The drama surrounding SlimVirgin's supposed "outing" as Linda Mack continues to grow. Jayjg, Crum375, and others continue to suppress all discussion of the matter on Wikipedia itself and, from what I've seen, have taken to attacking anyone who discusses it on the mailing lists. It's too late for them, I suppose, to recognize that the best way to deal with such allegations is to passively ignore them. But that horse left the barn last June when Jayjg went on his oversighting spree. We can only hope that the fire that they've kindled and keep feeding burns them all badly enough that they don't ever do it again.
Meanwhile, there's two interesting developments that have come out of this. First, we have Ben Yates calling for a policy requiring all admins to be nonanonymous. His reasoning seems to be that admins are, by their very prominence on the site, likely to come under scrutiny, and by being anonymous they just encourage this sort of "outing drama" that we're seeing right now. This isn't the first such incident; there's been plenty more. Yes, this will reduce the number of people willing to be admins, but I haven't seen evidence that Wikipedia is short on admins; if anything, there are too many.
The other interesting development is Andrew Gray's call for everyone involved in this incident to leave. His argument is that the drama, noise, smoke, and fire generated by the people involved in this situation is harming the encyclopedia, and that the only way to protect the encyclopedia from it is for the involved parties to go away.
Basically these are two sides of the same coin. Andrew's proposal is damage control; Ben's proposal is geared to avoid future damage. Both are right, and I support both of them completely.
Update: Stan Shebs has responded to Andrew's call, calling it appeasement. Stan is, however, wrong. While there may well be some people involved in this who are trying to make Wikipedia fail, in most cases the attacks are from people who are attacking Linda Mack, or attacking something that Linda Mack stands for, or perhaps attacking something that SlimVirgin stands for. The conflicts are personal, and they are focused on the persons involved in this conflict. The departures of these persons will end Wikipedia's involvement in these conflicts. Even most of the people who are seeking to make Wikipedia fail are doing so because of a prior personal conflict with another Wikipedian. Andrew's highly appropriate response is here.
Meanwhile, there's two interesting developments that have come out of this. First, we have Ben Yates calling for a policy requiring all admins to be nonanonymous. His reasoning seems to be that admins are, by their very prominence on the site, likely to come under scrutiny, and by being anonymous they just encourage this sort of "outing drama" that we're seeing right now. This isn't the first such incident; there's been plenty more. Yes, this will reduce the number of people willing to be admins, but I haven't seen evidence that Wikipedia is short on admins; if anything, there are too many.
The other interesting development is Andrew Gray's call for everyone involved in this incident to leave. His argument is that the drama, noise, smoke, and fire generated by the people involved in this situation is harming the encyclopedia, and that the only way to protect the encyclopedia from it is for the involved parties to go away.
Basically these are two sides of the same coin. Andrew's proposal is damage control; Ben's proposal is geared to avoid future damage. Both are right, and I support both of them completely.
Update: Stan Shebs has responded to Andrew's call, calling it appeasement. Stan is, however, wrong. While there may well be some people involved in this who are trying to make Wikipedia fail, in most cases the attacks are from people who are attacking Linda Mack, or attacking something that Linda Mack stands for, or perhaps attacking something that SlimVirgin stands for. The conflicts are personal, and they are focused on the persons involved in this conflict. The departures of these persons will end Wikipedia's involvement in these conflicts. Even most of the people who are seeking to make Wikipedia fail are doing so because of a prior personal conflict with another Wikipedian. Andrew's highly appropriate response is here.
22 comments:
...The conflicts are personal, and they are focused on the persons involved in this conflict...
I've had the impression for a long time, Kelly, that you have some visceral, pathological hatred of Jay and Slim that is entirely personal. It's just my opinion from watching you over the last few years.
But maybe I'm wrong, maybe you're interested in the well being of the project and view these two as a threat to it. But I think it's more likely that they rejected you in some way. Perhaps Jayjg let you know that edit summaries like this and this don't rise to the maturity and decorum expected of arbitrators?
Whatever it is, Kelly, maybe you could convince that I'm wrong, and that you don't have a personally motivated cocklebur shoved up your ass about these two.
The anonymous that just posted above pulled out to edits from 2005, two years ago, which very minor edit summaries. That is very strange and particular, almost no one would be aware of those two comments exception someone intimately involved. This anonymous poster obviously is closely involved here, who could it be?
The number of people that Jayjg and SlimVirgin must dismiss in one way or another is growing by the day.
I wrote an article on the strategies that individuals like Jayjg and SlimVirgin employ to control their pet articles and dismiss their opponents here:
Cabals on Wikipedia: Prerequisites, Characteristics and Tactics of Effective Partisan Groups
Anonymous #1's comments can nicely be represented by the phrase
"Ya'll are just HATERZ!". Lame.
This is anon #1 again:
There is another angle I'd like to introduce here that isn't very pleasant, but here it goes:
Wikipedia has a few editors who focus on certain topics and make the a large number of really great articles, along with shaping up related articles and maintaining standards. These editors generally gain respect and standing in the eyes of the community for their specific knowledge and hard work. William Connley is one of these people. I see Jaygj as another. Unfortunately, I've heard way too many times people refer to Jaygj's work as "Jewish stuff", with a tone that almost drips with contempt. And it makes me very upset. I get the uncomfortable feeling that a person who specializes in science, for example, and does good work is respected, but an editor who does the same on "Jewish stuff" doesn't get the same level of respect -- from certain people. Wikipedia owes Jaygj a lot. He's a great editor who has put up with orders of magnitude more abuse that the average admin, and from some of the most contemptible people the web can provide. I've known Jay's edits for over two years an found him to be one of the most level headed and decent editors - even in one case where he had cause to "dress me down".
So Kelly, you are famous for your "enemies" and "friends". In Jaygj's case, could you enlighten us as to the origins of this dispute? Why are you going after him like a pit bull? Thanks.
The first comment is a classic clique tactic of trying to change the subject from the substantive content of the original criticisms to an attack on the character of the critic him/herself. It's interesting to note, however, that the edits allegedly showing lack of maturity and decorum were done by Kelly in support of banning an editor who was harrassing Slim, so it's rather difficult to see how it supports in any way an assessment that Kelly has a "pathological hatred" of Slim.
The first comment is a classic clique tactic...
Or, maybe it's an astute and accurate observation.
It's a dessert topping and a floor wax!
anonymous said...
"I get the uncomfortable feeling that a person who specializes in science, for example, and does good work is respected, but an editor who does the same on 'Jewish stuff' doesn't get the same level of respect -- from certain people."
I think that is a good cover story, but Jayjg isn't simply a contributor to Jewish history topics, rather he is a very nationalistic and powerful editor who is capable of silencing and removing views which he doesn't like even if the material otherwise meets the standards of Wikipedia.
A great example is the discussion on AN/I today about the many passages removed from the "Palestinian people" article. Jayjg here is attacking Palestinians (and quite effectively I must say) not just simply editing "Jewish stuff." Jayjg is a partisan who is very effective at silencing others. (Another case in point was his crusade and false charges against PalestineRemembered.)
You should read that article I wrote and linked to earlier about how partisan cliques work and then compare what I describe to what is happening on the article on "Palestinian people" in which Jayjg is playing a very aggressive role.
Things are more complicated here. It isn't simply about antisemitism, although if you don't think too clearly and don't really look at what is actually going on, you might be able to get away with that false claim.
There is antisemitism in the world, and Jayjg has dealt with antisemites but you blurring the lines with nonspecifics in order to give Jayjg a permanent free pass on misbehavior. The blurred distinctions here, something that Jayjg often plays up himself (see the PalestineRemembered case I spoke about), is one of the reasons why Jayjg has been able to get away with his abuse for so long.
To anon #1 again: How many pitbulls have you owned? How many has [name redacted] aka Jayjg or [name redacted] aka Slimvirgin owned? Why do you irrationally dehumanize/delegitimize any commentary/commentator contrary to your hyper-strident strictly self-preservational mantra? Could it be that the quasi-imperial collective is pre-emptively trying to shape any following discourse into an easily dismissed purely ego driven construct? Slimvirgin, Jayjg and their obedient rabble can always be counted on to unabashedly cry out theatrically in pain every time they stab at their perceived enemies....funny that.
If Jayjg edited "white" racial topics with the same fervor that he edits topics related to Judaism and Israel, he would not be David Duke, because he would be much more radical than David Duke. You'd have to go back to an uglier time in America, perhaps the early 1950s, to find a prominent American who was as unapologetically pro-white as Jayjg is pro-Israeli/Jewish in his Wikipedia edits and actions. (This is not to say that there are not worse pro-Israel editors than Jayjg; there are, but there were also worse American racists than Bull Connor.)
But anyway, to stop the current drama, maybe Linda Mack should just start participating in Wikipedia under her own name, and stop being such a complete asshole to people. Just a thought.
Another EXTREMELY disturbing aspect of this roiling piss pot is the near incestuous EXPLOITIVE nature of their secretive ego massaging daisy chain, it reeks of rotting self discipline bereft of any semblance of objectivity. Any attempt by ONE OR ALL OF THOSE involved to circumvent a morally warranted temporary suspension of their user accounts to enable a thoroughly non-cursory examination of the evidence abounding would be self prosecuting in my opinion and immediately deserved of placing their accounts into indefinite abeyance. My gut feeling is that many of these selfish machinations are dynamically self enervating and once deprived of the usual acrobatic interventions of their Potemkin protectorate they will devolve to the semi-anonymous electronic dust whence they came.
I have to say, comments #9 & #11 here are surreal - I can't even be sure whose side they're on. It's like throwing-out time at a bar for sociology postgraduates...
Oh you cheeky little monkey! You've learned to mimic the fine art of the infantile evasion expressed as a throw away one-liner! ZZZip back to the hive for a masturbatory celebration dance....
No, no, I'm serious here. On further examination they both seem to be opposed to Jay/Slim, and so inasmuch as there are sides I guess they actually favour me, but really, they're pretty hard to wade through...
"pre-emptively trying to shape any following discourse into an easily dismissed purely ego driven construct"? "a thoroughly non-cursory examination of the evidence abounding would be self prosecuting"? The latter one is Fun With Thesauruses on speed.
I don't use a thesaurus or speed but I am Acadian so I'll beg your indulgence in respect to my mush mouthed afflicted Franglish.
Hey guys, Anonymous #1 again. disregard everything i've just said i suck cocks.
For those interested in Jayjg's use of oversight, I wonder how many times he has used the tool to remove his own edits when he has broken the 3RR rule.
What weird comments you are getting lately.
Anyway, as I said in the most recent post, we've added a link to all 3 of your posts, as well as links to all of the same things you linked to, to our . Well, technically I wrote it, but many of the bits that I link to were written by others, so I shouldn't take full credit.
Have you looked at it yet? What do you think? Do you think it provides more of a full picture of what is going on?
Oh crap. I forgot to close my a href sorry.
Anon #1 here again. Kelly I demand that you do something about my identity being stolen a few posts above ;) I most certainly do not "suck cocks".
It's like throwing-out time at a bar for sociology postgraduates...
OMFG! that's the funniest thing I've read in weeks. And so true.
The funniest thing I have read in years is the panderous wagon circling orgy here:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-August/
OMMFG!
anon1234, if you read this, I thought your article on cabalism was quite good. I think that they are rarely as organised as you imply though. What tends to happen is that likeminded editors turn up, get the vibe, and join in the bashing. It's easy for them to "turn up", because they can look through the contribs of their co-partisans.
And why wouldn't Kelly dislike Jay? Jay is almost entirely detractive from the goal of an NPOV encyclopaedia.
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