Since there are many new WR readers who are oblivious to my history with Wikipedia, I have restored an old hivemind page. About a year ago I switched to the current hivemind format, because it looked like my bio might come down. It had already been slowly trimmed back during late 2006 and early 2007.

The old hivemind focused on my situation with Wikipedia, while the new hivemind became a "Wikipedia Accountability Project" featuring admins and above. The admins who were on the old one were transferred to the new hivemind, and new people have been added during the past year.

Too late to attempt an explanation for yourself now. Two wrongs now make a right do they? - You're pathetic.

Giano

Two wrongs now make a right do they? - That makes Wikipedia pathetic too, there are no excuses for Wikipedia, they were first!

First for what, exactly?

Wow, there some irony in this post. Sort of circular logic. I'd unpack it, but I think it just stands as sublime..........

Take your head out of the sand , and listen for a moment.
I thought you had been following these threads.

First?
How about abuse of BLP and privacy issues, some of them concerning Mr Brandt amongst others. Wikipedia did it!! Everything else follows.

It's in the gift of Wikipedia to reform and change, or, a court will do it for them some day.

Sometimes two wrongs do make a right. Even three lefts make a right.

There isn't anything pretty about stopping bad people from doing bad things. You can be nice to them. You can be reasonable to them. You can love them. This works sometimes. In other cases, it works not at all, and that is why we have a civil tort system and a criminal justice system.

Would there be a civil and criminal justice systems in a society which intended to have an ethically perfect government? Yes. So long as it had to deal with ethically imperfect citizens and institutions, I cannot see how possibly not. They might not be exactly the civil and criminal systems we see today, but some form of both would exist, so long as people who insist on being thoughtless bastards despite all polite feedback, exist.

Now, we exist in a state of anarchy when it comes to web-violation of privacy. Society and its formal rules have not yet caught up with Moore's law here. Thus, when bad things happen, it's up to we citizens to do the best we can, just as though in the middle of a natural disaster when the national guard aren't here.

We've tried being reasonable on WP. That doesn't work. We've tried being nice. Ditto. So now, we're left with retaliation. Turning the other cheek is not an option when the other party WANTS you to turn the other cheek, so that they may continue to use and abuse you, for their own gain.

I will not stand for it, you hear, Giano? Your ethical arguments in the other direction have been carefully considered, and rejected. If YOU personally want to turn the other cheek for the bastards who run WP, be my guest. But frankly, in reading your TALK page, you've made way too much fuss to be a good cheek-turner. So do it, and suck it up, and shut up. Or not. One or the other. But don't WHINE, if there's nothing you're willing to DO.

If most observers believe, as I do, that NYB was the unfortunate victim of unjust retribution for the sins of the Wikipedia community, then there arises an opportunity to demonstrate the concept of restorative justice. This is a variety of justice that seeks to heal those who have been harmed, rather than to punish those who have caused harm.

What could those of us who deplore the harm visited on NYB (and Alison, and others) do in the way of restorative justice to heal their wounds?

Oh I hear you, but you are going to have to stand for it, or sit, if that is too much - it matters not which. I see people here trying to wreck the RL career of a perfectly innocent man because you can't post on an internet site, a site you think is no good anyway, is that fine? - is that good?Destroying Brad has set your cause back years. If you can't see that then surrender now, because from where I'm sitting you have not shot yourselves in the foot, but far worse - up the ass.

Giano

"Because", what, now? Do you swallow this little wikimyth?

It's said that "an eye for an eye makes everyone blind". So, Brandt thinks WP has committed a wrong, so he takes extreme action, which leads some on WP to think Brandt has committed a wrong and makes them retaliate, which makes WR want to retaliate against WP, which makes WP want to retaliate against WR, and on and on. It's a lot like the Mideast, though without the actual killing.

Oh, I couldn't agree more.

But when you have teenage Wikipedia editors making blog posts suggesting Daniel Brandt is a [redacted], then what is he meant to do?

Personally, I'd sue if someone made such a blog entry about myself.

Up the ass!!
Is it sore, 'cause you are a member here too, and I could see only a very few people on WR advocating Brad's exposure. No laws broken either, AFAIK. Free speech, censorship, and all that comes into play here. Should WR pretend that Brandt and his cause don't exist, create a information embargo?

I think the best remedy is for Wikipedia remedy the causes, and not to shoot the messenger. Or else this goes round and round!

I, and many others here, don't wish to post on WP.

And

Brad's a lawyer in cutthroat NYC, fer chrissakes, he's not destroyed. There's little chance he could've lasted 20 years in that profession with a thin skin.

I certainly prefer the newer (accountability) version. Again, in my opinion it is best to document the identities without demands or respect to conduct. I do understand the history and sympathize with how it developed as a means of assisting efforts at negotiating.

Do you accept submissions of additional information of IRL identities of admins? I think if others could submit such information it would be good to add it after vetting. I also think it might be good to remove entries if people resign, but only after a reasonable period, perhaps relating to the statute of limitations for defamation.

Also I just noticed your archives of IRC logs. That is a nice addition.

I can't see how you're going to make the argument that simply posting Brad's name "destroys" him (what, he's not in the phonebook?), while at the same time not that Wikipedia's quarter of a million BLPs, most of them subject-unauthorized and full of unsavory information in many cases, don't destroy THEM. Why aren't you 250,000 time more upset over one thing than the other? It looks like a real double standard to me, as in splinter and beam in the eye.

Given the standards for behavior in attorneys, do you suppose any of Brad's prospective clients are going to read his WP comments (snore), and go to another attorney because of them?

Somebody said that an eye for an eye makes everybody blind. But a splinter vs. a log in the eye just makes one person blind. One causes real harm by means of shear scale, and the other is just irritating.

Which one? The box at the bottom of this page or the new IRC logs I put up yesterday?

The new logs are boring compared to the stuff I tried to log in 2006. But I need the Google juice from the 640 new pages. Like someone said on WR the other day, I'm a decent poker player but I hold a mediocre hand (compared to Wikipedia's Google juice).

I've always seen Hivemind as a tiny one-page encyclopedia with low notability standards. Wikipedia arbitrarily sets its own notability standards, why can't Brandt?

Ways that Hivemind is better than Wikipedia:
Brandt is accountable for what he has on Hivemind.
Brandt does not allow Hivemind to be edited by the general public.
Brandt will gladly correct any inaccuracies on Hivemind.
Hivemind is not scraped by 600+ other websites, spreading bad information that can never be fully purged.

What business does Wikipedia have claiming the moral high ground? You could argue that they have no ill intent, but that doesn't wash. They are wide open to people who do.

"Accountability" is one thing. It's quite another to list people who actually do reveal their identities, including some who don't actually edit, under a banner that proclaims "It is a criminal offense to harass someone while hiding behind a screen name", even if said people don't actually engage in such harassment (and indeed might actually be advocating for victims). The NYB thread was proof positive that Hivemind is about retribution, not accountability (where was that picture about "calling in the Googlebots?"). The standards for inclusion are as variable as Wikipedia's own; are you including all admins? people who side against you on the BLP issue? people who just tick you off? It's certainly not "anonymous teenage admins who harass you", no matter how hard you try to claim that. Nor is it limited to "admins and higher". Perhaps you should explain away the misconception that identifying yourself and/or removing the admin bit gets you off hivemind?

Which is not to say Wikipedia does any better, and indeed I'm not quite a fan of real-name accounts being labelled sockpuppeteers, trolls, and the like, nor do I find the majority of BLPs to be beneficial to the "encyclopedia" (if your definition of encyclopedia does indeed fit). The keep arguments for the Brandt article were pretty much in the vein of "Keep because if we delete then he wins WE CAN'T HAVE THAT CAN WE"

I'm sure glad Daniel Brandt isn't a firefighter. Then he'd learn that flamethrowers aren't sufficient tools for dealing with fires.

Oh wait, I'm 17. Guess that means my opinion's as good as cow dung.

If you are 17, then you are in an excellent position to demonstrate that a young person who is one-third the age of Daniel Brandt can have three times the level of ethics of Mr. Brandt, despite the fact that Brandt studied social ethics in grad school.

These Giano clown has a pea for a brain.

I can has cheezburger?

Cheezburger for an Italian? Blasphemy..

Well, it can't be suffering succotash, either, because that would be too much like self-cannibalism.

And don't even mention the problem with the blood and guts.

Your opinion is highly valued, sir. I highly doubt Daniel will respond to this, as he's ignored all similar comments, but excellent post!



{{fact}} I don't believe this - did he really study it? Where's the proof of this? I'd like to see some evidence. Will we get it?

Mr. Brandt, what would it take for you to take Hivemind down for good?

You say that in a self deprecating way but you don't really mean it. Though in fact it IS just about true. Any opinion you have at 17 is really not that worthwhile. You are not very well educated, you have very little real life experience and your people interaction skills are a minimum. Not to mention the likely parroting of what you are taught at home and god forbid at church.

The great author Harlan Ellison likes to point out that people are NOT entitled to their own opinion. This becomes an all too familiar rally cry here in the United States. But it is BUNK. Because people are really only entitled to their own INFORMED opinion. I would never opine on your kidney stones because I don't know anything about them.

So you have an opinion about Ethics. Yet you seem to support WP which is ethically compromised every step of the way. It also violates the law of the United State, the United Kingdom and France at the very minimum. You have the opinion that Brandt is wrong for what he does. But that opinion IS worthless because you really have no idea what you are talking about.

Grow some pubes. Leave the computer screen. Lay down with a girl. Smoke a bowl. Live life. Come back in 5 years and see if Google fixed the whole online pedia thing.

In short, Get over yourself.

Adopt the Durova "dead-tree standard" as policy.

Anyone want to explain to me how this is unreasonable?

All you have to go on is Brandt's claim to that effect:


I asked Daniel to elaborate, but so far I have not obtained an answer:


Daniel may have attended Stanford and/or Berkeley, but I have not been able to confirm that.

In 1992, Brandt published "An Incorrect Memoir" in the December issue of a UK periodical called Lobster, in which he writes:


Whether "in Berkeley" means UC Berkeley is unclear.

This should be a Wikipedia "essay", or at the least what everyone should do rather than fuck around the intarweb.

Get out. Get laid. Open your mind, try things you never would do otherwise. Smoke a bowl, drop acid, get rip roaring drunk out with friends. Laugh.

I told a well-known (well, hated around these parts) WP admin that once in an email conversation, but not quite that bluntly. Some time after, they did mostly vanish for quite some time, and came back much more low key, quiet, and worked much more on content on the site, and no where NEAR the pace or volume they used to.

I'd like to think they're happier now, at least...

Maybe you should go reread my post, where I actually said I was unsupportive of Wikipedia's practices, before giving me your "informed" opinion.

I'd say it's less a matter of ethics and more a matter of common sense. Yes, Wikipedia has problems. Major problems. That said, we abandoned Hammurabi's Code a looong time ago, and it doesn't take any sort of education in ethics to notice that (for example) Lar is neither hiding his identity nor harassing anyone.

Oh, and your attitude about my age is another matter I'd like to weigh in: the ageism of some of y'all here is just mind-shattering. If you're so much more mature than a 17 year old, try to find an argument other than "shut up and let the grownups talk, little kid" - that is, something that actually addresses my argument. On a similar note, I like all the whining about "anonymous and/or teenage admins". Looking through the "notable editors" subfora, how many of those are minors? For that matter, how many are anonymous? Taking that into consideration, the assertion that age makes your conduct somehow justified seems ridiculous.

How about you do something you're actually good at, like producing movies? Transformers was awesome. Its plot was certainly more coherent than anything you've posted in this thread.

The fact that you (and you alone) think that being 17 makes your opinion matter more instead of less kind of says it all. There is nothing more anyone can say. I'm reminded of the young Nazi in the penultimate scene of SOUND OF MUSIC. Plummer says, kindly, that "You'll never be one of them "(Nazis) and the boy blows his whistle, basically saying I AM TOO. Because he doesn't get it. Being a Wikipediot is NOTHING to boast about. When you realize that your opinions will start to be wise.

ZOMGodwin.

I'm not the one using my age to justify leveling insults at other members. And I'm not a "Wikipediot" - I have less than 150 edits. :-/

Oh, and "Nazi" is such an overused insult it's lost its effectiveness.

As is the "Us or Them" mentality. It's not as black and white as "Good vs Evil". The movie industry's getting to you, methinks.

SPAMBOT

BAMPOST

I thought I would rid wikipedia of a rather unnotable entry http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=209570319

Unfortunately your attempt to make wikiepdia better is making the militants more determined than ever and damage limitation harder than ever. You and the militants are both behaving like children. To quote my Mum "I want bash your silly heads together" to knock some sense into both of you. Perhaps you think your tactics will destroy wikipedia but if you do you are deluded. Hopefully you no longer feel the need to move to Finland.

See... you need EDUCATION

I was not insulting you and calling you a Nazi- there were Nazis in that movie.
You edit so you are a Wikipediot.
My age has little to do with the validity of my insults.
And what makes you think that it is NOT Us V Them?

That, Col, is just plain silly, call a fool a fool buit call an intelligent man a peabrain makes you look the sillybilly

I should set up a trollbooth on this highway. I could improve my revenue stream.

Frankly, Daniel, I don't understand why you don't just make it a project to identify all Wikipediot Management Personnel. The fact that Wikipedia and the WMF do not do this themselves is a major oversight — HaHa — and I think that it would represent an essential public service to supply their lapse. This would then end all the dancing around about who is "notable" and who is not.

Jon

We need to sort out the notable from the not able.

I have got a simple, Haille Doable, request Squeaks. Delete my entry and keep it deleted and I will forget I ever heard of or saw your cesspool site. I have better fights to wage. There is no RIGHT or reason to keep my bs article. Delete it and I will notarize in writing that no one will ever hear from me again.

Otherwise I have every right to cause your site as much trouble as I freaking feel like.

Lol, really, over a blog post?

It depends what you mean by [redacted] I suppose, as I'm not sure to what you are referring. If a blog just says someone's a knobend that's one thing, if they accuse them of being some kind of major criminal, that's another.

You are being Rasta Ridiculous. I am NOT fighting for the right to edit on Wikipedia. I am fighting for the right not to be involved with you plebes.

It's hard work. About half of the admins I have attempted to research produce dead ends even after an hour or two of clicking around the web for each one.

So sue then.

Yes, but even making a complete list of Adminions, Bureaucraps, Etc. and filling in the available slots of the Minimal Adequate Data Set (MADS) would tell the Public something significant. The blanks would speak volumes.

Jon

Value of Time and Money munchkin. But it will come.