Feuding Art Masters, Wikipedia makes the Evening Standard Options

[Peter Damian]

A good piece by Sebastian Shakespeare in the London Standard this afternoon. A feud between art dealers Mark Weiss and Philip Mould. Weiss is accused of revising Mould's Wikipedia to put down his abilities, accuse him of extramarital affairs, etc etc. Weiss had to resign form the Society of London art dealers.

I checked out the Philip Mould page http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&action=history and it seems somewhat more complicated. An editor calling themselves EmmaHenderson originally created the, er, flattering article on Mould, then seems to have got into a massive edit war with an editor called Teapot George, who was making the somewhat slanderous allegations.

Interestingly they both seem to have extensive knowledge of Wikipedia editing conventions.

I have to rush off to dinner now, apologies if this has been reported before (although Shakespeare claims this is the first time it has been made public).

[edit] Possibly my mistake - some of the allegations came from an IP

Philip Mould OBE would like everyone to think he is one of the United Kingdom's foremost authorities on British art, and that he is widely consulted by galleries, private collectors and the media.[citation needed] He is under the impression that he is the leading specialist in British portraiture, including Tudor and Jacobean, seventeenth and eighteenth century, and even contemporary commissions.[according to whom?] He is also well known amongst the trade for his numerous so-called discoveries in the area of early British art.[clarification needed]
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=302095026

On the other hand 'Teapot George' did insist on reverting back to a slanderous version

The couple separated in May 2009, after Mould started an affair with artist Charlotte "Charlie" Barton
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=319390856

Philip Mould has left his beautiful wife for the sluttish charlie barton
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=319087377

But then it was also in the gushing Daily Mail

MARRIED Antiques Roadshow presenter Philip Mould looks relaxed as he takes a stroll with the new woman in his life.

The multi-millionaire art dealer is said to be bewitched with Charlotte Barton - known as Charlie to her friends - since meeting her a year ago. Mr Mould and the svelte Ms Barton, who was dressed in black and carrying a sheaf of papers, were spotted out together last week.
Read more: http://mail-on-sunday.vlex.co.uk/vid/romeo...7#ixzz1LbDAtzox
http://mail-on-sunday.vlex.co.uk/vid/romeo...tching-68703787

The Standard article also claims that the same person who added the material to the Wikipedia article also wrote the tabloid articles:

The 'press release' was written in breathless tabloid style and provided journalists with salacious details

.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian:

[Peter Damian]

The discussion is dragging on. People are talking about software to detect unreliable sources, special flags on sensitive pages and so on. Wales (who often makes good points, even if he fails to implement any of them), gets to the heart of it. He points out that there is something fundamentally wrong with this edit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=319300905 , which contains the allegation that Mould is having an affair with someone who is not is wife. True or not, what is it doing in a reliable and comprehensive reference work.

Good point. But then why has no one pointed this out to the editor who caused the problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Trident13 ? And why as I pointed out here http://ocham.blogspot.com/2011/05/wikipedi...in-fiction.html did the subject of the slander have to get into a protracted edit war http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=319390856 in order to try, and fail, to get the slander removed?

And even if Wales gets something done about it - perhaps another policy on what kind of information you can put in articles - won't that conflict with Sue Gardner's aim to tear up all those difficult manuals and policies that are making it too hard for new editors to join Wikipedia?

This post has been edited by Peter Damian:

[HRIP7]

Wales (who often makes good points, even if he fails to implement any of them)

My impression isn't so much that he fails to implement them, but that the community fails to implement them.

[gomi]

Wales (who often makes good points, even if he fails to implement any of them)

My impression isn't so much that he fails to implement them, but that the community fails to implement them.

This vague/bizarre "community" that you speak of is a central problem in Wikipidiocy. Your statement is equivalent to "it's not that the cops fail to control crime, but that the community fails to control it" or "it's not that the Congress fails to balance the budget, but that the community wants too much".

"The community" is shorthand for "an undefined, undefinable, unknown and unknowable set of people who may or may not choose to comment with one or more voices in the giant online chat room that is Wikipedia:Talk". Is the community the 1.3m editors of English Wikipedia, or the 65,000 or so editors with "standing" good enough to vote? Is it the 1000+ admins, or the 150 or so admins who chatter away on the administrator's boards? Is it the admins plus a set of noisy, vested editors? For the purpose of doing things or failing to do them, I doubt that the English Wikipedia "community" numbers more than 150-200 highly verbose individuals, if that.

The problem is, and always has been, that Wikipedia as a community has no meaningful leadership. No one on ArbCom takes any leadership role, preferring to be slowly reactive, remotely Delphic, and utterly unaccountable. Admins are powerless to do anything positive, cf. the BLP deletion debacles of recent years. Admins are (largely) empowered only to do negative things, like block, ban, and histrionically prattle. The WMF and its Board foreswears any responsibility or control beyond keeping themselves out of court, and padding their wallets with sizable salaries.

Just who is this "community's" leadership? Answer: There is none. It's not a community, it's a mob. Newyorkbrad is the Wikipedia mob's Robespierre in their current Reign of Error. He is verbose and faux-philosophical because it keeps his neck away from the wiki-guillotine. Doing something -- anything -- would ensure his demise.

[HRIP7]

Wales (who often makes good points, even if he fails to implement any of them)

My impression isn't so much that he fails to implement them, but that the community fails to implement them.

This vague/bizarre "community" that you speak of is a central problem in Wikipidiocy. Your statement is equivalent to "it's not that the cops fail to control crime, but that the community fails to control it" or "it's not that the Congress fails to balance the budget, but that the community wants too much".

"The community" is shorthand for "an undefined, undefinable, unknown and unknowable set of people who may or may not choose to comment with one or more voices in the giant online chat room that is Wikipedia:Talk". Is the community the 1.3m editors of English Wikipedia, or the 65,000 or so editors with "standing" good enough to vote? Is it the 1000+ admins, or the 150 or so admins who chatter away on the administrator's boards? Is it the admins plus a set of noisy, vested editors? For the purpose of doing things or failing to do them, I doubt that the English Wikipedia "community" numbers more than 150-200 highly verbose individuals, if that.

The problem is, and always has been, that Wikipedia as a community has no meaningful leadership. No one on ArbCom takes any leadership role, preferring to be slowly reactive, remotely Delphic, and utterly unaccountable. Admins are powerless to do anything positive, cf. the BLP deletion debacles of recent years. Admins are (largely) empowered only to do negative things, like block, ban, and histrionically prattle. The WMF and its Board foreswears any responsibility or control beyond keeping themselves out of court, and padding their wallets with sizable salaries.

Just who is this "community's" leadership? Answer: There is none. It's not a community, it's a mob. Newyorkbrad is the Wikipedia mob's Robespierre in their current Reign of Error. He is verbose and faux-philosophical because it keeps his neck away from the wiki-guillotine. Doing something -- anything -- would ensure his demise.

Quite so. Anyone (including Wales) attempting to institute leadership is shouted down.

Arbcom got itself a bloody nose in 2009 when they tried to form a committee that would merely work to generate ideas. (All the ones who weren't in the committee, like Durova and SlimVirgin, campaigned against it.)

Wales got a bloody nose when he tried to delete some of the amateur porn.

SlimVirgin just suggested creating a committee to look at the BLP issue:

As a first step, we ought to start indefinitely semi-protecting BLPs. Then, Jimbo, perhaps you would consider setting up a working group, consisting of 20 experienced editors to make a series of recommendations to the community regarding how to protect BLPs further—with a mandate that the community choose, via RfC, at least one of the suggestions to be implemented within a reasonable time. And if they can't decide, the group itself decides. The group can hold its discussions on a public page if it wants to, but only the 20 should take part. Is that something you'd consider? SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 03:14, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The only reply to that, predictably, was:

Well, stopping BLP edits from appearing is a non-starter. That's a social change well outside Wikipedia's scope. As to your suggestion... yikes. A committee to decide if we should hold an RfC to decide on a policy implementation that, if it doesn't work, they can WP:IAR and impose a rule on everyone? I don't see that flying at all. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 23:04, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The underlying mindset seems to be, If I can't be in charge, nobody else should be either.

[jayvdb]

SlimVirgin just suggested creating a committee to look at the BLP issue:

As a first step, we ought to start indefinitely semi-protecting BLPs. Then, Jimbo, perhaps you would consider setting up a working group, consisting of 20 experienced editors to make a series of recommendations to the community regarding how to protect BLPs further—with a mandate that the community choose, via RfC, at least one of the suggestions to be implemented within a reasonable time. And if they can't decide, the group itself decides. The group can hold its discussions on a public page if it wants to, but only the 20 should take part. Is that something you'd consider? SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 03:14, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The only reply to that, predictably, was:

Well, stopping BLP edits from appearing is a non-starter. That's a social change well outside Wikipedia's scope. As to your suggestion... yikes. A committee to decide if we should hold an RfC to decide on a policy implementation that, if it doesn't work, they can WP:IAR and impose a rule on everyone? I don't see that flying at all. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 23:04, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The underlying mindset seems to be, If I can't be in charge, nobody else should be either.

We've already had a "committee" to look at the BLP issue.
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Living_People
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_fo...indings_outline
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/found...ber/061179.html

[gomi]

We've already had a "committee" to look at the BLP issue.
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Living_People
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_fo...indings_outline
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/found...ber/061179.html

Those weren't amenable to control and filibuster by SlimVirgin and her ilk, so they don't count.