Usenet Psychic Wars With Wikipedia

rlandmann writes "John Patrick Ennis, whose nutty predictions as Sollog (Son of Light, Light of God) are familiar to many usenetters, may have bitten off more than he could chew when he picked Wikipedia as his latest vehicle for spamvertising." Click through for the rest of rlandmann's story.

Early last week an anonymous editor with a posting style remarkably like the one widely believed to be that of Sollog himself contributed this article to the encyclopedia, boasting of Sollog's prophesizing prowess and mathematical genius. Less than twenty-four hours later, the article was looking a little more balanced and encyclopedic. Along with Sollog's claims, it now carried the revelation that not everyone is as convinced of the accuracy of Sollog's power of prediction as he himself is, along with links to some rather unflattering appraisals of his work.

A week of spectacular net.kookery has since transpired, replete with vandalism of the article, bizarre legal threats, long semi-coherent rants with LOTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS, a rich bounty of links to Ennis-run sites, and a legion of anonymous posters with exactly the same writing style as one another all strenuously affirming that they are individual and distinct "fans" of Sollog and not the man himself. Unable to accept that Wikipedia's policy of presenting a Neutral Point of View means that an article on Sollog would have to include both pro- and anti-Sollog material, and unable to force other Wikipedia editors to accept his version of reality, Ennis has taken instead to making hostile phone calls to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales at his home, and setting up his very own Wikipedia and Wales hate site.

Whether or not Sollog really did predict Princess Diana's death, the Oklahoma bombing, 9/11, the crash of TWA flight 800, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, and most of the natural disasters in the US over the last few years, he doesn't seem to have foreseen his inability to control the picture that Wikipedia presents of him to the world.

See here for the current revision of the article, which may or may not be currently in a vandalized state.

Comments

Don't trust his site?...

[kmmatthews]

http://www.wikipediasucks.com/ - check out the slant on his site, and you'll immediately have a good idea of his creditability...

You missed your chance

[cosmo_the_third]

Well, you missed your chance put that on Wikipedia. The page has been locked, and just when the vandal-wars were getting interesting.

Re:Say "Goodbye, Sollog"

[blogtim]

Steven Pressman has a great piece on libel laws in the United States.

For the United States, the laws that control libel and slander first began to take shape even before the colonies gained their independence from Britain. One of the most famous American cases involved New York publisher John Peter Zenger, who was imprisoned in 1734 for printing political attacks against the colonial governor of New York. Zenger's lawyer established a legal precedent by arguing successfully that truth is an absolute defense in libel cases. Up until then, it had never mattered much whether the allegedly libelous statements about someone were true or false. Since the Zenger case, however, someone can sue successfully for libel only if the defamatory information is proven to be false. [emphasis mine]

Re:Sollog?

[Poltras]

I will attempt to give you some hint and ressources to understand the topic :) Hope it will be enough (note that I don't care to be moded down as troll by TOH followers).

Read the Wikipedia article as well as its history for a start.

Then what may interest you is that WikiPediA Sucks is run by himself (as said in article), but also that most of the proofs that is said against wikipedia comes from a single source, that is, Adoni Corporation.

you shall note too, that The E undergroud, which sells "SEX and DEATH video" (cited from the website), is also owned by the same company, as said here and here, with sollog.com proof here. THIS IS THE SAME CORPORATION, if you read whois carefully. So he accuses a guy of being associated with BOMIS (which is true or false, i dunno, whatever) and is HIMSELF SELLING porn and death videos over the net. That kills all credibility he might have before.

This is just the peak of the iceberg, though, but I'm too lazy to write much more, but it gives you a general picture of the guy (actually, I'm against him, so maybe some member of TOH would want to reply, and I'll appreciate the opened discussion with him/her).

Re:Say "Goodbye, Sollog"

[l4m3z0r]

The problem with libel laws is that it is not libel if you aren't lying.

No thats whats good about libel laws. This stemmed from the fact that in the 1770's in england libel was still libel even if what was said was true. So if you were a nanny and you molested children and I told your clients that you molested children and they fired you, you could claim libel against me and that was acceptable to the court I'd be paying you for lost wages even though you had no right to there services.

The founding fathers realized however that this is crap, newspapers and citizens need to be able to report the truth no matter how damaging it is to public figures.

If you want, go back to a society where you are afraid to speak the truth about public figures for fear of getting sued. I sure as hell won't.

Re:Uh

[user9918277462]

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Browse through the featured articles and you will be hard-pressed to find anything worse than that which appears in commercial encyclopedias. In fact, most of it will be vastly better and more up to date.

Experts are part of the public too. I suggest you edit an article that deals with a subject you are expert in, that's what Wikipedians do.

Godwin

[Scrameustache]

Like the old Usenet rule -- The first one to compare the other to a Nazi, automatically loses the argument.

And Son of Godwin: Terrorists.