Valleywag's accusations against Erik Moeller, Claims WMF Deputy Director is "a defender of pedophilia" Options

[thekohser]

Off of Jimbo Wales' Talk page, User 4.250 explains why children need to see pornographic photos :

===Alternative reality?===

(What if????) Children who know more are better able to deal with problems related to that knowledge. Children who know more about sexuality therefore are better able to make choices about sexuality. Children exposed to images of sexuality therefore are better able to understand abuse when it happens. Children who are only told about sexuality by their abusers have no mental defenses. Therefore pornography equips children with information they can use to defend themselves against potential abusers. A child who knows what anal rape is can tell the police what happened to him while a child who knows only what his abusers say lacks even the vocabulary to identify that he has been abused and what that abuse was (children are forced to endure many invasive painful things - how many report enemas, flu shots, spankings, painful bath "scrubbings", etc.?). Information is power. We should empower our children. Please think of the children and empower them with useful and helpful graphic imagery of sexuality. (Alternative reality dream over. We all know protecting children means keeping them ignorant.) [[User:WAS 4.250|WAS 4.250]] ([[User talk:WAS 4.250|talk]]) 04:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

So....children need to know what anal rape is so that they can explain to the police what it was after it happens to them?

Alternative reality, indeed

I remember WAS 4.250 also being the fellow who thought that criticism of the way content depicting young children was being framed on Spanking Art Wikia constituted a direct assault on free speech across the globe.

I am not surprised that WAS 4.250 could not resist weighing in with an outlandish assessment on this particular issue.

But notwithstanding KillerChihuahua's theories on the issue, I really do have an interest in seeing articles brought up to encyclopedic standards of accuracy, excellence, and ethics.

You are aware, aren't you, that even if you improve any article on Wikipedia to such standards, there's a good chance that someone else will come along and make it worse again?

[Doc glasgow]

David Monniaux a member of the Board of Wikimedia France chimes in.

Will WMF listen?

[JohnA]

David Monniaux a member of the Board of Wikimedia France chimes in.

Will WMF listen?

Next time Doc, use Babelfish. Your French is execrable.

[Doc glasgow]

David Monniaux a member of the Board of Wikimedia France chimes in.

Will WMF listen?

Next time Doc, use Babelfish. Your French is execrable.

Ah, oui. Aber Sie sollten mein schlechtes Deutsches sehen.

[Moulton]

A very interesting text, which may be relevant to this discussion (I've only just started reading it, but it seems to be spot-on in a number of ways) :

D. Solove : the Future of Reputation GOSSIP, RUMOR, AND PRIVACY ON THE INTERNET

As it happens, I do have some (limited) familiarity in alternative theories of violence in the culture, as well as theories about breakdowns in mother-child bonding.

Well, why don't you make a comment on the subject at hand then?

The subject at hand...

THE FUTURE OF REPUTATION:

GOSSIP, RUMOR, AND PRIVACY ON THE INTERNET

by Daniel J. Solove
Yale University Press (2007)

Chapter 1. Introduction: When Poop Goes Primetime

PART I
RUMOR AND REPUTATION IN A DIGITAL WORLD

Chapter 2. How the Free Flow of Information Liberates and Constrains Us

Chapter 3. Gossip and the Virtues of Knowing Less

Chapter 4. Shaming and the Digital Scarlet Letter

PART II
PRIVACY, FREE SPEECH, AND THE LAW

Chapter 5. The Role of Law

Chapter 6. Free Speech, Anonymity, and Accountability

Chapter 7. Privacy in an Overexposed World

Chapter 8. Conclusion: The Future of Reputation

Notes & Index

I'd love to dig into Chapters 4, 5, and 6, and discuss them here in some depth.

Is there any objection to that?

But notwithstanding KillerChihuahua's theories on the issue, I really do have an interest in seeing articles brought up to encyclopedic standards of accuracy, excellence, and ethics.

You are aware, aren't you, that even if you improve any article on Wikipedia to such standards, there's a good chance that someone else will come along and make it worse again?

Ayup. That's why there also has to be concomitant remedies to the systemic and structural problems that impede my primary objective.

[GlassBeadGame]

Erik Moeller's "brand new ED article" is featured on the front page of that site today....

It's actually pretty balanced for an ED article. There's a link to this thread too....

It is an extraordinary article for ED. Almost no parody. Almost a complete absence of any over the top, distasteful distortion. It is comprised almost completely of statements intended to be believed. This runs counter to ED usual "risk management" (if you care to dignify it) of using over the top parody that no one could possibly believe as a defense to defamation. This was openly acknowledged by that "VinylGirl" person at their "LulzCon" convention. I wonder if some ED old hands will come around and "Lulz it up?"

Not that truth wouldn't be a sufficient defense in this case.

[the fieryangel]

A very interesting text, which may be relevant to this discussion (I've only just started reading it, but it seems to be spot-on in a number of ways) :

D. Solove : the Future of Reputation GOSSIP, RUMOR, AND PRIVACY ON THE INTERNET

As it happens, I do have some (limited) familiarity in alternative theories of violence in the culture, as well as theories about breakdowns in mother-child bonding.

Well, why don't you make a comment on the subject at hand then?

The subject at hand...

THE FUTURE OF REPUTATION:

GOSSIP, RUMOR, AND PRIVACY ON THE INTERNET

by Daniel J. Solove
Yale University Press (2007)

Chapter 1. Introduction: When Poop Goes Primetime

PART I
RUMOR AND REPUTATION IN A DIGITAL WORLD

Chapter 2. How the Free Flow of Information Liberates and Constrains Us

Chapter 3. Gossip and the Virtues of Knowing Less

Chapter 4. Shaming and the Digital Scarlet Letter

PART II
PRIVACY, FREE SPEECH, AND THE LAW

Chapter 5. The Role of Law

Chapter 6. Free Speech, Anonymity, and Accountability

Chapter 7. Privacy in an Overexposed World

Chapter 8. Conclusion: The Future of Reputation

Notes & Index

I'd love to dig into Chapters 4, 5, and 6, and discuss them here in some depth.

Is there any objection to that?

None at all and please do. (My reading so far (I'm on Chapter 3) is leading me to believe that in the end, it doesn't matter if anything is actually true on the Internet: all that matters is that information is, indeed, on the internet...)

[the fieryangel]

More "noise", this time off of Snopes.com

It's only a discussion topic now :

Comment: I received this email from my website. Is this true? I don't want
to go clicking on porno links, so I haven't cliked on the links provided.
Thank you.



"I need your help - and boy, is this a story about Wikipedia - first, they
have a pedophile running their organization and it's all over the news.
How did I find out? Because my child, a 12 year old girl, went onto
Wikipedia to look up the word "Fluffy" and instead she somehow came to the
article for the word "Fluffer". On that article is a photograph of two
men having sex and a third man handing them a towel. I was very angry. I
started to look around Wikipedia and saw quite a few things that upset me.
There is pornography on there! People having sex, lesbians spanking each
other, and other things that should not be on a website that children in
school use.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.p...ew&pageId=6359

Then I started researching, and found out about Erik Moeller - their
pedophile Number 2:

http://valleywag.com/372140/erik-mll...-of-pedophilia

A pedophile runs Wikipedia, and he allows a pornographer who The Jerusalem
Post called "Wikipedia's Leading Editor" to put up photographs of men
having sex: David Shankbone. All over that website he has posted photos
of naked body parts, homosexuals having sex, and people engaging in
behavior I would not want my child to see - that I would not want my
husband to see!
This is almost a mockery of the human condition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:T...hank bone.JPG

Everyone talks about how great Wikipedia is, but I think it's sinful. It'
s a site where perverts go and put up terrible photographs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis#Erection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornographic_movie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testicl...nal_appearance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_industry#Adult_films

I started searching on the Internet and Shankbone is all over the place -
according to this story, he was the one who was responsible for telling
children that Santa Claus is not real:<my comment : Shankbone is now toast if they pick this one up....>
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/937991.html

Children! Children see this pornography, and then he ruins their dreams!
This is what Wikipedia is about?! This is what is so great about this
website?

When I looked further, it looks like he actually interviewed three
Christian Republican candidates - Senator Sam Brownback, Representative
Duncan Hunter and Representative Tom Tancredo. Do you really think those
guys would have talked to him if they had known what he does?! Shankbone
talks to all kinds of people - the President of the ACLU, the President of
Israel (!!!), Madonna, Susan Sarandon.


http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/04/...-colleen-asper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useravid_Shankbone


What is going on here? Why is it that every time I read an article about
Wikipedia it talks about how great it is, but it never talks about the
sinful dark side of people like David Shankbone, according to news stories
one its "leading editors"?! And Erik Moeller a pedophile running the
website?"

This post has been edited by the fieryangel: Mon 12th May 2008, 3:30pm

[Moulton]

I'd love to dig into Chapters 4, 5, and 6, and discuss them here in some depth.

Is there any objection to that?

None at all and please do.

Chapter 4 is entitled Shaming and the Digital Scarlet Letter.

The chapter begins with a handful of representative anecdotal cases.

About midway into the chapter (at p. 80), Solove invokes the Scarlet Letter analogy from the literature of the Salem Witch Trials (THE DEATH AND REBIRTH OF SHAMING PUNISHMENTS), and contrasts that with its modern reprise (THE VIRTUES OF INTERNET SHAMING).

Solove then launches into his criticism of the practice (THE VICES OF INTERNET SHAMING). The vices include Permanent Alienation, Lack of Proportionality in Punishment, Lack of Due Process, and Vengeance and Bullying. He also discusses overkill (How Much Shaming Do We Need?).

Then he gets to the crux of the matter — the observation that "Internet shaming can devolve into vigilantism and violence" (FROM SHAMING TO VIGILANTISM, SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL).

Solove has 18 references, all of which are dated 2005 and refer to his opening litany of anecdotal cases. He has no references or discussion of comparable theories about shaming and blaming.

As it happens, I know of four academics and researchers who have previously studied the practice of shaming and blaming in the culture.

Lonnie Athens interviewed convicted offendors, who had committed violent acts against strangers, to learn how they had come to be violent. His findings appear in a classic treatment entitled, Why They Kill. Following up on the work of Athens, James Gilligan of Harvard University researched the roots of violence in the culture, and confirmed what Athens had found: that shaming and blaming is the primary causative factor in reactive violence against strangers.

Independently of Athens and Gilligan, a behavioral psychologist named Suzanne Retzinger studied the root causes of violence involving people who were in relationships. She also found that upstream episodes of shaming and blaming were the primary causative factors in downstream acts of violence involving people in relationships.

And independently of all three of the above researchers, Rene Girard of Stanford University developed yet another model of competition, conflict and violence in the culture.

As I evaluated the work of these four researchers and academics, I found that their findings meshed and reinforced each other.

Synthesizing their findings, one comes to remarkable insights that support modern peacemaking theory and practice (e.g. Thich Nhat Hanh and others) and also mesh with traditional peacemaking teachings from the founders of many of the world's great religions.

This post has been edited by Moulton: Mon 12th May 2008, 3:37pm

[the fieryangel]

Synthesizing their findings, one comes to remarkable insights that support modern peacemaking theory and practice (e.g. Thich Nhat Hanh and others) and also mesh with traditional peacemaking teachings from the founders of many of the world's great religions.

It is obvious that a shaming process is at work. It might have been stopped if WP had stepped in and stopped it after the first article. However, the Evangelical press articles about WP porn at the same time (how convenient indeed!) and the fact that they've been completely silent up to this point would make me believe (and the "Snopes.com" comment would seem to support this), that there is a "viral effect" taking place right now. I don't think that we're seeing all of the activity that is taking place in PMs, email and other such networks. The fact that we have Shankbone, porn pic, Erik Moeller and all of those other situations in one email from what reads like a non-WP critic source suggests to me that a great many people have started to put the entire picture together.

My question now is 1. what could WMF do to slow or stop this process and 2. would that be considered a positive outcome?

Here's another one, in the same vein as the Snopes post : the same story about a child looking up "fluffy" and finding the "fluffer" photo...

One of my readers sent me an email late last night. Her 12 year old daughter was looking up the word "fluffy" on Wikipedia and somehow was directed to a page about "fluffers". This page contains an explicit picture from what appears to be a pornographic movie. There are links on that page to other Wikipedia pages containing pornographic pictures.

Can this be stopped now? Maybe, but the window for that happening is rapidly closing. I think that WMF is going to have to make an announcement and soon....

This post has been edited by the fieryangel: Mon 12th May 2008, 3:44pm

[GlassBeadGame]

(and the "Snopes.com" comment would seem to support this)

The Snopes piece does look "cooked-up." to me.

[Moulton]

WMF is in a difficult position because of their stance that they do not regulate or control community norms regarding acceptable publishable content. I frankly don't know how they can dance out of that pickle.

[the fieryangel]

(and the "Snopes.com" comment would seem to support this)

The Snopes piece does look "cooked-up." to me.

Yes, but that's two places on the web that it's shown up.

Putting the pieces together is making this situation even more kneejerk in terms of parent's reactions.

Here's another piece, which is more "wiki-positve" nuanced, even though it's in the "conservative" press.

Anyway, she’s obviously outraged and my response apparently didn’t satisfy exactly satisfy her quench for blood. In fact, she left a comment on The Lonely Conservative’s blog which would lead you to think that I not only defended pedophilia and exposing children to both heterosexual and homosexual pornography, but that I thought it was a public service. Those of you that read this blog know better than that.

What I actually did was send this woman the information she needed to know in order to challenge Wikipedia in court and force them to either remove the images or put up a “You Must Be 18+ To View This Content.”

I then explained to her the purpose of Wikipedia, which is to serve as a online database of all human knowledge. While I wish we lived in some sort of Christian fantasy land, we don’t and Wikipedia would be incomplete without objectionable articles about erections, fluffers, pedophilia, nipple piercings, gentiles, and worst of all, even information about people who wear socks with sandals.

While I do think most of the photos that are clearly pornographic should be removed and 18+ warnings should precede the pages with sexually explicit content, I think the information needs to be there and available to the public. It’s important to also remember that Wikipedia’s articles are not pornography. They strive for balanced, unopinionated, unbiased, factual information. Quite frankly, if for whatever reason a young person were to search for the term “fluffer” on Google, I’d much rather him or her read about it on Wikipedia than on a legitimate pornographic website.

The woman who started this is named "Rebecca" and she says that her husband gave her the information about Wikipedia from several "Right-wing" press sites he frequents...

...I dunno, it doesn't seem that cooked up any more.

This post has been edited by the fieryangel: Mon 12th May 2008, 3:55pm

[the fieryangel]

...this is a really stupid idea, and I'm probably going to hell just by thinking it....

but what do you think would happen if these people found out about the Spanking Art/Boy scouts situation?

This post has been edited by the fieryangel: Mon 12th May 2008, 4:06pm

[jorge]

Here's another one, in the same vein as the Snopes post : the same story about a child looking up "fluffy" and finding the "fluffer" photo...

One of my readers sent me an email late last night. Her 12 year old daughter was looking up the word "fluffy" on Wikipedia and somehow was directed to a page about "fluffers". This page contains an explicit picture from what appears to be a pornographic movie. There are links on that page to other Wikipedia pages containing pornographic pictures.

That could well have happened if she went to Fluff which is a disambiguation page and has no link to Fluffy, but does have a link to Fluffer. Alternatively maybe she spelt Fluffy Fluffey and it autocompleted to Fluffer before she hit y?

[Moulton]

What you are witnessing is the phase of Girard's Model called Skandalon.

[BobbyBombastic]

...this is a really stupid idea, and I'm probably going to hell just by thinking it....

but what do you think would happen if these people found out about the Spanking Art/Boy scouts situation?

More panic, of course! Except, being that Spanking Art was a Wikia wiki, Jimbo might then consider himself a little bit more tangled up in Erik's problems than he is willing to be and start pushing to "let him go." My thinking is that if they starting tying the "Spanking Art" stuff in with Erik's writings, then Jimbo may be perceived less as a ineffectual leader just watching the shit hit the fan, and may be more actively "incriminated" in all of this by the press and others.

It's a good thought!

[Moulton]

You can only get so far trying to foment what Cla68 calls moral panic, because only a small contingent of Americans are given to moral panic and moral outrage.

The problem with moral panic is that it tends to falter unless it's a strong majority.

And God help the culture that is in the throes of a panicked moral majority.

[the fieryangel]

You can only get so far trying to foment what Cla68 calls moral panic, because only a small contingent of Americans are given to moral panic and moral outrage.

The problem with moral panic is that it tends to falter unless it's a strong majority.

And God help the culture that is in the throes of a panicked moral majority.

Well, it looks like "Boyscouts are for spanking" is now part of the equation!

[wikiwhistle]

You can only get so far trying to foment what Cla68 calls moral panic, because only a small contingent of Americans are given to moral panic and moral outrage.

The problem with moral panic is that it tends to falter unless it's a strong majority.

Not so much the kids viewing porn angle, but the eric being a possible paedo angle or promoting paedo-ism, could garner a strong majority of disgust/morality feelings.

Practically everyone, especially anyone who has kids, can easily be stirred up when it comes to anything possibly to do with paedophilia.

This post has been edited by wikiwhistle: Mon 12th May 2008, 8:07pm