Gary Weiss started this fight, I'm just here to finish it Options

[WordBomb]

The discourse on Mantanmoreland's RfAr has veered into the realm of importing real world fights into WP. I thought it would be useful to review how things actually began.

Gary Weiss started his blog on January 19, 2006.

His first few posts were about general business topics, but on January 22, he changed course.

Beginning that day, Weiss's blog transformed into a vehicle for attacking critics of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation's (DTCC) role as an enabler of illegal naked short selling -- Patrick Byrne in particular.

I can tell you with certainty that prior to that time, Byrne had never even heard of Gary Weiss.

On January 26, 2006 Weiss, editing as IP 70.23.85.112 made sweeping changes to the article on Naked short selling.

• His first edit removed several external links to media sources that cast Byrne in a positive light (including podcast interviews created by me).
• His sixth edit added a link to a two-year-old BusinessWeek column, espousing the virtues of naked short selling, written by...guess who...Gary Weiss.
• His seventh edit added a link to a press release issued by the DTCC three days before...the same release that, three days before, Weiss dedicated a blog post to praising.
• His 11th edit claimed that Patrick Byrne is the subject of "widespread derision" for his stance against naked short selling.
• His 15th edit added a link to a press release issued by the DTCC the day before...which Weiss also blogged about.
• His 17th edit added a link to the DTCC page dedicated to obfuscating that organizations' responsibility for empowering criminal naked short sellers.

After edit waring with a handful of IPs and encountering 3RR trouble, Weiss discards 70.23.85.112 and creates Mantanmoreland. That account's first act was not to delete vandalism, as he claims, but to revert the article to how 70.23.85.112 left it.

From that day forward, roughly 90% of Weiss's blogging has focused on attacking Patrick Byrne and Overstock.com, while defending illegal naked short selling and promoting Weiss himself. Similarly, 90% of edits by Mantanmoreland, Samiharris, Tomstoner and Lastexit have attacked Patrick Byrne and Overstock.com, while defending naked short selling and promoting Weiss himself.

And to think...there are people out there who claim that I am responsible for bringing a real-world conflict to Wikipedia.

At this point, the obvious question is how to explain Weiss's motive.

I believe the answer can be found in this edit history. Keeping in mind the substance of Weiss's first several edits on Wikipedia, I challenge you to look for yourselves and tell me what you can deduce from it.

[Moulton]

Would I at least be correct in believing that naked short-selling creates long-term instabilities in the financial markets?

[WordBomb]

Would I at least be correct in believing that naked short-selling creates long-term instabilities in the financial markets?

You are 100% correct.

Gary Weiss, on the other hand, subscribes to the anarcho-capitalist school of thought, which is that the role of regulating the public equity markets is too big for the government to handle alone, resulting in the need for "alternative" means of bringing down "bad companies".

In other words, we should trust the mega-hedge funds -- not the market -- to know which companies should survive and which should not. Those deemed unworthy may then be buried under an avalanche of counterfeit shares that overwhelm demand and drive a stock to penny-land. Once that happens, they can no longer raise money, credit costs skyrocket, and a death-spiral results.

That may or may not be ok when it comes to some of these mining companies that issue billions of shares and no product, but I'm certain it's wrong when the target is Martha Stewart, Delta Airlines, Sirius, Taser, USANA, Take Two Interactive, and many more.

Paradoxically, Weiss also claims to be a believer in the Efficient Markets Hypothesis, which says that a company's share price represents the sum of all information available to the market about the company. Well, one key bit of information should be the number of shares issued and in circulation. One of the results of naked shorting is that huge amounts of "counterfeit" shares are produced and traded as if they were the real thing. As a result, very few know the actual amount of shares out there, meaning, the rest of the market is operating with flawed information, which in turn creates very inefficient markets.

[Timp]

Would I at least be correct in believing that naked short-selling creates long-term instabilities in the financial markets?

You are 100% correct.

Gary Weiss, on the other hand, subscribes to the anarcho-capitalist school of thought, which is that the role of regulating the public equity markets is too big for the government to handle alone, resulting in the need for "alternative" means of bringing down "bad companies".

In other words, we should trust the mega-hedge funds -- not the market -- to know which companies should survive and which should not. Those deemed unworthy may then be buried under an avalanche of counterfeit shares that overwhelm demand and drive a stock to penny-land. Once that happens, they can no longer raise money, credit costs skyrocket, and a death-spiral results.

That may or may not be ok when it comes to some of these mining companies that issue billions of shares and no product, but I'm certain it's wrong when the target is Martha Stewart, Delta Airlines, Sirius, Taser, USANA, Take Two Interactive, and many more.

Paradoxically, Weiss also claims to be a believer in the Efficient Markets Hypothesis, which says that a company's share price represents the sum of all information available to the market about the company. Well, one key bit of information should be the number of shares issued and in circulation. One of the results of naked shorting is that huge amounts of "counterfeit" shares are produced and traded as if they were the real thing. As a result, very few know the actual amount of shares out there, meaning, the rest of the market is operating with flawed information, which in turn creates very inefficient markets.

Efficient market hypothesis always sounds a lot to me like trickle down economics: nice theory if you're there for the first round, not so much for the rest.

That's without getting to journalists who are willing to pass along whatever the hedge fund tells them.