Kato noted in another thread recently that the incident in which Durova wrongly blocked !! is now being mentioned in literature on Wikipedia's history and development, I'm sure much to Durova's chagrin and bemusement. Giano's block today shows that the incident's legacy is still raw with some editors.

The major significance of the incident is, I think, that it was the primary death blow to SlimVirgin's and others attempts to use cabalism to control Wikipedia and promote their own agendas. Giano is to be thanked for refusing to allow Jimbo and other Wikipedia admins to cover it up. This incident, along with SV's decision to deny Wordbomb due process when he tried to complain about Gary Weiss' use of Wikipedia to promote his personal agenda, I think are the two main events which (eventually) brought down SV's powerful and influential clique.

If you all notice, I don't criticize Durova much in this forum like I do SV, JzG, Jossi, Jayjg, or other members of that clique, because I personally don't think that Durova was as malicious as those others. Those others were, in my opinion, waging a dishonest and unethical campaign to use Wikipedia for their own advocacy and propaganda on topics that were important to them. I don't think Durova was trying to do this. I think in Durova's case, she had fallen in with that group and sincerely (and mistakenly) believed that they were the "good guys", no doubt reinforced by the fact that Jimbo and at least two arbitrators were on at least one of the mailing lists which that group operated.

Others have stated that one of the primary activities of that mailing list was to complain about banned editors coming to Wikipedia Review to continue their nefarious activities against Wikipedia. Durova apparently thought she was doing the right thing by trying to fight against this campaign to destroy Wikipedia. She must have been dismayed to find when it hit the fan after her block of !! that neither Jimbo nor any of the arbitrators on that mailing list really came to her defense.

Durova could have done a better job making amends. She should have given !! a better apology than she did. She also should have renounced that mailing list and the leaders of it. I've been told that the members of that list had to promise not to talk about it when they joined. Durova didn't need to repeat any specific conversations, but she should have revealed who was on the list that she emailed her Sekret evidence to and why she felt that they would be receptive to what she was doing. If she had done all of that, I think she might would have been able to put the incident behind her better. More importantly, that would have been the right thing to do.

Durova does fantastic work finding and uploading images. Her evidence against Jossi is one of the main reasons why that POV-pusher is now, thankfully, banned. Otherwise, Durova seems to make poor decisions about the wiki-political positions she takes and personalizes them too much. Perhaps she is angry at the ArbCom members because they wouldn't come to her defense after the !! block even though at least two of them were complicit in it (at least one of whom is no longer an arbitrator). Well, she needs to look at the bigger picture and realize that it really isn't about her, it's about the conditions and environment in Wikipedia which allowed that incident to happen and why Wikipedia needs a better governance model to ensure that it never happens again.

Sorry for the verbosity.

Durova does fine uploading images and writing the occasional crocheting article. Otherwise she's a neurotic drama muppet. Giano nailed it here.

On another note, Wikipedia is sure lucky to have fine young men like GeorgeWilliamHerbert around.

GWH is a clown and Durova and Giano ought to kiss and make up. End of story.

Two things about Durova: she's a moron, and she's an attention whore. Everything she does can be explained by the above two qualities. She's not malicious, she doesn't have an hidden agenda, and she doesn't have secret motives unlike the other people you name. She's pretty much a one-dimensional character, and her only goal is self promotion.

Combine with wikipedia and she creates quite the havoc.

Durova thrashes around in all directions at random. Sometimes she is right as anyone can be by chance. She then uses those few lucky bullseyes to prove she is a genius and goes on to do more and more. A vicious circle.

I don't think that is likely to happen any time soon. I am one of many who still recall the when Slim Virgin's secret group received this http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=...Sekret_Evidence instead of laughing out loud (as you and I would have done) they blocked a great content editor who had changed his name for a very legitimate reason - he had made not one bad edit. It should also be noted who started the most recent thread on ANI http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=302477237 then look at those who turn up. I was particularly interested to not the logos on the page of the most vociferous of those condemning me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Off2riorob mind you, I prefer it to the rather holy quote and image on his user page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Off2riorob. Slim was just wild that a new group was formed (the only private/sevret communication was the invitation I published on my page) and she was not in it, as for Durova, well her advice, like mine, seems to come for free whether one wants it or not. Whatever, it looks like Slim's RFC has kaiboshed the idea now, so we will never know how successful it may have been.

The important thing to remember that Slim's group, (which included Jimbo) was so secret that they were prepared to sacrifice a valuable editor rather than have it's stupidity (and that evidence was beyond stupidity) and existence made public. Remember too, I was blocked for bringing it all to public light. - This is why any future power these people may have must be strictly limited and above board - I am not at war with Durova or anyone else, time moves on and yes, her picture work is fine, but I won't support any of their bids for power or sit idly by while they lecture a new generation of editors on what is good for Wikipedia.

Giano

Although JzG's select, super secret "investigations" mailing list membership roster was publicly revealed, SV's CyberStalking membership list never was, as far as I know. Besides SV, Crum375, two of Gary Weiss' accounts, JzG, Jimbo, and Durova I don't know who was on it, except that it included "a couple of arbitrators" according to a Moreschi post on the Wikien mailing list. So, do we need to know who "these people" were in order to keep an eye on them?

The two prominent cases cited above are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to systemic corruption and abuse of power within the Wikipedia central power structure.

The problem festers and persists from a fundamental lack of ethics within the core leadership of the project.

That lack of ethical direction will probably never be remedied, given Jimbo's dictum that even a voluntary participation workshop on media ethics is "beyond the scope of the project."

Interesting to see the discussion about Durova joining OTRS. I think this is the final version.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?titl...=1051959#Durova

She was endorsed by Cometstyles one of my many alleged identities.

If they are going to kiss and make up, at least get a webcam set up and charge $29.95 for the show.

I wouldn't spend the money in advnce, if I were you.

Giano

Spend it? Kiddo, I am the one selling it. All you have to do it take off your shirt and wiggle your eyebrows at Durova. Leave the rest to me -- when I am done promoting this, we will be rolling in the money.

Just a point of fact -- it not only "included" Jimbo, the damn mailing list was HOSTED on Jimbo's commercial company's web servers.

It's even more interesting than you say. The fundamental lack of ethics is generously augmented by mindnumbing stupidity so aptly described by Giano above. Either one by themselves is interesting, but an atmosphere where they go hand in hand, to the point of running off good editors, is astonishing.

FWIW, I was invited to join but left after a month or so, before the block of !! came up. I'm pretty sure this has been thrashed to death on both WR and WP already.

While we're doing "for the record" things, see this question ... I stand behind that answer. What happened to !! was extremely regrettable, and it shows one of the dangers of mailing lists. Silence or lack of replies is sometimes taken as consent when it's really more a sign of inattentiveness. To this day I wish I had been paying better attention.

Kudos to those who have publicly disclosed that they were members, like Lar, Thatcher, and Alison. Booby prizes to those who ducked for cover, like certain arbitrators and other admins who have never admitted their involvement. Guess what you guys, the membership list will eventually be revealed, along with some of the incriminating emails you guys exchanged with each other. I'm not threatening to do so, because I don't have that information or any of those emails, but others do.

I find the cited episode interesting because it reveals how profoundly self-deluded an insular clique can become. In an open academic/scientific culture, all theories are carefully examined and tested before being adopted as accurate.

It is a recurring feature of inept insular political structures that the inner circle routinely operates with erratic and unfounded beliefs that are not submitted to careful scrutiny per the protocols of the scientific method.

That's the erratic culture that makes WP more of an MMPORG and less of an authentic academic enterprise.

Funny, isn't it, how all roads eventually lead to the Young Master Wales.

Wanna fix this mess? Start by fixing him.

"This is Bob Barker, reminding you to help control the pet population, have your pets spayed or neutered..." (from The Price Is Right, naturally)

Wales is Wikipedia's pet God-King. Is there money in the WMF budget to have him fixed? Could solve a lot of problems... I can think of some women would would be glad to spay and/or neuter him for a low, low fee...

OK, maybe I can't limit myself to just one random post... besides, this one was too easy...

If I were Durova, I'd be annoyed by the way none of her friends on the mailing list backed her up on wiki at the time. Did others agree with her in reply to her post to the list? If so, it's cheeky how they let her take all the flak and didn't fully back her up, letting her sink, with them not lifting a finger.

I think that was when the SlimVirgin/SooperSekritList/BADSITES clique started collapsing. As long as the clique had absolute solidarity it could bully anybody around that it wanted, but once it started abandoning its own members when they did something embarrassing, people no longer feared them and could openly oppose them, and soon Mantanmoreland/Samiharris was banned, and eventually even Slim herself wound up "on the outs" instead of being at the center of an inner circle.

Things fall apart. The center cannot hold.

But, as any high school physics teacher will tell you, centrifugal force is a myth.

Chaos Theory Rules!


For that matter, so is Law and Order.

You mean the six different broadcast and basic-cable channels that are airing the various spinoffs of that show are all mythical?

No, I mean that when TNT says "We Know Drama" they don't mean a sequence of events that the audience can readily predict.

If I were Durova, I would get a new hairdo. Her look is really behind the times.

That's sort of like saying the force of gravity is a myth, simply because it appears or disappears, depending on your frame of reference (accelerated or not).

Force is as force does, like what Gump said about stupidity. Many of these fictional forces act like real forces (except for not obeying Newton's third law). They'll smash and kill you just as thoroughly as a "real force." They are based on inertia, which to this day we really don't understand very well (no Higgs, yet!). As for gravity, it does obey Newton's third law, but it can still be switched off (save tides) by going along to the proper accelerated frame. As any astronaut in orbit, or in the Vomet Comet, can testify.

A more curious example would be superstrings — a mathematical invention that works remarkably well, but may or may not correspond to real phsycal entities.