QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Sat 30th July 2011, 5:42pm)
This. Quoted below in case it goes byebye.
QUOTE
[edit] Overstock.com, David Gerard, and the blocking of the town of Lehi, Utah
Jimbo, are the emails linked to
here genuine? If so, do you still support what David Gerard did there to mislead an Associated Press reporter who was investigating the WordBomb/Mantanmoreland affair and support Gerard's range block of an entire community in Utah? Cla68 (talk) 00:21, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
Wales reponds!
QUOTE(Wales)
Wow, Cla68, that's a pretty outrageous summary of what happened there. What David Gerard was trying to do there was find a way to explain the situation truthfully (which he did) without making it seem interesting (when it wasn't). This is quite common in handling press inquiries - you have to be very careful not to *create* a story when there isn't one. The last thing you want to do is say something interesting when there is actually nothing interesting to be said. So you have to write it up in a very boring way, being very careful to avoid inflaming a situation.
Bagley was making outrageous and frankly ludicrous claims about what can only be called a conspiracy theory. I remember reading his theory that I was somehow, due to my background working in the financial markets, in cahoots with the global conspiracy of financial journalists to cover up wrongdoing in the financial markets. He wrote in a very breathless style at the time about "I happen to have proof of something they want very much to suppress. It's really very sordid and to anybody's knowledge, this sort of thing has never happened before." Total ranting nonsense, that.
Yes, I fully support that range block, and I'm unaware of any legitimate complaints about it. When you have someone behaving as Bagley was (ongoing sockpuppeting), there is often little choice but the block an entire range - you know this, as it unfortunately happens all the time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:12, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
Ahem. I'm afraid it's less than correct to say that "What David Gerard was trying to do there was find a way to explain the situation truthfully (which he did) without making it seem interesting (when it wasn't)." It is interesting (though this is a matter of taste). And as for the "truthfulness part," it depends on what Gerard knew at the time. Factual, it isn't.
Mr. Wales, you know, don't you, that the email you sent Gerard that said "Brilliant!" in getting a reporter to think that Bagley had violated WP's "fairness rules" (as a newbie less than a day old), was regarded Bagley's complaint that Wikipedia was being manipulated by a journalist named Weiss on matters of Overstock and shortselling and Wiess' BLP, and that Weiss was [[user:Mantanmoreland]]? And (later) that he had a number of socks on WP, which was what Bagley was banned for? You copied Mantanmoreland on your email, and you also copied one of his later identified socks, [[user:samiharris]]. And Bagley's other complaint was that these were being protected unfairly by [[user:SlimVirgin]], who was the OTHER person you copied?
If all this was true (which it proved to be) then the Wikipedia actions against Bagley certainly looked like a conspiracy, even if it was merely the manipulation of a bunch of clueless administrators. SlimVirgin AT LEAST had the grace to (later) complain on Wikipedia Review about being manipulated by Mantanmoreland. Gerard never said anything in public that I know of, since to do so would be to remind everybody how clueless he was to the real situation in 2007, despite some fairly frantic attempts to inform him (which he put off as the ravings of the mentally ill).
And now we come to YOU, Mr. Wales, in 2011. Have you not been brought up to date yet about your email cc: list in 2007? "Being manipulated by Mantanmoreland" is your BEST excuse. But that would involve some kind of apology for being wrong, and for mistreating Bagley for trying to get the truth out. A truth you weren't listening to. And still have yet to admit.
Perhaps Bagley will then admit that you actually were not in cahoots with the global conspiracy of financial journalists to cover up wrongdoing in the financial markets. That you were just clueless. Like Gerard. And SlimVirgin.
Cyberstalking list leaks, So much for sooper sekricy
WordBomb Cyberstalking list leaks 
