Slimvirgin gets slashdotted, No place to hide... Options

Link to slashdot[

"International Humanitarian Law professor Ludwig Braeckeleer thinks so. In an article published yesterday in the Korean newspaper OhMyNews, he reveals a discovery he made while researching a story on the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland. It turns out that a Wikipedia administrator named SlimVirgin is actually Linda Mack, a woman who as a young graduate in the 1980s was hired by investigative reporter Pierre Salinger of ABC News to help with the investigation. Salinger later came to believe that Mack was actually working for Britain's MI5 on a mission to investigate the bombing and to infiltrate and monitor the news agency. Shortly after her Wikipedia identity was uncovered, many of her edits to articles related to the bombing were permanently removed from the database in an attempt to conceal her identity. This discovery comes only months after another Wikipedia admin was caught lying about his credentials to the press. What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?"

Bring popcorn. This one could get interesting.

Link to slashdot[
Bring popcorn. This one could get interesting.

You seldom get such good seats to watch a story move up the journalistic food-chain.

ATTACK SITE AIR RAID!

Wow.

Take a look at the comments. One WP apologist named sepluv (641107) writes

In Wikipedia, appeals to personal authority don't work at all, unlike Britannica, which bases its entire approach on these. They are at either end of these extremes, and both work to some extent. Being in the middle would like not work at all.

What new nonsense is this? Yeah, Britannica's methods of employing numerous experts and fact checkers is "extreme" and worked "to some extent".

ATTACK SITE AIR RAID!

Wow.

File an RFC -NOW-. This woman may have THOUSANDS of WP:COI violations. This should be investigated. Seriously.


Get filing!!!!

This post has been edited by GoodFaith:

We have our first winner!

Wow, I was just banned from editing by Crum375 for posting a question to her talk page, asking if she was Linda Mack/Sarah McEwan and part of an intelligence agency. I guess Crum375 doesn't feel that is relevant to an editor's NPOV considerations so my reason for banning was "Harassment and attempted outing of a fellow editor".

It might qualify as harassment if it wasn't totally relevant to her NPOV and should be known by fellow editors but as far as I can find, "attempted outing of a fellow editor" isn't even in the policy guidelines. I really do believe this is just a sockpuppet of hers.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=147547715

Deleted thread on ANI;

User talk:SlimVirgin

Due to edit wars on User talk:SlimVirgin, I've protected the page for 24 hours. If you disagree, feel free to revert, but I submit that SV can revert whenever she returns and wants to, until then email is available, and it is possible that we do not want certain topics posted. I really don't have an opinion either way, but I wanted to get protection in ASAP. Also, remember that WP:OVERSIGHT is an option if we want it. Questions here are:

* Reverts by Crum: Good or bad?
* Protection: Leave it or remove it?
* How do we proceed?

--ST47Talk·Desk 22:17, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Note: Additionally, Crum375 has removed related comments from his/her talk. --ST47Talk·Desk 22:20, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Reverts against me and you [ST47] - bad. I hardly doubt either of us would dream of outing her. Then again, Crum is acting in hers and the project's best interests and protection seems acceptable given it's on the front page of Slashdot. Will (talk) 22:22, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at the comments. One WP apologist named sepluv (641107) writes

In Wikipedia, appeals to personal authority don't work at all, unlike Britannica, which bases its entire approach on these. They are at either end of these extremes, and both work to some extent. Being in the middle would like not work at all.

What new nonsense is this? Yeah, Britannica's methods of employing numerous experts and fact checkers is "extreme" and worked "to some extent".

Yes, if you mean "has served as a beacon of scholarship for more than 200 years" by "extreme", then of course. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unsure.gif)

Here we see the full fruits of Slimvirgin's attacks on Daniel Brandt (and everyone else) - her past life is now be blasted around the world and she can't delete or ban the perpetrators.

How long until we see an article called [[SlimVirgin controversy]] on Wikipedia to go with [[Essjay controversy]]? We can then get [[Category:Former wikipedians who edited under false pretenses]] and add [[SlimVirgin controversy]] to {{Template:History of Wikipedia}}.

Here we see the full fruits of Slimvirgin's attacks on Daniel Brandt (and everyone else) - her past life is now be blasted around the world and she can't delete or ban the perpetrators.

The Linda Mack story is common knowledge, I thought.

According to WP's own article on Slashdot (which could mean anything quite frankly) "famous or well-known active Slashdotters" include Der Jimbo himself. I wonder how Der Jimbo will feel about having his very own Miss Moneypenny outed in one of his favorite hang-outs. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/happy.gif)

According to WP's own article on Slashdot (which could mean anything quite frankly) "famous or well-known active Slashdotters" include Der Jimbo himself. I wonder how Der Jimbo will feel about having his very own Miss Moneypenny outed in one of his favorite hang-outs. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/happy.gif)

I just perused wikien-l. They are in the "Essjay is our boy and we're sticking with him" phase of denial.

How long until we see an article called [[SlimVirgin controversy]] on Wikipedia to go with [[Essjay controversy]]? We can then get [[Category:Former wikipedians who edited under false pretenses]] and add [[SlimVirgin controversy]] to {{Template:History of Wikipedia}}.

There is a case to be made that Linda's editing of the PanAm 103 article is the equivalent of Essjay's editing of articles on Catholicism. Both made edits under false pretenses.

First of all, you have to admit that no one who knows anything about Lockerbie claims that the Libyans did it. This includes Robert Baer, who was the CIA officer closely involved with the investigation. The Libyans were used to redirect the investigation away from Syria, because Syria's support for the Gulf War was considered more important than an honest investigation. The one Libyan who was convicted will probably end up getting a new trial. The CIA, the FBI, Scotland Yard, and MI5 and their friends planted evidence in order to focus on the Libyans.

How do you reconcile these three items:

1) John K. Cooley said, "Once the two Libyan suspects were indicted, she seemed to try to point the investigation in the direction of Qaddafi, although there was plenty of evidence, both before and after the trials of Maghrebi and Fhima in the Netherlands, that others were involved, probably with Iran the commissioning power."

2) Daniel and Susan Cohen lost their daughter on PanAm 103. They have aggressively supported the "Libya did it" theory, to the consternation of many with an interest in the case. In their book, on page 233, they state that "with Linda Mack taking the lead, we helped to organize a petition against the film." The film they're referring to was a 1994 documentary by Alan Francovich titled "The Maltese Double-Cross," which presented a conspiracy theory that was at odds with those pushing the Libyan angle. The point is that this item supports Cooley's statement that Linda Mack was working to push the Libyan angle (or at least working to suppress points of view that did not support the Libyan angle).

3) All of a sudden, by 2005, Linda no longer buys the Libyan angle. Her comment here refers to the convicted Libyan as a "miscarriage of justice which has put a man in jail for 27 years."

This evidence suggests that Linda was indeed working for outside interests when Pierre Salinger locked her out of her office at the London bureau of ABC News in the early 1990s. Either that, or sometime between 1994 and 2005 she had a "come to Jesus" moment and realized that she was on the wrong side of the truth. But if you look at her editing on Wikipedia on the Lockerbie tragedy, it seems that Linda is engaged in damage control more than anything. The keyword here is "control." She needs to control that article, because it has the potential for considerable damage.

Unlike the Essjay situation, this is not an amusing case of Catholicism for Dummies. This is a fundamental perversion of the editing process. Linda should have recused herself from all editing on any Lockerbie article, because she has conflicts of interest and zero credibility.

Either that, or sometime between 1994 and 2005 she had a "come to Jesus" moment and realized that she was on the wrong side of the truth.

Recall that by 2005 Gaddafi had become an ally and friend of the Slim generation. Generation doyen Nelson Mandela had brokered various deals, and the business community needed Gaddafi's oil. It became acceptable at dinner parties to deny Libya's involvement, and blame more topical foes - Iran, Palestinians and so on. It is unsurprising that someone like Slim, the embodiment of the liberal zeitgeist and the chattering class, would change her tune.

This post has been edited by Kato:

A new low for Slashdot
(Score:2)
by jwales (97533) Alter Relationship on Friday July 27, @08:10PM (#20018335)
(http://search.wikia.com/)
This story is demented and broken on so many levels, it is quite difficult to know where to begin, even.

Here we have an excellent Wikipedia administrator who has been victimized by lunatic conspiracy theorists, a private person who has absolutely no relation to the wild stories that this article promulgates.

Slashdot, you have been trolled.
--
Wikia Search [wikia.com]

Why are these people so obsessed with Lyndon Larouche? He is a minor, isolated eccentric. Who cares?

Slashdot, you have been trolled.

A troll is anyone who wins an argument against an admin.

I just perused wikien-l. They are in the "Essjay is our boy and we're sticking with him" phase of denial.

There are dozens of Essjays and SlimVirgins. You have to become a complete public nuisance to be held accountable.

JUST A PARANOID ANNOUNCEMENT:

Save everything that is posted related to this, code and/or screenshot

there may be a disappearing act shortly......

Take a look at the comments. One WP apologist named sepluv (641107) writes

In Wikipedia, appeals to personal authority don't work at all, unlike Britannica, which bases its entire approach on these. They are at either end of these extremes, and both work to some extent. Being in the middle would like not work at all.

What new nonsense is this? Yeah, Britannica's methods of employing numerous experts and fact checkers is "extreme" and worked "to some extent".

Forgive me, but I thought they meant extreme as in opposite ends of the spectrum.

Wikipedia works by anti-intellectualism. Britannica works by intellectualism.

I'd disagree on the "to some extent" though.

LOL ! I knew this was going to spread like wildfire.

The Cabal must be freaking out.

One of their most important members and the co-administrator of the 'Israel / Mideast disinfo bureau' (and her sock) have been outed!

LOL !

Karma.

429 comments so far!

Ouch.

This post has been edited by FNORD23:

Is WR even mentioned there? I mean we're basically responsible.

And Slashdot - thank you! I had hoped that this story would get bigger. For a brief period I thought that it might manage to be swept under the carpets. But it is a big issue, and needs to be exposed.

Doesn't look like she's going to be able to hide from this anymore.

Doesn't look like she's going to be able to hide from this anymore.

They're trying like hell over there to make that happen, though.

I don't know if it's true or not, but there's really no better way to have people assume guilt than to play games like this.

And now, I've blogged it too under the subject "Notorious Wikipedia administrator gets Slashdotted".

If she thinks Daniel Brandt and Wikipedia Review outing her is bad, now the press have done it and it's probably all over the blogosphere.

If she thinks intimidating Wikipedia Review will silence the "outings", it's gone wayy beyond that now.

In fact, I would like to see her try to intimidate the press to remove the article - or intimidate me to remove the blog post, neither have any chance of working.

On the Wikipedia mailing list, they are arguing about possible oversighted edits by SlimVirgin that were done to protect her identity.

That reminded me of an old post of mine, where I described Slim's very first edit on Wikipedia. The only record of this is on Wikipedia Review, naturally. (Is it a good idea to keep the search engines out of the Editors forum? I had to use the WR search engine to find it! Horrors!)

This is a hot item, it seems to me — primarily because the edit history is completely missing now from Wikipedia and it was an edit that is revealing about SlimVirgin's identity.

Here is the Wikipedia Review post.

If you look at the current Pierre Salinger history list, you will see that nothing at all happened on November 5, 2004 to this article, in direct contradiction of my post of 13 months ago. Yet the edit done by SlimVirgin remains in the current article.

Pffft! Down the memory hole. Winston Smith (1984) would be proud. Can someone with better Wikipedia forensic skills than mine recover more information about who deleted this history?

Selina kept a lot of information, but Selina sadly is on holiday at the moment. We must wait until she returns. And hopefully Selina hasn't wiped it in the meantime or forgotten where she put it.

Hmm, well wikien-l should be required reading here, and I'm sure most of you have read it.

It seems that it is WR's fault that this information was on the front page of slashdot? Will they realize that maybe some people outside of wiki land may care about who is disseminating knowledge and what their motivation may be?

After all, it is awful strange to be in the same camp as a fool who doesn't care if an editor is an intelligence agent or not. Again, there may may be a story here and there might not be. That is why there is investigative journalism.

"I regard it as an attempt to manipulate information and don't really have a problem with it." - Jwales

Well, if it is Wikipedia Review's fault, then surely they'll link to us when describing it in their article about it?

We did put out an awful lot of information which assisted people to find out about this. Its just that Wikipedia was able to keep a lid on Wikipedia Review. Sadly, when it got to more mainstream press, the lid came off.

Actually, there is a law in many countries that the true names of secret agents can never be uncovered. I don't know what the laws are in USA, if its the same, or if this case is one where its okay to uncover their identities. So on that basis, perhaps that's why they are going to lengths to protect her? After all, SlimVirgin is doing her bit for her country. Or for a country at least.

Actually, there is a law in many countries that the true names of secret agents can never be uncovered. I don't know what the laws are in USA, if its the same, or if this case is one where its okay to uncover their identities. So on that basis, perhaps that's why they are going to lengths to protect her? After all, SlimVirgin is doing her bit for her country. Or for a country at least.

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 is the law that applies in the U.S., and therefore is relevant to U.S.-based Wikimedia Foundation.

It protects CIA officers and agents to some extent, but the provisions are fairly narrow. If you don't have access to classified information, the chances of violating this law are rather slim. A journalist, for example, does not normally have access to classified information. No journalist has ever been prosecuted under this law.

The Valerie Plame case was different. Those who exposed her were connected with the White House and presumably had access (i.e., security clearances) to this information. The penalties are more severe in this case, and the law is broader.

The shoe is probably on the other foot. If, for example, Wikimedia Foundation is aware that SlimVirgin is an agent of a foreign power (yes, Canada and Britain are foreign), then one could make the case that Wikimedia Foundation is obligated to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938. This is a fairly simple disclosure statute. I haven't researched the issue, but as far as I know the Foundation is most likely under no obligation to pursue the issue with SlimVirgin to determine if registration is required. Even if the Foundation was fully aware that Slim was an agent for Britain or Canada or Israel, and tried to cover it up, I doubt that any U.S. prosecutor would get very excited about the issue. If she was an agent for Al-Qaeda the situation might be different.

We're in vague territory here, particularly when you add the transnational nature of cyberspace into the equation. But I think we're very far from a situation where an investigative effort to uncover Slim would run afoul of any U.S. laws.

We did put out an awful lot of information which assisted people to find out about this. Its just that Wikipedia was able to keep a lid on Wikipedia Review. Sadly, when it got to more mainstream press, the lid came off.

Agree. What I am thinking though is that this information was always here for someone to find, whether or not WR existed or not. Daniel Brandt of course did a lot of work in this, as did WR, but I'm of the opinion that if WR and Mr. Brandt weren't around, someone would have picked it up.

Although, the synchronicity of Daniel Brandt looking into this SlimVirgin matter is amazing to me, but maybe I read too much into things. That's another esoteric rant for another time.

Back on topic though, I wonder if when an investigative journalist with a mainstream media entity picks this thing up and at least reports on the idea of an intelligence agent spreading disinformation via Wikipedia, if it will still be nutty, and still be WR's fault.

92 Blogs and counting:

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl...nG=Search+Blogs

The information is spreading like wildfire. Essjay actually spread slower than this initially.

Regular Wikipedians are mocking her

== Guess who's in the news? ==
An IRC friend left me this nifty link to an article on [http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=374006&rel_no=1&back_url= english.ohmynews.com] that rather mentions you by name. Didn't know if you've seen it yet, and granted it's not exactly the AP or Reuters... Oh, by the way, "R" says "Code 14 Olive". Meeting is at the usual place. <b><i><font color="#FF00FF">~Kylu ([[User:Kylu|u]]|[[User talk:Kylu|t]]) </font></i></b> 03:22, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

== You've been in the news a bit. ==
read on Slashdot that you've been accused of being a secret agent. There is an article about it at [http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=374006&rel_no=1]. Care to comment on this, or am I just going to get reverted as "trolling"?

== You and MI5 ==
Just in case you didn't know, someone mentioned this link to me: [http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=374006&rel_no=1] . Apparently you're an undercover spy working to infiltrate the wiki. Enjoy, --[[User:ST47|ST47]]<small>[[User talk:ST47|Talk]]&middot;[[User:ST47/Desk|Desk]]</small> 21:45, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

== Have you seen this? ==
[http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=374006&rel_no=1&back_url= FYI.] —[[User:Cleared as filed|Cleared as filed.]] 11:47, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

And of course, a troll

== MI5 ==
Is it true? I've always known you were a piece of shit, but god damn.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=256781...ed&pid=20018335

Jimbo's post on slash about this, and replies.

92 Blogs and counting:

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl...nG=Search+Blogs

The information is spreading like wildfire. Essjay actually spread slower than this initially.

To be fair, it looks like only two have picked up the story (after Slashdot). The others are older stuff, although some of them may be dealing with more or less the same thing, since it has been around for a while.

I remember the MC5, led by guitarist Wayne Kramer, were one of the hardest-rockin' bands of the late-60's/early-70's era, with songs like "Kick Out the Jams" and "Shakin' Street." Man, they rocked! But I doubt that SlimVirgin was ever a member... or if she was, she did a much better job of keeping it off the internet.

We all have to remember that this has occurred as the result of a confluence of extremely unusual circumstances and coincidences. What are the chances that Slimmy would have bought a copy of Namebase in the early 90's by asking her boyfriend to physically go to Daniel Brandt's office to buy one? And that she'd then start an article about Brandt, only to delete it a few days later, but then have it restored by some Google-fan she probably had never heard of before? And what are the chances that she'd run into yet another editor who just happened to be obsessed with attacking a corporate CEO whom she'd known 20 years before, in Oxford-Cambridge of all places, and who had offended her by asking someone to pass him some French Fries using a phony British accent? And on top of that, to have someone affiliated with said CEO be one of the most tenacious and dedicated IP-address and sock-puppet trackers any of us have ever encountered in our entire online lives? And that he and Brandt would both end up on the same message board?

In spite of it all, I actually expect this to blow over, probably within a week or two, followed by the usual denials.

At the same time, I often wonder... What would a post-Slimmy Wikipedia be like? Would editors finally be able to take the Nazis out of the Martin Luther article, for example? Would they be allowed to make references to Bosnian Holocaust victims? Would it even become acceptable to make links to the Animal Rights article from the Animal Liberation Front article actually say "animal rights"?

Personally, I doubt it, but life is full of surprises, I suppose!

92 Blogs and counting:

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl...nG=Search+Blogs

The information is spreading like wildfire. Essjay actually spread slower than this initially.

I remember I had multiple posts on the Essjay thing. I wonder if I'll have multiple posts on the SV thing too...

To be fair, it looks like only two have picked up the story (after Slashdot). The others are older stuff, although some of them may be dealing with more or less the same thing, since it has been around for a while.

Mine is one of them.

It's still relatively slow going. It is yet to be picked up by a major news source. When that happens, then it will be out there for real. But ultimately if Wikipedia can avoid that ever happening then they will have escaped this one intact.

This would explain why, though the world sleeps, about 40 uniques per hour (and growing) are arriving at AntiSocialMedia.net having googled SlimVirgin and/or Linda Mack.

This story has officially broken through from ultra-niche to niche, and I see too much momentum to not transition to quasi-proto-mainstream via mass media within the week.

Yes, I'm predicting a large jump in the number of qualifying "attack sites" very soon.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=256781...ed&pid=20018335

Jimbo's post on slash about this, and replies.

I liked this one in particular:

A new low for Jimbo Wales(Score:1)
by BiteMeJimbo (1133965) on Friday July 27, @11:54PM (#20019959)

Jimmy, you've been looking the other way while your Wikipedia project has been going up in smoke. SlimVirgin/Linda Mack is an unbalanced control freak with an agenda to push. Multiple agendas, really. But to you, she's "an excellent Wikipedia administrator." Pierre Salinger, who only gave her a job, a platform, resources and instant credibility, decided that he couldn't trust this duplicitous bitch. But you think Wikipedia can because -- ? It's because you're a dumb-ass, Jimmy. It's possible that systemic problems with the wiki format will always lead to a wiki becoming crap if it expands too much, but your stewardship has actively advanced destructive forces at Wikipedia. You should've stuck with the porn, Jimmy. Instead, you've made yourself permanently associated with a crap enterprise; Jimmy, you're the Ahab of the Internet.

Needless to say, the Slashdot crowd didn't find Jimmy's whine very convincing.

I couldn't resist.

I probably could've said something wittier if it wasn't past 5am.

(I should probably abandon that account because it says nathanrdotcom but I really can't be bothered)

Oh my word. SlimVirgin had an agenda to push? But she hid it so well...

f