I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned this mess yet.

Now, it must be perfectly clear to most of you who have been following the story thus far that I'm far from being a Folantin Fan--It would be much more logical for me to say that he's been meat-puppeting with Moreschi for too long and that he's finally gotten his just desserts...However, in reading this material, I'm not so certain that it's as simple as all of that. I'd like other eyes to have a look at this material.

What got him in trouble is summed up in this essay: Fascism on Wikipedia: the National Bolshevik Party : now, I'm no expert on this subject, but reading through the diffs, this threat of banning on his talk page, and this comment as well as other clues on a previous version of Folantin's talk page make me wonder exactly what is up here?

Topics concerning Chechen people, Russian politics etc are probably the center of a great many disputes. Laying aside the issue of "who is right" in terms of general morality: who is right here in terms of the MMORPG that is Wikipedia?

Hmm.....It looks as if Moreschi is going to file another "Mother of all arb cases" regarding these Russian Nationalist issues....Watch this space...

Well, Bishonen is IMO a troublemaker admin, who has several sockpuppets impunely, with full tolerance of the clique.

I say that without knowing yet who is the Russian and who the Chechen in this story, kind of difficult to follow because many links are not diffs but dead links to items that do not exist anymore, at least at those adresses.

S/he is not admin anymore but his sock Biszhilla is? How can that be accepted at all?

It seems that to be in her 'clique' you mostly need to write a FA or create good content. As far as 'cliques' go, this is one I wouldn't be ashamed of belonging to.


I'm not sure I understand this, but I suspect she switched her adminship to Biszhilla to voice an opinion about the quality of Wikipedia admins in general. Just a guess, though.

The same person has control, and everyone knows who it is?

What's wrong with being blocked by a dinosaur?

Who knows? Wikipedia, as you may have seen from our discussions, doesn't really have any good rules that can't be gamed. The "NPOV" idea that content needs to be represented in proportion to reliable and verifiable sources for various POVs presumes that somebody somewhere has an overall idea of what those proportions actually ARE. Well, often they don't, even if they're experts in the field. And Wikipedia has no way to tap into the opinions of experts on such matters (proprotional representation of POVs) even if they existed. So you're screwed on NPOV from the get-go. Wikipedia just won't admit it. However, as far as I can see, for the stated reason, there is no way to even approach any controversial problem from within Wikipedia's stated set of ideals.

So how, you may ask, does WP get anything written, at all?? On any matter, not just Russian nationalism and whatever. Answer: by ignoring its own guidelines. People write aboout the POV that interests them and they mention others as they go, if they can, and sometimes they don't even do that. Then, others come along and add from their perspectives-- hopefully without doing much deleting, but rather by addition. Then, third parties collect similar material, and often there are POV-forks with spun-off articles and summaries, to keep waring factions, and differing perspectives and POVs, decently apart.

This all works actually pretty well, unless some group of people decides that they need to control everything in terms of one philosophy (like the scientific POV, or something). That does NOT work, and I speak in total sympathy with science (believe me). Yet even so, I've stooped to re-writing totally anti-science articles, if doing so fixes up a POV which is coherent, and keeps things aesthetically attractive, so that everything is in its proper "place." Being an inclusionist, I think that any coherent POV (even totally gonzo ones) need as good a representation as they can get, almost as if you were a lawyer hired to represent them, until they start to repeat themselves. All I ask for, is that the competing POV(s) be available as a one paragraph summary somewhere in the same article, with appropriate links, so that the poor schlub reading the (well-written) dreck about Communism or or some conspiracy, or whatever, is only a click away from getting out of the insanity. But meanwhile, let the nuts have their article-space. And forget the space limitations or trying to proportionate POV according to RS and VS. WP is not paper. And often nobody who has the intellectual authority to do this, even ON paper. So thank goodness for paperless encyclopedias, which get us out of the space problem which actually is what forces something like an NPOV policy.

You see the irony? NPOV with proportional POV coverage, is ONLY necessary if you have terrible space problems. WP, which has this policy, doesn't NEED IT. The irony is that the only encyclopedia (Wikipedia) which does NOT need NPOV, is the one that claims to worship it, and yet has no resources to even begin to implement it.

However, again, ignoring NPOV apportionation is my personal view of how to write a paperless "encyclopedia of everything". WP is actually only run that way as a default, when nobody can figure out how to abide by its stated policies. Which turns out to be most of the time.

Yes, again, that's ironic. But I'm okay with irony. Life wouldn't be much fun without it.

I'm not sure I understand why this individual has at least two sockpuppets (LittleStupid is the other one, if I don't recall badly - and maybe there are more) with full tolerance of the system.

And I certainly do not understand how can admin privileges change from one account to another.

The rules are the rules, and admnis, if any, must (read: "should") abide to them first and foremost those are admins and other people with responsability and that supposedly are to set ethic example to the rest of editors.

And gaming the system to set a counter-example is also forbidden by policy (don't recall which one though).

It's WP:POINT. One of the dumber rules on Wikipedia, since it basically prevents people from being taught by (well-placed and carefully chosen) negative example. Which is the only way some people will learn. (As discussed, alas, narcissists don't even learn by turnaround-- they only feel persecuted. But not everybody screwing up WP is a narcissist; some of them are able to see the lesson if they realize the results of what happens if the same rules apply everywhere, instead of just selectively.)

Hypocrisy really, really needs rules like WP:POINT. Otherwise it would be laughed and exampled out of existence.

Everyone doesn't. This is the typical Wikipedia attitude of "I and a few friends know, so everyone (I care about) knows". Remember that Wikipedia is (or should be) the community of editors, who are way too many and normally don't get too involved in Wikipolitics. The common editor is not even considered when doing this kind of malabarisms far away from whatever policy allows.

Multiple accounts are not in any case accepted by policy. Why should admins be exempt? And, if Bishonen was elected as admin, why can she transfer her privileges to another account? Account that she should not have anyhow.

Maybe Bishonen is a good willed admin and editor (though in my limited experience with her sockpuppets, she isn't) but, if so, she's doing hereself and her work no favor by gaming the system so shamelessly. And she is showing no respect for the common of Wikipedians, nor do the ones who support that attitude.



Maybe the rule is absurd (I have more problems with other hypocritical rules, like "assume good faith"). But the case is that it's there. And an administrator, who has been given special powers precisely to execute those rules, should never break them. (Notice that I said "should" - I'm not as naive as to believe most actually do).

Anyhow, thanks for the clarification.