JzG, Simon Wessely, and claims of 'harassment' Options

[Angela Kennedy]

Hello everyone,

With regard to JzG:

I advocate for my daughter, first diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, later Lyme disease, who is severely disabled by her illness. I also undertake academic criticism, of the claims made by some psychiatrists about these illnesses being ’psychosomatic’ and advocate for the ME/CFS community itself. Therefore, I do have a real world reputation that might be brought into disrepute by libellous, defamatory comments.

JZG made a number of defamatory (and libellous) claims about me (and implied others) on the admin notice board in September 2007 and elsewhere in time and place on Wikipedia, the circumstances of which are outlined here:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/APK-PAPERS/message/19

Large sections of the Simon Wessely talk page had already been removed by Jim Wales himself in 2006, after I and my erstwhile colleague formally wrote to him demanding he remove comments, made by JzG and another admin, JFW, which were highly inflammatory towards us. He removed some of them (though I kept copies of what was said), but the two admins continued making similar comments over the course of about a year and a half on the talk page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=165865721

As is probably evident from these links, my problems with the conduct of JzG, and indeed Jimbo Wales, are these:

1. JzG's misrepresentation of me and my work in the open discussions to other admins, in particular defamatory and libellous claims he has made about me:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...of_userspace.3F

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...scalate_this.3F

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...0#Simon_Wessely

Of particular worry are the claims that I ‘have a visceral hatred for Simon Wessely’, the misrepresentation of the work I am doing in the real world, the claim that “You need to draw a distinction between what Angela Kennedy says, and what might be regarded as truth by anybody with both feet on the ground”, and, most libellous of all, his claim that ‘these individuals’ [meaning me and unnamed others] have harassed Wessely in real life: all of which have potentially highly damaging effects on my real world reputation.

2. JzG's (uninformed) conclusions on his website, and on the talk pages, that CFS is psychosomatic, Wessely’s work is correct, and that objections to Wessely’s claims are extreme, ideological etc. therefore making him a biased party in a dispute which he escalated (see the end paragraph of this link for his position):

http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/wiki/Wesselygate

3. The placement of a "banned user" tag on my user page, which contravenes decency and privacy . The arbitrary wikipedia ‘justice’ is being used to tar people at the top of a google search. I was permanently banned by Wales himself.

4. Possible off-wiki engagement between JzG and the subject of the page, Simon Wessely, in such a way as to suggest a possible collusion, particularly around false claims that I have ‘personally harassed’ Simon Wessely (as per his comments here):

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...0#Simon_Wessely

(But also see here):

http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/w/index.ph...changes&days=14

I have written to Simon Wessely’s line managers about this issue. So far they have been most uncooperative. The correspondence can be seen here:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/APK-PAPERS/message/17

But the whole issue needs further investigation.


5. Off-wiki engagement with Jim Wales with prejudicial effects on me:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...scalate_this.3F


http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...of_userspace.3F


I appreciate this is a complex issue. I am willing to provide further evidence and answer questions on this issue where possible and appropriate.

Angela

[Kato]

I don't think there is any denying that JzG took a lot of hassle from CFS advocates after he started trying to referee Wessely's biography.

However, JzG being JzG just decided this was all too much for him, and started banning anyone who showed up and was critical of Wessely. Given that Wessely is a controversial figure, critics are hardly difficult to find.

It was the manner of it, and the outrageous slurs that he threw in, that look really ugly.

This situation needs to be revisted away from Jzg's appalling misrepresentations. There is plenty of evidence of him lying about people and doing this kind of thing elsewhere. And it looks like a repeat performance here.

[Angela Kennedy]

Hi Kato

I don't think there is any denying that JzG took a lot of hassle from CFS advocates after he started trying to referee Wessely's biography.

However, JzG being JzG just decided this was all too much for him, and started banning anyone who showed up and was critical of Wessely. Given that Wessely is a controversial figure, critics are hardly difficult to find.

It was the manner of it, and the outrageous slurs that he threw in, that look really ugly.

This situation needs to be revisted away from Jzg's appalling misrepresentations. There is plenty of evidence of him lying about people and doing this kind of thing elsewhere. And it looks like a repeat performance here.

Yes, the problem wasn't, at the beginning, JzG's refereeing of the biography. If he'd written in a 'civil' tone and not launched into an attack on people immediately, things could have settled down- maybe even become collarborative. What was wierd was JzG's (and JFW's) immediate attack mode behaviour on One Click. That added to Jimbo Wales intervening quickly and indications that Simon Wessely had contacted Wales in an 'incensed' state, it became somewhat fishy.

I DO understand the right of BLP subjects NOT to be libelled. But what had been written in criticism of the subject wasn't Libel- it was criticism, of his work. Now the text that had been put up was POV (I wasn't involved in that)- and I understand that NPOV is what should be aimed for (with all the caveats about how impossible that can be). But JzG and JFW's modus operandi was to put out some real nasty slurs about One Click (a political group), i.e. engage in partisan behjaviour while claiming themselves as NPOV.

As a result of those slurs- we basically said to Jimbo Wales we wanted them removed (because they were defamatory). He decided to remove the whole talk page up to that point, which was not what we wanted. On reflection- if he'd kept them there the unreasonableness of both JzG (and let us not forget JFW) would have been available for all at WR to see, for example, which probably would have done me a favour following JzG's latter-day behaviour towards me. There were some absolutely classic comments! One Click produce faecal matter, we're a bunch of paranoid zealots etc., we keep patients ill (that one, from JFW, as you can imagine, to mothers of critically ill children was- well- distressing).

After Wales's intervention, JzG and JFW still made some nasty comments about OC, and once or twice I entered into the fray, when JzG tried to get taken off my 'summary of the psychiatric paradigm'' from the 'opposition and criticism' section (the only edit I had made to the page).

The latest debacle started when JFW intended to put up unsubstantiated claims that Wessely had been 'harassed' by the ME/CFS community. This is a very sore subject, because there has been what I would call a smear campaign, or spin if you like, against individual advocates and the community at large (I have this big file on some of the ludicrous claims made about ME sufferers). I then got involved in my own name, undertook not to edit the page, expressed openly my COI both with the SW page and with Wikipedia in general, and attempted to follow Wikipedia rules.

But then there was the gerrymandering. I immediately got accused of being a sockpuppet of someone else by Mast Cell. JzG removed the summary of the psychiatric paradigm then locked the page. JFW kept the 'harassment' claim link up etc. I tried conflict resolution by following the usual 'procedures'- only to reach a dead end every time. JzG defamed me on the ANI, more than once. Then, because I said that JzG's comments were defamatory, I got the 'legal threats' rap. But Wales himself banned me.

There is evidence that JzG is in personal contact with Simon Wessely- some cryptic comments were made on his talk page then quickly deleted when I put out my correspondence with KCL.

I guess, in summary, JzG appears to have become an ally or acquaintance of Simon Wessely (as a representative of Wikipedia, or personally I don't know), and undertook an active POV and abused his admin status and tools to do so. It has had real-world consequences, but because JzG's actions appear to be consistent with his behaviour towards others, in recent days I've become more able to build up my own defence against any real-world consequences.

Sorry for the exposition which I hope is not too tedious.

What do you expect from a bunch of Frozen In Da Fifties Randroids, anyway?
The Sanger-Wales philosophy that built Wikipedia and Citizendium is totally clueless about the Dialogue On Knowledge (DOK) that has been going on all around them for the last 50 years or so, if not the last 350, depending on how you count.

The first duty of critical thinking is to realize that you do have a point of view and that you can begin to move toward a more inclusive point of view only by reflecting on the contingency and the facticity of that fact.

Jon

LOL! Yes, that was what struck me about the whole thing- Wikipedia's way of seeing the world has certain qualities alright. The claims to NPOV and the problems around claims to an SPOV have never been reflected upon by them, am I right about that?

This post has been edited by Angela Kennedy: Sat 5th July 2008, 9:39pm

[Jon Awbrey]

What do you expect from a bunch of Frozen In Da Fifties Randroids, anyway?

The Sanger-Wales philosophy that built Wikipedia and Citizendium is totally clueless about the Dialogue On Knowledge (DOK) that has been going on all around them for the last 50 years or so, if not the last 350, depending on how you count.

The first duty of critical thinking is to realize that you do have a point of view and that you can begin to move toward a more inclusive point of view only by reflecting on the contingency and the facticity of that fact.

Jon

LOL! Yes, that was what struck me about the whole thing — Wikipedia's way of seeing the world has certain qualities alright. The claims to NPOV and the problems around claims to an SPOV have never been reflected upon by them, am I right about that?

If you drove into the WikiPothole the same way I did, you probably assumed that most folks there were literate enough to be following the contemporary conversations on education, information, knowledge, language, and science.

A dozen or so interactions into the fray, you begin to realize that you are talking to some of the most illiterate boobs on the face of the planet. "So that's where they've been hiding!" you say to yourself. A little while longer and you begin to see that most of them are actual adolescents who are simply pretending to be grownups, and so that segment, at least, you can excuse for acting like adolescents. But the rest of the ignorami are something more sinister. They are there for the purpose of exploiting the clueless.

And The Dude Will Not Abide That —

Jon

This post has been edited by Jon Awbrey: Wed 16th April 2008, 2:28pm