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Posted by: WordBomb

There's been a bit of speculation as to the nature of the long-deleted Slimv account.

As I mentioned last week, I have several database dumps, which I've been painstakingly reviewing in search of insights on this and the many other odd deletions made by Musical Linguist in early June of 2006.

Trust me when I say: there is some wild stuff in there.

Wild.

The main SlimVirgin content you'll have to wait for, but Slimv I shall share with you now.

It would appear that Slimv made a single edit in her career, logged November 5, 2004 to the article on Mordacai Vanunu, the guy who revealed the existence of Israel's nuclear weapons program in the mid-80s.

When Vanunu squealed, he was smart enough to do so from England, but that didn't stop the Mossad from capturing and imprisoning him in Israel for 18 years.

Slimv's contribution to the article provided some very unique insights into the role Sunday Mirror owner Robert Maxwell might have had in revealing Vanunu's treason.

Though it's been deleted, you can still see the substance of Slimv's addition by looking at the http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mordechai_Vanunu&diff=next&oldid=7118630.

When you do, ignore every thing above Line 15, as this is the edit that followed Slimv's. The changes you see below Line 15 were made by Slimv.

Remember, Musical Linguist said that deletion was a result of personally identifying information included in the edit. Either that's the case, or it's not. If it is: whoa. If it's not: whoa.

It's also worth noting that Musical Linguist deleted at least one edit from the Robert Maxwell article at the same time she was deleting the Vanunu edit and Slimv's user page.

One more thing.

Six days after Slimv made her one and only edit, followed a few hours later by SlimVirgin's inaugural contribution, two things happened: Mordacai Vanunu was re-arrested, and Yasser Arafat assumed room temperature. That was a busy week for Israeli intelligence.

Posted by: the fieryangel

Very interesting. However, if she's an agent, she's a very sloppy agent. That's what bugs me the most. Is intelligence in the hands of people this incompetent, or does she just have access to this kind of information through other channels?

Good find!

Posted by: Unrepentant Vandal

Surely the latter.

Although then again, there is a precedent for sloppy agents recruited from Kings

Posted by: blissyu2

So hang on. Is SlimVirgin this person?:

American Mossad agent Cherly Bentov?

That doesn't add up to me.

Of course, how did SlimV know this information? It is pretty specialised.

Even though all that SlimV changed in that was that Cherly Bentov had had an affair with Vanunu rather than persuading him (which in itself sounds VERY James Bond like), it is still interesting.

Was this information released to the public? Is she making it up? Or is it information that only someone in the intelligence industry would know?

Posted by: Unrepentant Vandal

Slimmy isn't that person. And come on... how else do you "persuade" someone who knows that Mossad are after him to leave the country?

Posted by: blissyu2

I added this to our blog page "http://wikipediareview.com/blog/20070802/comprehensive-coverage-of-the-slimvirgin-scandal/".

Posted by: anthony

Simplest answer is that she was a journalist, and probably has/had friends who also were journalists.

By the way, this was not the only contribution by User:Slimv. There were others which were deleted earlier. You've gotta use an earlier dump to see them.

Posted by: WordBomb

This is what I mean when I say that if the edit was rightly oversighted due to the inclusion of personal information, then this is the only thing it could be, in which case: whoa.

If, as I suspect, Linda Mack is not Cheryl Bentov, then there's no personal information in that edit and Musical Linguist lied when deleting it; in which case: whoa.

Posted by: anthony

"Vanunu, immediately upon his release from prison in April 2004, said that he did not believe "Cindy" was a Mossad agent: 'She was either an FBI or a CIA agent. I spent a week with her. I saw her picture. Cindy was a young woman from Philadelphia.'"

Posted by: blissyu2

Well, SlimVirgin has referred to herself in the past as:

- Candi
- Slim
- Sarah

One of the edits that was oversighted was one in which she signed her name as "Candi". However, we believe that this is in reference to "The SlimVirgin" (that Indonesian thing) and is of no consequence to her true identity at all. The importance of that oversighted edit was that it was a request to the administrator's noticeboard to have someone banned for bullying her over editing to the Lockerbie bombing article. The reality was that the person who was "bullying her" had been editing it for a year before SlimVirgin got there, and had protested that she was changing fact in to fiction (his edits were oversighted too). The "privacy" aspect was that SlimVirgin had played the victim from day 1, and had pretended to be the victim when she was in fact the culprit, and used this to get another user banned. Actually, he was only threatened to be banned, then he quit. That edit was oversighted too. And the admin she complained to is no longer involved in the project. I can't remember his name either.

The only "privacy" element of it was that we had discussed it here on Wikipedia Review (I know because I was the one who started the topic) and that we were able to prove that SlimVirgin was changing history in a significant way, and that she was never a genuine editor, not from day one.

There was nothing personal in any of the edits. They were oversighted to hide evidence of abuse.

Selina kept a copy, she said. I don't know where she kept a copy. Perhaps in the end she forgot to press save. We have to wait until Selina comes back from holidays to see them.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

Identifying information might mean that Sv was among a small group of people who had access to the information and not that she is named in the content. Maybe Slimv was a "recreational" player at WP, perhaps not even fully aware of the "akashic" nature of a wiki. It might be from understanding the mistake that she also realized the potential. This does not mean she was a spy or not at that time. Only that for whatever reason a very disciplined and sophisticated POV pusher was born.

Posted by: blissyu2

From what we can tell, the only reason that the edits of SlimV were oversighted were to eliminate any accusations that SlimVirgin had a sock puppet.

I do not think that there were any controversial or wrong reasons behind SlimV's edits being oversighted. I think that they were quite legitimate.

The edits made by SlimVirgin on the Lockerbie bombing article, and the associated edits that she made to the administrator's noticeboard and to user talk pages in relation to this, her first ever edits to Wikipedia, ARE a serious issue. They don't disclose her true identity at all, but they do clearly demonstrate her agenda, and why she was at Wikipedia. It clearly demonstrates that from day one she intended to add factually incorrect information to Wikipedia, and to do it by playing damsel in distress and manipulating people to her own ends. She did this from day one. That is the so-called "private information" that was oversighted.

The only question is - what was the significance of what she changed? To understand that, we need to have an expert on the Lockerbie bombing look at the oversighted edits. This is something that we have yet to have happen. This is why we need someone like Ludwig, who wrote the Ohmy News article, and is an expert on the Lockerbie bombing, look at the oversighted edits. Hopefully Selina has them on file, or alternatively WordBomb or someone else can figure out what they were, and then when we can get an expert to come around and look at them, then he can figure out precisely what was changed, and what it means.

I suspect that it was just as significant as the truth-changing on the PA article, which I can tell very easily because I am an expert on the topic. What we need here is an expert.

Posted by: h.hagenstroem

It was more than public. F.e. http://www.uni-kassel.de/fb5/frieden/themen/Atomwaffen/vanunu.html

Posted by: guy

Welcome, Herr Hagenstroem.

Posted by: WordBomb

English may be a Germanic language, but German itself is mostly Greek to me.

This at-times-funny (especially if read in the voice of Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs) Babelfish translation of the relevant section should help:
It puts lotion on its body!

Posted by: BobbyBombastic

This is interesting information.

what do some here think about the writing style? on first reading it did not remind me much of SlimVirgin's writing style. Maybe she added it quickly.

Posted by: WordBomb

Please nobody interpret the following as my placing undue importance on Cheryl Bentov herself. This is just one of those repeating themes one sees when analyzing the edit patterns of SlimVirgin and Jayjg.

First, revisit the http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mordechai_Vanunu&diff=next&oldid=7118630, only this time, ignore what appears below Line 15.

The anon IP changed the word "kidnapped" to "captured," in reference to Mordacai Vanunu. That IP locates to Montreal, Canada, and had http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/24.37.240.230, on the topics of Palestine, Yasser Arafat and Israel (and as pro-Israel as I am, I can't help but feel more than a bit uncomfortable with the rather rigid anti-Arab bias manifest in these edits).

As I've stated in the past, I happen to hail from the "Jayjg lives in Toronto" camp, as opposed to my "Jayjg NY" counterparts.

Now take a gander at the Wikipedia article on Cheryl Bentov; specifically, look at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cheryl_Bentov&diff=21012053&oldid=20508156. It reverts an edit changing the word "captured" to "abducted," in reference to Mordacai Vanunu.

Now, back to Mordacai Vanunu. As you'll recall, he was re-arrested on November 11, 2004. Three days later, an edit war erupted between editors Xed and Deuxmachina. Their differences were substantial, but one recurring theme was Xed's insistence on saying Vanunu was originally "kidnapped," and Deuxmachina insisting he was "arrested."

That edit war grew quite heated, until Jayjg arrived (unrequested and, amazingly, just two minutes after Deuxmachina put the article in precisely the shape he wanted) and protected.

Deuxmachina never returned, while http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&user=&page=User%3AXed&pattern=&limit=500&offset=0 leading up to his eventual banning is a Wikipedia who's who list. The coup de grace, by the way, was administered by Jimbo himself.

The timing of this flurry of edits one week prior to the re-arrest of Vanunu is intriguing, especially when considering how many people -- journalists included -- likely googled the guy's name when they heard about his re-arrest, and how his article would frame the debate for them.

Posted by: Unrepentant Vandal

The obvious question that springs to mind: How clear would it be for a mere "interested MOP" to know that Vanunu was going to be re-arrested?

Posted by: WordBomb

This gets to the obvious question of: "Why would the Mossad care about Wikipedia?"

As I recall, Arafat was at Death's door for about a week there toward the end. Timing the arrest to take place just hours after Arafat kicked it (a time when Muslims can always be counted on to create great video footage) suggests an awareness of the potential for serious PR blowback (and indeed, the http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1350167,00.html).

In answer to your question, I think the timing of the sudden and fairly focused interest in an otherwise sparsely edited article is somewhat suggestive of the editors being directed in their work, just as Vanunu's arresting officers clearly were in theirs.

Then again, Israel has a long history of just doing what it needs to in order to survive, perceptions be damned. I'm far from convinced, but do find it an interesting subject to consider.

And, for the record, I'm amazed they didn't just have Vanunu shot. That guy's a traitor, imho.

Posted by: guy

Just shows how Israel is more civilised than many other countries. They've only ever executed one person, Adolf Eichmann, a mass murderer.

Posted by: WordBomb

Touche. A propos Eichmann, one of the points that Deuxmachina insisted on adding to the Vanunu article was http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mordechai_Vanunu&diff=7450261&oldid=7450242 (in reference to the mechanics of Vanunu's capture): For some reason, Deuxmachina (probably a Jayjg sock) felt it was important to strike a comparison between those two.

Posted by: LamontStormstar

How many socks does Jayjg have? What are they?

Posted by: WordBomb

Turns out you're right, Anthony. I've just found found edits by SlimV to the Pierre Salinger article. I'm coming up with a better mode of presentation for these, but until then, here's a full paragraph she added at 2004-11-02T00:27:19Z
Not very encyclopedic, is it?
On 2004-11-02T00:42:22Z she added this:
After reading that garbage prose, I'm tempted to question whether SlimV is SlimVirgin at all.

More is on the way.

Posted by: BobbyBombastic

That's my first thought. It doesn't read like her at all. Either she was editing quickly and didn't proofread herself or it's not her.

If she claims it to be hers and those are her edits...then that's very interesting. That would make me think there is more than one person behind "SlimVirgin" and I've never thought that.

Posted by: jorge

Most civilised countries carry out ethnic cleansing and are based on the supremacy of people of one religion?

Posted by: blissyu2

Perhaps SlimV is not SlimVirgin at all, but is the person who wrote the cross-dressing smoking thing, who just happens to have one similar interest? Or that SlimV is another person entirely? Maybe that was why they deleted SlimV - not because it was a sock puppet, but because it was an entirely different person. Or alternatively that it was SlimVirgin, but it was more open and honest than SlimVirgin is normally.

And I think that this suggests that there was nothing personal in the deleted edits. It was just demonstrating the agenda of the people involved.

Anyway keep going. I don't really know about this whole topic and am nowhere near an expert on it. You guys seem to know a lot more about it than I do.

Oh and as for "why would Mossad care about Wikipedia?" give me strength. Since the world wide web came out in the early 1990s police have used the internet to catch certain illegal activities, and secret services have been trying to control as much as they can, ESPECIALLY chat sites and information sites. The fact that Wikipedia is both makes it even more important.

The reality is that most likely agents from every secret agency in the world are probably using Wikipedia as a major part of their intelligence operations, and are involved in many edit wars to try to spread lies and deceit to the masses. I doubt that they use Wikipedia greatly to find information, but I can bet that they do use it to try to outdo each other in the spread of disinformation. This is only logical. However, they would be using it to find certain types of information, such as looking at people who would have made certain types of suspicious edits.

Quite seriously, we had German secret service (I can't remember what their name is) on our talker for heaven's sakes. A talker! I mean how unimportant is a talker? But I would be a little surprised if there were secret service on Wikipedia Review, because this is a critic site. Actually, we had German and US secret service. Never caught any British, or any Australian.

Posted by: everyking

Logically, it seems almost inconceivable it could be a different person. Probably she just improved at Wikipedia writing as time passed, and that's why it seems careless by comparison.

Posted by: blissyu2

Well, I think that SlimV who wrote the smoking stories was certainly a different person, and we all know that Linda Mack and Linda Mack Schloff are different people, so why not? Because they edited the same articles?

But I did read it in a few places that SlimVirgin admitted that that was her.

Posted by: jorge

It is impossible that SlimV was not SlimVirgin and I really don't why anyone is even suggesting it.

Posted by: Unrepentant Vandal

I think you overestimate the importance of Wikipedia. If the security services are involved with Wikipedia, it won't be in the editing of it.

Posted by: blissyu2

I think you're naive if you think that. Think about what they are all about, what their jobs are, and how it applies to Wikipedia.

Would they be looking for terrorists on Wikipedia? By oath they would be. They'd be looking like hawks on all of the terrorism related articles, to see who might be a terrorist, or working against their interests - looking at the editors, and trying to figure out who they are if they have suspicions.

Would they be looking for spies from other agencies? By oath they would be. Anyone who suddenly has information about topics that they shouldn't have information on, they'd be following what they say, to see if they can get secrets from them.

Would they be trying to spread false information? By oath they would be. If someone is trying to print accurate information that their government doesn't want people to know, they'd be trying their level best to get rid of it. If they could, they'd be trying to add even more disinformation to articles of importance to their government.

Is SlimVirgin a government agent? She acts like one. She edits all of the right articles. In fact, other than her occasional dabble in animal rights, pretty much all of her edits are in relation to things that a secret agent would be interested in. And, unlike people like MONGO, SPUI and Morton Devonshire, who also edit those kinds of articles, she also changes the policy to suit what she is adding, deletes revision histories, and tries to hide what she is doing.

Now, if you were a secret service, and you saw the power of SlimVirgin, you'd hire her and get her to work for you, to use Wikipedia to your ends. It'd be invaluable.

However, as we've demonstrated quite clearly, she was doing this from the very beginning, in other words all of her editing was with this agenda. There was no starting time when she was just a normal everyday person and then went along one particular path. No, from the very beginning she was like this.

So perhaps, in theory, SlimVirgin to begin with was just an ordinary person who *ACTED LIKE A SECRET AGENT* in her use of Wikipedia. Indeed, it is hypothetically possible (if that was our only evidence) that she has remained neutral. However, CIA etc would be fools not to hire her. They'd have a bidding war over her, especially with her power, and her ability to get rid of it. And if she turned them down, my goodness why did she do that? I don't see her writing about having ethical problems with the secret service, or anything like that.

She edits for 15 hours per day, constant editing. To suggest that she does this just for fun, with these kinds of topics, or that she does it while at work, casually when the boss isn't watching is a bit strange. If she is unemployed, how does she know as much as she does about these kinds of topics?

Posted by: dtobias

Wikipedia's supporters and critics alike have a tendency to overestimate its importance and take things regarding it overly seriously, I think.

Posted by: blissyu2

*sighs*

Is Wikipedia important? Is it any more important than the mud I play, or the online game, or the PC game? Is it any more important than the blog that I write in or the chat programs that I use? Or the chat programs that you use?

If I go along to play Sloth Mud III and try to explain it to people, they don't care all that much, its a mud. I try to explain to them about MK, and they don't care all that much, its a game. I try to explain to them HOMM and they might think its a cool game, and one of the best games ever made, and even educational, but in the end its just a game. I show them my blog, and yeah its nice I've got a blog, so does everyone else. ICQ and all of the others are great ways to talk to people, so what everyone else has them. And everyone uses Wikipedia. Everyone knows what it is. Any time you go to google to search for anything, people know its there. My 90-something year old grandmother who barely knows how to use a computer knows what Wikipedia is. She doesn't quite understand what it is, but she understands that its an encyclopedia online. I have tried to explain to her the difference between that and Britannica, or New World Encyclopedia, and she thinks that the only difference is that it's written on a computer. But even still she does have some idea.

Now, if we can reduce Wikipedia's importance to equal that of Sloth Mud III or Metal Knights, or Heroes of Might and Magic, then great that'd be wonderful. If everyone used it as hey a fun thing to use and of no real importance then that'd be fantastic. Then we could just have this web site for bitching and not consider that there is anything important to it. It could be a banned user's forum, for us to moan about how unfair our bans were, and about why admins are so unfair, and leave it at that, not ever get in to any deeper issues beyond that, just say that Wikipedia sucks and that's about it.

But the problem is that a lot of people give it too much importance. We have it being used in supreme court cases. Now, in saying that, LiveJournal and Blogger and MySpace are used in supreme court cases too, but in the case of blogs they are used as evidence of wrongdoing. They use Wikipedia to try to prove that things are true, or not true. Lawyers use Wikipedia information as references of past cases, and print them out for a jury to read.

Teachers print out Wikipedia articles and hand them to students for information on a topic (I caught one teacher using an article that I had written, and I was the only person to have contributed any information to it!) Students get given research assignments and simply go to Wikipedia, print out the topic, change a few words, then put their name to it, and use the sources that Wikipedia used, to plagiarise Wikipedia - except that its not plagiarism since its released under GDFL - legally they are allowed to do that. Other students use individual Wikipedia articles in their list of references "My project on Cuba. References: Wikipedia article on Cuba, Wikipedia article on Bay of Pigs, Wikipedia article on Cuban cigar". News reporters use Wikipedia not just to refer to Wikipedia laughs, but as a serious resource.

My giving it importance doesn't affect whether or not it is important. The reality is that Wikipedia is important. Not just because of its web ranking (which is about number 5 I think), but because of how much it is used, and how many people use it.

Would the CIA infiltrate Britannica? Absolutely, if they could. I am sure that they write to encyclopedias every so often demanding retractions on certain information. And I am sure that every so often they make these retractions. But the problem is that there are laws that prevent them from doing much more than that. Britannica is safe from such invasions.

Does the CIA infiltrate press? Of course they do. On certain "sensitive" issues, the CIA basically controls what the press writes, by controlling the information that is made available. Anyone bother to follow the Iraq war, especially the one involving Kuwait? It took one hell of a lot of effort on a global scale before we were allowed any kind of real freedom of press, and even now there's still a lot of problems with it.

So why are people thinking that they aren't involved in Wikipedia? It's rather naive I think.

Posted by: Unrepentant Vandal

Granted. But resources are finite, and there are websites far more appealing to terrorists.


There are much easier, and more effective, ways of doing both of the above. I would be disappointed if what you mention hadn't been considered, but it will have almost certainly have been quickly dismissed.



No you wouldn't. If what Mr. Bryne says about SlimVirgin (and her mental health) at King's is true, then the security services would not touch her with a bage pole.



I think it's reasonable to suspect that SV has an agenda, even if said agenda is simply to argue forcefully for her (somewhat extremist, particualarly with regard to animal rights) views.



Not going to happen.




Wikipedia is addictive. Power is fun. Humans seek respect. I don't know enough about Linda Mack to speculate any further, but I believe that the truth will turn out to be mundane.

As a Cantabrigian myself, I can easily state that if she came close to completing a philospohy Phd at King's, then the law of averages means she will have been acquainted with people who are now agents. Again though, the chances of them supplying her with information, while non-zero, is negligible.

Considered analysis, on the other hand, would be relatively likely if they kept in touch...

Posted by: anthony

I tend to agree, but what strikes me about that story is the part about her changing accents suddenly one day. That's a useful skill for covert operations, if not a taught one. Byrne might easily have been misinterpreting the rest. In fact, by the time Byrne met Linda it might have already all been an act.

Actually, if you allow yourself to consider the possibility that Linda was already a covert agent at the time of her encounter with Bryne, all kinds of conspiracy theories enter into play. I don't want to go there. The mind can come up with incredible possibilities if it's allowed to run free.

As far as SlimVirgin currently being an agent, I think the chances are pretty much nil. As for her past, I could easily argue either way. As a former investigative reporter who worked for Pierre Salinger, she's going to have access to a lot of non-public information anyway, and we *know* that much is true.

Posted by: BobbyBombastic

That could be, and people definitely do get better at writing with practice. Disregarding the evidence that points to her being a journalist at one time (ie looking at this objectively, ignoring prior evidence), her writing reads like a person who not only enjoys writing, but has done it very much during her life, perhaps as a profession. One theory may be that the Slimv edits were written to appear like a person who is not like this.

She is probably the best writer I have seen on Wikipedia, although a few others like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mangoe are right up there, I really can't think of a better one...

I've never seen SV write prose like this on a bad day. I am speculating that she was a journalist and on a bad day her prose was not like that. Perhaps when she made those edits, she had not written previously for a long time, but I still do not think her writing would be quite that bad. These Slimv edits are simply shocking, in more ways than one.

Off topic: My short theory that may go along with the theme of this thread is this is that Slim was nothing more than a journalist, with a lot of contacts. Some of these have been intelligence agents (or she at least thought they were) and she got caught up in that. She ended up pushing their agenda and maybe did a few things a journalist should not do. I think that situation exists today, under different circumstances of course.

In essence, I believe her to be nothing more than a former "wannabe" intelligence agent. I won't go any deeper than that, and this may be written too vague, but I don't want to detract from WordBomb's thread.

Posted by: Unrepentant Vandal

This is a possibility.

(BTW, for all we know other edits were oversighted, not just Slim's, right? So the crap writing could have been put there by someone else.)

Anthony: If she had been selected as an agent, then she wouldn't draw attention to herself by such eccentric behaviour.

Posted by: anthony

Only one edit was deleted and/or oversighted between those two, edit #7171501:

*7118630, 0, 217.132.32.3, 20041029213204, Mordechai_Vanunu, /* Release restrictions */ Interviews after the release; Asylum application rejected by Sweden
*7171501, 127201, Slimv, 20041105060805, Mordechai_Vanunu, /* Abduction */ allegation of Robert Maxwell involvement
*7231987, 0, 24.37.240.230, 20041106231911, Mordechai_Vanunu,



Hmm, considering the "eccentric behaviour":

*We had been sitting on a bench in the afternoon, talking, then I said something that I thought innocuous, and she responded, "Patrick (dramatic pause) I'm so hurt that you said that."
*In a student pub in which kids wore jeans and tee shirts, she wore flowing, ruby red and emerald green dresses that were more costumes than attire.
*I popped the fry into my mouth and smiled at her in an attempt to show friendliness, but instead she threw her face down in her hands.
*After Julian’s death, she wore long black gowns.
*She came to the King's Bar dressed like a Goth, and was always crying in public. After Lockerbie she was a wreck, but she was a wreck before it as well.

I guess you make a valid point.

Posted by: WordBomb

This is the thing I keep coming back to: if the lessons of Valerie Plame and/or the works of Tom Clancy are to be considered, intelligence "assets" are worth less than zero once their cover is blown. In SlimVirgin's case, her cover is blown beyond repair, and yet she persists in doing her thing.
Of course it could be that she is indeed an intel officer, but for some backward former Soviet republic...like maybe Ukraine...and she is the best they can afford, or she's the niece of some corrupt minister of something or other.

Posted by: jorge

The writing wasn't put there by someone else as I saw all her edits before they were oversighted. I'm not sure why people are so sure in dismissing SV as an agent when at least 2 if not 3 people have said that she was an agent.

Posted by: Somey

Hmmm.... To be strictly accurate, I don't think most people are completely dismissing the idea that she might have been (or is) an "agent," or whatever you want to call it. (I sort of like "unwitting dupe," myself...)

The problem is that it's next to impossible to prove, so it's safer/nicer/preferable to avoid referring to it as a likely possibility. The more conspiratorially-minded of our members can draw their own conclusions, of course.

Having said all that, foreign journalists are approached (and fed information of varying levels of dubiousness) by intelligence types all the time, with and without their knowing it. That just seems much more likely to me, assuming there was any spook involvement at all.

Posted by: jorge

I think people's perceptions have been distorted a little in that in Daniel's summing up of what is known about SV he forgot to mention that two or three people had identified SV as an agent.

Posted by: anthony

What are the details? Salinger said he thought it. Michael Morris http://www.mebocom-defilee.ch/ceocities/ebol030101.htm. Anything else?

Posted by: jorge

Wasn't there someone called Cooley???

Posted by: anthony

Cooley was the source for the Salinger statement.

Posted by: Kato

If there are "secret agents" from around the world using Wikipedia, they have spectacularly failed to make any lasting impression on content. I am confident to near certainty that there are no US agents making significant edits on-site for example. Alarm bells become very finely tuned after a while, and you'd know if someone was an agent. Believe me, you'd know. There are several shadier US government figures who've obviously either edited their own low profile biogs, or have had others edit it for them to erase some of the more uncomfortable episodes, but they've had trouble in the process. Much of this goes uncommented on.

There are certainly a number of obvious propagandists, campaigners and so on, who edit prolifically on WP. The Tamil rape victims category was a good example. But even they struggle to make stuff stick, due in large part to the transparent process. If even the most uncontroversial subjects like http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,2040025,00.html find it hard to edit their own bios without getting in a mess, then the campaigners tend to hit brick walls just as fast.

To reiterate points made elsewhere, SV and Jayjg are almost certainly not editing for any reason other than that they are addicted to the process, becoming exponentially and now pathologically protective over subjects they are passionate about. This is very common on WP.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

Not an actual intelligence agent, but some sort of minor asset. I'm not an expert on the intelligence community but based on some vaguely analogous experience (foundation program officers) I think it might work like this: An agent runs multiple projects. The projects are staffed by assets. In this case it may be a team of editors, or perhaps simply a "pilot" in which a single asset works to build alliances and relationships with other uninformed and basically innocent editors. If LM had prior intelligence handlers she might have become enamored of WP independently and offered her services in the capacity of demonstrating what an intelligence asset can accomplish on WP. I think the signature of such a project would look much like the SlimVirgin/Jayjg axis. I'm not saying I know this. It needs to be ruled out.

Posted by: Kato

Thing is, what have SV and Jayjg accomplished on WP? SV has bits here and there on political subjects, much of it to do with animal rights, but is nowhere compared to the big politics hitters on WP. Even Chip Berlet can get edited into submission by some of the hardcore obsessives. Most of SV's worst antics are off main article space, on the rfc's, the policy pages, the ANI board, the community issues. Her impact on article content is overrated. Jayjg's ongoing laborious - at times comic - campaign of damage limitation regarding Israel smacks of an obsessive amateur rather than a professional mind.

The pair of them are too sloppy, too fallible, and have stuck their necks out way too far to be considered intelligence assets to anyone. Despite SV's dalliances during the Lockerbie affair, which stemmed from personal involvement, her involvement in WP almost certainly comes from current addiction to the website. Based on the evidence I've seen, I've ruled out any more sinister motives until something new turns up.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

Let's speculate. Suppose an intelligent asset did not seek to intervene in article writing. Suppose they sought status in the community. Suppose the asset sought a relationship with a person with the capacity to determine the IP address of users. This could result in the betrayal of people who edited with sharp POV on articles related to say... Palestine, Israeli Peace Movement, Hamas, Hezbolah, Iran's Nuclear Project, Kashmir, Bosnia. Access to IP addresses and related information might prove invaluable when collated against other information. Watergate Plumbers, Ollie North in the White House basement, Killing Castro with exploding cigars, Gay Bombs, Chalabi. The bar is not that high.

Posted by: Cedric

That would be my take as well. Although I am no intelligence gathering expert either, it still appears clear that SlimLinda lacks the stability that should be expected of an agent. The mere fact that someone is highly intellegent and very manipulative does not necessarily mean they would make a good agent. If she has an actual tie to an intelligence agency, I suspect that it would be as a minor informant, or maybe even as a patsy.

Posted by: Daniel Brandt

Too many of you are painting this black and white. "Is she a spy?" That's the sort of question that allows Jimbo and his friends to ridicule us. There is nothing black and white in the spy business. That's why CIA officers are frequently chronic alcoholics.

I'd call Slim an "agent of influence." The thing to remember is that troubled, confused, and unstable people are used as agents all the time. The deciding factor is whether they have access that the control officer can exploit. For example, if you're a crazy janitor, and you use pail and mop around Bad Guy's office once a week, a control officer would be interested in you no matter how unstable you are. The key word is "control." Money, flattery, blackmail — these are tools of control.

Let's say that you are working for ABC News in London on the Lockerbie investigation, and the media has been following the leads for 18 months and already has a fairly good idea of whodunnit. The bosses of U.S. and British intellignece suddenly get orders to finger Libya. That suddenly makes you makes you a delicious target for recruitment as an agent of influence.

By the time she gets to Wikipedia, she may have been out of the game for a long time. In central Canada, there isn't a whole lot to do, except write letters to UK newspapers denouncing foxhunting in the name of animal rights, and knit a jacket for her poodle. Maybe when she discovered Wikipedia, she got nostalgic for the excitement of the early 1990s. Back then she felt important. Perhaps she started out at Wikipedia thinking she could become important once again if she worked hard enough.

Slim probably realized that by owning articles on PanAm 103, and on LaRouche, it's possible to once again prove your access and your influence. If British intelligence didn't discover her on Wikipedia and give her some encouragement (perhaps through a cut-out), then Chip Berlet probably did. I've long felt that Berlet is an agent of influence for U.S. intelligence or, through the Anti-Defamation League, Israeli intelligence.

The more interesting question at this point is, "Why doesn't Jimbo have any inclination to look into the circumstances surrounding the SlimVirgin and Jayjg cabal? What does he know that he's not telling us?"

Posted by: LamontStormstar

Daniel has a point. That's why SlimVirgin kind of reminds me of Jaws. She was basically for hire to whatever James Bond arch-villain needed henchmen.

Also for Tony Sidaway, who is a big Doctor Who fan, I don't see him fitting into this James Bond analogy. He reminds me of a Dalek. One of these daleks that bob its parts up and down all agitated and full of hate, but really just looking silly, and scream stuff like "MUST EXTERMINATE THE DOCTOR." On the last episode I saw, a Dalek had a wonderful line, "But the urge to kill is too strong."

Posted by: Kato

That is very likely, and is the most plausible explanation behind SV's activities. Whether she continues to have insider knowledge or not, I doubt it would make any difference to her edits. And she's just another editor after all.

Posted by: WordBomb

I've reconstructed the oversighted Slimv edits to Pan Am Flight 103.

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=11055&view=findpost&p=39334, there were indeed several non-barking dogs to be found.

Because these edits would be impossible to adequately reconstruct in a post like this, I've put them in the traditional "compare differences" format and uploaded them http://antisocialmedia.net/sv/diff1.html.

By the way, the only links that remain are those that move you between the five diffs.

You'll also note that the first and fifth are at first glance the most significant.

Posted by: blissyu2

Thanks so much WordBomb. Your work is invaluable.

Posted by: LamontStormstar

What is your analysis of this? What was she trying to cover up? What false ideas was she planting?

Posted by: anthony

I'm not sure about what is a false idea, but some edits that struck me:

"Privately, some CIA officers who worked on the investigation believe that the PFLP-GC planned the attack, but that it was handed over to Libyan intelligence after October 1988, because the German arrests meant the PFLP-GC was unable to complete the operation. Others believe there were parallel operations intended to ensure that at least one would succeed."

Claims inside knowledge of "private" CIA officer theories.

In a later edit she names names:
"Vincent Cannistraro, who worked on the investigation, has told reporters he believes the PFLP-GC planned the attack at the behest of Iran, then subcontracted it to Libyan intelligence after October 1988, because the German arrests meant the PFLP-GC was unable to complete the operation. Other investigators believe that whoever paid for the bombing arranged two parallel operations intended to ensure that at least one would succeed."

This actually points more toward her being a "reporter who interviewed CIA" than "CIA agent".

"Many Lockerbie-watchers found it revealing that the Americans began to shift blame to Libya only after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990. America needed Syrian support for the [1991]] [[Gulf War]], the theory goes, and therefore did not want to blame a Syrian-based Palestinian terrorist group. For this reason, it is alleged, Colonel Gadaffi became a useful patsy. This theory is naive in two respects. First, although America blamed Libya publicly for the bombing for the first time after August 1990, insiders knew from around October 1989 that the focus of the investigation had turned to Libya. Secondly, it would not necessarily have harmed Syria had a Damascus-based terrorist group been held responsible. These Palestinian groups are based in Syria only in the sense of having their headquarters and press offices there. There is no evidence or suggestion that the Syrian government would have approved of an attack against the United States in response to the American attacks on Libya or Iran."

Attacks a strawman suggesting that Libya was a scapegoat pushed by "Americans" (really the US government).

Changes "The blast tore a large hole in the fuselage and cabin floor" into "The blast tore a small hole in the fuselage and cabin floor". This change goes along with her edit warring to use the term "catastrophic systems failure". One possible significance to this is where she adds:

"For several years, investigators wondered whether an insider had steered the bomb into that precise location in the forward cargo hold, because an explosion that size anywhere else on the plane, and possibly even anywhere else in that hold, would not have triggered a systems failure, and the plane might have limped to safety. In the end, investigators concluded there was no way the terrorists could have placed the bomb so precisely, and that it was merely a matter of dreadful luck for those on board that the suitcase containing the bomb ended up where it did."

Also later she adds "Other passenger jets have managed to limp to safety after similar explosions." She removes at this time "The 243 passengers and 16 crew members were killed almost instantaneously" which would be somewhat inconsistent with a small blast. In fact she adds later about how a couple passengers actually survive the fall and die shortly after im

Another strawman argument she provides and claims there is no evidence for: "Another conspiracy theory suggests that the bombing was carried out by a group of rogue [[CIA]] agents trying to cover up their involvement with a Syrian drug-smuggling operation; or that they turned a blind eye to the Libyan or Palestinian terrorists who had planted the bomb because the agents wanted to kill CIA officers who were passengers on PA 103. [....] No evidence of any kind has been put forward to support these claims."

I'll let someone else go through this now. There's a lot to digest.

Posted by: blissyu2

Why? There was a point in time where I was worried that ASIO were going to murder me in relation to my knowledge of PA and hence whenever I wrote about it I claimed that I was interviewing an unknown someone in relation to it. In fact, it was my own personal knowledge. I did this for my own personal safety.

Say that SlimVirgin is a CIA agent, who then wants to push this agenda. Why would she want to act like she was the one responsible? Surely she'd do the same thing that I did, and pretend that she was interviewing someone else, when in reality it was her view. This also allows her to falsely adhere to NPOV. If people knew it was her own personal experience, would they have so easily allowed her to add it?

Posted by: Daniel Brandt

This is the first I've heard that "insiders knew from around October 1989 that the focus of the investigation had turned to Libya." This provides more support for John K. Cooley's statement: "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."

Additional support for Cooley's statement was found in the book by Susan and Daniel Cohen, mentioned in another thread. They stated that Linda Mack took the lead in a petition drive to suppress the Allan Francovich film.

Mack calls this theory "naive." In fact, it's not considered "naive" by anything I've read about Lockerbie. No wonder Mack had second thoughts about posting something like this. By now everyone would be pointing to it and wondering, "Who told her to say this on Wikipedia?" "How would a Wikipedia editor by the name of 'SlimVirgin' know anything about what 'insiders' knew in October 1989, concerning a topic that was not made public until ten months later?"

I can see why that one got memory-holed.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Strong agreement here.

Posted by: Jonny Cache

So you guys are saying that the Spy Biz is more Black & Tan ???

Jonny

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

All interesting points, but I must dispute some of them. I think that Cberlet is an agent of influence for private intelligence networks, which must, of course, inevitably overlap somewhat with the goverment ones. One of the simplest indications is that his organization receives substantial funding from the Ford Foundation, which is not a philanthropic organization. They are in the business of political intervention and social engineering. But the http://www.larouchepub.com/exon/exon_add1_train.html material illustrates best how Berlet is "tasked."

Also, I don't think that the Anti-Defamation League works for the Mossad -- with the Mossad would possibly be more accurate. I think the ADL works for other groupings which do not necessarily have anything to do with Israel or Jews. It is a very complicated case. Like Berlet, much of its output and activity is cover story. Then, we get occasional glimpses of its operational nature.




It's very grey. Variegated grey.

Posted by: Jonny Cache

It could be nothing more complicated — complicitated ? — than his realizing, as most grant-seekers in the US do, that all the Big Bucks are doled out from under the Aegis of Big Daddy Warbucks Darpa Vader.

It's true, Luke ...

Jonny

Posted by: blissyu2

I still stand by my statement that the primary reason for the mass oversights was to cover up what SlimVirgin's original agenda was, and was nothing to do with protecting her own privacy. I don't think that we'll find anything definitively private in any of the oversighted edits. Just more of the same stuff that she was doing later on, proving that the agenda she developed wasn't one that she developed through experience, but was a deliberate plot.

Posted by: BobbyBombastic

As I read the newest edit supplied by WordBomb last night, this stood out:

Which constitutes original research, etc, but who is an insider here? Slim? What kind of insider? This need to discuss inside knowledge is not compatible with someone in fear of their life for being exposed as a spy. It rings true Brandt's theory of a former insider remembering back to the "good old days".



Slim has never said that she has interviewed anyone, to my knowledge, and she has never confirmed that she was a journalist. All she claims, in a roundabout way, is insider knowledge. This suggests that she doesn't mind so much keeping herself in a grey area, and may actually find it quite "sexy" that people do/did believe she was something more than she is/was.



I have it on your word that you are not an intelligence agent, so it doesn't surprise me that you would do that. Suggesting that SlimV the intelligence agent would do the same thing as you, the non intelligence agent, then saying that she is an intelligence agent because she did the same thing you would is not linear thinking. A decent agent, with convictions, would not even discuss this, and even if they did, it would not be via anonymous edits to WP claiming insider knowledge. This smacks of a person that wants to show off what they know, a quality not becoming of someone in intel/counter intel, etc.

I understand why these edits were oversighted, as they add evidence to Linda Mack the journalist, but it is contrary to Linda Mack the intelligence agent. Linda Mack the intelligence agent is the story that made slashdot, because it is the sexier story. The coverup has created more controversy than the original deed.

If anyone involved in this were in intelligence they would be fired, and folks like this get fired a little differently than you and I. In my mind, the idea of Linda Mack the intelligence agent can be put to bed, but the unwitting (dupe) asset or agenda pushing activist remains, among other possibilities.

Posted by: jorge

If she was just your bog standard journalist why does she (as far as anyone can find) only appear to have published one article? Has she been writing under a pseudonym?

Posted by: Infoboy

$1,000,000 question:

If Linda Mack wasn't SlimVirgin, why on Earth would Linda Mack have been following Daniel Brandt's activities into the investigation of SlimVirgin?

You're like an information wrecking ball, I love it. There is no way, or doubt, in any sense, that Linda Mack is SlimVirgin. If this wasn't enough, "Linda Mack" going after Cooley to keep him from speaking with you is the clincher. Linda handed you a winning prize by contacting Cooley because of you. What was the first tip off way back in the day to tie into Linda Mack, anyhow?

Posted by: blissyu2

Okay, let's consider some scenarios:

Scenario 1) SlimVirgin changed history on Wikipedia, and isn't Linda Mack at all, but is in fact a separate person, Sarah McEwan, a volunteer at an animal shelter.

Scenario 2) SlimVirgin changed history on Wikipedia, and is Linda Mack the journalist, but is not a spy, and never has been a spy.

Scenario 3) SlimVirgin changed history on Wikipedia, and is Linda Mack the journalist, was at one stage assisting MI5, but no longer is.

Scenario 4) SlimVirgin changed history on Wikipedia, and is Linda Mack the journalist, was at one stage assisting MI5, and later began assisting a different secret agency.

Scenario 5) SlimVirgin changed history on Wikipedia, and is Linda Mack, and has always been working for MI5 and many other secret agencies.

Now, we get to the point. Which is more relevant? That she changed history or who the fuck she is?

It is obviously important to prove who the fuck she is, but that is not the important issue. The important issue is that she changed history, from truth to untruth. Regardless of why she did it, the fact is that she did it, and this is what we need to focus on. If we are purely interested in who she is, then we are not really criticising Wikipedia.

Posted by: Somey

The King's College alumni listing, with the SV e-mail address attached to her name, wasn't it?

Posted by: Daniel Brandt

Yes, a member of this Board found that email address on page 23 of the King's College alumni listing, by hovering his mouse over the name "Linda Mack." Until then, the name "Linda Mack" was just one name on 22.5 pages of names that he checked. The email address of slimvirgin1@yahoo.com was more than a tip-off — it was a smoking gun. He then did some googles on the name Linda Mack and discovered that she was involved in the Pan Am 103 investigation, which correlated with SlimVirgin's interest in the same topic. Up until that time, I only knew that Sarah McEwan was probably SlimVirgin's name.

Some of us had poked around the Cambridge University site, but until that happened, no one had discovered the alumni list. If they did, they didn't know about the mouseover for the email address, or didn't have the patience to check them all.

When this Board member emailed me to inform me of his find, I recognized the name Linda Mack. The fact that the email address at King's College was exactly the same as the email address on the slimvirgin.com registration under the name S.McEwan was a slam dunk. The second slam dunk came when Linda Mack called John Cooley and asked him not to talk to me.

Still, we have Durova and others on the mailing list, not to mention Jimbo himself leading the charge, referring to the SlimVirgin story as a wacko conspiracy theory by a bunch of banned, malcontented lunatics over on Wikipedia Review.

One thing we have to remember is that Linda Mack apparently made a serious effort to change her name, or at least start using a different name online. Her slimvirgin.com domain was registered in May, 2002 under S.McEwan, and she wrote letters or posted replies on that British newspaper site under the name "Sarah McEwan, Canada" and signed "Sarah" on Wikipedia. If Linda Mack was merely a former journalist who did her best to uncover the truth about Lockerbie, why would she try to hide her identity? This is one step beyond "just a pseudonym, and I don't regard it as a problem." Using a screen name on Wikipedia is one thing, but registering a domain under a different name 2.5 years before she started editing on Wikipedia means an additional level of obfuscation.

Why did she feel the need to do that?

Posted by: blissyu2

I think that, unquestionably, Linda Mack changed her name legally to Sarah McEwan, and that she is now called Sarah McEwan, in the same way as Scott Gohring is now called Kelly Martin. If that is not true, then I'd be surprised. Furthermore, this happened before SlimVirgin started to use Wikipedia. I mean "SlimVirgin" is her username online - Sarah McEwan is supposed to be her real name.

So then we go in to reasons why people change their real names.

Here are the ones for people that I personally know changed their real names:

1) A girl I knew stole from her employer to the tune of $50,000, then ran away, changed her name, and fled interstate. In those days if you changed your name AND fled interstate then you could not be prosecuted for any petty crimes (and $50,000 was considered to be petty).

2) One girl was physically assaulted by her own mother, and decided to change her first name because her mother had named her, and instead chose the name that her father had wanted to name her.

3) One girl I knew was named one name at birth, and developed a nickname from the age of 3 months old, and they changed their name to that nickname.

4) One guy I knew was named one name by his father, and then when his father left when he was 1 month old, his mother in protest named him a different name. He changed his name to get around that.

5) One guy I knew found that his family was historically Jewish, and, like many Jews that fled to Australia to escape persecution, they had changed his family name. So he changed it back to what it was before, when they were Jews, to recognise and be proud of his Jewish roots. (Our family actually considered doing this, but decided that since we'd only added an "s" that it was not really worth it).

6) One girl I knew was given the name "Crystal Dick" at birth, and as an adolescent was teased repeatedly for it, so eventually changed her last name (she liked the name Crystal) and became Crystal Smith.

7) One guy I knew was seriously in to roleplaying, and decided to change his name to be what his Dungeons & Dragons character name was.

Now, are any of those kinds of reasons likely to apply to SlimVirgin? Most likely not. However, those are the kinds of reasons for why people change their name.

Let's think of the normal, everyday kind of reasons first. Then let's see if the CIA answer fits.

Posted by: BobbyBombastic

There are unexciting possibilities one can explore, but I do not know this to be fact, although I agree with you that's all I know of. Perhaps she did write under a pseudonym. But let's not forget that she seems to be an emotional person. For instance, http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=1135&st=200&p=40322&#entry40322. For her to simply up and quit journalism due to an emotional issue seems likely.

Daniel Brandt may be able to address this, although I sometimes wonder if there are some things he is holding close to his chest...

Posted by: jorge

You talk about journalism but as far as I can see she was always more of a researcher not really a journalist- I imagine she played a researcher role in the 1994 article also. If she was a researcher working behind the scenes that would be why her name didn't appear in print. Then we have to ask the question what happened after the 1994 article that made her change her name? Did an intelligence service warn her that she was in danger? Why would she have been in danger? Who from?

Posted by: Unrepentant Vandal

Fuckin' nut imo.

Posted by: The Adversary

Slimmy has claimed to have "journalistic experience":
http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Eloquence&diff=prev&oldid=27217 : "I'm a Wikipedia editor and have journalistic experience so I'm going to try my hand at Wikinews. "
(Somehow ED managed to miss that quote, in spite of their extensive quote-farm)

Also; one of Slimmys oversighted edits mentioned Ari Ben-Menashe; that is interesting as Ben-Menashes article is one that Slim "owns". That Slim should be interested in him is not surprising; he is after all Jewish, Canadian and associated with the cloak-and-dagger business. However, take a look at the talk-page, and the deleted edits and the archive. Among other things, Slim writes in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ari_Ben-Menashe/archive1#Maxwell:

"The distinction tends to be that an informant is not paid, though it varies from country to country. In the UK, the intelligence services apparently won't even buy an informant a cup of tea, in case any allegations about expenses are made, because as soon as payment is made, certain responsibilities apparently kick in toward the informant, and/or the information might be seen to be tainted. An agent, on the other hand, is generally understood to be someone who receives expenses or even a regular fee. An officer is a paid employee"

This is probably pure [[WP:OR]]!!

My guess: Slimmy didn´t even get a cup of tea
(However, she possibly got a few millions from Libya from the death of her friend Julian)

Also: note how Steven Emerson is referred to. Steven Emerson co-wrote a book on Lockerbie (which I have not yet gotten hold of). AND Slim "owns" his article, too. Emerson is actually a totally discredited person (he blamed the Oklahoma bombings on "Arab terrorists", among other things), but you wouldn´t guess that by looking at his WP article. Another fine case of whitewashing b y Slim. (see: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Steven_Emerson I am sure Daniel B. can tell us more)

Posted by: WordBomb

http://antisocialmedia.net/sv/rmdiff1.html. It's the diff from the oversighted edit made by Slimv to the Robert Maxwell article.

There's just one in this case.

And may I say, that based on the content of this edit, SlimVirgin has clearly read the book The Secret History of the Mossad, and seems to be liberally borrowing from it...like a sort of hanger-on. Remember Robert Jordan, the guy who settled for the FBI when he couldn't get CIA, and then turned spy for the Russians just to get closer to the action? Maybe she's living out a fantasy on Wikipedia...and on Wikipedia Review, as far as that goes.

Posted by: LamontStormstar

What was it?

Posted by: blissyu2

Kelder Marge (I can't remember the spelling). We insisted on continuing to call him "Trevor" though.



Or maybe she was kicked out of MI5, tried to get a job with CIA, and ended up working for the Russians just to get closer to the action.

Posted by: gomi

"I went home with a waitress,
The way I always do.
How was I to know
She was with the Russians, too?"

Send lawyers, guns, and money.

Posted by: Cedric

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/magical+trevor/

Posted by: Somey

See, if you just added "...then got kicked out of Russia for running a phony mail-order bride business, operated a small haberdashery in Ulaanbator for a few months, returned to the US in a shipping container with two dozen underaged Chinese girls destined for indentured servitude, and then wound up in the IT industry just in time for the internet bubble to burst," you'd have the story of my life right there.

Posted by: blissyu2

No, that was his real name. Kelder Marge was his Elf Ranger. It was back in the day when Rangers were a new you-beaute Dungeons and Dragons class that was far superior to anything else. Apparently if you were in to D&D heavily, you'd understand what that meant. You needed virtually perfect stats on your first roll to get a Ranger, but once you did they were just about unbeatable. He loved his Elf Ranger so much he decided to become him.

Only his "true friends" called him Kelder Marge. Everyone else called him Trevor. Some people simply called him "Marge", or even "Marge Simpson".

Anyway, just saying that's one reason someone gave for why they changed their name.

So if perhaps Linda Mack had a roleplaying character called "Sarah McEwan", and another one called "SlimVirgin", then perhaps that's why?

Posted by: LamontStormstar

Hmm umm I heard someone here say you lived in Western Europe. On the side your profile says "From: Central USA"




Kelder Marge just sounds too plain.

Also Rangers now seem to be basically crappy classes.

Posted by: gomi

For some reason Blissy made me think that Sarah McEwan might be an anagram, so I ran a few:

Charm Anew As
Each Mans War
Arcane Whams
Can Shame Raw
Aha Scam Wren
Ace Harm Swan
Chaser Man Aw
Crewman Ah As
Can Wear Hams

and the winner is (with added parens):

Narc (Ahem) Was




Kelder Marge <---> Quel damage?

Posted by: blissyu2

Was a Narc? As a hint that she was a spy??? Hmm, maybe. Sounds a bit far-fetched, but you never never know. These spook types do like to have hidden hints thrown around everywhere just for a laugh.



Stuffed if I know why he chose the name. We all made fun of it. And yes, nowadays Rangers are a crappy class. But at least for a while (1-2 years I think) they were the ultimate class. Of course, then D&D developers made changes to balance them, then the balancing went too far, and now they are crap. But as at when he changed his name, they seriously rocked.

Posted by: jorge

I think it is more likely she or they chose the surname McEwan as that name is common in Canada which has a large Scottish descended population. Alternatively perhaps it is her mother's maiden name and her mother's family came from Alberta (and her father was English?).

Posted by: blissyu2

That sounds likely (the first suggestion). You don't pick Smith as its a little too obvious, but you pick the local version of Smith, which in this case seems to be McEwan. And Sarah is also a pretty common first name.

Posted by: jorge

Of course a snag in that would be what if you meet some other McEwans who say they are doing their family tree and wondered from what branch of the McEwans you descend from...

Posted by: blissyu2

Not really. Its very easy to get around such arguments, and its pretty rare that they seriously investigate any discrepancies. Just think of your own personal experiences with it.

Posted by: Disillusioned Lackey

No comment.

Posted by: Adam Smithee

As someone who's lurked these related threads, blogs, websites for a good while, that's always been my guess. Applying a little OR (Occam's Razor), LM was an aspiring journalist who was identified by Intelligence agents as a person that could be useful as a conduit for distributing misinformation. Drop a kind word here and there along with a few nuggets of "The Truth" (or at least the "truth" that particular agency wanted to see in the media), and watch the story percolate out there. LM probably enjoyed influencing what was being reported and at the same time, the feeling of importance that was being fed by the agency. At some point LM was no longer useful to them, possibly due to a loss of credibility with her employer. She was cut lose, and as somone that had no official relationship with the agency that was very easy to do. She returned to Canada. As for why she changed her name, I again think the simplest answer is the best. If you accept Byrne's published characterization of her as valid, it's not that hard to speculate that she may have felt some (unwanted) sense of celebrity for her role in Lockerbie. This is pure speculation on my part, but I've known people similar to Byrne's published descriptions of LM, and the people I've known have always been prone to overstatement. Maybe LM changed her name to SM because she felt she was too well known after the Lockerbie/ABC/Salinger events, even if she was not. A new name invokes the romantic notion of a fresh start as a new person, detached from the events of the past. I reiterate that I don't have anything to back this up, but the idea of a young woman caught up in her own romantic notion of changing her name to avoid the unwanted "fame" of her past life just seems a bit more plausible to me then the explanations that seem lifted from the pages of a le Carre novel. Heck, maybe she always wished her parents had named her "S" and the similarity between the old last name and the prefix of the new last name would probably make it easier to remember.

And so, after changing names, the newly dubbed SE laid low for a number of years, until she discovered Wikipedia, and the rest is history. Everybody here is aware of the draw of the site as a forum for pushing pet agendas. For someone who once upon a time had a pet agenda (and a sense of importance around that) that had been forced to lay dormant for years, I have to imagine discovering Wikipedia was like a heroine addict discovering oxyContin. Becoming an admin just sealed the deal. Maybe it is just me, but for some reason I have an easier time believing in a person approaching middle age who is trying to recapture the excitement of the past than a completely machiavellian concept of a former Intelligence Agent trying to utilise a chaos driven website to spread disinformation.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

This is the most reasonable, and to my eyes the most plausible, explanation I've seen yet of the conflicting mass of data we have regarding the editor in question. It's pretty close to the conclusion I had reached. It lacks the dramatic appeal of declaring her to be an intelligence agent, while at the same time harmonizing with all but the abject denials (most of which come from people who would be in no position to make such denials with authority). And there's no "you must be kidding" reaction to reading any part of it.

It could also be entirely wrong. But until I see something that credibly contradicts some part of it, it's the theory that I personally plan to stick with.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

I agree.

I have also considered the possibility that the name change was done for professional reasons, i.e., LM was hoping to re-enter the journalistic profession, but switched to SM to avoid the stigma of having been fired by Salinger.

Posted by: gomi

Perhaps this is why she accuses her detractors of "damaging her livelihood"? By associating her nom de plume with her Wikipedia nom de guerre, she is exposed again as the whackjob she is. I can see how someone would be reluctant to hire her, given that background.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Gets my vote also, especially while she stays in Canada. It's not at all the same case as Durova down there in the US, where we know the government since 2002 has been engaged in a massive hiring spree of all kinds of cops and agents and marshals and analysts and spooks and whatnot, especially female ones.

By comparison with Canada, the US is Agent Capital, Cop Central, Prison City, and Military Base. Sometimes all in the same place. I'm getting very sick of it.

Posted by: Heat

Has she actually published anything, other than letters to the editor, as SM?

Posted by: DevilYouKnow

What "letters to the editor?"

Posted by: Somey

I'm not sure I want to go to the trouble of looking it up, but apparently she wrote a letter to the editor of a Canadian newspaper about a story they published on the Animal Rights movement and their activities up there, or some such thing. It was online for a while, and might be still, though I'd be a little surprised if it is.

Posted by: prospero

Exactly. I worry most about what will happen after the next terrorist attack. I envision these authoritarian types hovering over our beloved Constitution, with the real life equivalent of WP:ROLLBACK, ready and willing to revert those pesky amendments as vandalism by those America-hating SPAs, our founding fathers. After all, why would any real American create rules which make fighting terrorism difficult? Obviously, these trolls were closet French!

Posted by: Dzonatas

What is it now, somewhere around a thousand US troops have fled to Canada while still in active duty. That kinda says something. If Canada was anything like Iraq, those thousand men would be treated as enemy combatants.

Posted by: Disillusioned Lackey

I know what it says.


Those good soldiers are on a mission to destroy the 'assymetric threat' to U.S. national security that is Linda Mack.

As anyone on Wikipedia Review knows, where Slimvirgin goes, war carnage follows.

She's left a trail of bodies worldwide. And those men in uniform are determined to make her stop.

And in so doing, save the free world.

And democracy.












Don't worry, those aren't real bullets, they are neuroleptic med-pellets.
Like the kind of shots used to take down wild animals with no metabolic linkages to humanity

Posted by: Disillusioned Lackey

Unfortunately......... she's not in Canada! Wrong place! (hint: she's under the bed!)