That would be a consideration if Wikiputia had any policies against multiple accounts — but of course it doesn't.

Aside from the fact that Wikiputia has no policies at all, the only de facto consideration that makes an alternate account a BADACCOUNT is that the Cabal Don't Like It.

And you all know it.

Jon Awbrey

...and furthermore, Herschel, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised...

Bad, bad socky

Now it doesn't surprise me one little bit that HFO cannot respond to simple questions about justice and justification. When it comes to that, she has no leg to stand on, snow-booted, spike-heeled, or otherwise. Like the alternate accountants of her many other sets of books, she displays all the incapacities of the average sociopath to grasp and actualize the most basic concepts of ethics.

But it worries me a little that she seems to be turning the rest of your brains to Whip'n'Chill — to the point where you forget the very meanings of justice and justification.

So here's a little visual aid that I whipped up:




See how that works?

Jon Awbrey

Apparently you do?

but... but... but.... when she does it's cute.

{{citation needed}}

Yep. But you've got to admit she does it with style, goshdarnit. I say this thread'll be a 6-pager. Maybe 7, or 8. It's beginning to be tough keeping up with it all. So much material, so little time.

Yes, such horrendous debauchery as "I Want to Hold Your Hand", which unleashed a huge Satanic movement of unconstrained hand-holding!

----------------
Now playing: The Beatles - I Want To Hold Your Hand
via FoxyTunes

Luckily the Americans responded with the clean cut Beach Boys, Crosby, Stills and Nash (Young is Canadian, doesn't count) and The Velvet Underground...

I wonder if Cognito ever listened to "Venus in Furs"?

I'm sorry, I thought the Bernadotte/Brautigan/land-bridge connection was obvious.

I'm just saying: It's nearly impossible to go back and tell who was being especially reasonable with who else this long ago. You can do it, just as long as you have days or weeks to throw away. What I know is that in the few cases I've been aware of, SV made an artform of tweaking people in just the right way. The way she did it also showed a basic disregard for social mores (honesty, golden rules, etc.) that I think is hard to look past as she tries to claim that all of the opposition to her on this site stems from inventions of HK.

I do?

As I have said before, I will respond to any evidence that I have used socks. The argument used by SV and Will Beback, and I assume Jayjg (who keeps his cards pretty close to his vest,) is that the various accounts that they have banned geolocate to southern California, and the idea that there could be more than one LaRouche supporter editing Wikipedia in southern California is just too big a coincidence to be believed. I mean, how many people live in southern California?

Not at all, and exactly the point. But then the question is who exactly was doing this kind of thing, under what circumstances, and where? Are these people still seeking to be taken seriously, and do they acknowledge what they did, or are they still trying to claim that it was someone else's fault? That's where I'm coming from.


Yeah, but then you made a comment on the subject in one place or another about how you like irony, which looked to me like an admission. Of course that was about more recent actions, but all the same.

Nash is British, so I'd think he counts even less.

The connection was a little closer than just southern California -- it was the same IP addresses that a developer found for at least two of your accounts, possibly three, in the second ArbCom case. Not just one shared IP address, but at least two, one of which was on an abuse list for sending out LaRouche spam.

*See the evidence from the second case involving Hershelkrustofsky (2005) here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req...of_sockpuppetry brought against HK by Snowspinner, Cberlet, Will, and me.

*For background, first HK case (2004), brought by HK against Adam Carr, Andyl, and John Kenney, is here -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req...Rouche/Evidence

*Third case (2005) involving HK here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req...nvolved_parties Brought by Cberlet against various parties, including HK, on BLP grounds, though this was before we had an actual BLP policy, I think, so it had to go to ArbCom.

Yes, the Cberlet who left in disgrace a few months ago after the decline of the clique that was formerly protecting him in his POV-pushing and conflicts of interest (citing his own material) while banning others who went against him on charges of doing the same thing Berlet was doing himself.

Someone please bring HFO up2date on that newfangled dynamic addressing thingy …

Ja Wohl !

Jon von Bonn

This does seem to be true, which is one reason, SV why you don't have much moral high ground here. Why weren't Chip Berlet and DKing topic or indef banned if you were really interested in keeping the LaRouche article's NPOV? They're editing was almost as, if not just as, POV as many of the "Pro-Larouche" editors who were banned.

As Kato and others have pointed out here, other editors like Jossi, Jayjg, and Mantanmoreland, with which you frequently interacted, were also unconcealed POV pushers. Why didn't you ever try to call them out on their behavior?

And that is where I´m coming from, too.

Having observed them for a long, long time, I have basically drawn the conclusion that there were several "groups" of interest, who were watching each others back. Some of those "groups" could consist of one person (Jossi). Basically you had people with very strong opinions about something, or COI-issues, who then supported each others COI.
I first noticed this once, way, way back, the first time I reported someone for 3RR. You know; you enter your report at the bottom of the page, end of the line, so to speak. Of course, I then keenly watched to see what an admin would do.

And then I noticed there were some "steady" admin-workers, you could see them start with the top of the line, and work themselves down the list, one block, or warning, or "not guilty," at a time. The steady working bees. (Incidentally, those admins who are never discussed on WR )

However; I also noticed there were admins who did blocks completely out of line. See this typical from one 3RR archive in 2006:
*FeloniousMonk reports two 3RR; one immediately blocked by Jayjg, the other blocked (against opposition) by SV.
*Jayjg reports two 3RR; both blocked by FeloniousMonk
*SlimVirgin report one 3RR, blocked by Jossi , etc, etc.

Of course there wasn´t (and still isn´t) any "law" against this, AFAIK. But a heck of a lot of those "out-of-line" blocks were disputed. And as we know: admins are not very happy undoing other admins work, even if they disagree.

It was things like this that brought me to WR.

In the LaRouche II case, I freely admitted sharing computers with Weed Harper. From that point on, after learning that it was trouble, I discontinued the practice. That did not prevent you and Will Beback from banning umpteen accounts that got in your way, by using speculation about dynamic IP addresses.

It doesn't help your case to continue harping on this point, while ignoring questions about the Sweet Blue Water and Sunsplash accounts. My complaint is not about Wikipedia policies, but rather about the selective, POV-driven application of those policies.

All my socks are banned (all my socks are banned)...
And there's hell to pay (there is hell to pay)...
California livin' (California livin'), in a very sim'lar way...

Char

Can you show me an edit from Cberlet that was almost as bad as the edits of the LaRouche accounts?

Cberlet did not "leave in disgrace." He left because he was tired of having to fight lunatics to improve articles.

You all claim to care about BLP. Chip Berlet and the article about him were attacked on Wikipedia by Nobs, HK, and friends, in a way that was absolutely deplorable. Nobs even implied Chip had some connection to a very serious criminal offence, at one point -- I won't post details here because it would be libel. Chip put up with it for two or three years. Did anyone here, anyone who cares about BLP so much, help him, even once?

BLP applies to people we dislike, as much as to people we love. It applied to Gary Weiss too, and that is why WordBomb was indefblocked for posting that GW = MM. Yet you oppose that block, because you don't like the people involved.

You don't even try to disguise the hypocrisy. Decisions about what's right and what's wrong are based entirely on whether you like the parties or not. It's sad that this is the standard of intellectual debate about Wikipedia.

Psychological projection, anyone?

You shared a computer with him at work, and you shared a computer with him at home too? Because that is what the technical evidence showed.

There's other evidence that unfortunately I'm not allowed to post, but there was also an email address. Not an identical address, but a very similar handle that you both used at the time, him on-wiki, you off-wiki.

Gadzooks! — where is that emeticon when I really need it?

Ah, there it is —

Ja Ja Jaaaaaaa

This is extraordinary. You collect and release information of this nature in pursuit of of what you believe to be "unencyclopedic" conduct. No one even remotely violated any ToS or licensing provisions let alone anything amounting to serious misconduct. It is based on perceived violations of rules and policies which are nothing more than just another type of user generated content. This justified this level of intrusion? Quite an encyclopedia.

Moderator's note: extra-large-font fulminations deleted, because it was easier than tarpitting the post. --HK


(dammit....what does it take to kill a thread?)

I can't believe that you can ask me that question with a straight face. Look at this thread. In his comments, CBerlet doesn't even try to hide that he is, in his words, trying to protect Wikipedia from LaRouche supporters. Notice that Will Beback tries to gently coax him down from his soapbox.

DKing and CBerlet were obviously virulently anti-Larouche. Since both of them were involved off-wiki in research of LaRouche and his politics with the objective of exposing LaRouche as a dangerous anti-Semite, perhaps even trying to profit from such research, then I think that COI could probably also apply in addition to the NPOV concerns.

Your pursuit of HK and the others while leaving CBerlet and DKing alone is hypocritical. The fact that you had a secret page in your userspace with an extensive list of editors, pages, and discussion thread links related to the LaRouche articles, and also seem to have somehow come to know HK's personal information, including where he lives and works, appears to indicate that your interest in LaRouche may rise to the level of personal interest. Are you personally interested in making sure that any POV that happens to take place in the LaRouche articles is anti-LaRouche?

RANDOM CRAP
RANDOM CRAP
RANDOM CRAP
RANDOM CRAP
RANDOM CRAP
RANDOM CRAP
RANDOM CRAP
RANDOM CRAP

If EricBarbour can post it, I can too.

Edit: oh never mind, the mods got it.

I think you fundamentally misunderstand the prevailing (I hate to use the term "consensus") members' position here on BLP articles, SV. If Chip Berlet had asked to have his article deleted, I think most of us would have supported that wholeheartedly - I know I would have, and I think I might have even said so at the time.

Likewise, if the article was being vandalized, someone should have protected it - and as I recall, someone did do just that, at least twice that I can recall, just off the top of my head. But if The Chipster's ultimate objective was to have the article protected in a state he personally and explicitly approved of, then that's not something anyone here should care much about, other than to point out that it's unfair to all the other article subjects who don't have friends among the admins.

As for helping him, don't be ridiculous - we were helping him, by pointing out the insufficiency of the existing BLP policies, advocating for opt-out, and proposing other kinds of reforms. He might not have recognized that we were helping him, but that's only because he was being told by certain people that WR was a "nazi hate-site" and other such nonsense. Also, Daniel Brandt was here, and he doesn't like Daniel Brandt.

I guess it would be nice if you took the time to properly understand the culture here, but I understand that you wouldn't want to risk being drawn in to the point of actually having some degree of appreciation for the place.

I said psychological projection, not projectile vomiting!

In SV's case, is there an e-diff-erence?

What I don't understand HK is why, given the number of people in the LaRouche movement, it wasn't possible for LaRouche supporters in different cities to organize themselves and edit wikipedia in much the way the Hasbara people have. This would have bypassed the sockpuppet allegations that ended up getting you banned permanently. Meat puppetry is much more difficult to prove than sockpuppetry, particularly when a movement is involved.

Your logic is plausible, but your conclusions are incorrect. First of all, according to WP:MEAT, meatpuppets are treated the same as sockpuppets, so it doesn't really matter. Secondly, the LaRouche organization has had no organized response to Wikipedia beyond issuing this article as part of a mass-distribution pamphlet. I am puzzled by this, since Wikipedia is probably the highest-profile platform that Berlet has ever had. I suspect that the reason for all the pro-LaRouche WP accounts in California is that California was the birthplace of the LaRouche Youth Movement, and people in their 20s are far more internet-oriented then the oldsters.

Which means of course that they are treated with the same double standard as everything else in Jimbo's Wiki-Peanut-Butter {{Fact}}ory.

Jon

The biography of Chip Berlet should be deleted. He is barely notable and no encyclopedia worth anything will miss it. Berlet also requests the deletion in this Articles for Deletion debate.

It is claimed that the article was originally created by Herschelkrustofsky, and I'll take Slim's word for that.

Interestingly, if you look at that old Articles for Deletion debate, where Berlet adds his request for deletion, there are a few BLP extremists resisting for their own reasons. Including the later disgraced John254.

Someone should try again, giving the rationale that the subject and the creator want the biography deleted, and stating the facts that Wikipedia is simply incapable of handling a biography on such a figure who has spent years claiming that Lyndon LaRouche is a "neo-fascist anti-Semite". Deleting the bio on Berlet would be a step towards closing that shameful LaRouche / Wikipedia episode.

Quite so. However, I must correct my earlier post - discussion of the Chip Berlet AfD on WR begins here:

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&sh...ndpost&p=116676

And while IMO most of the participants agreed that the article should be deleted, I didn't personally chime in on that subject at the time.

Nor me, though I have the excuse of having abandoned this site at that time in protest at Poetguy's continued presence.

There is a problem with that proposal, which is that Berlet is used so extensively as a source at Wikipedia that people who read the articles need to have some idea who he is, so they know whether to believe his claims.

Slimvirgin: Please address, in a non-evasive way, your relationship to the Sunsplash and Sweet Blue Water accounts.

I should think that all such cases are generically covered by WR:CORNSENUOUS To NOB RULE, my earliest acronymic e-mortalization of which goes back to August 2007, though I'm sure the idea was hardly original at the time.

Jon Awbrey

Once again, we have the Toxic Waste Superfund Site calling the Backyard Compost Heap e-fluvious.

But you know I don't care all that much about one darn individual after another — if it were only Jimbo's Wiki-Prevarications or SlmVirgin's Wiki-Projections it wouldn't really be all that big of a deil. But what we've got here is what anthropologists call a Tribal Face — it's a Way Of Looking @ Everything that imbues, infuses, pervades the Wikipediot Cult so through-&-though that you can't help asking that old Chicken and the Egg question about which engenders the other.

Jon Awbrey

Revisiting all this history has made me nostalgic. Here's a vignette from the Golden Age of the LaRouche wars. First, SlimVirgin demonstrates with this edit that she has grasped the essence of WikiPolitics: she simply proclaims that she, Berlet, and Will are the consensus. Get it?

Will doesn't quite get it. He's still wet behind the ears; his username in those days was Willmcw, not yet the robotic POV-pusher whom we know today as Will Beback. (I have always thought that the Will Beback name was chosen because he cathexized on this ego-ideal. But I digress.) In this exchange, Slim slaps poor Will back into line, making it clear that if he wants to run with the big dogs, he's going to have to lose that tendency to compromise. Looking back, I think this may have been a seminal moment in Will's development, sort of a rite of passage on the road to adminship.

I think another seminal moment may be found in this intervention by Alison. Berlet and King were attempting to insert one of King's whackjob theories, that if LaRouche criticizes a banker of any religious or ethnic background, it may be attributed to anti-Semitism. And they were attempting to insert it unsourced, as if it were undisputed fact. They rejected the idea that it should be sourced to King. And, Will Beback was backing them up 100%. Alison's intervention forced Will to back down (at this point, Slim had already retired from the field.) When Berlet realized that he no longer had carte blanche, he was never the same again, and I think his decision to leave was inevitable from that point on.

He did ask that it be deleted, but it was kept. But for years before that, at least two posters here (HK and Nobs) used Wikipedia as a platform to attack him via his BLP and its talk page, and I don't recall anyone here objecting.



One of the people who was attacking him, and who created the BLP in the first place, is one of only four staff members here. This board has spent a lot of time attacking Berlet, for reasons I've never understood. Chip Berlet was someone who wrote for at least one real encyclopaedia. He was a published expert on the LaRouche movement and on right-wing extremist groups in general. He should not have been driven off Wikipedia just because a few people decided to use that website and this one to ridicule him. It's very sad that he was given no support here at all, even though you all claim to support expert editors and harassed BLP victims. Berlet was both.

For the record: I didn't write that quoted insert above, that was Somey. My comments about this have already been made.

As has been noted, I enjoy irony.

Chip Berlet shouldn't have been anywhere near the LaRouche articles - certainly not adding himself as a source. Nor should Hersch for that matter. But one minute you are putting it about that Herschel has suspected "Conflicts of Interest", the next you are allowing Chip - with a blatant Conflict of Interest - carte blanche to write what he likes about LaRouche?

And you didn't think people would have a problem with that?

This is what I mean by the fostering of a culture which "warped the notions of Conflicts of Interest".

I think Berlet is a Reliable Source on Larouche. However, he's also very much an involved party given the thirty or so odd year feud between himself and the Larouche organization and he was certainly in a Conflict of Interest editing the articles. Even without the feud it's pretty bad form to use yourself as a source on wikipedia even if you are a published author.

Berlet is a third-rate specialist in innuendo, demonization, quote-cooking, and the other black arts of propaganda. His talents are not much in demand these days, which is why he spent so much time link-spamming his website on Wikipedia, in hopes of drumming up some business.

Why shouldn't Berlet be editing them? He is a published expert, and the only reason he started editing them was because Hersch, an employee of the LaRouche movement, arrived to add nonsense to them, and created an insulting article on Berlet.

Are you saying that anyone with expertise has a conflict of interest? Berlet is the kind of expert that the BBC immediately calls when it's doing a story on LaRouche. He is known all over the world by journalists who've written stories about the movement. The picture of Berlet painted here by Nobs, Hersch, and Brandt is a false one.

If you're going to say that it wasn't so much that Berlet was an expert, but that he had been attacked by them, thereby making it personal, you have to understand that the LaRouche movement attacks anyone who criticizes them. They sometimes do it to the point of serious personal harassment -- credible people have reported physical assault, the death of pets etc. At the very least, they try to blacken that person's name. If that means Berlet can no longer be used as an expert by WP, then you're playing directly into the hands of his attackers.

And he didn't have "carte blanche" to write whatever he wanted on Wikipedia. He had to stick to published sources like anyone else. People are allowed to use themselves as a published source, so long as their work is directly relevant and is the kind of thing that might be (or has been) used by other publications. Berlet's work always was in that category, because he is a world expert on LaRouche.

COI. He's very much an involved party.