Leak Summaries, The Choicest Cherries Options

[Sololol]

I was pondering the sage words of Roger Davies, that all of the released information is cherry-picked to show things in a certain light, and realized that he is correct! All of these leaks are selected to confirm peoples' worst fears about the arbs and Jimbo! Dear friends, WR is better than this! What we need is biased information in a digestible format. Like the Pentagon Papers or chicken entrails, these leaks require learned men (or man-children) to properly explain their significance (or lack of) to the unwashed masses. Future generations of wiki-warriors and sociopaths should not be denied the benefit of our obsessively cultivated Wiki-drama knowledge. So pick a leak you know something about. Tell us why it's interesting, what it reveals, and why that one Arb is a two-faced pawn of Jimbo who should never have banned you for putting Goatse.cx on the Queen Mother's page. Whatever. My dreadmasters at J-Street command me to take on the CAMERA leak, which I'll get to at some point.

[Somey]

I was pondering the sage words of Roger Davies, that all of the released information is cherry-picked to show things in a certain light, and realized that he is correct! All of these leaks are selected to confirm peoples' worst fears about the arbs and Jimbo! Dear friends, WR is better than this!

When did they ever make the right call on something, though?

Actually, I vaguely recall there was one incident a couple of years ago... I forget what it was about. If I have some time tomorrow, maybe I'll try to figure that one out.

[It's the blimp, Frank]

They de-sysopped SlimVirgin, but for the wrong reason, and it was only temporary.

[Rhindle]

Why doesn't one of the arbs release a thread, unedited except for private info of course, showing them acting in a professional manner and acting impartial without any gossip? Of course there could be examples of that but there sure is a lot of "cherry picking" confirming what many already thought. Malice seems to be just cutting and pasting these leaks but at least making the effort to redact sensitive information and trying to make it more readable. I don't see him selectively editing out comments to purposely make the arbs or Jimbo or anyone else come out looking like jerks. If they come out that way, that's just how it is.

[Sololol]

I was pondering the sage words of Roger Davies, that all of the released information is cherry-picked to show things in a certain light, and realized that he is correct! All of these leaks are selected to confirm peoples' worst fears about the arbs and Jimbo! Dear friends, WR is better than this!

When did they ever make the right call on something, though?

Let's not quibble about who killed whom or if anyone made the right calls. I was being mildly sarcastic about someone calling the revelation of previeously secret information "cherry picking" when their alternative would be "have no information and like it". Perhaps I was less than clear (I blame the lovely Ardbeg 10 we'd been sampling, liquid roofing tar, try it some time). My chief interest is in encouraging people to use their knowledge to breakdown the leaked information into digestible format. The common complaint about all of this is "TL:DR", preventing the common Wiki-peasant from understanding the full impact of the revelations. And most of it is. As someone who entertains delusions of WP administrative reforms (mental health professional are already at work on the problem) I think it'd be a shame if we didn't attempt to capitalize on this opportunity by making it more user friendly.
CAMERA Banning:
In April 2008 a pro-Palestinian group revealed that CAMERA, an Israeli nationalist media watchdog group, recruited a couple dozen people to counter perceived anti-Israeli editing (just read the article). The expected fecal hurricane emerged at ANI with some of the accused calling the emails fabrications ("The (e-mail) protocols of the elder of CAMERA") or accusing EI of hacking/infiltrating the group. Some admins ban a few offenders and issue a statement.
What ARBCOM does: They take the case and, a month after the admins have finished dealing with the problem, issue a milk-water weak ruling, hilariously finding that membership in a group whose express purpose is POV canvassing/meat-puppetry is not itself a policy violation. General amnesty issued for all others involved.
Residual Questions: Why accept a high profile case only to do nothing? How did the information come out?
What the Leak reveals: The point of accepting the case wasn't to look into a POV pushing group but to prevent a witch-hunt for the remaining handful of active CAMERA members, hence the amnesty. A far more lenient stance than those adopted on the Scientology/LaRouche editors. Jayjg shows up to run interference for the group. The leak was not fabricated and came from a group member disturbed by the willingness of a professor and media professional to subvert Wikipedia's intent. Some group members are still active under the same names while the banned editors reincarnated (Zeq=SOL GOLDSTONE, Dajudem=Stellarkid) into the currently active group. So, protecting partisans with agendas is more important than protecting Wikipedia from them. Unless they are Scientologists or something.

Something like that. Now you don't have to sift through an entire thread of emails written by the social media equivalent of train spotters. Just a single post by one.

This post has been edited by Sololol: Sun 17th July 2011, 3:29pm

[The Adversary]

Zeq=Shuki<snip>

{{citation needed}}

[Sololol]

Zeq=Shuki<snip>

{{citation needed}}

For some reason I can't get to the diff but it's this:
"On 12 and 13 February 2006, at time when Zeq was defending himself in an ArbCom case which resulted in him being banned indefinitely from editing 1948 Arab-Israeli War and Palestinian exodus, an editor using the IP 85.64.196.2 posted on the talk pages of several editors on the Hebrew Wikipedia], soliciting their intervention in the article in English Wikipedia. Although the edits, using Tel-Aviv based IPs, were anonymous, one of them asked an editor to reply to the address zeqzeq2@yahoo.com. Although not conclusive evidence, it is certainly worth noting. RolandR (talk) 20:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC)"
Thanks to a sympathetic retired CU I know this the building Shuki edits from. Given his activities in the current group I don't think it's too much of a stretch to assume it's the same person.

This post has been edited by Sololol: Sun 17th July 2011, 6:10am

[Malik Shabazz]

Zeq=Shuki<snip>

{{citation needed}}

For some reason I can't get to the diff but it's this:
"On 12 and 13 February 2006, at time when Zeq was defending himself in an ArbCom case which resulted in him being banned indefinitely from editing 1948 Arab-Israeli War and Palestinian exodus, an editor using the IP 85.64.196.2 posted on the talk pages of several editors on the Hebrew Wikipedia], soliciting their intervention in the article in English Wikipedia. Although the edits, using Tel-Aviv based IPs, were anonymous, one of them asked an editor to reply to the address zeqzeq2@yahoo.com. Although not conclusive evidence, it is certainly worth noting. RolandR (talk) 20:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC)"
Thanks to a sympathetic retired CU I know this the building Shuki edits from. Given his activities in the current group I don't think it's too much of a stretch to assume it's the same person.

I'm skeptical. Shuki's English is much better than Zeq's ever was.

[lilburne]

[I'm skeptical. Shuki's English is much better than Zeq's ever was.

Children develop language skills far quicker than adults.

[Sololol]

I'm skeptical. Shuki's English is much better than Zeq's ever was.

As was I. And I think I used the wrong IP whois thingy. But let's not allow these petty disputes over guilt or innocence to get in the way. I've retracted the statement and inserted a better accusation. I'll check it out later.

But back on topic! Please summarize a leak you know something about so we can all bask in the glorious nerd drama.

This post has been edited by Sololol: Sun 17th July 2011, 5:01pm

[The Adversary]

Zeq=Shuki<snip>

{{citation needed}}

For some reason I can't get to the diff but it's this:
"On 12 and 13 February 2006, at time when Zeq was defending himself in an ArbCom case which resulted in him being banned indefinitely from editing 1948 Arab-Israeli War and Palestinian exodus, an editor using the IP 85.64.196.2 posted on the talk pages of several editors on the Hebrew Wikipedia], soliciting their intervention in the article in English Wikipedia. Although the edits, using Tel-Aviv based IPs, were anonymous, one of them asked an editor to reply to the address zeqzeq2@yahoo.com. Although not conclusive evidence, it is certainly worth noting. RolandR (talk) 20:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC)"
Thanks to a sympathetic retired CU I know this the building Shuki edits from. Given his activities in the current group I don't think it's too much of a stretch to assume it's the same person.

I'm skeptical. Shuki's English is much better than Zeq's ever was.

Agreed. And Zeq was not a child.
AFAIK, Zeq was responsible for the creation of no less than three different BLPs about the persons he disagreed with on WP, and he was STILL not permabanned for that (Grrrr).
Zeq did indeed out himself as user 85.64.196.2 , He gives his email-adress in the first post, here.

However, that does not turn him into Shuki: I have not encountered that personal vindictiveness in Shuki, as in Zeq. And the time of day-pattern editing are not the same for Zeq as for Shuki.

Though according to WP, Shuki has been caught socking: here. Interesting neighbourhood?

<edit>
Ok, just saw Sol´s last post: I agree; back on topic

[SB_Johnny]

But back on topic! Please summarize a leak you know something about so we can all bask in the glorious nerd drama.

I appreciate where you're going here, but it's really difficult to do this in a coherent and practical way with forum posts, particularly the very loooong form posts that the leaks have come in, because (AFAIK) there's no way to put anchor tags into them to allow links to the important or salient parts of a forum post.

Besides, the individual cases aren't really all that interesting in themselves... it's the themes that come across that are more educational.

[Sololol]

But back on topic! Please summarize a leak you know something about so we can all bask in the glorious nerd drama.

I appreciate where you're going here, but it's really difficult to do this in a coherent and practical way with forum posts, particularly the very loooong form posts that the leaks have come in, because (AFAIK) there's no way to put anchor tags into them to allow links to the important or salient parts of a forum post.

Besides, the individual cases aren't really all that interesting in themselves... it's the themes that come across that are more educational.

I'd had similar doubts but felt obligated to try nonetheless. Currently the only ones who understand the leaks are the victims requesting them, the folks who wrote them and a handful of veterans who've kept up with years of disputes and a shifting character cast. It's indeed difficult to do but contributors could eschew citing information, letting the curious piece it together themselves, in favor of concise narratives. But it looks like no one's interested in joining my windmill jousting club =( Can't really blame'em.

This post has been edited by Sololol: Mon 18th July 2011, 6:31pm

[SB_Johnny]

But back on topic! Please summarize a leak you know something about so we can all bask in the glorious nerd drama.

I appreciate where you're going here, but it's really difficult to do this in a coherent and practical way with forum posts, particularly the very loooong form posts that the leaks have come in, because (AFAIK) there's no way to put anchor tags into them to allow links to the important or salient parts of a forum post.

Besides, the individual cases aren't really all that interesting in themselves... it's the themes that come across that are more educational.

I'd had similar doubts but felt obligated to try nonetheless. Currently the only ones who understand the leaks are the victims requesting them, the folks who wrote them and a handful of veterans who've kept up with years of disputes and a shifting character cast. It's indeed difficult to do but contributors could eschew citing information, letting the curious piece it together themselves, in favor of concise narratives. But it looks like no one's interested in joining my windmill jousting club =( Can't really blame'em.

If it were January (when I'm wondering what to do with myself) rather than July (when I'm rather busy), I might have given it a whirl. OTOH, I think the more interesting analyses will be the ones done when the trickle of leaks has subsided (which might be in January).

Most of this shit is already years old, and I seriously doubt that it will cause any rapid change.

[Wikifan]

sigh

This post has been edited by Wikifan: Tue 19th July 2011, 1:15am

[MaliceAforethought]

My chief interest is in encouraging people to use their knowledge to breakdown the leaked information into digestible format. The common complaint about all of this is "TL:DR", preventing the common Wiki-peasant from understanding the full impact of the revelations. And most of it is. As someone who entertains delusions of WP administrative reforms (mental health professional are already at work on the problem) I think it'd be a shame if we didn't attempt to capitalize on this opportunity by making it more user friendly.

You make it and as long as no one thinks your summary is full of shite, I'll put it at the top of the relevant thread.