So, it occurs to me that our mysterious [[Linda Mack]] easily passes notability requirements. Why isn't this an article? Public journalist, multiple mentions in books, part of a major historical event (Pan Am 103).

Linda Mack can't be an article because Wikipedia makes the rules up as they go along.

On second thought, we can make articles on her on non-english wikipedia portals. And we should!!!!!!

I don't think Mack is notable, except for her alleged shenanigans as SlimVirgin. She spent a few months as a new researcher, published one article and vanished. Posting an article gives the nutter more credit than she deserves.

You really don't want to give her more of a swelled head than she already has...

Does Linda Mack warrant an article? Possibly not. But does Linda Mack controversy warrant an article? Probably. It is right now somewhere between the Snowspinner controversy and the Essjay controversy in terms of coverage, but ahead of both in terms of importance. I think that you could argue a case for it.

However, if anyone tried to create an article now, it'd just be used as a tool to encourage a greater cover up. Wait for the right time, and the appropriate people will make one anyway. Wait until Wikipedia Bureaucrats decide to make it.

Can we start compiling everything that meets RS/V in this thread?

Notice how some(bod)y's "redaction" of the topic title has changed the sense of the thread into something that was not intended. The lead author was talking about Linda Mack in her own right and not about SlimVirgin.

Once again, some(bod)y has exceeded the limits of moderation and arrogated himself to Editor in Chief.

Jonny

Agreed here, please rename the thread back to [[Linda Mack]] as it was originally created. "Linda Mack", the person, is notable, and in the context of this website or Wikipedia no longer can claim any rights to privacy.

Greetings to everyone,

I have updated my website, "Chip Berlet, SlimVirgin, and Wikipedia," to include a summary of the latest revelations. I welcome correspondence from WR members about important items that ought to be included in the article (use the mail link on the site.) The Ohmynews article quotes from mine, without attribution. And, for a touch of comedy, SlimVirgin thinks that Nobs01 wrote my article. She is mistaken.

Thanks Chip. We are aware of your site and have linked to it many times. I also linked to it in the new blog entry, which you may want to read: http://wikipediareview.com/blog/20070802/c...candal/#more-16

Your website is being viewed quite a lot at the moment.

This is Chip Berlet? hello!

Uh, I don't think that's Chip Berlet...

Oh, OK. Would you mind renaming this thread back to the original title of:

[[Linda Mack]]

?

Okay sorry. So someone else wrote about Chip Berlet and SlimVirgin? Sorry. I guess I didn't actually read that article lol.

Yes I would, actually. One of the other moderators can if they want to, but I personally would like to hold the line at thread titles, which can appear on the home page of the website. At this point I don't suppose there's anything to be done about the content of individual posts, of course... But as long as there's a chance that this is really causing some degree of psychological harm to the person in question, I'm probably going to maintain that position.

If there's a compromise to be reached here, feel free to suggest it - otherwise, ask someone else, OK?

And Blissy already knows that if he wants to be a moderator here, he only has to ask...

Maybe we can put an article on Wikinfo and see if anyone reacts.

Hey...

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

WTF? Deleted the day AFTER Slashdot hit. Even better, Googling reveals ties between Ms. Schloff and Alberta.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060913000000/...da_Mack_Schloff

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:yxIEnF...clnk&cd=1&gl=us



And now Linda Mack Schloff is scrubbed from there, too!

Linda Mack Schloff was never in that list, just Linda Mack.
I have an archived copy in front of me and there's only one "Linda Mack".
Linda Mack Schloff is not Linda Mack or SlimVirgin.

So it's just a coincidence then that JzG nuked the article within 24 hours of the Slashdot story? Keep in mind that Linda graduated from Kings College at Cambridge in 1984. Schloff could well be a married name.

For the last time, hopefully, Linda Mack Schloff is not SlimVirgin. Look at the second picture on this page where it says "Linda Schloff (left)."

We went through all of this many months ago, but thanks to Somey I cannot even find that thread now.

SlimVirgin was born in 1961, plus or minus a year or two. This is from a Lockerbie book that gives her age as 27 in 1988 or so. Linda Schloff is her mid-sixties, I believe.

Good grief, Somey, get on the stick and undo those redactions. I'm starting to feel like a broken record. [Refers to vinyl recordings, which spun on things called turntables that had a needle or stylus, and might skip back and repeat passages due to a scratch on the surface of the vinyl (circa 1970s). Also refers to wacky Wikipedia Review, which redacted names and caused members to forget old solutions that had been resolved months earlier, but then were obfuscated by Somey (circa 2007).]

Elect someone who has the time to waste to do the unredactions and put them to task.

(Myself, for example - someone who has a lot of time on their hands)

You have my vote, Nathan.

I'm thinking that it probably is time to do the unredactions. The question of SlimVirgin and Linda Mack is now thoroughly in the public domain. I do not have a lot of time on my hands, but I'll do this thread title, and others as I happen upon them.

Yes, I made the mistake of adding the Linda Mack Schloff bit to the blog, as I assumed that the "Schloff" bit was some kind of title or something. I am sure that many others would make the same mistake.

It may have been a coincidence, or it may have been that JzG just didn't want anything even vaguely SV-ish in Wikipedia.

Probably a knee-jerk reaction to the "Linda Mack" part.

And we know nobody can put the "jerk" in knee-jerk like JzG.

<wikipedia>I am not vote-canvassing.</wikipedia>
I couldn't resist saying that.

It was in the public domain before, though. It was an "open secret," and it will go back to being an open secret, in all probability. Is there reason to believe that a first-tier news organization would touch this story in its current state? I'm still not seeing it - all we really have is an identity and some background material, plus the fact that this person is prominent on Wikipedia. Is that enough? Maybe it is, and I'm just kidding myself.

We have to weigh the pros and cons of this... Normally I'd suggest discussing this via "back-channels," but eh, whatever, might as well let the whole world know. The thing is, we got no traction from the cabal folks whatsoever on anything they might have done to show that they approved of, or even cared about, our efforts to satisfy their so-called privacy concerns. That, again, suggests to me that they want SlimVirgin out of their midst as much as we do, maybe more. She's starting to draw "reflected" attention onto them, and they totally do not want that.

Then again, we didn't specifically ask them to do anything. Maybe I should have... but I didn't think it would be meaningful if I had to ask.

Personally, I would wait until they restore the Brandt bio, and then unredact the name. There's a roughly 60 percent chance that they'll do that regardless of what we do here, so it's probably just a matter of waiting a little longer. If we unredact the name now, the chance goes up to 100 percent.

Somey,

Please try to get it through your head that taking on some extra housekeeping duties with this Forum does not give you the right to tell the Foragers thereof what they can talk about and in what terms.

If you find those duties too onerous to undertake without the compensation of some gawdawful ego boost then please give them up.

Jonny

I don't read the situation that way at all. I think there's a 20 percent chance they will restore my bio. If they do, I think SlimVirgin will fight it all the way, which obviously would take a lot of wind out of their reasons for restoration. I don't think she hates me any more since the Ohmynews article. At this point she has known for some time that leaving me alone is the best thing she can do. Yes, it's too late for her leaving me alone to make much difference, because her "outing" has legs now regardless of what I do or don't do. But I don't see her blaming me much for that fact, even though I've helped out a bit on this Board over the last seven days.

The blame is in the fact that she started the bio in the first place, and didn't spend much energy to placate me for too many months while that bio went through various contortions, many of which I considered libelous and/or invasive. She did push the BLP policy eventually, but her pushing was uneven, and dormant for months at a time.

The bottom line is that what we do here doesn't matter to the cabal. They will attack us regardless of what we do. The only question is whether the redactions make us look better or worse in the eyes of the real world. We have to stop playing to the cabal's audience. We're in a different league, and should be proud of the difference.

Nobody's telling you what you can and can't post. However, I shall keep silent at this time.

They won't restore Daniel's article; too many veteran hard core BLPists would freak out, since Daniel's deletion is what empowered them to nuke salacious and borderline BLPs with a free hand.

If Daniel's goes up, and BLP goes back to 2005 levels, then [[Linda Mack]] gets reposted to DRV (since it will be nuked on sight by someone) by every open proxy and sleeper account ever, and it would be open war on Wikipedia. Do they really want that? Hell, no. The moment they start opposing the existence of [[Linda Mack]] on the basis of protecting User:SlimVirgin, they're fucked--they're now affecting their precious article space to protect a user.

That's why Essjay's article stands, albeit with a lame tweaked name: If they deleted that, the media and Internets would have eaten Wikipedia and Jimbo alive.

Note: [[Linda Mack]] would be as notable easily, if not much moreso, as [[Daniel Brandt]] from the book mentions alone.

Wikipedia directly because of Linda Mack's actions, is in a catch-22. They can't protect Linda, aka SlimVirgin, from her own past actions. [[Linda Mack]], when it's created, now has to stand unless they BLP nuke it for "borderline" status. As sources mount, it will need to be restored. The moment they delete it to protect "Slim", game over for their integrity as a project. If they delete it for BLP borderline reasons (until her notability mounts), Daniel's article won't return.

If Linda Mack asks for opt-out, she'll be confirming that she is SlimVirgin, combined with the real Linda Mack pursuing anyone Daniel contacts (Mr. Cooley, anyone?). Linda is now also in a catch-22, and the game is up: it's just a waiting game now to see who blinks first, unless we or someone else can dig up more evidence to expedite matters.

Maaan, what is with you guys? How can any of you give them that much credit for integrity and common sense? They don't have any! We're not talking about responsible adults, we're talking about the privileged, over-protected, spoiled-brat products of moral relativism and the "everyone's a winner" generation.... Have we learned nothing whatsoever over the last year?

I'll tell you what this looks like to me, and that's that we got a nibble from some third-rate news site, and now we're throwing out whatever sense of proportion or perspective we ever had almost. And for what? To keep pushing our identification of someone we "pegged" well over a year ago? What's changed since a year ago? Did she somehow stop being Linda Mack and start being someone else?

And Jon, please just cut the bollocks, OK? I'm not telling anyone what they can or can't post around here, beyond the well-established terms of service - especially you, and other than two thread titles, I haven't altered jack shit since this story came out.

Granted, I'm disappointed, I'm not happy with the situation (obviously), but I'm just as entitled to express how I feel about that as anybody else... All I'm saying is, if we keep burning bridges we have to be prepared for the consequences. They're going to see it as symbolic, like it's proof that we all think alike around here. I'm well aware they'll attack us no matter what we do, but there are worse things they could do than bitch and moan about us on their mailing list... Nobody else reads that thing but us anyway, it seems like.

We're also going to alienate what few moderate members we have left, and if that happens there's a good chance we're just going to end up hanging out and agreeing with each other about everything, until we're finally tired of gazing at our own navels. And then it really will start to get boring around here.

No, it's probably not enough for a story at this point, by my layman standards anyway. That doesn't seem like an argument to keep the redactions though. There's still work that has to be done to determine exactly what is going on. Maybe it's nothing. But having the name Linda Mack on this site certainly isn't as outrageous as it once was. It's ok to take advantage of that. Previously, it was sensible to redact the name. That is, of course, in the past.



I don't think it changed anyone's opinion of this site in the least, and that includes sympathetic and non sympathetic Wikipedians. I thought the redactions would help "relations" a bit, but I didn't count on the fact that the most vocal that are against this site have not read very much of it, do not understand it, and evidently finding out for theirselves goes against some personal dogma of theirs.


That's a reactionary tactic that would seem petty, a lot like restoring the [[Daniel Brandt]] talk page. If someone went around quietly restoring the names, would anyone on WP notice ? (until of course someone made a topic about it here in all capital letters "SOMEY DROPS THE BIG ONE: MACK ATTACK") If they do notice, what are they going to do? A topic on the mailing list that says "WR is still filled assholes" followed by the superficial critique? We have seen that show too much. In the short time I've been here, my thoughts are that scenario is not new and brings no insight or revelations to WP or WR, it is just fodder. The standards that have been imposed on them by wiki bullies doesn't allow them to link to it and discuss it intelligently anyway.

We're set up to operate as much outside of WP and their norms as we can be (damn is that punk rock or what?), and a recent convenient event will help us in that endeavor, if we can proceed.

Would they restore the Brandt bio? Someone is going to try ...however, look at the outrage against SV and jayjg that is beginning to be a little bit more ok to express than it was in the past. Anyone restoring the Brandt bio will have to face shimgray like statements from "the core" that is nearly exhausted by scandal and the threat of it.

It was a very good idea to do at the time, in my opinion, and it did acheive something. We found out that it does not matter what we do here, and in some cases, bowing to wiki etiquette can doom us.

I find Bobby's comments to be well-reasoned. I think that, firstly, all parties should relax a bit -- there is no crisis about this. The cabal is unlikely to appreciate any conciliatory efforts we make, nor should we care whether they like us. I am inclined to go with Daniel's reasoning about the prospects for resolving his BLP issues (he is guardedly pessimistic in recent posts) and his view on "linkage" between that and the redactions (as I recall, he is anti-linkage.)

I think there is a story right now, if you throw out all the speculation over the secret agent stuff. The story is that there is a fatal flaw in the idea that a bunch of anonymous individuals can come up with a reliable, unbiased, encyclopedia article. In fact, the story would make a great anecdote for a story on Citizendium, which most significantly differs from Wikipedia in that its contributors are asked to use their real names when authoring stories. I personally have other major problems with Citizendium, so I don't think they're the answer, but attaching real names to the contributors or at the very least to those who make editorial decisions is one place I think they've got it right.

Of course, if I were personally going to write this story I'd leave out the actual username and real name of the individual, out of respect for her right to privacy. But I still think it makes for a good story even without the names. It was actually a big eye-opener to me.

Wait until the story reaches the mainstream press. Better still, try and get the mainstream press to report (hopefully they'll give WR credit).

Once the SlimVirgin cabal is destroyed, which other cabals should we try to expose?

The over-riding story (that of new evidence of the Lockerbie bombing) is already in the mainstream press. Linking that to Linda Mack has not yet been done at the mainstream level, and we might be waiting another 6 months or a year before this happens, and it all depends on Colonel Gaddafi's statements.



What other cabals are there? If that lot is truly destroyed, we can focus on other things. There will be dancing in the streets if and when that happens. But we would have to make truly sure that the cabal is really gone. That is all. There is only one cabal. There are of course other groups that try to control individual articles, but only one over-riding cabal.

Today, the visitor count went way up over 100 again. What do suppose accounts for the renewed surge of interest?

Because we're saying that Wikipedia has been lying about us? I don't know really. There seems to be a lot of stories in the news lately about Wikipedia being bad. If you look at the RSS news feeds, there just seems to be an overwhelming amount.

SlimVirgin was born in 1961, plus or minus a year or two. This is from a Lockerbie book that gives her age as 27 in 1988 or so. Linda Schloff is her mid-sixties, I believe.

Linda Mack Schloff is my mother. She is in her late 60's and lives in Minnesota. Schloff has been her married name for almost 50 years. I can confirm that she is not the 'Linda Mack' born in 1961./

What fun! Thank you Nathan.

This will be like old home week!

This thread is very old and a lot of water has gone under the bridge since. I motion that it be closed.

Thank you. That was very helpful.