Ashley Van Haeften, Commons admin? Options

[Peter Damian]

I've resurrected a slightly older thread here http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showt...291994&st=140&# The issue of the March 2011 RfA is important. Why did Vandenberg prevent this information coming out, thus allowing Haeften complete immunity from any questions raised about his old account? John should explain himself.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Thu 29th December 2011, 11:52pm

[lilburne]

No matter how carefully you, Ottava, Alison, RHMED, Barbour, SBJohnny and the other right-wing activists over at WR craft your words the nastiness leaks through. You're opposing Ashley because he's gay. You don't like him. His uploads make you feel icky. Whatever. As it I mentioned above it just happens you've revealed a real flaw in his candidacy but save us the wide-eyed innocence. Y'all would have opposed his candidacy even if he was as pure as the Risen Lord. Lovetinkle (talk) 18:04, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I would say something about this on Commons, but don't want to give them an opportunity to "block" for "disruption".

It would appear that Ottava and Rd232 are swooping down to save him from upon high



http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?t...&oldid=64563127

[Web Fred]

It's very embarrassing to have a picture of your hairy bottom, chained up on a persian rug.

I would have thought it more embarrassing to be caught in that position with one's socks still on.

[mbz1]

But where do you see embarrassment for Jimbo ?
OK, the user wrote a few idiotic articles like the one about gay baths regulars, uploaded a few images of himself in chains, voting to keep every image of every penis ... So what? Why Jimbo is going to be embarrassed. Greg wrote a very good article, but was it embarrassing for Jimbo?
If yes, please tell me why.

If he was really proud of being bound up in chains, and had nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about, then he would not have had the images deleted.

I suspect it was more the embarrassment thing. He has reinvented himself from gay bath house article editor, who uploads pictures of himself trussed up, to the venerable Mr Haeften who carries a stick, speaks at the Joint Committee hearing, runs the GLAM project that involves visits to the British Library manuscript collection. It's very embarrassing to have a picture of your hairy bottom, chained up on a persian rug.

So he used his influence to have the pictures deleted.

These are the really important issues.

I've put myself down for the visit to the British Museum mon 17th Jan, by the way, where Mr Haeften will also be attending, and will have the opportunity to ask him about his knowledge of late medieval manuscripts. I did 'collar' him (oops) on the subject at the last wiki meet but couldn't get anything clear or sensible. We shall see.

Well, it probably would have been an embarrassment for most people to have an image of his " hairy bottom, chained up on a persian rug" on wikipedia.
But here we go again: Most people would have never uploaded such image in the first place (even to improve educational value of wikipedia article ), and probably most people would not have put themselves in such position even in the privacy of their own home.
But still how a deleted image of Mr. Haeften's "hairy bottom, chained up on a persian rug" could be such an embarrassment for Jimbo that Jimbo will ask the owner of this "hairy bottom, chained up on a persian rug" to resign?

This post has been edited by mbz1: Fri 30th December 2011, 12:23am

[EricBarbour]

Perhaps this is a good time and place to point out the AN/I report on Fae's activities, from July:

[edit] Admin conduct review requested

Fæ (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights)

I'm requesting a review of Fæ's recent poor conduct, and request that steps be taken to prevent more of the same or further escalation. Hopefully that means just a cautionary word from someone uninvolved; I'm not out for blood, just a less hostile editing environment. The poor behavior falls into three categories:

constant personal attacks and comments about editors;
disruptive editing;
inappropriate templating and warning of editors;

Full disclosure: we're presently in a content dispute on a controversial BLP article, and the rhetoric and tempers have risen a bit on all sides, but never to this level; review of my own actions is welcome, especially with regard to Fæ's many unsubstantiated mischaracterizations of my motivations.

Onslaught of unwarranted personal attacks and mischaracterizations:

"...you seem to be on a mission to disrupt ... You have made no positive steps ... Your polemic is tiresome ... your blanking of sourced material without clear explanation ... Your question appears so trivial ... nitpicking here to stop any progress ... look like trolling to me ... forget how to use Google? ... your opinion is starting to look rather irrelevant ... you do realize that nobody put you in charge here don't you? ... repeatedly saying the equivalent of "I don't like it" to everyone else's suggestions ... Nobody died and put you in charge ... Your problem with ownership of this article has been blatantly apparent ... after it was tampered with by Xenophrenic by being misleadingly indented ... your recent contribution to this article appears to introduce nothing but promotional bias to this article and is disruptive ... You appear to be keen to edit war ... your question appears trollish ... it is apparent that you have a problem with ownership of the article ... your continued off-putting and trivial challenges to other potential contributors ... it would help if rather than trolling other editors, you could positively propose text ... you are promoting her books by cherry picking quotations ... persistently introducing bias to Wikipedia articles or disrupting a consensus building process ... worryingly stalker-ish and rather threatening.

Disruptive editing:

After declaring "...I'm not terribly interested in proposing new content...", and, "I have no intention of wasting my time proposing detailed alternative text for this article if it is likely to be endlessly nitpicked over", s/he threatened to correct a perceived "imbalance" in the article through massive deletions. S/he then carried out that threat, making 16 edits over a 30 minute period starting with this one, that deleted considerable content and tagged even more content with various citation-needed tags. S/he then went to related articles and stuck 'PROD' tags on them (here); requested deletion of image files from the article (here). Deleting and tagging is not a problem in itself, when justified, but most of these edits were not justified -- sources were already cited in the article; articles about best selling books don't need to be deleted, etc. Not a single addition of new content, so it all seemed to me to be more pointy than productive. When I asked for an explanation of some of the edits, I was told I wasn't getting an explanation here.

Inappropriate templating/warning of experienced editors for:

Removing templates (here); Tampering with comments (here); Violating 3RR (here); and then when I delete the warning templates, referring to them as "possible harassment", I get yet another admonition to use a "recognized process" rather than edit summaries (here), referring me to the Help Desk(!). Looking for a bit of help to put the brakes on this mess before it becomes serious. Thanks, Xenophrenic (talk) 00:38, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Followed by a long argument. But with no resolution evident.

Posted here just in case some asshole tries to erase it from AN/I archives. It's been done before. (I was just looking into Durova's
and Grawp's activities, and the number of oversights related to each case is staggering. Yes, girls, Wikipedia is censored. A lot.)

This post has been edited by EricBarbour: Fri 30th December 2011, 1:04am

[Kelly Martin]

But where do you see embarrassment for Jimbo ?
OK, the user wrote a few idiotic articles like the one about gay baths regulars, uploaded a few images of himself in chains, voting to keep every image of every penis ... So what? Why Jimbo is going to be embarrassed. Greg wrote a very good article, but was it embarrassing for Jimbo?
If yes, please tell me why.

If and when Mr. Murphy's article, reportedly being written for the Christian Science Monitor (a highly reputable publication), appears, it will certainly lead to some press attention being focused on at least two people: Mr. Van Haeften, and Jimbo Wales. This is not the sort of attention Jimmy-boy wants, and he'll almost certainly take it out on Van Haeften, because the CSM is simply too influential and respectable for him to poo-poo under the carpet (as he routinely does with the Register and Gawker). Simply put, someone has to be In The Wrong here, and even Jimmy knows that he's not going to succeed if he tries to make it the CSM.

[mbz1]

But where do you see embarrassment for Jimbo ?
OK, the user wrote a few idiotic articles like the one about gay baths regulars, uploaded a few images of himself in chains, voting to keep every image of every penis ... So what? Why Jimbo is going to be embarrassed. Greg wrote a very good article, but was it embarrassing for Jimbo?
If yes, please tell me why.

If and when Mr. Murphy's article, reportedly being written for the Christian Science Monitor (a highly reputable publication), appears, it will certainly lead to some press attention being focused on at least two people: Mr. Van Haeften, and Jimbo Wales. This is not the sort of attention Jimmy-boy wants, and he'll almost certainly take it out on Van Haeften, because the CSM is simply too influential and respectable for him to poo-poo under the carpet (as he routinely does with the Register and Gawker). Simply put, someone has to be In The Wrong here, and even Jimmy knows that he's not going to succeed if he tries to make it the CSM.

The Christian Science Monitor? Yes, right... Bur are you sure they are going to publish this kind of story?

[EricBarbour]

And now....for some more Fae dirt, straight (ha ha) from AN/I and 3RR:

User:Fæ = User:Ash (and was previously User:Ashleyvh and User:Teahot)

User:Fæ reported by User:Wangond (Result: not blocked)

Claim of defamation

Defamation and copyright complaint on Talk:Yolanda Soares

User:Spuum reported by User:Morenooso (Result: 24h)

He reminds me of Will Beback and Durova, oddly enough.
Backstabbing, paranoia, and getting others to do the dirty work. That only works if you're not going
around stabbing other admins in the back.

[tarantino]

If and when Mr. Murphy's article, reportedly being written for the Christian Science Monitor (a highly reputable publication), appears, it will certainly lead to some press attention being focused on at least two people: Mr. Van Haeften, and Jimbo Wales. This is not the sort of attention Jimmy-boy wants, and he'll almost certainly take it out on Van Haeften, because the CSM is simply too influential and respectable for him to poo-poo under the carpet (as he routinely does with the Register and Gawker). Simply put, someone has to be In The Wrong here, and even Jimmy knows that he's not going to succeed if he tries to make it the CSM.

As quoted earlier in this thread, Murphy said,

Though I’m a reporter/editor at the Christian Science Monitor, I won’t be doing this story for them (for 3 reasons: I’ll be writing this from a first person perspective, something the CSM rarely does; it’s outside my remit; and some of the material I’ll need to cover will be too explicit for us).

That post was removed from Ashley's talk page by the new wikipedia arbiter, AGK of Cambuslang, Scotland.

This post has been edited by tarantino: Sat 31st December 2011, 6:21pm

[Ottava]

Eric, since you seem good at the Wiki Researching things - What do you make of this fellow seeing how someone loves multiple accounts.



This post has been edited by Ottava: Fri 30th December 2011, 3:16am

[Kelly Martin]

Ah, too bad there won't be an article. Looks like Van Haeften gets to keep his playtoy for a while yet.

[thekohser]

Ah, too bad there won't be an article. Looks like Van Haeften gets to keep his playtoy for a while yet.

There will be an article -- it's just that the journalist is going to publish it on a venue other than CSM.

[Cla68]

Ah, too bad there won't be an article. Looks like Van Haeften gets to keep his playtoy for a while yet.

There will be an article -- it's just that the journalist is going to publish it on a venue other than CSM.

Mr. Murphy knows how to ask the right questions. I hope this isn't the last investigation he does on some of the funny business that has gone on in WP.

[melloden]

It is a virtual certainty that Van Haeften will become a running embarrassment for Jimbo in the near future, and as a result he will be forced to step down from his roles with WMUK at the very least. The one thing Jimbo does not tolerate is anyone who causes him embarrassment, especially someone who does anything that results in the media asking him questions he doesn't feel like answering. Thou Shalt Not Annoy The God-King is the first commandment, after all.

But where do you see embarrassment for Jimbo ?
OK, the user wrote a few idiotic articles like the one about gay baths regulars, uploaded a few images of himself in chains, voting to keep every image of every penis ... So what? Why Jimbo is going to be embarrassed. Greg wrote a very good article, but was it embarrassing for Jimbo?
If yes, please tell me why.

"very good article" my ass. Gregory rarely writes very good articles. He sometimes writes very interesting articles, and other times very biased articles, but they're hardly very good articles.

I'm hoping he might learn a thing or two from Bali ultimate about writing articles that actually contain a small bit of credibility.

Gregory, do you write for the Patch? I think you would be very good at it, especially tracking local corruption and the like.

[melloden]

I DO care about his attempt to cover up his past activities on en-wiki and Commons, and the
attempts by his admin buddies, all of whom are abusing their power to do so. And Dan Murphy's
comments being censored out of existence, that was the last straw.

Why? Do you really care about corruption on a website? Perhaps it might matter in a minor British charity... but on Wikipedia, why do you choose to care? That's one thing I've never really understood about WR. I think it's amusing to comment and criticize. But why does anyone care about Wikipedia's issues? If the site fails, then sucks for all the stupid little kids plagiarizing their essays. That's about it.

[dogbiscuit]

I DO care about his attempt to cover up his past activities on en-wiki and Commons, and the
attempts by his admin buddies, all of whom are abusing their power to do so. And Dan Murphy's
comments being censored out of existence, that was the last straw.

Why? Do you really care about corruption on a website? Perhaps it might matter in a minor British charity... but on Wikipedia, why do you choose to care? That's one thing I've never really understood about WR. I think it's amusing to comment and criticize. But why does anyone care about Wikipedia's issues? If the site fails, then sucks for all the stupid little kids plagiarizing their essays. That's about it.

The sequence goes something like:

Wikipedia dominates the web through Google.

Wikipedia articles overshadow other more reliable sources of information.

Those other sources wither and die.

Wikipedia is not being managed responsibly, therefore it does not fulfil the obligation that goes with its position.

Over many years WR has identified the effects of "my one little corrupt action will not do any harm" and it is clear that this corruption has been used to control policy - which we now see is being used as the evidence that all is well in Wikipedia because everything is supposedly compliant with policy.

[EricBarbour]

The sequence goes something like:
Wikipedia dominates the web through Google.
Wikipedia articles overshadow other more reliable sources of information.
Those other sources wither and die.
Wikipedia is not being managed responsibly, therefore it does not fulfil the obligation that goes with its position.

What you said.

Plus, it's already the #1 source for plagiarism by students.

It is helping not only to make the web suck, it is slowly polluting education.
A perverse database of some-not-bad articles and a vast pile of cartoon crap
and Doctor Who trivia, all vandalized, semi-coherent, and containing
difficult-to-find errors. And having references that are often wrong, repetitive,
or point to dead web links. Not to mention its secret biases, in favor of
Israel and against Scientology, TM, and a mixed bag of other things.

And now, the British government has decided to "bless" the mess, with the status of a nonprofit charity.
We "old men" won't regret it, but our heirs might.....

What do you make of this fellow seeing how someone loves multiple accounts.

I suspect Lovetinkle is a sock of Van Haeften, or someone very similar.
Pushing for RFA, by patrolling half-assedly. Seen that stupid pattern too many times.
And those last two links are dead.

This post has been edited by EricBarbour: Fri 30th December 2011, 10:16am

[lonza leggiera]

Application withdrawn in response to a "threat" made against Mr Van H and his civil partner.

[carbuncle]

Application withdrawn in response to a "threat" made against Mr Van H and his civil partner.

That was convenient.

[thekohser]

"very good article" my ass. Gregory rarely writes very good articles. He sometimes writes very interesting articles, and other times very biased articles, but they're hardly very good articles.

I'm hoping he might learn a thing or two from Bali ultimate about writing articles that actually contain a small bit of credibility.

Gregory, do you write for the Patch? I think you would be very good at it, especially tracking local corruption and the like.

"melloden", I will happily answer your question about the Patch, if you'll just kindly tell me who you are. I don't feel the need to cooperate with some pseudonymous git who enjoys insulting my work. Fortunately, others can conclude that "good" articles can be written from a very biased perspective. For heaven's sake, with what do you think the op-ed page of any newspaper is filled?

Anyway, in less than 18 months of writing for Examiner, I've had over 58,000 page views. It's hard to believe that "non-good" content would be so popular.