Wikipedia Infiltrated by Intelligence Agents?

An anonymous reader writes "International Humanitarian Law professor Ludwig Braeckeleer thinks so. In an article published yesterday in the Korean newspaper OhMyNews, he reveals a discovery he made while researching a story on the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland. It turns out that a Wikipedia administrator named SlimVirgin is actually Linda Mack, a woman who as a young graduate in the 1980s was hired by investigative reporter Pierre Salinger of ABC News to help with the investigation. Salinger later came to believe that Mack was actually working for Britain's MI5 on a mission to investigate the bombing and to infiltrate and monitor the news agency. Shortly after her Wikipedia identity was uncovered, many of her edits to articles related to the bombing were permanently removed from the database in an attempt to conceal her identity. This discovery comes only months after another Wikipedia admin was caught lying about his credentials to the press. What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?"

Comments

Transparency

[RunFatBoy.net]

So maybe the question becomes, should those who contribute more (I don't know what the threshold would be) be required to reveal more personal identification details in order to ensure some level of transparency?

Jim
http://www.runfatboy.net/ - A workout plan for beginners.

Re:Transparency

[DragonWriter]

So maybe the question becomes, should those who contribute more (I don't know what the threshold would be) be required to reveal more personal identification details in order to ensure some level of transparency?

I have a better idea. Rather than an appeal-to-personal-authority based approach, maybe Wikipedia could adopt some policies regarding verifiability of claims, so as not to rely on the personal credibility of the submitter.

Re:Transparency

[sepluv]

I have a better idea. Rather than an appeal-to-personal-authority based approach, maybe Wikipedia could adopt some policies regarding verifiability of claims, so as not to rely on the personal credibility of the submitter. Which, in case you weren't been sarcastic, is exactly how Wikipedia does work. Stuff that isn't common knowledge having to be referenced is the cardinal rule of Wikipedia. See the Wikipedia:Verifiability (WP:V) policy.

Also, the founder, Jimmy Wales, has commented many a time on the fact that Wikipedians should just remove unreferenced statements that are potentially controversial or that someone disagrees with.

In Wikipedia, appeals to personal authority don't work at all, unlike Britannica, which bases its entire approach on these. They are at either end of these extremes, andf both work to some extent. Being in the middle would like not work at all.

Re:Transparency

[Richard Steiner]

How does Wikipedia handle topics (like certain forms of proprietary technology) where the only published data sources might only exist in non-public forms (e.g., vendor manuals), or may not exist in published form at all anymore (e.g., out of print vendor manuals)?

Re:Transparency

[networkBoy]

I would assume you could still reference the manual, even though it isn't widely available, others may have access and could verify. Similar to me referencing Nature, Lancet, or Science News.
-nB

Re:Transparency

[DerekLyons]

Which, in case you weren't been sarcastic, is exactly how Wikipedia does work. Stuff that isn't common knowledge having to be referenced is the cardinal rule of Wikipedia.

And that's been one of the key problems I've had with the Wikipedia from the beginning... Common knowledge to who ? Just because it's not common knowledge J. Random User, doesn't mean it's not common knowledge to a smaller more specialized community.
 
Heck, I was reading some articles on Pokemon last night (watched the cartoon out of boredom, decided to learn more), and very few statements presented as facts had any references - maybe they are common knowledge to Pokemon fans, but not to me. On the flip side, numerous edits I made to specialized articles that contained material that was common knowledge among folks active in that field were reverted because I couldn't provide a reference. Others were reverted because my reference was an extremely specialized $120 book - which contradicts the material available on the web.

Re:Transparency

[Monchanger]

How do you see that working? Do you think there's any kind of "personal identification detail" that Wikipedia would use that MI5 couldn't forge for such an operation?

>> What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?

The answer to the question is very simple: Infiltrate MI5.

I'm sorry to bring up the old fighting fire cliche, but that's how counter-intelligence works. Well, using that and disinformation. Which do you think is more in line with Wikipedia's goal?

Re:Transparency

[nthwaver]

So maybe the question becomes, should those who contribute more (I don't know what the threshold would be) be required to reveal more personal identification details in order to ensure some level of transparency? This might apply to simple misinformation, but not when previous edits are actually removed from the database. In the first case, their data loses credibility, but in this case even their metadata can't be trusted. It's much worse.

The reason wikipedia works despite rogue users is the odds that vandalism will be corrected because the whole world is watching. That model can't compensate for mischief by administrators with direct database access.

Re:Transparency

[zoney_ie]

Realistically, that's a naive view of how things actually work on Wikipedia. In reality, certain contributors earn or grab authority and their views are given more weight than those who are newer, less experienced, or who hold unpopular views. Not only that, but certain contributors "get away" with more through either an earned status, or essentially sort of being a bully (or at the least, having more perserverance or perservering back-up supporters).

In the end, Wikipedia will fail through it's lack of a traditional authority structure, however much not having one has certain advantages.

One cannot expect a project of such a magnitude to survive in the real world (for all the talk of a "second life", people forget that the Internet is reality - part of our boring old society) without a sensible authority structure - and indeed rules decided by something else other than what sticks on a wiki. Even from a purely legal standpoint, Wikipedia is only going to have more trouble in the future than it can eventually handle.

Re:Transparency

[sepluv]

Exactly. It is pretty difficult to make up references, and if someone did think it was made up they could dispute it. If you have paraphrased in the body of the article, it is also quite common to include the exact quote from the referenced text in the footnote with the reference so that other users can check you've interpreted it right.

Re:Transparency

[Richard Steiner]

That's true. Just because a source isn't widely available doesn't mean it can't be cited. :-)

Re:Transparency

[DragonWriter]

How does Wikipedia handle topics (like certain forms of proprietary technology) where the only published data sources might only exist in non-public forms (e.g., vendor manuals), or may not exist in published form at all anymore (e.g., out of print vendor manuals)?

As I understand it, that a source is no longer in print does not prevent it from being a citable source that would satisfy WP:V, though obviously, where they are available, more accessible sources for the same information would be good. Non-public forms are a bit trickier; if they are essentially inaccessible (the de facto equivalent of unpublished works or internal memoranda), I would imagine they aren't suitable sources and thus, if they are the only support for a fact claim, that claim cannot (under policy) be made on Wikipedia; if they are merely hard to find, I think the situation is similar to what I suggest for an out-of-print source, acceptable but perhaps not preferred if there is an alternative.

Re:Transparency

[DragonWriter]

Realistically, that's a naive view of how things actually work on Wikipedia. In reality, certain contributors earn or grab authority and their views are given more weight than those who are newer, less experienced, or who hold unpopular views.

In reality, your view might be valid as a description of how Wikipedia works in a few highly controversial areas where people expend lots of energy. Much of Wikipedia works more like this: someone posts material without adequate references and with clear inaccuracies, and over time it gets progressively edited to better compliance with Wikipedia's stated policies, improving in quality.

In the end, Wikipedia will fail through it's lack of a traditional authority structure, however much not having one has certain advantages.

In the end, we're all dead, and every business (even nonprofits) will fail, because every business is subject to risk at all times, and has finite, exhaustible resources, and thus every business is subject to gambler's ruin. So, really, prognostication that "in the end" Wikipedia will fail is not all that substantial.

Re:Transparency

[sepluv]

So, to support the idea that I am indeed being naïve, can you give me an example of how these individuals manage to exert pressure on others over the Internet? I don't really think "bullying" works very well over the Internet and multiple personal attacks will get one banned, anyway. Also, winning through having better arguments and the other editors agreeing with them (a self-selecting argument-based democratic consensus) seems to me to be quite a good way of dealing with things; please suggest a better one.

I'm assuming this hierarchy must work via some kind of conspiracy. I don't doubt there is the odd, small-scale conspiracy between a few friends going on (like IMing them to support you in some discussion), but I see little evidence of a greater cabal. In fact as an editor without a great deal of experience, it just so happens that I recently admonished two editors who turned out to be admins (who I guess would be the ones most likely running any cabal) about what I thought was their not following policy (I was probably a little too severe in retrospect), and they discussed this with me very politely with reasoned argument and one conceded some ground on it, as opposed to exerting pressure on me somehow.

In the end, Wikipedia will fail through it's lack of a traditional authority structure, however much not having one has certain advantages. I'm confused. I thought your argument was that it does have an authority structure.

One cannot expect a project of such a magnitude to survive in the real world It seems to have "survived" 6 years with the number articles, readers and editors continually growing exponentially. Do you have any reasons why it might not survive? It seemed obvious to me that it would work from when I first heard about the model (for a number of reasons, like lots of editors making it more balanced and less NPOV, the ease of fixing mistakes, &c).

Even from a purely legal standpoint, Wikipedia is only going to have more trouble in the future than it can eventually handle. Pray, tell me, what form this trouble will take, if you want me to believe you, lest I believe you are merely casting around weasel words as flamebait.

Re:Transparency

[Tango42]

"Just because it's not common knowledge J. Random User, doesn't mean it's not common knowledge to a smaller more specialized community."

"Common" means "not some specialised group", so your point is nonsense. The rule of thumb on Wikipedia is that if someone disputes a statement, then it isn't common knowledge.

Re:Transparency

[dtobias]

Try opposing SlimVirgin, or one of her many friends on Wikipedia, and see how fast you're labeled a "troll", or accused of being a "sockpuppet of a banned user" or other such character-assassination. If they can't get anything like that to stick, they'll say your views are irrelevant because you don't have a sufficiently high edit count to matter.

Re:Transparency

[sepluv]

Common knowledge to who ? Well ideally every statement should be referenced that isn't common knowledge to everyone (e.g.: the sun rises every morning, objects fall towards the ground). In practice, especially since it currently takes so long to add a reference using slightly complicated templates (they're really needs to be a nice front end for referencing, but I digress), if there is a nearby link to another article (especially one covering a the more general topic of which the current article is part) which itself contains the appropriate reference (or even links to another article with it), this is deemed acceptable. Also, you don't have to reference to support exactly the same fact that you've already referenced earlier on in the same article, although it is quite easy to link to the same reference again once you've added it once to the article.

Just because it's not common knowledge J. Random User, doesn't mean it's not common knowledge to a smaller more specialized community. I guess that is my point above: obviously in an article about New York opening "New York City is a large city in New York state in the United States", I don't have to reference that NY state is in the US (which is covered in the NYC article and common knowledge to a hell of a lot of readers). I can also probably get away with not referencing that NYC is large and a city, because no one is really going to dispute that. Anyway, although you can, you don't normally have to reference article preambles as their contents should be a summary of the rest of the article which should itself be referenced (e.g.: "large" is supported by population and area figures and comparisons further down), although you see this done on some controversial articles so that nothing sneaks in without a reference.

I was reading some articles on Pokemon last night...and very few statements presented as facts had any references - maybe they are common knowledge to Pokemon fans, but not to me. I think you'll find that actually that is down to old problem Wikipedia has with articles of limited interest not getting copyedited (e.g.: references added) as only a handful of users (who may not be regular Wikipedians who know about referencing) edit them, which is, I guess, an argument for lack-of-notability deletions (though I'm moderately anti-deletionist). Also, in practice, it is unlikely that anyone is going to delete unreferenced content and demand a reference for a Pokemon article. I mean it isn't exactly the most controversial topic. Who is going to lie about Pokemon? Whereas adding a single word to Global Warming will likely result in someone reverting it and demanding mutiple peer-reviewed references, because it is a bit more controversial and important an article.

On the flip side, numerous edits I made to specialized articles that contained material that was common knowledge among folks active in that field were reverted because I couldn't provide a reference. Well, add one or point to somewhere else on Wikipedia where it is mentioned and revert back, or engage in a discussion with that editor and others who edit the article on the talk page.

Others were reverted because my reference was an extremely specialized $120 book - which contradicts the material available on the web. Well, include the exact quote from the book in the footnote and revert it back. Removing material without good reason, particularly when it is referenced, is pretty frowned upon and leads to suspicion that the editor just didn't like what was added. Get other interested editors involved or post a standard warning to that user's talk page about deletion if they are deleting stuff without explanation or with an explanation that is clearly bogus. If they continue doing that, they may be blocked.

Re:Transparency

[sepluv]

Thanks for that; I was looking for precise examples. I'm very open to the idea that there could be such things going on; I just haven't seen them myself so please forgive my cynicism.

There is a tendency in all Internet (and for that matter, RL) communities for some to exert power for kicks like this, especially if they are given some title that they think makes them more important like "admin". I really haven't come across it myself on Wikipedia, though, and I've been editing on and off for a few years (mainly when I come across things).

Re:Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but how much would be required for them to reveal? What if Google contributors turn out to be sleeper agents who acquire the proper credentials over a period of years only to engage in malfeasance once Wikipedia starts accepting their contributions? This is a serious question!!!

Just kidding. There is nothing special about Wikipedia except that unlike $200,200 lbs, and 10 ft^3 worth of World Book encyclopedias, it really is worth every penny you pay for it. Oh, and another thing. Anyone can contribute to it. Not just ivory tower intellectuals or people with the right "connections".

Something to think about: what is it that makes a man a criminal for yelling "Fire!" in a public theater if there are sprinklers in the theater, direct exits to the building, and moviegoers aren't stupid enough to panic when they don't smell any smoke or see any flames?

Re:Transparency

[DerekLyons]

By that measure I could dispute about 90% of the content currently on Wikipedia. But I already made that point in the remainder of my posting - which you don't seem to have bothered to read.

Re:Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

Come to the talk page of the article "factory farming".

Re:Transparency

[Weezul]

Also, the founder, Jimmy Wales, has commented many a time on the fact that Wikipedians should just remove unreferenced statements that are potentially controversial or that someone disagrees with.

But this is quite rude in practice. It's best to leave some sources needed tags on each questional sentence, they suffice for showing that the material is suspect.

fyi, you'd be crucified for deleting unsorced material without proper edit sumery.

Re:Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on. Keep your trolling on Wikipedia.

Re:Transparency

[rbanffy]

In the end, after all stars have also failed, the Universe will be a dark and cold vacuum. ;-)

Re:Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd have a more persuasive argument if it were based on the wording of actual Wikipedia policy rather than some slashbot's poorly worded summarization of it. In short, the standard "common knowledge" has nothing to do with anything, so get off your high horse.

Re:Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

In the real world, SlimVirgin gets to delete article improvements and complaints are ignored.

Re:Transparency

[doom]

The reason wikipedia works despite rogue users is the odds that vandalism will be corrected because the whole world is watching. That model can't compensate for mischief by administrators with direct database access.

The way I would put it is that the safe guards in place that do such an excellent job of repelling small-scale amateur vandals on a site such as wikipedia are in no way adequate to repel a well-funded attack from a large organization.

Whether or not the "SlimVirgin" cabal is such a case, I think cases like this are inevitable as wikipedia grows in importance... Jimbo Wales appears to be in a state of denial on the subject. E.g. after his talk at Long Now Foundation, someone asked the question: "What if the Chinese government changed tactics and instead of banning wikipedia set out actively to subvert it?" He essentially punted on the question, and told an anecdote about how they dealt with a small group of neo-nazi idiots, as though the two cases have anything to do with each other.

(If anyone cares, the state of my thinking thus far on the subject is: the the toy web is being (or is about to be) exploited by the rover boys or some other purveyors of a surrogate truth).

Re:Transparency

[Dephex Twin]

How can we even determine the validity of the rest of your comment without proper citations?

Re:Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it seem reasonable that someone is complaining about SlimVirgin and getting blocked during the discussion? A discussion full of people with unsupported claims against the now-blocked complainant. With SlimVirgin then in control over the block.

Re:Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this really about the larger political issue of anonymity online? Clearly SlimVirgin should always have been identified as Linda Mac ensuring more 'considered' posts in the first place.

It's also worth considering that wikipedia isn't the place to express the authoritative opinion of a single individual without challenge. It should represent the consensus of opinion resolved thru public discussion.

Re:Transparency

[Randomly]

Except when voicing opinions which are considered to be contentious by the dominant political system, in such situations anonymity is useful.

Re:Transparency

[TheSeer2]

Jimmy Wales himself tried to get *every* reference to Larry Sanger being an administrator removed and he organised it in the admin IRC channel, preventing oversight.

Luckily, due to the fact he was so hopelessly misguided the fact remains in the wiki. The point is, for a wee bit, a lot of admins were willing to ignore all the guidelines and just obey Wales.

Re:Transparency

[TheSeer2]

Search for WP:RFAr. You'll see a lot of stuff going on that you don't expect on Wikipedia.

Re:Transparency

[makomk]

The thing is, the Wikipedia administrator whom the article is about is involved in several highly controversial areas (for example, the whole "Martin Luther anti-semitism" mess, which would be somewhat hotter if it wasn't for the fact that several of the people who opposed her are now banned). Take a look at the usual anti-Wikipedia sources - for all their problems, they're fairly good at picking up on potentially interesting behaviour on the part of admins.

Re:Transparency

[makomk]

That's probably because you haven't edited any of the articles in which one of the admins has really taken a side; few people do, and only the experienced have a reasonable chance of surviving.

Re:Transparency

[ted.hansson]

a self-selecting argument-based democratic consensus

Truth by numbers? Join the cause today!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society

Re:Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the founder, Jimmy Wales, has commented many a time on the fact that Wikipedians should just remove unreferenced statements that are potentially controversial or that someone disagrees with. Any references that back up Jimmy Wales truly is the founder he claims he is. Or if he really is Jimmy Wales at all ?

Re:Transparency

[dtobias]

This is an interesting example where Slim, and a few of her clique buddies, ganged up on somebody who was complaining about a possible image copyright violation. Rather than give any attention to the substance of the complaint (which apparently had validity, since the image was ultimately deleted), Slim and her friends kept character-assassinating the complainant, including attempting to use guilt by association based on other websites and IRC rooms he was in, a tactic specifically prohibited by the Wikipedia "No Personal Attacks" policy. In a major show of irony, they also accused him of violating that very same policy, and of trying to gang up on Slim. The clique seems to be very quick to accuse others of doing the stuff they do themselves all the time.

Re:Transparency

[neuromancer23]

> It should represent the consensus of opinion resolved thru public discussion.

Right. That way Wikipedia could masquerade the psychotic poppycock projected by the mass media and regurgitated by the majority of brain dead Americans.as factual and accurate, just like the public education system.

Proof:

1. There is no question that normalcy is equivalent to truth when you're living in a fascist state.
2. There is no question that we're living in a fascist state.

Therefore, said approach is the only logical one. Q.E.D.

P.S.

Anyone who thinks Jimmy Wales is not CIA ought to have their head examined.

Re:Transparency

[turbidostato]

"See the Wikipedia:Verifiability (WP:V) policy"

Well, let's see it.

"In Wikipedia, appeals to personal authority don't work at all, unlike Britannica, which bases its entire approach on these."

Ahem... From the fine Wikipedia page:
"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source."

So Britannica appeals to personal authority, but somehow, Wikipedia accepting data *because* it is published in Britannica is not. Quite an interesting non-transitivity concept.

Re:Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you believe ArsTechnica to be controversial? Well, it wasn't until the ArsTechnica crowd decided to remove anything that looked "negative" from the article, turning it into an advertisement. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/Ars_Technica

This article had a criticisms section much like Slashdot's. Criticisms were removed, despite having citations, by a small mob of Ars-associated persons. Any undertaking to fix the situation was fought against by the mob. Even writers and editors of Ars would edit the article, and didn't seem to understand the whole neutral point of view thing.

As a result, many who tried to improve the article moved on to improving other articles, or just stopped contributing. Wikipedia is an awesome resource, and a lot of fun, as long as you don't have overly-interested parties involved.

Re:Transparency

[nicolastheadept]

Hooray, someone used the Keynes quote (well almost, its supposed to be "In the long run, we are all dead."). You're comment is quite right, its a pity I have no mod points.

Re:Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that he was claiming that his edit (which referenced a $120 book) contradicts freely available info on the web. The person that probably removed it, did so because they thought the reference was bogus. Not to defend the person, but if there is a lot of info out there pointing in the opposite direction you can't fault someone for believing the mountains of info in the other direction... much at least.

I somehow doubt that there are many highly specialized $120 books on topics where people hotly debate strongly held opinions. At the very least GP post can put something in saying that "such-and-such book contradicts most of the freely available info out there with ______ opinion."

The problem is that a lot of people that might casually add some relevant information aren't going to put the time in to 'fight' with people over wikipedia about what sources are good, bad, or neutral.

Re:Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure why that bitch and the others were able to get away with that. They're very obviously being cuntish.

Re:Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is not identity. The problem is editors whose agenda is not the improvement of Wikipedia (or following its rules) but their separate agenda that specifically goes against what WP stands for: trying to get accurate, verifiable information from reliable sources. In this case, the person whose identity was revealed (or not) seems to have gotten treatment no editor of Wikipedia should ever get (unless they are violating specific law with their edits: e.g., copyright violation or defamation). Namely,

Shortly after her Wikipedia identity was uncovered, many of her edits to articles related to the bombing were permanently removed from the database in an attempt to conceal her identity.

Yes, Wikipedia lets an editor leave (or disappear). But it should never allow an editor to decide their edits to articles get removed (unless they are violating the law, see above, and trying to make amends).

I don't care that government agents are misusing Wikipedia for propaganda efforts (well, I do care but expect Wikipedia can fix the damage in due time). I do care when the evidence of the misuse is removed.

Re:Transparency

[Unequivocal]

There's an interesting, though limited, article on cyberbullying on NewScientist.com:

http://www.newscientisttech.com/channel/tech/mg195 26136.300-the-rise-of-cyberbullying.html

It does show how bullying over electronic channels can be effective - to the point of (at least partially) causing youths to kill themselves. In fact, the e-bullying seems to look an awful lot like bullying in RL - repeated personal attacks, ostracizing, humiliation and degrading treatment.

I'd have to guess that bullying in Wikipedia would probably heavily rely on ostracizing of various forms, b/c being part of the community seems important to many there. So if a person can get other editors of a page against you, you might end up feeling unwelcome and going elsewhere: they "win".

Re:Transparency

[ta bu shi da yu]

In that case, stop whinging and, well, use a proper edit summary. Then note on the talk page what you've done. Not a particularly hard thing to do now, is it?

Re:Transparency

[chiapetofborg]

Yeah, I've had to, on several occasions, go to the library to look up articles that just didn't feel right.

A better question...

[nevali]

...would be "is there a major web-site which doesn't have a presence from at least one intelligence agency?"

Re:A better question...

[toddhisattva]

A better question would be "is there a major web-site which doesn't have a presence from at least one intelligence agency?"

And that's just accounting for those in the open!

Re:A better question...

[Qaa]

No, we can't be everyw... No wait: Nothing, you know nothing!

Re:A better question...

[rk]

I can neither confirm nor deny that.

Re:A better question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cmdr Taco, or shall I say, Mr. Bond, we've been following you for weeks now. Our agent Hello Kitty only slept with you to find out your secrets, by the way. You're doing a fine job with Slashdot, however, and we approve. Oh, and Kitty says "he snores but he's cute." Women. We'd like to replace them with something reliable, but no one wants to sleep with a RAID-2 array.

Re:A better question...

[LindaMack]

This discussion is ridiculous! I don't even exist...

Anonymous Cowards unite

[HomelessInLaJolla]

I'm sure that, if you all gang up on this Ludwig the way you gang up on me, you can convince him that he's just a conspiracy theorist hiding his own personal failings.

Re:Anonymous Cowards unite

[doombringerltx]

There is obviously a huge, slashdot-wide conspiracy against you!

Re:Anonymous Cowards unite

[gr3kgr33n]

how is pointing out that pointing out the Slashdot solution to Mr. Ludwig's paranoia considered a "troll"? My head hurts now

Re:Anonymous Cowards unite

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a three to six person campaign now.

SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Re:Anonymous Cowards unite

[Anonymous Coward]

Make that a four to seven campaign.

Re:Anonymous Cowards unite

[Anonymous Coward]

make that a five to eight person campaign, now.
  BAN THE BUM!

Re:Anonymous Cowards unite

[Anonymous Coward]

As a prominent AC poster, I am wondering how many of you are actually him trying to prove a point that only exists in his mind. I mean could he really just think he is spreading a conspiracy in order to advance his own conversation with himself.

Is there a name for someone who thinks everyone is out to get them and have everyone be multiple instances of him? How do we know he isn't me and I'm asking the same? Maybe we should check his credentials to make sure he isn't an AC too.

-- When I sleep I do amazing things. Or that is what I have been told by some unamazing people.

Re:Anonymous Cowards unite

[poopdeville]

Is there a name for someone who thinks everyone is out to get them and have everyone be multiple instances of him? /b/

Re:Anonymous Cowards unite

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just Will Smith with a T3 connection.

Re:Anonymous Cowards unite

[President GWB]

As the President of the United States, I have to say, you don't know what you are talking about. There is not just "two to five people" stalking you, there is an entire branch of the FBI dedicated to stalking and harassing you. Please don't underestimate the potential of our fine government.

Sincerly,
President George W. Bush

Re:Anonymous Cowards unite

[Anonymous Coward]

So let me get this right, you can't even win an argument against an Anonymous Coward? Quit while you're ahead.

Re:Anonymous Cowards unite

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes I can. I win.

Re:Anonymous Cowards unite

[drsquare]

I'm sorry but you've been posting this shit in several threads, and I can't work you out at all. Maybe all that weed has made you schizo?

I read it on wikipedia

[User 956]

This discovery comes only months after another Wikipedia admin was caught lying about his credentials to the press.

This sort of thing is a compounding issue. In fact, this sort of activity has tripled in the last six months. I read that on wikipedia somewhere.

Re:I read it on wikipedia

[stefanlasiewski]

this sort of activity has tripled in the last six months.

Clearly you are referring to the Elephants.

This sort of thing is a pounding issue. In fact, this sort of activity has been trampled in the last few months, not tripled. It's truthy. I saw that on TV somewhere.

Re:I read it on wikipedia

[RealGrouchy]

This sort of thing is a compounding issue. In fact, this sort of activity has tripled in the last six months. I read that on wikipedia somewhere. Wikipedia should really rethink their policy of having elephants as admins.

- RG>

Re:I read it on wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been posting disinformation on Slashdot for years, and no one has paid any attention at all. :(

Re:I read it on wikipedia

[SeaFox]

This sort of thing is a compounding issue. In fact, this sort of activity has tripled in the last six months. I read that on wikipedia somewhere.

[clicky... clicky, clicky]

No you didn't.

Uh

[Anonymous Coward]

What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?"

Uh, doesn't that include almost every admin?

Thank God this won't affect Wiki's primary market

[jollyreaper]

I can't see why spooks would be editing entries about or favorite tv shows, comic book characters, science/fantasy books, technology entries, etc. Us geeks is safe.

consider the source

[Paktu]

Are we really going to take an article seriously when it comes from a site called "OhMyNews.com"?

Might as well just link directly to infowars...

Re:consider the source

[Anonymous Coward]

Why shouldn't we? The facts are there for all to see. Discredit the facts, not the mailman. Unless you work for MI5, that is. And some people take Bible seriously. -- Consider where that came from.

Its a highly visible site...

[DragonWriter]

...that influences popular perceptions, and anyone can contribute to it. Of course government agents are using it.

OTOH, compared to what covert agents do outside of Wikipedia, I can hardly see much reason for alarm.

Re:Its a highly visible site...

[Kadin2048]

To be perfectly honest, I'd be a little annoyed if the brain surgeons in our intelligence agencies -- who I, along with the rest of the taxpayers, bankroll -- weren't at least aware of Wikipedia.

Okay, so in this case they get zero points for subtlety (and when your cover gets blown editing an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, that's not a good sign...), but they're not doing anything I wouldn't expect them to be doing.

I fully expect that the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, etc., probably have propaganda agencies astroturfing Wikipedia and other web sites to their own advantage. This is what countries do.

Re:Its a highly visible site...

[sumdumass]

OR better yet, Why isn't anyone upset that a covert agent got outed based on untruthful information?

Re:Its a highly visible site...

[doom]

Kadin2048 wrote:

I fully expect that the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, etc., probably have propaganda agencies astroturfing Wikipedia and other web sites to their own advantage. This is what countries do.

Well, sure, that's what they do when they're not restrained by a responsible, informed citizenry that's concerned with maintaining the integrity of information flow in a democracy.

The actual question in my mind is "What should wikipedia do?". Wikipedia functions remarkably well when all it has to worry about is cranks and vandals. How can it repeal a well-funded, large scale attempt at subversion? What changes could it possibly make to it's proceedures to make it resistant to subversion?

(And if your attitude toward wikipedia is something like "who cares, it's just a toy", cross out wikipedia and fill in the name of any other collaborative website. You sometimes get people engaging in lots of hifalutin rhetoric about how the web is the last hope for a true citizen's democracy and so on... is that all nonsense? Is there any way to fix the problem?)

Re:Its a highly visible site...

[Anonymous Coward]

Deception and manipulation is bad, period. Agencies that use such measures have no legitimacy in my view.

The fact that the same organizations do much more of it outside of wikipedia doesn't mean that there shouldn't be concern over how wikipedia could better protect itself from disinformation and bias.

Comment 20016559 has been deleted.

[bdesham]

Nothing to see here, please move along.

Re:Comment 20016559 has been deleted.

[Anonymous Coward]

We often find things funny because we see the inherent truth in them.

"What can Wikipedia do...?"

[Paxton]

It can do what it's designed to do: self-edit.

Wouldn't you rather have someone writing stuff that can be corrected by anyone than have a publisher infiltrated and subsequently print untrue (yet unchangeable) information?

Of course, through ignorance or apathy or downright malevolence, any source produces at least some erroneous information anyway...

Re:"What can Wikipedia do...?"

[blowdart]

But if it's true the problem is not editing, it's another example of wikipedia deleting edits by mods and others who have embarrassed them. And that, to my mind, is worse than having a bad moderator, it's against everything Jimbo says he, and wikipedia stands for.

Re:"What can Wikipedia do...?"

[rohead]

Wouldn't you rather have someone writing stuff that can be corrected by anyone than have a publisher infiltrated and subsequently print untrue (yet unchangeable) information? Actually, that is apparently exactly what has happened in this case. FTFA:

To my surprise, I found that all references to the alleged collaboration between the PFLP and the Shin Bet had been suppressed. Moreover, it is no longer possible to edit the page .

why SHOULD widipedia do anything?

[superwiz]

It's a site that's meant to inform. Does it matter if information is contributed under false identity? Information is either true or not. Judging whether it's true or not by who contributes is setting a very low standard for fact finding. Claims about knowledge that is outside of the expertise of layman have to have references to well-established sources (which can be checked) anyway. Otherwise, it's just rumors.

Re:why SHOULD widipedia do anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or that is the How It Should Work(TM), and we know how that works don't we.

The reality is that Wikipedia is a Cabal-at-every-corner. And administrators are frequently taking sides. Just look at RFAR's involving administrators and you will know what's going to be in the next case.

Re:why SHOULD widipedia do anything?

[lixee]

Information is either true or not.

Wow! How does such crap get modded +5? The Wiki isn't just about maths. It includes a variety of political articles, and anyone remotely familiar with them knows that the English Wiki is biased (if not downright propaganda) on several articles. The most notorious being articles dealing with Israel whose wording is evidently pro-Zionist.

Re:why SHOULD widipedia do anything?

[superwiz]

Great, should start debating Zionism right now? I'll just state from the start. Reality exists. We can try to figure out what it is by discussing it. The fact that I or someone else works for a flower shop or CIA does not change that the Sun came up today.

Re:why SHOULD widipedia do anything?

[robogun]

That is correct. The Wikipedia tagline is "The Encyclopedia That Anyone Can Edit."

If the policy has changed, it should be revised to: "The Encyclopedia That Anyone Except Intelligence Agents Can Edit."

Dude, You are a nutcase.

[HornWumpus]

Anybody who has any doubt should look at his posting history.

BTW do you do anything besides hanging on /. all day?

License

[nighty5]

You can take the comments offline, but as part of the GNU Free Documentation License which all articles are written under I demand to see the diffs.

The fact is the government need only put this under a flag of "protecting national security" and all bets on civil liberty and rights are white washed.

God bless America!!

The land of the free!!

Pierre Salinger

[MontyApollo]

Pierre Salinger was kind of a crackpot at this point in his career, so just because he believed somebody was an MI-5 operative doesn't mean much. He was a laughing stock because of all of his conspiracy theories at the time.

Re: Pierre Salinger

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. That dude is nuts. You should just ignore him.

Linda Mack

Re: Pierre Salinger

[Anonymous Coward]

Mind you, if you were to truthfully describe some actual documented conspiracies and events to a person off the street, they'd think you were crazy too.

(Putin murdering people with radioactive isotopes, the French blowing up anti-nuclear vessels, Scientology break-ins at federal offices, acoustic kitty, LSD experiments on civilians, Tuskagee experiments, etc. etc.)

Lets face it, the world is an incredibly fucked up place - and the idea of someone being planted to infiltrate a newspaper investigation is not bizarre at all in comparison.

Re: Pierre Salinger

[Watson Ladd]

Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they really aren't out to get you.

Re: Pierre Salinger

[EGenius007]

Pierre Salinger was kind of a crackpot at this point in his career, so just because he believed somebody was an MI-5 operative doesn't mean much. He was a laughing stock because of all of his conspiracy theories at the time.
It's true. I read the same thing on Wikipe... wait a minute.

Re: Pierre Salinger

[Anonymous Coward]

The history of government experiments on civilians might actually go further back than the LSD stuff. My university, for example, participated in the Manhattan Project and has a large medical campus. My freshman year there, I read in the paper that in the 1940s, they injected people with radioactive material to see how they would react to it. I'm talking about random hospital patients. This was without their knowledge. They all got bad cancer. And it was funded by the federal government.

Or... How about the J Edgar Hoover days at the FBI? Spying on Martin Luther King Jr and John Lennon? I read that they "discovered" that John Lennon did lots of drugs and cheated on Yoko. They had to bug his apartment to figure that out? Federal tax dollars at work!

Or... What happened to socialists and communists inside the US? Isn't the US supposed to be a country where you can believe in any political system you want? Why were these people silenced during the Cold War? Is that really a free democracy?

Or... How about all the dictatorships we installed? Latin America is a good example. Most Americans don't care about any of this, but ask a Latin American about the Monroe Doctrine some time. And here in the US, we're taught in school what a good thing it was! And speaking of dictatorships... Who was it that put Saddam there in the first place?

Or hey... How about the shit that's been going on more recently. Iraq anyone? Wasn't it curious how just about everyone with the means to do so was pushing for that thing in 2003? Warantless wiretaps? Federal money delivered to contractors in the form of millions in cash in trash bags? Executive orders that say, "Hey, I'm going to go ahead and break the law. Peace, -George Bush."

I think it's all kind of messed up. I know some people who are really hardcore conspiracy theorists, and I usually dismiss their attitudes, but yeah, with crap like this going on, I can see why they come to their conclusions. We need a government that doesn't try to meddle with these things.

Public Scrutiny

[Anonymous Coward]

The same as it does now, but putting people under public scrutiny should they ever turn out to be a snake.

If you think of wikipedia as a credible source

[kaufmanmoore]

3 words for you: Dee Dee Dee

Re:If you think of wikipedia as a credible source

[Anonymous Coward]

Contrary to popular belief, Carlos Mencia is _not_ funny.

Like Amazon reviews...

[loteck]

The wikipedia community might want to take it on themselves to promote a "Real Name" system that casts suspicion on and removes the benefit of the doubt from those who choose to post anonymously.

I remember when Amazon went to that system after it was discovered how many negative reviews were authored by competing writers attempting to anonymously besmirch eachother in the review comments. Now you really find the highest rated reviews are almost exclusively by people who have chosen to forego anonymity for the benefit of having a trackable reputation.

Re:Like Amazon reviews...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree wholeheartedly.

Re:Like Amazon reviews...

[Haeleth]

The wikipedia community might want to take it on themselves to promote a "Real Name" system that casts suspicion on and removes the benefit of the doubt from those who choose to post anonymously.

How exactly would these real names be verified? Amazon can do it because they can compare the name you give with the name on your credit card, but that really isn't an option for community projects for all sorts of reasons.

Re:Like Amazon reviews...

[Fred Ferrigno]

First off, you're basically describing Citizendium, a Wiki-based encyclopedia founded by Larry Sanger to compete with Wikipedia.

Secondly, requiring people to provide their real names is very "un-wiki", meaning that it flies in the face of some of the core philosophies of Wikipedia. Anyone is supposed to be able to contribute on equal footing, regardless of who you are. Other people can also correct you if you're wrong, regardless of who you are or who they are. If a 12-year-old can compose a more convincing argument than a Nobel laureate, then that argument carries the day, not either person.

Finally, there's no reason why CIA agents shouldn't be allowed to contribute to Wikipedia. No doubt they have hobbies and interests just like you and I. They can contribute positively and objectively to any number of articles unrelated to their profession. If they want to edit articles relating to the CIA, they are expected to abide by Wikipedia's guideline on conflicts of interest, just like anyone else. I work for a company that has a entry in Wikipedia and I've edited Wikipedia before. Does that mean my company has "inflitrated" Wikipedia?

On the other hand, there are plenty of people and organizations that do try to influence Wikipedia's articles through decidedly underhanded means. Thankfully, the Wikipedia community is usually very good at detecting that kind of thing and sorting it out. Wikipedia has a wonderful tendency to right itself eventually. No attempt to spin an article in any one direction will last very long if it's a popular or important topic.

Depending on the purposes!

[mi]

What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?

What a retarded question... Don't we all use Wikipedia for our own purposes? The reaction — if any is needed at all — should depend on the purposes.

A covert agent of a reasonably democratic government investigating a crime is one thing. A pseudo-scientist lying about his credentials is another. A pranskter vandalizing pages is the third. An overt agent of a reasonably democratic government pushing their government's view is yet another. And so on... And then, of course, come the rest of us using the resource to learn, teach, and immortalize ourselves via contributions...

Re:Depending on the purposes!

[oGMo]

Don't we all use Wikipedia for our own purposes?

I use it to look up documented information and references to canonical sources thereof. I use it for a reference. Most people who use it probably do.

However I don't edit it for my own purposes. The purpose of Wikipedia is as an information reference, with cited sources for some measure of integrity. Not a playground for pushing agendas. Not necessarily that this was what the alleged agent was doing---but some people do.

Re:Depending on the purposes!

[sumdumass]

The purpose of Wikipedia is as an information reference, with cited sources for some measure of integrity. Not a playground for pushing agendas. Not necessarily that this was what the alleged agent was doing---but some people do.

Not everyone believes this in the same way. It took a while before I noticed I should look at it this way too.

I know people who just like me have some position on whatever and cite Wikipedia as their reference and not only are wrong, but when they go back to show the links, the information isn't there anymore. I don't hold any creditability over Wikipedia except to look at the sources they link to and get information from there. Almost everything on it is biased to some degree or slanted to push a certain point. This is doubly true when it deal with something in politics or a disaster of something.

plus, Salinger is involved

[wsanders]

A nutbag if ever there was one.

Wikipedia is perfectly welcome to sap and impurify my bodily fluids, although there are probably other web sites that are much more likely to actually do so.

Re:plus, Salinger is involved

[sepluv]

You haven't seen the Porn article? There's even an Ogg Theora video on there...more geek porn than anything, but hey...

First the internet. Next the mainstream media!

[Torgo's Pizza]

If this is happening on Wikipedia, the next logical step is the rest of the Internet and the rest of the mainstream media. I know it seems impossible now, but can you imagine if a far-left wing liberal editor was in charge of the editorial page of the New York Times? Or what if a neocon tycoon owned a 24-hour news network! If Wikipedia is having problems, our mainstream media is going to be next and lose the objectivity that it's currently known for.

Re:First the internet. Next the mainstream media!

[gbjbaanb]

Toay Wikipedia, tomorrow... the World! Mouhahahahahahahahahahaahahaaa.

I think I'll just nip over to Wikipedia and write this up, self-fulfilling prophecies don't fulfil themselves you know :)

Here's an example of a problem: Gillberg affair

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of people manipulate Wikipedia for their own purposes, and sometimes these are highly dishonorable. As an example, check out the Wikipedia article for Christopher Gillberg. Then compare it to what you find googling for Gillberg affair, especially this review.

Gillberg appears to have been a highly dishonorable medical researcher, but his supporters, aided by an administrator, repeatedly changed the article to make it seem like he is a hero.

Re:Here's an example of a problem: Gillberg affair

[Sara Chan]

The story is certainly interesting, but it's off-topic (even though it is about Wikipedia). Also, the correct link for “this review” seems to be http://www.informath.org/apprise/a6400.htm.

From her wikipedia userpage:

[HexRei]

"Beyond right and wrong, there is a field.
I'll meet you there."

Interesting.

Re:From her wikipedia userpage:

[frosty_tsm]

I'll meet you there. It's a trap!

Re:From her wikipedia userpage:

[HexRei]

Wow, I was just banned from editing by Crum375 for posting a question to her talk page, asking if she was Linda Mack/Sarah McEwan and part of an intelligence agency. I guess Crum375 doesn't feel that is relevant to an editor's NPOV considerations so my reason for banning was "Harassment and attempted outing of a fellow editor".

It might qualify as harassment if it wasn't totally relevant to her NPOV and should be known by fellow editors but as far as I can find, "attempted outing of a fellow editor" isn't even in the policy guidelines. I really do believe this is just a sockpuppet of hers.

Re:From her wikipedia userpage:

[dtobias]

Slim, Crum, and a number of others are part of a clique which has attained a high degree of power on Wikipedia, and which has been using it in a very pushy way, such as in insisting on enforcing an alleged "policy" (which has never come near getting a consensus of Wikipedians) banning links to so-called "attack sites" which do things like "outing" Slim (so I guess Slashdot is an "attack site" now). See my essay on this.

Re:From her wikipedia userpage:

[HexRei]

That's what I figured he was on me in seconds, I can only assume he was expecting this response and was prepared to deal with it, I see he's taken the same action with other users before and since.

And conveniently, banning me has prevented me from even discussing the situation on the various WP talk channels. He not only censors the wikipedia but then prevents the censored from presenting their case until 24 hours later, and a lot can happen in that time.

I wrote an email to jimbo but my hopes are not high. I'd at least like to see the policy guidelines wherein "outing an editor" is defined as harassment, especially in the context that the editor is a government spy slinging her agenda in the WP.

Ok, vented, now I'll read your essay.

Re:From her wikipedia userpage:

[georgewilliamherbert]

Jeez. All I can think reading it is that you've reached the level of paranoia in your life where you MAKE enemies.

(disclaimer: I'm a Wikipedia administrator, and I would have blocked Hex, too.)

Re:From her wikipedia userpage:

[HexRei]

Yeah, that was terrible. Asking a wikipedia editor if the claims of her being a CIA agent were true. Geez, that IS banworthy! I can't wait for the day when all of our editors have a secret history with intelligence agencies (that is censored on WP of course), that will definitely ensure a NPOV on all articles!

Re:From her wikipedia userpage:

[georgewilliamherbert]

You're suggesting that questions a la "So have you stopped beating your wife yet?" are appropriate for civil discourse.

They aren't. And if you think otherwise, you're going to go through life being kicked out of places that insist on people playing at least a little nice with each other.

If you troll people like that, you're gone. And you should be.

Re:From her wikipedia userpage:

[Anonymous Coward]

so according to your logic, employment forms asking if you have been convicted of a felony should be outlawed. Nobody should ever be confronted no matter the reason (e.g., the wife is covered with marks of abuse -- yeah, she simply fell down the stairs...). Nice, but idiotic.

Re:From her wikipedia userpage:

[Anonymous Coward]

Her Talk page has been locked so only the elite can alter it. To see what was removed you have to step through previous edits.

Re:From her wikipedia userpage:

[Anonymous Coward]

Attempting to 'out' another editor on Wikipedia is a bannable offense. Asking someone "Are you Xxxxx Yyyyy?" is an attempt at outing that person.

That said, I do think that since this case has hit Slashdot and the rumors are flying, there should be a lot of leniency here, and you should not have been banned. The question is out there and no one can stop it. And if everyone who asks this question gets banned, it just feeds the sense of conspiracy and wrongdoing.

It's a lot like the first Slashdot troll post investigation. Curious bystanders want to know what's going on, they try to participate, and get instantly and severely punished.

Re:From her wikipedia userpage:

[makomk]

The fundamental problem isn't that this is a bannable offense, it's that it's still a bannable offense when there's a potential conflict of interest or violation of the autobiography rules. (See Gary Weiss - basically, there are allegations that he, as Mantamoreland, created an autobiographical article about himself and removed non-flattering but sourced information from it, amongst other things. I have no idea if it's true, but Wikipedia's treatment of the matter did not inspire confidence. In particular, Jimbo Wales erased an attempt to AfD the article on conflict-of-interest grounds, seemingly because the CoI allegations were unflattering to Mantamoreland - see here. Oddly, SlimVirgin was heavily involved in that on Mantamoreland's side too. Even more oddly, Matanmoreland is heavily involved in "On the Jews and their Lies". Unsurprisingly, this is giving a lot of ammunition to certain anti-Wikipedia groups.)

Re:From her wikipedia userpage:

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I would ban *you* if you make decisions based on that kind of stupid analogies.

If someone would ask me the same (and it were not true, heck even if it was true) I would be perhaps charmed but laugh at it. If you ask me whether I would regularly beat up people I would be offended.

Re:From her wikipedia userpage:

[natmakarvitch]

Uh? Do you refer to this set of questions? It seems to me that they were pertinent and civil. Cabal...

Re:From her wikipedia userpage:

[Xeth]

In fact, posting of personal information is part of Wikipedia's rules on harassment. However, I'll look into the duration of the block.

So Prove it Already

[bill_mcgonigle]

OK, maybe Wikipedia is a tool of the Man, and it's deleting edits to cover the tracks of an intelligence agent.

So, show me the 'before' and 'after' of the edits. Surely Google cache or Archive.org or any of the other search engines have that page from some point in the past, no? How about even a locally cached copy (certainly not tamper proof)?

Or... have all of the people who might have a cached copy also been infiltrated? We know how that story goes.

Re:So Prove it Already

[againjj]

Here is the deleted material. The edit protection was due to the fact that there was an edit war going on about whether this material should be present, which can be seen by looking at the page history

Re:So Prove it Already

[Fred Ferrigno]

SlimVirgin was not at all involved in editing Operation Entebbe. Four other editors -- nadav1, Beit Or, Tewfik and Makaristos -- argued for removing the passage. You can see the discussion here. Their point is that the Colin quote is a second-hand reporting of a rumor from an unnamed source. Other editors, chiefly Agha Nader, argued that since the item was picked up by major media, it is de facto notable and should be included.

At issue is Wikipedia's guideline on the inclusion of fringe theories, which says that "ideas which are of borderline or minimal notability may be documented in Wikipedia, but should not be given undue weight." Some of the editors believed that mentioning the rumor at all constitutes giving it undue weight. Others were of the opinion that the passage as written gave the rumor undue weight.

Whether or not you agree, their position is not totally without merit. Reasonable people will interpret Wikipedia's guidelines and policies differently and come to different conclusions on the inclusion of specific material. Disagreeing with a conspiracy theorist does not mean you are a CIA shill.

Re:So Prove it Already

[barwasp]

Surely Google cache or Archive.org or any of the other search engines have that page from some point in the past, no? How about even a locally cached copy (certainly not tamper proof)? There should an internet hash-bank(s) where applications and people could be sending short cryptographically secure hash digests; for helping to proof some original data being time-coded and non-tampered. Ok, MD5 could be alone broken SHA1 could be wounded but sending multiple hashes sure could prove the existence of original content

e.g. MD5 36ec2f330ba175cdc1aacbdcb812036c AND 83240670a27ad2bdc2c5a1b36222d3941aaf4bca ?SHA1 AND a2da3cafba3cd23391ad90511b7c7b73fa219492 ?RIPEMD160 AND 64799812b5ee98a4cc1c6484bf8f849e3fee9aa6553393b9d7 873b7f8cac9b825aca648a365aaa5e7037f903d708e19df219 8dfa82b2933b14ac7aa7072101eb ?SHA512

off cause hashes of these hash-banks should be than published on major printed newspapers, proving the whole hash-bank non-tampered

Spy? Assassin, I bet!

[Pedrito]

She sure looks like a spook!

Carry On

[DynaSoar]

> What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?"

Carry on exactly as they are, because that is precisely what every contributor is doing. Their purpose may be an attempt at the truth, which is noble, but also subjective, and some will disagree. They too will contribute if they care enough. With enough of that, any other "purposes" will be, if not buried, then at least illuminated. Where that could fail is if there are not enough who care enough to contribute.

So what are you still here for?

Shameful this made it to the front page

[Snowspinner]

It's shameful that this made it to the front page. The OhMyNews story that is cited isn't linked to. A quick glance at it (It's at http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_vi ew.asp?menu=c10400&no=374006&rel_no=1 ) shows why - the writer's only source for his claims about Slim Virgin is the evidence collected by Daniel Brandt, who cyberstalked her publicly on The Wikipedia Review, a board populated by the banned trolls of Wikipedia. The article makes clear the degree to which this "investigation" is based on rumors and lies, and proceeds to publicly state the alleged name and city of residence of this person.

I am appalled that Slashdot decided to participate in this public character assassination of a private citizen.

Re:Shameful this made it to the front page

[A beautiful mind]

The spies are at slashdot too!!111

Re:Shameful this made it to the front page

[dtobias]

"Banned troll" = anybody who dares to criticize the power clique of Wikipedia. (I like Wikipedia... I hate some of the people and cliques with power there.)

Re:Shameful this made it to the front page

[joeszilagyi]

Phil, one of the big problems to keep in mind with Wikipedia's perception is this ideal that is now more rampant than a sexually transmitted disease inside the project: specifically, that ANY criticism of the users of Wikipedia as individuals is trolling, or stalking, or harassing. Its not, in and of itself. There's no Internet right to privacy, children, and information once outed can't be put back in a bottle. Most importantly, Wikipedia's 'rules' have no application or value outside of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is just a website that happened to get lucky and popular due to fortunate timing and a design architecture in MediaWiki that exploits GoogleBot. Or are we not supposed to mention that Wikipedia "nofollow" tags all external links, but not links between Wikimedia projects? Glass houses, Phil.

Re:Shameful this made it to the front page

[Snowspinner]

To say that "information once outed can't be put back in a bottle" is misleading. Yes, obviously the damage Daniel Brandt did here cannot be undone.

But on the other hand, the propagation to OhMyNews and subsequently to Slashdot is a substantial escelation of the damage. And I question the editorial wisdom of both sites in deciding to be complicit in spreading the information.

Ironically, this is something Wikipedia is increasingly getting better about - deciding that person X is primarily a private citizen, and that we just don't need to be the people who come up as the first Google hit on their name. It doesn't put the information back in the bottle, but it doesn't turn the bottle upside down and shake it to see if there's a little more we can wring out of it either.

Re:Shameful this made it to the front page

[Snowspinner]

No, there are plenty of people who criticize the power structure of Wikipedia who are not banned.

On the other hand, there are fewer people who decide to criticize the power structure like Daniel Brandt does - stalking and outing the real names and cities of residence of Wikipedia editors. Those people, pleasantly, get banned.

Re:Shameful this made it to the front page

[Vexorian]

Hmm I am guessing you are one of the banned trolls?

Re:Shameful this made it to the front page

[dtobias]

Actually, I'm still an editor in good standing there... they haven't managed to ban me yet. :-)

Re:Shameful this made it to the front page

[dtobias]

Though, for Wikipedia to continue to try to suppress information even after it's been on the front page of Slashdot doesn't make them look particularly sensible either.

Re:Shameful this made it to the front page

[Snowspinner]

Because if Slashdot does it, it must be right?

Re:Shameful this made it to the front page

[Antaeus Feldspar]

The only good thing is that if the information was collected by Daniel Brandt, it's probably worthless. The guy is famous for being easily fooled -- my favorite is when someone sent him an anonymous e-mail, claiming to be an ex-business partner and enemy of administrator "XYZ", and claiming that administrator XYZ's real name was "Daniel Atta Benzona". Brandt published it on his website, without any attempt to check it. Well, he may have made some unsuccessful attempt to check it, but one thing we can be sure he didn't do is try to check it with anyone who spoke Hebrew, or he would have found out that "Daniel Atta Benzona" means "Daniel, you are a son of a whore."

Re:Shameful this made it to the front page

[TechnicolourSquirrel]

There's no Internet right to privacy, children, and information once outed can't be put back in a bottle. NAMBLA's gonna be pissed. Call the EFF!

Re:Shameful this made it to the front page

[joeszilagyi]

Phil, as public editors of an online encyclopedia, people can take actions by their posting on Wikipedia that easily can open themselves to legal liability in the United States. Wikipedia's section 230 "protection"--sorry, Jimbo--is unproven, and untested. It is Wikipedia's WORST interests to have section 230 for ANY Wiki-installation tested, anywhere, legally. That's the one and only reason that "Oversight" and BLP are so stringent: to help keep the Wikimedia Foundation from getting sued.

If any Wiki-type site loses a series of cases and appeals over section 230 protection, a massive bullseye will be painted on Wikipedia. You can bet your ass that anonymous editing either will immediately have to legally go away, IP information will have to be kept forever, or the WMF will need to shut down--whomever is in charge, i.e. Jimmy and the Board of Trustees--will get their ass sued off.

I actually *like* Slim, from the fact that my direct dealings with her have been pleasant. That said--and I don't care, this is what I've read time and again--is that Brandt pursued her identity to begin legal proceedings against her in the state of Texas. Legally, he, you, or I are allowed to do any sort of 'uncovering' of whom someone is for that person, and its NOT despicable, or wrong. Wikipedia is nothing special, it's just a website. If there was ever an article on me there, and Wikipedia User:SomeDude99 defamed me, in my opinion, again and again--or, I just felt like sueing him, which is my right--I would be 110% within my legal rights as a United States citizen to track down whom he was by any and all legal means or recourse at my disposal.

Being a "Wikipedian" is no special mark, right, or honor, or protection--you're a dude or girl with a made up username, and are irrelevant in the scheme of life. Was it damaging? Probably. Is it damaging if Brandt sues her for something? Probably. Is it damaging, as time goes by, that Wikipedia allows anonymous editing? YES. Recent example? Chris Benoit. Further back? John Siegenthaler Jr. being defamed on Wikipedia (ironically, the culprite there was ALSO caught by Daniel Brandt). Malfeasance and lies on Wikepedia? Brandt helped show that Essjay lied about his identity to the major news media.

The moral is don't act like a douchebag, and bad things won't happen to you. Oh, and Wikipedia clubhouse membership gives you jack and shit for Magical Moral And Legal Rights outside of Wikipedia.

Re:Shameful this made it to the front page

[Blissyu2]

Coming from one of the worst stalkers on Wikipedia, I don't know how much merit you really have. Aren't you one of the people that does SlimVirgin's bidding? Come off it, you are a troll, and how can anyone take you seriously?

What do you do when a fraudster is caught IRL ?

[unity100]

You jail him/her, and go on with your life. thats whats gonna happen with wikipedia.

I experienced this as well on Wikipedia

[br00tus]

Here is an edit by someone coming from the IP 214.13.216.142 on Wikipedia. His or her edits are focused on diminishing the massacre at No Gun Ri during the Korean War, as well as related atrocities during the Korean war.

Well, where is that IP from? At the time I did an nslookup and I resolved to n-mnstci-142.mnstci.iraq.centcom.mil (the IP now resolves to a different CENTCOM host, host216-142.iraq.centcom.mil). CentCom I remember from the film "Control Room", they are the people trying to spin the Iraq war for the world (and especially the US) media. But MNSTCI? A little checking around showed me MNSTCI stood for the United States Central Command's Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq.

I brought this up at the time, but everyone I brought it up to dismissed it. This is CENTCOM's job - US taxpayer's dollars to rewrite history, so that the US can keep going overseas militarily. It particularly annoyed me that I was paying the salary of the person trying to rewrite history. I kind of felt like I was battling someone in the bowels of the US's Orwellian version of "Minitru".

In the mid-1990s, I got a strange SNMP request from an army intelligence outfit in Quantico, Virginia after reading Australian web sites which discussed possible CIA involvement in overthrowing Australia's government in the 1970's (the Whitlam/Kerr thing). This was back in the (usually) non-NAT'ed days - I had just assigned this IP and had an unusual amount of monitoring set up, I'm sure most people would have noticed the query. With the PATRIOT act, split fibers at the major telcos going to who knows where and so forth, I guess this is normal nowadays. The next step for those who support all of this is to just to either dismiss it, or attack the people who complain about.

Re:I experienced this as well on Wikipedia

[DragonWriter]

CentCom I remember from the film "Control Room", they are the people trying to spin the Iraq war for the world (and especially the US) media.

While, certainly, there are people in the PR arm of Centcom (and the Pentagon itself, and the White House) doing that, Centcom is the United States "Central Command", the regional combatant command in whose area of operations both the Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan are being fought, not simply a special-purpose spin shop.

This is CENTCOM's job - US taxpayer's dollars to rewrite history, so that the US can keep going overseas militarily.

being the part of the US military that is (in one particular area) overseas. Their job is fighting and winning wars, and preventing wars by having the capacity to fight and win them. Propaganda is part of that, of course, and no doubt they engage in some practices in the course of that against which there are legitiamte objections.

Re:I experienced this as well on Wikipedia

[tom's a-cold]

CENTCOM is the US military's Central Command. They cover the middle east, so spinning the Iraq War is part of what they do. But the main thing is that they also fight that war. The Security Transition Command is responsible for handing off security to the Iraqi police. Looks like your person is some military-can-do-no-wrong fanboy (or -girl) attached to CENTCOM. May or may not be their day job-- there are a lot of nutcases in the military who will do things like that just because they believe in it.

Quantico: that's something more likely to be a real cause for concern.

Re:I experienced this as well on Wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

How is propaganda from any democratic government ever legal? Proper decision-making in a democracy requires access to the truth. When the elected lie to the electorate they become despots.

Re:I experienced this as well on Wikipedia

[dbIII]

possible CIA involvement in overthrowing Australia's government in the 1970's (the Whitlam/Kerr thing)

There was CIA involvement - but it did not appear to be paticularly competant or effective and Whitlam was informed of it some time before the dismissal (and apparently laughed at some of the stupid antics along with the intelligence agents that told him - it looks like they sent the new kid in the agency). The major consequence of this operation was it's existence upset two US agents and they used is as the reason/excuse to sell intelligence secrets to the USSR - the movie "The Falcon and the Snowman" was based on what came out in court.

Whitlam was of course doomed to be removed from office once he lost the numbers, long before any attempted CIA involvement. I find it bizzare that anyone in the CIA would have considered him worth removing - he was such a strong ally of the USA that he even supported Nixon's line on East Timor despite it being opposed to Australia's national interest and a policy formed by a large bribe to the Republican party by the Indonesian President. Timor is still suffering phyically and Australia financially and militarily from the consequences of that bribe - government corruption can have major consequences.

Re:I experienced this as well on Wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

Because propaganda has latin roots, and its related to the word "propagation," with which I am sure you are familiar, meaning "dissemination." Propaganda is that which is being propagated, and until WWI had no negative connotations. Propaganda isn't always lies. And besides, even if it is - lying to foreigners, especially enemies in war, is perfectly legit and doesn't make your government "despotic." now, kindly go blow yourself.

Re:I experienced this as well on Wikipedia

[DragonWriter]

How is propaganda from any democratic government ever legal?

By not being outlawed under the laws of that government.

Proper decision-making in a democracy requires access to the truth.

Proper decision-making, period, requires access to the truth. Which is why propaganda has always been important in war: denying the enemy the ability to make decisions well. Of course, domestic propaganda by a regime is undesirable from a democratic perspective. And, in the modern age where information is fairly globalized, its very hard to engage in propaganda directed at an enemy without simultaneously engaging in domestic propaganda.

Re:I experienced this as well on Wikipedia

[Frosty Piss]

I edit a lot of articles in my spare time from work. My work IP resolves to the US Air Force. Other than the fact that I'm wasting my employer's resources editing Wikipedia and surfing Slashdot, there's no other connection. Just because an edit was done from a government computer doesn't mean the government is behind it.

Re:I experienced this as well on Wikipedia

[Vegeta99]

Your DD Form 214 is in the mail.

Sincerely,
Jimbo Wales

Re:I experienced this as well on Wikipedia

[N8F8]

you would have a hard time coming up with a dumber statement.

Re:I experienced this as well on Wikipedia

[MacCumhail]

Time To Fight Back Against Online Disinfo Agents and Trolls Online saboteurs threaten to edit 9/11 truth movement out of existence Alex Jones & Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet Saturday, July 28, 2007 You've heard of the Digg Bury Brigade and you've read countless comments from ill-informed Neo-Cons who engage in ad hominem attacks and smear jobs, but there's a new menace that threatens to hamstring the 9/11 truth movement and it needs to be confronted now - Wikipedia trolls who have initiated an organized campaign to deep-six our information from the Internet. Whether they be CENTCOM disinfo government shills or just attention seeking morons, there's a battle in cyberspace for the hearts and minds and we need to act now to fight back against these saboteurs. We are declaring a cyber war on Internet trolls. Meet Morton Devonshire, a Wikipedia troll that spends most of his sad little life deleting and vandalizing pages on the popular public encyclopedia website about the 9/11 truth movement and other related subjects. Devonshire's stunted and worthless existence is given some token meaning by his involvement in an imaginary group called "The Counter-Propaganda Unit," who devote themselves to trolling Wikipedia, which is supposed to be an open source for a diverse spread of information, and deleting pages about so-called "conspiracy theories". In between eating expensive cookies his Mommy bought him and playing video games in his parent's basement, Devonshire has amassed a sizable list of cyber scalps - research and biography pages that he has deep-sixed from Wikipedia. Devonshire attacks so-called conspiracy theorists for spreading unsubstantiated claims, yet his substantial justification for defacing and deleting entire research pages from Wikipedia amounts to nothing more than sophomoric giggles and childish snipes. "Heh heh," "You're goin' down CT'ers, down," chuckles Devonshire as his "reasons" for deleting dozens of pages. Take a look at the list of pages he alone has deleted. They include such manifestly provable "conspiracy theories" as "List of Republican sex scandals," "People questioning the 9/11 Commission Report" and "Movement to impeach George W. Bush". Also targeted is William Rodriguez, the courageous survivor of the WTC collapse and a worldwide personality that has appeared on mainstream television in scores of different countries. Devonshire even deleted the Wiki page for Dylan Avery, who has appeared on Fox News, CNN and in hundreds of newspaper reports. Avery is the producer of the most watched documentary film in Internet history, he clearly merits a biography page on an online encyclopedia, but Wikipedia had no qualms in letting Devonshire deep six the entry. As the Metroblogging website states, "In order to have a Wikipedia entry deleted from the site it needs to be "nominated for deletion" then voted on by other Wikipedia users." Wikipedia's criteria for keeping a page on any one individual are as follows. "The person has been the primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person." "The person made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in their specific field." Dylan Avery fits both these criteria easily, and yet the trolls have deleted the page without opposition. All these topics and dozens more have been successfully deleted by Devonshire as if they don't exist, all to satisfy the pathetic little ego trip that this punk gets from trolling the Internet and bashing the 9/11 truth movement. Why is this important? Devonshire and his cohorts, who like to adorn themselves with tin-foil hats, are ruining Wikipedia and essentially editing the 9/11 truth movement out of existence by flushing important topics and people down the memory hole. Wikipedia routinely performs well in search engine results and newcomers to the 9/11 truth movement are being denied access to information. What can we do about it? Wikipedia is open source, anyone can go in and edit any page or create new ones - we ne

Re:I experienced this as well on Wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia is a United States' company. The servers and owners are based in the U.S. It is explicitly illegal under Federal law for the U.S. government to engage in this sort of propaganda effort. Of course, the payment of money to network television stations to air specific porganda is also illegal. But the U.S. government does this too.

The enemy, btw, is the people of the United States. And that is what the U.S. government is constantly fighting against. It does not have to be this way, but far too many people when entrusted with power do not have the honor to obey the rule of law.

Authoritative Sources

[Compulawyer]

This is only a problem if you consider Wikipedia to be an authoritative source. IMHO, any source that is not peer-reviewed by identified experts and can be edited by anyone at a moment's notice is not authoritative. Wikipedia may be a decent general information source or even a starting point for more serious research, but until these fundamental issues are addressed, it will never be a reliable, authoritative source of information.

Because I know it will come up ....

1. I know "authoritative sources have errors and both can and have been manipulated;
2. I know that no source is 100% accurate; and
3. I have nothing against Wikipedia.

Re:Authoritative Sources

[sepluv]

IMHO, any source that is not peer-reviewed by identified experts and can be edited by anyone at a moment's notice is not authoritative.

By your definition of "authoritative", no encyclopedia can be authoritative because an encyclopedia is, by definition, a tertiary source.

An encyclopedia is a large work that attempts to summarise the entirety of human knowledge through a number of articles on distinct topics. Each article gives a concise summary of the current state of knowledge on that topic by referencing secondary sources, which are themselves based on original research (and in part the results of any peer reviewing of said research).

Wikipedia may be a decent general information source or even a starting point for more serious research That is all an encyclopedia is supposed to do. If you are doing serious research (for, say an academic thesis, something relating to a decision of grave importance to you) you should always refer to the original sources such as those referenced by the encyclopedia article.

Re:Authoritative Sources

[TechnicolourSquirrel]

Wikipedia doesn't claim the authority that you are attempting to revoke from it. And the meme that 'Wikipedia is not authoritative' has so run its course that everybody knows this already and takes it as read -- even 5th graders. Using this sentence to thump anyone who expresses the least protective interest in Wiki is ... well, it's just over, is all. It's time to get past what the Wikipedia is not. And more importantly, the level of Wikipedia authority (whether high or low) is beside the point here. 99% of forms of newsgathering are non-authoritative by your definition -- are all of these fair game for twisting and warping by intellience agencies? And we should not be worried? Because they are not authoritative? There is an obvious problem with this philosophy. We should not be only interested in protecting ourselves so narrowly. Regardless of whether or not Wikipedia is authoritative, it *is* a valuable resource, and it gets less valuable everytime another tax dollar of yours is spent to falsify it.

Re:Authoritative Sources

[natmakarvitch]

> 'Wikipedia is not authoritative' has so run its course that everybody knows this already

A fair amount of people, esp. among the youngsters, think that WP is authoritative. Take, for example, the amount of quotes of WP, in nearly every online medium, used to "make" a point.

Re:Authoritative Sources

[TechnicolourSquirrel]

> 'Wikipedia is not authoritative' has so run its course that everybody knows this already A fair amount of people, esp. among the youngsters, think that WP is authoritative. Take, for example, the amount of quotes of WP, in nearly every online medium, used to "make" a point. First of all, Wikipedia not being authoritative has nothing to do with whether it can be quoted to make a point. What's the relationship between those two uses? The Encyclopedia Britannica is not 'authoritative' either. Neither is a newspaper. Would you refuse to quote these to make a point? People will generally use anything to win a forum scrap -- it doesn't mean that they are ignorant of the nature of the sources. And besides, my observation has been the exact opposite to yours. Younger people are far more aware *as a group* of the idea that Wiki is unsuitable for research than older people (older people are more likely not to have heard of it or have only heard the word without any opinions as to its usage). The reason is that this lesson is now being hammered into them in schools at every grade, and has been for some time. (You may not have been aware of this.) Nobody gets out of school these days without being recited this litany literally dozens of times. They may not practice what they've been preached, but believe me -- they know.

Re:Authoritative Sources

[natmakarvitch]

> First of all, Wikipedia not being authoritative has nothing to do with whether it can be quoted to make a point. What's the relationship between those two uses?

My point is: many people think that any 'stable' (meaning "form OK" and "no edit war in progress") Wikipedia article contains a complete and accurate (remember: authoritative also means "highly accurate; definitive", this is the whole point of our dialog) account of his subject. In this perspective they think that WP is "authoritative", they say "if you don't believe me: read this WP article!" (and they mean it, this is, for them, not a fallacy).

> The Encyclopedia Britannica is not 'authoritative' either

Indeed.

> my observation has been the exact opposite to yours. Younger people are far more aware *as a group* of the idea that Wiki is unsuitable for research than older people

Most youngs I know, as stated above, think that "a stable WP article is complete and accurate". This is foolish, albeit often true for some technical and scientific topics

> (older people are more likely not to have heard of it or have only heard the word without any opinions as to its usage)

Therefore they just can't be misleaded by its contents

My point stands.

> The reason is that this lesson is now being hammered into them in schools at every grade, and has been for some time. (You may not have been aware of this.) Nobody gets out of school these days without being recited this litany literally dozens of times. They may not practice what they've been preached, but believe me -- they know.

I disagree: most youngsters I know are able to defy authority (and willing to!) but unable to doubt of any "authoritative" statement on most topics (and not interested by it). Isn't it a famous experiment about an accomplice teacher delivering some stupid assertion then making a fuss when a student asks for confirmation, letting the whole class accepting the BS?

Re:Authoritative Sources

[TechnicolourSquirrel]

> First of all, Wikipedia not being authoritative has nothing to do with whether it can be quoted to make a point. What's the relationship between those two uses? My point is: many people think that any 'stable' (meaning "form OK" and "no edit war in progress") Wikipedia article contains a complete and accurate (remember: authoritative also means "highly accurate; definitive", this is the whole point of our dialog) account of his subject. In this perspective they think that WP is "authoritative", they say "if you don't believe me: read this WP article!" (and they mean it, this is, for them, not a fallacy). It's NOT a fallacy. It's the same as if I said, "if you don't believe me: read this newspeper". It's perfectly rational and a good argument. Something does not have to fit some definition of 'authoritative' in order to be evidence, and rules of authority certainly don't apply in casual conversation! The response to this appeal to Wiki evidence (note -- NOT authority), that 'Wiki is not authoritative' is a *terrible* argument. It's like saying, "Newspapers aren't everything." It's just dismissing evidence out-of-hand. Both newspapers and Wiki CAN be wrong and both newspapers and wiki are *usually* right (i.e. they aren't just *random* info they both have a process in place to *attempt* to get things right). Therefore, they are both good evidence for an informal debate. A good response to this kind of evidence would be to show a conflicting source with at least as much or better reliability -- not to dismiss a whole category of evidence as if it doesn't exist and then to pretend that your sources are any better, because they probably aren't.

> (older people are more likely not to have heard of it or have only heard the word without any opinions as to its usage) Therefore they just can't be misleaded by its contents My point stands. So you're comparing a youngster who uses Wikipedia to an adult who doesn't know what it is, in order to prove that young people are more ignorant about the reliability or unreliability of Wikipedia? This is the point that stands? I think you could knock that point over with a feather.

> The reason is that this lesson is now being hammered into them in schools at every grade, and has been for some time. (You may not have been aware of this.) Nobody gets out of school these days without being recited this litany literally dozens of times. They may not practice what they've been preached, but believe me -- they know. I disagree: most youngsters I know are able to defy authority (and willing to!) but unable to doubt of any "authoritative" statement on most topics (and not interested by it). Isn't it a famous experiment about an accomplice teacher delivering some stupid assertion then making a fuss when a student asks for confirmation, letting the whole class accepting the BS? Okay: I disagree, but let's say you're right, and young people are far more likely to respect 'authority' when it comes to information. What does that have to do with whether they are aware that Wikipedia should not be used for formal research and why? They are aware, man. All of them. Just ask a few point blank instead of assuming that they are quoting Wikipedia at you because they are ignorant. Maybe they know the possibility reliability issues and are quoting it anyway because in their opinion it's still valid (this is my own opinions, and the opinion of many scholars in their fields about Wikipedia -- still a valid resource -- NOT something verboten to use in any debate: only FORMAL RESEARCH). BTW I quote Wikipedia at people in online arguments all the time; and they can't find a counterquote, and I win the argument. Nothing wrong with that at all. And Wikipedia trumps the credibility of most other online sources available to people so it's not only a good weapon, it's a heavy hitter.

Re:Authoritative Sources

[natmakarvitch]

>> "if you don't believe me: read this WP article!" (and they mean it, this is, for them, not a fallacy).

> It's NOT a fallacy. It's the same as if I said, "if you don't believe me: read this newspeper".

I will take it (pepper)... with a grain of salt :-) Please read below for a less pun'y explanation of my point of view

> It's perfectly rational and a good argument.

One has the right to think that "some published matter, not sourced" is a good argument. But it is a fallacy to conclude that anyone has to be. My point is that many think that quoting WP is a "definitive" way to establish something "as true, false or mu", which may be OK for them but is not for me.

> Something does not have to fit some definition of 'authoritative' in order to be evidence

Something does have to fit my definition of 'authoritative' in order to be evidence for me.

> and rules of authority certainly don't apply in casual conversation!

Granted. I'm reasoning, here, at the ambitious level of an honest dialog seriously aiming at establishing something.

> The response to this appeal to Wiki evidence (note -- NOT authority), that 'Wiki is not authoritative' is a *terrible* argument. It's like saying, "Newspapers aren't everything."
((...))
> Both newspapers and Wiki CAN be wrong and both newspapers and wiki are *usually* right
((...))
> A good response to this kind of evidence would be to show a conflicting source with at least as much or better reliability

Indeed: when one _can_ add some serious information missing to the quoted assertion, which somewhat changes the whole picture, he (for me) gains the right to reject the quote. My point is that a stable WP article contents are, for many, somewhat "exhaustive" and "more reliable" than most other sources, even specialized ones which are, in fact, more "authoritative" but less known.

>> (older people are more likely not to have heard of it or have only heard the word without any opinions as to its usage) Therefore they just can't be misleaded by its contents My point stands.

> So you're comparing a youngster who uses Wikipedia to an adult who doesn't know what it is, in order to prove that young people are more ignorant about the reliability or unreliability of Wikipedia?

Your point was (quoting): "Younger people are far more aware *as a group* of the idea that Wiki is unsuitable for research than older people". From my point of view many old ones don't even know WP (therefore they cannot be misled by it) and are much less confident in Web-published material.

>>> The reason is that this lesson is now being hammered into them in schools at every grade

>> I disagree: most youngsters I know are able to defy authority (and willing to!) but unable to doubt of any "authoritative" statement on most topics (and not interested by it).

> let's say you're right, and young people are far more likely to respect 'authority' when it comes to information. What does that have to do with whether they are aware that Wikipedia should not be used for formal research and why? They are aware, man. All of them. Just ask a few point blank instead of assuming that they are quoting Wikipedia at you because they are ignorant.

That's a good point. I did that sampling and the overall result is "most somewhat know that WP is not adequate for formal research but think that WP is sufficient for them". The net result is, as I wrote it, that they conclude "any piece of information published in a stable WP article is OK"

> Maybe they know the possibility reliability issues and are quoting it anyway because in their opinion it's still valid (this is my own opinions, and the opinion of many scholars in their fields about Wikipedia -- still a valid resource -- NOT something verboten to use in any debate: only FORMAL RESEARCH)

This may be our main point: a good debate is, in my opinion, not very different f

Re:Authoritative Sources

[Compulawyer]

I'm glad we agree. That can be a rare thing on Slashdot.

Flogging!

[msimm]

You kids and you're fancy toys. In my day there was nothing like a good old fashioned flogging to set things right.

And we liked it that way!

Not all that surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost anybody who has ever read the talk page of a Wikipedia article dealing with politics knows what a passive agressive far-right propagandist Slimvirgin is. Not really surprising that it's somebody working for the government.

People outside the US has probably noticed how systematically each and every article on US history is constantly whitewashed to remove any trace of US wrongdoings. How many US government agents are on the job? Probably not a lot, my guess is that most of it is done by patriotic citizens. Stalin would've been proud.

Indeed

[chazzf]

Obviously the fact that a twenty-something was caught posing as a Catholic theology professor lends credence to the accusation by a former Kennedy administration official that MI5 has penetrated Wikipedia.

...

Don't you fools see? Kennedy was Catholic, and Essjay claimed to be Catholic! TELL THE WIKIT$&$^^$^&NO CARRIER

Actions, not motives

[SamP2]

Question people's actions, not their motives -- Cicero

As long as their contributions are valid, it does not matter why they contribute. If you wouldn't delete a given contribution from a PHD, you shouldn't delete it from a highschool student either, because it's the contribution itself that is either good or bad, not the source. The validitity of contributions should be derived from itself (including references provided, which is explicitly required by Wikipedia policies), and it has nothing to do with who actually contributes, because you may not use yourself or your reputation as a reference.

Likewise, it's wrong to censor someone's contributions just because you think he has a political agenda. As long as (and only as long as) the content submitted is valid and conforms to all policies (neutrality, references, no original research), it should make no difference whatsoever what agenda the contributor has.

Re:Actions, not motives

[blahplusplus]

You forget though, we live in a world that worships credentials and status. There is this irrational belief that just because someone isn't a PHD or hasn't finished highschool just yet or whatever else someone could smear someone with has deep cultural roots.

I've learned over the years that there the elements of valid contributions of truth and/or insight are not equally distributed according to some universal ideal belief (i.e. anyone who is X should not be listented to or who's contributions are disqualified on the basis of social or socio economic status)

SlimVirgin's user page

[micpp]

SlimVirgin, the administrator accused of being a spy, has her user page here.
Interestingly, if one looks at the edit list for her talk page, any questions about whether she is a spy are being swiftly reverted. Now isn't that interesting.

Re:SlimVirgin's user page

[Anonymous Coward]

...and the notification to Administrators was removed.

Information honeypot

[snowwrestler]

What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?" Exactly what this guy did--investigate and find the truth. I don't like the implication that this should somehow be prevented from happening. I doubt that's possible, so it's better to keep things open and to think that it's always happening--and be on the lookout for evidence. Web servers provide data, but they also collect data.

Deleted revisions confirmed

[kenb215]

Though they don't say why, it is clear from the logs that some revisions were deleted. It could be for the reason given, because Wikipedia will generally remove personal information on request. Relevant page logs:

• SlimVirgin's user page
• SlimVirgin's user talk page
• Pan Am Flight 103

Re:Deleted revisions confirmed

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are interesting. Jayjg is a known meatpuppet of SlimVirgin. Crum375 seems to be trying to join the party.

Re:Deleted revisions confirmed

[Anonymous Coward]

"Jayjg is a known meatpuppet of SlimVirgin"

How long has that been going on? Jayjg is a Wikipedia Arbitrator who has used his power in Arbitration when SlimVirgin was involved in the case.

Multiplicity through Freedom yeilds Truth.

[twitter]

should those who contribute more (I don't know what the threshold would be) be required to reveal more personal identification details in order to ensure some level of transparency?

Freedom yields truth. There is great incentive for contributors to identify themselves. Part of the reward for editing is recognition. Truth, however, requires anonymity and multiplicity. Freedom gives you as much truth as is possible and restrictions, licenses and all that reduce it.

Just as there need to be multiple, independent news organizations, there needs to be multiple independent organizations providing what Wiki does. The reason ABC, BBC and others broadcasters are suspect is because there are so few of them. It's easy to corrupt a small number of organizations. Imagine every University in the world, every high school even, running it's own Wikipedia. That kind of network would be impossible to corrupt.

How do you do that? That's where freedom comes in again. Wikipedia is free, so everyone can copy what they want. University departments and news organizations can independently decide who they trust and who to copy. In a system like that, bad eggs can be tossed out and MI5, North Korean Communists and other bully boys will have more than they can do.

Re:Multiplicity through Freedom yeilds Truth.

[Irish_Samurai]

Imagine every University in the world, every high school even, running it's own Wikipedia. That kind of network would be impossible to corrupt. Unfortunately that's when the marketing techniques step in to pander and cater to certain crowds - thereby using the theory of mob rule to enforce credibility on subjects that shouldn't be decided by such factors. A large chunk of my job is in marketing and I am willing to say from first hand experience I don't want it involved with establishing reference credibility in any way, shape, or form.

Let me get this straight...

[Attila Dimedici]

The evidence that Wikipedia has been infiltrated by Intelligence Agencies is that a woman who was a major contributor on the Lockerbie Pan Am bombing was a graduate student who investigated it for Pierre Salinger, but he came to suspect that she worked for MI-5. Note: not that he discovered that she worked for MI-5, just that he thought she did. Pierre Salinger is a man who in his later years demonstrated a gullibility for conspiracy theories.

Don't be confused.

[twitter]

this sort of activity has tripled in the last six months. I read that on wikipedia somewhere.

I think you are remembering a CNN, CW, or M$NBC story. You know, the people who continue to tell you free software, free encyclopedias, free textbooks, and freedom itself are unpossible.

Self interest

[samuel4242]

Hint: Everyone contributes out of their self-interest. Some people like to talk and others just get their grins out of editing. The good news is that this still produces something of value. But even the most selfless librarian from Kansas is not going to go against self-interest. The real problem is your definition is not the same as my definition. Naturally I like mine better. But what if I like the fact that the intelligence agencies are protecting our country and you like the unvarnished truth. Both seem like good ideas within limits. Who chooses? Answer: the last one to edit a wikipedia piece.

Jayjg anyone?

[lixee]

If that guy isn't a Mossad agent, then I don't who is!

While a caricaturization, there is some truth to the EncyclopiaDramatica article that follows (Note that SlimVirgin as part of the cabal)

http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/T he_Wikipedia_Jews

I got repeatedly threatened by the guy and called an apologist for trying to wanting to include Tehran official response to the mistranslation of the infamous "wipe off the map" Ahmadinejad speech. They wanted to block my account for adding the conciliatory words of the Ayatollah (the guys who actually has a say on Iran's foreign policy) in the article.

Re:Jayjg anyone?

[Animats]

If that guy isn't a Mossad agent, then I don't who is!

Unlikely. The Mossad has real threats to deal with. Even the Israeli Foreign Ministry probably doesn't have a full time Wikipedia lobbyist. This sort of thing is left to the various pro-Israel volunteer organizations.

Amusingly, there's a major PR operation by the Israeli Consulate in New York this month. "Women of the Israel Defense Forces", in Maxim, is officially sponsored by the Israeli Consulate. They did some polling and discovered that Israel's image among young men in the US was terrible. (Something along the line of "old religious nuts with beards".) "Maxim was approached by the Israeli consulate to be a part of reshaping Israel's public image, specifically because of our unmatched mainstream reach to men aged 18 to 35."

Re:Jayjg anyone?

[dbIII]

I got repeatedly threatened by the guy and called an apologist for trying to wanting to include Tehran official response

You'll get that from anyone that loves the Israeli right wing, no need for a sinister intellegence spin there. Look at the reactions to the war corespondent Robert Fisk for example - he has plenty of negative things to say about anyone using military force in the Middle East (it is his job to report these things), but the second he says something bad about a person from Israel hundred of letters and emails are written that label him as an anti-semetic terrorist. His most rabid attackers appeared to actually be in New York, since a lot of what he wrote was also seen in other news sources in Israel that makes some sense.

Re:Jayjg anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that Jayjg works for Mossad; they have better things to do than distorting information on Wikipedia.

He almost certainly does distort information on Wikipedia as part of his employment, as evidenced by the volume, timing, and consistent theme of his many, many edits and admin actions there. If I had to bet on one organization being his employer, I'd go with AIPAC, because they have the will and the means, and because most other organizations that also have the will and the means to sponsor someone like Jayjg would probably suggest the idea to AIPAC before doing it themselves in order to avoid replication of effort.

It is interesting, though, that Jayjg has a lot of support from Jimmy Wales, who appointed him from out of the blue to be on the Arbitration Committee, and who later expanded the Arbitration Committee after Jayjg didn't do so well in the elections, allowing Jayjg to be kept on the Committee while minimizing the number of candidates with stronger support who were passed in doing so. I suspect that someone - maybe Mitchell Kapor or Pierre Omidyar - who provided some of the start-up capital for Wikipedia may have leaned on Wales to let the fox into the henhouse. Or maybe Wales knows Jayjg directly.

I don't believe for a moment, though, that Wales is ignorant of what Jayjg is up to in Wikipedia.

Re:Jayjg anyone?

[lixee]

I got scared shitless when I saw the following video.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/rap ture-ready-the-unauth_b_57826.html

The guy in charge there received a triumphal welcome at AIPAC 2007 (the 2nd/3rd most powerful lobby in Washington) and is actually supported by the guy who came really close at becoming VP in 2000.

Re:Jayjg anyone?

[Anon1234]

That Encyclopedia Dramatic stuff is pretty over-the-top and antisemitic, but the truth is some pro-Israel folk are being paid to edit Wikipedia according to this.

Re:Jayjg anyone?

[sumdumass]

Women with guns are just hot no matter how they look. Seeing how this is maxim, I'm betting they are really hot.

I don't think it matter much when it is true. If they have an image problem, then let them correct it.

Re:Jayjg anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is interesting, though, that Jayjg has a lot of support from Jimmy Wales, who appointed him from out of the blue to be on the Arbitration Committee, and who later expanded the Arbitration Committee after Jayjg didn't do so well in the elections, allowing Jayjg to be kept on the Committee while minimizing the number of candidates with stronger support who were passed in doing so. I suspect that someone - maybe Mitchell Kapor or Pierre Omidyar - who provided some of the start-up capital for Wikipedia may have leaned on Wales to let the fox into the henhouse. Or maybe Wales knows Jayjg directly. jayjg is a despicable bully. But do you have any evidence that he was voted down for the Arbitration Committee, and then Jimmy Wales overruled the vote and appointed him anyway?

I could believe it, and it would explain a lot, but I wonder how strong the evidence is.

Re:Jayjg anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks. That link is worth repeating. The Jewish Voice for Peace is just what it says. A lot of us Jews are ashamed of the Israeli government, and we're fighting to stop their human rights abuses. Of course they're trying to shut us up.

MuzzleWatch
Tracking efforts to stifle open debate about US-Israeli foreign policy.
MuzzleWatch is a project of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

http://www.muzzlewatch.com/?p=198

Changing Wikipedia entries-nice work if you can get it

Organized efforts to edit and monitor Wikipedia entries on Israel and Palestine are nothing new. There's WikiProject Palestine, WikiProject Israel and even WikiProject Arab-Israeli conflict, which all must abide by Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View guidelines. According to a Wikipedia spokesperson, corporate publicists also get into the game of changing entries. But the Hasbara Fellowships program seems to be breaking new ground with the confluence of paid fellowships, government involvement, and an active campaign to change Wikipedia entries.

Hasbara Fellowships, a program started in "conjunction with Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs" to help students become "effective pro-Israel activists" is actively recruiting paid fellows and supporters to join in the effort. From the May Hasbara Fellowship newsletter:

        Everyone knows about Wikipedia, a place to go to get the 'real' scoop. How often do you use Wikipedia to look up subjects you know little about? Now imagine how often other people use Wikipedia to look up subjects related to Israel.
        Wikipedia is not an objective resource but rather an online encyclopedia that any one can edit. The result is a website that is in large part is controlled by 'intellectuals' who seek re-write the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. These authors have systematically yet subtly rewritten key passages of thousands of Wikipedia entries to portray Israel in a negative light.
        You have the opportunity to stop this dangerous trend! If you are interested in joining a team of Wikipedians to make sure Israel is presented fairly and accurately, please contact director@israelactivism.com for details!

Re:Jayjg anyone?

[BiteMeJimbo]

Original appointment: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005 -July/026675.html Second appointment: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006 -January/037980.html Election results prior to second appointment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mathbot/Results

Re:Jayjg anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, this is interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration _Committee_Elections_January_2006/Vote/Jayjg#Oppos e is spot on.

But jayjg did finally get a majority vote, even though jimbo expanded the Arbitration Committee to do it.

I wonder what it would take to challenge jayjg through arbitration procedures, and whether it would be possible. They claim admins have been removed before for abusing their privileges.

If you were to round up all the victims of his abusive administration, he'd have a lot of enemies.

But if he has a direct line to Jimbo, it's a waste of time.

Re:Jayjg anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your link doesn't show half of it. Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration _Committee_Elections_January_2006/Candidate_statem ents/Jayjg

I mean, really look at it, in the way one has to look at any Wikipedia article to see what's really going on with it. ;)

Re:Thank God this won't affect Wiki's primary mark

[Haeleth]

I can't see why spooks would be editing entries about or favorite tv shows

That really depends on whether this is one of your favourites or not... :)

Annoying Indeed.

[twitter]

I'd be a little annoyed if the brain surgeons in our intelligence agencies -- who I, along with the rest of the taxpayers, bankroll -- weren't at least aware of Wikipedia. ... they're not doing anything I wouldn't expect them to be doing.

I do NOT want my government spending my money on disinformation. It's bad enough when they publish it openly, but lying about who you are while you vandalize a public resource is much worse. Freely elected governments are supposed to represent the opinions of their people, not brainwash them.

I fully expect that the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, etc., probably have propaganda agencies astroturfing Wikipedia and other web sites to their own advantage. This is what countries do.

No, that is what tyrants do. They also murder those who oppose them. They do both of these things because they are fucking everyone. They have placed their self interest above yours and do what it takes to keep that position.

Re:Annoying Indeed.

[ZWithaPGGB]

Disinformation is part of an intelligence agency's JOB. The KGB had an entire department (First Directorate, department A) dedicated to it.

Informing yourself from a variety of sources, and checking their bona-fides, is yours.

Re:Annoying Indeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Propaganda != intelligence. Here is a decent example of the former.

Re:Annoying Indeed.

[ZWithaPGGB]

An A-H (Ad Hominem, of course), A-C.
Troll elsewhere.

Re:Annoying Indeed.

[Maserati]

There are lots of legitimate reasons for the intelligence community to edit sensitive material on Wikipedia. Minor tweaks to the published performance data for military hardware for one. It's also possible to draw classified conclusions from unclassified data (I've been told to shut up on a mailing list once over this, a few more times it was just jackassery). There are others but I won't go into them for fear of a -1: Disappeared mod.

Re:Annoying Indeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get butt-hurt, I was being cute. It was pure coincidence that I had tabs open on both threads.

I actually tried to salvage some of your karma in that discussion with a +1, Underrated. I don't really think you deserved the negative mods (though I do think you got owned a little bit, deservedly).

Cheers,

A-H A-C

Re:Annoying Indeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

"No, that is what tyrants do. They also murder those who oppose them. They do both of these things because they are fucking everyone. They have placed their self interest above yours and do what it takes to keep that position."

well consider this, im assuming your from the US here:

all drug and alcohol offenses are being enforced more rigidly and with higher consequences in recent times. usually your drivers license is revoked, sometimes even for multiple traffic violations.

everyone needs to drive to work. some people drive without a license to get around this. the penalties for this are increasing as well.

all the penalties usually amount to large fines, or time in some kind of rehabilitation program usually sponsored by some politician who is making large amounts of money through fees. the other choice is to go to jail. sounds alot like extortion to me.

most police are just out there handing out tickets, paying for their own department, getting cash bonus's for every arrest. for police and firemen the common laws dont apply, and they will not be prosecuted for anything they do unless they injure or kill someone.

the laws that have been past in the last few years have either taken away rights, or given more rights to corporations that are making large campaign contributions to various politicians or candidates.

its alot like fuedelism, were the serfs, paying cash up to the lords of the manor. who dole out bits of power to those who are willing to oppress their own people.

but since were all doing reasonably ok, most people are willing to accept all this, and assume its for the good of the country and the people, and allow their rights to be taken away while rebuking anyone who complains.

our country is controlled by tyrants, they are simply much better at convincing everyone its for their own good.

Re:Annoying Indeed.

[twitter]

There are lots of legitimate reasons for the intelligence community to edit sensitive material on Wikipedia. Minor tweaks to the published performance data for military hardware for one.

No, you just need to not publish it in the first place and let people speculate in ignorance. Paying people to lie and stamp out non secrets is a waste of time and money. Trusting the results of such a stupid program is a waste of lives.

We are boned

[megaditto]

There is no telling what kind of a sick twisted deception scheme the CIA/MI5 are cooking up next. I mean, they already had a woman pose as a 42 year old bolding fat male administrator:

Wikipedia administrator named SlimVirgin is actually Linda Mack, a woman [...]

No one does anything without his own purpose.

[Quadraginta]

However I don't edit it for my own purposes.

Oh come on, let's think this out. Are you suggesting people who do edit it do not edit it for their own purposes (fame, showing off, to feel part of a virtuous movement)? Or are you suggesting they're robots acting purely from instinct?

Surely imagining that anyone does anything without personal motivation is deluded. We're not insects. But just because you have a personal motivation doesn't mean what you do is suspect. I go to work primarily to get money to buy myself stuff. That is not the motivation of the company founder, but that doesn't mean my work is corrupt -- or even that it's of lower quality than the founder's. The fact that I'm there for different reasons doesn't mean we can't work together profitably. What's important is the result of one's work, not the motivation for it.

What does this mean?

[pjp6259]

many of her edits to articles related to the bombing were permanently removed from the database in an attempt to conceal her identity.
AFAIK, the only way to permanently remove edits from the database is if you had some sort of admin privileges. If there is evidence of this happening doesn't this imply a cover up by some one high up at wikipedia?

Re:What does this mean?

[micpp]

Well, she is an admin so she could permanently remove edits from the database if she wanted to.

Re:What does this mean?

[dtobias]

She and her friends in fact do a great deal of suppressing of things from Wikipedia's history that relate to her.

Re:What does this mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, /any/ admin on Wikipedia can view and even restore pages that were "deleted" on Wikipedia.

It takes some special permissions to actually permenantly remove pages and revisions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:OVER (Oversight permissions)

In SlimVirgin's case, it's her friend Jayjg who does that dirty work.

Re:What does this mean?

[Dachannien]

So, um.... care to offer any proof?

Re:What does this mean?

[makomk]

Not possible. Oversight is designed so that only users with Oversight privileges can see the log of deleted revisions - to everyone else, it's as though they never existed. (Originally, the log was publicly visible, but that didn't last very long.) RTFM.

Re:What does this mean?

[Dachannien]

I don't need to RTFM, because I already suspected that no proof was available and the AC I responded to was talking out his/her ass.

Re:What does this mean?

[makomk]

There's no proof, but there is reason to suspect that some edits by SlimVirgin have indeed been oversighted - see my post here, for example.

Mod parent up.

[wanderingknight]

I laughed.

He had a few good years.

[twitter]

He said, "If Bush wins, I'm going to leave the country and spend the rest of my life in France," and then he did. In hindsight, this guy had great forsight. He missed the Department of Homeland Security, TSA, Freedom Fries and other red neck/Nazi stupidity.

I sure hope not

[Quadraginta]

Good golly, if my country's intelligence services are not monitoring every major web site (plus a lot of obscure minor web sites of which I've never heard), then they're incompetent idiots and I want them all shot, or at least fired.

If they want to contribute true information to Wikipedia out of their own knowledge, well that's nice. If they want to contribute false information to Wikipedia for some obscure reason -- to fox the opposition, I guess, who are clueless newbs who believe anything they read on the 'net -- then that's an annoying waste of my tax dollars, but hardly seems worth raising a fuss over. If the Wikipedia has to rely on the honesty of every last J. Random Web User -- if they can't easily detect a nontrivial campaign of deliberate falsehood -- then they're clearly doomed. Because I can think of many groups other than "intelligence services" who would be very interested in easily spreading disinformation via a trusted source.

Re:I sure hope not

[nevali]

Thing is, though, there's nothing much worse about somebody from say, the CIA, contributing false information wilfully, as opposed to somebody doing it without realising.

In either case, Wikipedia has (by and large) mechanisms which prevent it from being a problem in anything more than the very short term. Claims have to be verifiable, or they're marked as not being, which tends to be a hint to anybody reading that it's just conjecture.

Re:I sure hope not

[Anonymous Coward]

Good golly, if my country's intelligence services are not monitoring every major web site (plus a lot of obscure minor web sites of which I've never heard)

You mean foreign websites? It's not the CIA's job to watch over US citiznes, in fact they're NOT suppose to.

Re:I sure hope not

[doom]

Quadraginta wrote:

Good golly, if my country's intelligence services are not monitoring every major web site (plus a lot of obscure minor web sites of which I've never heard), then they're incompetent idiots and I want them all shot, or at least fired.

If they want to contribute true information to Wikipedia out of their own knowledge, well that's nice. If they want to contribute false information to Wikipedia for some obscure reason -- to fox the opposition, I guess, who are clueless newbs who believe anything they read on the 'net -- then that's an annoying waste of my tax dollars, but hardly seems worth raising a fuss over.

There are some cases that definitely would be worth raising a fuss over. Take a really far-fetched hypothetical case: imagine a US administration that decided to use covert operations to influence an election to keep itself in power.

If the Wikipedia has to rely on the honesty of every last J. Random Web User --

Now, that's not the issue --

if they can't easily detect a nontrivial campaign of deliberate falsehood -- then they're clearly doomed.

Yes, that is the issue, and yes, I do think that they're probably doomed... unless Jimbo Wales wakes up and stops singing Kumbaya for long enough to realize that trusting everyone isn't a strategy that scales very well.

(The current state of my thinking on the subject, if anyone cares: THE_TOY_WEB, THE_ROVERS, SURROGATE_TRUTH)

Re:I sure hope not

[Quadraginta]

Take a really far-fetched hypothetical case: imagine a US administration that decided to use covert operations to influence an election to keep itself in power.

That is too far-fetched even for science fiction. I can't imagine any "covert operation" that would succeed in altering the vote-count of a US Presidential Election by more than a tiny fraction of a percent, maybe a few tens of thousands of votes. That's meaningless noise. The weather on Election Day has a bigger effect.

Do I care whether a very close election is bumped one way or the other? I do not. If the vote is that close, that is excellent empirical evidence that, as far as the voters are concerned, the candidates are equally preferable, and any random method, from a coin-toss to a silly "covert operation" will suffice to choose one. The only case that would be important is if an operation altered tens of millions of votes, completely thwarting the will of the people. What kind of operation would that be? How would it be kept covert?

Re:I sure hope not

[BiteMeJimbo]

Quadraginta, you clearly don't know anything about how US Presidential Elections work, nor do you care about anyone who has been killed in the Iraq War.

The reason children are supposed to be seen but not heard is not so much for the convenience of adults as it is so that the children will not embarrass themselves in ways that they may long regret. Please think about that before you post again.

Ajax?

[Catil]

What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes? Although articles written for a conventional encyclopedia should perhaps try to avoid controverse information and focus on common knowledge, this does not necessarily apply to Wikipedia. Since it's a website as dynamic and developing as knowledge itself, there shouldn't be a problem to provide all information currently available on any given topic, even if it's mutually contradictory. Most of the time, there is no absolute truth anyway - A believes X is true while B thinks Y is true.

Fortunately, web-technologies today provide many interesting ways to organize content, e.g. two different "facts" that, however, cancel each other out, can be shown on the same page without breaking the overall picture too much. They could show the stuff that's "more common" by default, but maybe paint the background of that text passage slightly grey with a small button somewhere, which, when pushed, reveals what other people and groups (or in this case, people with faked backgrounds and intelligent agencies) believe to be true. Using some fancy Ajax or even only DHMTL this could be made very elegant.
On the downside though, that might be a feature begging for to be abused and should maybe only allowed to be added by admins and not be "crowdsourced" because we all know how an article would look like if people could vote for the text passage that's shown by default ;-)

SlimVirgin's credibility

[Anonymous Coward]

She's a graduate from the eighties and she is posting as "SlimVirgin"? Well, there goes her credibility indeed. She could be a nun of course...

Bending Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

"In Wikipedia, appeals to personal authority don't work at all, unlike Britannica, which bases its entire approach on these. They are at either end of these extremes, andf both work to some extent. Being in the middle would like not work at all."

Maybe because a lot of Britannica articles are written by the expert authorities themselves, so an appeal to personal authority wouldn't be out of line. And for those that aren't they do reference (or consult with) the authority just like any academic device would.

straw man attack, anyone?

[SuperBanana]

Pierre Salinger was kind of a crackpot at this point in his career, so just because he believed somebody was an MI-5 operative doesn't mean much. He was a laughing stock because of all of his conspiracy theories at the time.

Too bad you're using a straw man attack on someone. Just because he's nuts, doesn't mean everything he says is false.

Re:straw man attack, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad you're using a straw man attack on someone. Just because he's nuts, doesn't mean everything he says is false. Yeah, but just because he worked for ABC News doesn't make his statements true either. Where is the actual evidence that this Linda Mack had anything to do with MI-5?

Re:straw man attack, anyone?

[MontyApollo]

The article seemed to be using his past credentials to show his credibility - it was not anybody saying this, it was newsman Pierre Salinger saying this. What it failed to mention was the incident where he was so adamant in his belief that TWA Flight 800 was shot down by friendly fire. He even held a big news conference to present his evidence. Didn't his big evidence turn out to be some internet hoax that he bought hook, line, and sinker? He became a laughing stock. The whole TWA thing makes you question his competence and credibility. As far as the Pan Am bombing, Libya has pretty much owned up to that, but Pierre was producing TV specials at the time claiming that Libya was being framed and that somebody else was responsible. In fact he claimed they were being framed by the person mentioned in this article that has supposedly infiltrated Wikipedia.

Re:straw man attack, anyone?

[Headw1nd]

For the record, attacking someone's personal character rather that responding to their arguments is an ad hominem fallacy, not a straw man argument.

Re:straw man attack, anyone?

[Deadstick]

I think he may have created the "It must be true, I found it on the Internet" meme. He appeared on TV triumphantly holding up a page he'd printed off a website.

rj

Re:straw man attack, anyone?

[chazzf]

And when the character of the individual is used to bolster the argument, that's an appeal to authority, itself a logical fallacy (if Pierre Salinger says it, it has credibility).

Re:straw man attack, anyone?

[TechnicolourSquirrel]

Too bad you're using a straw man attack on someone. Just because he's nuts, doesn't mean everything he says is false. Which is why I've never been able to understand that although granted, I am weak and somewhat short, and can only make like 1 out of 10 baskets, I *do* occasionally make baskets. So why aren't I in the NBA? It's that damn straw man attack, I tell you.

it doesn't matter

[oohshiny]

Unlike many news media and publications, Wikipedia doesn't try to use the identity and authority of contributors to establish credibility. Who cares if someone is working for the MI5 or CIA or whatever as long as they give accurate information and cite verifiable sources?

Trustworthy

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Ah, of course, Daniel Brandt and Pierre Salinger, the most trusted names when it comes to Internet conspiracy theories. These two have never gotten their facts wrong.

Just How Do You Permanently Remove Data

[Nom du Keyboard]

Just how do you permanently delete your edits? I didn't know that was even possible.

Re:Just How Do You Permanently Remove Data

[Anonymous Coward]

You delete the article and then restore the edits you are not trying to hide. You have to be an admin, but SlimVirgin, Jayjg and friends are. Indeed Jayjg has had considerably more powers.

Re:Just How Do You Permanently Remove Data

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:OVER

On Wikipedia, they use the 'oversight' permission. It's beyond deletion, and once it's "oversighted", unrecoverable except by two specific developers. Unlike simple deleted pages, it isn't even viewable by admins.

It's about as permanently gone as it gets there.

Oh, and captcha: paranoia

Drop Some Knowledge On U

[realitybath1]

snowspinner

snow = h2o
2 letters below o is m
2/2 letters above h is i
--> MI
h = 8th letter in the alphabet
o = 15th letter in the alphabet
15-8-2=5
--->MI5

Therefore, Snowspinner is an MI5 agent propagating spin. He/She might also smell funny.


PS. Please don't kill me!

Levels of Evidence

[mrbluze]

Perhaps it's time to introduce a system of rating of article veracity on basis on levels of evidence which takes into account:

• References & types of publications used
• Corroborating articles
• Witness accounts

A bit like what's used in medical and other scientific literature where, for example, a meta-analysis of trials rates higher than a single trial and so on, with expert opinion having the lowest rating.

Re:Levels of Evidence

[DragonWriter]

Perhaps it's time to introduce a system of rating of article veracity [...]

Such systems are generally part of various Wikiprojects, not general Wikipedia policies. There might be some areas where such a rating system is useful, OTOH, in any of the controversial areas where problems exist, any attempt to assign such ratings runs into the same problems as the main articles themselves have. Either the ratings are applied by selected "admins", in which case the selection of admins and policing of them is problematic, or the ratings are assigned by the community with appropriate support posted in a Wiki fashion, in which case the accuracy and verifiability of the ratings and their support is problematic.

What's the difference?

[ucla74]

Someone explain to me (or to all of us) why it's perceived worse to have a purported "intelligence agent" (isn't that what a Google spider is?) write some BS on Wikipedia, than it is for some anonymous bozo with a personal bias to write the same BS?

After all, if someone's relying on Wikipedia as an unimpeachable source (and way too many "netizens"--most of whom should know a helluva lot better, do so) then they do so at their peril.

Re:What's the difference?

[moxley]

I can explain:

Because intelligence agencies have deep pockets and a LOT of people who can do this thing. Random vandals are one thing, but a group of connected people with the means, skills, and tools to hide their identity and spoof their credentials and technical info about their location, etc

This means that someone can decide what viewpoint to put forth on controversial events, or what viewpoints or facts to silence.

Believe me, the intelligence agencies have compartments that are VERY interested in doing this sort of thing. Lending creedence to and discrediting different ideas is a core function.

Re:What's the difference?

[sumdumass]

Well thats assuming that the edit is some BS. A lot of the controversial topic on Wiki are slanted heavily to one side or the other. The comments could very well be bringing the article to middle ground and removing the bias portions. Look at any article that even wiffs of Bush and you will see this happening.

can you say

[BlindRobin]

duh ?

guess what

[toby]

Everyone uses Wikipedia for their own purposes, whether reading or writing. It's the whole point...

Scary shit...

[olehenning]

This has to be intelligence squirrels. Who else could it be? We're not safe anymore!

Why did they remove the edits?

[J'raxis]

The important revelation here isn't that there are intelligence agents using Wikipedia to spread propaganda -- being open to edit by most anyone means it'll pick up its fair share of people editing in bad faith, ranging from civilian vandals and scumbags to the government's equivalent. The important question here is why the hell did Wikipedia's admins cooperate with her -- protecting her by removing the content -- when she was outed? Everyone likes to argue over the credibility of the information they find on Wikipedia, and this does not help their credibility at all.

Re:Why did they remove the edits?

[makomk]

For a start, she *is* an admin. That's the whole point.

Re:Why did they remove the edits?

[J'raxis]

Read the article too fast and was thinking it was one of their regular editors. But if her edits were actually removed from the database, have the other Wikipedia admins done anything to restore them? I'd hope a site as big as Wikipedia (and I've seen docs on their server farm) would have a good backup régime in place...

Re:Why did they remove the edits?

[makomk]

The current method of removing edits, oversight, does not permit mere admins to restore them. Only the select few individuals with oversight powers can do so (or can even tell that they were there in the first place). In fact, part of the reason that the Essjay controversy was a big deal was that he was one of the initial 22 with oversight powers (as well as having a lot of other powerful roles such as checkuser and bureaucrat).

Re:Why did they remove the edits?

[makomk]

Also, glancing through the list of users with oversight powers and thinking back to past controversies, I suspect most if not all of them would support her on this.

For Me, There Is Only One Issue

[LifesABeach]

Did she knowingly lie, or bend a fact? She could be Bin Laden's cloned brother, but did she lie to us all?

huh?

[coaxial]

From the blurb:

Shortly after her Wikipedia identity was uncovered, many of her edits to articles related to the bombing were permanently removed from the database in an attempt to conceal her identity. Huh? That would imply that spooks not only have root access, but also the power to destroy all the backups from everyone else with root access.

Prove it.

Re:huh?

[ToiletDuck]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Oversight

Re:huh?

[coaxial]

That link shows, a mechanism. Not that spooks were behind it.

In that article, the key is "semi-permanently." If someone was acting unilatterally, then there'd be a log of it, and their oversight permission would be revoked, the edit restored, the offending user probably banned.

Re:huh?

[makomk]

How optimistic of you. The thing is, removing allegations that a Wikipedia editor is a government spy (whether they're true or not) is a permitted use of oversight powers (since it's removing private information).

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that is not what was removed. Edit records for actual article content were removed. Very bad.

I have some very revealing information about....

[Anonymous Coward]

simple solution...

[Train0987]

Congress should pass a law...

get your facts straight troll

[coaxial]

I brought this up at the time, but everyone I brought it up to dismissed it. This is CENTCOM's job - US taxpayer's dollars to rewrite history, so that the US can keep going overseas militarily. It particularly annoyed me that I was paying the salary of the person trying to rewrite history. I kind of felt like I was battling someone in the bowels of the US's Orwellian version of "Minitru". Get your facts straight troll. CENTCOM is US Central Command. It is the US military's unified (i.e. interbranch) command for the middle east and central asia, excluding Israel. (Israel for some reason is under EUCOM.) It is not a propaganda arm of the US Military. CENTCOM's job is wage war. That's it. Do that have a PR arm? Of course! All large organizations do.

Does that mean that someone with a centcom.mil address didn't edited wikipedia? No of course not. But then again, why shouldn't some soldier edit wikipedia? It's open to everyone.

Now reading your edits, it makes me wonder why you have a bug up your ass about this, because the sections removed had to do with unverifyable assertions, namely that 300-400 people were killed even though bodies weren't found where they were reportedly buried. Since this unverifyable, it should not appear in wikipedia, as per wikipedia standards. If you want it there, verify it. Find those bodies. But just because you want it to be true, doesn't make it so, and doesn't entitle it to be there.

It is interesting thing note that, Josh Rushing, the Marine public relations officer, now works for Al Jazeera English.

In the mid-1990s, I got a strange SNMP request from an army intelligence outfit in Quantico, Virginia after reading Australian web sites which discussed possible CIA involvement in overthrowing Australia's government in the 1970's (the Whitlam/Kerr thing).

Yeah yeah. The Man thinks you're a grave threat.

Hate to bust bubble, but contrary to what you mom told you, no one gives a shit about you because you're just not special.

Re:get your facts straight troll

[Anonymous Coward]

This post is marked 0:Flamebait?! I hate posting "mod this thread up" replies, but every once in a while I do so, and this reply deserves it this time. At the very least, bring him back up to 1:Insightful or something.

wikipedia infiltrated by Agents of Intelligence?

[robo_mojo]

You mean, wikipedia is finally starting to gain some intelligence?

A new low for Slashdot

[jwales]

This story is demented and broken on so many levels, it is quite difficult to know where to begin, even.

Here we have an excellent Wikipedia administrator who has been victimized by lunatic conspiracy theorists, a private person who has absolutely no relation to the wild stories that this article promulgates.

Slashdot, you have been trolled.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[ToiletDuck]

Do you regard it as a pseudonym and don't see a problem with it?

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[dtobias]

An "excellent Wikipedia administrator", maybe, in some ways... but also a top member of a clique that can be quite hypocritically nasty to anybody who gets in its way, and which pushes policies such as the silly one against linking to so-called "attack sites" under any circumstances, which end up reflecting poorly on Wikipedia by making it seem to be trying to censor its critics. I think that critics, even "lunatic conspiracy theorists", should be kept in the light of day instead of forcibly suppressed and left to fester in the dark.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Jimbo,

"This story is demented and broken on so many levels, it is quite difficult to know where to begin, even."

Why don't you start with the basics then?
Is SlimVirgin Linda Mack?
Does she enjoy vastly more power than most admins?
Does her clique suppress legitimate editors on WP?
Does she get paid by someone else to edit WP?

"Here we have an excellent Wikipedia administrator who has been victimized by lunatic conspiracy theorists, a private person who has absolutely no relation to the wild stories that this article promulgates."

Please.
EssJay was a 'private person' you supported even after it was clear he lied about everything all the time. How is this time supposed to be different?

"Slashdot, you have been trolled."

Translated: "I don't like it when wikipedia is examined under a light. Make it stop. Make it stop.

P.S. How's that situation with Jeff Merkey aka "the standard of truthiness" working out for you Jimbo?

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[thekohser]

Brilliantly wry, ToiletDuck.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[Anon1234]

I respectfully disagree with you.

SlimVirgin along Jayjg, Crum375, Mantimoreland and a few others do effectively operate as a powerful and unaccountable clique on Wikipedia controlling the content of numerous articles and quickly banishing and/or abusing those that disagree with them. SlimVirgin is a very abuse character, although she is also great at playing the victim and ingratiating herself with those who hold power.

There is an essay I wrote about the tactics that they use to effectively control articles on Wikipedia here:
-> Cabals on Wikipedia: Prerequisites, Characteristics and Tactics of Effective Partisan Groups

Another honest account of the situation is provided on this web page, also written by experienced long-time Wikipedians:
-> WikiTruth.Org: SlimVirgin

There is an elite class on Wikipedia that colludes together and is effectively unaccountable. You can continue to ignore this issue but it isn't about to go away, its just going to grow.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I respectfully came on your mom's tits.

Regards,
-The Jizzler-

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[Hachey]

Um, read this.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[DiamondGeezer]

Bullshit. Just like with Essjay, you have known that Slimvirgin is Linda Mack, and you have also known that SV has been instrumental in the falsification of history, especially in relation to PanAm 103.

You have knowingly harbored and cossetted a person very strongly suspected of spying on behalf of a foreign government and should never have been allowed to touch Wikipedia never mind be one of the most powerful and thoroughly abusive admins.

Now all that's happened is that SV's user pages (and that of her sock Crum375) have been locked and at least one editor has been banned for the heinous crime of asking Crum375 whether she was Linda Mack and has she spied for MI5.

Just like with Essjay, you're in denial of reality. The only person trolling is you.

For anyone else who would like to see what lies beneath, see Wikipedia Review here

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[micpp]

Well, the way it's being covered up on Wikipedia does seem a bit worrying.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[ChameleonDave]

This story is demented and broken on so many levels, it is quite difficult to know where to begin, even. Translation: you can't think of anything wrong with this story.

Here we have an excellent Wikipedia administrator By your insane criteria, yes. You have a record of supporting liars and bigots at a high level on Wikipedia.

Slashdot, you have been trolled. I'll take that as an admission.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not wikipedia. There is no obligation to play the wikipedia-policy-logic game. Buh-bye.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[joeszilagyi]

Protection of editors on Wikipedia, and their privacy, is more important than the privacy of people who are subjects of Wikipedia articles.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[WriterJudd]

For those new to Jimbo's head-in-sand approach to gross Wikipedia editor conflicts of interest, it may help to also understand his defense of SlimVirgin's buddy Mantanmoreland, whom the rest of the universe concedes is former journalist Gary Weiss (and, not coincidentally, a raving fan of Weiss and his books).

Jimbo Wales has gone out of his way, up to and including violating Wikipedia policy on content retention, to keep Mantanmoreland and SlimVirgin slashing and burning the contributions (and often, ability to edit Wikipedia) of those who disagree with them.

When confronted with his ponderous defense of Weiss, Jimbo said, "...the claims have already been investigated and dismissed."

This should be kept in mind when evaluating Jimbo's ability to credibly state, as he has above: "This story is demented and broken on so many levels, it is quite difficult to know where to begin, even."

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[DiamondGeezer]

I would like to point out that WriterJudd is a Wordbomb sockpuppet, and might be ... well nothing actually.

Carry on ;-)

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be difficult for you to have to deal with information on a forum where it can't be banned or called names by intelligence operatives. :-)

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[nathanrdotcom]

So are you going to stick your head in the sand yet again after being told that there's a problem on Wikipedia?
You've done this so many times, break the pattern for once.

Keep believing that Wikipedia is a project to further human knowledge, too.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Tsk tsk.. Jimbo

{{Warning}}

Your edit is a violation of [[WP:AGF]] and [[WP:TROLL]]. If you continue to troll you could be temporarily banned.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Jimmy you're the demented one... Your project is hurting people and creating misinformation on a vast, industrial scale. Your project, the "JIMBO BIG COOLAID STAND" also, known as Wikipedia is a failure and it is getting to a point, now that it represents a "CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER" to the blue water internet. What nice, on slasdot, the WaCKY WIKI RULZ don't apply. Only the argument and the logic of which you place the argument, is what has currency here, bub.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[ghosthorse]

Jimbo, you may not be aware of this, but the editor you are defending thinks Martin Luther set off the rise of the Third Reich!

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AM artin_Luther&diff=140695742&oldid=140694845

She also thinks sites that "out and defame Wikipedians" should never be linked to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedi a%3ARequests_for_adminship%2FGracenotes&diff=13287 0406&oldid=132870077

Slashdotters, you'll be stepping into a world of pain if you try to post references to this article anywhere on WP. Just so you know.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[makomk]

The thing is, all the available evidence points in the direction of SlimVirgin being Linda Mack. Of course, it's fairly unconvincing evidence, but there's enough suspicious stuff going on and so little transparency that people are willing to believe it. (Personally, I reckon that she almost certainly isn't a spy, may or may not be Linda Mack, and definitely has too much influence within the project.) Ironically, I suspect part of the reason the article author was so willing to believe Daniel Brandt's claims is that he doesn't believe that SlimVirgin could have so much influence within Wikipedia if she were a mere private individual, and that Wikipedia is somehow protected against this.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[marylouluddite]

Judd, shouldn't you be at the office, preparing for your SEC deposition? "Writerjudd" aka "WordBomb" and several dozen other aliases, is Judd Bagley, Director of Communications at Overstock.com. Bagley trolls the web smearing critics of Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne. Both Byrne and Overstock are under investigation by the feds for lying to the media. See here and here. and here.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Jimbo, how can you describe someone that constantly revert wars on policy pages to the point of them being protected due to their revert warring and then they wheel war over the protection as an excellent administrator?* Or how about when she viciously attacks many people that try to enforce the policies dealing with non-free content? Two instances come to mind particularly, one where she attacked Gregory Maxwell** and another where she and jayjg viciously attacked an editor*** that believed an image to be a copyright violation and she even reuploaded it after Jean-Baptiste Soufron confirmed that it was likely a copyright violation****? She also tirelessly POV pushes on animal rights articles, some of which she has written or largely based upon advocacy groups as sources. Particularly of interest is her insistence upon having certain images dipicting animal abuses all over the place. No one would be able to get away with basing [[George W. Bush]] only on sources from the Republican party or putting pictures of aborted faetuses in the lead of [[Abortion]], but it works out fine on [[Covance]] and [[Factory farming]] for just a few examples. [[Image:RudolfVrba1997.jpg]] looks like a professional headshot, [[Image:1935,1936 Rudi's(4th child from left on bottom row) high school photo-1.jpg]] is a yearbook picture, [[Image:RudolfVrbawithArnostRosin.jpg]] also pictures Vrba, [[Image:RudolfVrba1960-1.jpg] again headshot that looks like it has been scanned from a book, [[Image:1975 wedding picture of Rudi and Robin Vrba.jpg]] wedding photograph where Vrba is pictured have all been uploaded by her and are all likely copyright violations. The person pictured does get the rights to a picture of them and professional wedding photographers and those that do headshots, and photographers that do school pictures are not likely to give up their copyrights. She has also claimed that a map taken from Microsoft was public domain, that pictures that the family of a decessed person to the media are public domain, and even that a photo from an Associated Press photographer was public domain because it was widespread and said it was taken by a terrorist! Oh I could go on and on with tons of personal attacks, blatantly assuming bad faith, edit warring, wheel warring, copyright violations, harrasment, tendetious editing, and so on. Do you truly believe this is the conduct of an "excellent administrator"?

You reguarlly say that you find wheel waring adhorrent and that you will look into instances of administrator abuse (I know you have asked people to email you about it before, but it generally seems to result in shriff one line replys or none at all), and yet you continue to laud SlimVirgin even in the face of such accusations and plenty of people (and not just "banned trolls") raising concerns.

*16:58, 8 July 2006 SlimVirgin (Talk | contribs) unprotected Wikipedia:Blocking policy (Linuxbeak was ALSO involved in the revert war. Please, guys. Just leave it alone and let's talk, not revert)
16:50, 8 July 2006 Linuxbeak (Talk | contribs) protected Wikipedia:Blocking policy (Revert war is getting out of hand. Talk before revert. Please. [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
16:47, 8 July 2006 SlimVirgin (Talk | contribs) unprotected Wikipedia:Blocking policy (W.marsh, the protecting admin, was involved in the content dispute)
16:38, 8 July 2006 W.marsh (Talk | contribs) protected Wikipedia:Blocking policy (protected... the revert war is getting out of hand [edit=sysop:move=sysop])
(cur) (last) 17:09, 8 July 2006 Tony Sidaway (Talk | contribs) (Removing protection notice to match current status. NOT endorsing Slim Virgin's warring here.) (undo)
(cur) (last) 16:58, 8 July 2006 SlimVirgin (Talk | contribs) m (Unprotected Wikipedia:Blocking policy: Linuxbeak was ALSO involved in the revert war. Please, guys. Just leave it alone and let's talk, not revert) (undo)
(cur) (last) 16:50, 8 July 2006 Linuxbeak (Talk | contribs) m (Protected Wikipedia:Blocking policy: Revert war is getting out of hand. Talk before re

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[nagora]

Bagley trolls the web smearing critics of Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne. Both Byrne and Overstock are under investigation by the feds for lying to the media.

Which doesn't change the fact that Wales is a creditless sack of shit.

TWW

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

And Marylouluddie here is more than likely Gary Weiss, a financial writer who edits Wikipedia under the pseudonym Mantanmoreland. Mantamoreland claims to be a young graduate student at a Catholic university and coincidentally tends to have all the same interests and knowledge that Gary Weiss has. I understand that Gary Weiss learned his sock puppetry skills long before coming to Wikipedia via his participation on the Yahoo message boards where he has created numerous pseudonyms all with their own distinct backgrounds. Gary Weiss hates WordBomb because WordBomb linked together these identities via web bugs.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, you just confirmed marylouluddite's post.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the message here is that you're being used.

Re:A new low for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Judd, I hear that the natives are getting restless. Watch your back.

Prominent AC Poster?

[dakirw]

As a prominent AC poster, I am wondering how many of you are actually him trying to prove a point that only exists in his mind. I mean could he really just think he is spreading a conspiracy in order to advance his own conversation with himself.

How can any poster be a "prominent" AC poster?

Re:Prominent AC Poster?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same way you can have your head up your ass.

Re:Prominent AC Poster?

[Mal-2]

How can any poster be a "prominent" AC poster?

That does seem a bit like being an experienced suicide bomber.

Mal-2

Re:Prominent AC Poster?

[laejoh]

Just count all his postings! He's really prominent!

I say BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Wiki this Wiki that
As long as you can say its not a fact

PS Did I tell you about life everlasting?
All you got to do is never EVER have sex
Not so hard now is it?

Wales

[Anonymous Coward]

Also it turns out Wales works for Mossad. Just FYI.

Also, look at the WTC 1993 bombing article

[Anonymous Coward]

The reality is that Emad Salem was the FBI's agent provacateur, not just an informant.

He recorded all of his conversations with his FBI handlers, as well as with his "co-conspirators". He eventually recruited an actual terrorist.

Meanwhile, the FBI knew everything about the bomb, and the bomb went off.

Salem was paid $1M ($2M I also read) AFTER the trial.

This was published on the front page of the NYTimes 28 Oct, 1993, the article that WikiPedia barely mentions far down at the bottom. There were follow-up investigations and stories by the Village Voice, the Boston Globe, and the Denver Post. It has been widely discussed on the net.

Today, the memory has vanished from public and media consciousness. I assume the trial record was sealed, otherwise there surely would have been books on the subject.

The story on the OKC bombing was similar: The agent provacateur was a guy named Strassmeier, head of security for the White Aryan Nation, where the various perps hung out. That group was infiltrated by half a dozen informants for various agencies, at least the FBI and ATF. Strassmeier wasn't smart enough to record his handlers, so is in hiding in Germany. No agency ever tried to interview him. The US correspondent for the London Times talked to him, published one article in which Strassmeier was quoted as saying he didn't like all of the things he did. This was also discussed widely on the net, and the McCurren County Gazette had a reporter that dug into it a lot.

It is now faded from public and media consciousness. None of the interesting information was introduce at the trial of Timothy McVeigh, his lawyer was quite annoyed at how he couldn't do it, partly due to McVeigh's wishes and interests.

What country do you think you are living in?

what the heck does that mean?

[Quadraginta]

Erm, excuse me, but would you care to define "foreign website"? Is slashdot.org a "foreign" site? 'Cause last time I looked, there were plenty of non-US participants reading and posting on it, although I suppose the server is on US soil and I suspect all the editors are US citizens.

Re:what the heck does that mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the CIA's job to do psyops or spy on a website housed and run by an American. It would be the FBI's job to monitor (with restrictions) American owned and housed websites. You deserve a -1 FUD, not a +5 informative.

Re:what the heck does that mean?

[doom]

It's not the CIA's job to do psyops or spy on a website housed and run by an American.

But is it the Pentagon's job? Pentagon Boosts Media War Unit

Re:what the heck does that mean?

[Quadraginta]

Well, in the first place, you'll note I said "intelligence services" not "CIA," and "intelligence services" certainly includes the FBI. So I think your mention of the restrictions on the CIA's activities is a bit of red herring. If you like, you can read my "intelligence services" as meaning "the CIA and/or the FBI, NSA, DoD intelligence services, et cetera and so forth as indicated and appropriate." Does that make you happier?

Secondly, I doubt very much the CIA itself draws the nice sharp line you do around a website owned by an American and says, oh gee, this can't have anything to do with foreign intelligence. I suspect they -- and the appropriate Congressional oversight committee, and the judges before whom the issue might come -- are a lot more 21st century in their outlook. They realize that whether a website is "international" or "domestic" is a tricky question, one not likely to be decided by a simple question like whether the registered owner of the domain is a US citizen or not, or whether the server is located on American soil or not. I suspect any one of them would take the entire body of evidence -- who owns the server, who uses the site, where the traffic comes from and goes to, what goes on on the site -- and use that to decide whether it's in the CIA's bailiwick or the FBI's.

Really, the law is not nearly as rigid and precise as you seem to think. It's not like a computer program, where if the value of some integer variable is 1, it's the CIA, and if 0 it's the FBI. It's a lot grayer and subject to human judgment than that.

Re:what the heck does that mean?

[jc42]

|It's not the CIA's job to do psyops or spy on a website housed and run by an American.

But is it the Pentagon's job? Pentagon Boosts Media War Unit

Maybe not legally, anyone who thinks that has ever stopped either of them may be classified as a hopeless dreamer. The rational assumption would be that they investigate anyone they want to. The fact that both are pretty much outside the purvey of any legal organization (as is also true in every other government's spy and military branches) should explain the situation.

Of course, Americans do have somewhat of a history of casually ignoring such things, exercising their rights openly, etc. For instance, unlike in many other countries, few Americans would have any real fear of responding openly in this forum. Since spy and military agencies have a great deal of interest in computers and communication, we would expect that a lot of their people are reading /., but I sorta doubt that many people are going to be intimidated by that thought.

In any case, what does it really mean to "spy on a website"? Aren't web sites where you put stuff that you want to publish openly for anyone to read? If you think otherwise, you are really unclear on the concept.

Wikipedia has had a few problems with sabotage, but so far they seem to be pretty decent about fixing the problems when they arise. I wonder how many print encyclopedias have been as good at resisting "outside pressure" concerning the text of some of their articles?

spreading disinformation via a trusted source

[Anomalyst]

I can think of a Redmond corporation who would be very interested in easily spreading disinformation via a trusted source.

There, fixed that for ya.

Even someplace as "small" as WikiMapia

[Ayanami Rei]

http://www.wikimapia.org/#y=38930337&x=-77219886&z =17&l=0&m=h&v=2

Check out the two CIA buildings in the center.

Now check their edit histories...

Re:Even someplace as "small" as WikiMapia

[lxw56]

While I don't doubt there is at least some freelance pro-CIA-interest editing going on, I'd like to point out that intelligence analysts are by definition people interested in information, the kind of people that will enjoy editing Wikipedia.

probably he was actually there

[r00t]

Lots of the guys in long-term military careers have actually seen these conflicts. Military careers also run in families, so maybe his dad was there.

You weren't there. How do you know the massacre wasn't being blown way out of proportion by war protesters and enemy propaganda? Diminishing something can be a factual correction.

Aluminum foil hat time!!!

[ZWithaPGGB]

Wow, some guy who can only get published in some offshore rag alleges a whacked out conspiracy!!!! Stop the presses!!!! It's proof that the consensus based approach of Wikipedia is broken and only the elites should decide what gets published on given subjects.

The reality is that information wants to be free. You provide a forum, like wikipedia, where it can be, and the truth will rise to the top.

Now, about solving the second part of that problematic moniker "SlimVirgin", call me ;-)

In the meantime, I'll be watching the "Penguin's Christmas Caper" extra from "Madagascar", at least the penguins are supposed to be psychotic.
"I like to move it, move it...... MOVE IT!"

To a dark place this takes us...

[Anonymous Coward]

The shroud of the dark side has fallen...

Begun the cabal wars have.

Er....

[E 99]

What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?

Doesn't everybody use Wikipedia for their own purposes?

Slashdot Infilitrated by Morons?

[aquatone282]

Experts agree, morons are now in control of choosing stories for the front page of Slashdot.

Details at 11.

A new low for Jimbo Wales

[BiteMeJimbo]

Jimmy, you've been looking the other way while your Wikipedia project has been going up in smoke. SlimVirgin/Linda Mack is an unbalanced control freak with an agenda to push. Multiple agendas, really. But to you, she's "an excellent Wikipedia administrator." Pierre Salinger, who only gave her a job, a platform, resources and instant credibility, decided that he couldn't trust this duplicitous bitch. But you think Wikipedia can because -- ? It's because you're a dumb-ass, Jimmy. It's possible that systemic problems with the wiki format will always lead to a wiki becoming crap if it expands too much, but your stewardship has actively advanced destructive forces at Wikipedia. You should've stuck with the porn, Jimmy. Instead, you've made yourself permanently associated with a crap enterprise; Jimmy, you're the Ahab of the Internet.

International humanitarian law professor?

[nbauman]

Also, what is the evidence that Ludwig De Braeckeleer is an international humanitarian law professor? He must be a law professor who doesn't have anything indexed on Google. Or is he the physics professor of the same name? Is this another John Seigenthaler hoax?

That article can't survive basic fact checking.

A Wikipedia editor is identified as Linda Mack, who was allegedly working for the CIA, with no attempt to check the facts to see if they're true. If this is citizen journalism, real journalists don't have to worry.

In fact, it can't answer the quesition, "What's your point?" There is no point to it. Ludwig can't find a page he thought he remembers seeing in Wikipedia, so it must be the Mossad/CIA deleting it?

Ludwig, stick to physics.

For once...

[Grendel Drago]

... that sig about "landing strips for gay martians, I swear to god" would actually be relevant.

What can Wikipedia do?

[ignavus]

"What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?"

They should immediately rush off and report it to the Press, for the Press is the unbiased harbinger of truth and will expose all lies!

Or maybe they realise that all public information is potentially biased anyway. And bias is the issue, isn't it? Not *who* wrote it, but *what* they wrote?

Even esteemed reference works can get things wrong. If you can't check something, you don't *know* it.

Except for stuff I write. It's always correct.

Anyone want to bet even money...

[Torodung]

...that "MI-5 persecution" guy, a celebrated Usenet-spamming lunatic, is the anonymous user who submitted this article?

--
Toro

A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[Durova]

As a followup to Jimbo Wales's post I'll set forth some of the reasons why the story is baseless and Slashdot has been trolled.

First, regardless of Dr. De Braeckeleer's credentials, he doesn't know how to read a Wikipedia history file. His piece starts with a complaint that information had vanished, but two or three mouse clicks would have led him to what he wanted in a historical version of the page. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operatio n_Entebbe&diff=137747616&oldid=137745019

Then he jumped to a conclusion that something sinister had happened because the page happened to be edit protected when he read it. Here's a historical version of the page as it appeared at press time, along with the notes of both the protecting administrator (who performed a routine action to quell an editing dispute) and me freeing it up for editing immediately after the story ran. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operatio n_Entebbe&diff=next&oldid=137748352

I also affirmed at the original story's comment lines that SlimVirgin had never edited the "Operation Entebbe" article. As a sysop I can read deleted edits and nothing has been deleted from that page. The main history file itself is open for viewing for anyone who wants to search for SlimVirgin's username. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operatio n_Entebbe&limit=500&action=history

Immediately after I posted those explanations someone came along and said she had edited the "Pan Am Flight 103" article, as if that were relevant to the accessibility of the other article. Okay, she did edit...two full years ago. I've looked up the page with my sysop tools and there are no deleted edits hidden away there. There's nothing sinister in the logs: some edits did get deleted a year ago and fully restored. The Flight 103 article has never even been edit protected. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pan_Am_F light_103&offset=20060121160944&limit=500&action=h istory

It's not surprising that SlimVirgin edited that page a bit. She's made over 60,000 total edits and she's among the 50 most prolific contributors to Wikipedia. Common sense ought to say that's a lot more activity than a spy would need to engage in, if the aim was to infiltrate the site. And isn't a basic tenet of espionage to keep a low profile? SlimVirgin tussles on policy issues all the time and has sitebanned quite a few rules-violating editors. That's an effective way for an honest volunteer to collect a small army of offsite trolls, but it's a terrible way for a secret agent to keep a cover. If she actually were a spy and I were her boss, I'd be calling her out on the carpet right now.

Yes, Wikipedia does see some infiltration attempts from the CIA. They dabble in baseball articles and complain that their jobs are boring. Here's a report from Wikinews: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/United_States_Departme nt_of_Justice_workers_among_government_Wikipedia_v andals

And for a glimpse of how ineffective they are on a subject that really matters to them, have a look at the "Q clearance" article history. A lot of edits resolve to government IP addresses and claim Wikipedia's image of the badge is illegal. htt

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[Anonymous Coward]

Immediately after I posted those explanations someone came along and said she had edited the "Pan Am Flight 103" article, as if that were relevant to the accessibility of the other article. Okay, she did edit...two full years ago. I've looked up the page with my sysop tools and there are no deleted edits hidden away there. There's nothing sinister in the logs: some edits did get deleted a year ago and fully restored.

Incorrect. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special: Log&page=Pan_Am_Flight_103. It says that the article was deleted, and then 1109 revisions were restored, and then the rest were restored. What information is not shown is that those revisions other than the 1109 which were restored were oversighted. Oversighted edits are not viewable by admins through their "sysop tools". How can I be sure that something was oversighted? Because there are exactly 1109 revisions in the database prior to 19:50, 3 June 2006. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pan_Am_F light_103&offset=20060604021931&limit=1109&action= history, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pan_Am_F light_103&offset=20060604021931&limit=1110&action= history, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pan_Am_F light_103&offset=20060604021931&limit=1108&action= history, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pan_Am_F light_103&offset=20020919173131&limit=1108&action= history.

Something was hidden. I don't know what it was yet, but there might be a way to find out (other than trusting someone with oversight to tell us) - find a full history dump from prior to 3 June 2006. I'm sure someone still has one somewhere. I might even have one myself.

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[makomk]

The last time I checked, Wikipedia sysops had no more ability to see deleted revisions of articles than anyone else (that is, they can't even see that they were deleted). Viewing deleted revisions required oversight powers. As an example of a deleted revision, Daniel Brandt claims that SlimVirgin's first edit to Wikipedia was an edit relating to her allaged real-workd identity and that it has since vanished. The edit in question now shows up as part of a later edit by CanisRufus with an unrelated edit summary, which is what exactly what we'd see if the revision in question had existed and had been oversighted.

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[Durova]

Sorry, that's not a red flag to an Oversight action. I know a few things about how Oversight works. When a pile of edits get deleted that could be a sign that a rank-and-file sysop found something potentially libellous and performed a manual delete. I would have been able to read the deleted version if that had happened, and it didn't. I'm not sure why those logs appeared, but I suggest you ask the sysops who created them. It's a huge leap to suppose that a couple of log entries by other sysops, at an article that had been edited thousands of times, necessarily mean that admin SlimVirgin is a spy. Perhaps that's adequate for folks who think NASA faked the moon landings, but for the rest of us human beings who know "The X Files" was fiction, it's a laugh. Or it would be if one very diligent volunteer weren't getting dragged through the mud in the process, and probably also whoever that unfortunate person is who got misidentified as her. The research I can verify on this story is complete hokum. I have no faith in the rest.

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[Durova]

Wikipedia has two levels of deletion: regular sysop and Oversight. There are good reasons for that but the main point here is that Oversight is in very few hands. Here's the list of Oversight privileges. As you can see, SlimVirgin isn't on it. I could view any action she's taken.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Listusers/ove rsight

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[Anonymous Coward]

Oversight is a newer invention, and different from what the sysop above was referring to. Any article in Wikipedia has a history built of individual revisions. When an article is deleted, it and all its revisions are invisible to the general populace - only sysops can see them. When an article is restored, the sysop restoring it can choose which revisions to restore. Say an article has 1,000 revisions in its history, a sysop can delete it and restore 999. This was used before Oversight to "permanently" remove sensitive or corrosive data from public eyes.

Oversight lets special users remove revisions from the history, even sysops can't see and restore. There's only a handful of oversighters, and SlimVirgin is not one of them.

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[Anonymous Coward]

But Jayjg is on the oversight list. He is well known to pass CheckUser information to SlimVirgin, so why wouldn't he perform oversight deletes for her?

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a huge leap to suppose that a couple of log entries by other sysops, at an article that had been edited thousands of times, necessarily mean that admin SlimVirgin is a spy.

No, I don't think she is a spy. I find it unlikely that she even was a spy. Salinger was most likely wrong on that point. She might be Linda Mack though, and certain Wikipedians are definitely covering something up.

The use of oversight on that page has been proven by the analysis above. If the revisions in question were not oversighted, then they'd either be available to the public or there would be a log entry for when they were deleted. The fact that oversight was used on this page was also in the oversight logs, which were available to the public in the early days of the oversight function.

You keep saying that you would be able to see the revisions if they were deleted. But you don't have access to view revisions which were oversighted, do you?

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[makomk]

However, that doesn't stop someone with oversight from taking action on her behalf - for example, Jayjg, who she seems to be on reasonably friendly terms with (the anti-Wikipedia groups would put this more strongly, and I have to say that the two do seem to co-operate in controversial areas quite a bit).

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[Anonymous Coward]

"and SlimVirgin is not one of them"
As if that means she couldn't get something oversighted by request. Jayjg is in her pocket. They tag team edit war, he passes her CheckUser results, why wouldn't he oversight for her?

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[Durova]

Jimbo's got every level of permission Wikipedia can offer and he's called this whole thing nonsense.

Really, the basis for the story was that one professor misconstrued a page protection and a history file. He could have asked any of nearly 1300 administrators what he was seeing, and in five minutes any of us could have freed up the page and shown him where to find the historical version he wanted. He should have done his homework before writing the piece. And anyone in the world with an Internet connection can confirm that his basic assumptions were wrong.

So now these elaborate conspiracy theories are springing up, all in order to explain exactly what? Nothing's missing from either article. And if you know of something that ought to be there but isn't, find a reliable source and put it in. This isn't the Pentagon Papers; it's Wikipedia.

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[Durova]

I have exactly as many permissions as SlimVirgin has. I'd be able to read any action she had taken. And no, the logs don't clue to Oversight use. I've already explained that. It's true that I wouldn't be able to see an Oversight action, but Jimbo would and he's already weighed in on this story. It's groundless. If you really are interested in chasing down improper government edits at Wikipedia, go check up on recent activity from the IP addresses identified in that Wikinews story. I'd be glad to follow up on any well documented report; please supply specific IP addresses and page diffs. I can be contacted on Wikipedia at my user talk page or via Wikipedia's link to my e-mail.

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[Durova]

Supposing everything you say is true (which is like believing unicorns exist), what would he have Oversighted for her? The basis for the news story is that a professor failed to read a Wikipedia history file. The thing he wanted to find was always available and no one has proposed that anything else went missing. So if something is missing that ought to be there, find a reliable source and add it with a line citation. And if you really want to cover your bases send me a copy of your edit.

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[Durova]

My original reply to this wound up at a different subthread.

What would he have Oversighted at her request? I've already demonstrated that the article author neglected to check the history files and the information he wanted remained available there. No one has pointed to another serious omission at either "Operation Entebbe" or "Pan Am Flight 103". If you know something that ought to be in these articles, go ahead and add it with a line citation to a reliable and verifiable published source.

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[makomk]

Actually, it doesn't look like SlimVirgin has edited the article in question. Then again, (a) if intelligence agencies really have infiltrated Wikipedia (which I doubt) they'd have more than one account and (b) there is reason to believe that edits by SlimVirgin have been oversighted. (Personally, I think the original article is largely wrong - the actual reason for the current state of the Operation Entebbe article is that many bits of Wikipedia have a pro-Israeli bias, partly due to many editors and admins holding that opinion, and partly due to people with the opposite bias getting banned.)

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[Durova]

If you think the article is biased then by all means balance it with citations from other sources.

And I find it highly unlikely that pure content edits would ever get Oversighted. A typical reason for Oversight is when some child posts a home address; Oversight is done for privacy.

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[kyz]

Jayjg would doubtless do anything SlimVirgin tells him to do. Jayjg has oversight capabilities. Haven't you seen them in action together? Slim could ask one of the other 26 oversight users, but as Jayjg's on that list, why even bother with them?

Jimbo's a fucking idiot. He thinks it's perfectly OK to employ people who lie about their credentials and use those lies as leverage. He lies about being the sole founder of Wikipedia and orders people on IRC to do his dirty work for him so it doesn't look like he requested it. Why do you trust anything this man says?

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[Blissyu2]

But that's simply not true. Jimbo has admitted that the edits were oversighted, so your denial of it, after it is proven and admitted just makes you look stupid. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007 -July/078336.html

Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down

[Blissyu2]

Your denials are pointless now that this story has been proven to be true, and Jimbo has announced a confession that the edits were oversighted: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007 -July/078336.html Please cease this foolish denial. Denying something when you have plausible deniability is one thing. But you no longer have plausible deniability at all. This story is true. Even Jimbo admits that it is based in truth.

I am not a spy, yet, did some checking read inside

[Anonymous Coward]

All IP addresses available on the history of the page are from Guatemala. A few for example: 217.42.178.41, 81.155.208.218, 81.156.126.138, 217.42.134.88, 128.250.6.243, and more. What it means having so many anonymous from the a single country on that very entry? Maybe those are all proxies for spoofing the real source IP? see at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pan_Am_F light_103_bombing_trial&limit=500&action=history

Jimmy Wales at the Long Now

[doom]

The Jimmy Wales talk I was refering to is summarized here but to get the Q&A session you'll need to listen to it.

Here's a quotation from the summary:

The secret of Wikipedia's content-generating process, Wales explained, is the nurturing and shaping of trust, instead building everything around distrust. He said that most social software systems are designed around expected problems. "Suppose you ran a restaurant that way. If you serve steak, that means steak knives, which are really dangerous in the wrong hands, so you need to put barriers between the tables."

"If you prevent people from doing bad things, you prevent them from doing good things, and it eliminates opportunities for trust."

Last sentence

[vell0cet]

The last sentence in the article is "What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?"" What can the media do about those who would use it for their own purposes?

Better than Wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't more Americans get their news from Fox News than from Wikipedia? My god, if Fox News turned out to be a shill for government policies, imagine what might happen!

Linda, how is Jimmy doing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linda,

How is your brother Jimmy doing?

And when is he coming back?

Tell him "I'm not getting any stronger, I can't hold out very much longer"

Wikipedia Infiltrated ?

[12357bd]

Well, what says Wikipedia about it?

Pierre Salinger thought?

[Hutz]

Pierre Salinger, in his final years, spent his time chasing conspiracy theories. He downloaded emails that circulated on the internet as proof. So you have an article that cites no sources and quotes a deceased journalist who didn't need sources as the basis of this discussion? As bad as mainstream media can be, they do require something more than a dead person's gut feeling before reporting something.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9611/09/twa.salinger/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A389 28-2004Oct16.html

Look at the Gracenote entry

[abbamouse]

One problem is that interest groups seek to manipulate the presentation of data (or suppress it entirely). For example, a Gracenote rep was allowed to essentially end the edit war on the company's entry by removing everything even vaguely negative about the company. He even objected to anyone pointing out that users of CDDB had donated the data without compensation. In the end, it was his edits that stuck and a person who looked up Gracenote to see what all the controversy had been about will see nothing of use on the Wikipedia entry.

SlimVirgin seems to always get out of things...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedi a:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=next&oldid=5319613 6#Arbitrators.27_opinion_on_hearing_this_matter_.2 80.2F2.2F0.2F0.29

Re:SlimVirgin seems to always get out of things...

[BiteMeJimbo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedi a:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=next&oldid=5319613 6#Arbitrators.27_opinion_on_hearing_this_matter_.2 80.2F2.2F0.2F0.29

Man, I thought Linda Mack was a bitch even before I saw this. This is Kafka-esque. Is that c%&t Jimmy Wales around to see this? Damn, I've heard of people owning articles at Wikipedia, but this bitch takes over people's personal talk pages. And the prick FeloniusMonk decides that he doesn't want to be involved in an arbitration dispute WHERE HE IS BEING ACCUSED OF WRONGDOING, and the moronic administration of F*^kyoupedia is perfectly okay with that.

Jimmy, you kucking funt! Maybe the coked-up porn models you dealt with at Bomis put up with this kind of s#!t, but the real world isn't like porn. Jimmy, it just isn't. It's not okay in the real world to let your underlings force people to blow them before hearing grievances.

"Excellent Wikipedia administrator!" You should go back to the porn, Jimmy.

Re:SlimVirgin seems to always get out of things...

[Blissyu2]

There's always been something very suspicious that SlimVirgin gets away with a lot more than other people do.

Re:SlimVirgin seems to always get out of things...

[zyccclop]

Thank you very much for bringing this aspect of public places like Wikipedia to my attention.

I follwed the link and have read the complete page with growing interest.

As of yesterday I have been an ordinary, unsuspecting WIKI user.

As it seems to me that these "censorship" incidents are numerous and that the participants seem to be covering each other that the solution to the problem(s) I would suggest is in saving each of the relevant pages and to copy them to another "outside" location and as a second phase create a meeting place where evidence and information about these "invisiblies" could be collected and Email-exchange between contributors for the creation of a database from where it would be possible to connect the dots leading & linking throughout the WWW to these people involved in censorship.

In the future I shall pay more attention as to the contributors of articles than just getting informed by the contents.

Whoever could have imagined?

[Blissyu2]

What do you guys think that the CIA and MI5 and other secret agencies around the world are charged to do? Yes, they do exist, and yes they are supposed to do things. They gather intelligence, whilst at the same time trying to stop other agents around the world, and the general public, from finding out the truth. Of course they are involved in Wikipedia. Anyone who thought that they weren't is somewhat naive. And a lot of them are pretty obvious too. SlimVirgin regularly deletes comments unread from her user talk page, as well as article pages, is constantly deleting "offensive" material from articles all over Wikipedia, is forever complaining about people for "indulging in Wikistalking" or anything related to finding out what is really going on, then makes vague references to it without any real proof. She is the reason that the Oversight command was created. Her edits to Lockerbie bombing and to Salinger's articles (her first ever edits on Wikipedia) were some of the first ever uses of the Oversight command - to hide her identity (luckily a few people like myself had saved these edits before she did this). What more has she done? It shouldn't come as any surprise whatsoever that SlimVirgin is a secret agent. She acts in the exact way that a secret agent should operate. And either Jimbo is very naive, or else he is willing to do his bit for his country. Perhaps indeed, SlimVirgin is a member of MIB. "We are the best kept secret in the galaxy. We monitor, licence and police all alien activity on the Earth. We're your first, last, and only line of defense. We live in secret, we exsist in shadow. And we dress in black." [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119654/quotes]

How did this shit get in here?

[Blu Aardvark]

I've had as many nasty disputes with SlimVirgin as the next guy, but seriously. I've seen better drivel on Wikipedia. This ridiculous article amounts to nothing more than a hit piece without a modicum of actual journalism to it.

There may be enough evidence to say that SlimVirgin is the person whom the article claims her to be. There may be enough evidence to suggest that she has some serious conflicts of interest on Wikipedia. There is not enough evidence to suggest that she is an "intelligence agent" of any sort, and to suggest that there is amounts to nothing more than conspiracy theorizing. I've seen much more believable conspiracy theories put out by the GNAA.

Anonymous Cowards unite (something to argue about)

[oregonnerd]

Okay. You need something to argue about. http://discuss.pcmag.com/forums/thread/1004382426. aspx Macs are better than PCs!! PCs are better than Macs!! And anyone who disagrees is [fill in the f'in blank] --Glenn

More likely the ADL

[BiteMeJimbo]

ADL deals with content control; AIPAC has its hands full with Congress control.

SlimVirgin didn't seem like a spy

[Anonymous Coward]

She is very aggressive in preserving her point of view, but a lot of what she vigorously pushed was pro-animal rights terrorism.

A better synopsis of the evidence on Linda Mack

[BiteMeJimbo]

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=fe0aed1f75c 97449f83f7c37d4a85e37&showtopic=10991&view=findpos t&p=39104

I doubt that Linda Mack is currently working directly for any intelligence agencies. They might use her, as needed, but she's too screwy for any reasonable organization to rely on her. Nor is SlimVirgin's real identity an indication of any wrongdoing on Wikipedia. SlimVirgin's wrongdoing on Wikipedia is in her abuse of Admin authority, her thoroughly uncivil behavior, and her use of these transgressions in controlling content. That she is in fact discredited former journalist Linda Mack only adds some background to her misbehavior, as well as dispelling the cloak of anonymity behind which she has operated.

That Jimbo Wales has overlooked the many, many complaints about SlimVirgin and others is probably due to him pursuing his own secret agenda: figuring out how to get some coin out of the contraption that is Wikipedia. Had he really believed in the hippy-ish notions of free information that he so often parrots (notions probably contrary to his self-professed following of Ayn Rand's sophistry), he would likely have been very alarmed at suggestions that his "encyclopedia" was being manipulated to promote outside agendas; instead, he apparently was more worried about collecting receipts somehow after the early idea of selling advertising on Wikipedia was shot down by editors. Sadly, when Wikipedia could have used a principled leader, it instead had a human cash register.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

This is not "a new low" at all: Slashdot has done a great service. What is happening is a set of interrelated cover-ups have persisted due to the ability of some folks to hijack the public discourse. The Slashdot community has stumbled upon trace evidence of that, and now will be badgered, bullied, and clogged in an effort to keep you folks from putting the pieces together. That's how it works when they see that the wig is beginning to slip.

It is far too long a story to tell here, so I will just plant signposts for those interested:

1) There is a massive hedge fund scandal ("naked short selling") boiling to the surface of our capital markets. Since it is terribly pernicious for entrepreneurs it should be of special interest to the tech community, but so far you nerds have not tuned into it that I can tell. Some mainstream financial publications have begun exposing it. Bloomberg Television (the most "elite" news service in the country) recently did a shocking 25 minute Special Report on it, and articles have been appearing this year in Forbes and Bloomberg magazine:

http://images.overstock.com/f/102/3117/8h/www.ov erstock.com/07-0313Bloom_PhantomShares_NSS.wmv .

http://images.overstock.com/f/102/3117/8h/www.ov erstock.com/06-09BloomMarket_NSS.pdf]Bloomberg Magazine

http://members.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0212/068.h tml]Forbes.

2) The guilty parties in the aforementioned crime are hedge funds with essentially bottomless purses, and through means once may only surmise, they have hijacked the mainstream media's discourse. Even though some serious economists and scholars began publishing data suggesting a financial crime of epic proportions might be occuring in our capital markets, of such scale that the SEC has quietly aknowledged that it could lead to "a massive meltdown in certain default scenarious" (SEC Commissioner Atkins), no financial publication would touch the issue. That is because the hedge fund beat is covered by a small number of reporters who have grown extremely close to the half-dozen hedge funds that are actually committing the crime ("The Wall Street Journal" is to Wall Street as "Sports Illustrated" is to sports). Anyone who tried to raise it to the awareness of the public was dismissed as a whacky conspiracy theorist, or a malcontent CEO (that would be I), without any attempt to grapple with the data whatsoever. (However, since Bloomberg and Forbes came out with their pieces, the Wall Street Journal has been forced into some good but rather anodyne coverage of the subject.)

3) Social media presents and expecially thorny issue for the bad guys. There exists a huge set of data points which, when put together, create a vivid picture of the crime. They can keep their compliant half-dozen reporters from putting those pieces together, and they can keep their captured regulator (the SEC) from putting them together, but how do they prevent the swarm of participants in social meda from putting their individual piecs of the puzzle together? They have two strategies: they clog message boards, and they hijack Wikipedia (one of the central crossroads of social media).

Wikipedia is fine, of course, if one wants to know the name of every actor who guest starred on "Friends," but on a small number of subjects none of the normal rules of Wikipedia apply because a tight group of super-users suspend all the normal rules of settling disputes. As a matter of fact, on these select subjects even the record of contrary opinions is disappeared down an Orwellian memory hole. Links to articles and exposés that appear in major, mainstream publications are not allowed to appear, thus curtailing the ability of the public to accumulate knowledge.

At the the crossroads of all this hijacking of the discourse is one user: Linda Mack, a.k.a. "SlimVirgin." And first and foremost of the subjects for which the normal rules of Wikipedian discourse are hijacked is the financial scandal that I referred to a

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Patrick. What a sad attention seeker you are! You don't know "Linda Mack" from a cabbage, but you never miss an opportunity to push your issue.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

Sorry dude, wrong on that one. Read the story.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[Randinn]

Well, I'm sorry all of you that actually put an honest effort into working on W.P. I'm just a user but with all of the problems I won't be using W.P. and talk any of my clients and friends into using it until the head admin actually does his job and not ignore anything...

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Patrick, Patrick. On the 31st you report your, what is it? fifteenth? fiftyith? five hundredth? consecutive quarterly loss. You're Director of Communications was nailed by the media for running an astroturf site smearing your enemies. You're under SEC investigation for your mismanagement of the company, for lying to investors, and for shifting blame for your incompetence to the "naked shorting" boogyman. Give it a rest.

Would this be reliable, Lise?

[BiteMeJimbo]

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007 -July/078241.html

Or this?

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007 -July/078242.html

Re:Would this be reliable, Lise?

[Durova]

Why don't you ask Jayjg and Musical Linguist whether their actions had anything to do with SlimVirgin? Those logs took place a full year after her last edit to the page so it's highly doubtful that there was any relation.

That's pretty funny, Lise.

[BiteMeJimbo]

Let me see if I can use the same logical form:

A. Superman is weakened by kryptonite.
B. Kryptonite is green.
C. Lex Luther's favorite color is red.

Therefore, it is "highly doubtful" that Lex Luther is responsible for Superman being poisoned by kryptonite.

How did I do?

Re:That's pretty funny, Lise.

[dtobias]

Fine, except that it's "Lex Luthor", and there actually is "Red Kryptonite" alongside the green variety (in the DC Comics universe, anyway).

Re:That's pretty funny, Lise.

[BiteMeJimbo]

Dan, I'll defer to your superior knowledge of Superman.

But there are a couple of points to be made here.

First, Durova is either a moderately skilled liar or a very poor logician/observer of facts. And, let me be clear, I don't mean to be personal here, except with my comments about that worthless piece of crap Jimmy Wales - I hope Durova doesn't take things so seriously that she can't have fun reading my comments.

Anyway, in just my brief exchange with her, she has gone from an insistence that there was no change to article history, with an invitation to show a "reliable source" indicating otherwise, to insisting (based on crap logic) that it is "highly doubtful" that the changes to article history that turned out to be there after all have anything to do with the claims made, somehow sidestepping the information provided to her elsewhere that Jayjg and Linda Mack/SlimVirgin are "on reasonably friendly terms" and that "the two do seem to co-operate in controversial areas quite a bit." I believe it was John Meynard Keynes who first said, "When the facts change, I change my opinion - what do you do, sir?"

But I really do admire Durova's tone. She has an excellent tone for lying. She is matter-of-fact, unemotional in her presentation. The most important thing in successful lying is feigning indifference, and Durova has that mastered very well in her tone. The energy she has put to presenting the same conclusion to a changing set of facts, however, betrays that something other than indifference is at work with her. You should take that into account more when you lie in the future, Lise.

Second, consider the process here: truly open discussion. Sometimes insulting, sometimes profane, but uncensored. On Wikipedia, probably I would have been admonished for making a personal attack the first time I suggested that Durova's conclusion might be wrong, and I likely would have been banned if I insisted that her clearly pathetic logic not be accepted as irrefutable truth, with a half-dozen other sysops jumping in to express their outrage that I would dare to suggest that Durova's "logic" sucks, which obviously it does.

Now Durova has apparently decided that open discussion is not really her cup of tea. I sort of wonder if she didn't get some contact from other Wikipedia sysops - maybe one Linda Mack! - indicating that she wasn't moving forward "the agenda" in her comments here, and that perhaps she should retire to the frightfully inbred understanding of the truth that persists at Wikipedia.

But, supposing that our interest is in finding the truth, is there not some value in truly open discussion, even with all the insults and profanity? Which begs the question, why does someone like Linda Mack do so much - from blocking editors to blanking talk pages - to avoid truly open discussion? Good God, why was WCityMike ass-raped at Wikipedia like he was?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedi a:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=next&oldid=5319613 6#Arbitrators.27_opinion_on_hearing_this_matter_.2 80.2F2.2F0.2F0.29

Re:That's pretty funny, Lise.

[thekohser]

Since the veracity of User:Durova is being questioned here, I would like to present the following brief statement. I am a real person, Gregory Kohs, who is not hiding behind a pseudonym. Durova is.

In an unrelated case, Durova stated on Wikipedia that I "gave misleading information to journalists". When I asked her to provide evidence of that claim, she refused to provide it to me, out of fear of losing her anonymity by exposing her e-mail address to me. I offered that she could send the e-mail from a single-use, throwaway e-mail account if she wanted. She refused that offer, too.

I later found out that she e-mailed all of her evidence to the AP reporter in question, Brian Bergstein. Bergstein's reaction?

He said: "...it's not so much that I decided she [Durova] was right or wrong, but it's more that I didn't care one way or another. I would have come back to you and grilled you about it had I at all cared. As I'm sure you know, my story was not meant to carry water for you, personally, but instead was meant to explore the issue you raised about payments and Wikipedia and how it played out in your experience. There was no point in trying to assess whether she had opened up some new revelations about your character. It wasn't relevant to the story."

While she will not confirm it, I am now of the understanding that what Durova meant was that when talking with Brian Bergstein about my enterprise, I failed to mention that most of my corporate paid-to-edit articles were being entered into Wikipedia by other independent, non-paid editors. Which is actually untrue, because I did mention that to Bergstein -- he just didn't publish it. Indeed, that was how Jimmy Wales himself told me to operate the business! If that's not the conundrum, she is possibly upset that I failed to mention that I continued to evade a site block using a "sockpuppet" account on Wikipedia, in order to intelligently correct falsehoods being repeated in paid-editing discussions. Whoop dee freakin' doo. I challenged falsehoods in a non-profit, open-source forum where I had been site blocked. When does my prison sentence begin?

Of course, neither of these factors would have been germane for the well-written January 25th, 2007 AP story that ran about MyWikiBiz. Yet, the public record on Wikipedia (thank to none other than Durova) says that Gregory Kohs "gave misleading information to journalists". Durova won't redact the statement, all while refusing to provide public evidence for it.

So, fellow Slashdotters -- you decide. Who is guilty of duplicity here? Me? Or Durova?

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Patrick, your problem is not that "Wikipedia is infiltrated by Intelligence Agents" but that your company is not infiltrated by competent management.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

Dear Anonymous Coward, You should be old enough to know that just repeating something a lot will not make it so. By "nailed by the media" I suppose you mean that the same few journalists whom we are accusing of being in cahoots with the hedge funds and their shills wrote stories "exposing".... precisely what Judd was disclosing on the home page of his site. Yes, quite a scoopo, that. Returning the the real world for the moment, Judd has done a laudable job of unveiling how a tightly-organized group of shills works to hijack the discourse on a narrow band of subjects. And then when anyone starts to put together how they are doing that, they show up to hijack THAT discourse. "Turtles all the way down..." Alas, it appears some folks at Slashdot have noticed the wig slipping in their corner of the world, and so we'll see how well those techniques work against them. My guess is, not very well. Your claims about the SEC are pretty off-base, but I am sure you know that. "Shifting blame" is just another page out of the shill handbook (it seems folks notice that as often as you folks make that claim, you never do anything so crass as to give an example, in quotes). Here's a question: if we start making money, will that make me RIGHT about naked short selling and the threat it poses to our country? Since I cannot find anything of substance in your message to which to reply, beyond what I have written above, I'll sign out. Patrick

Good grief

[ta bu shi da yu]

I am an adminstrator and have contacted SlimVirgin personally on a number of occasions. I can safely say that she is NOT part of any cabal or an spy network. Sheesh.

What sort of stupid story is this? I can't believe Slashdot was so stupid to publish it.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! Boy, are you a liar Byrne. You say that your man Judd Bagley wasn't "nailed by the media," and that they just reported what was "on his home page."

Bull!

Judd Bagley ran his website anonymously until he was outed by the media by the story in the New York Post that ran on Jan. 2, s007. http://www.nypost.com/seven/01022007/business/over stock_com_lashes_out_at_critics_on_web_business_ro ddy_boyd.htm

He put his name on the site a week later.

No wonder the SEC is investigating your butt. You lied about that too. It is in your filings that you and your company are both under SEC investigation for your running your company into the ground.

You have no credibility on any subject and nobody should believe a word that you say.

Complete load of crap

[Maury Markowitz]

Did anyone bother to actually look at the edit logs in question? I did. SlimVirgin's only edit to the article since March (where I gave up looking) was to rv obvious bogus information. There's nothing else.

The article linked from this Slashdot post is nothing more than a blog entry. It claims all sorts of conspiracy theories, and then further states that these were removed from the Operation Entebbe article on the wiki, implying it was by SlimVirgin. Well anyone can click "history", and when you do you'll notice Slim hasn't make a single edit to the page going back as far as 2005, which is when I stopped bothering to look.

Then I went to the discussion page. The entire issue of the material in question is spelled out in complete detail there. The discussion is well balanced, and after reading it over I couldn't agree more: it should be removed because it's basically a bogus conspiracy theory. SlimVirgin DID make an edit to the talk page, in February, to remove a claim that Idi Amin was an Israeli puppet. That's her only edit.

This entire claim is completely and utterly bogus. Didn't anyone bother to check this before spreading it around the internet? I guess not, let's not let reality get in the way of a good bashing.

So then I continued on, and read the articles that claim that SlimVirgin is Linda Mack. What a completely load of hooey. To start with they claim that Slim is very good at "covering her tracks", but any /. regular reading the reason for this will laugh out loud at the complete stupidity of the claim. Everything else is third person friend-of-a-friend, with a single exception of someone that knew Mack in the 1980s but admits that he has no evidence the two people are the same.

Again, this is all a complete load of crap. And I've had dealings with Slim and hated it. It's not like I'd stick up for her under normal circumstances, but I'd like to hope that if the situation were reversed there'd be someone out there who would stick up for me.

Maury

Re:Complete load of crap

[BiteMeJimbo]

We should all hope with all our hearts that SlimVirgin really is Linda Mack. (I would put the odds of this at 95%+, so don't get too worked up.)

But if SlimVirgin is NOT Linda Mack, then she is someone on whose account: alumni information at Cambridge was created and then deleted; contact was made with a former colleague of Linda Mack asking that he make no further disclosures of information about her after his discussion with Daniel Brandt; and most ominously, the real Linda Mack has "declined" to come forward and deny the link, which, given what an a$$hole SlimVirgin has been to so many people, would probably be a very prudent thing for her to do (please note this if you are reading, real Linda Mack). And probably a dozen other minor disinformation efforts.

In short, if SlimVirgin is NOT Linda Mack, she's probably part of a large and potentially dangerous conspiracy.

Better that she be Linda Mack.

Re:Complete load of crap

[kyz]

I noticed you're NOT an oversight user. Therefore, DUH, of course you're not going to see the Slimv edits deleted using oversight. Only the 27 oversight users get to see those, and they're not going to tell anyone else about them.

The oversight feature, or "the memory hole" to use Ninteen Eighty-Four parlance, is what really, really convinces me to stop contributing to Wikipedia. The cliques of abusive administrators, protecting one another from the consequences of their power trips; they think they're above the law, and on Wikipedia they ARE above the law. The reason criticism of Wikipedia appears mainly off-wiki is because it's a place where the ruling elite of Wikipedia have no jurisdiction or convenient super-secret delete facilities.

Durova at www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Durova

[Durovawatch]

Lise, Lise, Lise Diane Broer They have your number on this page. You have perfected dispassion in lying to an art and you aren't really that good at it. Durova has been going back to Jimbo and assuring him that she's convinced you to not believe this is true here: "Jimbo, by the end of the thread that editor seems pretty well convinced that the rumor was baseless. Perhaps he or she will follow up on some leads for Wikinews? I'd be glad to see that curiosity put to constructive use. Perhaps a few encouraging words from you would help in that direction. DurovaCharge! 01:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC) " http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_tal k:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=147960859 Lise/Durova is writing on Wikipedia to DENY, DENY, DENY, here:

"How about WP:DENY? No matter how Signpost approaches it, coverage would either draw attention to the identity of a contributor who prefers to remain anonymous or expose some uninvolved and misidentified person to greater risk of harassment. DurovaCharge! 16:12, 29 July 2007 (UTC)"

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedi a:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions&diff=pre v&oldid=147872212 Lise hides the links here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedi a:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions&diff=pre v&oldid=147857491 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedi a:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions&diff=pre v&oldid=147856870 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedi a:Administrators'_noticeboard&diff=prev&oldid=1475 69843 Why does Lise care? Because both Slimvirgin and Durova (Linda Mack and Lise Diane Broer) broke a deal they made with Daniel Brandt. They were to take down his article (that he'd been trying to get down for two years, that Slimvirgin/Linda wrote), and he would hide their names on his site, and wikipediareview.com redacted them. Brandt's site didnt go down, really, and their names went back up. So Slimvirgin and Durova are in this together. Durova is a very nasty admin. She has a page up on Encyclopedia Dramatica http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Durova/, which details what kind of abuses shes done. Slim has a page up on Wikitruth. Lise is a consummate liar, and like one of the other responders on this thread said, she's not a good liar, but she has the cool dispassion down to an art, and it fools a lot of people. It doesn't fool us. Don't let her fool you. :') despite the fact that Wikipediareview.com has had information on Linda Mack being Slimvirgin for years. Such good information that she and Lise/Durova bargained with wikipediareview to remove their names from the site. That lasted about one month, when Lise and Linda didnt fulfill their side of the deal. Lise and Linda

Total idiocy. Why did Slashdot run this?

[Anonymous Coward]

This entire item is built on the "suspicions" of a sad has-been, Pierre Salinger, whose final years were tarnished by his pursuit of conspiracy theories. I'm surprised that Slashdot would run an item based on what is essentially rumormongering and innuendo.

DUROVA denies, LISE lies - Carefully.....

[Durovawatch]

Lise, Lise, Lise Diane Broer They have your number on this page. You have perfected dispassion in lying to an art and you aren't really that good at it. Durova has been going back to Jimbo and assuring him that she's convinced you to not believe this is true here:

"Jimbo, by the end of the thread that editor seems pretty well convinced that the rumor was baseless. Perhaps he or she will follow up on some leads for Wikinews? I'd be glad to see that curiosity put to constructive use. Perhaps a few encouraging words from you would help in that direction. DurovaCharge! 01:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC) "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_ta lk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=147960859

Lise/Durova is writing on Wikipedia to DENY, DENY, DENY, here:

"How about WP:DENY? No matter how Signpost approaches it, coverage would either draw attention to the identity of a contributor who prefers to remain anonymous or expose some uninvolved and misidentified person to greater risk of harassment. DurovaCharge! 16:12, 29 July 2007 (UTC)"http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wi kipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions&di ff=prev&oldid=147872212

Durova - Lise Diane Broer - is a Liar
Why does Lise care? Because both Slimvirgin and Durova (Linda Mack and Lise Diane Broer) broke a deal they made with Daniel Brandt. They were to take down his article (that he'd been trying to get down for two years, that Slimvirgin/Linda wrote), and he would hide their names on his site, and wikipediareview.com redacted them. Brandt's site didnt go down, really, and their names went back up. So Slimvirgin and Durova are in this together.

One of Lise's favorite thing to do is to talk about how the U.S. government edited Wikpedia. When she does that, you know she's hiding something.

Durova - Lise is as mean as they come-

Lise is a very nasty person. She has a page up on Encyclopedia Dramatica http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Durova/, which details what kind of abuses shes done. Slim has a page up on Wikitruth.

Lise is a consummate liar, and like one of the other responders on this thread said, she's not a good liar, but she has the cool dispassion down to an art, and it fools a lot of people. Don't let her fool you. :')

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

Coward, One cannot be "outed" for something about which is ethically just and which one is open. Just like all these stories last week treating as some grand expose the fact tht I post on the Internet, when in fact I identify myself widely when I do. It is just the Big Lie: rant about it loudly, you think, and hope no one checks the facts. Now as far as credibility goes... Let's see: I came out two years ago telling the world that our markets were hopelelssly rigged, that a group of hedge funds had some bozo reporters doing their shilling, and that our clearing and settlement systemw as largely broken, that small companies were being destroyed by it, etc. Have you noticed that Jim Cramer himself has come out and confessed to taking part in the first (right down to the "bozo reorters" he mentioned), and now the SEC, including Christopher Cox, has come out confirming the second? What was that you were saying abotu "credibility"? I cannot go into a bar in New York without people sending me a drink to thank me (even the bartenders). Everyone gets it. You cannot stop that by inane blather posted in an attempt to keep the realization from crystallizing for all. The markets are deeply rigged, the rigging is protected by a bunch of tired hacks in the public press, they are the ones who have been "exposed," and now they are trying to smoke it all up to make it hard for the averag viewer to follow. www.businessjive.com Patrick Byrne

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

One cannot be "outed" for something about which is ethically just and which one is open.

So you lied when you denied that your man Bagley was running an anonymous astroturf site until he was outed, and you lied when you denied that the SEC is investigating your ass.

Every time someone looks closely at anything you say, it turns out to be a lie.

Lies, lies and more lies. Don't you ever get tired of lying?

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[jimmyb1967]

It shouldn't surprise you that most mainstream media outlets are ignoring the bogus "naked short selling" story. The data overwhelmingly demonstrate that "naked short selling" complaints have never been anything more than a distraction used by crooked promoters and inept managers to dump over-hyped shares on gullible, naive investors.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[geeDub]

Mr. Byrne have you shared your datapoints with the FBI? This sounds serious.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

More Chewbacca Defense, Mr. Coward, ventured (as always, without accurate and supporting quotes) in an attempt to confuse the casual passby with Big Lies.

Check it out:

Overstock.com Celebrates Receipt of SEC Subpoena

SALT LAKE CITY, May 9, 2006 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- Overstock.com(R) (Nasdaq: OSTK) announced that today it received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission concerning issues and requesting information outlined below.

Overstock.com Chairman and CEO Patrick Byrne said, "I may be the first CEO in history to celebrate receiving an SEC subpoena. Some of the requests suggest the whispering of the blackguards, but I remain unconcerned about their hokum. In truth, I am gratified to see that the SEC is looking into the issues about which I have been speaking: I believe our capital markets are broken in a deep way, our system of corporate voting and governance is a hoax, the savings of Americans are being drained through our financial system's fissure of unsettled trades, and the system appears to be cracking around Overstock.com (of course, I could be proved wrong if they would force the settlement of, or even reveal the size of, all unsettled trades in OSTK, which I believe number from 7 to 30 million shares). While some of the miscreants file frivolous delaying motions, and others schmooze with hedge funds and write what they are told to write (yet call themselves 'journalists' to shield their perfidy behind the First Amendment), I on the other hand applaud the SEC's actions and eagerly anticipate my chance to get these issues into court."

The subpoena requests a broad range of documents, including, all documents relating to the Company's accounting policies, targets, projections, estimates, recent restatement, new technology systems and their implementation, and communications with and regarding analysts. In addition, the subpoena requests all information relating to the filing of its complaint against Gradient Analytics, Inc., communications regarding shareholders who did not receive the Company's proxy statement in April 2006, communications with shareholders, and communications regarding short selling, naked short selling, purchases and sales of Company stock, obtaining paper certificates, and stock loan or borrow of Company shares. The Company intends to review the subpoena and respond in due course.

http://investors.overstock.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=131 091&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=858248&highlight=

When I put that out, the shills made a big fuss about a CEO "celebrating" such with the SEC. A year later (this June) the Party Line they were instructed to parrot shifted, and now they were supposed to pretend I hid it. Which is pretty hard, given the existence of that press release from last year, but they manage just by repeating it over and over, as you have done.

You guys just fabricate new allegations like that, over and over, without ever putting up: you folks, on the other hand, have been unmasked time and again, and so just create new sock puppets when you do.

Patrick

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[jimmyb1967]

You mean, like, the way we fabricated that $100 million you blew awayast year? Or the way we've fabricated your contracting revenues? Or is it the way we fabricated the truth about your working capital situation back in early 2006? (Ooops... that was you who was much less than honest about your ongoing need for capital last year.) Really, dude, who's the guilty party when it comes to relying on a Chewbacca Defense and telling Big Lies over and over again?

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

I LOVE IT! If that is, indeed, Jim himself, on the record, now preaching that Pary Line, it not ties together a great deal that has not been crystal clear, while giving us something we can easily demonstrate is false.

The Party Line that Jimmy so ably parroted (that this is just some fringe issue, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain) is now wearing a little thin, given the people who are now confirming what we have been trying to expose: SEC Chairman Chris Cox (July, 2006): "abusive naked short sales...can be used as a tool to drive down a company's stock price to the detriment of all of its investors. The Commission is particularly concerned about persistent failures to deliver in the market for some securities that may be due to loopholes in the Commission's Regulation SHO... The need for Regulation SHO grew out of long-standing and growing problems with failures to deliver stock by the end of the standard three day settlement period for trades..... Selling short without having stock available for delivery, and intentionally failing to deliver stock within the standard three-day settlement period, is market manipulation that is clearly violative of the federal securities laws."

As Bloomberg Markets' Bob Drummond reported: "A robust market for stock loans puts into circulation billions of borrowed shares that can create multiple votes that corrupt corporate elections." As a result, "In close contests with little room for error, the results of high-stakes company decisions may hinge on the invisible influence of millions of votes that shouldn't be counted." According to Thomas Montrone, CEO of Registrar & Transfer Co., "It is an abomination... A lot of the time we have no idea who's entitled to vote and who isn't. It's nothing short of criminal." Another securities consultant notes, "There are votes cast twice on almost every matter of substance... It definitely can and does, in my experience, affect the outcome of corporate elections and proposals." How big is the problem? Bloomberg wrote that the "Securities Transfer Association, a trade group for stock transfer agents, reviewed 341 shareholder votes in corporate contests in 2005. It found evidence of overvoting--the submission of too many ballots--in all 341 cases." Arbitrageurs are exploiting this crack, suggests Drummond: one of his sources notes, "It appears to be the case where there are opportunities to game the system." Bloomberg concluded that until these problems are fixed, "double and triple voting on one share will continue to make a mockery of shareholder democracy."

Dr. Robert Shapiro, former Undersecretary of Commerce for Economics, has written, "There is considerable evidence that market manipulation through the use of naked short sales has been much more common than almost anyone has suspected, and certainly more widespread than most investors believe." His research into death-spiral converts (a type of financing often accompanied by naked shorting) turned up at least 200 companies that appear to have been more or less destroyed, posting "a combined market loss of more than $105 billion." A 2006 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) response from the SEC regarding the 2004 FTD's of one national market company revealed days where over 40% of the volume did not deliver. A grim view is suggested by subsequent FOIA responses, records from transfer agents, and the persistence of firms on the SEC's Reg SHO threshold list. Concerning the general topic of "massive naked short sales" Dr. Shapiro writes, "this type of stock manipulation has occurred in many hundreds and perhaps thousands of cases over the last decade... Illicit short sales on such a scale or anything approaching it point to grave inadequacies in the current regulatory regime."

Bradley Abelow, a former DTCC director questioned under oath for confirmation as New Jersey Treasurer, described failures within our settlement system as "occur[ing] as a matter of course with great regularity," adding "fails to deliver of securities is endemic." A paper by SEC eco

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[jimmyb1967]

Don't take my word for it. Do some digging on your own. Find a company where management or promoters have been vocal about "naked short selling". Overstock.com, for that matter, isn't a bad place to start. Go to the EDGAR site and download their 10-K's and 10-Q's. Then read them. Without exception you will find company after company that has been pounded into the ground by inept or crooked managements. But never will you find a company that's been harmed by "naked short selling". Because that claim is, and always has been, nothing more than a ruse.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

But Patrick, you lie so much about the most basic things. You've only once had a profitable quarter as CEO. You are on all the lists of "Worst CEO" that are maintained by respected members of the financial press. Why should we believe the wild accusations of a man who lies the way you do?

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Patrick, Patrick. Lying again. The "big fuss" was about your not disclosing the subpoena served on you personally and the investigation of y-o-u.

Do you really think people are so stupid that they won't catch you in your lies?

Re:Do NOT click on "Writerjudd's" links!

[Anonymous Coward]

Do NOT click on "Writerjudd's" links! He is notorious for planting spyware. He has boasted about it.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[SamEAntar]

To Patrick Byrne (CEO of Overstock.com), self-proclaimed humble servant and self-proclaimed transparent CEO:

You wrote:

"When I put that out, the shills made a big fuss about a CEO "celebrating" such with the SEC. A year later (this June) the Party Line they were instructed to parrot shifted, and now they were supposed to pretend I hid it."

On May 9, 2006, Overstock.com's 8-K stated:

"On May 9, 2006 the Company issued a press release regarding its receipt of a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Salt Lake City District Office."

You had not yet received your separate SEC subpoena.

Your press release stated:

"Overstock.com Chairman and CEO Patrick Byrne said, 'I may be the first CEO in history to celebrate receiving an SEC subpoena.'"

Afterwards, other filings by Overstock.com with the Securities and Exchange Commission fail to mention your separate SEC subpoena until the 10-Q is issued on May 9, 2007.

Overstock.com's 10-Q stated:

"On May 9, 2006 the Company received a notice of an investigation and subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Salt Lake City District Office. On May 17, 2006, Patrick Byrne also received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Salt Lake City District Office."

Questions:
Why did you wait almost an entire year to disclose your separate SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006)?
Why didn't Overstock.com disclose your separate SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006) an earlier date?
When did each Audit Committee member individually learn about your separate SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006)?
When did personnel at PriceWaterhouseCoopers learn about your separate SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006)?
When did you first discuss your separate SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006) with Overstock.com General Counsel Jonathan Johnson?

Respectfully,

Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO & convicted felon)

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[SamEAntar]

To Patrick Byrne:

I read Judd Bagley's posts on AntiSocialMedia.net (referenced above by you).

Veni, Vidi, Wiki? (dated 09/25/06) says:

"Please note that what follows is my recounting of a story very recently related to me by the subject, Patrick Byrne, with his permission. I invite Mr. Byrne to follow up with any corrections or clarifications that may be warranted."

A Peek into the Mind of Wikipedia's SlimVirgin (dated 09/27/06) says:

"EDITOR'S NOTE: As I feared, my recollection of Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne's past experiences with Linda Mack (aka SlimVirgin) did not get it quite right.

Byrne recently emailed me a fuller, written version of the story which I intended to add as a comment on the original post; however, due to its length (and quality), I've opted instead to publish it here.

After reading Byrne's account, all I can say is: my version really sucked and you owe it to yourself to read what follows, in its entirety."

Question:
Did you lie when you stated on 12/31/06 on InvestorVillage that:

"I am not behind antisocialmedia.com, offer it no support, it has nothing to do with overstock. Technically, I do not "know" who out there is behind it (the person who is behind it has made an effort to shield me from that knowledge), though admittedly, I have a very good idea."

Link here: http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=3532&mn =2964&pt=msg&mid=1084880

Respectfully,

Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO & convicted felon)

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

Hi Sam, Since you continue to use English in an odd and idiosyncratic way, I'll need you to clear up something you said, and then I will be able to answer you in short order. You correctly state that on May 9, 2006, I issued a press release that included this quote: "Overstock.com Chairman and CEO Patrick Byrne said, 'I may be the first CEO in history to celebrate receiving an SEC subpoena.'" Now Sam, when I issued that, was the assertion I was making true or false? Set aside whether other CEO's before me had celebrated or not: was the assertion that I had received an SEC subpoena true or false? Let me know your answer, then I can clear up your confusion in about 25 words. Patrick

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

I see, JimmyB, that you have ably demonstrated mastery of the ability to parrot the party line (or should I call it "The 'Because I say So!' defense?). But somehow I missed something: your answer to SEC Chairman Cox, Commissioner Atkins, Dr. Leslie Boni, and Former Undersecretary of Commerce for Economics Dr. Shapiro is... what exactly?

SEC Chairman Chris Cox (July, 2006): "abusive naked short sales...can be used as a tool to drive down a company's stock price to the detriment of all of its investors. The Commission is particularly concerned about persistent failures to deliver in the market for some securities that may be due to loopholes in the Commission's Regulation SHO... The need for Regulation SHO grew out of long-standing and growing problems with failures to deliver stock by the end of the standard three day settlement period for trades..... Selling short without having stock available for delivery, and intentionally failing to deliver stock within the standard three-day settlement period, is market manipulation that is clearly violative of the federal securities laws."

Dr. Robert Shapiro, former Undersecretary of Commerce for Economics: "There is considerable evidence that market manipulation through the use of naked short sales has been much more common than almost anyone has suspected, and certainly more widespread than most investors believe." "This type of stock manipulation has occurred in many hundreds and perhaps thousands of cases over the last decade... Illicit short sales on such a scale or anything approaching it point to grave inadequacies in the current regulatory regime."

Bradley Abelow, a former DTCC director: FTD's "occur as a matter of course with great regularity," adding "fails to deliver of securities is endemic."

SEC economist Leslie Boni described the FTD problem as "pervasive," calculated the average persistency of failures as 56 trading days, and showed that the ailures are intentional (as their distribution is highly non-random).

SEC website: "The grandfathering provisions of Regulation SHO were adopted because the Commission was concerned about creating volatility where there were large pre-existing open positions" (those are the same "large pre-existing open positions" whose existence they were denying only a year previously).

SEC Commissioner PAUL ATKINS: "Other recent rulemakings by the SEC can be neatly described by a single four-letter word that is the source of many nightmares for securities operations professionals. That word is 'fail.' Fail is an especially appropriate word to describe the substance of one of these rulemakings and the process and theory of the others. The first rule making is the pending proposal to amend Regulation SHO. And this relates to the noun form of the word 'fail', as in 'fail to deliver.' ... The need to act was clear. From all the reports, the backlog of unconfirmed trades, which, of course, essentially are fails, and the widespread and unchecked use of innovations in the credit derivatives markets had crippled risk management efforts and set the stage, really, for a massive meltdown in certain defaults scenarios."

Bloomberg Markets' Bob Drummond: "A robust market for stock loans puts into circulation billions of borrowed shares that can create multiple votes that corrupt corporate elections." As a result, "In close contests with little room for error, the results of high-stakes company decisions may hinge on the invisible influence of millions of votes that shouldn't be counted." According to Thomas Montrone, CEO of Registrar & Transfer Co., "It is an abomination... A lot of the time we have no idea who's entitled to vote and who isn't. It's nothing short of criminal." Another securities consultant notes, "There are votes cast twice on almost every matter of substance... It definitely can and does, in my experience, affect the outcome of corporate elections and proposals." "Securities Transfer Association, a trade group for stock transfer agents, reviewed 341 shareholder vote

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

You mean, the same few tired hacks whose deep analytic insight somehow causes them to variously and independently come to write hatchet jobs on precisely those firms that about 5 hedge funds short, over and over again and with complete predictability, wand ho are facing exposure in what could turn into the most massive financial scandal of our lifetime... THOSE tired hacks come out and denounce me? Wow, what a surprise.

Patrick

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

Here you go, James. Hot off the press: a news release from AMEX about that thing you say doesn't happen.

American Stock Exchange News Release

Exchange Release

Media Contact: Mary Chung

American Stock Exchange

212-306-1641/ mary.chung@amex.com

AMERICAN STOCK EXCHANGE ANNOUNCES TWO DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS FOR VIOLATIONS OF REGULATION SHO SHORT SALE RULES

NEW YORK, July 31, 2007 - The American Stock Exchange® (Amex®) today announced two final disciplinary actions for violations of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Regulation SHO short sale rules in connection with trading activity in threshold securities, which occurred on various options and equity exchanges. In the first action, Scott H. Arenstein and his firm SBA Trading, agreed to a fine of $3.6 million, disgorgement of $1.4 million in trading profits, a censure and a five-year suspension from Amex membership in any capacity, including employment or association with an Amex member or member organization during such period. In the second action, Brian A. Arenstein and his firm ALA Trading, LLC agreed to a fine of $1.2 million, disgorgement of $1.8 million in trading profits, a censure and a five-year suspension from Amex membership in any capacity, including employment or association with an Amex member or member organization during such period.

SEC Regulation SHO generally requires market participants to locate shares to borrow prior to effecting a short sale transaction. However, options market makers receive a limited exemption from this requirement when selling an underlying equity security short to hedge options positions established during the course of bona fide options market making activity.

Despite the fact that neither respondent was acting as a bona fide options market maker in the particular securities in question, each of them improperly utilized this market maker exemption to impermissibly engage in naked short selling by failing to locate securities to borrow and then engaged in a series of close out transactions designed to circumvent his Regulation SHO delivery obligations in such securities by creating the appearance of a bona fide repurchase of the securities he initially sold short. As a result of this violative trading activity, they were able to maintain impermissible naked short positions in a number of Regulation SHO threshold securities for a virtually unlimited period of time.

"Regulation SHO is a critically important framework of regulatory requirements designed to prevent and deter abusive short selling and reduce persistent fails to deliver. The respondents' circumvention of these requirements was egregious and improperly contributed to persistent fails to deliver in certain Regulation SHO threshold securities," said Claudia Crowley, Senior Vice President and Chief Regulatory Officer of the Amex. "This settlement should send a strong message to other market participants that trading which involves the improper use of the Regulation SHO market maker locate exemption and circumvention of the requisite delivery obligations are unacceptable and will result in serious sanctions."

Scott H. Arenstein, SBA Trading, Brian A. Arenstein and ALA Trading consented to findings that they violated SEC Rule 203, Article V, Sections 4(h) and (i) of the Amex Constitution and Amex Rule 958 - ANTE. In settling these matters the respondents neither admitted nor denied the charges.

This violative activity was detected and investigated by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), formerly the NASD, acting on behalf of the Amex's Regulatory Division.

The Decisions and related Stipulations of Facts and Consent to Penalty can be viewed at the following link:

http://www.amex.com/?href=/atamex/regulation/dis cipline/at_regdiscipline.html

Someday, I hope, the tech community of Slashdot is going to get that until this problem is corrected, they are just energy-pods powering a Matrix, kept docile with dreams generate

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[jimmyb1967]

I have never said that "naked short selling" doesn't occur. I know it occurs as I'm a naked short seller myself. What I have said, repeatedly, is that "naked short selling", despite the claims made by crooked promoters and inept managements, does not harm corporations or investors. It is the lie that "naked short selling" has harmed anyone that draws me into this conversation. What I have also said is that the "naked short seller" excuse has repeatedly been used as a diversion by crooked promoters and inept management to get gullible, naive investors to buy and hold their over-hyped shares. It is here where the data completely backs that assertion. If you take the time to locate and read the 10-K's and the 10-Q's filed by these so-called "victims", you find the same thing over and over: companies whose managements have thrown their shareholders into a meat-grinder. This is not just some "party line". This is basic, fundamental financial analysis that, sadly, too many investors ignore. Because if they'd take the time to do even a cursory review of these "victims", they'd recognize what a farce your sham movement is.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[jimmyb1967]

At its very core, the financial media's job is to question valuations. When the media first began looking at Overstock.com, there was no personal vendetta. There were simply asking the question, "Does this company's performance merit it's current market cap?"
For as long as I can remember, the answer to that question has always been "no".
I know that's not an answer you like to hear, but even the most primitive of analysts recognized Overstock.com as a capital sink.
Now to your credit, the focus on your fulfillment segment is the right place to be. (Took ya long enough to figure that out.) And your efforts to cut overhead have not gone unnoticed by me.
Even with these token improvements, no reasonable person with any kind of a financial background would look at your outfit and say, with a straight face, "It's worth over 400 million."
If your stock is still over-valued, and it is, then neither Overstock.com nor her investors have been harmed by "naked short sellers".

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

Jimmy,

More of the "Because I Said So" School of Argument. Unsubstantiated assertion piled on top of unsubstantiated assertion piled on top of questions begged. I've seen the routine before: Someone says that breaking the law by naked shorting is bad, the shills reply "But this company sucks," someone makes the mistake of suggesting that maybe the company doesn't suck, then the shills reply that it does, round and round. All the economic analysis is on my side: SEC Economist Boni says it is "endemic," former Undersectrary of Commerce for Economics Dr. Robert Shapiro describes it as disastrous, Professors Finnerty etc. all confirm this, and the SEC itself says on their website that they had to grandfather it lest cleaning up the mess create too much volatility (pretty hard to explain in the case of something that allegedly has no effect). But how about we skip all that and start at the basics: it is "illegal." It has been illegal for 70 years. SEC Chairman Cox says it is illegal. What part of "illegal" is so difficult to grasp? And, of peculiar interest to this thread: why is it that Wikipedia will not permit to appear on its site any information from exposing this situation, even in the form of links to reputable news articles at Bloomberg, Fortune, WSJ, speeches by Senators, statements by SEC Commissioners, etc? Why are all such links disappeared down an Orwellian Memory Hole on Wikipedia? If some enterprising reporter digs into that, and discovers who it is that connects Linda, Gary, and Jimbo Wales, along with Rocker, Cramer, and Herb..... that will become the stuff of legend.

Patrick

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[jimmyb1967]

Where did you ever get the idea that naked short selling is illegal?
There are no laws against naked short selling. It is a procedural violation if performed within the confines of an institution subject to the rules and regs of most of this country's SRO's, but when performed away from SRO member firms, there are no prohibitions.
As for where the actual harm takes place with these companies that pummel their shareholders into the ground, it's not merely my saying so. The filings themselves tell the whole story. Care to take a stroll through some financials?
I'll even let you choose the company. Who's made the most noise about "naked short selling"? Jag Media? Sedona? Novastar? Viragen?
Overstock.com?
You name me a company where managers or promoters have tried to divert attention away from fundamentals with the "naked short seller" excuse and I'll show you a company that's been clobbered by her own management.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

"Where did you ever get the idea that naked short selling is illegal?"

Maybe from the whacky guy who runs the SEC, Chris Cox: "Selling short without having stock available for delivery, and intentionally failing to deliver stock within the standard three-day settlement period, is market manipulation that is clearly violative of the federal securities laws."

Let us start with something simple and work up, Jim: What does "is clearly violative of the federal securities laws" mean to you?

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[jimmyb1967]

It means to me that Cox, who is first and foremost a politician and not a finance person, isn't completely aware of the applicability of the rules and regs of his own organization. (Not exactly a first.)
We find that from time to time in the securities industry. Ever hear of Ralph Lambiase?
The guy's the director of the division of securities of Connecticut... and he can't find his a$$ with both hands. Made a huge fuss over "naked short selling" though. Got his head handed to him when he invested in a couple of pump'n'dump ventures. (Neither of them, to my knowledge, happened to be Overstock.com.) Get this, the goofball actually said, at a round-table, that his getting hammered by those pump'n'dump scams was why he was a regulator instead of an investor.
Well, that's Connecticut for you. But seriously, as for Cox? You can get a politician to say anything. Look no further than your Senator Bennett, the clown who made a fuss over Global Links (blatant scam). Just because some dweeb says something stupid doesn't mean it's true.
Because IF it were true that naked short selling was illegal, YOU would be able to cite that portion of the U.S.C. that says so.
But there is no such code... because it's not illegal.
So... ready for a stroll through Overstock.com's last 10-Q, Skippy?

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[SamEAntar]

To Patrick Byrne:

Do you seriously expect anyone to believe that your press release issued on May 9, 2006 was responding to a personal SEC subpoena that you later received on May 17, 2006?

Is it your position that any person reading your May 9, 2006 press release would have known that you were going to receive a personal SEC subpoena on May 17, 2006?

If it is your position that the May 9, 2006 press release was adequate disclosure of both subpoenas, why did Overstock.com make a disclosure of your personal SEC subpoena about a year later on May 9, 2007?

Is it your position that there are no issues relating to the timing of disclosures by Overstock.com about your personal SEC subpoena?

Do you believe that your public comments on message boards concerning these subpoenas have been consistent with all of Overstock's disclosures in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission?

Why didn't Overstock.com disclose your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006) on an earlier date?

When did each Audit Committee member individually learn about your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006)?

When did personnel at PriceWaterhouseCoopers learn about your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006)?

When did you first discuss your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006) with Overstock.com General Counsel Jonathan Johnson?

If it is your position that there was nothing improper with the delay by Overstock.com in disclosing your personal SEC subpoena, why did the company choose to disclose it at all?

If you truly wish to clear up this issue, why not respond to each of my questions individually in a clear, unambiguous, and truthful manner?

Respectfully,

Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO & convicted felon)

Jimbo admits that the edits were oversighted

[Blissyu2]

This is now being discussed openly (ish) on the Wikipedia mailing list. After an investigation uncovered that some of SlimVirgin's edits to Pan Am 103 had been oversighted: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007 -July/078241.html and that there was a Wikipedia Review topic that thoroughly investigated the oversighting at the time: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007 -July/078266.html http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=186 4&hl= http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=113 5&hl= Wikipedia has been forced to admit fault here (after dozens of deleted edits from Crum375, ElinorD, Jayjg and SlimVirgin, including many blocks to people who linked to Slashdot). They have now added it to the Wikipedia Signpost: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_S ignpost/2007-07-30/In_the_news The speculation about whether this issue is true or not should end now. It is true, confirmed by Jimbo himself. The only question now is what we should do about it.

Re:Jimbo admits that the edits were oversighted

[Blissyu2]

Don't tell me I forgot the link to Jimbo's confession: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007 -July/078336.html If its possible, could someone move that up in to my post above? Thanks.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

I forgot I was dealing with the lunatic fringe here. Let me see if I got this straight: The Chairman of the SEC, a lawyer and former Congressman, with numerous fellow Commissioners and staffers around him, including the head of market regulation, testifies under oath to the United States Senate to the effect that something is illegal, and the Connecticut state securities regulator says it is illegal, and a Senator drills in on the clear fact that our nation's settlement system is broken due to these illegal practices, and you say it is not illegal because, well, just because. Because this guy is a clown, and that guy is a politician, and someone else is a dweeb.

Did I miss anything?

Tough to argue with that type of logic.

Returning to the real world, Jimmy, there is a laundry list of regs being broken (e.g., the affirmative determination rule). But I am out of here because I am confident that the average reader who has followed will understand by this point that you have been flattened, and that you are not debating, you are typing. I suggest you read today's release from the AMEX regarding the precise regulatory violations which you have been instructed to assert are all imaginary (let me guess the content of your counterargument: "But the AMEX are all ugly!" Did I get it?)

NEW YORK, July 31 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Stock Exchangeà (AmexÃ) today announced two final disciplinary actions for violations of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Regulation SHO short sale rules in connection with trading activity in threshold securities, which occurred on various options and equity exchanges. In the first action, Scott H. Arenstein and his firm SBA Trading, agreed to a fine of $3.6 million, disgorgement of $1.4 million in trading profits, a censure and a five-year suspension from Amex membership in any capacity, including employment or association with an Amex member or member organization during such period. In the second action, Brian A. Arenstein and his firm ALA Trading, LLC agreed to a fine of $1.2 million, disgorgement of $1.8 million in trading profits, a censure and a five-year suspension from Amex membership in any capacity, including employment or association with an Amex member or member organization during such period.

SEC Regulation SHO generally requires market participants to locate shares to borrow prior to effecting a short sale transaction. However, options market makers receive a limited exemption from this requirement when selling an underlying equity security short to hedge options positions established during the course of bona fide options market making activity.

Despite the fact that neither respondent was acting as a bona fide options market maker in the particular securities in question, each of them improperly utilized this market maker exemption to impermissibly engage in naked short selling by failing to locate securities to borrow and then engaged in a series of close out transactions designed to circumvent his Regulation SHO delivery obligations in such securities by creating the appearance of a bona fide repurchase of the securities he initially sold short. As a result of this violative trading activity, they were able to maintain impermissible naked short positions in a number of Regulation SHO threshold securities for a virtually unlimited period of time.

"Regulation SHO is a critically important framework of regulatory requirements designed to prevent and deter abusive short selling and reduce persistent fails to deliver. The respondents' circumvention of these requirements was egregious and improperly contributed to persistent fails to deliver in certain Regulation SHO threshold securities," said Claudia Crowley, Senior Vice President and Chief Regulatory Officer of the Amex. "This settlement should send a strong message to other market participants that trading which involves the improper use of the Regulation SHO market maker locate exemption and circumvention of the requisite delivery obl

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

Hi Sam the Crook,

"If you truly wish to clear up this issue, why not respond to each of my questions individually in a clear, unambiguous, and truthful manner?"

Ummm, could it be because collecitvely they number in the thousands, and I cannot say I've ever actually read one of your postings closely?

I really want to help you here, Sam, but I just need to know how you are using the English language, because it seems a little disjoint to me. When you answer this question, I will be able to understand your verb tenses, and general sense of reality, enough to answer your questions. So let us try again:

When I, on May 9, said that I was the first CEO to celebrate receiving an SEC subpoena, was I telling the truth about being a CEO who had received a subpoena, or not?

Get back to me with an answer, and I'll be able to make sense of your questions, Sam.

Patrick

PS In case any member of the public wanders by, please understand that this guy I am conversing with is a convicted felon who ratted out his own family to reduce his own jail time. Recently he was kicked off of YAHOO (no easy feat, that) for threatening children (see below). Because he apparently has absolutely no moral center, Sam has in recent months become a favorite of hedge fund choagies like Herb Greenberg, who is promoting Sam so he can have someone new with whom to practice crony journalism. Next will be, I am sure, a flattering pieces in DJ by Carol Remond, a write up in NYPost by Roddy Boyd, a Fortune cover by Bethany McLean, and a special WSJ profile by Karen "We-can-do-this-the-hard-way-or-the-easy-way" Richardson (that is, that pack of independent journalists who randomly happen to cover precisely those firms shorted by Rocker, Cohodes, Ackerman, Steve Cohen, Einhorn, Dan Loeb/Jim Caruthers, etc., over and over with complete regularity in a way that is, all observers are clear, entirely coincidental). Seriously, check it out: http://antisocialmedia.net/070714-antar.jpg

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[jimmyb1967]

I still see no citation of any portion of the U.S.C. that prohibits naked short selling.
(Probably because there is none.)
But be that as it may, let's take a look at some cold, hard data from a company supposedly harmed by "naked short selling".
Now if, as people like you say, there was really this damage taking place, then this company's shares would be artificially depressed by the detrimental effects of "naked short selling", right?
So I've got six quarterlies on this company in front of me. The first thing I notice is their dwindling revenues. They used to have trailing 12-month revenues in excess of $800 million. At their current rate of decline, they'll finish the year around $710 million. Maybe, if they could stop their bleeding right now, they wind up the year at $750 million... if they're lucky.
Obviously, this is not a growth company even though it was touted as such last year.
I look closer at these quarterlies and see that this company has endured over $100 million in losses over the past year as this contraction in revenues was taking place. In the past six months alone, their tangible common equity has been halved and now stands at $29 million. At their current pace of losses, that tangible common equity will be extinguished by the end of the year.
There have been a few minor improvements. At first glance, their overhead seems to be improved. But then you look closer and you see that the improvement in overhead was the result of their cutting their advertising by a third.
Still, you can't rule out a possible turn-around. Maybe they stop the bleeding for this year and next and manage to start growing again. They're in a super-competitive environment where margins are thin, but it's still a remote possibility.
Then I looked a little closer and I saw that their bone-headed management went and wasted over $60 million accumulating treasury stock while the ccompany was still cash-flow negative.
Ouch.
What would you pay for this company?

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[jimmyb1967]

Oh. And the AMEX?
They're another SRO. I am not affiliated with the AMEX and I don't do my naked shorting through any of their member firms. Therefore their regs do not apply to me.
It'd be kind of like someone saying that criticizing NBA refs is illegal and then pasting an article about all of the fines Mark Cuban has had to pay as proof. Yes, Cuban's role subjects him to fines if he criticizes NBA referees. No, criticizing NBA referees is not illegal.
Slashdot probably isn't a good fit for you. Your penny- stock grifter tactics seem to have a much more receptive audience over at Investor Jonestown.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[SamEAntar]

To Patrick Byrne:

Why are you dodging my questions?

Overstock.com, you, and others working in collusion with you are under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Will you admit that Overstock.com and you are the focus of an investigation by the SEC? Are you afraid to answer questions about the SEC subpoenas?

Therefore, I ask you to answer my questions again.

Do you seriously expect anyone to believe that your press release issued on May 9, 2006 was responding to a personal SEC subpoena that you later received on May 17, 2006?

Is it your position that any person reading your May 9, 2006 press release would have known that you were going to receive a personal SEC subpoena on May 17, 2006?

If it is your position that the May 9, 2006 press release was adequate disclosure of both subpoenas, why did Overstock.com make a disclosure of your personal SEC subpoena about a year later on May 9, 2007?

Is it your position that there are no issues relating to the timing of disclosures by Overstock.com about your personal SEC subpoena?

Do you believe that your public comments on message boards concerning these subpoenas have been consistent with all of Overstock's disclosures in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission?

Why didn't Overstock.com disclose your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006) on an earlier date?

When did each Audit Committee member individually learn about your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006)?

When did personnel at PriceWaterhouseCoopers learn about your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006)?

When did you first discuss your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006) with Overstock.com General Counsel Jonathan Johnson?

If it is your position that there was nothing improper with the delay by Overstock.com in disclosing your personal SEC subpoena, why did the company choose to disclose it at all?

If you truly wish to clear up this issue, why not respond to each of my questions individually in a clear, unambiguous, and truthful manner?

Respectfully,

Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO & convicted felon)

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

http://antisocialmedia.net/070714-antar.jpg

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

Regulation SHO requires, "...a broker-dealer, prior to effecting a short sale in any equity security, to 'locate' securities available for borrowing...Specifically, the rule prohibits a broker-dealer from accepting a short sale order in any equity security from another person, or effecting a short sale order for the broker-dealer's own account unless the broker-dealer has (1) borrowed the security, or entered into an arrangement to borrow the security, or (2) has reasonable grounds to believe that the security can be borrowed so that it can be delivered on the date delivery is due. The locate must be made and documented prior to effecting a short sale." See Securities and Exchange Commission, 17 CFR Parts 240, 241 and 242, Release No. 34- 50103; File No. S7-23-03, http://www.sec.gov/rules/final/34-50103.pdf. "As with other provisions of Regulation SHO, this provision requires good faith conduct by where the broker-dealer did not in good faith believe that the customer would deliver the securities in time for settlement, the broker-dealer cannot borrow or lend securities to deliver when the customer fails," ibid, footnote 112. Regulation SHO goes on to state that, "Bona-fide market making does not include activity that is related to speculative selling strategies or investment purposes of the broker-dealer and is disproportionate to the usual market making patterns or practices of the broker-dealer in that security. In addition, where a market maker posts continually at or near the best offer, but does not also post at or near the best bid, the market maker's activities would not generally qualify as bona-fide market making for purposes of the exception. Further, bona-fide market making does not include transactions whereby a market maker enters into an arrangement with another broker-dealer or customer in an attempt to use the market maker's exception for the purpose of avoiding compliance with Rule 203(b)(1) by the other broker-dealer or customer." That will be all.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[PatrickByrne]

Should the market determine that, Jim? Or should it be, "The market determines it, but one group gets to print up millions of fake shares that never deliver"?

More to the point of this slashdot thread: Why is it that on this subject alone (well, virtually alone), all the normal rules of Wikipedia are suspeended regarding POV, citations, records of the discourse being disappeared, etc? And why does the woman involved in that, SlimVirgin, also so up in a select few other subjects as one for whom the rules of Wikipedia do not apply? What about Gary Weiss, a one-time Mob reporter who now posts thousands of times per year on stock message boards, and Wikipedia, under a variety of sock-puppets? Why did Gary feel it necessary to defend notorious Russian mafia leader Berezovksy and trash (anonymously) the work of journalist Paul Klebnikov, before Paul was murdered in Moscow (and days before Gary left BusinessWeek under mysterious circumstances)? What do Herb, Linda Mack, and Gary, along with David Rocker and Jim Cramer, all have in common?

Answer: XXXXXXXXX

Patrick Byrne

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[SamEAntar]

To Patrick Byrne:

You continue to dodge questions about the SEC subpoenas. You have falsely claimed that "heart of the investigation is not...Overstock-centric."

However, Overstock.com, you, and others working in collusion with you are under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Will you admit that Overstock.com and you are the focus of an investigation by the SEC? Are you afraid to show transparency by answering my questions? Again I ask you to answer the questions below.

Do you seriously expect anyone to believe that your press release issued on May 9, 2006 was responding to a personal SEC subpoena that you later received on May 17, 2006?

Is it your position that any person reading your May 9, 2006 press release would have known that you were going to receive a personal SEC subpoena on May 17, 2006?

If it is your position that the May 9, 2006 press release was adequate disclosure of both subpoenas, why did Overstock.com make a disclosure of your personal SEC subpoena about a year later on May 9, 2007?

Is it your position that there are no issues relating to the timing of disclosures by Overstock.com about your personal SEC subpoena?

Do you believe that your public comments on message boards concerning these subpoenas have been consistent with all of Overstock's disclosures in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission?

Why didn't Overstock.com disclose your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006) on an earlier date?

When did each Audit Committee member individually learn about your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006)?

When did personnel at PriceWaterhouseCoopers learn about your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006)?

When did you first discuss your personal SEC subpoena (received on May 17, 2006) with Overstock.com General Counsel Jonathan Johnson?

If it is your position that there was nothing improper with the delay by Overstock.com in disclosing your personal SEC subpoena, why did the company choose to disclose it at all?

If you truly wish to clear up this issue, why not respond to each of my questions individually in a clear, unambiguous, and truthful manner?

Respectfully,

Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO & convicted felon)

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[jimmyb1967]

Absolutely the market should determine its value, Skippy.
But the "market" is not confined to mouth-breathing, gullible bagholders, though I'm sure you wish it were. It includes short sellers, "naked" and "borrowed". And the attempts by crooked promoters and inept managers to restrict short selling of any kind merely leads to markets with artificially over-priced securities... a condition that can only be detrimental to the interests of investors.
As for Wikipedia's refusal to let crooked promoters and inept managers junk up their site with misinformation and lies regarding naked short selling and its effects, that's a decision they're certainly entitled to make.
As it turns out, it's the correct one.

Re:Do NOT go to Gary Weiss for advice on comupters

[WriterJudd]

That last message brought to you by Mantanmoreland (Gary Weiss) himself. You can always spot his writing based on:
1- His absolute inability to correctly identify "spyware"
2- His unusually accurate self-identification as "Anonymous Coward."
3- (Though not applicable here) his singular fixation on the word "nauseating."

I'd recommend avoiding Gary's blog, not for it's infestation with what Gary himself thinks is spyware, but for the utter lack of any content of redeeming value to be found there.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

To Patrick Byrne (CEO of Overstock.com):

White Collar Fraud Blog Item Title: Patrick Byrne (CEO of Overstock.com) Dodges Questions about SEC Subpoenas and Plays Games

http://whitecollarfraud.blogspot.com/2007/08/patri ck-byrne-ceo-of-overstockcom.html

Respectfully,

Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO & convicted felon)

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[SamEAntar]

To Patrick Byrne:

White Collar Fraud Blog: Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com, Dodges Questions about SEC Subpoenas and Plays Games

Link here: http://whitecollarfraud.blogspot.com/2007/08/patri ck-byrne-ceo-of-overstockcom.html

Respectfully,

Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO & convicted felon)

For comprehensive coverage of this scandal:

[Blissyu2]

Wikipedia Review has compiled a comprehensive research in to issues related to this scandal: http://wikipediareview.com/blog/20070802/comprehen sive-coverage-of-the-slimvirgin-scandal/

want some more details?

[Anonymous Coward]

an interesting read
http://www.geocities.com/Berlet_archive/virgin.htm

I'd like to read the book soon.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[Berkstock3]

I agree with Patrick. When Overstock starts making money will he then be proven Wrong about Naked Short Selling of Stock being a problem? Great point and this point has been Won by Patrick.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor crazy Patrick. Nobody takes him seriously.

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[SamEAntar]

To Patrick Byrne:

Title: Judd Bagley, Director of Communications at Overstock.com, stalks a teenaged blogger

Link here: http://whitecollarfraud.blogspot.com/2007/08/judd- bagley-director-of-communications.html

Respectfully,

Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO & convicted felon)

Re:A new HIGH for Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Byrne's hiding under his desk I see. That figures.