Essjay again Options

[mbz1]

A popular administrator RickK had this to say before he left wikipedia for good

"Left for good" as in came back the next day with a new account.....

Yup. And ran that account up to admin, too. Both are now blocked for security reasons, because the common password he used on both accounts was compromised.

I did not know this. What is the user name of the other account?
All I know is that a few months ago there was an account made. The user said he was Rick, but the real Rick emailed to somebody, and said it was not him.

[Milton Roe]

For the purposes getting back on topic, I can tell you that ChaseMe was not an officer in either the naval reserve or the regular navy. As far as I know, he still isn't.

However, it is still probably the case that stone frigates aren't much fun.

Stone frigates
Stone frigates
Stone frigates
Aren't much fun

In the Navy they don't please;
They don't ply northern seas
Stone frigates... aren't much fun

My own stone frigate's
In Birmingham
I thought I'd sail it
A better man
But stone frigates... aren't much fun.

[sing along!]

Stone..... frigates!
Stone.... frigates!!!
Stone frigates... aren't much fun!!!

[Detective]

I did not know this. What is the user name of the other account?

Wasn't it Zoe (T-C-L-K-R-D) ?

[Michaeldsuarez]

I did not know this. What is the user name of the other account?

Wasn't it Zoe (T-C-L-K-R-D) ?

The RickK and Zoe accounts both have the same password, and that password may be readily guessed from knowing RickK's email address, which is itself can be discovered with only moderate difficulty after analyzing some of Rick's comments on the wiki.

Technically, since RickK and Zoe never overlapped editing, it's not abusive sockpuppetry as defined by Wikipedia.

I am not going to discuss how we found this out, or who was involved in the research. It could be substantiated by logging into both accounts with the common password, but I'm not enough of a fool to post the password to a Wikipedia admin account on Wikipedia Review, or give it to you privately.

Eventually, I would imagine, someone with a brain over in Wikiland will see this and decide to suspend both accounts as the security risk they are, but until they do...

[Peter Damian]

Thank you. The main thing I wanted to confirm is that if it had not been for you raising this with the New Yorker, the affair would not have got public attention. It was already known by January that there was a problem, but (from what I can piece together) the Wikipedians were too naïve to understand the implication of this). It was only when the New Yorker published the correction (as a result of your persistence) and the blogosphere reacted, that they realised.

Here is the Essjay thread I started on 26 July 2006. In this thread, on 11 January 2007, Somey posted about his discovery that Essjay had a Wikia user page with new information.

In this later thread, after the scandal broke, Somey half-jokingly complains that he didn't get proper credit for his discovery.

Right, but the problem with that thread is that sometimes what they are discussing has been deleted - like the Wikia page referred to. I'm assuming that the page was first time Essjay had been identified as 'Ryan Jordan', but with no further information. This caused Brandt to look for a professor of that name.

[Peter Damian]

My mistake, the page is here http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/gifs/wmessjay.png

[Mr.Treason II]

Daniel Brandt started this post http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&sh...indpost&p=12701 in July 2006, some 9 months before the whole Essjay story came to light. Brandt said that Essjay was between 30 and 45, teaches theology to undergrads and grads, and is a tenured professor at a private university in the northeastern U.S.

He says he has these degrees: Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies (B.A.), Master of Arts in Religion (M.A.R.), Doctorate of Philosophy in Theology (Ph.D.), Doctorate in Canon Law (JCD). I've searched on his degrees, and I've looked at religion-department faculty lists in the northeast by using this resource. No clues. He keeps to himself, and has been a Wikipedian only since February, 2005. Previous email addresses are essjay-wiki AT hotmail.com and essjay AT pacbell.net (some doubt about the latter). He specializes in Roman Catholicism, but is a liberal non-Catholic. He's an elder in the Disciples of Christ, a liberal Protestant denomination. He's probably had essays on social issues published in obscure, liberal religious publications within the past ten years.

How did Brandt know this? Unfortunately the project that wants all information to be free has deleted Essjay's user page and all historical revisions, and archives. Would that information have been on the user page in July 2006? If it was, is there any way of accessing it?

Actually it doesn't matter if I can't, I shall simply document very carefully all the occasions when this very secretive organisation keeps things secret.

[edit] Ah nvm I've found a copy of the january 2006 version of the user page. http://web.archive.org/web/20060111060701/...iki/User:Essjay Yes, Brandt got it from there.

Wikipedia now switches off Archive.org access...
it is too obsessed with protecting liars and cheats.
What will we do? :( The Wikipedos are coming :{
They want to use WP as Bomis II.
Robots.txt does not allow archive any more

It appears that Essjay (or Slimy Jakass) is destroying evidence. Jimmy was hired to fake the story (proof at My Wiki Biz).

[EricBarbour]

It wasn't just Essjay in Feb-March 2007 that caused the damage.

2007 was the year the Wikipedia idiot patrol reached its full flower.

Carolyn Doran happened at about the same time. They hired her in January, she was busted for DUI in May, and managed to cover it up...going to a board meeting in Amsterdam in June. Presumably her being arrested on re-entering the US for parole violation tipped the geniuses of the WMF that something was up. But it still took them till July to do something. They don't announce it until September, after her FOURTH ARREST for DUI. Timeline here.

Godwin also said that he and the Foundation are still unaware of Doran's criminal record: "We've never had any documentation of any criminal record on Carolyn Doran's part at all," he told us. "As far as I'm concerned, I have no direct knowledge of [her criminal record] yet...We have, in our records, no evidence of any such thing."

And Brad Patrick left just before Doran's blowup. It is widely assumed she may have forced Brad out, though this will never be proven adequately. He hired her, after all. Maybe he knew before anyone else and didn't want to be around for the hellstorm.

Everyone helped to cover Doran's mess up--even the WMF's legal counsel. IMO Mr. Godwin might be guilty of misconduct for this.

The Mantanmoreland/Overstock.com situation came to a head in October, with David Gerard attempting to block a large chunk of Utah, just to silence Judd Bagley.

The secret mailing list squawk came out in December.

Then in early 2008 came the Jossi flap, followed quickly by Rachel Marsden. By then it was impossible to ignore that Jimbo was a pathological liar and had surrounded himself with liars--unless you were a true-blue Wiki-fool.

So, it all added up, and people started giving up and leaving Wikipedia.

This post has been edited by EricBarbour: Tue 11th October 2011, 8:41am

[Milton Roe]

Carolyn Doran happened at about the same time. They hired her in January, she was busted for DUI in May, and managed to cover it up...going to a board meeting in Amsterdam in June. Presumably her being arrested on re-entering the US for parole violation tipped the geniuses of the WMF that something was up. But it still took them till July to do something. They don't announce it until September, after her FOURTH ARREST for DUI. Timeline here.

I'm not too sure about this, as the May, 2007 arrest is ALSO for "4th or more" DUI/DWIs. So she had 4 even in May. God knows how many she had in September-- all we know is that if she had a new one in Sept, it was one more.

Incidently, the charge in September relating to "hit and run" is an outstanding warrent for being a "fugitive from Virginia," as you see. Apparently related to a DUI THERE. Evidently Doran had moved from Virginia to Florida to take the WMF job without clearing up her parole in Virginia. And of course couldn't get a driver license in Florida, so had been driving without one. Both her Florida arrests include DWL (driving without license).

In the past I've questioned whether or not the Sept arrest was an additional DWI or else just Doran finally turning herself in, as she made bail in the May arrest. I don't know if they'd include the old charges from May again in that kind of arrest.

Since Doran made bail over a weekend in May, we can assume that was where she used the WMF credit card to get the money to do it. One assumes the WMF card was all she had, since her credit score was doubtless so poor then that she couldn't get one in her own name. With sweaty palms she repaid WMF the next Tuesday as soon as she got out of the slammer, and WMF indeed didn't find out she'd ever been to jail. What triggered the audit was when Doran went back to jail for good in September. They checked her card and found the May charge, and off they went.

[Mr.Treason II]

It wasn't just Essjay in Feb-March 2007 that caused the damage.

2007 was the year the Wikipedia idiot patrol reached its full flower.

Carolyn Doran happened at about the same time. They hired her in January, she was busted for DUI in May, and managed to cover it up...going to a board meeting in Amsterdam in June. Presumably her being arrested on re-entering the US for parole violation tipped the geniuses of the WMF that something was up. But it still took them till July to do something. They don't announce it until September, after her FOURTH ARREST for DUI. Timeline here.

Godwin also said that he and the Foundation are still unaware of Doran's criminal record: "We've never had any documentation of any criminal record on Carolyn Doran's part at all," he told us. "As far as I'm concerned, I have no direct knowledge of [her criminal record] yet...We have, in our records, no evidence of any such thing."

And Brad Patrick left just before Doran's blowup. It is widely assumed she may have forced Brad out, though this will never be proven adequately. He hired her, after all. Maybe he knew before anyone else and didn't want to be around for the hellstorm.

Everyone helped to cover Doran's mess up--even the WMF's legal counsel. IMO Mr. Godwin might be guilty of misconduct for this.

The Mantanmoreland/Overstock.com situation came to a head in October, with David Gerard attempting to block a large chunk of Utah, just to silence Judd Bagley.

The secret mailing list squawk came out in December.

Then in early 2008 came the Jossi flap, followed quickly by Rachel Marsden. By then it was impossible to ignore that Jimbo was a pathological liar and had surrounded himself with liars--unless you were a true-blue Wiki-fool.

So, it all added up, and people started giving up and leaving Wikipedia.

I even vandalized Wikipedia and was good friends with girlvinyl in vandalizing Wikipedia,
Even the liars at Firedox see that Wiki is not real word.

[Peter Damian]

I'm looking carefully at Lih's account of the scandal. He doesn't actually say anything untruthful, although he omits things in order to imply an alternative causality. For example, he omits to say that Wikipedia Review + Brandt had been commenting on and campaigning about Jordan for nearly a year, and his order of presentation misleadingly implies that the 'community' unmasked Essjay.

He also places the blame on the New Yorker, saying that the journal tried to 'defend' its actions, and that the unmasking of Essjay was 'a big strike against the vaunted fact-checking operation of the ''New Yorker''.

Danny Wool supposedly disagreed with the NY statement, and emphasised that the WMF "had never endorsed the authenticity of Essjay, ever".

Thoughts?

[edit] Ah I see there is some more about it in Lih's blog http://www.andrewlih.com/blog/2007/03/05/e...the-new-yorker/

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Sun 19th February 2012, 7:29am