of the LaRouche wars. First, SlimVirgin demonstrates with this edit that she has grasped the essence of WikiPolitics: she simply proclaims that she, Berlet, and Will are the consensus. Get it?

Will doesn't quite get it. He's still wet behind the ears; his username in those days was Willmcw, not yet the robotic POV-pusher whom we know today as Will Beback. (I have always thought that the Will Beback name was chosen because he cathexized on this ego-ideal. But I digress.) In this exchange, Slim slaps poor Will back into line, making it clear that if he wants to run with the big dogs, he's going to have to lose that tendency to compromise. Looking back, I think this may have been a seminal moment in Will's development, sort of a rite of passage on the road to adminship.

Yes, the Cberlet who left in disgrace a few months ago after the decline of the clique that was formerly protecting him in his POV-pushing and conflicts of interest (citing his own material) while banning others who went against him on charges of doing the same thing Berlet was doing himself.

Cberlet did not "leave in disgrace." He left because he was tired of having to fight lunatics to improve articles.

I think another seminal moment may be found in this intervention by Alison. Berlet and King were attempting to insert one of King's whackjob theories, that if LaRouche criticizes a banker of any religious or ethnic background, it may be attributed to anti-Semitism. And they were attempting to insert it unsourced, as if it were undisputed fact. They rejected the idea that it should be sourced to King. And, Will Beback was backing them up 100%. Alison's intervention forced Will to back down (at this point, Slim had already retired from the field.) When Berlet realized that he no longer had carte blanche, he was never the same again, and I think his decision to leave was inevitable from that point on.

[Hell Freezes Over]

You all claim to care about BLP. Chip Berlet and the article about him were attacked on Wikipedia by Nobs, HK, and friends, in a way that was absolutely deplorable. Nobs even implied Chip had some connection to a very serious criminal offence, at one point -- I won't post details here because it would be libel. Chip put up with it for two or three years. Did anyone here, anyone who cares about BLP so much, help him, even once?

I think you fundamentally misunderstand the prevailing (I hate to use the term "consensus") members' position here on BLP articles, SV. If Chip Berlet had asked to have his article deleted, I think most of us would have supported that wholeheartedly - I know I would have, and I think I might have even said so at the time.

He did ask that it be deleted, but it was kept. But for years before that, at least two posters here (HK and Nobs) used Wikipedia as a platform to attack him via his BLP and its talk page, and I don't recall anyone here objecting.

As for helping him, don't be ridiculous - we were helping him, by pointing out the insufficiency of the existing BLP policies, advocating for opt-out, and proposing other kinds of reforms. He might not have recognized that we were helping him, but that's only because he was being told by certain people that WR was a "nazi hate-site" and other such nonsense. Also, Daniel Brandt was here, and he doesn't like Daniel Brandt.

One of the people who was attacking him, and who created the BLP in the first place, is one of only four staff members here. This board has spent a lot of time attacking Berlet, for reasons I've never understood. Chip Berlet was someone who wrote for at least one real encyclopaedia. He was a published expert on the LaRouche movement and on right-wing extremist groups in general. He should not have been driven off Wikipedia just because a few people decided to use that website and this one to ridicule him. It's very sad that he was given no support here at all, even though you all claim to support expert editors and harassed BLP victims. Berlet was both.

[Kato]

You all claim to care about BLP. Chip Berlet and the article about him were attacked on Wikipedia by Nobs, HK, and friends, in a way that was absolutely deplorable. Nobs even implied Chip had some connection to a very serious criminal offence, at one point -- I won't post details here because it would be libel. Chip put up with it for two or three years. Did anyone here, anyone who cares about BLP so much, help him, even once?

I think you fundamentally misunderstand the prevailing (I hate to use the term "consensus") members' position here on BLP articles, SV. If Chip Berlet had asked to have his article deleted, I think most of us would have supported that wholeheartedly - I know I would have, and I think I might have even said so at the time.

He did ask that it be deleted, but it was kept. But for years before that, at least two posters here (HK and Nobs) used Wikipedia as a platform to attack him via his BLP and its talk page, and I don't recall anyone here objecting.

For the record: I didn't write that quoted insert above, that was Somey. My comments about this have already been made.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

It's very sad that he was given no support here at all, even though you all claim to support expert editors and harassed BLP victims. Berlet was both.

As has been noted, I enjoy irony.

[Kato]

Chip Berlet was someone who wrote for at least one real encyclopaedia. He was a published expert on the LaRouche movement and on right-wing extremist groups in general. He should not have been driven off Wikipedia just because a few people decided to use that website and this one to ridicule him. It's very sad that he was given no support here at all, even though you all claim to support expert editors and harassed BLP victims. Berlet was both.

Chip Berlet shouldn't have been anywhere near the LaRouche articles - certainly not adding himself as a source. Nor should Hersch for that matter. But one minute you are putting it about that Herschel has suspected "Conflicts of Interest", the next you are allowing Chip - with a blatant Conflict of Interest - carte blanche to write what he likes about LaRouche?

And you didn't think people would have a problem with that?

This is what I mean by the fostering of a culture which "warped the notions of Conflicts of Interest".

[Heat]

Chip Berlet was someone who wrote for at least one real encyclopaedia. He was a published expert on the LaRouche movement and on right-wing extremist groups in general. He should not have been driven off Wikipedia just because a few people decided to use that website and this one to ridicule him. It's very sad that he was given no support here at all, even though you all claim to support expert editors and harassed BLP victims. Berlet was both.

Chip Berlet shouldn't have been anywhere near the LaRouche articles - certainly not adding himself as a source. Nor should Hersch for that matter. But one minute you are putting it about that Herschel has suspected "Conflicts of Interest", the next you are allowing Chip - with a blatant Conflict of Interest - carte blanche to write what he likes about LaRouche?

And you didn't think people would have a problem with that?

This is what I mean by a culture which "warped the notions of Conflicts of Interest".

I think Berlet is a Reliable Source on Larouche. However, he's also very much an involved party given the thirty or so odd year feud between himself and the Larouche organization and he was certainly in a Conflict of Interest editing the articles. Even without the feud it's pretty bad form to use yourself as a source on wikipedia even if you are a published author.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

I think Berlet is a Reliable Source on Larouche.

Berlet is a third-rate specialist in innuendo, demonization, quote-cooking, and the other black arts of propaganda. His talents are not much in demand these days, which is why he spent so much time link-spamming his website on Wikipedia, in hopes of drumming up some business.

[Hell Freezes Over]

Chip Berlet was someone who wrote for at least one real encyclopaedia. He was a published expert on the LaRouche movement and on right-wing extremist groups in general. He should not have been driven off Wikipedia just because a few people decided to use that website and this one to ridicule him. It's very sad that he was given no support here at all, even though you all claim to support expert editors and harassed BLP victims. Berlet was both.

Chip Berlet shouldn't have been anywhere near the LaRouche articles - certainly not adding himself as a source. Nor should Hersch for that matter.

Why shouldn't Berlet be editing them? He is a published expert, and the only reason he started editing them was because Hersch, an employee of the LaRouche movement, arrived to add nonsense to them, and created an insulting article on Berlet.

Are you saying that anyone with expertise has a conflict of interest? Berlet is the kind of expert that the BBC immediately calls when it's doing a story on LaRouche. He is known all over the world by journalists who've written stories about the movement. The picture of Berlet painted here by Nobs, Hersch, and Brandt is a false one.

If you're going to say that it wasn't so much that Berlet was an expert, but that he had been attacked by them, thereby making it personal, you have to understand that the LaRouche movement attacks anyone who criticizes them. They sometimes do it to the point of serious personal harassment -- credible people have reported physical assault, the death of pets etc. At the very least, they try to blacken that person's name. If that means Berlet can no longer be used as an expert by WP, then you're playing directly into the hands of his attackers.

And he didn't have "carte blanche" to write whatever he wanted on Wikipedia. He had to stick to published sources like anyone else. People are allowed to use themselves as a published source, so long as their work is directly relevant and is the kind of thing that might be (or has been) used by other publications. Berlet's work always was in that category, because he is a world expert on LaRouche.

[Heat]

Chip Berlet was someone who wrote for at least one real encyclopaedia. He was a published expert on the LaRouche movement and on right-wing extremist groups in general. He should not have been driven off Wikipedia just because a few people decided to use that website and this one to ridicule him. It's very sad that he was given no support here at all, even though you all claim to support expert editors and harassed BLP victims. Berlet was both.

Chip Berlet shouldn't have been anywhere near the LaRouche articles - certainly not adding himself as a source. Nor should Hersch for that matter.

Why shouldn't Berlet be editing them?

COI. He's very much an involved party.

This post has been edited by Heat: Mon 13th April 2009, 10:43pm