Slim presented the situation in a way which sounded like it was saying something that it wasn't, and people here pretended to have no idea what she was talking about. I don't think it's fair to say she cast in a completely different light, not at all. Publicly calling a woman a whore - and that isn't the only occasion - is guaranteed to get a angry reaction. And it wasn't "clever", but a very awkward shoehorn into an unrelated discussion.

I don't think that is quite accurate to say that people here pretended to have no idea what she was taking about - it was quite a stretch to get from sending Christmas greetings to a crass comment made flippantly a long time ago.

Clever - bad choice of words though a perfectly reasonable one to use: simply a "clever" comment not meaning intelligent, and again, without defending a crass and tasteless comment, I was vaguely under the impression that it was simply nasty name calling rather than any serious imputation as to her personal activities - uncalled for, but essentially picking up on a well known old joke. We all do tasteless things at times. But anyhow, that was just one example, I have personally been subjected to more than one of her rapid about turns where an innocent comment is turned into a personal slight - and sure enough, up it pops some time later. She files these battle scars away, festers on them and brings them out as weapons to use as she sees fit.

I'm not sure where to find the diff for it, but I remember in some onwiki discussion (perhaps connected with one of the ArbCom cases or user RFCs related to the ongoing war of the cliques) Slim's loyal servant ElinorD made a point of bringing up a (then at least a month old) quip I had made on the wikien-l mailing list as an example of my gross incivility (to make me seem a hypocrite to complain about incivility of others). The quip was in response to a message on that list in a thread discussing Slim that happened to use the word "fucking", to which I responded "Anyone involved in fucking is clearly not a virgin" (or something like that).

Well, I suppose that is a good reason as to why it is best to take the high ground, but why should the Devil have all the good music?

Under what username? Readers of the Review deserve to know what you're talking about, all the more so since you're a moderator.


If I'd posted that about your wife, mother or daughter you'd not post these kinds of excuses. Even if we do "all do tasteless things at times," we all find occasion to apologize at times and, - as an appointed officer of the Review - you might consider that. Don't give me and other readers this spin where it's somehow okay for supposedly grown men to hang out over here and pseudonymously slag her as a "bitch" and a "whore." This being the leadership. What a disgrace.

Oh, stop it. As we've been through elsewhere, posting here incurs no obligation to reveal one's Wikipedia identity, and your braying will not change that.

Under my real name - and on your quid pro quo basis, if Slim is prepared to reveal her name to defend her slights against others, where she as a matter of course impugns the honesty and integrity of other editors, I am quite prepared to reveal mine. No, didn't think it was much of a risk offering that either. Though I wouldn't like it, being called a wanker, bastard or cunt doesn't bother me overly, being suggested to be dishonest does, because regardless of pseudononymity, it actually does reflect on me.


Oh don't be so deliberately dense, in what sense do you take the words crass, tasteless, nasty name calling, uncalled for a defence? However, it was not my comment, and it is not my role to apologise for it, and H is a big enough guy that if he feels like it he could comment, but to be honest, nitpicking over something said so long ago, emphasises the point. It was lost and forgotten until the target of the comment unearthed it, just for the purposes of revenge.

The point stands, it was a nasty throw away comment, but SlimVirgin stacks it all up, inflates it and throws it all back 10 times bigger.

You vastly overrate my role and status. The masses have made it quite clear that they are not interested in leadership. If you think moving the odd post around and grizzling about Moulton's latest onslaught amounts to leadership, you have gravely misunderstood how this site works.

We at least know who you are, and thus are able (at least in theory) to evaluate this, if you'd like to discuss it further.

You're kidding, right? Sweet blue water is an obvious sock, but quite old, and double voted, what, once? John Nevard isn't SlimVirgin. Sunsplash declares himself/herself an "alternate account", and looks like an anti-La Rouche single-purpose account:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...arget=Sunsplash
Are we certain this is her? Even if so, Selina,- it's completely ridiculous to say that this is "at least as bad as" what Baxter did.

We've published her name over here on many occasions - more than probably anyone else's excepting perhaps Gary Weiss, who richly deserves the scrutiny. As for yours, well, so am I. Readers can't fairly evaluate your conflicts with her without you telling them what they were. Saying she does this or that without reference to specific incidents is prejudicial without being informative.

So hand me, Tarantino and Rootology (for starters) the mod bit, since it's "no big deal." What's the trouble?

It appears you are being obdurate and biased, Proab. This forum, Notable Editors/SlimVirgin, is chock-full of well-documented cases of her abuse, complete with links and citations. If it has also attracted some invective and slurs, that is regrettable but not surprising. Asking for "references to specific incidents", especially when in the presence of so many examples, is a classic Slim/Jayjg tactic, in fact.

Why all this sudden interest on your part in reconstructing SlimVirgin's reputation? She appears to have, for the moment, largely stepped back from both WP admin and editorial duties, so time will tell whether she is, in fact, reformed. However, her long association with Jayjg, who continues his abusiveness and POV-pushing, is enough to give anyone pause in considering her rehabilitated.


To my mind, asking for it is a prima facie reason not to grant it.

There's plenty of room for debate about the merits of pseudonymity in general, but I hope all concerned will take this bit to heart. Well said, Proab.

In some MMORPGs, fantasy characters shoot, stab and slay other fantasy characters. In other MMORGs, pseudonyms insult other pseudonyms, or, if they can accumulate enough gnarly powers, they ban them from the game. The sad aspect of Wikpedia is that there is spillover from these conflicts that affects real life individuals who are not even participants and didn't ask to be included.

Unless I'm terribly mistaken, Hersh, you're among those saying that Wikipedia has consequences that are too serious for it to be treated as just a game. Accordingly, I'm not sure I buy your rationale for why that kind of garbage is acceptable.

You're not mistaken, except about my having a rationale. Hint: I like irony.

Pro, I am not going to debate this further. From my perspective it is a mountain out of a molehill. I don't approve of H's comment, but in my eyes, but clearly not yours, it was a minor thing from some time ago. I do not intend to be dragged into some high drama over what in my mind is a triviality.

Well, you see, I know what the trouble was. I hadn't asked - I was tipped off awhile back that someone had suggested me, but I was rejected because I didn't oppose SlimVirgin and Jayjg.

So it's no surprise to me to see that you, who were made a mod after this tip, have your own issues with SlimVirgin. Having not looked at them too closely, I take no position on their validity, but only observe that Slim appears to have been entirely correct when she said that badmouthing her is an "entry ticket" to the Review.


This pith of wisdom from the site which promoted "Poetlister" to staff.

Hmm, let's see: 1) is a total liar 2) impersonates third parties 3) opposes SlimVirgin and Jayjg. Bring him onboard!

What an aggressively idiotic argument. Two of those "facts" were not in evidence at the time, and the third was not a substantial consideration. I'll also point out that the Poet thing was de-sysoped here before being revealed as a multiganger or whatever.

In any case, that is old news. No doubt there are an equal or greater number of disqualifying facts about you not yet in evidence, but those already extant do seem sufficient. I might point out that you completely dodged the question: Why the sudden interest in rehabilitating SlimVirgin? Enquiring minds want to know.

O RLY?

i'd been surprised that an W-R account hasn't been outed by now as SlimV. She's addicted to reading it, surely she's joined into the fray a time or two.

I'm not aware of any situations here where Linda has been called a bitch or a whore.

A liar? Yes. And the folks who enable her adminship on WP are worse.

The El Reg today went overboard speculatiing on Byrne and the Virgin having had a rollnzeehay.
He just asked for a french fry, the virgin cried, and 20 years later she got her revenge with her email buddy Gary Weiss on wikipedia.

That was after getting her wikirevenge on Pierre Salinger.

That part hasn't made it to the Reg yet. The Virgin is getting more notable in the Reg. You can tell Metz is getting very interested in Slimda....

Yes. Poetlister was de-sysopped by Somey on July 29, more than a month before the first post in your secret thread about him. PL's behaviour toward other members here and deletion of Guy's posts tipped the scale.


Prescient of me, wasn't it! Of course, many had suspicions, but many more were taken in! And, of course, I also noted, 18 months in advance, the essential conundrum of the PoetGuy affair -- his actual Wikipedia edits really weren't all that bad. Why someone would wish to spend so much time establishing those personae still confuses me.

But back to the question at hand: Why the sudden interest in rehabilitating SlimVirgin?

I sort of got the impression that Slimmy was indulging in a bit of wishful thinking about the nature and extent of the changes that would occur around here in the wake of PoetGuy's Big Exit™. Specifically, she'd gotten it into her head that PoetGuy was guilty of several of the more vitriolic and/or ludicrous accusations against her, most of which were actually made by others (most of whom have already been banned from WR, though admittedly not for that specific reason.)

The fact is, PoetGuy actually tended to elevate the general level of civility and decorum around here, and most of his posts about Slimmy were completely non-speculative, hardly full of insane accusations and conspiracy theories. I don't really blame Slimmy for not accepting that, since the fact that he (apparently) came up with one of the more important clues that led to Slimmy's identity would certainly have been unforgivable from her perspective. And obviously, he never let up on the "she got RachelBrown blocked!" theme either, but I suppose that was to be expected, at least in retrospect.

Slimmy's problem with respect to Wikipedia Review has always been tied up with her Wikipedia problem in general. There was a time when, it seemed, she felt that if you banned someone from an interactive website, whether by hook or by crook, the person is supposed to just vanish, disappear, never to be heard from again. And if they don't disappear (i.e., they appear elsewhere, and are angry about what happened), it's somehow just not fair, as if the banning didn't work, so you have to keep banning everyone whom you think might conceivably be that person until it does work. I suspect she's improved considerably during the last two years, but there was clearly a time when, in her mind, the ban-button represented some sort of "kill," as in "that's it, no more you!"

Having said that, I myself am not averse to removing some of the more egregious material about Slimmy - most of it is just the lunatic ravings of Blissyu2, and a few other people who are no longer with us (and who might also be desperately and irretrievably confused about who the owner of this website is). About 90 percent of that material is out of public view, but I can sort of understand why that's not good enough for her.

Ehh, fuck it. like i've said elsewhere, she brought it on herself, and obviously digs the attention. the gigabytes of text spent discussing SV is a testament to her power, even in her current weakened state. she enjoys this.

the hilarity of it to me is the extent to which the community supported her from the beginning, when it should have been obvious that she was up to no good in writing an article on Brandt, for one thing, to begin with. They completely followed her line in making Brandt out to be the evil guy, and later the Bagley incidents took the same course. the community believed her, believed they were defending WP from some malignant trolls who were only trying to protect themselves or their interests from malignant influences on WP. never have i seen an on-line community so effectively manipulated, or united, in mass numbers behind one person's idiosyncratic agenda before.

she is far less interesting now that she is less effective, but she is still the subject of conversation.

In retrospect, that looks like it was largely Gary Weiss's doing. He hooked himself onto the bandwagon, onto the "harassment meme" and exploited it - and by extension, SlimVirgin - for his own ends.

Yes, but it's like with those toxic home loans-- for every predatory lender there's a predatory borrower, and it takes two to tango.

SlimVirgin and Jayjg and David Gerard and ultimately Jimbo Wales should all have STAYED THE HELL AWAY from a big financial argument between Gary Weiss, and his proxies, and Patrick Byrne and HIS proxies. Unless they all have degrees in economics that I missed. Jimbo actually has some academic training and experience in the stock market, but he zeroed that out by saying he'd never sold a stock short in his life. Okay, Jimbo, we take you at your word. Now, toodle off, will you?

As it was, the whole WP Kabal ended up supporting Weiss and his socks against all comers. Irrationally. And past the point where it was apparent to all but morons that Mantanmoreland was a sockpusher of a far more dishonest variety than Wordbomb. And with the economy going down the tubes and the naked variety of short-selling looking worse and worse, it turns out that the powerstructure of WP backed the wrong side.

But NONE of them will ever admit error. Because that's the kind of people they are. They're never wrong, even when they're wrong. And THAT, more than anything else, is why they make me crazy.

weiss didn't know slim had a history with byrne prior to the time she hopped into it. she dove into that shitestorm headfirst with glee. oh mr wordbomb, may i please see your socking evidence against mantan? i'll take an objective admin look at it and surely wouldn't pass it on directly to mr weiss without your knowledge. I wouldn't have anything personal against byrne at all! I was just passing by.

she played gary. i wouldn't doubt they identified each other to each other and shared journalism empathies and letsfuckbyrne yukyuks. they had a lot in common professionally and personally. hacks posing as journalists who had a grudge with the same guy.

too bad those schneider emails probably just detail mostly his stock forum and common hedge fund buddies NSS propaganda exploits (that is what schneider, his email correspondent was involved with him in) against byrne and apparently few wikipedia ones.

I was under the impression that I was invited to be a mod because generally speaking I didn't go around crusading, had some vaguely relevant points to make, and clearly have too much time on my hands.

I thought I was fairly independent of the other mods, in the same way we all are - even more so now that PoetGuy has gone.

It is probably wrong to characterise me as an Anti-Slim faction. Yes, I really don't like her - I had the idea that Wikipedia was a good place, and just needed a bit of common sense; once supplied we could move on. I was shocked at the intransigence and illogic of the policy pages, and could not understand why 3 months of considered debate, coping with every hurdle thrown in the path of discussing a policy change, can be set aside as no consensus to change, then Slim or one of what I now know are the usual suspects swept into town, merrily changes things on a whim and this sticks because she is a "well-respected admin." It wasn't Slim that bothered me, rather than the culture that supported this blatant abuse. You should know that, as you've PM'd me in the past. For reference, I think my irritation with Slim I summarised best here.
The path to WR is a well trodden one. Minor conflict. Sense of injustice. Learn to use talk page of another user. See other user sweep aside discussion. Confused bemusement. Call on confused bemusement. Dawns that other users are involved. Query other user if they are aware of how they appear. Get the brush off. Discover AN/I. Watch talk page (without even realising it, due to the watch feature grabbing stuff). See other incidents. Realise there is a pattern. Sense of injustice leads to deeper involvement. Deeper involvement leads to research. Research leads to WR. Sense of not being alone. Join in the "Me Too!". Kept nose clean, not obviously insane (unlike some regular posters!!) potential mod.

I am troubled as you seem to have me marked down as corrupted in some way. Is it just because that last set of posts triggered your Slim button, or was there something that I did generally that made you decide I was a friend of PoetGuy (which I certainly was not, which did not make me unique among the mods) and therefore am the spawn of the devil?

Generally speaking, I am not of the destroy Wikipedia crowd - the issues are common Internet issues and it would therefore be better to use the mass of Wikipedia to sort these issues out. I do think that the WMF and Jimbo are at best incompetent and have failed in their duty of care, yet this is not insolvable. The ideal for me would be that sufficient reform took place at Wikipedia that this site evolved into a proper literary criticism site rather than a WikiPolitics campaign site.

So that's where I stand. I did not express any view either for or against you being a mod. I would suggest though, that every now and again, you have these moments of righteous indignation and that has led the moderators as to being unsure as to whether you would remain calm in a crisis.

Durova and Georgewilliamherbert have admitted that they were mistaken in which side they took at first. Hopefully, some of the other, involved admins will come clean and admit the same thing so that the episode can be put to rest.

I remember on wikback I asked (her position at the time was that this is what justified passing it on to unspecified* "other admins" [who, one imagines, relayed it to Mantanmoreland entirely without her knowledge or approval]) if it wasn't perhaps a bit irresponsible of SV to forward a message containing 'spyware' to others.

Her response was that, well, she only thought it might contain spyware. In that case, I respond, is that really a strong enough reason to justify disclosing something shared with you in confidence? No answer.

*She never said who she sent it to, and to this day there is no evidence that anyone but Mantanmoreland received it.

I've received a complaint about the above post. Please disregard that "speculation" in favor of the facts listed below.

(emphasis mine)

Thanks for the clarification. Perhaps the person who complained to you about your first post could come here and answer some questions from all of us, since WikBack is kaput? I think the posters here would respect his/her willingless to enter this forum and would be professional and respectful in their interactions with the person in question?

Somehow I doubt they would. Without going into too many details, I have not been impressed with many people here's attitudes towards this person.

I disagree with this position, but I know where it comes from. Slim, if she turned up here, would not want to answer all the questions that people had for her about her past abuses of the system. These would be seen as attacks, when in fact the other perspective is that her actions in many cases were indefensible.

So she would come here and have to endure the give-and-take without the ability to ban people who ask rude, impertinent, or angry questions. If she did that for a comparatively short period of time, I think she would be accepted here as we accept Lar, Alison, and other pro-Wikipedians. If she can't take that, then she should indeed stay in the cloister.