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Posted by: Cla68

Jayjg has been trying to get PalestineRemembered banned lately, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:G-Dett has, as usual, effectively point out the mendacity in Jayjg's effort. Apart from the the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AN#PalestineRemembered and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:G-Dett discussions, these threads on G-Dett's talk page are worth a read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:G-Dett#Comment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:G-Dett#PalestineRemembered_on_AN

My favorite is this response to Jayjg, one of best put-downs I think I've ever read in Wikipedia:

"The trouble with your response is that "b" and "c" are self-evidently false and a waste of your time to have typed and my time to have read."

Posted by: Derktar

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:G-Dett

Posted by: Cla68

G-Dett is a http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AG-Dett&diff=91811927&oldid=89866806.

Posted by: Derktar

That's the second time I've messed up gender (previously I refered to Deskana as a she), from now on everyone is an "it"

Posted by: Saltimbanco

Looks like Team Israel has decided that the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents/Wikilobby_campaign has blown over.

Posted by: Milton Roe

But not without supplying us with a few really choice quotes of monumental stupidity:



"A basic fact" ?? Where do they get these people?

There are a lot of other people intoning "Wikipedia is not a battleground" like it was beads on a rosary, and would save them when they got to the Saint Christopher medal at the end. Where DO they get these people???

Posted by: Eleland

...and we're back at it over at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WT:NAS with Jay pulling his usual "i'm just politely pointing out that everything you say is unworthy of discussion, blatantly hypocritical, and beneath contempt, and I wish you would stop being so uncivil" bullshit, IronDuke yipping along at his side like a poodle, and G-Dett basically destroying everything he says. Jay's reduced to rejoinders like, "Your argument was an argument, not a 'rebuttal.'"

Clearly, a project which accords such a fatuous crank administrative rights, let alone a seat on the arbitration board, has serious issues.

Posted by: Cla68

Jayjg needs to get used to losing arguments, because it has been happening a lot lately and the trend is likely to continue. Maybe, though, he enjoys it.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Could someone familiar with the topic provide a brief synopsis of how Jayjg managed to ooze into his positions of power? I presume that Jimbo had a lot to do with it. What's the relationship?

Posted by: written by he who wrote it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Archive_2#New_arbitrators Yes, of course it was Jimbo, along with some of the arbitrators at the time.

Jay's a sad demonstration of that maxim about power and corruption. He's always been opinionated, but back before he started accumulating bigtime Wiki-XP, he was actually polite, reasonable, and intelligent, willing to engage in actual arguments based on research and facts rather than cynical ruleslawyering. I even supported him for adminship despite disagreeing with him on just about everything.

Posted by: One

Agree with you there. He dealt really well with the waves of frustrating people back then; especially considering that it was much harder to get trolls blocked before the dawn of ArbCom. Someone might be horrified by this comparison, but I thought of him coping reasonably with Palestinian POV warriors something like I thought of guy against whats-his-bucket here.

He doesn't deal so reasonably anymore, probably because he doesn't have to.


Your link reminds me of another thing. I expected Raul to be appointed to fill the large vacancy left by NYB's forced departure. In the past he usually just picked the next in line, and for the last election he picked based on net votes. That would make Raul next in line. Is he hoping (like me) that NYB can come back, or is Jimbo actually reluctant to elevate an arb candidate with more than 100 opposing votes?

Posted by: tarantino

NYB's departure wasn't forced, it was a choice, and he is back editing WP and rhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee&diff=prev&oldid=231806680, as of today.

Posted by: Cla68

Newyorkbrad is http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Newyorkbrad&diff=prev&oldid=231799518 and hopefully will renew his arbcom membership.

I think the reason Jimbo liked Jayjg was for the same reasons as he liked SlimVirgin, Essjay, and some of those others, because Jayjg was effectively solving the "bosses'" problems with his effective admin work.

Posted by: One

Holy cow, that's great!

Are we supposed to be mum on NYB's return? I think it's the biggest news on Wikipedia today. Why is there no thread?

Posted by: Milton Roe

Drat. Of course, here at Wikipedia Review, we tried to wreck his life and make his dog crazy. But we failed. It happens.

Ah, well, back to Slimmy....

Posted by: Saltimbanco

I wonder a bit at the "New antisemitism" interest. High on my list of likely sponsors/employers of Jayjg is the ADL, which has been promoting the meme of "new antisemitism" for over thirty years. What's odd about the ADL with regard to Wikipedia is that ADL has broadly promoted its policing of the internet against hatred ... but you cannot find any mention of Wikipedia in anything they have ever produced. Or at least I couldn't. Where they might have taken a principled (and public) stand on the need for everyday citizens to police Wikipedia against racism, instead they act as though they'd say, "Wiki what?" if they were ever asked about it. I think just a cursory look at the sorts of things they do and their internet focus makes it pretty clear that they must be taking an active interest in Wikipedia, but apparently only sub rosa.

The ADL has a past that it should be proud of. With the possible exception of the Southern Poverty Law Center, probably no other public organization has done more to confront racism in America. The current leadership, on the other hand, seems to be a bunch of paranoiacs whose only principle is doing whatever they think is best for the Jewish people and the State of Israel, not necessarily in that order. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming to make even a half-assed acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide, because they didn't want to upset Israel's relationship with Turkey. And this is an attitude that Jayjg also conveys.

The missing piece is, why would Jimbo be so eager to hump the ADL's (or whatever similar organization sponsors Jayjg, but it's probably the ADL) leg? I suspect that a good chunk of money was donated by someone to Wikipedia early on, with strings attached. And Jimbo, of course, would do almost anything to bring all the world's knowledge to poor children in Africa, so how could he refuse?

Posted by: everyking

Shit, I looked, and there's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Jayjg. And just look at some of those opposing names!

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Oddly enough, I disagree with you on this. I'll explain why in a cursory way, lest I stray too far off topic: in addition to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-defamation_league#The_ADL_files_controversy which is so well-known it's even in Wikipedia, there were some other scandals that have been more successfully buried. For example, there was a story on the front page of the Los Angeles Times in 1970 called "Police Arrange Trap: Klan Terror Is Target," which exposed a project by the ADL where funds that were ostensibly raised to hire informants were actually used to set up a bloody ambush. There have been many stories of ADL operatives staging or fabricating anti-Semitic incidents to boost fundraising. There has been a cozy "quid pro quo" relationship with Jewish mobsters, who donated big bucks, and recieved protection in return: anyone who pointed out that they were mobsters was branded an anti-Semite by the ADL. I've seen the precious photo of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moe_Dalitz receiving the ADL's "Torch of Liberty" award from Joan Rivers at a ceremony in 1982. The ADL is tolerated, but not always welcomed with open arms, by the Jewish community, and I've always suspected that Woody Allen's film "Crimes and Misdemeanors" was as veiled shot at the ADL.

Posted by: Saltimbanco

Our differences on this are likely only a matter of when and to what degree a noble purpose took a nasty turn. In any case, I'd like to more formally state my two hypotheses, so that they might be subjected to ongoing scrutiny:

1. Jayjg works for the ADL.
2. Jimbo Wales accepted, probably on behalf of some Wikipedia-related organization, donations of some sort in exchange for discrete promotion of Jayjg and related editors within Wikipedia.

The latter point, especially, would go a long way toward providing an understanding of what has gone wrong with Wikipedia.

Posted by: Cedric

Actually, we did succeed with the dog:



Feel our power, NYB! BAWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Posted by: Taxwoman

What does that prove? The National Trust in Britain has never made any acknowledgement at all of the Armenian Genocide that I know of, nor has the League Against Cruel Sports.

Posted by: Saltimbanco

I guess you're also dismayed that anyone cares whether Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledges the Holocaust, right Taxwoman?

Anyway, probably neither the National Trust nor the League Against Cruel Sports have written letters to their national legislators, asking them specifically to vote against resolutions recognizing the Armenian Genocide, and at the same time sponsored general "No Place For Hate" programs in communities across the country. The ADL has.

Why would you have bothered to make such an ill-informed comment, Taxwoman?

Posted by: Milton Roe

It would also explain, without too much mind-boggle, who has (at least occasionally) supported Slim to do all that WP work. She might be an unpaid gnome or gamer. But if somebody supports her for her WP work, it's not some news service, police organization or spy-agency (all of which would be incredible, as we've noted). It would merely need to be the ADL or something like it. Also, we might understand thereby how people like Slimey and Jayjg rose to power so fast even though so nasty, and why they are so impossible to get rid of. Jimbo was paid off to keep them.

Some time ago I noted that if you plug all your least-favorite editors into the Wikistalk tool to find what articles they all have in common as editors, you find that nearly all have edited "Antisemitism". That needs explaining.

Try it: there the tool link again: http://toolserver.org/~bjweeks/cgi-bin/wikistalk.py

If you plug your least favorite editors in, you'll find that the aside from wiki-policy pages, the TALK pages are a list of the people who control WP. But even more interestingly, the list of common article-space articles will look like a topic-of-interest list for the ADL.

Don't take MY word for it, and don't let me influence your a-priori choice of editors. Just stick a bunch in, turn the crank, and have a look at the mainspace stuff they all share. Be subjective on your input (just pick people you think are biased and nasty), but DO have an objective look at what comes out the other end, because THAT was done by a computer.*

MR

*OH, and DO remember that this thing is sensitive to CASE, so you MUST enter editor names EXACTLY as they appear on WP: ie, SlimVirgin, not Slimvirgin.

Posted by: Saltimbanco

Interesting tool.

I'm not sure, though, of what sort of evidence would demonstrate, based on common editing history, that there is some organization like the CAMERA conspiracy or the Hasbara Fellowships behind a group of editors. The null hypothesis would be that they happen to be, innocently, organically, interested in the same things. With matters related to Israel, this is not hard to believe, and further, so much false or misleading propaganda on the subject has made its way into common acceptance that even repeating the same false information is not necessarily an indication of coordinated editing.

With Jayjg and Linda Mack, probably the most curious thing is the amount of time they spend on Wikipedia: it's difficult to believe that they edit Wikipedia 8-9 hours a day AND work enough hours to support themselves. Possibly independent wealth is the explanation.

I would NOT guess, even with as many hours as she spends on Wikipedia, that Linda Mack is a regular employee of any influence manufacturing organization, simply because her motivations are too weird. Possibly she gets piece work, though.

On the other hand, I'd bet that Jayjg is a general agent of someone, and ADL seems the most likely suspect.

A payoff to Jimbo would probably be an easier thing to find evidence for. Jimbo has a difficult time keeping his mouth shut about anything that seems to indicate how important he is - would you like a croissant with your orange juice, Mr. Mandela? - so I bet he'd have to tell SOMEONE if anyone took enough interest in his project to bribe him, regardless of how damaging the information might be to the credibility of the project. I bet someone knows, probably not concretely enough to make an open accusation, but Jimbo would have to blab to someone, even if only obliquely. Eventually something will come out, albeit maybe over a parallel but unrelated matter; no influence manufacturing organization would hire Jimbo as a general agent, either.

Posted by: Proabivouac

I just did it, and found nothing of the sort - in fact, I found little but project space in common.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Would you mind giving us your list of least favorite editors? Nasty, biased, and protected by Jimbo? Incidentally, the thing has quit working for me, now. All I get is Python script errors. Perhaps too many people trying it out....?

Posted by: Proabivouac

To answer this, I feel, would create more bad blood without conveying any useful information. I can at least say that POV pushing, though not admirable, is not in itself something I can reasonably hold against someone: everyone has an opinion, after all.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Yes, but strangely certain opinions on certain topics are pushed by a group of protected editors on WP.

Here, for example, is a search on SlimVirgin, Jayjg, and Jpgordon:

Articles in mainspace edited by all 3, with articles having most common edits by all, at top:

#1 Zionist_Terrorism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#2 Zionism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#3 Yigal_Amir - edited by 3 of 3 users
#4 Yasser_Arafat - edited by 3 of 3 users
#5 World_War_I - edited by 3 of 3 users
#6 World_Trade_Center_bombing_(1993) - edited by 3 of 3 users

(Many TALK articles omitted)

#269 Taliban - edited by 3 of 3 users
#270 Suicide_attack - edited by 3 of 3 users
#271 Stormfront_(website) - edited by 3 of 3 users
#272 StandWithUs - edited by 3 of 3 users
#273 South_Africa_under_apartheid - edited by 3 of 3 users
#274 Sigmund_Freud - edited by 3 of 3 users
#275 September_11,_2001_attacks - edited by 3 of 3 users
#276 Self-hating_Jew - edited by 3 of 3 users
#277 Searchlight_(magazine) - edited by 3 of 3 users
#278 Saddam_Hussein - edited by 3 of 3 users
#279 Ruhollah_Khomeini - edited by 3 of 3 users
#280 Right_of_return - edited by 3 of 3 users
#281 Religion_in_Israel - edited by 3 of 3 users
#282 Racism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#283 Pogrom - edited by 3 of 3 users
#284 Paul_Johnson_(writer) - edited by 3 of 3 users
#285 Palestinian_refugee - edited by 3 of 3 users
#286 Palestinian_people - edited by 3 of 3 users
#287 Palestine - edited by 3 of 3 users
#288 Osama_bin_Laden - edited by 3 of 3 users
#289 Operation_Grapes_of_Wrath - edited by 3 of 3 users
#290 On_the_Jews_and_their_Lies - edited by 3 of 3 users
#291 Occupied_territories - edited by 3 of 3 users
#292 Norman_Finkelstein - edited by 3 of 3 users
#293 New_antisemitism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#294 New_Zealand_National_Front - edited by 3 of 3 users
#295 Neoconservatism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#296 Nazism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#297 Nazi_human_experimentation - edited by 3 of 3 users
#298 Nazi_Germany - edited by 3 of 3 users
#299 Nation_of_Islam_and_antisemitism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#300 Mossad - edited by 3 of 3 users
#301 Moshe_Marzouk - edited by 3 of 3 users
#302 Morris_Dees - edited by 3 of 3 users
#303 Mohammad_Amin_al-Husayni - edited by 3 of 3 users
#304 Mein_Kampf - edited by 3 of 3 users
#305 Martin_Luther - edited by 3 of 3 users
#306 Marc_Lemire - edited by 3 of 3 users
#307 List_of_designated_terrorist_organizations - edited by 3 of 3 users
#308 List_of_British_Jews - edited by 3 of 3 users
#309 Latino_(demonym) - edited by 3 of 3 users
#310 Kwanzaa - edited by 3 of 3 users
#311 Kristallnacht - edited by 3 of 3 users
#312 Kosher_tax - edited by 3 of 3 users
#313 Kevin_Alfred_Strom - edited by 3 of 3 users
#314 Judaism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#315 Jewish_lobby - edited by 3 of 3 users
#316 Jewish_Task_Force - edited by 3 of 3 users
#317 Jew_Watch - edited by 3 of 3 users
#318 Jew - edited by 3 of 3 users
#319 Jesus - edited by 3 of 3 users
#320 Jesse_Jackson - edited by 3 of 3 users
#321 Jerusalem - edited by 3 of 3 users
#322 Israeli-occupied_territories - edited by 3 of 3 users
#323 Israel_Shahak - edited by 3 of 3 users
#324 Israel,_Palestinians,_and_the_United_Nations - edited by 3 of 3 users
#325 Israel - edited by 3 of 3 users
#326 Islamofascism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#327 Irving - edited by 3 of 3 users
#328 Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction - edited by 3 of 3 users
#329 Institute_for_Historical_Review - edited by 3 of 3 users
#330 Homeland_for_the_Jewish_people - edited by 3 of 3 users
#331 Holocaust_revisionism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#332 Holocaust_denial - edited by 3 of 3 users
#333 Hobo - edited by 3 of 3 users
#334 History_of_Israel - edited by 3 of 3 users
#335 Hebrew_language - edited by 3 of 3 users
#336 Hate_group - edited by 3 of 3 users
#337 Hate_crime - edited by 3 of 3 users
#338 Hasbara - edited by 3 of 3 users
#339 Haredi_Judaism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#340 Hamas - edited by 3 of 3 users
#341 Grigori_Rasputin - edited by 3 of 3 users
#342 God - edited by 3 of 3 users
#343 Gilad_Atzmon - edited by 3 of 3 users
#344 George_Galloway - edited by 3 of 3 users
#345 Gas_chamber - edited by 3 of 3 users
#346 Elie_Wiesel - edited by 3 of 3 users
#347 Douglas_Hofstadter - edited by 3 of 3 users
#348 Demographics_of_Israel - edited by 3 of 3 users
#349 David_Irving - edited by 3 of 3 users
#350 David_Duke - edited by 3 of 3 users
#351 Daniel_Pipes - edited by 3 of 3 users
#352 Christianity_and_antisemitism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#353 Christianity - edited by 3 of 3 users
#354 Christian_terrorism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#355 Chip_Berlet - edited by 3 of 3 users
#356 Children_and_minors_in_the_Israeli-Palestinian_conflict - edited by 3 of 3 users
#357 Charles_Peirce - edited by 3 of 3 users
#358 British_National_Party - edited by 3 of 3 users
#359 Brian_Avery - edited by 3 of 3 users
#360 Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II - edited by 3 of 3 users
#361 Blood_libel_against_Jews - edited by 3 of 3 users
#362 Bible - edited by 3 of 3 users
#363 Berlin_Wall - edited by 3 of 3 users
#364 Benny_Morris - edited by 3 of 3 users
#365 Auschwitz_concentration_camp - edited by 3 of 3 users
#366 Arthur_Hertzberg - edited by 3 of 3 users
#367 Arnold_Schwarzenegger - edited by 3 of 3 users
#368 Ariel_Sharon - edited by 3 of 3 users
#369 Arab–Israeli_conflict - edited by 3 of 3 users
#370 Arab_citizens_of_Israel - edited by 3 of 3 users
#371 Antisemitism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#372 Anti-Zionism - edited by 3 of 3 users
#373 Anti-Defamation_League - edited by 3 of 3 users
#374 Anne_Frank - edited by 3 of 3 users
#375 American_Jews - edited by 3 of 3 users
#376 American_Israel_Public_Affairs_Committee - edited by 3 of 3 users
#377 Al-Qaeda - edited by 3 of 3 users
#378 African_Jews - edited by 3 of 3 users
#379 Adolf_Hitler - edited by 3 of 3 users
#380 Adolf_Eichmann - edited by 3 of 3 users
#381 Abortion - edited by 3 of 3 users
#382 9/11_conspiracy_theories - edited by 3 of 3 users

Posted by: gomi

Very cool data, Milton. Is there a tool that delivers this? There are a few other malefactors I'd like to check.

Posted by: Yahel Guhan

OR maybe they are paranoid, or have no life outside of work and wikipedia. When I edited wikipedia, I found myself becoming more and more paranoid the more articles I edited, and although I had a full time job, I found myself sacrificing sleep in order to make sure my edits weren't erased. I suspect many other editors did the same, based on some of the weird hours I have seen people editing wikipedia. Some were/are even more active than me, and this is on all sides of the disputes. As time continued, I took more and more wikibreaks that lasted for longer and longer periods of time. Now I see what a waste of time that was when I was actually editing. At one point, shortly before my retirement, I emailed some of the other editors, and asked them if they knew of an organization that could sponsor my editing with financial benefits, because it really was not worth the editing. I found none. I must not have been looking in the right place. Had one of these organizations contacted me, or had I been able to know which organization to contact, I would probably have attempet to collect payments to edit wikipedia, and hence I would not have retired.



If it can be proven, I'd love to see the evidence. The motivation for any organization that wishes to promote a certain perspective of either their organization or political views is obvious. Many readers blindly trust the garbage written there. I still remember the http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/technology/19wikipedia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin. But one thing that is suspicious to me is his "mission" to bring all the world's knowledge to poor children in Africa. Poor children in Africa don't generally have computer access. Most wikipedia readers are high school kids, and people who know nothing on topics they read, or are ignorant about wikipedia’s obvious faults. Presumably they have some money and educational background, and probably they also have access to far more reliable encyclopedias like World Book and Britannica either through school, libraries, or other means. So what is Jimbo's real motivation? What did he really want to create?

If he has something personal to gain, like personal income, I doubt he would be so quick to "spill the beans," and admit his motives for decisions he made if they were not nobel. But if he did tell someone, we still may not know about it unless he made a big mistake. It is amazing how well people who seem very open can keep secrets. Just look at the mafia. If he recieved money to support Jayjg's advancement in the wikipedia hierarchy, I have a hunch the source has stopped providing the donations. With some recent events that have occured on wikipedia, like the CAMERA blockings, the Israel/Palestine sanctions case, the recent arbcom promotions, and the decreased frequency of blocks for POV warriors and problematic editors, I have a hunch Jimbo is doing less to help out the pro-israel editors in recent times

Posted by: Neil

Everyking, you do have a unique title on Wikipedia though, which many may consider to make up for your supporting Jayjg - who was the sole opposer on Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/SlimVirgin?

Posted by: Saltimbanco

And for how many years did you keep up your Wiki-hyperactivity? I think Jay and Linda are into their fourth or fifth years of it. Linda Mack might be able to maintain interest for that amount of time - she's a little bit batty - but I doubt Jay would be able to without some incentive/professional distance.

Regarding your own efforts at finding sponsorship, think about the incentives of an organization that was endeavoring to influence Wikipedia. Why would they want to mess with someone who had already begun editing extensively on his own? Clearly, this person has his own motivations, and it is very unlikely that they would coincide exactly with that of the organization. There is a huge risk, with someone like this, that at some point when the organization says, "Turn left," such an editor would respond, "But I think I should turn right." Better to have someone whose entire Wikipedia experience has been guided by the organization. There might be, very rarely, people who the organization decides really do share all of its motivations, including a willingness to compromise principles when the greater goal demands it, but this would be the rare exception. There might also be people whom the organization would trust within very specific areas, and possibly even provide support for their work in these areas, but such people would be kept at a distance; special agents rather than general agents.

You probably would have had more success in seeking support for your editing if you had made a clean break from your past editing, concealing your history, and signed up with Hasbara Fellowships or something like that. Then, after a long period of demonstrating your willingness to be a team player and of a lot of productivity, if you indicated that you needed to scale back for reasons of work and personal time constraints, you might get pointed toward something.

Realize that even for the organizations most committed to influencing Wikipedia, there is probably not room for very many paid agents. Corporations would probably assign Wikipedia work to one of their PR people, in addition to a lot of other responsibilities. Where there would be the most need would be in areas where there was already, outside of Wikipedia, strongly contested propaganda wars. The oil and Israel lobbies are the two I can think of off of the top of my head. And even these would probably never want more than a handful of staff Wikipedians, for reasons of not wanting to be too obvious as much as for reasons of expense. Also, the need for staff editors would have to consider what they would add to existing volunteer efforts.



You could be right. The CAMERA conspiracy, though, was so ham-handed that there wasn't a lot that could be done to protect it without raising more, and possibly more damaging, questions. In any case, Jimbo can't do much more than nudge without drawing scrutiny. His appointment of Jayjg to ArbCom probably went a bit beyond what he might reasonably be expected to be able to get away with.

Posted by: Yehudi

Taxwoman is perfectly correct. It is not the ADL's business to worry about every massacre in history. I once wrote to an Armenian organisation asking them if they condemned the Chmielnicki massacres. They'd never heard of them.

Posted by: Milton Roe

See post 23 earlier in this thread:

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=19681&view=findpost&p=121695

The tool is at: http://toolserver.org/~bjweeks/cgi-bin/wikistalk.py

Again, remember to enter the usernames exactly with caps and spaces, as the script is case-sensitive. If a user isn't showing up at all when you add them to a search, then the software has probably not picked them up.

Those who don't like my thesis are welcome to add their own favorite GOOD admin (many mentioned on WR, both overtly Jewish and not) to a 3 person search (Jayjg, SlimVirgin, Jpgordon) such as the above. I think you'll be shocked how few common 4-person mainspace articles you get when you add an admin that you think is a good admin, whether they are Jewish or not, observant or not. This bunch does travel in a pack, and it doesn't matter if you believe in an open CAMERA conspiracy or just shared interests, since they are vicious with the tools and they are under Jimbo's protection, the result is the same. We've all seen it, but it takes some, ah, chutzpah to fight though the cries of antisemitism to point it out. And as I've pointed out before, you can add Chip Berlet (Cberlet) in, and find he travel(ed) with the Kabal, too. And he likes Nathan's hotdogs. And so do I. (You don't have to Jewish...)

Example: As a test, I added Jaysweet to these three, who is a "Jay" admin who is clearly Jewish albeit personally an atheist (not that uncommon), but not a WP-Kabal stomper of the bad-goys (okay, that was a Cache moment). And the only mainspace articles he has in common with SlimVirgin, Jpgordon, and Jayjg, are: #23 South_Africa_under_apartheid, #24 Christianity_and_antisemitism, and #25 Antisemitism. Three articles.

But if you add Cberlet (note exact spelling and case), non-Jewish but (until recently) protected attack dog of the ADL-variety, in place of Jaysweet, you get *14* mainspace articles edited by all four, and here they are:

#39 The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion - edited by 4 of 4 users
#46 September_11,_2001_attacks - edited by 4 of 4 users
#47 New_antisemitism - edited by 4 of 4 users
#48 Neoconservatism - edited by 4 of 4 users
#49 Nazism - edited by 4 of 4 users
#50 Nazi_Germany - edited by 4 of 4 users
#51 Nation_of_Islam_and_antisemitism - edited by 4 of 4 users
#52 Islamofascism - edited by 4 of 4 users
#53 Institute_for_Historical_Review - edited by 4 of 4 users
#54 Holocaust_denial - edited by 4 of 4 users
#55 David_Duke - edited by 4 of 4 users
#56 Christian_terrorism - edited by 4 of 4 users
#57 Chip_Berlet - edited by 4 of 4 users
#58 9/11_conspiracy_theories - edited by 4 of 4 users

Now, If you add JzG, an abusive protected admin but also not a Jew (Adam Carolla moment-- as the common-knowledge has it, and as I, upon looking into this Chapman's Homer Simpson, tend to agree) you neverless get 17 mainspace articles that all four admins have edited:

#83 Stormfront_(website) - edited by 4 of 4 users
#84 Sigmund_Freud - edited by 4 of 4 users
#85 September_11,_2001_attacks - edited by 4 of 4 users
#86 List_of_British_Jews - edited by 4 of 4 users
#87 Jesse_Jackson - edited by 4 of 4 users
#88 Holocaust_denial - edited by 4 of 4 users
#89 Grigori_Rasputin - edited by 4 of 4 users
#90 Gilad_Atzmon - edited by 4 of 4 users
#91 George_Galloway - edited by 4 of 4 users
#92 Elie_Wiesel - edited by 4 of 4 users
#93 Christianity - edited by 4 of 4 users
#94 Charles_Peirce - edited by 4 of 4 users
#95 Blood_libel_against_Jews - edited by 4 of 4 users
#96 Antisemitism - edited by 4 of 4 users
#97 Al-Qaeda - edited by 4 of 4 users
#98 Abortion - edited by 4 of 4 users
#99 9/11_conspiracy_theories - edited by 4 of 4 users


This gave me a big grin, as it appears that if you add a different admin to this group who is an abusive Jimbo-protected elite, one of the few new non-Jewish interests that show up for all 4, is an interest in kicking Jon Awbrey's butt (see the Charles Peirce main article, which these 4 are all fascinated by. Expert logicians they are... But the Awbrey wars ended, have. Awbrey banniated, was.)

As for the general phenom: again, it doesn't matter if it's conspiracy, if it produces the same results. And it's not as though we haven't seen this phenomenon before. When in Hollywood, wear a Yarmulke. We might call it the Sammy Davis, Jr. Syndrome. Madonna takes Kabbalah lessons with rabbi Berg, and has given one of his causes $21 million. I couldn't make stuff like that up.

But I can make note of it.

Posted by: Proabivouac

What a damning indictment of Wikipedia you've posted, Yahel. I wish it were its own thread.

Posted by: Saltimbanco

I'm guessing, however, that this Armenian organization had never petitioned members of a national legislature to vote against recognizing the Chmielnicki massacres, as the ADL petitioned the US Congress to vote against recognizing the Armenian Genocide. While it may not be the ADL's business to worry about every massacre in history (would that go for the Armenian organization as well, Yehudi? If so, why did you write them regarding the Chmielnicki massacres? If not, then is it another one of those matters that depends upon whose ox is gored, so to speak?), they made the Armenian Genocide their business when they petitioned Congress not to recognize it, didn't they?

Why would you have bothered to make such an ill-considered comment, Yehudi?

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

I also thought it fascinating.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

The ADL is basically insisting that they own the franchise on the use of the terms "genocide" and "holocaust." This is the subject matter of Finkelstein's book, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_Industry

Posted by: Milton Roe

Posted by: everyking

I'm happy to know someone recognizes that special distinction!

Posted by: Eleland

Also Nazi and Hitler comparisons. Those are legitimate, even courageous, when applied to entities considered oppositional to the U.S. and Israel; they are mendacious and antisemitic when applied to U.S./Israeli allies. So we get a http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/14/AR2008081401360.html over Russia's intervention in the Georgia-Ossetia war, and leading Holocaust Industrialists http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/pysk.hier/index.html on the Darfur bloodbath as a chance to bang the "Muslims are Nazis" drum, while the ADL http://www.adl.org/egyptian_media/media_2002/comparison.asp comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany as "anti-semitism," without even attempting to justify that conclusion.

Don't get me wrong; Israel is not Nazi Germany, and although one can draw instructive parallels, for the most part they are meaningful only in the light of the obvious, and enormous, differences. I'm just sick to death of this idea that we all should argue about where to "draw the line" between "legitimate criticism of Israeli actions" and "new antisemitism." Why is Israel the only country in the world for which illegitimate or unfounded criticism is automatically assumed to be ethnically motivated?

During the recent Tibet unrest, for instance, there were dozens if not hundreds of articles printed in the West which unambiguously falsified the history of the conflict. It was claimed that China had, in 1950, invaded and occupied the independent and free nation of Tibet, set about destroying the peaceful and harmonious Tibetan Buddhist religion, thus earning the enimity of the Tibetan people, and even committed genocide. Every one of those claims is not only false but absurd.

Was this "anti-sinicistic?" Did it reflect a new wave disturbing infiltration of age-old anti-Oriental bigotry into our culture, particularly among certain troublesome minority groups, such as white American college students?

For all I know, editorials to this effect did appear in the Chinese press. If they did, they were ignored, dismissed, or laughed at by all responsible observers. This is as it should be - not only for China, but for all nations, including Israel.

Is there criticism of Israel which is motivated by antisemitism, and even used as a kind of wedge strategy for pushing antisemitic ideas into the discourse? Of course there is. (Israel Shamir, Radio Islam, etc) But when false or inflated charges are made against Israel, it is just as often out of ignorance, partisanship, or a perceived need to exaggerate the scope of the issue in order to mobilize world support. By the same token, much of the support for Israel, particularily in the United States, is motivated by a literal interpretation of the New Testament which is unavoidably antisemitic. Not to mention that the early Zionist movement basically http://www.evcomics.com/2008/05/29/israel-man-and-diaspora-boy/ the antisemitic analysis of the Jewish psyche, with the proviso that Jewish perfidy was due to the conditions of their exile, not to any inherent racial or religious flaw.

What I'm saying is that people who bash Jews are Jew-bashers; people who bash Israel are Israel-bashers, and in either case, the bashing should be refuted directly, rather than by reductio at antisemitism.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Good question. This is the sort of thing which is immediately incorporated into Wikipedia, and any debate is stifled.

Posted by: Taxwoman

OK, Saltimbanco is using any old stick to beat a Jewish organisation. I also notice his singular lack of interest in Muslim attacks on Hindus. Please can you not drag your extremist views in everywhere, Saltimbanco? And if I am wrong, why else would you have bothered to make such an ill-considered comment?

Posted by: Saltimbanco

More weak noise from Taxwoman.

Posted by: Taxwoman

Of course. It's not ladylike to shout.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Aha. Obviously you can tell mods by the fact that when they even copy smilies in a post, they come out with black background boxes. Why is that??

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Moderator's note: Zionism-related debates moved to http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=19934&view=findpost&p=121856 -- HK

Posted by: Derktar

I believe that's due to a tiny inconsistency in the Darko skin. Personally I think it's the best one on the site.