David Gerard, Shock Site Proprietor Options

[tarantino]

Warning, the websites listed below are not work safe, and may be considered offensive by many people.


David Gerard, anti-censor spokesman and model Wikipedian, said on February 22 this year -

wefixtech.co.uk is a virtual private server. It just got wiped by an idiot at the hosting company. So davidgerard.co.uk, [and several other personal sites listed] are down until they can recover from the February 17th backup. Good thing we got shot of the actual paying customers and it's now strictly our toy.

What does he do with that toy? Why, host the notorious lemonparty.org along with a dozen other lesser known shock sites such as thewillpower.org, yourmom.org and k-k-k.com.

Asked whois.pir.org:43 about lemonparty.org
lemonparty.org = [ 69.65.107.209 ]
Name Server: NS1.WEFIXTECH.CO.UK
Name Server: NS2.WEFIXTECH.CO.UK

Asked whois.nic.uk:43 about wefixtech.co.uk
wefixtech.co.uk = [ 69.65.107.209 ]
Name servers:
ns1.wefixtech.co.uk
ns2.wefixtech.co.uk

Note the wefixtech registrant is not Gerard, but a (former?) business partner.

David Gerard, just the sort of guy to represent WP in the press.

[tarantino]

I'd like to revive this thread to bring it to the attention of the several arbs who currently visit WR.

In this LJ post, Gerard states that wefixtech.co.uk is a virtual private server and is "now strictly our toy."

A list of some of the other domains hosted on that private server can be found at heyya.org . Whois results will confirm this. Heyya is safe, but I would strongly recommend against following any of the links listed there. The sites are meant to shock and offend.

That one of the most trusted volunteers at Wikipedia, who is also a WMF press contact, seems comfortable in associating with such content reflects very poorly on WP/WMF.

[Somey]

...I would strongly recommend against following any of the links listed there. The sites are meant to shock and offend.

That one of the most trusted volunteers at Wikipedia, who is also a WMF press contact, seems comfortable in associating with such content reflects very poorly on WP/WMF.

Y'know, I don't think we've ever came up with a satisfactory answer to the question of why Dave does this sort of thing, have we?

I mean, "because shocking and offending people is fun" might explain it, but you'd think the novelty would wear off after, say, the first two or three websites.

He doesn't make money doing this, does he? Does anyone know if any of these sites take donations?

[LaraLove]

He doesn't make money doing this, does he? Does anyone know if any of these sites take donations?

Well, they have ads, so how much do you think those pay out? I don't know about all the sites, but Lemonparty.org has been making its rounds for years, so I'm sure it gets a lot of hits. I've never had a website with ads, so I don't know what the payout is like.

[Lifebaka]

He doesn't make money doing this, does he? Does anyone know if any of these sites take donations?

Well, they have ads, so how much do you think those pay out? I don't know about all the sites, but Lemonparty.org has been making its rounds for years, so I'm sure it gets a lot of hits. I've never had a website with ads, so I don't know what the payout is like.

Alexa figures for Lemonparty.org are actually extremely low, giving it a 3 month average of 1.03 pageviews/day. (Warning: Alexa automatically displays a low-res of the site when viewing it's statistics, so is still not SFW.)

[Somey]

Alexa figures for Lemonparty.org are actually extremely low, giving it a 3 month average of 1.03 pageviews/day. (Warning: Alexa automatically displays a low-res of the site when viewing it's statistics, so is still not SFW.)

I guess having your website mentioned on Wikipedia isn't quite the traffic-generator it used to be, then. (And I wonder if TheGoonSquad (T-C-L-K-R-D) is actually Dave himself? Probably not, but he seems to have been the one who added it in.)

Realistically, the idea that sites like these could bring in any significant advertising revenue whatsoever is almost completely implausible - I'm afraid Mr. Barbour's theory is much more likely. Though he doesn't necessarily have to be doing paid work for the server owners - he might just being doing it all out of the goodness of his heart, right?