FT2 and the Headley Down affair Options

[Peter Damian]

I've been doing some more research on the blocking and banning of a number of users who were combating pseudoscience in Wikipedia. FT2 was behind the bans (he is an adherent of the NLP cult, and a large number of the people who supported him at the election are either NLP, or other cults, or members of, er, certain fringe sexuality groups).

The facts are hard to track down, but there do seem to be a number of editors, not just a set of sockpuppets. Some of them were banned because they were members of the same science club at Hong Kong university.

Question: is this allowed? For example, if several members of the Royal Society had the same concern about pseudoscience or whatever, and acted to correct misinformation in Wikipedia, would there be grounds for a ban like this? Or what about members of the same philosophy department?

I've emailed Helen to get her side of the matter. [Update - the email address is no longer valid, and there is still a question of whether she is a sockpuppet of Headley - on the other hand, the offense she was blocked for was being a 'meatpuppet', and that seems fundamentally wrong. I've also followed up a lot of the Headley down edits, and, regardless of whether he was guilty of the sockpuppet issue, they were pretty much all sound, and many of the attacks on him were flagrant abuse of policy, and bullying. But more of that later. End of edit]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=57142176
Revision as of 07:41, 6 June 2006 (edit) (undo)Helen Wu (Talk | contribs)

Hi Antaeus. I have noticed some strange and odd things on the NLP article. Most of the HKU skeptics society has been banned from editing on the basis of they are suspected sockpuppetry. I am a member, and I am worried about myself being banned if I make any objection to the NLP advocates removing verified information. I know at least some of them are not sockpuppets. I met Alice, Headley (Wei Qing), Hans, and Bookmain (Jim) a few months back, and Camridge (Liz) is also really nice. They are all therapists and academics. Do you think they will ban the whole of Hong Kong and China from editing that article? Also, I notice you have a grounding in editing pseudoscience subjects. I can send you some soft copy papers on NLP that the group gave me if you like. The article at presently seems to be going under some kind of censorship campaign. Some of it refers to scientology and other pseudosciences so I thought it may be helpful and "synergetic" for you. [[User:Helen Wu|Helen Wu]] 07:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Fri 28th December 2007, 10:47am

[Castle Rock]

And another one User:Aberdeenharbour
21:57, 13 January 2008 FT2 (Talk | contribs) blocked "Aberdeenharbour (Talk | contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Reincarnation of banned user - see User:FT2/DENY)
This one was active on Asian_fetish.

[Peter Damian]

And another one User:Aberdeenharbour
21:57, 13 January 2008 FT2 (Talk | contribs) blocked "Aberdeenharbour (Talk | contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Reincarnation of banned user - see User:FT2/DENY)
This one was active on Asian_fetish.

And this is completely bizarre.

XXX is blocked, as the reincarnation of a known edit warrior with a prediliction for encouraging and enjoying edit wars. Users who were encouraged in their viewpoint by this user, may wish to reconsider any encouragement they were given on discussion viewpoints they were putting forward, in light of this.
FT2 (Talk | email) 21:22, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Either he's saying you are completely stupid because you never actually check (for reasonableness, evidence &c) what some fellow editor claims.

Or he means that this is a blocked user, ergo is evil, ergo he hopes you aren't going to continue saying what he was saying. This guy (FT2) gets more sinister by the minute.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Mon 14th January 2008, 5:03pm

[KStreetSlave]

And another one User:Aberdeenharbour
21:57, 13 January 2008 FT2 (Talk | contribs) blocked "Aberdeenharbour (Talk | contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Reincarnation of banned user - see User:FT2/DENY)
This one was active on Asian_fetish.

And this is completely bizarre.

XXX is blocked, as the reincarnation of a known edit warrior with a prediliction for encouraging and enjoying edit wars. Users who were encouraged in their viewpoint by this user, may wish to reconsider any encouragement they were given on discussion viewpoints they were putting forward, in light of this.
FT2 (Talk | email) 21:22, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Either he's saying you are completely stupid because you never actually check (for reasonableness, evidence &c) what some fellow editor claims.

Or he means that this is a blocked user, ergo is evil, ergo he hopes you aren't going to continue saying what he was saying. This guy (FT2) gets more sinister by the minute.

Sinister? Lol. FT2 is one of the most reasonable admins I've come across.

[Docknell]

And another one User:Aberdeenharbour
21:57, 13 January 2008 FT2 (Talk | contribs) blocked "Aberdeenharbour (Talk | contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Reincarnation of banned user - see User:FT2/DENY)
This one was active on Asian_fetish.

And this is completely bizarre.

XXX is blocked, as the reincarnation of a known edit warrior with a prediliction for encouraging and enjoying edit wars. Users who were encouraged in their viewpoint by this user, may wish to reconsider any encouragement they were given on discussion viewpoints they were putting forward, in light of this.
FT2 (Talk | email) 21:22, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Either he's saying you are completely stupid because you never actually check (for reasonableness, evidence &c) what some fellow editor claims.

Or he means that this is a blocked user, ergo is evil, ergo he hopes you aren't going to continue saying what he was saying. This guy (FT2) gets more sinister by the minute.

Sinister? Lol. FT2 is one of the most reasonable admins I've come across.

That doesn't surprise me. There are some other admins that regularly push pseudoscience and fringe sexual practices, and who protect COI editors who push those subjects. FT2 seems to be most keen on turning the rules of WP to that end. FT2 does it very reasonably. So if you are anti-pedophile, science based, or against the practice of zoophilia, then you will be reasonably chased off, booted, and have your effigy burned by FT2. I suspect there are a few editors who do it less reasonable than that. WP is full of well sourced facts, that are systematically and highly reasonably organized in order to be presented to make them as misleading as possible to the reader. This is especially the case where vested interests are an issue. Perfectly reasonable distortion. If you reason things through properly, with a bit of work and sociopathic shoe-polishing, you will be able to make WP your very own pretend reality. Thats what makes it so hilarious and alarming to view from the outside.

[Peter Damian]

WP is full of well sourced facts, that are systematically and highly reasonably organized in order to be presented to make them as misleading as possible to the reader. This is especially the case where vested interests are an issue.

Not that well-sourced even. FT2 put this in the philosophy of perception article once:

The term [[neuro-linguistic programming]], often abbreviated to NLP, was coined by [[Richard Bandler]] and [[John Grinder]] for their method of studying the structure of subjective experience.

Which is nonsense because the work of these snake-oil sellers has nothing to do with the philosophy of perception. Fortunately someone (again, not me) spotted this and removed here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=39058614

I could find no reference to NLP in any philosophy/epistemology books in the whole of London University library, and it was certainly not mentioned by my lecturers during my degree.)

How much more of this crap is out there?

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Sun 20th January 2008, 4:04pm