Fair enough. Having interfaced with Merkey personally, I'll be the first to admit that he's got some extreme beliefs. Yet, on this topic, the things he told me are consistently borne out by external, objective facts. Jeff told me Jimbo claimed that in return for Y he would do X and, indeed, Jimbo did X. Normally, that would seem a little extreme, but in the wake of the Rachel Marsden situation, it seems rather consistent.
Still, I can understand where you're coming from.
GWH,
Almost everything you've just written is untrue.
Either you know that and don't care, or you're happy to repeat any libelous thing told to you.
One way or the other, the world needs to know that this is the caliber of person regularly elevated to the level of "admin" on Wikipedia.
Wrong. He wrote the entire article himself. Look at the article history. Gary Weiss is Mantanmoreland, Lastexit, and 70.23.245.232
And yet, believe it or not, those who attempted to restore some reason to this madness were the ones who were permanently banned from Wikipedia (myself included).
Jeff Merkey may very well be litigious, but in my experience, he's not a liar. Let's be sure to separate the two issues.
Jeff first told me about being shaken down by Jimbo Wales for Wiki-protection money in November of 2007. We discussed it multiple times in the interim, until I first wrote about this situation last week on my blog, AntiSocialMedia.net.
Over the months, Jeff's story has remained consistent and the facts as he describes them to me are easy to correlate with the historical record.
That, combined with the recent revelations of Jimbo trading favorable article treatment for "female companionship", convinced me that I could confidently blog about this situation.
It's my hope that now others, similarly extorted, will find ways to tell their stories.
That might be the case if only Wikipedia were a social network. According to WP:NOT#SOCIALNET, "Wikipedia is not a blog, webspace provider, social networking, or memorial site."
Instead, Wikipedia is the modern day library at Alexandria, or so they'd have us believe. However, to be included in this library, you need to know the secret clubhouse handshake and sign various loyalty oaths. And never, ever, disagree with the head librarian.
There have been many attempts by the media to describe conflicts of interest on Wikipedia, and even some of the baffling injustices there. But this story is groundbreaking in that it is the first I've seen accurately describe what's really going on behind the scenes at Wikipedia, and Jimbo Wales' apathy (at best) or complicity (at worst).
Corruption infects Wikipedia to the core, and I predict it's only a matter of time before we see either a massive shake-up or a spectacular meltdown.
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.
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.
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."
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Fair enough. Having interfaced with Merkey personally, I'll be the first to admit that he's got some extreme beliefs. Yet, on this topic, the things he told me are consistently borne out by external, objective facts. Jeff told me Jimbo claimed that in return for Y he would do X and, indeed, Jimbo did X. Normally, that would seem a little extreme, but in the wake of the Rachel Marsden situation, it seems rather consistent. Still, I can understand where you're coming from.
As mentioned in the Register story, the emails are reproduced here.
GWH, Almost everything you've just written is untrue. Either you know that and don't care, or you're happy to repeat any libelous thing told to you. One way or the other, the world needs to know that this is the caliber of person regularly elevated to the level of "admin" on Wikipedia.
Wrong. He wrote the entire article himself. Look at the article history. Gary Weiss is Mantanmoreland, Lastexit, and 70.23.245.232 And yet, believe it or not, those who attempted to restore some reason to this madness were the ones who were permanently banned from Wikipedia (myself included).
Jeff Merkey may very well be litigious, but in my experience, he's not a liar. Let's be sure to separate the two issues. Jeff first told me about being shaken down by Jimbo Wales for Wiki-protection money in November of 2007. We discussed it multiple times in the interim, until I first wrote about this situation last week on my blog, AntiSocialMedia.net. Over the months, Jeff's story has remained consistent and the facts as he describes them to me are easy to correlate with the historical record. That, combined with the recent revelations of Jimbo trading favorable article treatment for "female companionship", convinced me that I could confidently blog about this situation. It's my hope that now others, similarly extorted, will find ways to tell their stories.
Instead, Wikipedia is the modern day library at Alexandria, or so they'd have us believe. However, to be included in this library, you need to know the secret clubhouse handshake and sign various loyalty oaths. And never, ever, disagree with the head librarian.
Corruption infects Wikipedia to the core, and I predict it's only a matter of time before we see either a massive shake-up or a spectacular meltdown.
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.
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."