Slimvirgin gets slashdotted, No place to hide... Options

Link to slashdot[

"International Humanitarian Law professor Ludwig Braeckeleer thinks so. In an article published yesterday in the Korean newspaper OhMyNews, he reveals a discovery he made while researching a story on the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland. It turns out that a Wikipedia administrator named SlimVirgin is actually Linda Mack, a woman who as a young graduate in the 1980s was hired by investigative reporter Pierre Salinger of ABC News to help with the investigation. Salinger later came to believe that Mack was actually working for Britain's MI5 on a mission to investigate the bombing and to infiltrate and monitor the news agency. Shortly after her Wikipedia identity was uncovered, many of her edits to articles related to the bombing were permanently removed from the database in an attempt to conceal her identity. This discovery comes only months after another Wikipedia admin was caught lying about his credentials to the press. What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?"

Bring popcorn. This one could get interesting.

Link to slashdot[
Bring popcorn. This one could get interesting.

You seldom get such good seats to watch a story move up the journalistic food-chain.

ATTACK SITE AIR RAID!

Wow.

Take a look at the comments. One WP apologist named sepluv (641107) writes

In Wikipedia, appeals to personal authority don't work at all, unlike Britannica, which bases its entire approach on these. They are at either end of these extremes, and both work to some extent. Being in the middle would like not work at all.

What new nonsense is this? Yeah, Britannica's methods of employing numerous experts and fact checkers is "extreme" and worked "to some extent".

ATTACK SITE AIR RAID!

Wow.

File an RFC -NOW-. This woman may have THOUSANDS of WP:COI violations. This should be investigated. Seriously.


Get filing!!!!

This post has been edited by GoodFaith:

We have our first winner!

Wow, I was just banned from editing by Crum375 for posting a question to her talk page, asking if she was Linda Mack/Sarah McEwan and part of an intelligence agency. I guess Crum375 doesn't feel that is relevant to an editor's NPOV considerations so my reason for banning was "Harassment and attempted outing of a fellow editor".

It might qualify as harassment if it wasn't totally relevant to her NPOV and should be known by fellow editors but as far as I can find, "attempted outing of a fellow editor" isn't even in the policy guidelines. I really do believe this is just a sockpuppet of hers.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=147547715

Deleted thread on ANI;

User talk:SlimVirgin

Due to edit wars on User talk:SlimVirgin, I've protected the page for 24 hours. If you disagree, feel free to revert, but I submit that SV can revert whenever she returns and wants to, until then email is available, and it is possible that we do not want certain topics posted. I really don't have an opinion either way, but I wanted to get protection in ASAP. Also, remember that WP:OVERSIGHT is an option if we want it. Questions here are:

* Reverts by Crum: Good or bad?
* Protection: Leave it or remove it?
* How do we proceed?

--ST47Talk·Desk 22:17, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Note: Additionally, Crum375 has removed related comments from his/her talk. --ST47Talk·Desk 22:20, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Reverts against me and you [ST47] - bad. I hardly doubt either of us would dream of outing her. Then again, Crum is acting in hers and the project's best interests and protection seems acceptable given it's on the front page of Slashdot. Will (talk) 22:22, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at the comments. One WP apologist named sepluv (641107) writes

In Wikipedia, appeals to personal authority don't work at all, unlike Britannica, which bases its entire approach on these. They are at either end of these extremes, and both work to some extent. Being in the middle would like not work at all.

What new nonsense is this? Yeah, Britannica's methods of employing numerous experts and fact checkers is "extreme" and worked "to some extent".

Yes, if you mean "has served as a beacon of scholarship for more than 200 years" by "extreme", then of course. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unsure.gif)

Here we see the full fruits of Slimvirgin's attacks on Daniel Brandt (and everyone else) - her past life is now be blasted around the world and she can't delete or ban the perpetrators.

How long until we see an article called [[SlimVirgin controversy]] on Wikipedia to go with [[Essjay controversy]]? We can then get [[Category:Former wikipedians who edited under false pretenses]] and add [[SlimVirgin controversy]] to {{Template:History of Wikipedia}}.

Here we see the full fruits of Slimvirgin's attacks on Daniel Brandt (and everyone else) - her past life is now be blasted around the world and she can't delete or ban the perpetrators.

The Linda Mack story is common knowledge, I thought.

According to WP's own article on Slashdot (which could mean anything quite frankly) "famous or well-known active Slashdotters" include Der Jimbo himself. I wonder how Der Jimbo will feel about having his very own Miss Moneypenny outed in one of his favorite hang-outs. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/happy.gif)

According to WP's own article on Slashdot (which could mean anything quite frankly) "famous or well-known active Slashdotters" include Der Jimbo himself. I wonder how Der Jimbo will feel about having his very own Miss Moneypenny outed in one of his favorite hang-outs. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/happy.gif)

I just perused wikien-l. They are in the "Essjay is our boy and we're sticking with him" phase of denial.

How long until we see an article called [[SlimVirgin controversy]] on Wikipedia to go with [[Essjay controversy]]? We can then get [[Category:Former wikipedians who edited under false pretenses]] and add [[SlimVirgin controversy]] to {{Template:History of Wikipedia}}.

There is a case to be made that Linda's editing of the PanAm 103 article is the equivalent of Essjay's editing of articles on Catholicism. Both made edits under false pretenses.

First of all, you have to admit that no one who knows anything about Lockerbie claims that the Libyans did it. This includes Robert Baer, who was the CIA officer closely involved with the investigation. The Libyans were used to redirect the investigation away from Syria, because Syria's support for the Gulf War was considered more important than an honest investigation. The one Libyan who was convicted will probably end up getting a new trial. The CIA, the FBI, Scotland Yard, and MI5 and their friends planted evidence in order to focus on the Libyans.

How do you reconcile these three items:

1) John K. Cooley said, "Once the two Libyan suspects were indicted, she seemed to try to point the investigation in the direction of Qaddafi, although there was plenty of evidence, both before and after the trials of Maghrebi and Fhima in the Netherlands, that others were involved, probably with Iran the commissioning power."

2) Daniel and Susan Cohen lost their daughter on PanAm 103. They have aggressively supported the "Libya did it" theory, to the consternation of many with an interest in the case. In their book, on page 233, they state that "with Linda Mack taking the lead, we helped to organize a petition against the film." The film they're referring to was a 1994 documentary by Alan Francovich titled "The Maltese Double-Cross," which presented a conspiracy theory that was at odds with those pushing the Libyan angle. The point is that this item supports Cooley's statement that Linda Mack was working to push the Libyan angle (or at least working to suppress points of view that did not support the Libyan angle).

3) All of a sudden, by 2005, Linda no longer buys the Libyan angle. Her comment here refers to the convicted Libyan as a "miscarriage of justice which has put a man in jail for 27 years."

This evidence suggests that Linda was indeed working for outside interests when Pierre Salinger locked her out of her office at the London bureau of ABC News in the early 1990s. Either that, or sometime between 1994 and 2005 she had a "come to Jesus" moment and realized that she was on the wrong side of the truth. But if you look at her editing on Wikipedia on the Lockerbie tragedy, it seems that Linda is engaged in damage control more than anything. The keyword here is "control." She needs to control that article, because it has the potential for considerable damage.

Unlike the Essjay situation, this is not an amusing case of Catholicism for Dummies. This is a fundamental perversion of the editing process. Linda should have recused herself from all editing on any Lockerbie article, because she has conflicts of interest and zero credibility.

Either that, or sometime between 1994 and 2005 she had a "come to Jesus" moment and realized that she was on the wrong side of the truth.

Recall that by 2005 Gaddafi had become an ally and friend of the Slim generation. Generation doyen Nelson Mandela had brokered various deals, and the business community needed Gaddafi's oil. It became acceptable at dinner parties to deny Libya's involvement, and blame more topical foes - Iran, Palestinians and so on. It is unsurprising that someone like Slim, the embodiment of the liberal zeitgeist and the chattering class, would change her tune.

This post has been edited by Kato:

A new low for Slashdot
(Score:2)
by jwales (97533) Alter Relationship on Friday July 27, @08:10PM (#20018335)
(http://search.wikia.com/)
This story is demented and broken on so many levels, it is quite difficult to know where to begin, even.

Here we have an excellent Wikipedia administrator who has been victimized by lunatic conspiracy theorists, a private person who has absolutely no relation to the wild stories that this article promulgates.

Slashdot, you have been trolled.
--
Wikia Search [wikia.com]

Why are these people so obsessed with Lyndon Larouche? He is a minor, isolated eccentric. Who cares?

Slashdot, you have been trolled.

A troll is anyone who wins an argument against an admin.

I just perused wikien-l. They are in the "Essjay is our boy and we're sticking with him" phase of denial.

There are dozens of Essjays and SlimVirgins. You have to become a complete public nuisance to be held accountable.

JUST A PARANOID ANNOUNCEMENT:

Save everything that is posted related to this, code and/or screenshot

there may be a disappearing act shortly......

Take a look at the comments. One WP apologist named sepluv (641107) writes

In Wikipedia, appeals to personal authority don't work at all, unlike Britannica, which bases its entire approach on these. They are at either end of these extremes, and both work to some extent. Being in the middle would like not work at all.

What new nonsense is this? Yeah, Britannica's methods of employing numerous experts and fact checkers is "extreme" and worked "to some extent".

Forgive me, but I thought they meant extreme as in opposite ends of the spectrum.

Wikipedia works by anti-intellectualism. Britannica works by intellectualism.

I'd disagree on the "to some extent" though.

LOL ! I knew this was going to spread like wildfire.

The Cabal must be freaking out.

One of their most important members and the co-administrator of the 'Israel / Mideast disinfo bureau' (and her sock) have been outed!

LOL !

Karma.

429 comments so far!

Ouch.

This post has been edited by FNORD23:

Is WR even mentioned there? I mean we're basically responsible.

And Slashdot - thank you! I had hoped that this story would get bigger. For a brief period I thought that it might manage to be swept under the carpets. But it is a big issue, and needs to be exposed.

Doesn't look like she's going to be able to hide from this anymore.

Doesn't look like she's going to be able to hide from this anymore.

They're trying like hell over there to make that happen, though.

I don't know if it's true or not, but there's really no better way to have people assume guilt than to play games like this.

And now, I've blogged it too under the subject "Notorious Wikipedia administrator gets Slashdotted".

If she thinks Daniel Brandt and Wikipedia Review outing her is bad, now the press have done it and it's probably all over the blogosphere.

If she thinks intimidating Wikipedia Review will silence the "outings", it's gone wayy beyond that now.

In fact, I would like to see her try to intimidate the press to remove the article - or intimidate me to remove the blog post, neither have any chance of working.

On the Wikipedia mailing list, they are arguing about possible oversighted edits by SlimVirgin that were done to protect her identity.

That reminded me of an old post of mine, where I described Slim's very first edit on Wikipedia. The only record of this is on Wikipedia Review, naturally. (Is it a good idea to keep the search engines out of the Editors forum? I had to use the WR search engine to find it! Horrors!)

This is a hot item, it seems to me — primarily because the edit history is completely missing now from Wikipedia and it was an edit that is revealing about SlimVirgin's identity.

Here is the Wikipedia Review post.

If you look at the current Pierre Salinger history list, you will see that nothing at all happened on November 5, 2004 to this article, in direct contradiction of my post of 13 months ago. Yet the edit done by SlimVirgin remains in the current article.

Pffft! Down the memory hole. Winston Smith (1984) would be proud. Can someone with better Wikipedia forensic skills than mine recover more information about who deleted this history?

Selina kept a lot of information, but Selina sadly is on holiday at the moment. We must wait until she returns. And hopefully Selina hasn't wiped it in the meantime or forgotten where she put it.

Hmm, well wikien-l should be required reading here, and I'm sure most of you have read it.

It seems that it is WR's fault that this information was on the front page of slashdot? Will they realize that maybe some people outside of wiki land may care about who is disseminating knowledge and what their motivation may be?

After all, it is awful strange to be in the same camp as a fool who doesn't care if an editor is an intelligence agent or not. Again, there may may be a story here and there might not be. That is why there is investigative journalism.

"I regard it as an attempt to manipulate information and don't really have a problem with it." - Jwales

Well, if it is Wikipedia Review's fault, then surely they'll link to us when describing it in their article about it?

We did put out an awful lot of information which assisted people to find out about this. Its just that Wikipedia was able to keep a lid on Wikipedia Review. Sadly, when it got to more mainstream press, the lid came off.

Actually, there is a law in many countries that the true names of secret agents can never be uncovered. I don't know what the laws are in USA, if its the same, or if this case is one where its okay to uncover their identities. So on that basis, perhaps that's why they are going to lengths to protect her? After all, SlimVirgin is doing her bit for her country. Or for a country at least.

Actually, there is a law in many countries that the true names of secret agents can never be uncovered. I don't know what the laws are in USA, if its the same, or if this case is one where its okay to uncover their identities. So on that basis, perhaps that's why they are going to lengths to protect her? After all, SlimVirgin is doing her bit for her country. Or for a country at least.

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 is the law that applies in the U.S., and therefore is relevant to U.S.-based Wikimedia Foundation.

It protects CIA officers and agents to some extent, but the provisions are fairly narrow. If you don't have access to classified information, the chances of violating this law are rather slim. A journalist, for example, does not normally have access to classified information. No journalist has ever been prosecuted under this law.

The Valerie Plame case was different. Those who exposed her were connected with the White House and presumably had access (i.e., security clearances) to this information. The penalties are more severe in this case, and the law is broader.

The shoe is probably on the other foot. If, for example, Wikimedia Foundation is aware that SlimVirgin is an agent of a foreign power (yes, Canada and Britain are foreign), then one could make the case that Wikimedia Foundation is obligated to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938. This is a fairly simple disclosure statute. I haven't researched the issue, but as far as I know the Foundation is most likely under no obligation to pursue the issue with SlimVirgin to determine if registration is required. Even if the Foundation was fully aware that Slim was an agent for Britain or Canada or Israel, and tried to cover it up, I doubt that any U.S. prosecutor would get very excited about the issue. If she was an agent for Al-Qaeda the situation might be different.

We're in vague territory here, particularly when you add the transnational nature of cyberspace into the equation. But I think we're very far from a situation where an investigative effort to uncover Slim would run afoul of any U.S. laws.

We did put out an awful lot of information which assisted people to find out about this. Its just that Wikipedia was able to keep a lid on Wikipedia Review. Sadly, when it got to more mainstream press, the lid came off.

Agree. What I am thinking though is that this information was always here for someone to find, whether or not WR existed or not. Daniel Brandt of course did a lot of work in this, as did WR, but I'm of the opinion that if WR and Mr. Brandt weren't around, someone would have picked it up.

Although, the synchronicity of Daniel Brandt looking into this SlimVirgin matter is amazing to me, but maybe I read too much into things. That's another esoteric rant for another time.

Back on topic though, I wonder if when an investigative journalist with a mainstream media entity picks this thing up and at least reports on the idea of an intelligence agent spreading disinformation via Wikipedia, if it will still be nutty, and still be WR's fault.

92 Blogs and counting:

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl...nG=Search+Blogs

The information is spreading like wildfire. Essjay actually spread slower than this initially.

Regular Wikipedians are mocking her

== Guess who's in the news? ==
An IRC friend left me this nifty link to an article on [http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=374006&rel_no=1&back_url= english.ohmynews.com] that rather mentions you by name. Didn't know if you've seen it yet, and granted it's not exactly the AP or Reuters... Oh, by the way, "R" says "Code 14 Olive". Meeting is at the usual place. <b><i><font color="#FF00FF">~Kylu ([[User:Kylu|u]]|[[User talk:Kylu|t]]) </font></i></b> 03:22, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

== You've been in the news a bit. ==
read on Slashdot that you've been accused of being a secret agent. There is an article about it at [http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=374006&rel_no=1]. Care to comment on this, or am I just going to get reverted as "trolling"?

== You and MI5 ==
Just in case you didn't know, someone mentioned this link to me: [http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=374006&rel_no=1] . Apparently you're an undercover spy working to infiltrate the wiki. Enjoy, --[[User:ST47|ST47]]<small>[[User talk:ST47|Talk]]&middot;[[User:ST47/Desk|Desk]]</small> 21:45, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

== Have you seen this? ==
[http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=374006&rel_no=1&back_url= FYI.] —[[User:Cleared as filed|Cleared as filed.]] 11:47, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

And of course, a troll

== MI5 ==
Is it true? I've always known you were a piece of shit, but god damn.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=256781...ed&pid=20018335

Jimbo's post on slash about this, and replies.

92 Blogs and counting:

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl...nG=Search+Blogs

The information is spreading like wildfire. Essjay actually spread slower than this initially.

To be fair, it looks like only two have picked up the story (after Slashdot). The others are older stuff, although some of them may be dealing with more or less the same thing, since it has been around for a while.

I remember the MC5, led by guitarist Wayne Kramer, were one of the hardest-rockin' bands of the late-60's/early-70's era, with songs like "Kick Out the Jams" and "Shakin' Street." Man, they rocked! But I doubt that SlimVirgin was ever a member... or if she was, she did a much better job of keeping it off the internet.

We all have to remember that this has occurred as the result of a confluence of extremely unusual circumstances and coincidences. What are the chances that Slimmy would have bought a copy of Namebase in the early 90's by asking her boyfriend to physically go to Daniel Brandt's office to buy one? And that she'd then start an article about Brandt, only to delete it a few days later, but then have it restored by some Google-fan she probably had never heard of before? And what are the chances that she'd run into yet another editor who just happened to be obsessed with attacking a corporate CEO whom she'd known 20 years before, in Oxford-Cambridge of all places, and who had offended her by asking someone to pass him some French Fries using a phony British accent? And on top of that, to have someone affiliated with said CEO be one of the most tenacious and dedicated IP-address and sock-puppet trackers any of us have ever encountered in our entire online lives? And that he and Brandt would both end up on the same message board?

In spite of it all, I actually expect this to blow over, probably within a week or two, followed by the usual denials.

At the same time, I often wonder... What would a post-Slimmy Wikipedia be like? Would editors finally be able to take the Nazis out of the Martin Luther article, for example? Would they be allowed to make references to Bosnian Holocaust victims? Would it even become acceptable to make links to the Animal Rights article from the Animal Liberation Front article actually say "animal rights"?

Personally, I doubt it, but life is full of surprises, I suppose!

92 Blogs and counting:

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl...nG=Search+Blogs

The information is spreading like wildfire. Essjay actually spread slower than this initially.

I remember I had multiple posts on the Essjay thing. I wonder if I'll have multiple posts on the SV thing too...

To be fair, it looks like only two have picked up the story (after Slashdot). The others are older stuff, although some of them may be dealing with more or less the same thing, since it has been around for a while.

Mine is one of them.

It's still relatively slow going. It is yet to be picked up by a major news source. When that happens, then it will be out there for real. But ultimately if Wikipedia can avoid that ever happening then they will have escaped this one intact.

This would explain why, though the world sleeps, about 40 uniques per hour (and growing) are arriving at AntiSocialMedia.net having googled SlimVirgin and/or Linda Mack.

This story has officially broken through from ultra-niche to niche, and I see too much momentum to not transition to quasi-proto-mainstream via mass media within the week.

Yes, I'm predicting a large jump in the number of qualifying "attack sites" very soon.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=256781...ed&pid=20018335

Jimbo's post on slash about this, and replies.

I liked this one in particular:

A new low for Jimbo Wales(Score:1)
by BiteMeJimbo (1133965) on Friday July 27, @11:54PM (#20019959)

Jimmy, you've been looking the other way while your Wikipedia project has been going up in smoke. SlimVirgin/Linda Mack is an unbalanced control freak with an agenda to push. Multiple agendas, really. But to you, she's "an excellent Wikipedia administrator." Pierre Salinger, who only gave her a job, a platform, resources and instant credibility, decided that he couldn't trust this duplicitous bitch. But you think Wikipedia can because -- ? It's because you're a dumb-ass, Jimmy. It's possible that systemic problems with the wiki format will always lead to a wiki becoming crap if it expands too much, but your stewardship has actively advanced destructive forces at Wikipedia. You should've stuck with the porn, Jimmy. Instead, you've made yourself permanently associated with a crap enterprise; Jimmy, you're the Ahab of the Internet.

Needless to say, the Slashdot crowd didn't find Jimmy's whine very convincing.

I couldn't resist.

I probably could've said something wittier if it wasn't past 5am.

(I should probably abandon that account because it says nathanrdotcom but I really can't be bothered)

Oh my word. SlimVirgin had an agenda to push? But she hid it so well...

f

I couldn't resist.

I probably could've said something wittier if it wasn't past 5am.

Can you imagine how funny it would be to see Slim read a comment like yours, reflexively try to delete it, only to be reminded that, away from her sordid Slim Lair, she's just like us (or lower, considering she lives in Saskatchewan)?

Tsk tsk.. Jimbo

{{Warning}}

Your edit is a violation of [[WP:AGF]] [wikipedia.org] and [[WP:TROLL]] [wikipedia.org]. If you continue to troll you could be temporarily banned.

We all have to remember that this has occurred as the result of a confluence of extremely unusual circumstances and coincidences. What are the chances that Slimmy would have bought a copy of Namebase in the early 90's by asking her boyfriend to physically go to Daniel Brandt's office to buy one? And that she'd then start an article about Brandt, only to delete it a few days later, but then have it restored by some Google-fan she probably had never heard of before? And what are the chances that she'd run into yet another editor who just happened to be obsessed with attacking a corporate CEO whom she'd known 20 years before, in Oxford-Cambridge of all places, and who had offended her by asking someone to pass him some French Fries using a phony British accent? And on top of that, to have someone affiliated with said CEO be one of the most tenacious and dedicated IP-address and sock-puppet trackers any of us have ever encountered in our entire online lives? And that he and Brandt would both end up on the same message board?

One breakthrough was the connection showing that one S.McEwan in Swalwell, Alberta had registered the domain slimvirgin.com, and that this was probably the same as one Sarah McEwan from Canada who wrote a couple of letters to a newspaper in Britain defending animal rights on the foxhunting issue. That domain was created in May, 2002. The email address on the domain registration was already bouncing; it was slimvirgin1@yahoo.com. Slim signs the name "Sarah" on Wikipedia. Unless my memory is faulty, her IP address geolocated to Alberta when she first got involved with my biography. But in recent months, her IP address geolocates to somewhere in Saskatchewan. She's somewhere in central Canada, at any rate.

But the biggest breakthrough of all came from a member of this board in June, 2006. Knowing that SlimVirgin on her user page had identified herself as an alumnus of Cambridge, this board member found an obscure page on the Kings College, Cambridge web site. Twenty pages deep, and seen only with a mouseover (to keep the search engines out), this board member discovered that a mouseover on the name of alumnus Linda Mack showed an email address of slimvirgin1@yahoo.com. This board member sent me an email informing me of the discovery. I recognized the name Linda Mack instantly.

Then by looking at SlimVirgin's early edits on Wikipedia, it was obvious that she was obsessed with PanAm 103, just as Linda Mack was known to be obsesseed with PanAm 103. I started looking for stubs she created and found a couple of ABC-affiliated journalists among these stubs. One of them was reachable on the web, and he generously gave me contact information for John K. Cooley in Athens. I wanted to contact Cooley because in a book written by someone who was involved in the PanAm 103 investigation, he mentioned getting a call from Cooley requesting an interview, and then Cooley passed the telephone to Linda Mack, who asked the questions.

Cooley responded to my email quite quickly. I had already posted on this board that I had found Cooley and was hoping to get a response. That response revealed the information about Salinger's suspicions and Mack getting locked out of her office by Salinger. About a day after I got this smoking gun, Cooley sent a second email, saying that Mack had just contacted him and asked him to not talk to me.

Just as Slim's edits on Wikipedia have slowly but surely been oversighted to obscure the Linda Mack connection, so too has some of the above information. Cooley seemed very nervous after Mack contacted him, and while he didn't retract anything he told me earlier, it was obvious to me that I wouldn't get anything more from him, even if he had more to offer, which I doubted. I didn't bother him again.

The Kings College website listing of Linda Mack was deleted within the last six months, and the domain registration for slimvirgin.com was changed to an anonymous registration by proxy the last time it was renewed. (By the way, I emailed SlimVirgin at gmail.com anonymously in late October 2005, asking if she would be interested in selling the slimvirgin.com domain name. In two separate responses, she flatly denied that she was the owner.)

Someone was trying to keep the lid on this thing, which of course made it much more interesting. It was starting to read like an Eric Ambler spy novel. (Ambler's heroes are amateurs who stumble into these hairy situations. They're not stupid or clumsy, but shit happens and they find themselves smack in the middle of it all without quite knowing how or why they got there. Then they have to use their wits against hardened bad-guy spies to get themselves out of the situation.)

To all those on the Wikipedia mailing list who are insinuating that our evidence about Slim is weak or nonexistent, my response is that our evidence is much, much stronger than the evidence that sent that Libyan to prison for 27 years.

Perhaps someone will write a book on SlimVirgin once this is all over.

See, I feel like that's the most damning part of the whole thing - there's more than enough circumstantial evidence there, and it seems...odd not to address it.

I mean, the more controversial issue here isn't "Is SlimVirgin actually Linda Mack," but "Is SlimVirgin someone who's involved with intelligence agencies and editing Wikipedia with that in mind." I could honestly care less as long as the edits are sound - I only had one rotten encounter with her in my time at WP, and it had nothing to do with anything you guys discuss here.

But let's be serious for a second. Outside of the accusations of cabalism and article ownership (the latter of which I haven't investigated, don't really care about, and are really only meta issues), is there evidence she's really done anything wrong other than mislead some people into thinking she was someone else? And this isn't like a "I said I was a professor, but I'm really a 24 year old" misleading, but "I said my name was Sarah when it's really Linda," which is, well, a big "so what" in my book.

And let's put it a step further here - we're seeing accusations that she's working as an intelligence agent or operative or whatever. If this is so, do we see definitive edits which show her pushing some governmental/intelligence POV? If she is working for some governmental agency, or at least working with that agenda in mind, but there's no evidence of her making poor edits, why is this even a story for us outside of "omg wikipedia admin uses a pseudonym and may have worked for the government!"

I mean, there are far, far worse administrators and editors doing severe damage to the credibility of the project who don't cover their tracks as well than someone who might have a predisposition to detailing Nazisim and a horrific terror attack.

What's the point here?

This post has been edited by badlydrawnjeff:

I mean, there are far, far worse administrators and editors doing severe damage to the credibility of the project who don't cover their tracks as well than someone who might have a predisposition to detailing Nazisim and a horrific terror attack.

What's the point here?

The point is this: If the evidence suggests that the content on Wikipedia is getting shaped by unacknowledged influences, then the people who use Wikipedia have the right to know this. Accordingly, there should be no tolerance for anonymity when it is used to protect powerful administrators such as SlimVirgin, particularly when evidence suggests the potential for serious conflicts of interest.

The "so what?" attitude is better reserved for Essjay, who was backed up by Catholicism for Dummies instead of two doctorates. At least Essjay was merely playing with trivia about Catholicism. That was funny — a delightful human interest story.

Slim is dealing with geopolitical issues that, in the case of Lockerbie, involve Western intelligence agencies and the conspiracies that they arrange to protect Western interests. There is, at a minimum, the appearance of a potential conflict of interest when Slim edits content about Lockerbie.

It's not merely an issue of rigorous sourcing. It's also an issue of which sources are selected in the first place. Slim is in the habit of declaring certain sources substandard. She declared me to be a substandard source on the topic of one Chip Berlet, even before she started that stub on me.

There's a reason why newspapers list publishers and editors in a staff box, and why many articles contain bylines. It's called "accountability."

"Anonymity" is the opposite of "accountability."

Outside of the accusations of cabalism and article ownership (the latter of which I haven't investigated, don't really care about, and are really only meta issues), is there evidence she's really done anything wrong other than mislead some people into thinking she was someone else?

She's destroyed I don't know how many good editors, whose only crime was to believe in the self-proclaimed principles of Wikipedia. I can only speculate on her motives, but if she really believes that she was doing anything other than damaging the project, we should ask Jimbo if he really wants admins who lack a grip on reality.

Here's some problems with SlimVirgin's use of Wikipedia, that are of serious relevance to people:

* She refuses to acknowledge sources, choosing which sources you can use, none more so than on List of British Jews, in which she has added to the edit the article space this message: <!--PLEASE DO NOT ADD ANY MORE NAMES TO THIS PAGE WITHOUT INCLUDING A CREDIBLE SOURCE FOR THE INFORMATION. SEE [[WIKIPEDIA:VERIFIABILITY]] AND [[WIKIPEDIA:NO ORIGINAL RESEARCH]], WHICH ARE POLICY. THE SOURCE MUST SAY THAT THE PERSON IS ACTUALLY JEWISH.--> and has a similar insistence on the talk page of the article.

This is relevant because, in many cases, she chooses which links are okay to include, and hence decides what kind of truth is acceptable to her.

* She routinely refuses to answer messages to her on her user talk page, instead deleting them and then getting someone to punish the person who wrote to her. We have seen in relation to this recent issue several cases of this, but there are many others as well. Sometimes she hides these by claiming that she is archiving, when in reality she is refusing to answer a question...

This demonstrates a lack of transparency. That she is above public comment.

* She also goes around Wikipedia changing the rules to suit herself. The amount that she has changed to WP: Verifiability for example are monstruous. She has a clear agenda to make sure that only the truth that she wants people to read is what people read. This is truth-changing at its worst.

* She edits primarily the most controversial articles. The articles that have the least amount of consensus, with sometimes 5 or 6 or even more opposing views. She controls these articles. She doesn't control some Spongebob Squarepants article that everyone pretty much agrees on, or a purely factual article like something about Nuclear Physics. She controls articles about the Middle East, Terrorism, Judaism, and articles of this kind.

* She rarely does something herself. Instead, she claims at how abused she has been, and then hey presto Jayjg or Crum375 or someone else does it for her, and then she says "Thank you so much for rescuing me" and everything is fine. Thus she can't be instantly tracked back for what she is doing.

It doesn't matter what SlimVirgin's real name is. Who cares if she is Sarah McEwan or Linda Mack or Popeye the Sailor Man. And indeed, if a spook was editing Wikipedia for his or her own private reason, who cares? What we care about is that SlimVirgin is changing history. She is changing reality.

Lockerbie bombing was changed to present a different sense of reality on the topic to what exists elsewhere. There are many other examples of articles that have done this, not all controlled by SlimVirgin. But why do we care if the Celine Dion article is perverted to incorrectly make Celine Dion look worse than Mariah Carey? We don't care. But we do care if she is presenting a false history on topics of major relevance to everyone.

For the record, I didn't have any run ins with SlimVirgin either, and as at when I left Wikipedia I thought that she was a great person, and I felt sorry for her. That opinion has changed, however, since that time.

Quite frankly, who gives a shit if Snowspinner is spinning some lies, and abusing people? It doesn't matter to the world, just so long as he isn't actually murdering classmates. Who cares if Raul654 is abusive? It doesn't matter to the world, so long as that's all he's doing. Who cares if MONGO is abusive? But SlimVirgin is changing history. That in itself is bad, but if she is doing it with a major agenda, then we need to wake up and take serious notice. That's why this issue is so much more important than issues like the Essjay scandal or Seigenthaler or any previous scandal before this.

Quite frankly, who gives a shit if Snowspinner is spinning some lies, and abusing people? It doesn't matter to the world, just so long as he isn't actually murdering classmates. Who cares if Raul654 is abusive? It doesn't matter to the world, so long as that's all he's doing. Who cares if MONGO is abusive? But SlimVirgin is changing history. That in itself is bad, but if she is doing it with a major agenda, then we need to wake up and take serious notice. That's why this issue is so much more important than issues like the Essjay scandal or Seigenthaler or any previous scandal before this.

Actually that is my point about Wikipedia: it is changing history right before our eyes. I think that one fact is scary beyond belief. Thousands of anonymous people are talking into their speakwrites altering history moment by moment and then consigning previous history to the memory holes (oversight).

Wikipedia was and is a clear threat to liberal democracy and freedom. If even the case of Slimvirgin was the end of it, it wouldn't be so bad, but even SV is the thin end of a very large wedge of vandalism of the historical record.

Selina kept a lot of information, but Selina sadly is on holiday at the moment. We must wait until she returns. And hopefully Selina hasn't wiped it in the meantime or forgotten where she put it.

You might be referring to http://wikipediareview.com/slimvirgin/

What we really need is Slim's complete "user contributions" listing as of about June 2006. That's when she began to get nervous about exposure. With a list like this, we could then compare it to the current history, and see if anything existed in June 2006 that no longer exists on her user contribution list.

I don't know if old dumps of Wikipedia can deliver complete histories. What I have in mind is forcing a dump of 5000 by changing the "500" in the URL to "5000" or more. (I know 5000 works, but I haven't tried anything more.) If you had two complete lists in plain text, you could run a "file compare" to spit out the differences, and then you could investigate the differences.

If anyone has an old dump of Wikipedia, they might be able to do this. It would be a lot of work, but it would also be quite interesting.

So, I mean, what's the point, then? That she mgiht have a conflict of interest? Oh, shucks, she'll be one of ten thousand, then - big whoop.

I guess I don't get it. Unless she's actively working to provide misinformation based on privileged information, I'm not sure why this is more important than any other administrator who can't seem to control themselves.

If anyone has an old dump of Wikipedia, they might be able to do this. It would be a lot of work, but it would also be quite interesting.

As it happens, I've been accumulating dumps over time, for just this purpose, but have yet to completely expand any of them (400 Gb is a lot of space). However that will all change on Monday, as I've made arrangements to get query access first to the 7/23/07 dump and then to several preceding it (going back to last summer to just before oversight was instituted), each captured soon after it was made.

I'll try to find some way to make a manageable subset of the data available so you folks can join the fun. Suggestions are welcome.

I'll try to find some way to make a manageable subset of the data available so you folks can join the fun. Suggestions are welcome.

I think a complete list of Slim's user contributions as they appeared on Wikipedia as of June 2006, or as close to that as possible, is the most useful thing right now. This would start on November 5, 2004, the date of her very first edit (which is also, by the way, an edit that is no longer listed in her user contributions because it got memory-holed). A list like this can be compared to the current version of the same list, which we can get ourselves from Wikipedia.

The important thing is to develop a listing of differences between these two lists. Both lists will cover exactly the same time span. Any differences are immediately suspicious. Then we can order the differences by subject. Any politically-charged subjects are more important than animal liberation issues, for example.

This ordered list of differences will provide a starting point for further research. It will probably be a fairly small list — I'd be surprised if it was more than 100 items. Once the list is this manageable, pulling the actual diffs from the memory hole will give us some insight into the types of edits that Slim did not want scrutinized.

I'll try to find some way to make a manageable subset of the data available so you folks can join the fun. Suggestions are welcome.

I think a complete list of Slim's user contributions as they appeared on Wikipedia as of June 2006, or as close to that as possible, is the most useful thing right now. This would start on November 5, 2004, the date of her very first edit (which is also, by the way, an edit that is no longer listed in her user contributions because it got memory-holed). A list like this can be compared to the current version of the same list, which we can get ourselves from Wikipedia.

The important thing is to develop a listing of differences between these two lists. Both lists will cover exactly the same time span. Any differences are immediately suspicious. Then we can order the differences by subject. Any politically-charged subjects are more important than animal liberation issues, for example.

This ordered list of differences will provide a starting point for further research. It will probably be a fairly small list — I'd be surprised if it was more than 100 items. Once the list is this manageable, pulling the actual diffs from the memory hole will give us some insight into the types of edits that Slim did not want scrutinized.

What about her two main meatpuppets (that some have considered socks) Jayjg and Crum375? They must have some oversighted or at least hidden edits, too.

What about her two main meatpuppets (that some have considered socks) Jayjg and Crum375? They must have some oversighted or at least hidden edits, too.

Slim first. We have one example already of an interesting memory-holed edit, which I explained earlier in this thread. Also, Slim joined Wikipedia and charged ahead, assuming that no one would ever make any connections between her real identity and her editing. That all changed when we discovered that she was Linda Mack of PanAm 103 fame. That discovery was made in June 2006. This gives us an approximate date to distinguish the charge-ahead SlimVirgin from the go-back-and-cover-up SlimVirgin.

We're looking for a pattern of cover-up. If we find one, then the next question is the extent to which other admins at Wikipedia helped Slim with this task. She probably needed support from above to pull this off, if it was at all systematic.

If we don't find anything interesting with Slim, then I doubt that we'd do very well with Jayjg and Crum375.

Here's some problems with SlimVirgin's use of Wikipedia, that are of serious relevance to people:

* She refuses to acknowledge sources, choosing which sources you can use, none more so than on List of British Jews[...]

* She routinely refuses to answer messages to her on her user talk page, instead deleting them and then getting someone to punish the person who wrote to her.

* She also goes around Wikipedia changing the rules to suit herself.

* She edits primarily the most controversial articles.

* She rarely does something herself.

News flash! WR has damning, conclusive evidence that demonstrates she's editing Wikipedia to push MI5's interests!

Oh wait. None of this has anything to do with that. So why are you copy-pasting the same old rant, Zordy? ¬_¬

Here's some problems with SlimVirgin's use of Wikipedia, that are of serious relevance to people:

* She refuses to acknowledge sources, choosing which sources you can use, none more so than on List of British Jews[...]

* She routinely refuses to answer messages to her on her user talk page, instead deleting them and then getting someone to punish the person who wrote to her.

* She also goes around Wikipedia changing the rules to suit herself.

* She edits primarily the most controversial articles.

* She rarely does something herself.

News flash! WR has damning, conclusive evidence that demonstrates she's editing Wikipedia to push MI5's interests!

Oh wait. None of this has anything to do with that. So why are you copy-pasting the same old rant, Zordy? ¬_¬

MI5? What about MJ12?

now on digg 856 diggs right now

ElinorD doesn't really care

now on digg 856 diggs right now

ElinorD doesn't really care

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=147676255

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=147674997


As usual, saying anything bad about admins there is a crime:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...176#Please_stop

Hmmm Oleg Alexandrov is an admin, though, or else he'd get banned for criticizing SlimVirgin. Maybe DcDemiv, Jayjg or somebody will claim something like saying Oleg Alexandrov is Runcorn and then ban him.


This post has been edited by LamontStormstar:

What we really, really need are the oversighted edits of [[User:Slimv]], her originally username. Jayjy removed them all. That's where the real evidence was.