Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Fæ (/Fae/Ash), Quick, send a dossier to ArbCom and delete! Options

[lilburne]

They're making a game of it, that's what they're in it for, I'd put good money on the table that most of them don't even care about Ash himself but are just using him. Half are in it for the drama and fun. Other half (-2%) are in it to pursue their own agendas (like Priorymen) and this is just an opportunity for them to do so.

Sad thing is, whatever Ash/Fae's problems, and there was sketchy stuff with his RfA etc, he's become a pawn here. It's not just that his supporters are creating a google bomb, but just simply that some of them are so over the top and idiotic that they're managing to hurt whatever credibility he's got left simply by virtue of association.

I'd feel sorry for him actually, except that he's had and still has the option to step into this and say to his supporters "ok guys, thanks for the support but I don't think this is about homophobia and you need to stop being crazy here" or something like that.

Its gone on for too long, for any backing off from that claim now.

As for Wnt ... well it would be hard to find a bigger fuckwit.

[thekohser]

Farmbrough says:

Greogry Kohs on WR boasts of having bought an admin account.

First, he can't even type "Gregory" correctly.

Second, did I actually "boast" of having bought an admin account?

Third, did I even admit to having bought an admin account?

[Cla68]

Farmbrough says:

Greogry Kohs on WR boasts of having bought an admin account.

First, he can't even type "Gregory" correctly.

Second, did I actually "boast" of having bought an admin account?

Third, did I even admit to having bought an admin account?

And even if you did, it's WR's fault somehow? Talk about dishonest discourse.

Sometimes, you just gotta take a stand against that garbage.

This post has been edited by Cla68: Thu 9th February 2012, 4:43am

[Selina]

RE my previous post which is a bit long to quote ( wikipediareview.com/?showtopic=36464&view=findpost&p=296124 ) why is everyone still ignoring that a) he had a sexualised picture of a child on his user page (and if it was a female child I'm sure there would have been an outcry, it seems a bit like because the admins are mostly male they think it's more acceptable) and b) what no one else seems to have noticed in his history, I looked and found him later deliberately deleting mentions of a paedophile caught working in a school for years and deleting the news references to it? He said he worked in schools before, and if you read my previous post, there's quite a few dodgy things seemingly connected with that school, with a whistleblower adding stuff to the article then getting it removed repeatedly by anonymous accounts BEFORE the time of any of the news articles about it — meaning either some employee (or a student? from the personal tone of the edits it sounds like a teenager waswrigint it as complaints) was trying to get the word out without speaking to the police about it because it says they were threatened not to talk to the police - both on Wikipedia and the comments on that blog... and then that other site with employees saying it was a deliberate coverup... how was he involved? To me it looks a bit like he might have been involved in the repeated removal of the whistleblowing from the page, then a few years after it happens considers it safe to remove it with his own account instead of a sockpuppet (or an accident) ... Did this Ashley Van Haeften work at the school too? Wikimedia UK is looking like a pretty creepy organisation at the moment ugh.

As mentioned in my previous post I'm no stranger to dealing with paedophile sockpuppets I was one of the ones who called out Haiduc on abusing the LGBT group for slimily twisting articles to make them sound more like child abuse is normal and ok (links in prev post) way way before Wikipedia would lift a finger and later banned .... and just a few days back I caught another one without even really trying (just saw on watchlist) (and again)




I was just looking at the history of the "Pederasty" article that the paedophiles love to make edits to justify paedophilia (He seems to use a lot of automated editing to try hide his editing patterns, is there any thing to filter out edits with certain edit summaries to get rid of the automated spam)/minor edits from a contributions list?) and it looks like Fæ's being taking over from Haiduc on reverting when he got banned:
wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty?action=history&limit=1000
• wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty?diff=next&oldid=409482956
• wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty?diff=next&oldid=421349083
The big question is how many sockpuppets are there...

• Special:Contributions/Ash — 07:00, 26 February 2010 (diff | hist) N Passive aggressive personality ‎ (Create)
... This seems rather relevant: wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_playing#By_abusers

• wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/BL — "The main Wikimedia contact is Fæ (talk · contribs)." — So he will be having a lot of contact in private without supervision with the many schoolchildren who edit Wikipedia on a regular basis...

• uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetings/2011_election:_Ballot_Instructions#Ashley_Van_Haeften — "manager and director [..]an 'ambassador' I am acting as a default point of contact for our the relationships with the British Library and British Museum and have recently started contact with the Wellcome Trust and English Heritage. At an international level our expectations for how such collaborations is maturing and I sit on the GLAM steering committee [..]UK budget holder for GLAM"
• theyworkforyou.com/calendar/?d=2011-11-28 — "Monday, 28 November 2011 — Commons: Select Committees — Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions: Privacy and Injunctions 2:15 pm; The Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House — Witnesses: Professor Andrew Murray, Professor of Law, London School of Economics (with special interests in cyber-regulation and information technology law); Dr Ian Brown, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute; Ashley Van Haeften, trustee, Wikimedia UK; Nicholas Lansman, secretary general, Internet Service Providers Association (at 2:15); Richard Desmond, chairman, Northern & Shell Network Ltd; Paul Ashford, editorial director, Northern & Shell Network Ltd; Hugh Whittow, editor, Daily Express (at 3:15)"

[Vigilant]

This is some noxious stuff

When does it come to be Ashley's turn to take some public responsibility for his actions and inaction?

[lilburne]

RE my previous post which is a bit long to quote ( wikipediareview.com/?showtopic=36464&view=findpost&p=296124 ) why is everyone still ignoring that a) he had a sexualised picture of a child on his user page (and if it was a female child I'm sure there would have been an outcry, it seems a bit like because the admins are mostly male they think it's more acceptable) and b) what no one else seems to have noticed in his history, I looked and found him later deliberately deleting mentions of a paedophile caught working in a school for years and deleting the news references to it? He said he worked in schools before, and if you read my previous post, there's quite a few dodgy things seemingly connected with that school, with a whistleblower adding stuff to the article then getting it removed repeatedly by anonymous accounts BEFORE the time of any of the news articles about it — meaning either some employee (or a student? from the personal tone of the edits it sounds like a teenager waswrigint it as complaints) was trying to get the word out without speaking to the police about it because it says they were threatened not to talk to the police - both on Wikipedia and the comments on that blog... and then that other site with employees saying it was a deliberate coverup... how was he involved? To me it looks a bit like he might have been involved in the repeated removal of the whistleblowing from the page, then a few years after it happens considers it safe to remove it with his own account instead of a sockpuppet (or an accident) ... Did this Ashley Van Haeften work at the school too? Wikimedia UK is looking like a pretty creepy organisation at the moment ugh.

As mentioned in my previous post I'm no stranger to dealing with paedophile sockpuppets I was one of the ones who called out Haiduc on abusing the LGBT group for slimily twisting articles to make them sound more like child abuse is normal and ok (links in prev post) way way before Wikipedia would lift a finger and later banned .... and just a few days back I caught another one without even really trying (just saw on watchlist) (and again)



I was just looking at the history of the "Pederasty" article that the paedophiles love to make edits to justify paedophilia (He seems to use a lot of automated editing to try hide his editing patterns, is there any thing to filter out edits with certain edit summaries to get rid of the automated spam)/minor edits from a contributions list?) and it looks like Fæ's being taking over from Haiduc on reverting when he got banned:
wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty?action=history&limit=1000
• wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty?diff=next&oldid=409482956
• wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty?diff=next&oldid=421349083
The big question is how many sockpuppets are there...

• Special:Contributions/Ash — 07:00, 26 February 2010 (diff | hist) N Passive aggressive personality ‎ (Create)
... This seems rather relevant: wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_playing#By_abusers

• wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/BL — "The main Wikimedia contact is Fæ (talk · contribs)." — So he will be having a lot of contact in private without supervision with the many schoolchildren who edit Wikipedia on a regular basis...

• uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetings/2011_election:_Ballot_Instructions#Ashley_Van_Haeften — "manager and director [..]an 'ambassador' I am acting as a default point of contact for our the relationships with the British Library and British Museum and have recently started contact with the Wellcome Trust and English Heritage. At an international level our expectations for how such collaborations is maturing and I sit on the GLAM steering committee [..]UK budget holder for GLAM"
• theyworkforyou.com/calendar/?d=2011-11-28 — "Monday, 28 November 2011 — Commons: Select Committees — Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions: Privacy and Injunctions 2:15 pm; The Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House — Witnesses: Professor Andrew Murray, Professor of Law, London School of Economics (with special interests in cyber-regulation and information technology law); Dr Ian Brown, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute; Ashley Van Haeften, trustee, Wikimedia UK; Nicholas Lansman, secretary general, Internet Service Providers Association (at 2:15); Richard Desmond, chairman, Northern & Shell Network Ltd; Paul Ashford, editorial director, Northern & Shell Network Ltd; Hugh Whittow, editor, Daily Express (at 3:15)"

Ha you'll be lucky to get any of that answered:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators/Requests/Fæ?diff=prev&oldid=64537255

[Abd]

This is the wash/rinse/repeat cycle on Wikipedia. Process is set up, is vulnerable to manipulation. So rules are created against manipulation. Then what is described as manipulation is protected against abuse by creating sanctions. And then the sanction are applied without any reference to the original problem

WP:CANVASS was developed to fix what would be, in theory, a non-problem. In theory, decisions are made on Wikipedia by preponderance of arguments, not preponderance of votes. Canvassing, then, would bring in more votes, maybe, but would not do harm, and, in fact, could be beneficial, because new users, canvassed, may present evidence and arguments that would otherwise be missed.

RfC is not a decision-making process. Or at least it wasn't supposed to be. RfC is not supposed to decide upon sanctions, it merely makes recommendations. Now, the harm of canvassing would be, in this case, that discussion gets longer and more complex, but that is truly only because any discussion that gets wide attention becomes unwieldy on Wikipedia, but instead of working to fix that problem (clerking, refactoring, summarization, and, yes, hatting), complaints are made about "canvassing." And then all editors who read Wikipedia Review are slammed with accusations that are based on the alleged behavior of a few on WR.

In AfD, because closers sometimes do consider vote counts, and with other processes where a definitive decision is being made, it could be considered that canvassing is a problem. It's a problem with RfAs, I've seen it. Even there, though, the solution would not be sanctioning canvassing, per se, but, again, considering the *balance of arguments*, not votes. More work! It just isn't done.

But with an RfC, results are advisory, in theory. Fae would not be dysopped, for example, based on the results of the RfC. Sanctions are not supposed to be decided there. However, Fae might take advice. Fae, then, is the "decider." And Fae, if he wishes, can deprecate anything or everything. It's up to him!

What the wikipediots are doing is trying to control the advice that Fae receives. (And it's not only Fae who is advised, its anyone interested. ArbComm will, however, if asked, make an independent decision, and the evidence in the RfC may be incorporated in a case, but, in that event, it would either be refactored or specific items would be referenced.)

So the whole flap is crazy. Wikipedia.

[Ego Trippin' (Part Two)]

Fae, is arguably one of the top Wikipedians in the UK. He represents the UK in the Houses of Parliment and talks to major institutions on behalf of the movement. He enjoys the trust of everyone who knows him. There appears to be a group of editors who are creating a witch hunt for the smell of a conspiracy. Fae has many supporters who do not like to lower themselves to debating with these people. We also spend a lot of time editing rather than debating trivia. If we allow good editors and people who fly the flag fot the movement to be driven from our midst then the process is wrong. Victuallers (talk) 10:20, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=473877882

Victuallers = Roger Bamkin, chair of WMUK. Also chipping in on that page is Martin Poulter, a director of WMUK.

Here's a question for Carbuncle or anyone better-versed in the Fae affair than me. We know that Van Haeften disclosed the identity of his prior account to John Vandenberg and Lar when he ran his successful RfA. But do we know anything about how he became a WMUK trustee? For example, do we know whether he disclosed the prior account and related details (that he was about to undergo a RfC for misrepresenting sources) before he was hired? I think it's safe to assume he didn't mention anything about the bondage photos.

Bamkin and Poulter have defended Fae in the current RfC, although that's probably an instinctual protection of a friend and fellow official, and not necessarily an indication that Van Haeften was honest about his past from the get-go.

[HRIP7]

Fae, is arguably one of the top Wikipedians in the UK. He represents the UK in the Houses of Parliment and talks to major institutions on behalf of the movement. He enjoys the trust of everyone who knows him. There appears to be a group of editors who are creating a witch hunt for the smell of a conspiracy. Fae has many supporters who do not like to lower themselves to debating with these people. We also spend a lot of time editing rather than debating trivia. If we allow good editors and people who fly the flag fot the movement to be driven from our midst then the process is wrong. Victuallers (talk) 10:20, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=473877882

Victuallers = Roger Bamkin, chair of WMUK. Also chipping in on that page is Martin Poulter, a director of WMUK.

Here's a question for Carbuncle or anyone better-versed in the Fae affair than me. We know that Van Haeften disclosed the identity of his prior account to John Vandenberg and Lar when he ran his successful RfA. But do we know anything about how he became a WMUK trustee? For example, do we know whether he disclosed the prior account and related details (that he was about to undergo a RfC for misrepresenting sources) before he was hired? I think it's safe to assume he didn't mention anything about the bondage photos.

Bamkin and Poulter have defended Fae in the current RfC, although that's probably an instinctual protection of a friend and fellow official, and not necessarily an indication that Van Haeften was honest about his past from the get-go.

You become a trustee by being a member of Wikimedia UK, and standing for election. The vote was on 16 April 2011 at the WikiConference UK 2011.

Candidate statements were here. There were 7 slots to be filled, and 8 candidates; so basically everyone who stood, except one, was elected. From the Wikimedia wiki, it seems about 30 people attended the meeting and voted (unless there were others who didn't bother signing in).

[Ego Trippin' (Part Two)]

You become a trustee by being a member of Wikimedia UK, and standing for election. The vote was on 16 April 2011 at the WikiConference UK 2011.

Candidate statements were here. There were 7 slots to be filled, and 8 candidates; so basically everyone who stood, except one, was elected. From the Wikimedia wiki, it seems about 30 people attended the meeting and voted (unless there were others who didn't bother signing in).

Ah, I didn't realize that it was an elected position. Thanks for the info.

[carbuncle]

Bamkin and Poulter have defended Fae in the current RfC, although that's probably an instinctual protection of a friend and fellow official, and not necessarily an indication that Van Haeften was honest about his past from the get-go.

I can't recall seeing Van Haeften be honest about very much at all. It is certainly possible he disclosed that he had prior accounts and repeated the narrative of having to make a "clean start" because of "harassment". I think it is unlikely that anyone knew the full extent of the situation.

[Michaeldsuarez]

I can't recall seeing Van Haeften be honest about very much at all. It is certainly possible he disclosed that he had prior accounts and repeated the narrative of having to make a "clean start" because of "harassment". I think it is unlikely that anyone knew the full extent of the situation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=474493300

[Vigilant]

My candidate for next year's straight shooter

Balls and integrity.

[dogbiscuit]

My candidate for next year's straight shooter

Balls and integrity.

A lot of this stuff is about people believing that Wikipedia is some brave new world casting off old fashioned views of society and that if the new rules of Wikipedia are followed, then you will be part of something new and special.

What this view fails to recognise is that there are reasons why there is a general acceptance of most basic rules that we are governed by in the real world. It is because over generations they are known to work. Being accountable for your actions is a pretty fundamental principle across societies, because if you are seeking to be unaccountable you are normally acting in a destructive way.

In standing for a position of trust, it is important to be able to demonstrate that you are trustworthy. Fae is a trustee in the real world, so the fact that he can be shown to be less than straightforward in his dealings is pretty good evidence that he is not suitable material to be trusted, especially as Wikipedian morality seems to migrate into the real world.

Over the past year I've been involved with problems which have affected some local charities. The bottom line of these issues is:

a) If you don't run an organisation in an open and accountable way then there are always people who will take advantage.
b) As an organisation, you can never take people on trust or be seen to take people on trust.

Rules on accountability have to be slavishly followed so when the shit does hit the fan, there is at least very little shit to spread about.

Where Wikipedia will always run into problems is that because of its culture of "Secrecy Is Good" it becomes very difficult to get across that they have lost accountability, and it then becomes impossible to trust anyone. When they then stray into the real world, as with the Chapters running charities, they have a real problem because they have to do a double-think where they have to divide someone like Fae into three - Ash, who no longer exists and should not be associated with anything, Fae who is a flawed Wikipedian but in the world of AGF we are apparently required to ignore concerns (and his supporters are working overtime to do so), and then the person in the real world who actually we are supposed to know nothing about yet he has been put in a position of trust over millions of pounds by 30 people, of which 8 were seeking those positions.

Stepping back - what do we really know about the Fae character? What good has he done for Wikipedia? I don't get any sense that he is either productive or a helpful administrator. He is a gamer rather than an editor. So having achieved nothing but a certain amount of embarrassment for the project why are people so keen to support him? Is it that he has earned his WikiPoints in supporting other people in their gaming or is it that if he goes down, other people recognise that they behave in similar manner and are also at risk if someone applies a dose of rationality to the project?

[Michaeldsuarez]

I'd be interested if the paedophile "artwork" pics on user page thing was a proven thing and not just hearsay

Ash used to display this rather suggestive photo of a nude teen-aged boy on his user page with the caption "This is not actually my photo Sometimes a fish is just a fish... "

Happy-melon deleted that from Ash's page history, while Ash was preparing his aborted request for comment about DC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=476119359

Wnt brings up a good point. The full version of the image wasn't uploaded until March 28, 2010:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?t...loeden_6052.jpg

Ash added the VonGloeden_6052.jpg to his userpage before it was overwritten by the version with the penis:

http://web.archive.org/web/20100317194701/...g/wiki/User:Ash

Ash's userpage was deleted before the VonGloeden_6052.jpg was overwritten:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...page=User%3AAsh

[lilburne]

I'd be interested if the paedophile "artwork" pics on user page thing was a proven thing and not just hearsay

Ash used to display this rather suggestive photo of a nude teen-aged boy on his user page with the caption "This is not actually my photo Sometimes a fish is just a fish... "

Happy-melon deleted that from Ash's page history, while Ash was preparing his aborted request for comment about DC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=476119359

Wnt brings up a good point. The full version of the image wasn't uploaded until March 28, 2010:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?t...loeden_6052.jpg

Ash added the VonGloeden_6052.jpg to his userpage before it was overwritten by the version with the penis:

http://web.archive.org/web/20100317194701/...g/wiki/User:Ash

Ash's userpage was deleted before the VonGloeden_6052.jpg was overwritten:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...page=User%3AAsh

What the fool Wnt is saying is that a head and upper torso photo of a naked Vietnamese Girl by Paul Gadd would be acceptable on a user page. The nature of Wilhelm von Gloeden's work is well known.

[dogbiscuit]

What the fool Wnt is saying is that a head and upper torso photo of a naked Vietnamese Girl by Paul Gadd would be acceptable on a user page. The nature of Wilhelm von Gloeden's work is well known.

It's entirely possible someone could be naked without being "sexualized"

Aaargh! Where's Ottava when you finally need him?!!!

[Abd]

A lot of this stuff is about people believing that Wikipedia is some brave new world casting off old fashioned views of society and that if the new rules of Wikipedia are followed, then you will be part of something new and special.

What this view fails to recognize is that there are reasons why there is a general acceptance of most basic rules that we are governed by in the real world. It is because over generations they are known to work. Being accountable for your actions is a pretty fundamental principle across societies, because if you are seeking to be unaccountable you are normally acting in a destructive way.

The unexamined idea that wiki process was new permeated the project from the beginning, and as people came in with understanding of standard process, they were seen as "outsiders" who were clueless. So either they subserviently "got some clue" or they were rejected, spit out. Of course, the whole concept of "insider" and "outsider," again unexamined, was contrary to the wiki vision. Wikipedians were importing common social structure, and not the most efficient or enlightened structure, they were importing, as someone wrote, fifth-grade society.

There are adhocratic societies that work, that even work very well, and very efficiently, and they have been my subject of study and practice for many years. What I saw, when I became active on Wikipedia, was that the rules and guidelines were very good. Those represented the best thinking of the community, and there were only a few details with which I'd quibble. However, there were missing elements, and mostly this was about implementation, how do you *manifest* the policies and guidelines, so that actual practice follows the best designs.

However, the structure allowed elements in the community to define "actual practice" as trumping the policies and guidelines, as if the "community," whoever shows up for a particular decision or discussion, would be smarter and more reliable than those working on the policies and guidelines. There is a principle in common law, Public Policy, that the effect of enforcing a law may be considered and can trump the law. It's the real-world equivalent of IAR. However, a judge who relies upon Public Policy better be prepared to defend it!

Wikipedia enshrined IAR and used it as an excuse to avoid expanding the policies and guidelines in ways that would have made administrative response to situations predictable. Thus Rule of Law was discarded in favor of unpredictability, but then users are sanctioned for violating what amount to informal rules that are often made up post-facto.

Wikipedia has made almost every mistake that nascent democracies have made, without learning from them, because it has no institutional memory, that's what an accumulated body of law represents. Law can be changed, just as consensus can change.

Wikipedia developed another trope, a conflict between freedom and bureaucracy, so any structure that would make decision-making more reliable was seen as confining and restrictive. Sure. It would be. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on details!

This post has been edited by Abd: Fri 10th February 2012, 5:25pm

[lilburne]

What the fool Wnt is saying is that a head and upper torso photo of a naked Vietnamese Girl by Paul Gadd would be acceptable on a user page. The nature of Wilhelm von Gloeden's work is well known.

It's entirely possible someone could be naked without being "sexualized"

Aaargh! Where's Ottava when you finally need him?!!!

von Gloeden was making classical references in his photos. That particular photo seems to be a reference to Suetonius commentary of Tiberius' on Capri.

http://www.livius.org/su-sz/suetonius/tiberius.html

[HRIP7]

I'd be interested if the paedophile "artwork" pics on user page thing was a proven thing and not just hearsay

Ash used to display this rather suggestive photo of a nude teen-aged boy on his user page with the caption "This is not actually my photo Sometimes a fish is just a fish... "

Happy-melon deleted that from Ash's page history, while Ash was preparing his aborted request for comment about DC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=476119359

Wnt brings up a good point. The full version of the image wasn't uploaded until March 28, 2010:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?t...loeden_6052.jpg

Ash added the VonGloeden_6052.jpg to his userpage before it was overwritten by the version with the penis:

http://web.archive.org/web/20100317194701/...g/wiki/User:Ash

Ash's userpage was deleted before the VonGloeden_6052.jpg was overwritten:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...page=User%3AAsh

I think this must be the first time I find myself having to agree that Wnt makes an excellent and salient point.