Cyberstalking list leaks, So much for sooper sekricy Options

[Cla68]

Yes, yes, I think we all KNOW that. My question is, how did they GET these mailing lists to be hosted on Wikia? Does (or did) Wikia provide free mailing list hosting in addition to their free wikis?

Because Wikipedia is not forward-looking, as Greg suggested elsewhere.

A private email list for editors who experience harassment is potentially a good thing, if it connects them with people who can monitor the harassment or offer advice on avoiding and defusing harassment. Probably SlimV suggested it to Jimmy, who waved his hand and made it so.

No one thought through the potential downside.

As usual.

If they had created a list monitored and moderated by a qualified professional, there would have been far less downside. Of course, that would involve dedicating resources to support the volunteers, which just isn't something Jimmy or the WMF want to bother with.

Once I found out about the cyberstalking list, if I remember right I requested to join it and was denied. It seems that the list was more of a final club than a true forum to help Wikipedia editors with harassment.

[melloden]

Yes, yes, I think we all KNOW that. My question is, how did they GET these mailing lists to be hosted on Wikia? Does (or did) Wikia provide free mailing list hosting in addition to their free wikis?

Because Wikipedia is not forward-looking, as Greg suggested elsewhere.

A private email list for editors who experience harassment is potentially a good thing, if it connects them with people who can monitor the harassment or offer advice on avoiding and defusing harassment. Probably SlimV suggested it to Jimmy, who waved his hand and made it so.

No one thought through the potential downside.

As usual.

If they had created a list monitored and moderated by a qualified professional, there would have been far less downside. Of course, that would involve dedicating resources to support the volunteers, which just isn't something Jimmy or the WMF want to bother with.

Have they ever cared about their users being stalked? Because last I heard, their "Abuse Team" (see here) of children still couldn't get the WMF to talk to ISPs of the stalkers.

[LessHorrid vanU]

If Jimbo happens to be referring to the whole SV as MI-5 conspiracy theory, I'm repeatedly on the record as saying I never believed it to be true, so he's wrong there, as well.

It seems clear enough that he wasn't referring to that, but of course that wasn't a "conspiracy theory" either, it was just repeating something Pierre Salinger had said about her. Salinger was probably wrong, but even the mere fact that he suspected (if not believed) it had some bearing on SV's behavior, and various people's attempts to explain it. (Or at least that was our position at the time.)

Jimbo has a real incentive to minimize Weiss's WP activities and refer to them now as being little more than "fiddling" or "mischief" - the last thing he needs are people pointing out how WP can be manipulated to do actual damage to companies, shareholders, and even entire economies, especially when so many countries' economies are already badly messed up. Even if it's just PR damage, it still reflects badly on him. The amount of damage Weiss actually did via Wikipedia is debatable, but there's no question that he was trying, very hard, to do damage. And he still is, most likely.

I don't believe that Weiss is interested in doing damage, except where it supports his central aim which is to enrich himself. Weiss probably did not maintain his campaign against Patrick Byrne/Overstock simply because he desired to damage it, but because they were hindering or obstructing his aim to make money out of naked short selling. Such is the banality of evil, that the damage caused is not for its sake but the disregard of the consequences to others in pursuit of another agenda.

Since such acts (including all the sockpuppets and forming of alliances with sundry "operators" at WP) are distant from the intended purpose, it is quite easy for such individuals to really believe that their actions are legitimate - or at least inconsequential (to them, at least). Weiss really may have believed that selling stock he did not intend to cover by purchasing subsequently was an appropriate method of "creating liquidity" in the market from which he could benefit. And he still may, most likely.

[SB_Johnny]

Have they ever cared about their users being stalked? Because last I heard, their "Abuse Team" (see here) of children still couldn't get the WMF to talk to ISPs of the stalkers.

That's a new one to me... is the abuse response team some sort of official body, or more like the old CVU?

This post has been edited by SB_Johnny: Tue 2nd August 2011, 9:57pm

[melloden]

Have they ever cared about their users being stalked? Because last I heard, their "Abuse Team" (see here) of children still couldn't get the WMF to talk to ISPs of the stalkers.

That's a new one to me... is the abuse response team some sort of official body, or more like the old CVU?

Not official in the WMF-endorsed sense. Their main page says, "Abuse Response is a community initiative for the reporting and investigation of abuse originating from IP address users. Those IP addresses are then reported to the Internet service provider with jurisdiction over the IP address in hopes to counter and even deter abuse to Wikipedia."

Note that half of the members are users who present themselves as children. I suspect that at least one of them could be a pedophile, too, but I don't really have much evidence for that right now.

[Piperdown]

I don't believe that Weiss is interested in doing damage, except where it supports his central aim which is to enrich himself. Weiss probably did not maintain his campaign against Patrick Byrne/Overstock simply because he desired to damage it, but because they were hindering or obstructing his aim to make money out of naked short selling. Such is the banality of evil, that the damage caused is not for its sake but the disregard of the consequences to others in pursuit of another agenda.

Uh, no.

Weiss is not a hedge fund manager or prime broker executive. He came to bat for several journalists and their "sources" (hedge fund managers who have a long history of shorting stocks, then using the same consistent vertically integrated network of journalists, supposedly independent analysts, and social media blowhards.

Weiss was said to have about $700K at one time that he was supporting himself with after getting let go by Business Week, and now several more outlets, and his books not selling enough to warrant more books. He probably trades stocks and shorts them too but that's not what got him started on Byrne's ass in 2006. He was tag teamed to jump in by a blogger/fund manager in the Rocker network named Jeff Matthews.

Without this network, journalists like Herb Greenberg and Weiss have no material to write about that would be controversial enough to ensure they can coninute their careers. Weiss killed his own career by writing nothing but whack job articles calling Byrne a whack job for the last 5 years. Greenberg had nothing to go with once his main man hedge fund manager retired involuntarily, and disappeared for a couple of years before returning with...the same cast of characters. There was no lone conspiracy against Overstock, they do this to several companies a year. It's what they do. It's very profitable for the ones at the bottom at that vertical ladder, and they kickback some of it upwards.

The WP NSS article brouhaha was overblown blog war that spilled over. It's true that it was a very obvious attempt to control what was sees when they google NSS, because NSS is a profitable thing for brokers and hedge fund managers, but regular, legal, shorting is way more profitable and prevalent.

Weiss is no more a sith lord of shorting than Linda Mack is the female James Bond.

Michael Milken on the other hand, that Star Wars fan is quite the sith...

This post has been edited by Piperdown: Sat 6th August 2011, 8:02pm