Ottava leaves Wikipedia Options

[Happy drinker]

According to some people here, she should write the Wikipedia article on the effects of smoking, and would do a better job than people who are not expert pharmacologists...

It's not an obscure topic, is it?

So does the theory that only experts should write Wikipedia articles only apply to obscure topics? If so, who decides what is an obscure topic?

[thekohser]

According to some people here, she should write the Wikipedia article on the effects of smoking, and would do a better job than people who are not expert pharmacologists...

It's not an obscure topic, is it?

So does the theory that only experts should write Wikipedia articles only apply to obscure topics? If so, who decides what is an obscure topic?

HD, you don't seem to understand something. I don't think any of us are arguing who "should" or "should not" write Wikipedia articles. We're concerned that many Wikipedians claim that the articles they have determined (and we are to trust) were predominantly written by amateur nobodies are in fact better than articles elsewhere written by experts. We're also concerned that Wikipedians market their site as the "sum of human knowledge" and as an "encyclopedia". And finally, we're concerned that often times, expert contribution to this compendium of mostly amateur-generated content is shunned or even prohibited via blocking of expert accounts.

But, if it pleases you, go ahead and continue to reframe arguments here, so that we look stupid or intractable or misinformed or unrealistic or whatever. We can see that you get a kick out of that. Maybe I'll dream of punching you in the face, too, since that seems to keep you running with the needle on red for a few weeks, too.

[Somey]

So does the theory that only experts should write Wikipedia articles only apply to obscure topics? If so, who decides what is an obscure topic?

No, of course that's not what I meant at all. Perhaps I should be more explicit: It's an extremely well-covered topic, one which has been directly in front of the general public for many, many years. As a result, the number of people claiming to be "experts" (as well as actually being experts) is likely to number well into the thousands or tens of thousands. A traditional encyclopedia would have a difficult task choosing who, among those experts, fulfills the requirements of being qualified, unbiased, editorially talented, etc. - but they would make that choice, and take responsibility for it. Wikipedia's "choice" is based on who gets there first and who hangs around longest, and nobody takes responsibility for it at all.

On an obscure/less-prominent topic (such as medieval philosophy), that decision would be much easier for the traditional encyclopedia, but Wikipedia's choice is still often based on who gets there first and who hangs around longest. However, there's at least a small possibility that if someone who's completely unqualified and/or biased attempts to dominate a particular obscure article or topic, they can be voted down by a relatively small group of qualified editors - as long as the unqualified person isn't an administrator or an otherwise favored user.

My point (hopefully) is that with highly visible and controversial topics, such as the effects of smoking, there are enough experts to make the issue of who should write the Wikipedia article essentially moot. There is simply no way by which Wikipedia, under the current system, can produce unbiased, expert-driven content when the experts are numerous and not in general agreement. (However, the vast majority will at least tell you that smoking is harmful.) What Wikipedia will produce is a lot of edit-warring, drama, and general hostility, along with an article that's likely to be too long, full of misplaced emphasis, and riddled with lots of irrelevant and extraneous information, even if most of it is reasonably well-sourced.

[GlassBeadGame]

I found this comment by Moreschi on his talkpage especially telling, regarding OR's Catholic faith, which Moreschi calls "radical" :

I have seen Ottava's column in the local newspaper on religious matters, and it accords with my description. Moreover, "radical" is not a pejorative, or at any rate is not intended to be one. If Ottava objects I will of course refactor, but this was not intended as negative description - purely as factual. [[User:Moreschi|Moreschi]] ([[User talk:Moreschi|talk]]) 17:03, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Does anybody know anything about this "column" (which I assume uses OR's RL name....) and where one might read it? Is it syndicated? Does OR have his own WP BLP? It would be interesting to know more about this aspect of this business...

I am not surprised that Ottava is a professional writer -- his behavior may create increased levels of aspirin consumption, but his command of the language stands out from the usual "you suck" dialogue that permeates much of WP's talk pages.

This makes some sense. I have had extended arguments over social and political matters on this site. His positions do, at least retrospectively, seem to line up with radical right wing Catholics of the Pat Buchanan kind. I didn't see his arguments as very sophisticated. In fact I thought him likely to be a kiddie. But you wouldn't expect an 18 year old to be influenced by that particular form of radicalism.

[Milton Roe]

I found this comment by Moreschi on his talkpage especially telling, regarding OR's Catholic faith, which Moreschi calls "radical" :

I have seen Ottava's column in the local newspaper on religious matters, and it accords with my description. Moreover, "radical" is not a pejorative, or at any rate is not intended to be one. If Ottava objects I will of course refactor, but this was not intended as negative description - purely as factual. [[User:Moreschi|Moreschi]] ([[User talk:Moreschi|talk]]) 17:03, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Does anybody know anything about this "column" (which I assume uses OR's RL name....) and where one might read it? Is it syndicated? Does OR have his own WP BLP? It would be interesting to know more about this aspect of this business...

Hmm, it would seem to me that "offwiki" interests and prejudices of "various parties" as being used to weave another one of the tangled webs that Wikipedia is famous for. Already, the "evil twins" are at it again, with Folantin playing Tagteam with Moreschi's "proposals". and the statements by Folantin, then Moreschi and then Antandrus. These three often work as a tagteam, as anyone who follows their activities can see. Folantin and Moreschi are clearly meatpuppets of each other, as they always vote the same way, comment using the same POV etc...

Yes. Meats they may be (you've noted the very high shared politcal TALK concordance) but socks they are not (despite the 160 shared articles edited). Moreschi is clearly a very committed Catholic, as he NEVER edits on Sundays (whereas this is Folantin's favorite edit day). No wonder he's especially irritated by Ottava's personal brand of Catholicism (which Ottava feels, like everything else he does, is beyond question).

Moreschi, interestingly, seems to have named himself from Alessandro Moreschi, the famous Italian castrato who sang for Catholic choirs. This in keeping with Moreschi's interests in Catholicism and opera.

Folantin is interested in opera, but if he's a sock of Moreschi, he's an EVIL sock. And one that needs more sleep than Moreschi does , although they keep similar hours due to being in the same place. IOW, not the same person, I think.

Early in his career, as he started out editing the A. Moreschi bio, user:Moreschi revealed his IP to be 86.131.110.151. That geolocates him to the UK. Where Folantin doubtless is, also. Just FYI.

[Number Six]

Yes. Meats they may be (you've noted the very high shared politcal TALK concordance) but socks they are not (despite the 160 shared articles edited). Moreschi is clearly a very committed Catholic, as he NEVER edits on Sundays (whereas this is Folantin's favorite edit day). No wonder he's especially irritated by Ottava's personal brand of Catholicism (which Ottava feels, like everything else he does, is beyond question).

Moreschi, interestingly, seems to have named himself from Alessandro Moreschi, the famous Italian castrato who sang for Catholic choirs. This in keeping with Moreschi's interests in Catholicism and opera.

Folantin is interested in opera, but if he's a sock of Moreschi, he's an EVIL sock. And one that needs more sleep than Moreschi does , although they keep similar hours due to being in the same place. IOW, not the same person, I think.

Early in his career, as he started out editing the A. Moreschi bio, user:Moreschi revealed his IP to be 86.131.110.151. That geolocates him to the UK. Where Folantin doubtless is, also. Just FYI.

Where is the line between meat puppetry and "wiki-friends" with mutual philosophies and interests? I'm not trying to be snide - not here anyway - but I'm genuinely curious. Surely there is a difference, though it's often hard to tell.

[the fieryangel]

Jeffrey writes an occasional column on ethics and religion in the local paper serving the Catholic University community. At least one of those columns was (perhaps still is) available online.

Yes, but what's local? A specific city in the UK?

Early in his career, as he started out editing the A. Moreschi bio, user:Moreschi revealed his IP to be 86.131.110.151. That geolocates him to the UK. Where Folantin doubtless is, also. Just FYI.

Yes, Folantin geolocates to the University of Leeds, some sort of "linguistic laboratory". The only confirmed information about Moreschi is that he is a tennis pro located in the UK.

Where is the line between meat puppetry and "wiki-friends" with mutual philosophies and interests? I'm not trying to be snide - not here anyway - but I'm genuinely curious. Surely there is a difference, though it's often hard to tell.

The abuse level.

If it doesn't lead to abuse, it's "wiki-friends". Here, we have a long history of abuse which is coordinated between two accounts, with Antandrus serving as an enabler account.---think Antandrus is the "mommy" who the kiddies run to when they're in trouble....

Clearly, part of the solution to this ARBCOM case involves solving this long history of coordinated abuse. One can only hope that ARBCOM will finally, years later, address this issue.

[the fieryangel]

Hmm, an interesting question on Moreschi's talk page :

How did you arrive upon my column? [[User:Ottava Rima|Ottava Rima]] ([[User talk:Ottava Rima|talk]]) 00:46, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. How did Moreschi find OR's column.

Especially, where? In what paper?

Enquiriring minds want to know!

Check out the tagteam action here.

These "guys" are slick...

And check out this Userspace page.

psst! OR! You picked the wrong meat puppets!

[tarantino]

Yes, but what's local? A specific city in the UK?

The Catholic University of America.

[the fieryangel]

Yes, but what's local? A specific city in the UK?

The Catholic University of America.

I'd hardly call the CUA radical. Catholic, yes. Radical, no.

However, Moreschi clearly is reading this locally in the UK.

[Number Six]

The abuse level.

If it doesn't lead to abuse, it's "wiki-friends". Here, we have a long history of abuse which is coordinated between two accounts, with Antandrus serving as an enabler account.---think Antandrus is the "mommy" who the kiddies run to when they're in trouble....

Clearly, part of the solution to this ARBCOM case involves solving this long history of coordinated abuse. One can only hope that ARBCOM will finally, years later, address this issue.

Food for thought. I cannot comment on the abuse aspect, maybe I need to read up more. I will say I've seen better work from Moreschi and Folantin than I ever have from Ottava Rima.

[A Horse With No Name]

Okay, so where is the link to Ottava's real-life column?

[Number Six]

However, Moreschi clearly is reading this locally in the UK.

He says. I simply can't see how the column I've seen would have been picked up here.

[the fieryangel]

I've seen better work from Moreschi and Folantin than I ever have from Ottava Rima.

You've obviously never read the Grove dictionary of Music and Musicians. They just spend their time rewording that. Any elementary school student capable of a book report could do this kind of work.

Folantin at least has slightly broader interests and is a bit more intelligent. Moreschi is simply incredibly stupid, close-minded about other perspectives and unbelievably rude. These two need to be put in their place here.

OR is a real writer. And that's the problem right there.

However, Moreschi clearly is reading this locally in the UK.

He says. I simply can't see how the column I've seen would have been picked up here.

He says indeed. AGF and all of that.

[the fieryangel]

Look at the recent history of the "workshop" page.

Moreschi (T-C-L-K-R-D) ....Folantin (T-C-L-K-R-D) ....and....Voceditenore (T-C-L-K-R-D)

They could be a little more subtle about it....

And the tagteam pile-on continues on Moreschi's talk page.

Well, see that's the funny thing. I got a one-off email from what was probably a throwaway gmail account pointing me to it. The author claimed to be personally associated with you at the university, but that may just have been trolling. I hadn't actually bothered to google your real name, which your column is the second hit for: if you don't want people to read your enlightening thoughts on how "the soul's health supersedes care of body", I would use a different email address. Moreschi (talk) 10:22, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

and then the other "evil twin" goes :

Yeah, I received a similar e-mail from someone operating under the mistaken assumption I give a monkey's who Ottava is in real life. I see Ottava has been conducting "research" into Folantin/Moreschi. He would have saved himself a lot of time looking through all those AfDs had he realised we were both founder members of WikiProject:Deletion with Elaragirl long, long ago. I plead guilty to the charge of depriving Wikipedia of pages on such vital subjects as The Wussy Boy Manifesto and Snifferanto. I haven't bothered with that project for ages because there are plenty of other people who can be relied on to take out the trash. Nowadays I'm more likely to save valuable articles from being zapped by overzealous new page patrollers, e.g. Vladimir Narbut (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vladimir Narbut - BTW that AFD got a brief mention in The New York Review of Books). I'm not sure what the point of your "research" is given most of the pages you are "analysing" are from way before you even appeared on Wikipedia. Maybe it was part of a proleptic cabal against you. --Folantin (talk) 11:09, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

So, somebody tipped 'em off, eh?

This is getting to be more interesting by the minute!

On evidence page, OR takes the more elegant stance and simply defends his actions, without hurling invective at anyone else.

Moreschi and Folantin hysterically post accusations, without discussing the underlying conflicts.

Who loses in this kind of situation?

If ARBCOM were to go about this intelligently, they would look at the past history of all editors and see the underlying pattern of abuse on the part of Moreschi, Folantin et Cie...

However, what they will probably do is only look at what is on the page and make the most simple decision, which is to exclude the one person who isn't pointing fingers, namely OR.

I'm not saying that OR doesn't deserve some kind of chastisement for his actions. I'm only saying that Moreschi and Folantin are just as guilty, if not more so, and also need to be restricted for interacting with OR, and threatened with other sanctions if they do this type of tagteam operation again.

[Peter Damian]

You'll get no argument from me. I've never smoked, but my wife does and she's a professional pharmacologist, with a PhD. She's often pointed that there's actually no very convincing study on the harmful effects of smoking. Or even, come to that, any bad effects from driving after having consumed a moderate amount of alcohol. In fact some studies seem to suggest that it's actually beneficial. Or so I'm led to believe.

So your wife is an expert. According to some people here, she should write the Wikipedia article on the effects of smoking, and would do a better job than people who are not expert pharmacologists and can only cite reliable sources by say Sir Richard Doll, Sir Austin Bradford Hill, Sir Richard Peto ...

I don't understand the significance of these knights. What do they have to do with smoking.

[the fieryangel]

A lot of high-jinx hijinx by Moreschi and Folantin has been documented here by yours truly Perhaps a run-down of some of these incidents might be useful :

The Tagteam in action

Lucky that you don't like Opera, since although one would think that it would a relatively calm place to edit, when you decide to (for example) oppose the idea of promoting an article about an obscure Handel Opera to GA status, you then get the Evil Twins Moreschi and Folantin attacking your own pet good article using tactics which seem closer to Pro Wrestling than classical music. Here Moreschi handles an unnecessary wikilink with a headlock. Here, he replaces "evil and wrong semicolons with commas" with religious zeal.. Folantin dutifully adds http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?t I'm sure that Fred Chess regrets having dared to say that perhaps the Evil Twins weren't behaving according to AGF and WP:Civil....

Moreschi seems to be especially taken with Elaragirl. In this post, he promises to take up the deletionist slack while she's away by replacing his usual knife with a double-edged ax. He's been wacking away ever since trying to get the attention of this damsel in distress. And here he shows those pesky vandals that he's a graduate of the Elaragirl school of charm and manners, defending her userpage to the death.

We're not socks: it just looks that way

CHL/ONE weighs in on Moreschi's out-of-process block of GretaB

Folantin uses his Userpage for personal attacks

Another instance of Folantin's Userpage used for personal attacks

So, who's being distruptive here?

[Happy drinker]

I don't understand the significance of these knights. What do they have to do with smoking.

Read their Wikipedia articles.

[Peter Damian]

I don't understand the significance of these knights. What do they have to do with smoking.

Read their Wikipedia articles.

They are all statisticians.

[MZMcBride]

A lot of high-jinx by Moreschi and Folantin has by documented here by yours truly Perhaps a run-down of some of these incidents might be useful :

All of the fun that comes from using the term "hijinx" (or "hijinks") is derived from being about to use three dotted letters in a row. Sheesh.