SlimVirgin manages to be the turd in the punchbowl once again, this time to little effect, at Jake Wartenberg (T-C-L-K-R-D) 's Request for Adminship. Now, I don't know anything about Jake, but Slim manages to be the sole opposing vote against 151 in favor. She gets in the rather amazing accusation that Jake is a sockpuppet of a previously-desysoped admin! She then has the gall to demand that he respond to an email from her defending himself.

How does she get away with this?

Hmm... it was closed as "pass" immediately following her vote. No 24-hour extension for this one.

But hey that's nothing, the other oppose voter (now oversighted) described Mr. Wartenberg as a "dangerous sociopath with an extensive criminal record".

The latter has been explained by the editor who posted it as a misguided joke.

Yeah but... it seems almost prophetic in this context. That is, this user almost seems to be satirizing other (less frivolous) accusations before they were lodged.

And the former by the editor who posted being an misguided joke, I suppose.

Misguidance appears to be a recurring them in WikiCulture.

Methinks they need a new guidance system.

Jake has a fairly notable father. He's Tom Wartenberg, a philosophy professor at Mount Holyoke College and author of several books including Existentialism: A Beginner's Guide, The Nature of Art and Big Ideas for Little Kids: Teaching Philosophy Through Children's Literature.

Jake also helps runs his father's wiki and his high school's website.

Is it only me, or is there something vaguely amusing about a book titled Existentialism: A Beginner's Guide ?

A guide for beginners, from somebody who is... further along? Who has passed all the requirements of Intermediate Existentialism and is well on their way to (what else?) Advanced Existentialism?

From the dustjacket blurb: As a beginning existentialist, I began to feel angst at my failure to detect ultimate meaning in my life and the universe. But that was before I found Professor Wartenberg's guidebook, which told me what to do.

Quick someone start a BLP of him!

Absolutely.

Surely there are some passages from his work which can be cited to show that he's interested in exposing young impressionable minds to other than pure and wholesome Christian ideals.

His website is linked from Philosophy for Children (T-H-L-K-D), he's a red link in Aesthetics (T-H-L-K-D)* and he's a regular columnist for Philosophy Now (T-H-L-K-D).

*EDIT The red link was added by Tom Wartenberg himself.

Slim's not liking the mention of the subject on her talk page! She removes the note from LessHeard vanU (T-C-L-K-R-D) with the comment "discussed elsewhere", even though, in my searches, it isn't.

Even a year ago, if she had voted to oppose in an RFA, there would have been 20-30
automatic sympathy votes directly following hers, or more.

The crazy woman is slowly losing her popularity.

Good.

Look up a couple of sections on her talk page, there seems to be a thread there. She could have politely moved it instead of just deleting, (*) but she may well be right about it being discussed elsewhere. LHvU should repost in that thread.

* - this is where it's obligatory for me to point out that I almost(**) never remove stuff from my own talk page, even if I strongly disagree with it... I commend the practice to everyone, it makes it a lot less likely that people think I have something to hide.
** - limited exceptions have been very egregious vandalism, I think a review would find it's happened less than a half dozen times since 2006 and usually not even removed by me.

The section above is about her accusation in the RFA. LHVU's note was about the impropriety of demanding email obeisance. Related subjects, but not the same.

One can only imagine the kind of tribute she is exacting for her silence. She's like J. Edgar Hoover, with files full of compromising 8x10 glossies.

I've worked with Jake a fair amount and I really couldn't see him being a sockmaster, if only because he's disclosed his identity. Usually sockers "mess up" the first time by being trusting enough to reveal their information and then later try to stuff the cat back in the bag when they start socking. That said, SV did support my RFA, even though I did not know her at the time and had never worked in any areas she did and I had a track record somewhat similar to Jake's, so I can't explain the oppose either.

It was?

Ah, memories! I can still remember a time when I was just as perturbed by the Every School In The Known Universe Must Have A Wikipedia Article Cabal (a/k/a "the schoolers") as what Ms. Mack still appears to be. Unlike Ms. Mack, I moved on some time ago; realizing that the whole inclusionist vs. deletionist ba-telle was a mere uninteresting sideshow to a far wider drama. Poor Linda! Fighting and re-fighting the ba-telles of long, long ago. Let it go, Linda. Let it go.


Please, Uncle Milty, tell me that that blurb was just for yuks and not for reals.

There may be a reason why Milton posted that...but we'll never know.

We forgot the Essjay version: Existentialism for Dummies

<edit:>

This reminds me of some of Kelly Martins observations in the Utgard Loki-debate: Knowledge is power, as they say, and if you give away your knowledge you give away your power. [...] have failed to make a payment on some quid pro quo he was trying to maintain, and got kneecapped for it..

Irregardless of what is correct in this case; the basic problem is not the gamers, IMHO. The problem is the game, (ie WP-rules) which encourage and reward "gamers".

Update:

"I'm writing to retract the concerns I had a few days ago that you might be a returning user, and to apologize to you without reservation. " etc etc

Yadda yadda. She's certainly not helping herself behaving like this.

If only she would "apologize" by leaving Wikipedia permanently, we could then trust her sincerity. Short of that, not so much.

It's good that she apologised though I don't think she really had a choice. It's better to see that people have caught on to SV's guilty by suspicion method of prosecution and no longer allow it to derail RFAs etc.

Or at least no longer give it sufficient time to when it didn't already have. Little steps.

In the end it turned out to be a storm in a teapot, didn´t it?

I recall seeing SV strongly protesting when an editor (Ben H?) suggested a couple of years ago, (after the Ambuj.Saxena-scandal?), that a tool should be invented for seeing who voted with who ...but in spite of the protest, such a tool was made. Thankfully. As the Root said: little steps.

Sooo, me thinks: the most significant thing in this little teapot storm was that the band of drivelling Pavlovian dogs did not turn up and vote like their leader. (ok, ok, I know I it is a mad metaphor-mix ) (and "mad analogy-mix" doesn´t sound so...swell.. )