People who want to be administrators on one of the most important websites in the world need to behave like serious adults. They don't actually need to be serious adults, but they need to act like it on Wikipedia. Bishonen has always had an obnoxious predilection for this kind of junk--I still remember her "European toilet paper holder" stunt--but exercising admin powers through a joke account far exceeds the limits of what should be tolerated.

Y'know, James, you're absolutely right - or at least, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong. That is a disrespectful and arrogant thing to do. Unfortunately, on the list of things that are wrong with Wikipedia, that one's probably on Page 6 or so, along with "failing to remove AFD tags from kept articles in an expeditious manner" and "visually distracting sig templates."

I don't suppose we can all just concede the point, and maybe not worry about it quite so much for a while?


Indeed, I'm afraid so. Another example of applying real-world standards to the interwebs, I'm afraid.

Damn straight!

Come now FT2. Its a simple question (that you snipped). Please clear this up for me:


You seem to have written the most disgraceful fringe POV protection article on the face of WP:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lon...use/HeadleyDown

Now you try to claim ignorance on what goes on at WP.

You run a fringe POV pushing sockpuppet and then ditch it when you get close to your first request for adminship

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=27742611

Now that seems to follow a similar pattern of corruption with your fully fledged go at trying to gain power.



I'm not a despised person at all: According to your neurolinguistic programming/zoophilia protection page you seem to want to include just about anyone critical of those subjects into your fire and brimstone rant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lon...use/HeadleyDown

According to your "formal documentation" above, anyone who criticizes your belief systems (coincidence?), regardless of how much useful editing they produce, can be damned to hell and despised.

The reason you get flack and get discredited, is because you have proven yourself to be utterly discreditable. Anyone can do it. They only have to look at the diffs.

Its nice to see non-promotional editors on said fringe subjects have stopped getting summarily dismissed from WP at last or dissuaded from editing the article. Again, I'm not optimistic about WP at all, but its refreshing to see at least something getting sorted out right. e.g.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=264228694



Could you manage to actually deal with the sticky subject of your sockpuppet's fringe pushing diffs now?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=25825503

Docknell

I always thought European Toilet Paper Holder was quite funny, very funny in fact. Oh well no accounting for taste! Don't forget Bishonen was the one,who by blocking FT2, brought this matter to a head and sorted. Everyone, including FT2, should be thanking her. I'm glad FT2 is taking this opportunity (albeit slowly) to finaly give some answers. I don't see much "dignity" in remaining silent while one is pilloried as the worst kind of pervert. I've a feeling he doesn't either now.

No one will ever be happy with all his answers, or beleive them, but at least by giving them people have a choice about what to beleive - before they had no choice but to assume his silence meant it must be true. Personally, I don't think he is as bad as he's been painted, any more than a doctor interested in VD must be a syphlitic habititual user of tarts.

Giano

Yes.

But a year on from Jimbo vs Rachel Marsden - and two years on from Essjay - and three years on from etc... etc... - one would have imagined that a long term editor who has reached the lofty heights of the Arbitration Committee would have figured that out by now.

When the Co-founder of the Project and the Visual Talisman is himself constantly embroiled in personal drama - you should get an idea what you have let yourself in for when you supported his hive. Wikipedia is a drama engine - a defamation machine etc etc. Most of the Drones, the Worker Bees and even the Queens that support it discover that in the end.

One of the ironies of dramaturgy is that a characteristic reckoned as the greatest weakness is also the greatest strength.

Wikipedia excels as a drama engine. The obvious thing to do is to repurpose the site to be what it already does best.

Just advertise the site as the Internet's premier drama engine, hosting the most enthralling post-modern dramaturgy the Internet has to offer.

Either way it is an honor serving the community, and I bear none ill-will

Mwahaahaahaahaa!

That, Giano, is the biggest steaming pile I've ever heard you say. "They had no choice". There's always a choice. Many decided not to assume, and not to spread hearsay for kicks. Where were you in that choice? I fucked up on trusting a bit too much, and brought some of the inevitable consequences on myself, I'm not denying it. But what you actually mean is "They found it easier to defer to the crowd's mood and join in the antics". Pack instinct. Lucky there weren't any alleged witches to burn as well, right? Because they "had no choice but to believe"? Not so heroic that way, is it? A bit slimy, though undeniably all too common.

A number here, to their credit, didn't do that. But what they did was stay silent and let others do so, even knowing it was irresponsible. Makes them as responsible as the first lot.



I did that because nobody else was trying to sort it out. Idealistic yes. Also prepared to back that with sleeves rolled up and hard work. My choice. What wasn't my choice was a crackpot theory that owed more to a cheap well-thumbed stroke-book and gullibility than anything else -- and an entire site willing to collectively lap it up and spread it on. That's what I figured wrong, isn't it? Ignoring would have worked with Damian alone, or Damian and a couple of others. It was the mass buy-in to his wet dream that I didn't allow for, right Kato? Not Damian himself.

This is precisely where I came into this horror show. But when I came in (back in August 2007), the subject wasn't FT2. Nope, nope, nope. When I came in, the subject was a hundred sincere scientists about whom IDCab had concocted and published a notorious crackpot theory, unsupported by a shred of evidence.

The practice of concocting and propagandizing crackpot theories about living persons (be they subjects of BLPs or Wikipedia's own remarkable cast of characters) is a ubiquitous practice in the Wikisphere.

It's a practice I railed against (as Kato can attest) and it's a practice that Jimbo personally reified when he intervened to site-ban me with extreme prejudice for having the temerity to take up arms against the blood-thirsty witch-hunting cabal.

So, as they say, what goes around comes around.

I'm sorry to see it happen to anyone, friend or foe.

And now I hope FT2 will join the movement to put an end to these damnable scapegoat dramas.

What is most disturbing about your advocacy for at least tolerance of the view that sex with animals is under certain circumstances non-exploitative and perhaps in some sense a normal state of affairs is that it almost exactly parallels Erick Mueller's documented views that sex with children under certain circumstances is also non-exploitative and a normal state of affairs. The "Yuck" factor alone is deserving of closer scrutiny of the nature of people in positions of high authority on Wikipedia. Add to this Wikipedia's refusal to take any reasonable steps to apply child protective features or policies to the site, which has a huge level of participation and use by children and you have a very serious criticism of the site.

Maybe you think your views about sex with animals deserves scholarly encyclopedic coverage in a online encyclopedia in which adults of any sexual proclivities work side by side with children but I think not.

I'm also completely at a loss to understand whatever rage you have against Peter and why you are expressing this in vague sexual terms. It certainly makes me less willing to treat you with kid gloves concerning your views about sex with animals.

Oh dear god, Glass Bead, your argument is that I "advocate", and that it "parallels" Erik Moeller? And of course "OMG THE CHILDREN"! And that's your concern? I nearly wrote a book on this and other forms of abuse, to identify for those who care, what's accurate and what's not. It doesn't make me an expert, it doesn't mean sympathy for abusers, it does mean that inaccurate hearsay does untold harm. Here's some examples:

Suppose in your self-righteousness, you go and write an article on a form of abuse, just the way you think it should be. Damn them all, cut their nuts off, full steam ahead on all preconceptions and hide anything that's known, that challenges that view. Trouble is... people who need to know the current state of research get misled. People dealing with it for real will lack access to current knowledge. "Everyone knows" is pernicious and evil compared to actual careful checking of knowledge. In your own way, you're abusing as much as any. Imagine if we allowed the article on rape to read that all men are evil and will rape women as soon as look at them. Or the article on drug abuse read that everyone who has just one toke will graduate to heroin. What about the article on homosexuality - "everyone knows" homosexuals groom children, right? 50 years ago that was exactly the state of common belief. And you'd have been right there railing for it. Not perfect arguments, but you get the point. "If we make dope even slightly less than evil then people might try it!" "If we tell kids about homosexuality maybe they'll grow up gay!" Would that genuinely help people who might look to an encyclopedia for current knowledge?

I'm sorry that research doesn't tally with your personal preconceptions. It didn't tally with mine. You think I expected to find that? But I checked - apparently a damn sight more carefully than you choose to. Go off and complain to the researchers and authorities in the field if their view doesn't work for you. Go and complain that an encyclopedia children can read is providing "scholastic coverage" of disturbing topics (would you prefer non-scholastic coverage?). There are papers that emphasize well the connection of animal and human abuse, to a shocking standard. But the view of the field is that their research for various reasons is not authoritative, nor well informed, about the topic of zoophilia generally, as opposed to abuse. If for you those are the same, then rest assured for most of the authoritative voices on the topic within science, they usually aren't. The voices of the field are not "fringe", nor minimal, but as best I can tell, the voice of every serious research in the topic since proper research started in the mid 90's. It surprised me, and I checked that out for myself. But if that's how it stands, then that's how it stands. I dealt with it. You might have to.

Go look at the article in 2004. A bit of definitions, a bit of porn, a bit of law, a bit of myth. Information for a parent, or a person distressed at their own fantasies? For researchers? Anything at all about the human beings or (in sad cases) the victims? Any useful data at all? Not a shred. I looked at Wikipedia for information when I heard of the site, there wasn't any, so I ended up adding a bit. So shoot me. What I added was well within common knowledge on the topic (for those who have done the research), and was cited on the talk page when asked ("ref" tags didn't exist back then but the obligation to write factually only was evident). Do many newcomers meet that standard on their first edits? I then pretty much dropped the topic unless it came up on my watchlist.

My next edit was 4 months later, as a result of issues identified during an edit war. You know how that goes: "damn, this does have issues, lets fix it". I haven't touched the article in any significant way for close to 2 years or more. Other early editors included Herschelkrustofsky, Zordrac, Mindspillage, Tony Sidaway, ... some seriously, some only in passing; all obviously suspect too, I guess. You don't like the topic? Nobody asked you to. I don't much like it either, but I'm a bit more willing to check out preconceptions and research than some -- and to avoid importing my own beliefs when I report to others what I found.

So let's start:

The world does not need your amateur "scholarship" on the matter of sex with animals nor certainly not "Zordrac's" for that matter. I don't ask you to "improve" it. I don't wish to dialog with you about the content. You are not the giver of enlightenment on this matter. I am most concerned about the article, noted by Peter, that you linked from your user space. It is a direct parallel to "Muellerism" in respect to his views on sex with children. It ignores any notion of "position of trust" and says "no pain no foul." At least provide, and advocate for the use of parental controls to put your nonsense beyond the reach of at least some children.

Better still get off the internet until you can learn some editorial restraint.


Note: I refer above to this link, which was provided by wikiwhistle not Peter.

Not quite, IMHO. A professional interest doesn't look like this. How many people would have this 'zoophilia is romantic or harmless' POV?

Well there goes Wikipedia...


Then don't raise the topic.


You love personalizing it. That's your current tack. "Your" views, "your" nonsense". You're entitled to your view on what's valid content. My view (as a 2004 newcomer) was if we have an encyclopedia, and it has an article, and the public are invited to add missing knowledge, let that article be useful to researchers seeking information. My 2009 view is that "not censored" is right, for many reasons.

Presumably you'll edit conservapedia then, or encarta, and we'll put all the dangerous knowledge on a separate website with age verification only. Sex education to start at 16, and no mention of anything except missionary position and heterosexuality, to upset them. Are you living in the real world here?

How about some education on due process, civil rights, scholarly ethics, and the scientific method?

I am not surprised you cannot imagine positions outside libertarian Wikipedia and right wing Conservapedia. You are narrow and arrogant in your world view. You are not capable of doing a suitable job of providing information to children. You have no sense of limits or boundaries. You are usurping parental, even medical roles with wanton disregard and irresponsibility.

This material is on one of your own user pages. That seems like an endorsement of the content to me. Go back and hide in the drivel of atomized and annon content creation if you want.

You read rather selectively didn't you. This was the guy who tried to exaggerate statistics, his dialog repeatedly needing to be corrected due to "shock" wording and original research, whose editing was influenced by personal views enough to have invented facts without checking them, and who was so far removed from practical concerns to write that "The fact that animals do not carry human STDs is not worthy of mention". Tell that to some poor fool who tries, and can't ask anyone else about their fears. Still, we got a good informational article from it, that I haven't edited since, and which seems to be fairly balanced, so it worked out okay. The user you're citing stated of our combined work (1 2):

"If I'm not mistaken, this is the only page on the entire web that covers this topic... exclusively and in such depth. I believe it may be unique. That is surely an achievement. Article now submitted for peer review, and comments received" - Skoppensboer

He finally concluded:

"I see you've been busy, and I like the solution... In the light of our co-operation on this page, it may be best to drop the dispute...."

Complaints? Or job well done?

Keep digging. There's got to be a pony in there somewhere!

That beast looks more like a goat to me...

Not 'finally'. Do you really believe all this crap you write? The edit you link to is dated Dec 2006. But in June 2007 you edit war with him again. Perhaps you 'forgot' about that?



On your claim that he tried to exaggerate statistics, I have read his work and I know whose version I prefer.

It's always good to be told what I can imagine, by someone who's themself unable to imagine much beyond what the pulp media feeds them. Restores one's faith in human nature. It's easier to criticize than do anything about it, right?

That narrowness has written articles on everything from technology to history, movie plots to politics, human rights to law. It's been the one arbitrator to share and take so seriously the concerns many here had on BLP and spidering of "bad content on living people" when the chance arose. It's been a punchbag in order to avoid importing drama to the wiki, a decision I now see was well intentioned but completely mistaken. Bad mistake, eh?

As to the draft you mention, untouched since mid-2006, it's still in userspace - I got bored of it, moved on to other topics, or wasn't satisfied with it. Your "seems like" carries little weight; you've not been capable of distinguishing "writing about" from advocacy. Two short posts above; you couldn't avoid completely gratuitous personal assumption and OMG CHILDREN in either. "OH NOES!" I may go back to it some day, but I don't seem to like lingering in any given topic area too long. While you're waiting, consider the article on absorbent cotton (UK:"cotton wool"), which you can use either to block your ears -- or to smother provide protection for your children. While you watch "nice" tv, play games on the internets where children never go to sites other than disney, and share KM's popcorn. Your bleating "OMG KIDS!" and arguing for pulp belief, and explicitly objecting to having "scholarly encyclopedic coverage" (as you put it) is a bad idea that rarely works.

Flavius (NLP but illustrates my point that FT2 fails to understand the concept of reliable sources).



And this one is perfect:



It took a while.

Self pity and orthodox Wikipedian non-sense. The world doesn't owe you an "encyclopedia."

That's this guy, right?

(Note: Woohoo and Katefan were appointed mentors on Feb 6; neither had any prior involvement. I had taken a break from NLP long before: Dec 1, 2005 - June 5, 2006 with 1 edit in that time.)

It's telling that the only cites you have are Headley and (possibly) editors banned with Headley.



I'm trying to think how you could make more of a fool of yourself, but it's hard, Damian. The background to this was Skopp's own OR and pov warring - specifically his response to being told to pack in his alarmist exaggerated-style editing, to which he stated "this conversation is about whether or not readers need to know that the expert opinions frequently referenced on the zoophilia page (and related pages) are not published in peer-reviewed journals..." Unfortunately this was a borderline pov warrior with a penchant for exaggeration and fabrication or OR which often had to be corrected.

Really, "poor old Skopp" was roughly the same as "Poor old Seus". Borderline pov warrior with a penchant for exaggeration, fabrication or non-checking for the first; SPA canvasser and open pov warrior for the second. And your third cite, a (banned) crony of Docknell's with a block log as long as your arm by two uninvolved mentors. At least Skopp's strong views contributed to one article and with effort he could collaborate; that's something the other two never did.


Your comment on me at arb election was "Very well-mannered, never rude, always civil. I avoid types like this in real life..." I trust you have an improved view now

I don't look first at whether someone was banned by you or by a cadre of yours. I look for clear and lucid argument, care with sourcing, a sound and robust understanding of WP:DUE, and (finally) whether they are qualified or not. You look for evidence of rudeness or previous blocks.

Flavius was a fine editor. I have been through practically all his edits, including the ones prompting the blocks that you reference.

I believe tl;dr is the appropriate modern riposte is it not?

It seems though that FT2 has admitted what we all knew all along - that he wasn't being honest in his time on ArbCom, he was playing a character. All his public pronouncements were examples of exceptionally well-honed linguistic skills of someone trying to act a role of a careful thinker - when all along he's just some bloke with the same foibles (let's assume ) as everyone else.

The trouble is that it always showed - it was an unconvincing act that nobody believed - perhaps not even FT2 himself, as he could never trust himself to talk freely about - well - anything. It doesn't seem the right way to build an encyclopaedia to me.

"Mussttt... please.... Masterrr!" goes Damian

The idea of WooHoo and Katefan (whom you probably never knew) being a "cadre" of any kind, much less of an unknown non-admin, is ludicrous. That, and Flavius being this sort of user.... that refrain of yours is sounding eerily familiar:

"I have made a careful study of all "Headley's" edits and I have made my own independent conclusions"

Yes, and they usually seem to involve allegations of fetishism and scanty clad males with whips and string vests, don't they? I to have serious doubts whenever you try and say you have "thoroughly studied" someone's edits. I doubt your "independent conclusions" took into account that every other editor who "looked" at Headley in depth -- even those strongly into "science" -- decided he was dishonest in the extreme. As indeed you yourself are. Dishonest apologies, dishonest self-defense, dishonest hiding that you knew Headley was your co-editor, dishonest representation of the extent of your defamation, dishonest description how many sites and bodies you contacted, dishonest denial of your allegations, and dishonesty in claiming you'd stopped making them and now regretted it. Your "evidence" when challenged is a post or two by a banned proxy of Docknells and two POV warriors.

Go back to Docknell. This thread's become mental masturbation, and at least in Master's hands you'll be safe - he knows how to spank a monkey properly.


And biscuit - calm is my norm. I'm calm now, and I'll be calm after this thread's done. I just don't usually feel obligated to respond to off-site drama. I prefer a quiet backwater life. I'm annoyed about having to do so now. A year of salacious idiocy and watching it being lapped up by others for kicks, will try any man's patience though. Just "ignoring" had turned out to be a really bad mistake, and it's had more than a fair chance (as has Damian); forget it.

Wikipedia is a double bind, FT2. You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

And I don't just mean you, personally, FT2.

Wikipedia generally puts everyone in an outrageous, crazy-making double bind.

The outcome, unsurprisingly, is lunatic social drama.

There is a great deal non-scholastic coverage of sexuality, poorly written bios of porn stars, and material that is seemingly there only to pander. For example is it really necessary for an encyclopedia any child can read have an illustrated article on Gokkun, "a genre of Japanese adult video in which a woman consumes copious amounts of semen"? (The illustration was removed just today after being in place for nearly 5 months, but the related article Bukkake (T-H-L-K-D) is still adorned.)

Do you think there should be no age limit on viewing any article or image currently available on Wikipedia? How about editing or administering (and I've seen editors as young as 8 and twelve year old administers) those articles?

The having a no age limit opinion must be the popular one, but I find it untenable. If WP and WMF doesn't change itself, I predict it will be forced to change.

Oh. Bloody hell. He said ............ he said ..............

What FT2 is incapable of understanding in the concept of editorial restraint. I have never looked up "sex with animal" articles on Britannica, but I am certain if I did I would find either nothing or short definitional pieces without advocacy of any position whatsoever. This is because Britannica is capable of decorum and editorial restraint. Wikipedia would open the floodgates to fringe editors and admins incapable of evaluating the sources that underlie the articles. It then invites children into the discussion. FT2 is comfortable that young people with issues relating to these matters can now turn to his sound scholarship for answers. That is the most outrageous claim of all.

FT2 disengenously, and completely inaccurately lumps me into the ilk of "Conservapedia" and repressive right wing attitudes toward sexuality. Nothing could be further from the truth. What he, and many "libertarians" of Wikipedia fail to understand is that there exists a wide social consensus in which they are simply have no part. Right-wingers might at election time mis-characterize liberals as wanting to usurp parents in their relationships with their children. But it is simply not true. Respect for the parental role in providing guidance to children in matters of education, sexuality, individual relationships and community participation cut across such a wide spectrum it cannot be characterized "right" nor "left" but belong what can be better described as the sane and caring adult community. Liberals might be more willing to provide assistance from qualified educators under the guidance of community oversight of school boards but this is meant to help not usurp. A nut job encyclopedia is not better positioned to provide this guidance.

The thing is that wikipedia is supposed to represent consensus reality, as you say. The medium of an encyclopedia should be intrinsically conservative in the sense of not a polemic trying to encourage people to believe things they currently don't. Describe the reality that there are fringe views, but not overemphasize their validity/ prevalence. It's not about right or left wing, but consensus reality vs people who chat too much solely within their own subculture, or read things that confirms their view so much that they think those views are the standard ones. And people are being intimidated into not NPOVing those articles due to others having been blocked.

If both Headley Down and Peter Damian have seen a problem with the zoophilia and NLP articles, and so are most of us here, could it be that instead of us or even PD following the lead of Headley Down for reasons of stupidity, desire to pick on FT, or psychological need for a Master, there actually is a problem? Seems the likeliest thing to me, PD is not thick after all.

Clearly not.

You worked your way into a leading political position on one of the biggest sites on the internet - and self styled "sum of all human knowledge".

Wikipedios that prefer a quiet backwater life tend to poke around on articles creating content - without incident for the most part.

That doesn't mean you deserve to be accused of things you didn't do or didn't intend to do, but it means you bit off way more than you could chew.

The best course of action is to come to terms with the unsavory beast that is Wikipedia, and stay well away in future. Go away and lead a genuinely quiet backwater life, one that doesn't find you facing accusations published in the Tech Media for starters.

I don't think it's Wikipedia so much as human nature. It mirrors society, and we can easily imagine if you brought representatives of all society into one confined area with requirements to co-exist. Racists and idealists, capitalists and communists, Tutsis and Hutus, Gazans and Israel military, Muslim extremists and Neocon extremists, ... and a lot of people who belong to no extreme and just have their own stuff, ideals, altruism, or fantasies.

It's society, Moulton. No mystery about it at all.



I can see in future, some kind of "age tagging" of articles, possibly linked to parental advisory or net limitation services. That might be sensible, people could have the choice. I'd hate to see that extend to the point where just because a child could read Wikipedia, topics must be deleted or dumbed down. I can think of a few good reasons, and some I find compelling.

The easy reason is the argument from some principle, such as "People should have access to knowledge" or "It's being presented in an adult factual way". It's valid but I'd go for a more pragmatic reason.

20 years ago, people grew up and either didn't hear of adult topics, or their hearing was limited to hearsay from other children or instruction from parents, for the most part anyhow. A topic like sexual fetishes would be a bedroom fantasy, a rumor, a few magazines, or whatever. Not so today. Now the geni's well out of the bottle. I don't believe we'll see censorship on the scale to put it in. That kid who gets told something will go home (or a friends) and look it up, find others, and talk about it. In that environment a different response is needed -- genuine information. Take that away and all they'll find is porn sites, misinformation, others who do it, and polemic "for/against" sites of varying weight and credibility. These days honest openness on knowledge is better.

In the opposite context, a kid who does have some sexual fantasy or private-life crisis and looks it up online may be desperate for actual knowledge. What they will do with it nobody knows (there's probably been people who went on gun rampages after seeing "Bambi"!) but I'm guessing the good done by having valid information is more often than not better than festering self-hate caused through misinformation or censored information. Most teenagers and adults won't go to Bukkake for their anxieties. But they might go to bondage, transvestitism, and any number of other "philias".

For those reasons, Tarantino, I'd say the times have changed. The geni's out of the bottle. If it's not on Wikipedia they won't go back to MTV. They'll click the next Google hit instead... whatever that might be.


Last, Wikipedia's admin standard is simple and egalitarian. I'm broadly happy. If an age limit was introduced and the whole thing tightened up, thats a possibility too. Perennial debate; the acid test is can they do the task responsibly. Obviously some can, most can't. Embarrassed about being told to behave by a competent 12 year old? If they're competent then fine. RFA is a hell of a barrier to pass these days.

It's a dysfunctional society, to be sure.

But it's not inevitable in an organization with visionary leadership.

I had proposed that WMF-sponsored projects operate under the umbrella of a 21st Century Social Contract, adopting Ethical Best Practices as outlined, for example, by Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline: The Theory and Practice of the Learning Organiztion.

Other large Open Systems Projects have operated under the Social Contract Model with remarkable success.

Hi FT2, I'd decided not to comment on your resignation here, because you deserve to be allowed to get on with your life, but I'm concerned that you're describing the situation as though none of it was your fault.

First, it's worth stressing that you weren't asked to resign because people believe you have sex with animals, but because you lied twice onwiki about when you first learned about the oversighting, then obfuscated for weeks when people asked you to clarify. The backdrop to it was the OM case, your desire to be finance director of Wikimedia UK without telling the membership anything about yourself, including that you were FT2, and some of the other issues you've been criticized for.

That aside, as you're raising the zoophilia issue yourself, look at the edit of yours that Peter Damian first highlighted, replacing "zoophile" with "pedophile," "animal" with "child," and "human" with "adult." http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...5&oldid=4555850

"Lifestyle pedophiles often share some or all of the following common traits: ... Belief that children and adults are not so different in many ways ...</li><li>A sense that adults can be deceptive and manipulative (even if only white lies), such people respect children and their company is sought for not having this trait and for not requiring protective social barriers.</li><li>A "romantic" nature, the desire to have a bond for life, and a partner to devote oneself to fully. (Relationships of this quality are hard to depend upon with adults, as adult partners often come to demand heavy compromise of the romantic relationship over time)</li><li>Above average awareness of feelings ([[empathy]]). This may be cause or effect, it isn't clear which. In other words, they may be close to children because they empathize well, or have developed empathic skills because of intimate closeness with children. Either way, pedophiles are often described by those who do not realise their sexuality as being caring individuals aware of others feelings.</li><li>Loneliness, insofar as others of like kind are hard to find. ..."

And so on.

This is close to the way a pedophile might describe his attraction to children. It's not how a researcher would describe it. There's a degree of empathy or sympathy there, it seems. There's no mention of the human-animal relationship being almost necessarily abusive; no mention of mental illness, personality disturbness, or problems in childhood, issues that (so far as I know) researchers into bestiality would agree (rightly or wrongly) are traits that zoophiles might be expected to exhibit.

I'm not saying this means you're engaged in anything yourself, and maybe you did make those points in other edits. All I'm saying that you can surely understand why someone might be concerned, especially given that these were your very first edits to WP, and that you went on to make 753 edits to the article, and 574 to the talk page. This is more than a passing interest, and it's therefore a legitimate issue to raise when the writer stands for ArbCom. It's unlikely that someone who made that kind of edit to [[Pedophilia]] would be elected. To respond with comments like "OMG, THE CHILDREN!", as you did above, suggests you don't realize just how far outside the norm bestiality is, and why. That's not Peter Damian's fault.

"OMG, THE CHILDREN" is the stock response when a Wikipedio gets called on any matter of social responsibility.

FT2 says that "Wikipedia mirrors society" - show me the society where leading elected figures - when questioned about the publication of gross illegal sexual acts - sarcastically reply "OMG, THE CHILDREN"?

" . . . and yet, I blame society. Society made me what I am today."

Yeah, right. Whatever, dude.

Excuse me FT2!

I presented you with some diffs showing your use of sockpuppetry to POV push zoophilia and the psychocult of neuro linguistic programming.

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&sh...ndpost&p=151955

You have evaded the question again.

I know it must make you very upset and angry that you have been found out, especially in the light of you being identified as incompetent, discredited, and untrustworthy, in the eyes of so many wikipedians:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vil.../ACFeedback#FT2

But spanking the monkey? I'm not the one writing promotional things about the "lifestyle" of bestiality.

I am just asking you to clarify some of your diffs. The reason you are so discredited is likely due to people seeing through the sort of self-serving manipulations you presented before you were on arbcom:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lon...use/HeadleyDown

And I repeat, I could be any one of the people on that list you conflated, or I could be none of them. You wrote the above list as globally encompassing and vague as possible so that you could protect your own POV interests. I am certainly a skeptic; a skeptic of anything you say or do.

One reason some editors (including sockchecker related editors) seem to have distanced themselves from you is probably because they feel you have tried to con them and they see through your nonsense. They know they can expect more of the same from you because it seems to be a very stable trait you cannot seem to shift. A more pseudoscientific view would say you jinx or have bad spirits that make this your fate.

I find it incredible that some people still involve themselves with you in your current sockpuppetry whitewash effort here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=265151566

In light of your own obvious sockpuppetry, your self-serving abuse of the sockpuppetry recommendations, and your repeated use of “virulent sockpuppet” in arguing against people you don’t like, it would seem that you will likely bring discredit to any genuine long term anti-sockpuppetry work.

Some would say you bring general discredit to Wikipedia. If some say you curse it, I'd be inclined to agree.

Docknell

This strikes me as being the crux of the issue:

The question is, are you, and indeed are any of us, really qualified to determine if reputable scientific research on the subject is genuinely sympathetic towards the view that zoophilia can be (in some cases) a reasonably healthy practice, or is it just possible that you're mistaking the fundamentally non-moralizing and "aloof" nature of most scientific writing as a form of sympathy?

Bear in mind that "sexology" isn't something that people would put on a par with, say, chemistry and biology, either.

That's exactly the problem. Your "so far as I know" is about 180 degrees from the consistent mainstream of research. Which wasn't what I had expected either. Mainstream researchers into zoophilia itself (as opposed to studies on pre-selected criminal, delinquent or known abuser populations) do not seem to generally conclude it is necessarily or even mostly abusive; they do not tend to conclude it shows illness or mental health issues (though it often does). Go do some research, if you care to. Here's a quote for you:

"It's important to make the distinction [between animal sexual abusers and zoophiles]... There is no evidence yet that zoophilia leads to sexual deviation, but that's not to say that's not the case... I would go on to say that someone who is sexually violent [emphasis added] with an animal ... is a predator and might very well do that toward people."

Who was it, who said that zoophilia doesn't necessarily imply sexual abuse, and emphasized the importance of distinguishing the two? It was the ASPCA's Director of Counseling. Also involved with the NY correctional system. And for what it's worth, female. Can you think of anyone less likely to be a gooshy apologist? That quote's still on the internet, for what it's worth. Your credentials, Hell? Apart from assumption and ignorance?

Here's another:

"Zoophiles appear to be extremely caring and concerned for their animal(s) and people who know them would be hard put to claim abuse. Implicit in [the bill] is that sex with an animal in itself constitutes abuse."

That's a fairly renowned professor of 30 years standing at the Kinsey Institute, presenting to the Missouri House. Think these are cherry-picked exceptions? Think again. This is the mainstream view of serious research in the field, best I can tell. There's many more of the same, from people of high authority and standing in the field of sexology (human sexuality), ethology (animal behavior), and similar. I dropped this topic ages ago, in wiki-terms, but the research on it is still as it was.

Both quotes I noted as seeming to be authoritative voices, and cited as a result. I wish you would for once, get off your ass, do the legwork, and speak to professionals on a complex and controversial topic before telling the world how you, John Q. Pulpreader, are "sure" it has to be. I'm not sure at all, so I asked, and what came up is what came up.



Understandable yes. Legitimate to raise yes. But it was raised in full, the community took a hard look -- and decided not an issue. Want to see the communal view? They rejected it almost completely, and continued to do so while Damian's blog was up (including the oversighted edits), before it was up, and after Damian himself removed it. Even Damian (according to Thatcher) now concedes this was unlikely to have affected the election. Communal responses: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Some childish, some perceptive. Either way Damian couldn't handle lack of traction, and began offsite defamation instead. That's what was not legitimate. You agree?

If you feel discussion on this forum is somehow beneath the dignity of Wikipedians I assume you can find the door.

...and the horse you rode in on for that matter.

Well, let's not be so hasty...

Is it fair to your fellow Wikipedians to suggest that their support for you in the 2007 ArbCom election was tantamount to "community" acceptance of the content you added to the NLP and Zoophilia articles? (I'm not saying it wasn't, but well, let's face it...)

The specific Oppose-vote statement by Dbuckner (T-C-L-K-R-D) , aka Mr. Damian, as referenced in many of the numbered links above, was this:

That statement doesn't include a word about those two subjects...

When anyone on a few hours research and phone conversations (much less a few months and the intent of a book) can identify all major researchers in the field and their works within a couple of days, and read their writings and others' views on them, and yet on a hugely controversial subject historically linked closely to abuse, they all say very similar, then I'd say so.


It wasn't a vote on edits but on editors. The question was raised "does this person edit war on a topic? Weirdly? Obsessively? In a way that someone on Arbcom shouldn't?" Damian posted a long coat-rack (one film from many, one clinical article from many etc) to try and make his case, cited the number of edits, one person agreed with him, the rest - nobody really cared.

Was it seen? Very much so. It was linked, it was discussed, it was on the talk page where all voters check if there is a question, it was in my questions page (in full), I had listed it on my "articles worked on" and linked to that... and nobody is scrutinized as much as the leading candidates (of which Newyorkbrad was #1 and I was #2 with everyone else some way behind).

Was it checked out by the community in light of arbcom suitability/candidacy? Hell yes it was. Could anyone have voted against? Hell yes. Did they find it a problem. Go check (=no, only a tiniest minority).

NLP is Docknell's hobby-horse; Damian never mentioned it outside a couple of questions on the Q&A page, so the election couldn't have been a comment on it.

For the children (politics)

Thinking of children, or any vulnerable group, is extremely important. But using it as an excuse to hide "scholastic encyclopedic material" as Glass Bead was urging is very serious and I answered to Tarantino, why I feel it would be a very bad idea in this instance.

I think you misunderstood me. I wrote that it was almost "necessarily" abusive, which simply means "by definition." I wasn't referring to the use of violence, but to the fact that an animal's not able to give consent, and that the human being might not be able to tell to what extent the animal is enjoying it, if at all.

To give an example, when this issue of your edits to Zoophilia first came up, I took a look at the article and at some of the sources. A couple of them were written by people who'd engaged in it, and they talked about ways of persuading a dog to engage in oral sex. One of them suggested smearing the genitals with food, and this was part of a long tract about the subject written by someone who was clearly very familiar with it. Now, that doesn't sound to me as though the dog wants oral sex. It wants to eat, and it is being tricked.

The point here is not that the dog is being hurt -- it probably doesn't care -- but that it's an unequal and bizarre relationship, which for a variety of very good reasons is regarded as an absolute taboo. WP is not there to present things that people find abhorrent as though they're just a little unusual.

Do you have a professional source, preferably online, that writes about zoophilia without mentioning the preponderance of mental illness and personality issues?



I didn't see Peter's blog, or if I did I don't recall what it said, so I can't comment on whether it was defamation. I do agree that it wasn't legitimate to threaten to contact animal advocacy groups, though you would know, given that you've done research into zoophilia, that animal rights groups (e.g. ALF) would have little interest, because they don't necessarily object to it, and animal welfare groups (e.g. RSPCA) would be unlikely to try to cause you a problem, because they operate entirely within the law. And no one has your name anyway. So while I agree that Peter was wrong to threaten it, it was a threat that was never going to deliver much.