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 Mantanmoreland goes socking? (Again?), LOL |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sus.../Mantanmorelanda big birdie tells me he's gotten caught again on off-WP sites sockpuppeting with new names, lol. Looks like this "bassett" guy on WP is up to the samiharris-mantanmoreland legacy. At this point, anyone without a non-SPA history of some length on WP should be Checkusered if they edit the Patrick Byrne-Overstock-Naked Shorting trifecta of "let's fuck Byrne!" that's been going on, on-WP for years. And who's the last person who should be doing a checkuser on Gary Weiss's socks or potential socks? (um, after Slimmy that is)? Thatcher. LOL. Thatcher, you've already been proven a wikifraud on the Gary Saga. Turn over the bullshit story to someone else. No one believes you any more on this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req.../MantanmorelandNevard is not Weiss, that's not news. Bassett's activity smells of Team Gary. Tor proxies by any chance? Maybe Gary's gotten smart enough to get one of his associates to take up his man-love torch for Byrne. This post has been edited by Piperdown:
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WR Black Ops
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Adm..._and_BassettcatQUOTE
Mantanmoreland and Bassettcat
* Bassettcat (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) - for editing history.
* Mantanmoreland (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)
Technical and behavioral information indicate a very great possibility that User:Bassettcat is an abusive sock-puppet or otherwise editing in breach of both puppetry policy and most of the remedies of the case Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Mantanmoreland. Specifically:
* Remedy 1 - "Any current or future editor who, after this decision is announced, makes substantial edits to Naked short selling, Overstock.com, Patrick M. Byrne, Gary Weiss, or closely related pages or discussions on any page is directed: (A) To edit on these from only a single user account, which shall be the user's sole or main account; ... © To edit in accordance with all Wikipedia policies ... (D) To disclose on the relevant talk pages any circumstances ... that constitute or may reasonably be perceived as constituting a conflict of interest with respect to that page."
* Remedy 4 - "Mantanmoreland, under any current or future account, is banned from editing articles related to Gary Weiss, Patrick Byrne, Overstock.com, Naked Short Selling, and other mainspace articles in the area of dispute, broadly construed."
* Remedy 5 - "Mantanmoreland is directed to edit Wikipedia from only a single user account"
On May 14 2008, Bassettcat edited from his normal IP range at both 00:12 and 00:15, followed by an edit made on a second IP located over a thousand miles away at 00:18, and then an edit at his normal dialup IP at 00:21. The IP, located an estimated 500 - 1000 miles away, was a dsl connection, and almost beyond doubt, Mantanmoreland's (the same /25 block for those who understand IPs: ww.xx.yy.19 for Mantanmoreland, vs. ww.xx.yy.88 for Bassetcat). This is likely to show two things - when Bassetcat has access to a dsl connection in one city, he prefers to avoid using it and to instead edit via dialup using a connection that locates to around 500 - 1000 miles away, and that the dsl connection Bassetcat avoids editing through is almost certainly the connection of a user with past likely sock-puppetry, and an Arbcom ban on editing the articles that Bassettcat almost exclusively seeks to edit.
This is in addition to strong prior behavioral evidence that had alerted a number of users to the connection as well. Bassettcat's contributions were already suspect (see results of UserCompare, and Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Mantanmoreland). The question of "framing" was considered but technical evidence suggests it is both unlikely, and would have required a significant degree of telepathy. Other potential explanations such as "visiting on business" or "not my dsl" were considered but evaluated as being rather less likely, given the case evidence and its back-history.
Based on these findings I have blocked Bassettcat as a sockpuppet, and blocked Mantanmoreland for 2 weeks for breach of sock-puppetry policy and of the remedies of this case. Due to the gross egregious nature of this activity, I was tempted to block for considerably longer (some will surely feel a site ban is to be expected and wonder why not given) but feel that in fact this plus the sock being blocked, is sufficient, this time at least. Do not repeat after the block ends, and final warning on all egregious abuse or evasion issues of these kinds.
FT2 (Talk | email) 21:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Poor guy, he just couldn't behave.
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Well, for me, it's 0 calorie lemonade, and Nutrisystem "diet" food. The good news is I'm down three pounds in less then a week so far (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif) (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) I have to admit, that more then the frustration over MM not being sitebanned YET, I'm feeling vindicated that the work Durova, G-Dett, Cool Hand Luke and to a point, myself did on Wikipedia has now been vindicated at the highest level possible. (not discounting the work Judd and others have done OFF of WP, mind you) This post has been edited by SirFozzie: |
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Gary, in honour of his latest socking, and of Don Martin, got really upset with this latest outing of his little problem, and wrote 2 more hysterical blogs against Byrne and his "Baloney Brigade" (that now includes the head of the SEC, several Senators, powerful lawyers, witnesses, Hedge funds who've sued prime brokers for it, etc) today.
One of them was straight out of Emily Litella's schtick, lol. Went on and on and he didn't even read the article before he went off in a white-hot diatribe.
Apparently, any place is a good place for Gary to be off-base about naked short selling*
* that's just for you, Gary-Sami Moreland....
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Fat Cat
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QUOTE(Kato @ Thu 29th May 2008, 12:52am)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ANI..._and_BassettcatOn the admins noticeboard, where this business is being discussed, there is a complete absense of the usual idiotic mob. No Sidaways. No Sandifers. No Gerards. No JzGs. No SlimVirgins. No Jayjgs. Where have they all gone? Where are all the people who have been attacking the mere idea that Gary Weiss was using socks to corrupt a series of articles? Where are all the people who attacked Wordbomb, Cla68, this site, even Cade Metz, over the last year or so? Where are the admissions of responsibility? Where are the arenas where this corrupt crew can be held accountable for their actions over this? The whole Weiss thing was classic Wikipedia. It was so damn obvious what was going on after any kind of mature analysis of the facts back in the early days. And yet those lunatics were allowed to get away with it in the face of any form of common sense for sooo long. And not only that, they aggressively rubbed people's noses in their nonsense. Just ridiculous. Jossi chimed in with disdain about Gary's behaviour. Lol. Of all people. Although maybe Jossi just has a massive conflict of interest and WP:OWN problem with just one account and doesn't play the self-talking sock game like Gary. |
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Skinny Cow!
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QUOTE(Piperdown @ Wed 28th May 2008, 5:51pm)
so this "FT" has blocked MM and banned Bassetcat.
Whither art thou, Thatcher?
You folks remember Thatcher. Gave Bassett a clean bill of health a few weeks ago. Imagine that.
Thatcher's behaviour on this matter over the years has been....interesting.
Weeel ... Bassetcat had been on the radar for quite some time, too. I remember this checkuser case from some weeks back, although MM wasn't explicitly mentioned. Given that the account was only five days old, there would not have been a whole lot to go on, and Thatcher pretty-much said that, well, things seemed okay. I've no idea of the checkuser info as I've not checked anyways (honest!), nor would I tell, but given the last case, it's likely that MM had got even sneakier since the previous experience and likely did his best to avoid association. Just speculation on my part, mind ... This post has been edited by Alison: |
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QUOTE(SirFozzie @ Wed 28th May 2008, 7:30pm)
From what FT2 said, looks like MM screwed up once and made an edit from a MM IP with the Bassetcat account instead of the dial in and that was enough to trip him up
I find this the most sublime of all ironies: in the end, it was the ridiculously ineffective ArbCom decision (to allow Mantanmoreland to edit non-NSS articles) that was, in the end, his undoing. Otherwise, there would have been no point of reference for associating MM and Bassettcat. Another effect of the earlier ArbCom decision was -- just as they'd intended -- that it was very difficult to sell this as a story to any worthwhile media outlet, given nothing really happened. And so, I didn't even bother. Believe me when I say that's not how things are going to be tomorrow. At this point, it's an embarrassment of riches: either the guy is site-banned or he's not. Site-banning this shyster journalist will be a huge story. But, given FT2's findings, not site-banning might make for an even bigger story. I'm a little torn... (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif) |
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Skinny Cow!
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QUOTE(Alison @ Wed 28th May 2008, 6:23pm) QUOTE(Piperdown @ Wed 28th May 2008, 5:51pm)
so this "FT" has blocked MM and banned Bassetcat.
Whither art thou, Thatcher?
You folks remember Thatcher. Gave Bassett a clean bill of health a few weeks ago. Imagine that.
Thatcher's behaviour on this matter over the years has been....interesting.
Weeel ... Bassetcat had been on the radar for quite some time, too. I remember this checkuser case from some weeks back, although MM wasn't explicitly mentioned. Given that the account was only five days old, there would not have been a whole lot to go on, and Thatcher pretty-much said that, well, things seemed okay. Okay, so I had a dig around. From what FT2 said; QUOTE On May 14 2008, Bassettcat edited from his normal IP range at both 00:12 and 00:15, followed by an edit made on a second IP located over a thousand miles away at 00:18, and then an edit at his normal dialup IP at 00:21. That was weeks after Thatcher ran the first RFCU case on April 3, so he'd no chance of catching him until MM goofed with that single edit. (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/dry.gif) This post has been edited by Alison: |
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QUOTE(WordBomb @ Thu 29th May 2008, 1:40am) At this point, it's an embarrassment of riches: either the guy is site-banned or he's not. Site-banning this shyster journalist will be a huge story. But, given FT2's findings, not site-banning might make for an even bigger story. I'm a little torn... (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif) Here's today's Moment of Zen from that discussion: QUOTE Non-voting comment - Whilst a ban is usually a popular thing to vote for, I propose a block of a fixed time period (and not a ridiculous period, like 3,481 years). This allows the user to reflect. Banning only helps websites like Wikipedia Review. I give only philosophical comments and am not casting a vote. Comployeah (talk) 23:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC) And we can't have THAT, can we? Instead, let's keep all the people banned who went to WP to complain about about Mantan, all those months ago, while we continue to handle Mantan with kid gloves, so as not to help WR. You know those bad WR people? They lie and say evil things about WP, like how it's dysfunctional, vicious toward newbies and people who know the score, permits sockpuppeting from cronies of the cabal; and in addition, is filled to the max with pompous nerds who cannot find their rear ends with both hands? But who frequently want to? (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) Yep, that's us. (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/mad.gif) This post has been edited by Milton Roe: |
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Lean duck!
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QUOTE(The Joy @ Thu 29th May 2008, 3:24am) How many socks could a sockpuppeteer sock if a sockpuppeteer could sock socks? Maybe Mantanmoreland knows! (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/ohmy.gif) How long is a piece of string? (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) The amusing aspect about is that much of Wikipedia's finest work is done by socks. Socks can be good and also serve as an expedient counter against barnbot pov-pushers. "Sock-it-to-them" Mantanmoreland. (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif) "Long live the socks", they keep some folks intent, no doubt! QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Thu 29th May 2008, 3:35am) You know those bad WR people? They lie and say evil things about WP, like how it's dysfunctional, vicious toward newbies and people who know the score, permits sockpuppeting from cronies of the cabal, and it addition, is filled to the max with pompous nerds who cannot find their rear ends with both hands? But who frequently want to? (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) Yep, that's us. (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/mad.gif) Cultish, ain't it? Those bad outsiders who criticise WP. How dare they! (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/unsure.gif) |
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Head exploded.
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QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Wed 28th May 2008, 7:35pm) Here's today's Moment of Zen from that discussion: QUOTE Non-voting comment - Whilst a ban is usually a popular thing to vote for, I propose a block of a fixed time period (and not a ridiculous period, like 3,481 years). This allows the user to reflect. Banning only helps websites like Wikipedia Review. I give only philosophical comments and am not casting a vote. Comployeah (talk) 23:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC) In fairness, that was a Dereks1x (Archtransit's sockmaster) sock, so I don't think anything he says can be considered as being cabal-authorized. |
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gabba gabba hey
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QUOTE(Viridae @ Thu 29th May 2008, 3:52am)
I've never caught a sock in my life. I LOL'd at arbcom being so spectacuarly wrong and then having it thrown in their face.
I laughed too. At least FT2 was willing to admit what he found though, instead of just feeding it to the dog and acting like the evidence did not exist. So I guess I have to give him some respect for that. Certainly not all Arbcom members would have acted on this--that is evidenced by their previous comments, refusal to say Mantan was socking, and their ridiculous "Samiharris is Wordbomb" theory. If Gary/Mantan is reading this, I have an offer that is out of this world. How would you like to have a BIG advertisement positioned on the front page of the Internet's hottest wiki directory, for the entire month of June 2008?! No need to sock, cultivate powerful friends, purchase proxy services, or pretend that you are Catholic! Sound too good to be true? Then don't take my word for it, try it today! |
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gabba gabba hey
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Mod note: The discussion among Wikipedia Reviewers Who Are Watching Their Weight was moved here.
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Skinny Cow!
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QUOTE(One @ Thu 29th May 2008, 11:23am) QUOTE(BobbyBombastic @ Thu 29th May 2008, 4:01pm) QUOTE(Viridae @ Thu 29th May 2008, 3:52am)
I've never caught a sock in my life. I LOL'd at arbcom being so spectacuarly wrong and then having it thrown in their face.
I laughed too. At least FT2 was willing to admit what he found though, instead of just feeding it to the dog and acting like the evidence did not exist. So I guess I have to give him some respect for that. Certainly not all Arbcom members would have acted on this--that is evidenced by their previous comments, refusal to say Mantan was socking, and their ridiculous "Samiharris is Wordbomb" theory. The new Arbs were the good guys in that ArbCom; I think FT2 was vindicating himself. Recall how UninvitedCompany claimed that the more "experienced" Arbs were the most reluctant to draw conclusions from the "ambiguous" evidence. Note how FT2 and FayssalF are ready to seriously entertain indefinite ban. I think those two plus NYB would have banned him to begin with. What I liked about this case was that FT2 came right out on behalf of ArbCom, stated the facts, laid out the evidence and didn't brush the whole matter under the carpet. This is how things should be dealt with, as we've seen time and time again that coverups and under-the-counter deals only get found out in the end, and only foster an atmosphere of distrust. This time - good call, IMO. Let's hope this is the default setting and not just some aberration (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) |
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Skinny Cow!
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QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Thu 29th May 2008, 11:44am) GoneEven when given a poke, his defenders were silent. However, this is a standard tactic - ignore an unwinnable argument and then come back later with a different tactic. So what will it be: * ArbCom decision does not support, * not long enough to discuss something as important as a community ban so overturning while regaining consensus, * Krimpet is acting as a proxy for a banned site? Place your bets. (sticks neck out) Vindication feels good right now, I'll bet (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif) All this time wasting, all the effort put in by so many people over months and months. And he gets away with it. It's obvious that he'd felt emboldened by the previous case and felt he could get away with anything. Still, he slipped up and now he's busted (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif) Good riddance! A lot of people got hurt, got sucked into this whole mess ( nods @ Piperdown), wasted valuable time in painstaking investigations only to have it largely ignored and a lot of otherwise good people were cowed by overbearing bullies. Good riddance to that and hopefully, to the dark days of guilt by association. Well done, guys (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) |
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Skinny Cow!
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QUOTE(thekohser @ Thu 29th May 2008, 12:08pm) QUOTE(BobbyBombastic @ Thu 29th May 2008, 12:01pm) If Gary/Mantan is reading this, I have an offer that is out of this world. How would you like to have a BIG advertisement positioned on the front page of the Internet's hottest wiki directory, for the entire month of June 2008?! No need to sock, cultivate powerful friends, purchase proxy services, or pretend that you are Catholic! Sound too good to be true? Then don't take my word for it, try it today!I can't believe you'd have the nerve to pollute this site with a commercial, for-profit spam link! It's okay - I'll update MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist on here. Oh wait .... (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif) This post has been edited by Alison: |
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Known alias of J. Random Troll
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QUOTE(Alison @ Thu 29th May 2008, 7:04pm) Vindication feels good right now, I'll bet (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif) All this time wasting, all the effort put in by so many people over months and months. And he gets away with it. It's obvious that he'd felt emboldened by the previous case and felt he could get away with anything. Still, he slipped up and now he's busted (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif) Good riddance! A lot of people got hurt, got sucked into this whole mess ( nods @ Piperdown), wasted valuable time in painstaking investigations only to have it largely ignored and a lot of otherwise good people were cowed by overbearing bullies. Good riddance to that and hopefully, to the dark days of guilt by association. Well done, guys (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) It's not over till the damage is fixed. Wordbomb is still blocked for complaining about this. They have him blocked for the complaint he made connecting an account with a real person (not knowing this is sacrosanct) and then SlimV seems to have lost the records (and so has everybody else) regarding whether he continued to talk about GW after being blocked. THEN after keeping him blocked, he switched tactics to the only ones he had available. Now he's banned for those. But this all goes back to the cop who nightsticks a guy for protesting outside the political convention, after which they guy beats up the cop, gets arrested, busts out of jail, and winds up in prison for all kinds of resistance to authority things much worse than protesting outside a convention. And nothing is said about the violent cop. And everybody is congratulating themselves because it's been proven that substance of the original protest was correct. Yeah, but what about the guy still in the slammer for resisting arrest and jailbreak? |
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| dogbiscuit |
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Could you run through Verifiability not Truth once more?
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QUOTE(One @ Thu 29th May 2008, 8:06pm)
No one will touch that.
Don't get me wrong. They would have argued to the ends of the earth if it could be dismissed as "circumstantial evidence," but CU kills it. They look foolish, and they won't want to draw attention to their idiocy. (I think this is why FT2 and FayssalF have commented and not, say, FloNight.)
There are still lots of options. There is the "Gary is contrite and admits his sins, so we must show good faith so let's unblock this fine contributor to our site" routine, for a start. Then there is that dratted root kit doing the rounds, of course. Given that Gary thinks Wikipedia is a very important platform (which informs us more generally of why WR is right to be concerned about WP), then I doubt he will give in, as now he does not have to maintain a sock, he can just go for the vanilla new account, if he has not already been brewing up a couple more, just in case. |
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QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Thu 29th May 2008, 12:25pm) Given that Gary thinks Wikipedia is a very important platform (which informs us more generally of why WR is right to be concerned about WP), then I doubt he will give in, as now he does not have to maintain a sock, he can just go for the vanilla new account, if he has not already been brewing up a couple more, just in case. Gary doing this will have the same problem I would have had, with us having extremely unique interests that put together are a cute little fingerprint. How many people out there have interests in bluegrass/celtic/jam music, Seattle, Connecticut, and comic books on one side, and for example Gary Weiss, DTCC, Naked Short Selling, Byrne, Bagley, and all that on his side? Anyone showing up to do all of them is clearly going to be me or him, and if made a separate account for each of those articles, like one for DTCC, one for Naked shorting, I bet you it'd still be Checkusered and it would eventually turn up the others. |
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Devils Advocaat
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QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Thu 29th May 2008, 8:25pm) QUOTE(One @ Thu 29th May 2008, 8:06pm)
No one will touch that.
Don't get me wrong. They would have argued to the ends of the earth if it could be dismissed as "circumstantial evidence," but CU kills it. They look foolish, and they won't want to draw attention to their idiocy. (I think this is why FT2 and FayssalF have commented and not, say, FloNight.)
There are still lots of options. There is the "Gary is contrite and admits his sins, so we must show good faith so let's unblock this fine contributor to our site" routine, for a start. Then there is that dratted root kit doing the rounds, of course. Given that Gary thinks Wikipedia is a very important platform (which informs us more generally of why WR is right to be concerned about WP), then I doubt he will give in, as now he does not have to maintain a sock, he can just go for the vanilla new account, if he has not already been brewing up a couple more, just in case. Ahead of you there, I have commented that the articles that Mantanmoreland is so keen to control may need protection. Since I doubt my preferred option of scorched earth will get any traction I have made another raft of suggestions. |
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| Gold heart |
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Lean duck!
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QUOTE(Kato @ Thu 29th May 2008, 1:52am) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ANI..._and_BassettcatOn the admins noticeboard, where this business is being discussed, there is a complete absense of the usual idiotic mob. No Sidaways. No Sandifers. No Gerards. No JzGs. No SlimVirgins. No Jayjgs. Where have they all gone? Where are all the people who have been attacking the mere idea that Gary Weiss was using socks to corrupt a series of articles? Where are all the people who attacked Wordbomb, Cla68, this site, even Cade Metz, over the last year or so? Where are the admissions of responsibility? Where are the arenas where this corrupt crew can be held accountable for their actions over this? The whole Weiss thing was classic Wikipedia. It was so damn obvious what was going on after any kind of mature analysis of the facts back in the early days. And yet those lunatics were allowed to get away with it in the face of any form of common sense for sooo long. And not only that, they aggressively rubbed people's noses in their nonsense. Just ridiculous. A typical "Elephant in the Room" scenario. Everyone sees it, but no-one wants to say anything at all. Then, after the fact, voilà , everyone at Wikipedia becomes an expert in the analysis. It'll be the same again, and again, and again, for there are many "elephants in rooms" yet to be addressed. (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif) This post has been edited by Gold heart: |
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QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Thu 29th May 2008, 1:50pm) A wise response from the community would now be to show good faith and unban WordBomb. I would note that WordBomb has always behaved well on Wikipedia in spite of provocation. I'm sure that is a safe action, WordBomb has little interest in editing Wikipedia as far as I am aware. Not entirely true. Earlier this week, I was shocked by the stubbiness of the article on David P. Broder, and began doing the research to expand it, but then remembered that I'm not allowed. I must admit that if unbanned, I will almost certainly work on improving that article. Oh yeah...for the past few months I've also been contributing to the Spanish language Wikipedia...so far without incident. If that's a technical violation of my ban, then they might have to reset the clock (back to infinity). |
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Could you run through Verifiability not Truth once more?
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QUOTE(WordBomb @ Thu 29th May 2008, 8:59pm) QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Thu 29th May 2008, 1:50pm) A wise response from the community would now be to show good faith and unban WordBomb. I would note that WordBomb has always behaved well on Wikipedia in spite of provocation. I'm sure that is a safe action, WordBomb has little interest in editing Wikipedia as far as I am aware. Not entirely true. Earlier this week, I was shocked by the stubbiness of the article on David P. Broder, and began doing the research to expand it, but then remembered that I'm not allowed. I must admit that if unbanned, I will almost certainly work on improving that article. Oh yeah...for the past few months I've also been contributing to the Spanish language Wikipedia...so far without incident. If that's a technical violation of my ban, then they might have to reset the clock (back to infinity). Ah, so we can add the "did good work on another project" PoetLister manoeuvre too. Your case is looking stronger by the second. (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif) If you take away the character assassination, what were your real sins on Wiki - though I suppose we still "don't know" that MM == GW which allows the BADSITErs to still claim you were that most heinous of sinners - the outer. You carried yourself well in the ArbCom case, so I am sure you would not embarrass anyone who proposed this. It would be as near to closure as they could get - and they also have the example of Piperdown who was a man of his word. |
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| SirFozzie |
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| WordBomb |
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QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Thu 29th May 2008, 2:06pm) If you take away the character assassination, what were your real sins on Wiki - though I suppose we still "don't know" that MM == GW which allows the BADSITErs to still claim you were that most heinous of sinners - the outer. You carried yourself well in the ArbCom case, so I am sure you would not embarrass anyone who proposed this. It would be as near to closure as they could get - and they also have the example of Piperdown who was a man of his word. Their main concern -- which I could empathize with were the circumstances less strange -- is that I took less-traditional steps to ascertain the identity of certain editors I suspected of being Gary Weiss (ie: Tomstoner, Lastexit, Mantanmoreland and Samiharris), and then blogged about the results. Along the way, SlimVirgin and Jayjg got caught up in the madness (on behalf of Weiss) and, through database analysis, I discovered evidence of questionable actions on their parts, and blogged about that, as well. Outting is not good, in and of itself. I understand that. Dropping nuclear weapons on cities full of civilians is also bad. However, it is less bad when viewed in the context of Pearl Harbor and everything that followed. Similarly, taking steps to out Mantanmoreland is less bad when viewed in the context of everything that preceded it, and the damage Weiss was doing to Wikipedia by being allowed to operate unfettered. Keeping that end of the equation in the dark is what the Cabal has been extraordinarily effective at doing. And this is why I remain skeptical that my status will change, though I'd welcome and support any effort to unban me. |
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| dogbiscuit |
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Could you run through Verifiability not Truth once more?
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QUOTE(WordBomb @ Thu 29th May 2008, 9:19pm)
And this is why I remain skeptical that my status will change, though I'd welcome and support any effort to unban me.
It strikes me that unbanning you without an inquest would be a good way for Wikipedia to move on and declare those events passed. I'm sure you could come up with some words of assurance that can save face for those embarrassed by their part (more or less as you have just said above). I was thinking someone could propose an unban along the lines of: Given that the MM socking case has been shown to be proven, as an act of good faith, I propose that WordBomb is unblocked. From postings elsewhere, WordBomb has made it clear that he understands that his unconventional techniques for sock checking were inappropriate and would not seek to use them in the future. I also understand he has made positive contributions on the Spanish Wikipedia project without incident. Therefore, to seek closure on this matter, with the minimum of fuss, I am proposing his unblocking. I am sure that he will be under close scrutiny, so there is little risk to the project in this action. I'm tempted to do it myself, but that would probably only be seen as drama. |
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| WordBomb |
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QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Thu 29th May 2008, 2:32pm) It strikes me that unbanning you without an inquest would be a good way for Wikipedia to move on and declare those events passed. I'm sure you could come up with some words of assurance that can save face for those embarrassed by their part (more or less as you have just said above).
I was thinking someone could propose an unban along the lines of:
Given that the MM socking case has been shown to be proven, as an act of good faith, I propose that WordBomb is unblocked. From postings elsewhere, WordBomb has made it clear that he understands that his unconventional techniques for sock checking were inappropriate and would not seek to use them in the future. I also understand he has made positive contributions on the Spanish Wikipedia project without incident. Therefore, to seek closure on this matter, with the minimum of fuss, I am proposing his unblocking. I am sure that he will be under close scrutiny, so there is little risk to the project in this action.
I'm tempted to do it myself, but that would probably only be seen as drama. I'd even up the ante by pointing out that I recognize that I'm conflicted on the Big Four Weiss-touched articles, and I don't intend to edit any of them (though I'd likely opine on their talk pages, where appropriate). Not only that, but -- and I've made this commitment before -- I'll gladly remove the Wikipedia-related content from my blog (which was put there to affect change, and would have served its purpose). |
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QUOTE(WordBomb @ Thu 29th May 2008, 7:59pm) QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Thu 29th May 2008, 1:50pm) A wise response from the community would now be to show good faith and unban WordBomb. I would note that WordBomb has always behaved well on Wikipedia in spite of provocation. I'm sure that is a safe action, WordBomb has little interest in editing Wikipedia as far as I am aware. Not entirely true. Earlier this week, I was shocked by the stubbiness of the article on David P. Broder, and began doing the research to expand it, but then remembered that I'm not allowed. I must admit that if unbanned, I will almost certainly work on improving that article. Oh yeah...for the past few months I've also been contributing to the Spanish language Wikipedia...so far without incident. If that's a technical violation of my ban, then they might have to reset the clock (back to infinity). It's not. You've only been banned on English wikipedia. You're free to edit any other wikis and, in fact, good behavior on those wiks can be used to support a case for unbanning on en.wikipedia. |
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In all seriousness: I came too late to this discussion to pile on my support for banning Mantanmoreland. If he never edits Wikipedia again, it won't be too soon. It's better for me not to say more about that. I think it's a little early to talk seriously about unbanning WordBomb, though I would consider it a few months into the future. Everyone else in a similar situation is asked to wait a year from the last time they abusively use sockpuppets. In WordBomb's case, I think his most recent sockpuppet, Post Doctorate y-o-y, was blocked in January 2008. (See [url] block log.) Come back in 2009, after staying clean for a year, and then we can talk. However, as a matter of principle, I have to agree with what WordBomb wrote on his blog: "When you're right, you're right." The other issue that needs to be resolved is outing SlimVirgin. I think a lot of people will want to keep you banned forever unless you offer some kind of explanation for why you absolutely had to do that. I don't support outing of Wikipedia editors regardless of whether I personally am friendly with those editors or not. This post has been edited by Shalom: |
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Could you run through Verifiability not Truth once more?
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QUOTE(Shalom @ Thu 29th May 2008, 10:06pm) In all seriousness: I came too late to this discussion to pile on my support for banning Mantanmoreland. If he never edits Wikipedia again, it won't be too soon. It's better for me not to say more about that. I think it's a little early to talk seriously about unbanning WordBomb, though I would consider it a few months into the future. Everyone else in a similar situation is asked to wait a year from the last time they abusively use sockpuppets. In WordBomb's case, I think his most recent sockpuppet, Post Doctorate y-o-y, was blocked in January 2008. (See [url] block log.) Come back in 2009, after staying clean for a year, and then we can talk. However, as a matter of principle, I have to agree with what WordBomb wrote on his blog: "When you're right, you're right." The other issue that needs to be resolved is outing SlimVirgin. I think a lot of people will want to keep you banned forever unless you offer some kind of explanation for why you absolutely had to do that. I don't support outing of Wikipedia editors regardless of whether I personally am friendly with those editors or not. That does not bring reconciliation and closure and does not recognise the unusual circumstances of this case. There comes a point where it is best to move on. The SV thing is pretty well understood, and it is not a simple, one sided affair, and outside Wikipedia makes perfect sense (remembering this is in the context where real companies and real people were being damaged by a dispute that had been brought onto Wikipedia and Wikipedians involved themselves in). |
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QUOTE(WordBomb @ Thu 29th May 2008, 5:11pm) QUOTE(Shalom @ Thu 29th May 2008, 3:06pm) The other issue that needs to be resolved is outing SlimVirgin. I think a lot of people will want to keep you banned forever unless you offer some kind of explanation for why you absolutely had to do that. I don't support outing of Wikipedia editors regardless of whether I personally am friendly with those editors or not.
Excellent points, all. However I will point out that the SV=LM connection was made here by Daniel Brandt (I believe), months before I came along. I know this is hypocritical of me to say, because I think the Sweet Blue Water connection is relevant to the current arbitration case, but your posting that information was a breach of the Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy, if only because you also posted an IP address and named a geographic location to go along with it. Now, I'm fully aware that your own geographic location and real-world identity has been dragged into this also, so it may seem like fair game to do the same to SlimVirgin, and I have no doubt that it was fair with respect to Mantanmoreland (that was basically a conflict-of-interest content problem when you boil it down to its essence). But I guess that's what bothers me more than just the question of who was the first to say SV=LM. I would add that you posted some details on your blog about LM that, to the best of my knowledge, Daniel Brandt would not have known without your saying so. To Dogbiscuit: I don't really care about closure. I care about fairness. For now, I think fairness dictates that WordBomb stays banned, but that could change with a few months of good behavior or even no behavior at all. As a practical matter, it's in ArbCom's hands, and I'm not going to join ArbCom anytime soon. |
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| WordBomb |
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QUOTE(Shalom @ Thu 29th May 2008, 3:30pm) I know this is hypocritical of me to say, because I think the Sweet Blue Water connection is relevant to the current arbitration case, but your posting that information was a breach of the Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy, if only because you also posted an IP address and named a geographic location to go along with it. Now, I'm fully aware that your own geographic location and real-world identity has been dragged into this also, so it may seem like fair game to do the same to SlimVirgin, and I have no doubt that it was fair with respect to Mantanmoreland (that was basically a conflict-of-interest content problem when you boil it down to its essence). But I guess that's what bothers me more than just the question of who was the first to say SV=LM. I would add that you posted some details on your blog about LM that, to the best of my knowledge, Daniel Brandt would not have known without your saying so. I suspect that if enough time is spent examining this case, numerous violations of WMF policy -- literal, technical, spiritual, and otherwise -- could be found on all sides. The problem is, only one side has been allowed to be examined in the uniquely public forum that is Wikipedia. Care to guess which side? At this point, if healing is to take place, either the whole thing should be exhaustively examined bit by bit, or the whole thing should be put behind us and a stake driven through its heart. I was unjustly banned, minutes into my editing career. That madness has led to all manner of other madness, and that's where fixing things should begin. |
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| dogbiscuit |
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Could you run through Verifiability not Truth once more?
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QUOTE(Shalom @ Thu 29th May 2008, 10:30pm)
To Dogbiscuit: I don't really care about closure. I care about fairness. For now, I think fairness dictates that WordBomb stays banned, but that could change with a few months of good behavior or even no behavior at all. As a practical matter, it's in ArbCom's hands, and I'm not going to join ArbCom anytime soon.
Well, what is fair? A lot of people made mistakes. Is it fair to drag up all the dirt and pour over the ashes of an unpleasant business. It seems to me that to be fair by your definition might mean working back through all the evidence, all the cause and effect to come to a logical conclusion. A unpleasant public spectacle, I'd suggest. My definition of fair is different. Mine is recognising that people are fallible on all sides and if we look to apportion blame and punish accordingly then we will not forgive. You seem to see a ticking clock against a last infraction, but give no credit that for a very long time it has been a given on Wikipedia that WordBomb is an evil, lying scumbag and that anyone could say that with impunity. Credit for time served seems fair to me. What I am suggesting is a get out of jail free for all those on Wikipedia who campaigned thoughtlessly against WordBomb in a fantasy world of invented rules, where real life was not relevant, yet those goings on impacted people in the real world, not just in arguments on blogs, but potentially hindering a campaign against fraud affecting the fortunes of real people, as the players should have known. This was not a game of editing articles, this was about disinformation and fraud, and Wikipedia policy should come as a very low priority in that scheme of things. There is a way to rapidly draw this to an end, in a way that reflects well on those who put it behind them. The worst thing for Wikipedia would be to suggest that this is left festering for any longer than it has to. People know that something went wrong without it being acted through and argued over. Those who know that they were in the wrong will be humbled and may be more circumspect in the future, those who deny their wrongdoing will be recognised by others. It would be the fair thing to do to close this now. The unfair thing to do would be to gloat on the future pain that can be inflicted on SlimVirgin, Guy, and the many players of the ArbCom case who have a public record of their denial in the face of the obvious. If you want to play into the hands of those who want to humiliate Wikipedia, carry on with your version of fairness. |
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What fair is what's most peaceable. Unfairness tends unpeace the soul. So, if you want peace, work for justice. (And if you want justice, work for mirth.) When all else fails, clown around. |
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Dogbiscuit: This is not a situation like CreepyCrawly, where the two options are black-and-white: either this account is a sockpuppet and must be indef-blocked, or this account is not a sockpuppet and should not have been blocked for one second. There is no question that WordBomb did things in violation of Wikipedia policy. There is no question that people who disagreed with WordBomb also violated Wikipedia policy. WordBomb says so himself, and he's right.
The question is whether what WordBomb did is worse than what other people did. In comparison to Mantanmoreland, no: Mantanmoreland was far more disruptive, if only because he was given the opportunity to be far more disruptive. In comparison to the administrators who dealt with this case, yes: WordBomb proudly talks on his blog about how he created a sockpuppet account to disagree with BADSITES and get blocked, then created another sockpuppet account minutes later to agree with BADSITES and not get blocked, just to make a WP:POINT. What am I supposed to say to that? There are legitimate ways of registering your displeasure with the inequities of Wikipedia's arcane policies, and socking for WP:POINT is not one of them. WordBomb can say in his defense that legitimate avenues of appeal were denied to him. I guess that's fair. But if he hadn't done stupid things like socking for WP:POINT, he'd be unbanned now, just like some other users who allegedly did stupid things last year or earlier and have been reinstated. He was right about Mantanmoreland and SlimVirgin, but he violated policy in order to prove it. I guess that makes him a martyr to his conscience, and to that extent, I respect him. But in my capacity as a senior Wikipedian non-admin, I can't invite him to return just yet.
I think even if WordBomb were reinstated today, there would not be closure. I don't know if there will ever be closure. I was not closely involved with the Mantanmoreland arbitration, but I know the basics of what happened. A lot of people feel deeply hurt by the injustices on all sides. This controversy, more than any other that I can remember in two years of active editing, has raised doubts about the community's ability to handle difficult problems. It will take some time for the sense of betrayal some people feel to wither into the forgotten past. I am certain that someone involved in this case will apply for ArbCom in December, and if that person defended the wrong side of this dispute, he or she will have a lot of difficulty passing the threshold for election. Such are the consequences of letting problems fester for a year and a half instead of solving them right away. That, more than anything, is a lesson people ought to learn from this fiasco.
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QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Thu 29th May 2008, 10:37pm)
There is a way to rapidly draw this to an end, in a way that reflects well on those who put it behind them. The worst thing for Wikipedia would be to suggest that this is left festering for any longer than it has to. People know that something went wrong without it being acted through and argued over. Those who know that they were in the wrong will be humbled and may be more circumspect in the future, those who deny their wrongdoing will be recognised by others.
I wish that were true. But most people have no idea how badly SV and Guy and Gerard screwed the pooch on this, and these people are going to deny it to themselves, too. Soon we'll just see them mauling some other poor editor who doesn't have the resources to fight back that Wordbomb had. Remember what happened here. Rather than stop GW/MM, an abuser of WP, from continuing to edit (which they are forced to do now, at least temporarily), just because they knew GW and MM in the past and the evidence wasn't absolutely perfect for a recent case of socking, they protected them from all critcism and attempts to shut them down. This led to outing GW/MM, and finally to piling rocks on the outing of SV, also. And led to Gerard blocking a whole ISP in Utah to get at Wordbomb, rather than to examine whether Wordbomb was right (which he was). Finally, after a monster ArbCom case, they still could not bear to ban Mantanmoreland. Once the thing got going, there was almost nothing these people would not do to protect Mantan, because doing otherwise would be to admit they were backing the wrong horse, which is to say, admitting they were wrong. These people are narcissists, who are never wrong. Are we going to have to go through armageddon every time we identify a sock-using friend of SV and Guy who they've edited with? Apparently so. But they know that's not likely to happen. QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Thu 29th May 2008, 10:37pm)
It would be the fair thing to do to close this now. The unfair thing to do would be to gloat on the future pain that can be inflicted on SlimVirgin, Guy, and the many players of the ArbCom case who have a public record of their denial in the face of the obvious. If you want to play into the hands of those who want to humiliate Wikipedia, carry on with your version of fairness.
What? The public record is useless! What future pain? What evidence do you have of humiliation, except in your own mind? I'll be amazed if the records don't somehow get refactored, redacted, or oversighted! Anybody who ever even wants to refer to them, will be accused of disruption, stalking, personal attack, and harrassment (synomyms for reminding an admin of their previous related fuckups, which don't apply to the reverse of admins doing the same thing to editors). See the Cla68 records. Basically, SV, Guy, Gerard, and the rest of the bunch who defended Mantanmoreland to the last (even Jimbo weighed in), following which MM recidivized (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif), are going to KEEP doing whatever they want, the next time when it's somebody else they like. They HAVE no shame. They are NOT going to be held accountable, and they know it. ArbCom, as we've seen, cannot function in cases of people who have the favor of powerful admins, unless they are checkuser caught in the cookie sock-jar, and usually not even then (MM has been caught now 3 times, I think, and SV once). This case will have no impact at all. And no, I agree, that's not fair. If I thought David "Block Half of Utah" Gerard, and Jimbo "Shoot on Sight" Wales had learned anything from the case, I'd possibly have a different opinion. But they've very scarce right now, and I doubt they've learned anything at all I'm open to suggestions. If it were up to me, I'd remove all their admin powers and make all of them edit nowhere but Simple English Wikipedia for a year. I think they'll all come back with better prose and clearer thoughts. (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/huh.gif) This post has been edited by Milton Roe: |
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QUOTE(Aloft @ Thu 29th May 2008, 4:20pm)
User:Pwntjuice was just banned by FT2 as a sockpuppet of Wordbomb. Was that really you?
I learned a while ago that the answer to that question doesn't matter. I was not Piperdown, I was not Speditor, I was not Jkilla, I was not Errudite (sic), I was not Ldkim, I was not Schroedinger the Cat, I was not Barbamama, I was not Wordy Wiseman, I was not Gnetworker, and on and on. I will say that nothing about Pwntjuice's edits offends me. But I will also say that Pwntjuice's style differs greatly from my own. |
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QUOTE(Moulton @ Thu 29th May 2008, 5:50pm)
You need a Truth and Reconciliation Process.
I would refer you to my post dated February 11 of this year, in which I said: QUOTE What WordBomb wants is a truth and reconciliation effort to take place, in which everybody (myself included) takes ownership of their part in this madness. And that's still what WordBomb wants. Hey, Shalom...please stop and take note of this, and tell me what you make of it: Look at both sides of this issue (me versus SV, Jayjg, JzG, Gerard, Sidaway, Wales, Weiss, etc, etc) and try to identify which of the two is clamoring... begging for an opportunity to put everything on the table, and which side is doing everything possible to keep that from happening. I may not be completely objective on this topic, but I think the distinction is pretty clear. Does that tell you anything at all? |
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QUOTE
Hey, Shalom...please stop and take note of this, and tell me what you make of it:
Look at both sides of this issue (me versus SV, Jayjg, JzG, Gerard, Sidaway, Wales, Weiss, etc, etc) and try to identify which of the two is clamoring...begging for an opportunity to put everything on the table, and which side is doing everything possible to keep that from happening.
I may not be completely objective on this topic, but I think the distinction is pretty clear.
Does that tell you anything at all?
Yes. It tells me that some Wikipedia administrators treated you unfairly. It tells me that Jimbo himself was wrong. It tells me that the dispute resolution process failed to resolve this dispute. You don't need to convince me that the Wikipedia governance system is not well-equipped to handle difficult cases. I work on the inside, and I know how hard it is to judge some of these cases fairly. I do the best job I can. Sometimes, my best effort is not good enough. But I'll keep trying because somebody needs to answer those requests at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets. I think you're falling into the same trap as Moulton. Believe me, if Moulton really wanted to edit Wikipedia, I would strongly support letting him. We let bored teenagers edit articles about TV shows because "anyone can edit." Yet we don't let Moulton edit because he knows too much? I haven't reviewed the Moulton case fully, nor have I spoken publicly about it until now. My understanding is that, in order to accept reinstatement, Moulton wants the Arbitration Committee to issue a formal statement that the banning of Moulton was unfair to begin with. Moulton knows, as does everyone, that the Arbitration Committee will not issue such a statement. Instead of actually returning to edit the encyclopedia, Moulton wants to prove a point. I would say to Moulton: you don't need to convince me. Of course Moulton should not have been indef-blocked. A topic ban could have been tried first. A two-week block could have been tried first. Article probation and mentorship could have been tried first. We try these things for other editors, but the problem is that the folks who banned Moulton are in the group of administrators who don't believe in such subtleties as topic bans or temporary blocks or article probation or mentorship. That's why Wikipedia appears to have no due process: the degree of due process depends on which administrators happen to be involved in a particular case. You will receive more due process from me (I'm not an administrator, but for this context it's close enough) than you will from some other people. Moulton had the misfortune of arguing with people who have less patience than I do. That's life. It is what it is. There's not much I can do about it at this point in time. The best contrast to Moulton is Poetlister. She never asked the Arbitration Committee for a statement that they didn't follow due process. Now I don't think she needs to convince anyone that they didn't follow due process by their own standards. Recall that Poetlister was blocked with ten other user accounts on May 30, 2007. Just one week earlier, on May 23, 2007, ArbCom closed one of its simplest cases ever: Henrygb. This case set the interesting precedent that an administrator with almost three years experience can be banned for refusing to respond to an inquiry from ArbCom. Aside from that, it was an open-and-shut case: Henrygb got stone-cold busted for using two sockpuppets. He was blocked on April 1, 2007, with a log summary "Please contact ArbCom." He was given seven weeks to do so. Instead of making a reasonable response, he started using another sockpuppet, which was blocked during the case. I reviewed the editing history of Henrygb and his two sockpuppets from early 2005 through April 2007 using the same "offdays analysis" that I used to compare the Runcorn/Poetlister group of accounts. The evidence linking Henrygb to Audiovideo was much stronger than the evidence linking Runcorn to Poetlister. Yet ArbCom gave Henrygb seven weeks to respond to these allegations, whereas in the Runcorn/Poetlister case, they decided to shoot first and ask questions later, and refused to open an ArbCom case when Firsfron asked for a formal review in August 2007. So Poetlister darn well knows that "due process" was not followed in her case. She also knows that it's not worthwhile to complain about it. She wanted to edit Wikipedia, and I did whatever I could to help her return to editing Wikipedia. She did not want a formal statement that "due process was not followed," and she did not get that. We know what really happened, and we'll leave it at that. So which path will WordBomb choose: the Moulton path or the Poetlister path? You have two choices with Wikipedia: prove that it doesn't work, or try to make it work. There is no third option. Moulton has chosen to prove that Wikipedia doesn't work, but the result is simply that it doesn't work for Moulton. Poetlister has decided to make it work, so the result is that it does work for Poetlister. WordBomb, you seem to prefer Moulton's approach. You can complain about not receiving due process, but that's not going to reform the process into becoming fairer. The way to make the process fairer is to promote more good administrators, remove the bad administrators, enforce a reasonable balance between BLP and COI, and give more latitude to editors who appear not to understand the nuances of these two somewhat contradictory policies. It may make you feel better to initiate some kind of "cage match" with Jimbo Wales, but it won't actually reform the dysfunctional community that he no longer controls. By the way, I believe you when you say that a certain subset of alleged sockpuppets of WordBomb are not actually yours. |
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| Moulton |
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Anthropologist from Mars
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QUOTE(Shalom @ Thu 29th May 2008, 10:42pm) So which path will WordBomb choose: the Moulton path or the Poetlister path? You have two choices with Wikipedia: prove that it doesn't work, or try to make it work. There is no third option. Why not invent the excluded middle? Why would it not be useful for WordBomb to craft a hybrid path that adopts the best features of the two distinct approaches and drops the less becoming features either? After all the space of all conceivable methods is only constrained by our collective lack of creativity. When the Good Lord inspired Gregor Mendel to experiment with hybrid peas, he came up with thousands of hybrid combinations never seen before. Not a bad outcome for an obscure pea-brained cleric. (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) While I don't barely have a shred of evidence to support this next theory, I nonetheless believe it on faith: WordBomb has a God-given ability to discover and devise a superior method than anyone has manifested so far. QUOTE Moulton has chosen to prove that Wikipedia doesn't work, but the result is simply that it doesn't work for Moulton. I'm confused, Shalom. How did you form that theory of my goal at this phase? John Dear is a Jesuit priest who taught me a valuable lesson: If you want peace, Shalom, work for justice. So please be kind enough to educate me on this obscure point, Shalom: What is the Hebrew word for justice? |
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| dogbiscuit |
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Could you run through Verifiability not Truth once more?
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QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Fri 30th May 2008, 1:07am) Basically, SV, Guy, Gerard, and the rest of the bunch who defended Mantanmoreland to the last (even Jimbo weighed in), following which MM recidivized (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif), are going to KEEP doing whatever they want, the next time when it's somebody else they like. They HAVE no shame. They are NOT going to be held accountable, and they know it. ArbCom, as we've seen, cannot function in cases of people who have the favor of powerful admins, unless they are checkuser caught in the cookie sock-jar, and usually not even then (MM has been caught now 3 times, I think, and SV once). This case will have no impact at all. And no, I agree, that's not fair. If I thought David "Block Half of Utah" Gerard, and Jimbo "Shoot on Sight" Wales had learned anything from the case, I'd possibly have a different opinion. But they've very scarce right now, and I doubt they've learned anything at all I'm open to suggestions. If it were up to me, I'd remove all their admin powers and make all of them edit nowhere but Simple English Wikipedia for a year. I think they'll all come back with better prose and clearer thoughts. (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/huh.gif) I have a simpler view. Given that SV and so on have excuses and have successfully obfusticated the evidence for some time, I know that unless they give any indication of wanting part of a reconciliation, it is not going to happen. Wikipedia has a number of choices, public humiliation, drawing a line, pretending nothing was wrong. I'm sure there are others. Public humiliation is simply divisive, as is pretending nothing was wrong with the Wordbomb attackers' behaviour. There are too many attackers, with too many excuses to get any meaningful public apology - and it will just be cast as playing into the hands of the BADSITEs - giving us satisfaction rather than righting a wrong. So, to those who know about the case, a clear action, such as reinstating Wordbomb by ArbCom or the community (I do not care for the internal politics as to how this happens) makes it clear that the attackers have been over-ruled. If they care to pretend that they have not been beaten, then that is for them to work out how they delude themselves. To those that know, ArbCom, the interested community, those here at WR, we will know that the wrong has been acknowledged and the lesson acknowledged. From this point on, the supporters of Wordbomb have a large number of "I told you so points". I think this will influence thinking on the Cla68 case, the ID Crowd and so on, where there is now such damning evidence that Wikipedia processes have been derailed by inappropriate actions, that ArbCom will have to stop making protective decisions of those that they favour for unfathomable reasons. I'm a great believer in loss of face being a strong motivator to avoid doing the right thing, therefore to achieve the right ends, sometimes we need to forget about"fairness" and simply move on, in the knowledge that the lesson of holding to a belief in the face of overwhelming evidence will have been learnt by some people. This is a give them enough rope moment. Truth and reconciliation comes after acknowledgement, it is not a weapon of war. Of course, the alternative is a further descent into anarchy. I sense that the likes of ArbCom are starting to grasp the implications of tolerating the abuse and are considering how to turn the tanker around - without too much loss of face for ArbCom. |
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QUOTE(Shalom @ Fri 30th May 2008, 3:42am)
The best contrast to Moulton is Poetlister. She never asked the Arbitration Committee for a statement that they didn't follow due process.
No, I knew that there wouldn't be much point. QUOTE
Poetlister has decided to make it work, so the result is that it does work for Poetlister.
Well, half works. I'll believe it does work when a few more people are unblocked. QUOTE(Moulton @ Fri 30th May 2008, 7:00am)
So please be kind enough to educate me on this obscure point, Shalom: What is the Hebrew word for justice?
That's a bit disingenuous of you, Moulton. |
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Moulton: you don't have to ask me what the Hebrew translation of "justice" is. There's an easy trick to find out, and I use it when I have need to find the translation to a particular word. It helps when I'm translating articles from Hebrew Wikipedia into English, as I frequently do, or vice versa. You see, there's this website called "Wikipedia" you may have heard of. (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) On many pages of Wikipedia, there are interwiki links to other languages of Wikipedia. These interwiki links function as a kind of translator's dictionary. Indeed, I am not aware of a free translator's repository that covers as many languages as Wikipedia does. I've been reading Wikipedia for so long that I've found these amazingly arcane ways to milk information from it in places you could not expect to find anything interesting. If you don't feel like going to the "justice" article and clicking the עברית interwiki link, I'll spoil the fun for you and link to the Hebrew Wikipedia article about צדק (tzedek). I just listened to the NTWW episode where you reiterated your stubborn position that you refuse to be unblocked unless there is a Truth and Reconciliation process. You're spending hours on this campaign, and for what? I think you're wasting your time. (Then again, for me to tell other people they're wasting time belongs in the "pot/kettle/black" thread.) You could accept being unblocked as prima facie evidence of justice being done. (Thanks to Kurt Weber for making that phrase common among Wikipedia literati.) I guess I would make the following comparison: someone steals $100 from you. You manage to apprehend the guy and he agrees to return the $100 to you, but he refuses to admit any wrongdoing. You say, "Fine, if you refuse to admit that you stole the money, I don't want it back from you." You make a valid point, but in practice, you've lost yourself a hundred bucks, and you have nobody to blame for that but yourself. I'm not suggesting editing Wikipedia is worth so much as 100 Zimbabwean dollars, let alone American dollars, but if it's worth anything to you, take what is being offered to you. Analogous cases of out-of-court settlements where the offending party does not accept responsibility or apologize for wrongdoing but pays anyway are commonplace. Poetlister: yes, you make valid points. I agree with you. This post has been edited by Shalom: |
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I want to stare at the seaside and do nothing at all
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QUOTE(Shalom @ Fri 30th May 2008, 2:38pm)
I guess I would make the following comparison: someone steals $100 from you. You manage to apprehend the guy and he agrees to return the $100 to you, but he refuses to admit any wrongdoing. You say, "Fine, if you refuse to admit that you stole the money, I don't want it back from you." You make a valid point, but in practice, you've lost yourself a hundred bucks, and you have nobody to blame for that but yourself. I'm not suggesting editing Wikipedia is worth so much as 100 Zimbabwean dollars, let alone American dollars, but if it's worth anything to you, take what is being offered to you. Analogous cases of out-of-court settlements where the offending party does not accept responsibility or apologize for wrongdoing but pays anyway are commonplace.
I think its more like one of those lawsuits where you are offered an out of court settlement in which the defendant pays up but admits no wrongdoing. Do you want the easy money, or do you want to force a trial where you could be proven right, but at considerable cost in time and effort, and which you might lose. |
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Far be it for me to stick up for Moulton, and even though this thread has become yet another arena for Moulton's ramblings, of course he's right in this instance.
The capacity to edit Wikipedia is worthless. Anyone can edit Wikipedia. Just get a new account if one wants to piss around on an online game for hours on end. Also, getting unblocked oneself, or seeing Mantanmoreland blocked, is not important.
What is important is something called "principle" and if one presses a principle as hard as one can, that principle might just stick, and inform future processes in a positive way.
By addressing the core problems, as Moulton and Wordbomb have done, their actions are far more important than some superficial need of an individual editor to right some personal wrong.
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QUOTE(Kato @ Fri 30th May 2008, 12:06pm)
What is important is something called "principle" and if one presses a principle as hard as one can, that principle might just stick, and inform future processes in a positive way.
By addressing the core problems, as Moulton and Wordbomb have done, their actions are far more important than some superficial need to right some personal wrong.
I believe in principle up to a point. I requested the unblock of Twister Twist, a user caught up in a bad checkuser result who never violated any policy, even though Twister Twist had not edited in more than a year. I felt that, regardless of whether Twister Twist even remembers that she used that account on Wikipedia, it violates my principles to allow an unjust block to stand, so I requested an unblock on behalf of that account, and Golbez granted it. I don't think Moulton's insistence on principle falls in the same category. Moulton got into a dispute with Wikipedia administrators. I'm not understanding exactly what happened, but the dispute escalated to an RFC, and from the RFC someone banned him, even though normally there are intermediate steps between an RFC and a ban. If Moulton had been a little more circumspect, the dispute could have been resolved without starting an RFC. (If one formula of "resolved" was "let Wikipedia say what it wants about my colleague, I quit," consider that the current situation for Moulton is not any better than that outcome would have been.) So to me, claiming that Moulton should be unbanned on "principle" is emphasizing technical details while ignoring common sense. If I felt strongly about this case, I would add my voice to those on-wiki calling for his reinstatement. Heck, if I really cared, I could meet him in person because I live in the same metropolitan area as he does. I'm not going to go out of my way to help someone who refuses to help himself. Principle, however you wish to define it, includes being reasonably responsive to other people who want to help you. Moulton has failed on that principle. Ironically, by not trying to help himself, Moulton is being more selfish than if he just accepted reinstatement with no questions asked. By trying to correct the system in a massive blaze of drama instead of working within the system, Moulton is substantively disrupting the system without actually accomplishing anything for himself or for Wikipedia. I don't think you realize this, but Poetlister's unban actually did produce a slight change in the way the Arbitration Committee thinks about bans. FT2 basically admitted that, in the future, the Committee needs to be more open with the community about presenting its evidence in such cases, and he cited the disclosure about Archtransit as an example of such openness. If Moulton had allowed himself to be reinstated, it would have embarrassed some of the editors who were in dispute with him (which is actually happening anyway for other reasons) and it would have led people to think: "Hey, you know, maybe we really did mess up on this one." Instead all people can think about is: "Will Moulton shut up already?" |
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Could you run through Verifiability not Truth once more?
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QUOTE(Kato @ Fri 30th May 2008, 5:06pm)
Far be it for me to stick up for Moulton, and even though this thread has become yet another arena for Moulton's ramblings, of course he's right in this instance.
The capacity to edit Wikipedia is worthless. Anyone can edit Wikipedia. Just get a new account if one wants to piss around on an online game for hours on end. Also, getting unblocked oneself, or seeing Mantanmoreland blocked, is not important.
What is important is something called "principle" and if one presses a principle as hard as one can, that principle might just stick, and inform future processes in a positive way.
By addressing the core problems, as Moulton and Wordbomb have done, their actions are far more important than some superficial need of an individual editor to right some personal wrong.
So Wordbomb shouldn't be unblocked on principle due to his badness, even though in principle he was driven to it. When people do something only for the principle, it is a fair bet that they are heading for trouble. Being a liberal sort of a guy, I can recognise the David Steel concerns of power without principles vs principles without power. It is a grey world, and while we can look to principles to guide us, there is also a need to be pragmatic. The art is understanding that the balance of these is not fixed and when to stick to principles and when to be pragmatic. If you like, principles are guidance, not law. ...and another thing. I think that is why Wikipedia sucks when it comes to process. People are always looking for hard and fast rules, binding precedent, things that make decisions easy. Wikipedia is too complicated for that. You just have to look at the basic policies to realise that taking judgement out of things like assessing reliable sources does not work. Perhaps, in the end, sticking to your principles is about making sure you have precious few principles, but the right ones. Wikipedia has too many and some of them are plain wrong. |
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Known alias of J. Random Troll
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QUOTE(Shalom @ Fri 30th May 2008, 2:38pm)
I guess I would make the following comparison: someone steals $100 from you. You manage to apprehend the guy and he agrees to return the $100 to you, but he refuses to admit any wrongdoing. You say, "Fine, if you refuse to admit that you stole the money, I don't want it back from you." You make a valid point, but in practice, you've lost yourself a hundred bucks, and you have nobody to blame for that but yourself. I'm not suggesting editing Wikipedia is worth so much as 100 Zimbabwean dollars, let alone American dollars, but if it's worth anything to you, take what is being offered to you. Analogous cases of out-of-court settlements where the offending party does not accept responsibility or apologize for wrongdoing but pays anyway are commonplace.
But you'd be surprised how often people hold out for the justice,even if it costs them. We're wired for it. There's a classic psych experiment where a game is set up as follows. Person A is given control of a pot of $10. Then person B makes a one-time take-it-or-leave it offer (no feedback allowed) for how the pot will be divied up between A and B. If B's offer is accepted, both A and B split the money according to the proposed deal. If rejected, neither get any money, and it goes back to the experimental fund. Now the joker is that B's offer is "fake" and is controlled by the experimentors. They still abide by the deal on dividing the money, but there's no second subject B. If B offers A anything more than about $5, the pot is divided and both sides get money. But the interesting thing is that as B begins to offer about $3 or less, A starts to balk, and both sides get nothing, as they know they will. This is truely wierd, because even if B offers 50 cents (meaning B keeps $9.50), A should in theory and rationality take the offer, since A has nothing but gain so long as B offers ANY money to A at all. But in practice, the lower B's offer, the more A is usually willing to forgo ANY money, in order to stand on principle and fairness, and punish B for "greed" when really lopsided and selfish and narcissistic offers by B are made. That is, A is willing to forgo $1 almost all the time, just to see that B doesn't get $9 from a greedy division. I've seen divorce cases like this. One partner, rather than see the other get 80% of a house, will fight until the house-equity is burned up by attornies. They could have settled for 20% instead of effectively nothing, but they could not abide the injustice. Now, there's no point is saying that all of this is irrational. Irrational or not, there are very good reasons to think that we're all socially wired for it. The reason being that if we let somebody get away with 90% THIS time, just so we get %10, we're setting ourselves up for a social predator who figures they can do that to everybody, and is being taught this by experience. You've met people like this in business, if you've done much business. And in law and torts, same way. Yeah, you can more easily get back the money your employee embezzled, without wrong doing-being admitted, if you agree not to go after them hammer and tongs. But with no conviction, and no penalty, that employee goes on to work for somebody else stupid enough not to do a background check and collect references. In fact, that's how YOU got stuck with them. What goes around, comes around, if you allow it to. So there are reasons for these fairness genes, and some of them are NOT irrational, if you see life as a repeated tit-tat game with more than one cycle of play. Which of course, it usually is. Philosophically, Milton |
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meh
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QUOTE(Alison @ Thu 29th May 2008, 1:59am) Okay, so I had a dig around. From what FT2 said; QUOTE On May 14 2008, Bassettcat edited from his normal IP range at both 00:12 and 00:15, followed by an edit made on a second IP located over a thousand miles away at 00:18, and then an edit at his normal dialup IP at 00:21. That was weeks after Thatcher ran the first RFCU case on April 3, so he'd no chance of catching him until MM goofed with that single edit. (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/dry.gif) I find this reassuring - it means the checkusers are doing their due diligence on editors in these areas, and not just letting them slide entirely or checking once and considering an account "clean" after that. |
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here's one. Weiss was very assertive....it took 4 of his sock puppets 2 years of sustained "consensus by sockpuppetry"..... in placing an op-ed piece (curiously devoid of any factual content, lol) by his buddy Joe Nocera into the Byrne-Overstock-Weiss-NakedShorting-etc WP articles. Guess what? Check this out, lol: QUOTE
Deep Capture has come to possess a great number of emails between various journalists and miscreants. In one, the former BusinessWeek reporter brags to the crooked mortgage broker of influencing the contents of Nocera’s “Campaign of Menace†article in The New York Times. “This is totally my doing,†Gary writes. “Yuk. Yuk. Yuk.â€
http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb...msg&mid=5086308That's Patrick Byrne writing that, and he's not kidding. this is more about what sort of "journalist" that WP was letting run roughshod over its own rules and taking down the credibility of WP's "leaders" with it: QUOTE
In another email, Gary recounts his successful campaign to keep a reporter named Liz Moyer from getting a job at BusinessWeek because she has written favorably of companies victimized by short-sellers. Moyer, who is now with Forbes, is one of the few journalists who have accurately described the phantom share problem.
Oh yeah, these emails are going to find a very popular audience someday. Wonder if it will be via a book or via a court transcript (this fall finds Byrne Vs The Baddies in front of a jury)? Since there's 8000 of them, and only 1864 involve Weiss, I'd say that either the Byrne Vs Rocker-Gradient or the Byrne Vs The Brokerages trials are going to let them see the light. I would place very high odds on some mentions about WP in these matters going forward, so I feel it's on-topic for WR, so I bring it up here....although IMHO WP is just a small, funny, sideshow in alll this stuff... This post has been edited by Piperdown: |
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Anthropologist from Mars
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QUOTE(Poetlister @ Fri 30th May 2008, 7:52am) QUOTE(Shalom @ Fri 30th May 2008, 3:42am) The best contrast to Moulton is Poetlister. She never asked the Arbitration Committee for a statement that they didn't follow due process. No, I knew that there wouldn't be much point. I presume you didn't ask them because you already knew the answer. I asked them because I didn't know if the way I was treated was considered normal practice at the English Wikipedia, or if it was a one-off case of a miscarriage of justice. I finally learned (from Lar, mainly) that it is not customary on the English Wikipedia to attempt to be fair. And I learned from WAS 4.250 that it's customary to treat newcomers as mugging victims in Central Park. I honestly didn't expect to learn that. But that's what I learned from Sam Korn, Lar, and WAS 4.250. QUOTE(Poetlister) QUOTE(Shalom) Poetlister has decided to make it work, so the result is that it does work for Poetlister. Well, half works. I'll believe it does work when a few more people are unblocked. So the jury is still out on whether it can be made to work. The prospects do not look good. QUOTE(Poetlister) QUOTE(Moulton @ Fri 30th May 2008, 7:00am) So please be kind enough to educate me on this obscure point, Shalom: What is the Hebrew word for justice? That's a bit disingenuous of you, Moulton. Why is it disingenuous? I realized that, while I knew the Hebrew word for Peace, I didn't know the Hebrew word for Justice. It occurred to me that Shalom probably could just tell me. |
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Anthropologist from Mars
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QUOTE(Shalom @ Fri 30th May 2008, 10:38am) I'll spoil the fun for you and link to the Hebrew Wikipedia article about צדק (tzedek). Oh. I understood that word to mean Righteousness. QUOTE(Shalom) I just listened to the NTWW episode where you reiterated your stubborn position that you refuse to be unblocked unless there is a Truth and Reconciliation process. You're spending hours on this campaign, and for what? I think you're wasting your time. ... You could accept being unblocked as prima facie evidence of justice being done. I didn't say I refused to be unblocked. I said I wasn't asking to be unblocked, because I wasn't planning to edit any mainspace articles under the prevailing culture of the site. My objectives do no require me to edit on Wikipedia. We are very very far from Justice being done, Shalom. Very very far. QUOTE(Shalom) I guess I would make the following comparison: someone steals $100 from you. You manage to apprehend the guy and he agrees to return the $100 to you, but he refuses to admit any wrongdoing. You say, "Fine, if you refuse to admit that you stole the money, I don't want it back from you." You make a valid point, but in practice, you've lost yourself a hundred bucks, and you have nobody to blame for that but yourself. I'm not suggesting editing Wikipedia is worth so much as 100 Zimbabwean dollars, let alone American dollars, but if it's worth anything to you, take what is being offered to you. Analogous cases of out-of-court settlements where the offending party does not accept responsibility or apologize for wrongdoing but pays anyway are commonplace. What they took away from me, Shalom, is my good name. That's what I want back. I'm not interested in an MMPONWMG masquerading as an encyclopedia. I just want my good name back. |
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Byrne's active on WP talk.....apparently to point out to the current Point Man on WP, Nevard, the curious picking of nits, and curious lack of intiative to mention that Samiharris (Gary Weiss)'s championing of a SEC investigation lead-in on Byrne's "Biography" hasn't been updated...odd, lol, since all negative press is immediately plugged in by the usual suspects from sources of the usual suspects ....its nice to see Byrne be allowed to participate in Talk page discussions, just as Mark Devlin should have been as he requested nicely, and more such folks railroaded by Slimmy, Gary, and their merry band of Jimbo's ShootOnSightSquad: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=219359497QUOTE this is a swell example of the kind of absurd picking of nits that underlies the vast bulk of the criticisms cited on this page. Notwithstanding any of this: does it seem odd that, weeks after the newspaper stories have appeared confirming that the SEC investigation has been dropped, unequivocally, and with no action, that the page here still says "an SEC investigation of Byrne and Overstock.com was initiated and remains ongoing"? I mean, the fact that the SEC dropped the investigation and issued a no-action letter is not in any dispute. Here is [http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080606/laf022.html?.v=101 my "Yipikaye" press release] on the subject. Here is [http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080606/overstock_sec.html?.v=1 the AP story] confirming it. Here is a BusinessWeek? article confirming it. Here is http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2...od=yahoobarrons a Barron's story. Yet nearly one month later, the article still says, "an SEC investigation of Byrne and Overstock.com was initiated and remains ongoing" while John Nevard insists upon a Talmudic distinction between a two-old old subpoena addressed to my office and a nearly identical one sent to me ''care'' of my office a week later. Lecture me all you want on "Good Faith": John Nevard's bickering is an ideal example to use to open people's eyes to the agendas and systemic bias that lie beneath these putatively neutral processes.[[User:PatrickByrne|PatrickByrne]] ([[User talk:PatrickByrne|talk]]) 18:05, 29 June 2008 (UTC) |
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Fat Cat
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according to Judd's (wordbomb's) latest podcast, his next podcast will address the infamous 8000 emails. Those are the ones where over 1600 involve Gary, and many of those detail his sock show on Wikipedia. Judd promises it to be a jawdropper, so stay tuned to http://www.deepcapture.com/. Wikipedia is in-play, lol. Jimbo is on CNBC right now, and Becky Quick is complaining about her BLP. Get Gary on the phone, Becky, he edited it, lol. You know Gary don't you? LOL. This post has been edited by Piperdown: |
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QUOTE(Piperdown @ Tue 12th July 2011, 7:15am) Probable Gary Weiss sock alert. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:OccamzRazorFilm noir, penny stock interests. Editing on Microstrategy article echos his BusinessWeek writing on same company circa 2000. I reserve the right to be wrong. I doubt it's Gary. The account was created back in 2007 and didn't get used during the Julian Robertson crisis of early 2010, when Weiss sacrificed all of his known sock assets fighting Cla68. Additionally, the guy seems to edit articles on technologies Weiss could never grasp. Finally, Mr. Razor's behavior on his talk page seems to completely lack the classic douchebaginess that defines most of Weiss's adversarial interactions. That said, I, too, reserve the right to be proven wrong. |
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QUOTE(Abd @ Wed 13th July 2011, 12:12am) QUOTE(WordBomb @ Tue 12th July 2011, 4:24pm) QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 12th July 2011, 12:23pm) Welcome back, Judd! It has been awhile. I couldn't even remember my password. You are one of the all-time heroes, Judd. Indeed. |
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QUOTE(Piperdown @ Wed 13th July 2011, 11:33am) User:ScottyBerg is meeting several Weiss criteria. I was waiting for someone to bring that up. ScottyBerg has been editing the crap out of Weiss's BLP for some time. And this, from Weiss's Twitter, says volumes about the guy. QUOTE gary_weiss Gary Weiss
Amazing new book on Ayn Rand! bit.ly/pYHhhm via @addthis
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QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Thu 22nd September 2011, 12:25am) QUOTE(Piperdown @ Wed 13th July 2011, 11:33am) User:ScottyBerg is meeting several Weiss criteria. I was waiting for someone to bring that up. ScottyBerg has been editing the crap out of Weiss's BLP for some time. It's not the edits to the bio that raise red flags in my eyes: those are fairly innocuous. It's the stuff on the talk page that concerns me. QUOTE == Article or PR Piece? ==
Many of the references in this article point to the subject's own self-written website [http://www.gary-weiss.com]. Reading it, I found that portions of this article are taken almost verbatim from that same site. That, plus evidence suggesting the subject himself originally wrote the article makes me think it deserves a comprehensive re-writing (or elimination?).[[Special:Contributions/174.253.190.211|174.253.190.211]] ([[User talk:174.253.190.211|talk]]) 03:53, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
:No, the tone here is neutral and the personal website is used appropriately. You've just returned from a 72 hour block for BLP violations in this article, for adding negative unsourced information, and appear to have a personal animosity toward this subject suggestive of a [[WP:COI|conflict of interest]]. Please be aware of the "Article probation" section at the top of this page applies, as it concerns adherence to site policies and disclosure of "any circumstances (but not including personal identifying information) that constitute or may reasonably be perceived as constituting a conflict of interest with respect to that page." [[User:ScottyBerg|ScottyBerg]] ([[User talk:ScottyBerg|talk]]) 17:15, 17 May 2011 (UTC) |
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QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Mon 31st October 2011, 8:43pm) QUOTE(Piperdown @ Mon 31st October 2011, 10:40am)
Can't wait to not read Gary's new fuck-you-jimbo book about Ayn Rand cultism. Getting kicked off WP really focused his work!
If Scotty Berg adds his book to Rand's BLP as a reference, one should not be shocked.
Gee, thanks for trying to cheer us up. (not) Weiss is such damaged goods at this point, I'm amazed anyone would hire him to give a speech. It's about time he started going after the real WP problems, although he really should have done that in 2006, instead of running a personal wargame on WP servers...... I think you're exaggerating the impact on wikiwars in the real world. If you google "Gary Weiss" you won't see anything about his wikiadventures until the third page of results. |
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QUOTE(cookiehead @ Wed 4th January 2012, 4:13pm)
Scotty Berg it is for the latest incarnation. Confirmed today.
Well look at that. Tough to think of another good explanation. He certainly can't claim he just randomly arrived on recent changes duty, like last time...he's been off for 24 hours. He also let his slip show there at the beginning, and then caught himself and took a step back. Hopefully this will be enough for a CU. |
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QUOTE(that one guy @ Wed 11th January 2012, 10:10pm)
Though I'm iffy on the CU evidence, it should have been stale unless Alison has the info from FT2 from way back when.
CU evidence isn't always IP evidence. That's a very common fallacy. In fact, for any but the most inexperienced sockmaster, IP evidence is rarely helpful. Still, it's true that people do keep records. |
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QUOTE(cookiehead @ Wed 11th January 2012, 8:12pm)
But wow I do notice that Wikipedia articles appear to be frozen in 2008. Did the Wikiverse come under a 28 Days type Zombie attack since then? Virtually every article I read goes through this cycle:
2005: created (often out of spite)
2006-2008: Violent Clashes of Creativity in Editing
2009: Eventual acceptance and placement of "this article sucks because of <tag here>"
2010-2012: Zombiehood
You are correct. I've done intensive statistical analysis of 200 random articles, and discovered that the addition of actual information to them peaked out in 2009, and is now dropping. Instead of actual edits that add information, admins and fanboys are using bots to pretend to edit articles, by thrashing them with minor reformattings, cross-wiki linking, and other crap. And more to the point, they lie about it, and deny any such process. |
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QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Thu 12th January 2012, 2:30am) QUOTE(cookiehead @ Wed 11th January 2012, 8:12pm)
But wow I do notice that Wikipedia articles appear to be frozen in 2008. Did the Wikiverse come under a 28 Days type Zombie attack since then? Virtually every article I read goes through this cycle:
2005: created (often out of spite)
2006-2008: Violent Clashes of Creativity in Editing
2009: Eventual acceptance and placement of "this article sucks because of <tag here>"
2010-2012: Zombiehood
You are correct. I've done intensive statistical analysis of 200 random articles, and discovered that the addition of actual information to them peaked out in 2009, and is now dropping. Instead of actual edits that add information, admins and fanboys are using bots to pretend to edit articles, by thrashing them with minor reformattings, cross-wiki linking, and other crap. And more to the point, they lie about it, and deny any such process. Yeah, I can confirm this as well. In fact that outline is a very good encapsulation of Wikipedia development since 2005. I would replace "Violent Clashes of Creativity in Editing" with "Lots of editing and edit wars" but more or less the same thing. At some point they're gonna start missing the good ol' days where people actually gave enough of a shit to edit war over articles but in the process... at least edited articles. Now it's just bots making minor (and often dumb and incorrect) changes or some kids creating copy/paste COPYVIOs. |
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Well golly, try to help highlight Weiss's own lecturing endeavors on his wonderful results from weight loss surgery, which he and major media sources include on their websites as 1 of most important things about him, and try and include it in his article, and....it gets turned around to be a personal attack on "his weight" in a "I'm a victim of WR" passion play. Sure, maybe some people have made fun on it on Wikipedia Review, but its a barren place inhabited by all sorts of evil.
What he really objected to is the start of a "Personal life" section (with a positive mention about his successful battle against weightloss with surgery, which he gets paid to speak about, and so is a notable part of his biography). Virtually every BLP I edit has a "Personal Life" section. As long as its contents are sourced and not controversial, and not about yourself, apparently. Otherwise it's fair game to edit in exact wedding dates of relatively obscure private people, names of non-notable family members, high school football exploits of siblings, etc.
If you were safeguarding your BLP with a hairtrigger revert finger for years, would you want a "Personal life" can of worms section opened up? Imagine what could go on there in between reverts. What next, we have to edit out Al Roker's weightloss? Weiss did good. He lectures on it. That and the Klebnikov thing are both fine, outstanding items for a "personal life" section. You'd think. Although I can't find any actual action on his part in Project Klebnikov.
And please CU me again, Gary and "Mongo", whose mongoness gets worse with age. It's been done every other month lately. You won't find anything fun except my recent battle to document the epic Joe Kapp - Al Mosca battle, only to be undermined by a Canadian Football League homemade online encyclopedia spammer.
I'd let Gary keep on editing as Scotty Buurrrg (say it like John Houseman, it will make his edits funnier to read during your paper chase). His autobiography, OK, topicockblock him for being an idiot about it, and not helpful at all. He surely has a sleeper sockfarm ready to go for the Great Randian Push of 2012. Don't fight it, embrace Gary. He is Wikipedia. Plus he's older than 18, been published despite overcoming a severely challenged writing talent, and knows how to game WP like no one's business by now.
Wikipedia is an even worse wild west of BLP abuse than ever. There's no point in trying to keeping pissing into a hurricane. The system is decaying, not improving. Readers, pray you don't become "notable".
This post has been edited by cookiehead:
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QUOTE(WordBomb @ Fri 13th January 2012, 4:55am) QUOTE(Zoloft @ Thu 12th January 2012, 7:48pm) Verbal IEDÂ (T-C-L-K-R-D)
Word... ...Bomb? that's very clever, but it wasn't me. Dang...I do wish I'd thought of it. I take full responsibility. DS |
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QUOTE(Cla68 @ Sun 15th January 2012, 10:22am) There are consequences for untoward behavior. Now that "Scotty" can no longer defend his bio, it takes almost two hours for forbidden information to be removed. No, someyimes it takes below an hour. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gary_Weiss&diff=next&oldid=471485342] |
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QUOTE(Fusion @ Sun 15th January 2012, 9:22pm) QUOTE(Cla68 @ Sun 15th January 2012, 10:22am) There are consequences for untoward behavior. Now that "Scotty" can no longer defend his bio, it takes almost two hours for forbidden information to be removed. No, someyimes it takes below an hour. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gary_Weiss&diff=next&oldid=471485342] Once the article is unprotected, an easy way to smoke out Mantan's new accounts is to add the Register articles by Cade Metz about WP and naked short selling as references at the end of the line, "He criticized Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne and his campaign against naked short selling" without changing any of the text. Mantan will not be able to abide even having any of those articles linked to in his WP promotional page, and will remove them quickly if no one else does. |
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QUOTE(TungstenCarbide @ Fri 20th January 2012, 12:13am) QUOTE(cookiehead @ Fri 20th January 2012, 4:41am)
what's Gary doing nowadays? Doesn't seem to be working anywhere. Getting on the Ayn Rand gravytrain. Keep up, man! |
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What User:ScottyBerg does in his wiki jail time. Free Berg! http://seekingalpha.com/article/321167-whe...ne-s-smear-site Where In The World Is Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne's Smear Site? on Mon, Jan 23 • OSTK • Comment! Christmas In January For Green Mountain Executives on Tue, Jan 17 • OSTK • 12 Comments Overstock.com Naked Shorting Lawsuit Ends In A Whimper on Wed, Jan 11 • OSTK • Comment! Overstock.com Gives Conflicting Statements On Layoffs on Mon, Jan 9 • OSTK • Comment! Does Patrick Byrne's Overstock.com Face Bankruptcy In 2012? on Tue, Jan 3 • OSTK • Comment! Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Surpasses Overstock.com As Worst Stock of 2011 on Thu, Dec 29, 2011 • GMCR, OSTK • 17 Comments Utah Newspapers, AP, Continue To Shill For Overstock.com on Tue, Dec 27, 2011 • OSTK • 5 Comments Overstock.com Litigation Roundup: Byrne Gets Contempt Reprieve, Goldman Suit Goes Poorly on Fri, Dec 16, 2011 • OSTK, GS • 13 Comments Overstock.com's Patrick Byrne Runs To The Border, Won't Duke It Out With 'Miscreant' on Thu, Dec 8, 2011 • OSTK • 9 Comments Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne's Drop-Dead Date: December 13 on Mon, Dec 5, 2011 • OSTK • 4 Comments Overstock.com Losing Skirmish With California Prosecutors on Wed, Nov 30, 2011 • OSTK • 1 Comment Contempt Of Court Order Sought Against Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, Google on Mon, Nov 28, 2011 • OSTK • 1 Comment Netflix And Overstock: 2 Companies Where Stupidity Reigns on Tue, Nov 22, 2011 • OSTK • 1 Comment Why I Won't Write About Green Mountain Coffee on Fri, Nov 18, 2011 • GMCR, OSTK • 38 Comments Overstock.com: Only In Utah on Thu, Nov 17, 2011 • OSTK • Comment! |
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Of course, the confused now come to Jimbo's talk page.. They're finding some harsh truths about how things work over there. They never realized how often actually innocent people have been treated this way in the past. Hmm... QUOTE I think the more interesting question in this case is not about whether ArbCom has done the right thing or not. (That's always interesting of course, but I am talking about what is MORE interesting.) The more interesting question is whether or not we can construct a good protocol by which someone in this situation can "come in from the cold". He's made a lot of perfectly decent edits, some that were questionable, but on the whole in this incarnation (as far as I am aware) he's a mostly ok editor. I would personally be supportive of the community having a discussion to approve him to edit as long as he stops with the sockpuppeting and just edits under his real name.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:41, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
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