User:Chase me ladies, I'm the cavalry, Another member of the military moonlights as an admin and makes a fool Options

[Heat]

User:Chase_me_ladies,_I'm_the_Cavalry is a member of "The Armed Forces of the Crown" (ie the Royal Navy) and a wikipedia admin on OTRS duty. He seems to have cocked this one up by taking at 100% face value an OTRS complaint by professional conspiracy theorist Isreal Shamir that User:RolandR was using Wikipedia to try to get him assassinated. Can you really enforce BLP by libelling an editor?

[Heat]

I haven't gone through Chase's edits to see if he's edited on military matters or had any related disputes, even if he hasn't, claiming to be a Royal Navy officer would have given him undeserved prestige and respect from editors who care about status and the like and undoubtedly would have helped him win votes when he was running for ArbComm since, as I said earlier, since a good percentage of editors would think being an officer means the candidate has demonstrated a degree of responsibility and good judgment in real life.

[Giano]

I haven't gone through Chase's edits to see if he's edited on military matters or had any related disputes, even if he hasn't, claiming to be a Royal Navy officer would have given him undeserved prestige and respect from editors who care about status and the like and undoubtedly would have helped him win votes when he was running for ArbComm since, as I said earlier, since a good percentage of editors would think being an officer means the candidate has demonstrated a degree of responsibility and good judgment in real life.

I think it's most likely that he said he was an officer because that is what young men do - promote themselves a little to impress and make themselves sound slightly more interesting. I expect it was nothing more than that, and now a a few years later he has grown up and regrets it. If we were all shot for the sins of our youth, there would not be many of us left. I have not seen him pontificating and claiming superiority in an arguement because he was an officer. I think the whole thing was nothing more than a childish vanity buried in his past.

He was clearly thrown into the media circus by the foundation with no guidance at all. London hotels and clubs are full of meeting rooms available for hire, specially designed for interviews, with shelves of leather bound books and classical art to act as backgrounds and provide gravitas. Next time he will turn up on neutral territory with his laptop and a prepared and checked script and stick to it. I would love to have heard the leading questions editied out that interview, not to mention what ended up on the cutting room floor.

It's my view that Wikipedia's PR machine has always been crap. The real villains are those that let him go so naively into the lion's den and failed to advise him on dealing with the media. If editors are going to be authrorised to speak on behalf of the project, the project should ensure they are equipped to do so in all respects. I will even go so far as to say he will be a much wiser and better arbitrator as a result of this debacle. Let him now show he's grown up and is wiser.

Anyway he seems bright enough and alert, he'll soon find a job and won't have time for all this 8 hours a day silliness.

Giacomo

This post has been edited by Giano: Wed 19th January 2011, 8:39am

[Doc glasgow]

Giano is correct - all this has a perfectly natural and human explanation, and the horrid bullshit on this thread does nothing but show the meanness and lack of perspective of those posting it.

Since when did pretending on the internet make you a "pathological liar"? Do those using the term even know what "pathological" means? It would appear not.

In any case, putting disinformation on one's userpage is nothing new.

There is a clear difference here from the Essjay fiasco, because Essjay actually repeatedly used the fake credentials to his advantage.

But even then, what was Essjay about? A young man went role-playing on the internet. He then grew up and decided he wanted a job. Got offered the job (on the basis of his real CV and assessed abilities), and then found the childish roleplaying game bit him hard on the arse. A salutary lesson to all - but hardly evil incarnate.


See my analysis of Essjay here...

This post has been edited by Doc glasgow: Wed 19th January 2011, 9:27am