> What was the point of spending years as a productive administrator, making tens of thousands of edits and logging thousands of actions, to implode the whole thing over a pointless argument on an RfA talk page?
Maybe they just honestly enjoyed the work, then they didn't feel like it anymore, and banned themselves.
It let them have the last laugh - they just kept doing what they wanted even after being banned, then ended it on their own terms when they felt like it.
It's not like they lost anything, except the opportunity to perform unpaid work and get more articles written about them from people who cannot fathom someone would voluntarily relinquish some meaningless position.
it means they lost the power to use Wikipedia to promote another scam. The original account was no troll doing it for the lulz, they were after money and possibly actually a group of people. So either this revelation is now fake for whatever reason, or there is more going on. In either case, all of the activity of said admin (Lourdes) should probably be looked at with concern. Possible other scams to be found.
It seems like you are reading into it too much, the account only ever shilled for one company, not that it makes it okay, but that makes it more likely a personal affiliation rather than an admin for hire.
It seems you missunderstood me, I did not say they were for hire. But they were after money. And they got money by convincing students they can get internationaly accepted and sought for MBAs, while they were worthless in reality. And wikipedia was promoting that fraudulent school for 4 years, repeatedly deleting sources exposing the scam. That was organized. And maybe they found new projects to work on after the old got exposed too much, or indeed freelance, sell out their wiki skills to other malicious actors. At the moment it is all not really clear to me.
This person made thousands of other legitimate changes, it seems a stretch to say someone would do all that just as a marketing tactic, that is a whole lot of effort for questionable results. I mean, how many people go to Wikipedia for college recommendations? How many people are going to attend a school they otherwise wouldn’t because they looked it up on Wikipedia? I’m sure it’s not zero, but we can’t be talking about many.
The article I linked claimed, that indeed quite a few persons in rural india believed wikipedia. Also labour in india is cheap, I doubt he did it himself, but payed someone to do it.
In general, many people do trust wikipedia. And PR companies get payed much more, to get some information inside.
Looks like parent reads "for hire" in the more specific "mercenary" meaning, and not in the very generic "old enough to be employed" sense you seem to use.
>>> making tens of thousands of edits and logging thousands of actions, to implode the whole thing over a pointless argument
Sounds to me like deep cover. Perhaps this wasn't one person. Perhaps this was a project run by a team over many years. All those tiny edits? The ability to spin up so many accounts without being detected? Getting privileges to those new accounts? These are the techniques of professionals. Perhaps this was a state actor. Perhaps an advertising agency. Any number of organizations might want to have a high-level wikipedia editor account as a tool for something. The fact that the persona was never clearly weaponized doesn't mean it wasn't there.
There was like 3-4 accounts that we know of. There is absolutely nothing here that that requires more than one person with a few hours of time on their hand each day.
Also their behavior doesn't mesh with being a state actor or organization - why would they throw away their admin account to get a last laugh in an internet argument? Why would their cover be an admin account of bad enough temperament and decision-making that it draws attention to itself and risks getting banned?
I don't know why, but this all reminds me of when I was in secondary school, and many of us were in IRC channels of local ISP's and sites, and things like being channel operator or admin, or getting kicked, banned or k-lined could all give incredible feelings of power or despair. The political structure in the IRC channels and servers could change dramatically any evening, and some would boast about their mIRC war script skills, or things like knowing the cousin of a server admin, the next day in school
That's exactly how Wikipedia operates. The difference is that on IRC everyone was doing it for the lulz. On Wikipedia some editors are trying to improve the encyclopedia while other are there for the power trips. The second group has an inherent advantage over the former group. Improving articles requires one to spend hours researching while undoing that work just requires a few clicks and vague references to POLICIES. This pisses editors off who becomes easy targets for SEALIONING and NPA. Eventually they write "fuck off, moron" which is a personal attack so they get banned and the power tripper wins again.
I think a lot of what people do in life is for power. Everyone wants to feel like they have power, especially power over other people. It's driven many of the recent social and political movements. Those who feel like they do not have power continually fight and struggle against those who they see have power, until they gain a modicum of power and almost universally abuse it.
> Everyone wants to feel like they have power, especially power over other people.
We only need to look to the comments here on HN, where there are usually several people in each post writing "the government should regulate" or "the government should ban", no matter how minute the issue is. I wouldn't be surprised if people here start requiring government regulations for scrollbar widths soon (apologies if they have already done that).
> Those who feel like they do not have power continually fight and struggle against those who they see have power, until they gain a modicum of power and almost universally abuse it.
The rulers know that, so I think anybody who successfully struggles against powers will start getting higher and higher offers until they cave and join the machine. Most will cave at the first offer, because they were really only out for themselves from the start.
The number of similarities between modern leftism and organized religion is uncanny. You've outlined the "blind faith in regulation" aspect but the more you look the more you find. They have their own scapegoat, epic struggle, sacred figures, sacrilege, science denialism, 2nd coming, it just keeps going. I wonder if it's residual from centuries of religious rules ingrained in us. I strongly suspect there's an intermediate between biological instinct/ evolution and learned behavior. I think the leftists are still chained to the pattern of worship just without the traditional deity.
very likely: we have a "channel" in our DNA to worship, from our ancestry (N-thousand/million years ago) where we were starving to death, chasing woolly mammoths. Those who prayed and concentrated/unified their collective energy to make it 1 more kilometer and finally killed their prey survived. Those who gave it "the ole college try" didn't pass on their DNA because they starved.
The idea first really occurred to me when the woke movement gained steam. I saw people wielding ideological positions as a club. Suddenly people who may have felt like they were oppressed and had no power, had a new weapon to oppress and force people they saw as their oppressors to do something they did not want to do. It was almost like a mantra of righteous indignation. "How dare you not agree with my political, social, or whatever position. That makes you a bigot, and I'm going to get you."
The government turned a blind eye to that, and in many ways condoned that behavior. The Internet probably made it worse.
I do not believe that one person has the right, or should have the power, to force their opinions, views, or ideas on another person. Organizationally, that's another story, but as a person, I believe you should have the right to believe and think and feel whatever you want even if it's contrary to everyone else. So long as you're not directly harming anyone. Words alone are NOT violence, unless it is calling for violence, or expressing a desire to cause harm.
The problem with power, and something that's never really been applied to the random individual, is that it corrupts, and the more power one has, the worse it gets.
The issue is that society’s fundamentally work based on social norms, which are enforced to maintain the society. How narrow or broad the norms are vary by society, but the ‘rails’ have always been there.
That you draw the line at violence (in these situations) is a side effect of the particular rails you were raised in, but most societies draw different boundaries. There may still be some situations that even those guardrails aren’t what you think.
Same position for those advocating for pedophilia? Advocating for terrorist acts? Advocating for overturning the gov’t violently?
Agreed. The social norms change. It was within norms 50 years ago to be a racist, or at least make racist jokes and insinuations, today this isn't acceptable.
What is different with woke I believe is that they basically want to force speed-running this social norms evolution. No time to wait for the glacial pace of change of mindsets (generations), we will call out everyone right now. This provokes strong reactions.
The other issue is that not necessarily all progressive ideas will be actually accepted with time, many were/are/will be sorted out, but there's no real chance for this sorting out in woke, where any doubts about particular idea will get you shouted out.
I do believe they are often very racist themselves. They look to judge, not to understand. They are themselves full of prejudice against those they perceive as the oppressor, however unfounded that perception may be. It is a most fundamentalist black/white thinking.
Sure, there is still a difference to the usual racist subject that is unappologically racist. But overall I think woke ideas only entrench it.
The opposition towards woke doesn't exist because it is racist. Most are just opposed to bad ideas.
Example are development for voice actors. Voice actors apparently were only allowed to voice characters that mirror their ethnicity. Now everyone complains about racial segregation. That is a phenomenon that can directly be traced back to "woke".
What I think you’re seeing (and calling out in one group) is cognitive dissonance/protecting delusion, and trying to maintain group ideological boundaries and ‘purity’. When challenged, the lines will firm up and membership ‘policed’. Normal group dynamics.
The US went through similar levels of disruption in the late 60’s and early mid 70’s.
It isn’t just ‘woke’. you see the same reaction in other circles if you bring up vaccines, or gun control, or Jan 6th, or birth control, or religion, or global warming (less so now), etc.
Attempts to bring in information that conflicts with the core beliefs causes something like an emotional allergic reaction. Changing any of these core beliefs is near impossible when someone is in this state, as it pushes them into more overload. With a similar almost allergic reaction.
Most folks in these situations can’t have a rational discussion about them because the reason they are believing them is attached to a fundamental safety thing (deep emotional), not a rational knowledge thing.
Or as I’ve heard before (and seen play out) - ‘you can’t reason someone out of a problem they didn’t reason themselves into’.
As you’re pointing out I think, it’s too much for them to figure out, they get overwhelmed, and start lashing out.
Either ideological ‘belonging’, a need they can’t identify/face, or as a defense mechanism to a weakness or insecurity they can’t admit. All different faces of the same die I suspect.
There are some global, strictly enforced, norms though. That will likely never change in any possible future where human society still exists. Regardless of any other conceivable combination of events, human personalities, culture, etc...
Such as the prohibition on privately enriching uranium.
Do you mean ‘global super power enforced’ hard lines, or social norms?
I’m pretty sure the opium farmers of Afghanistan wouldn’t give two shits about private uranium enrichment, for instance. And would be happy to keep someone’s secret about doing so if they had an incentive to do so.
And while growing and selling opium would be considered a hard social taboo in most places (and the Taliban, for example, regularly executed folks for doing it in those areas of Afghanistan!) the US was more than happy to allow it in exchange for popular support in the region when they were occupying it.
> The government turned a blind eye to that [and this was bad]
> I do not believe that one person has the right, or should have the power, to force their opinions, views, or ideas on another person.
look like a contradiction.
Is the your objection the narrow only one person should not have power over the opinions of others, but two or more are fine? If even many people should not have power over the opinion of others, how could the government "turn a blind eye"? Shouldn't it be "correctly stayed out of it"?
>Those who feel like they do not have power continually fight and struggle against those who they see have power, until they gain a modicum of power and almost universally abuse it.
On Reddit there are powermods who "moderate" hundreds of subreddits. This is not an exaggeration. Hundreds. At least one has/had thousands.
Why do they do this, when they are not paid? When questioned, they invariably say that they "just watch the incoming queue" or something, and the other mods "do all the work". While likely true in the literal sense (again, hundreds), such answers of course completely evade the question.
Remember, "Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People" <https://np.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most_...>. This also applies to powermods, assuming they're not being paid on the side to push some ideology (/r/politics being an obvious example).
Basically, losers who crave ruling a petty fiefdom because it's the only thing they can exercise agency over in their lives. And/or are mentally ill.
Quoting another:
>and for each moderator there are 100 sycophants and narcissists lined up to take their place
Most mods know this, which is why so many surrendered and reopened their subreddits during the recent "protest" the moment admins told them that otherwise they would be replaced. /r/formula1's mods forthrightly said as much; those of /r/nba claimed that negotiations had progressed far enough to justify reopening, which the thousands of replies show that the userbase 100% disbelieves.
Even worse, a) /r/nba's top mod made more than 150 comments to six other NBA teams' subreddits during the blackout. b) /r/nba mods posted secret threads—including the Game 5 discussion that they denied from their own users—and made comments during the blackout. When users discovered the threads the mods of course scrubbed the comments, but there is no way for mods to actually delete (as opposed to hiding) posts, so evidence of their hypocritical behavior will live on forever.
It seems strange that administrators hide behind anonymous accounts on Wikipedia. I know providing who you are in real life has privacy issues for many, and regardless it is not clear there is even a reliable way to make sure someone truly is who they say they are. But it seems that at the administrator level Wikipedia could make an attempt at this.
User Beeblebrox, Wifione, Lourdes... It's weird reading this — like it's some kind of secret club in grade school where everyone has code names.
I know I am not typical in that my user name is my own name. Part of me cast off anonymity on the internet though if for no other reason to keep myself honest in my postings — a deterrent to allowing some kind of alter-ego to shit post and such.
I totally get it, when I think of it from a privacy and personal security point of views.
With wikipedia, it really is a sort of "He who controls the information, controls the world" type of scenario.
Imagine being a Wikipedia admin and editing something that can be viewed as very volatile, such as something religious or political with your own real name visible in the log - that's really scary!
It's not at all a tinfoil hat thing to say that there are people who have the will and the means to take down people such as Wikipedia admins for publishing information which doesn't align with everyone's worldviews.
It doesn't even have to be so political or religious. There are also people who go absolutely crazy over something like someone "disrespecting" their idols or favourite singer or something. If they knew where you lived, they would absolutely drive across 10 states to let you know what you did.
If you edit a page about any Middle-East conflict, or gender - well you can expect at least one, if not both sides to hate you. Even if you were a perfectly rational and objective ideal editor.
I've edited under a pseudonym since about 2015. I approach pages about the Middle East with trepidation; if I edited under my real name, I probably wouldn't edit at all. You'd think there were conflict-free topics, but I haven't found them.
~ Cooking: food nationalists are constantly claiming that Biryani belongs to their nation and nobody else's.
~ History: nationalists again, especially over Turkey, Cyprus, or anywhere in the Balkans.
~ Politicians: most articles about politicians are so bland as to be almost worthless, because anything interesting is quickly excised citing 'BLP' rules.
If I edited under my own name, I'd probably have to stick to articles about obscure botanical species, and places that nobody goes to.
I have no doubt those who worked on the US 2020 election page and pages like "Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election" would have death threats at the very least
I’ve been using this account on HN since 2010. I created a new HN identity because reasons [1]. Some time after I had reaped a bit of karma, I was replying to someone who was being fairly emotional (and a but irrational) in their arguments. Someone else in the thread flagged their next reply. They thought I did the flagging, looked up the domain that matched the handle, found me on LinkedIn, and complained at me in DMs on LinkedIn. I was freaked out a little.
1 - this pseudonym has followed me through many places and it was time for a change
A photo of the person who made the most edits (or something like that) on Wikipedia was posted on social media. And there were a lot of just rude and nasty comments about their appearance. It was despicable.
It’s interesting to me how many online people seem to not understand the implications of this sort of stuff on an intuitive level. Maybe I am the paranoid type but once something goes public these days it’s basically available to anyone in the present and future forever. “Anyone” being state actors like you mentioned down to bored teenagers looking for fun. As the ability to capture our data evolves our autonomy is being eroded, grain by grain.
Wikipedia has always been a secret club. I've always felt the admin's are required to follow a specific social and political mindset. It's not much different than Reddit. Like HN, moderation is only as good as the person doing it, and transparency is next to non-existent.
Whenever he decides to (shadow)ban someone, he usually warns the user multiple times in replies (as evidenced by his comment history). Additionally, if you turn "showdead" on in your settings, you can see all comments even from shadowbanned users or that have been flagged or voted-dead by the general community (I think and hope for legal reasons that this excludes links to legally prohibited material such as CSAM or piracy).
By observing a lack of transparency within his comments; which I don't observe, as I observe the opposite: transparency. It allows him to earn trust, as it makes him accountable.
how do you know he's not just deleting things without comments? plus these are posts as dang, and as the admin he could do basically anything he wants.
fwiw i think there is a good faith effort on their part, but you have no way of seeing anything shady if they don't want you to.
Because then we'd have comments (I have showdead on) which would call him out, and caching and screenshots would provide proof. If he'd resort to harmful behavior the risk is simply too high as it would infract his reputation.
Not every country is setup to handle criticism in a way that doesn't punish the one who is sharing the criticism. Even in "modern" countries like Spain they can (and have in the past) punish you for criticizing the police or the monarchy.
So if you want to write/edit/admin Wikipedia articles about those "touchy" things, you might want to do so under anonymous identity, as otherwise it can really make things difficult for you.
As for Spain, the only case I've heard of is a rapper that glorified terrorism and rapped that he wanted to hang the king in the village square. Is it okay to rap that you want to murder specific individuals, or does that cross the limit of freedom of speech? Is it criticism of the monarchy when you rap that you want to put a noose around the king's neck? To me it sounds like incitement of violence and nothing more, nothing less.
In some other countries it is forbidden to make music that glorifies crime, while at the same time those countries have excellent liberty of speech as well as musical lyrics that are extremely offensive by other standards.
I have a good friend who was harassed in-person in a very damaging way due to their non-pseudonymous work as a Wikipedia admin. Knowing their story, I'm surprised any admins would not be pseudonymous.
Wow. Sorry to hear that. If your good friend is a she then she should get in touch with "Jennsaurus" at Wikipediasucks.co ASAP because Jennsaurus is a journalist who has discovered and compiled two dozen cases of sexual harassment against women editors.
There are ways to verify someone's identity, without exposing their identity to the whole web. I'm a seller on an ecommerce site (not an evil one), and they required me to submit a scanned photo ID and a a piece of mail showing my billing address. My storefront doesn't have my name on it, though.
Because if they acknowledged that marketing agencies, political zealots, and government operatives from various countries have infiltrated Wikipedia it would jeopardize the reputation of the project. They focus on there being few female editors or editors from Africa, rather than that every other biographical article about a living person is written by a marketing agency employee. Naivety as coping mechanism perhaps. The "honest" editors built the site for free, while many others are subverting it for their own gain.
> I know I am not typical in that my user name is my own name. Part of me cast off anonymity on the internet though if for no other reason to keep myself honest in my postings — a deterrent to allowing some kind of alter-ego to crap post and such.
You goal seems noble and born of good faith. I'd go past that to suggest you meant 'positively' instead of honest, because honesty could be inferred.
As a counterpoint (for a very diff use case), I ran a minecraft server and had to strongly encourage young players to anonymize themselves (starting with playernames) and to not share identifying info.
I also explained I would only chat publicly because I was an adult and my chat logs were available to any parent who asked. Not quite the same thing but I was trying to example helpful boundaries. I never got any takers on the logs but doubt that bit ever got passed on.
It's not unprecedented -- you can't turn to a random Encyclopedia Britannica article and see who edited it. You might be able to name the editorial board, however.
> Part of me cast off anonymity on the internet though if for no other reason to keep myself honest in my postings — a deterrent to allowing some kind of alter-ego to shit post and such.
Anonymity provides the reverse as well. Namely the ability to speak your mind without worrying about real world ramifications.
One man’s shit posting is another’s firmly held beliefs!
Probably just like in the most scenarios nowadays: user gets ban and cannot appeal the decision in any way
Perhaps in the basic form of dealing with users who break the rules Wikipedia allows an appeal or bans are temporary - I'm just guessing, I stopped being an active Wiki user some 10 years ago. I didn't want to lose nerves on trivial issues like edit wars with self-appointed experts who couldn't accept they might be wrong.
Also, I've found some 2 days ago that my IP range was banned from anonymous edits because someone somewhere did once something
> How are someone "extremly" banned? Either you are banned or not.
This Wikipedia page [1] explains the different categories of bans in use on the English Wikipedia. Additionally, there are also a couple of handfuls of "global bans" wherein an individual is banned from every Wikimedia project [2].
> How are someone "extremly" banned? Either you are banned or not.
You might be found to have committed 170 different bannable offenses. Banning is idempotent, so there wouldn't be any difference in the penalty, but such a person would be describable as "more banned" than other users.
Similarly, you might be found to have committed offenses which put you well over the threshold for banning. This too would make you "more banned" than other users who were more borderline.
FWIW the clear difference here is that if someone is banned over one thing, their ban might later be reversed if that thing is no longer considered bannable or if opinions on the incident change.
If they did 170 different things, each one warranting a ban, the only way for the ban to be lifted would be for each of those 170 things being dismissed individually.
The same goes for doing one bannable thing but "a lot" or to a very extreme degree. Say, defacing a Wikipedia article with a bogus message versus defacing the entire Wikipedia website with borderline illegal graphic content.
There's arguably no "mildly" banned but this distinction makes sense in a lot of contexts to give a rough idea of context: a corpse is dead but the scattered remains of someone caught up in a high yield explosions are extremely dead as even in a sci-fi story it would be hard to imagine them being "revived", a dainty woman might be pregnant but if she's visibly close to delivery with a pronounced waddle and struggling to get up after sitting down, it would be fair to call her extremely pregnant as there's no denying her state whereas the pregnancy might have been hard to even notice a few months earlier.
English lacks a grammatical signifier for evidence or degrees of confidence (no, the English subjunctive is a poor approximation at best and mostly limited to expressing explicit doubt) so superlatives are a good way to express high levels of confidence. "I am banned" means you're banned but leaves room for the possibility that this might change or be reversed. "I am extremely banned" suggests it's that way now and there's nothing to change that and nobody will likely ever be interested in changing that in the future.
this reminded me of the /KLINEs on the IRC servers. you'd first /KILL someone then you'd KLINE their username if they didn't behave, then you'd KLINE their IP. then there's /GLINE which would effectively do the same thing but for the entire network.
Sometimes "sockpuppet abusers" aren't just banned. They get doxxed on LTA (Long Term Abuse) pages and so on with their IP addresses, locations, habits, names, and even off-wiki activities. Talk about a GDPR violation.
I have a bit of silver lining - I saw an article on Wikipedia about Unicode that was factually incorrect and I edited that anonymously, fully expecting that some overzealous bot will overturn my edit. It’s a few months later now and my edit is still live for the whole world to enjoy!
I retired from admin status earlier this year. Can't stand the environment on Wikipedia these days. You can't even stay out of politics and contribute, ignorant people delete good faith contributions constantly.
I've been editing Wikipedia for 15 years, but I've never wanted to be an admin.
Yeah, I get reverted a fair bit. I very rarely bite back; disputes are incredibly draining of time and energy, and usually pivot on obscure interpretations of Wikipedia policy.
If you look on having your edit reverted as "Someone on the internet is wrong", and don't take it personally, you can just walk away from that article without your blood-pressure getting out of control. There are always other articles that need fixing.
Never sought it either, it was offered to me in the early days (~15 years ago) and I simply agreed. Never much used the powers. I do however think a diverse set of interested people is a stronger community than a small set of policy zealots, and that the Wikiverse has largely lost its way, abusing the significant contributions of a few by rewarding what amounts to negative behavior.
Back in its early days, I used to maintain a few articles on Wikipedia. Then the admins got full of themselves.
Wikipedia is a valuable resource, and it does need editors. However, some people get drunk on a little power, and that us exactly the type of person attracted to this kind of unpaid role.
It wasn't worth dealing with them 15 years ago, and it sounds like it has only gotten worse...
There are two dozen sexual harassment scandals committed by admins and editors which was uncovered by a journalist starting from a year ago. She has finished written the feature story which might get published on the Daily Beast next year.
Is there any chance of the account being hijacked? It would make this act of self-destruction even more bizarre due to the massive opportunity for abuse, though.
A user who claims to be a reporter had said that Daily Beast killed the story about Wikipedia's harassment scandals against women on a Wikipedia criticism forum.
Excerpt with further redaction to profane words:
> For the folks at home, the story I was working on was going to be published by the Daily Beast in Spring 2024. Everything was in place then we had to go to both Wikipedia and the National Archives for comment, as required by law. Archvies wouldn't speak to us and Wikipedia threatened to sue, I suspect because of what we had found out about their administrators. The piece had mainly been about administrator abuse, using cowtools on Wikipedia to trace ip addresses, dox people's identities then harass them in real life. The (Male Victim) clusterf** was a big part of the story, but not the entire story. The real beef of the article was about female editors on their site being stalked and even assaulted after having their identities revealed online by administrators. I found several cases of that including a woman who was stabbed outside her home in Mexico City by a stalker who had researched who she was off of her Wikipeida profile.
> Daily Beast backed out because of the lawsuit threat, but I still have the whole story and might one day sell the rights. For now, its back to Eastern Europe covering real news.
She also disclosed further details about these scandals.
> I gave Daily Beast my story, I'm not sure if they will run it or not. You have to remember the (Male Victim) case is something of old news, as it happened five years ago in 2018. (Perp) and his internet activities were more recent, but he's been quiet now for about two years since I think he actually got a bit scared after his name started popping up on law enforcement radars. I've confirmed he was talked to at least once by law enforcement, mainly about his obsession with the U.S. government worker (Perp) who he had convinced himself was (Male Victim).
> (Male Victim) probably did operate that account about fifteen years ago from what I can tell, but was one of several people who did. (Perp) and his buddies don't like it when their narrative gets spoiled, and refused to ever admit, even with the evidence staring them in the face, that the (Male Victim) account was clearly being operated by more than one person. It was actually (Witness) who confirmed that for me in one of our interviews and had himself spoken to two of the people who operated the account.
> For those wondering, the end game of (Perp) appeared to be blackmail, or some kind of weird plan where he was going to fly to the United States and confront (Male Victim) in person literally at the front door of the National Archives and be some kind of Wikipedia hero - that's how crazy that guy is. He never went through with his plan since, like I said, law enforcement started taking an interest in him especially after it appeared he really did have a plot to travel internationally to a US federal building in Washington DC. What's really ironic is that when all the (redacted) was going down, (Male Victim) didn't even work at the National Archives anymore.
> Also, gotta remember, (Male Victim) was only a small part of my story. In three years of research, I found over two dozen cases where Wikipedia administrators had misused their authority, traced ip addresses, and stalked people in real life. Two of the worst cases ever were (Female Victim A), who some on Wikipedia actually tried to bankrupt as well as a user named (Female Victim B) who apparently there was some type of plan to kidnap and rpe. Not to mention (Female Victim C), who never told me her user name, but was attacked outside her apartment in Mexico City after a Wikipedia administrator traced her ip address and gave the information to her attacker.
> It's actually a wonder no one has been killed yet by some of the people on that web site.
More breadcrumbs about the scandals.
> The (Female Victim D) case was a major part of my recent article, and I spent about a year investigating what happened and interviewed her twice (virtually). What the Wikipedia case didn't report was that those two men did a "trial run" to her village a week or two beforehand and were seen on the street leading up to her home taking pictures and apparently watching her come and go, timing when she would be alone. They were seen by neighbors which is actually how she got tipped off about what was going on, but then the d*kheads started calling her house with both prank and hang up calls. When they came back for "the real thing" she was on her guard and saw them coming. That was also no innocent prank, and it certainly wasn't a misunderstanding where they "got lost on the train" and just happened to wind up on her remote street. I actually think they were trying to kidnap her.
> After getting in touch a friend who in turn interacted with the reporter for more details, I learn that there are also a p-dophile scandal within where one of the corrupt Wikipedia administrator tried to traffick a teenager from Thailand into his home.
> Sorry I have been out of the loop for a while. That question was posted by a man in Thailand named (redacted) and was connected to a rather despicable incident involving (redacted - perp). I'd previously sent the details to this site's administrators.
Imagine if Daily Beast gets its gut together and pull a John Carreyou against Wikipedia next year? The results and impacts could be greater than the downfalls of Theranos, Johnny Kitagawa and Weinsteins combined together. Although the publication schedule was set at next year, there are realistic possibilities that because of WMF legal threats and so on, it could be delayed into the future. Which brings an interesting possibility, what if the Daily Beast feature story is released concurrently with Marvel Secret Wars?
The whole concept of "ban" (like removal) is stupid. Wikipedia should be a tree of various interpretations. With single topic, I want to see texts from all sides.
> Wikipedia should be a tree of various interpretations. With single topic, I want to see texts from all sides.
I can tell you right now that that's a utopian vision.
Most "sides" would be spam. Wikipedia has elaborate filters to keep spammers out, from IP range blocking to URLs you can't use in edits if you want the edit to actually go through. Since spam can be automated, and since there's a person on the other end of that automation hoping for a payout, it seeps into pretty much everything that isn't actively maintained.
> Wikipedia should be a tree of various interpretations
I don't disagree, but this doesn't seem to be remotely compatible with Wikipedia's ostensible mission. Anything hinting of a "point of view" (or that an editor can justify as being a POV) gets swiftly shut down.
> What is written is more important than who writes it. The content must conform with Wikipedia's policies, including being verifiable by published sources. Editors' opinions, beliefs, personal experiences, unreviewed research, libelous material, and copyright violations will not remain. Wikipedia's software allows easy reversal of errors, and experienced editors watch and patrol bad edits.
(note: I'm not trying to claim "articles on wikipedia are neutral, see!" - the linked page simply provides a lot of information and a lot of links about that challenge)
Interpretations should still stay with the facts and be legal. And there are also many attempts to bury facts and interpretations for whatever reason. Removing anyone who is in harsh conflict with the mission of Wikipedia is justified.
I thought about that as well, many articles are controlled by a little clique of opinionated and partisan moderators. It'd be good if there could be forks of certain pages in which certain viewpoints are being suppressed.
All of wikipedia fits on a thumb drive. You can mirror it and host it yourself. Not sure why there's so much buzz around it. And wow! They do know how to spend money there!
Not really. I mean 1 TB microSD cards exist. Look at Kiwix. I've downloaded the English without the images, and the Dutch version with. Easily got them on my smartphone. Useful when I wouldn't have internet but would still like to look something up. Or if I want to have 'absolute' privacy about what I look up on Wikipedia (assuming my smartphone isn't pwned).
Maybe they just honestly enjoyed the work, then they didn't feel like it anymore, and banned themselves.
It let them have the last laugh - they just kept doing what they wanted even after being banned, then ended it on their own terms when they felt like it.
It's not like they lost anything, except the opportunity to perform unpaid work and get more articles written about them from people who cannot fathom someone would voluntarily relinquish some meaningless position.