Shankbone tries to intimidate Seth Finkelstein, AS IF Options

[The Joy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Set...ict-of-Interest

David Shankbone has accused journalist Seth Finkelstein of having a conflict of interest in reporting on Wikipedia and Jimbo Wales. According to Shankbone, Seth has a negative bias towards Wikipedia. Shankbone is even planning on contacting other journalists to report Seth's "conflict of interest."

Shankbone's gone to new lows.

[Somey]

Moderator's note: Two similar threads were merged into one thread, hence the apparent redundancy of the following post. As is well-known, The Joy has a history of beating Somey to the punch by three minutes or less.

Over on User_talk:Seth Finkelstein (permalink), a certain uber-troll and self-promoting porn-uploader of our unfortunate acquaintance seems to have taken issue with Mr. Finkelstein's "reporting on Wikipedia and Jimmy Wales," calling it a "conflict of interest" - and even semi-threatening to send a strongly worded letter to the Guardian's "reader's editor," to see how he "handles it." (He also misuses the word "comports" when he probably means "accords," but I digress.)

Of course, the link provided by the uber-troll in question merely leads to Mr. Finkelstein's September 2006 piece about his objections to his (now-deleted) BLP article. Apparently, at least one person wants to define the term "conflict of interest" to mean that WP once had an article about you and you objected to it!

So I guess now, if Wikipedia wants to try and get journalists in trouble for criticizing it/them, they just have to create an article on the journalist in question, fill it with lies, innuendo, and misplaced emphasis, wait for the inevitable AfD, and call any critical stories written afterwards a "conflict of interest!" What a brilliantly clever and subtle scheme!

And yet, somehow this particular uber-troll is still allowed to abuse Wikipedia freely for his own petty, self-promotional, and ludicrously vengeful uber-trolling ends. As long as it continues, I'm afraid I'll have to remain convinced that absurdity and hypocrisy really know no bounds over there, and that any complaints about "harassment" and "COI" coming from a Wikipedia user, no matter how seemingly justified, are just empty rhetoric.

This post has been edited by Somey:

[wikiwhistle]

Over on User_talk:Seth Finkelstein (permalink), a certain uber-troll and self-promoting porn-uploader of our unfortunate acquaintance seems to have taken issue with Mr. Finkelstein's "reporting on Wikipedia and Jimmy Wales," calling it a "conflict of interest," threatening to send a strongly-worded letter to the Guardian's "reader's editor," to see how he "handles it." (He also misuses the word "comports" when he probably means "accords," but I digress.)

Just let him try. Presumably they will back SF up, he's been open about the history and they still want his writings.

And yet, somehow this particular uber-troll is still allowed to abuse Wikipedia freely for his own petty, self-promotional, and ludicrously vengeful uber-trolling ends. As long as it continues, I'm afraid I'll have to remain convinced that absurdity and hypocrisy really know no bounds over there, and that any complaints about "harassment" and "COI" coming from a Wikipedia user, no matter how seemingly justified, are just empty rhetoric.

He said in january, on his blog that he was leaving WP as it was stopping him building a real life with any direction outside wikiworld, for his real self rather than his Shankbone persona. His post was quite deep, with self-insight and I inwardly wished him well. A shame he didn't seem to noticeably follow up his resolution, at least where WP is concerned.

This post has been edited by wikiwhistle:

[Noroton]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Set...ict-of-Interest

David Shankbone has accused journalist Seth Finkelstein of having a conflict of interest in reporting on Wikipedia and Jimbo Wales. According to Shankbone, Seth has a negative bias towards Wikipedia. Shankbone is even planning on contacting other journalists to report Seth's "conflict of interest."

Shankbone's gone to new lows.

Mods, can we please have a David Shankbone subsection of the Notable Editors section? He's not going away. He's a permanent scar on the landscape.

This isn't the only time Shankbone has gone after reporters. In addition to his sleazy behavior with the Fox anchor, he's offered a $200 reward on his blog for people to bother another Fox reporter who does "gotcha"-style interviews for The O'Reilly Factor. It's in his blog. I won't link to it.

The miasma spreads.

From what I saw of it, Shankbone is essentially calling Finkelstien biased. That's not a conflict of interest. It's got nothing to do with COI.

[UseOnceAndDestroy]

[Note: Duplicate threads merged to here]

[gomi]

Mods, can we please have a David Shankbone subsection of the Notable Editors section? He's not going away. He's a permanent scar on the landscape.

The rule of thumb has been that there need to be five or more threads about him. I'll go take a quick pass at counting them .... and, yes, I found five in Editors. I'll get on it, but probably not today.

[Somey]

Mods, can we please have a David Shankbone subsection of the Notable Editors section? He's not going away. He's a permanent scar on the landscape.

As I recall, we decided we didn't want to give him the satisfaction...?

And to be honest, it's not like I blame him for wanting the satisfaction - when you've consumed (and created!) as much pornographic imagery as Shanky clearly has, it stands to reason that you're going to get a little jaded and start looking for other ways to get off in front of your computer. Seeing his fake name posted on other people's websites is probably just the way that gets it done for him, I suppose.

[The Wales Hunter]

Shankbone is the personification of something, yet I don't know what.

He returned from his trip to the Middle East with new pictures. I seem to recall he altered the Israeli-Palestinian Relations article (or something similar) to include a picture of Palestinian kids playing with toy guns!

He has written about how he was overcome by the urge to photograph a homeless woman changing her tampon on the street.

He used the clique/cabal/whatever to allow him to include his fake name on every image he files.

He added a picture of a male gay porn star with his hand wrapped around his penis, while waving, to the "wave" category or similar.

The list goes on and on. He's almost daring somebody to go through and find all the diffs and publish something about him...but perhaps that what he wants.

[Noroton]

Mods, can we please have a David Shankbone subsection of the Notable Editors section? He's not going away. He's a permanent scar on the landscape.

As I recall, we decided we didn't want to give him the satisfaction...?

And to be honest, it's not like I blame him for wanting the satisfaction - when you've consumed (and created!) as much pornographic imagery as Shanky clearly has, it stands to reason that you're going to get a little jaded and start looking for other ways to get off in front of your computer. Seeing his fake name posted on other people's websites is probably just the way that gets it done for him, I suppose.

True, I think he does like notoriety. But at some point it just becomes easier for the rest of us if the Shankbone stuff is in one spot.

Incidentally, I'm going to back down on the language I'm using to describe Shankbone. I think I went too far in a previous thread I started and maybe even too far here. I'll just describe his (sleazy) activity from now on.

[Somey]

The list goes on and on. He's almost daring somebody to go through and find all the diffs and publish something about him...but perhaps that what he wants.

No question about that. And it's more than a little likely that he's trying to get Seth himself to write something about him - presumably he's been looking at the page-referrer stats from his blog, and has decided he's not getting enough "juice" from Encyclopedia Dramatica alone.

What's guardian.co.uk's Alexa ranking these days? Let me check... hey, 319, at this particular moment at least! That could be worth a few extra clicks.

[GlassBeadGame]

He returned from his trip to the Middle East with new pictures. I seem to recall he altered the Israeli-Palestinian Relations article (or something similar) to include a picture of Palestinian kids playing with toy guns!

I wouldn't be surprised if he gave the kid the toy gun. At the very least you can see him smiling and waving while all excited about using the pic to inflame passions, further sour relations and make the lives of that child worse. Essentially visual defamation.

[The Wales Hunter]

The list goes on and on. He's almost daring somebody to go through and find all the diffs and publish something about him...but perhaps that what he wants.

No question about that. And it's more than a little likely that he's trying to get Seth himself to write something about him - presumably he's been looking at the page-referrer stats from his blog, and has decided he's not getting enough "juice" from Encyclopedia Dramatica alone.

What's guardian.co.uk's Alexa ranking these days? Let me check... hey, 319, at this particular moment at least! That could be worth a few extra clicks.

It would be deliciously ironic if somebody as apparently rapidly pro-Israeli as Shankbone were to use the Guardian for anything other than toilet paper.

If he were just using Wikipedia to self-publicise, I'd almost want to salute him. But it's not his actual name being publicised.

Anyway, this picture always gives me a chuckle. How did he manage to find the only photographer with less technical abilities than himself? And how are his "Shankbone meets and greets" images even useful?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...himon_Peres.jpg

In all seriousness, it is a worry as an image can create a lasting impression in the fraction of the time it takes to read a sentence of text.

[Somey]

What's amazing about this is that Seth Finkelstein, of all the people out there criticizing Wikipedia, is probably the most anti-censorship of the lot. Maybe even by a considerable margin. Nobody knows more about, and argues against, "censorware," content filtering, and the use/misuse of routers and firewalls to stop information, including pornography, than Seth Finkelstein.

So why attack him? It makes no sense, unless... (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hmmm.gif)

Does he think Seth is getting too interested in the pornographic spam problem? There was this piece from January 22, in which he writes of Google's PageRank algorithm:

As porn is one of the most popular subjects for spam, legitimate writers concerned with sexual topics can find themselves filtered out as collateral damage.

Maybe Shanky read this bit and figured Seth was becoming, shall we say, a person of interest? I'm not sure what else would explain it, other than simple unwarranted attention-whoring.

[Somey]

Or, is it possible, given that about 90 percent of Shanky's porn images on Wikipedia were unilaterally deleted by Jimbo recently, that he's already trying to whitewash his record of gay-porn-advocacy on Wikipedia by attacking someone who's famous for advocating against censorship?

He'll need a lot more patience than that - it's only been what, two months? He should wait at least a year before the Big Religious Conversion™.

[carbuncle]

Why doesn't Shankbone have an article on WP? I'm surprised he hasn't written it himself (or has it been purged)?

There are certainly enough "reliable sources":
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtSt...rver=172.20.5.5
http://www.cjr.org/on_the_job/the_wikinews_ace.php
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/04/books/...h-colleen-asper
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/06/expres...-in-cyber-space
http://fora.tv/speaker/4934/David_Shankbone

[LaraLove]

Maybe Shanky read this bit and figured Seth was becoming, shall we say, a person of interest? I'm not sure what else would explain it, other than simple unwarranted attention-whoring.

Has Shankbone always been a Defender of the Jimbo? You'd think, as hateful and vengeful as he is, he'd be all about bringing Jimbo down for deleting his crappy porn images from the project. Instead, he's all up his butt like Lemmiwinks.

[thekohser]

...manage to find the only photographer with less technical abilities than himself? And how are his "Shankbone meets and greets" images even useful?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...himon_Peres.jpg

What are you talking about? The books on the bookshelf seem to be well in focus.

[carbuncle]

Maybe Shanky read this bit and figured Seth was becoming, shall we say, a person of interest? I'm not sure what else would explain it, other than simple unwarranted attention-whoring.

Has Shankbone always been a Defender of the Jimbo? You'd think, as hateful and vengeful as he is, he'd be all about bringing Jimbo down for deleting his crappy porn images from the project. Instead, he's all up his butt like Lemmiwinks.

I'm not sure if diffs exist, but I recall that they were deleted at Shankbone's request, although I'm not sure why I think this.

[wikiwhistle]

I'm not sure if diffs exist, but I recall that they were deleted at Shankbone's request, although I'm not sure why I think this.

It said so in edit summaries.

[the fieryangel]

Minkythecat (T-C-L-K-R-D) , I salut you!