Yeah, we've got to be sure to mention The Third Reich as soon as possible, whenever the man's name comes up. Just out of respect.

Can someone please tell me what Gmaxwell is doing on the CU mailing list? Is there a global list of checkusers somewhere?
<edit>
Nevermind, Gmaxwell is a cu on commons

The SUL tool will tell you the status of a given user name on all wikis where it is active. Gmaxwell is a checkuser on Commons.

Now, DT, you know perfectly well how defamatory and unfair that is — toward Nazis — they were meticulous record-keepers in documenting their own atrocities. It's almost as if they were proud of them.

Jon

Okay, thanks-- didn't know that command. Here's the list of articles that link to autofellatio:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...tio&namespace=0

Notice the odd one Compadre Records. It's just a stub. Where's the link?? Okay, you see it specializes in roots music. Fine. But if you click on the roots music link in the article, you find that some vandal has turned it into an "easter egg" piped link, which takes you instead to .... [[autofellatio]]. So you can go there without ever realizing what you're doing, just by following a very innocent looking link in a stub on a record company. A company owned by Beyoncé's father.

It's Wikipedia wonderful? But thank god they blocked user:nipples37.

BTW, this pipe-link-to-explicit-stuff type vandalism is actually not a type of vandalism I've seen. It's obviously not obvious to readers of the "plain" text, and so might go unnoticed for quite some time. In fact, this particular IP vandalism is still there, has been in the article for more than a year, since Nov. 2008., and was missed by two subsequent name-editors. The IP responsible has made this one vandalism, plus one more edit which probably explains it: a very similar easter egg pipe link vandalism . This one lasted from 19 Nov to 3 Jan, about 5 weeks. It wasn't caught as vandalism (there were pages of edits between) but disappeared as part of a rewrite. Until then, anybody who linked the term "rapper" in R. Kelly, was pipe-directed to "raper" Presumably due to the man's 21 indictments for statutory rape (none of which resulted in a conviction).

Ah, Wikipedia. Where if you sin, or even if you're indicted, you have to pay the piper. Somebody is not happy with R. Kelly. Or with "root music." Or Compadre Records.

Alison, you have a lot of good instincts and do good work. But when Amorrow enters into the equation, even tangentially, you lose it. Here's my formula for dealing with this:

Is the bad guy packing a piece?

If no, then pretend that the bad guy doesn't exist.

If yes, then get your own piece.

You will live longer and feel healthier this way.

Gee, I wonder why she loses it, Daniel...

[Redacted my original reply. What's the point ... ]

Likewise. If 'No one of consequence' can't do it, I'll be glad to take a look. Probably best to start with directly googleable stuff, then hit those first. Defamation is defamation - show me the diffs and I'll try my best.

So....Gerard managed to get some comments he didn't like oversighted out of existence.
People are very unhappy. Arbcom stepped on its collective dick--again. And the silence
is deafening.

Meanwhile, this thread is being dragged off into talk of autofellatio and Amorrow.

Typical conspiracy theory move really:

"Evidence? You want evidence? Of course there's no evidence, the aliens ate all the evidence. The fact it no longer exists perfectly proves that point."

...for now, Eric. For now.

Because WR really obsesses on sex and stalking. However, it has to involve children and/or animals to really get attention around here.

At least you've conceded that he's a bad guy; that's a step up. Didn't you re-add Alison to Hivemind at one point for posting 'defamatory' claims that he was a stalker?



Ignoring that there are certainly bad things that someone can do without using a gun...



...and the endgame for this one is that someone gets shot (no guarantee that it's the bad guy). Wouldn't it be so much better if he'd never gotten her information to begin with?

What part of your stated goal for Hivemind can't be served by merely listing usernames and providing the rest of the information on request (and rejecting requests that don't show sufficient cause etc)?

It would seem that Jayvdb has now resigned as an Arbitrator in light of a private deal brokered by Mike Godwin between David Gerard and the Arbcom that resulted in the sanction notice being oversighted. John, any more context possibly? Was your resignation requested? Was Arbcom admonished? Is it likely there will be more resignations? Is this a protest resignation? What exactly was the deal? Etc.

This is pretty clearly an old guard/new guard fight; Alison's attempt to hijack the thread (Alison being pretty much a member of the old guard) is just another bit of evidence toward that.

It would be interesting to learn the reason behind John's resignation, but it's likely we won't.

He should have quit over his incompetent handling of the Law/TU case. No great loss at all (sorry, John).

Does anyone have the text of the original motion that was oversighted?

Maybe Godwin saw things the way I did and is sticking up for the B/D's ability to enforce their own policies without a "community" organ such as Arbcom interfering? But that would make too much sense so it probably has more to do with old rivalries and such that I can't understand.

Godwin doesn't have principles; this is just Godwin being pointed like a gun and fired at political enemies.

Politics are always at their nastiest when the stakes are at their lowest. This is just another data point confirming that old truism.

News flash: The meta privacy policy is not the only policy that checkusers have to follow, and the ombudspersons have specifically disavowed responsibility for matters where someone violated the stricter en.wiki checkuser policy but not the meta one in the past. (I don't recall the specific example - it might have been the thing with Jayjg and CharlotteWebb.)

Definitely so, but this is still good advice. That the source of this advice also contributed to the underlying risk factors does not detract from its soundness. I'd recommend a defensive living course myself at this point. A fighting chance is always better than a hope and a prayer (particularly if one does not believe in the latter).

You confuse "user generated content purporting to tell others what to do" with policies.

Well considering that, by those criteria the presence (or absence) of David Gerard's permission bits are also user generated content, what's the problem?

I suspect that most such decisions have been made primarily on political grounds, rather than principled ones.

Doesn't change the fact that the only policy they have accepted the responsibility of enforcing is not the one that was enforced here (so there's no conflict). If they object to the existence of the en.wiki checkuser policy, then can't Godwin just delete it?

And since this whole thing is apparently that there's supposedly nothing wrong with publishing a private email, where was Godwin to reverse Giano's block for a certain past incident?

I see Kelly's going full out for

The Understatement Of The Year Award (TUOTYA).

Jonny :applesauce:

If that was the case Godwin should have stayed out of it. Put he seems to believe some other interest is a play here. It does puzzle me, if he was concerned with the board's policy, that discussion was removed but the sanction against DG seems to remain in place. Maybe he feels that the allocation of the bits is a "community" matter but ArbCom acting unilaterally concerning the policy is not. Or maybe this all is seen as somekind of defamation issue. This is all a little like Soviet era Kremlinology.

Bear in mind:

"Mike Godwin [was] acting, it is important to note, in his private capacity and not in any way as the Foundation's legal counsel" when he "brokered and agreement between David and the Committee that the statement should be removed entirely to avoid the possibility of further needless harm"

See here

Which rather explains it, doesn't it?

This has nothing to do with any sort of principle. None of the parties involved here (at least the major parties) have principles or were acting on the basis of principles. What happened is the "new guard" in Wikipedia has been steadily working to undermine the "old guard". Gerard's misadventures with this politician guy gave them the pretext they needed to move against him, and move they did. The fact that the ArbCom's statement (by way of John Vanderburg) could be interpreted as "defamatory" gave Gerard a pretext he could use to stab back "from the depths of hell" and at least take one of them with him as he went, so he did. Godwin was merely used as a (willing) tool in what amounts to a pissing match.

The comparison to Kremlinology is not inapt, except that in that situation the personal political foibles of a bunch of catty old men really did matter, because those old men had control of enough nuclear firepower to blow the world up several times over. In this case, the catty "old men" have no real power, for which we can be eternally grateful.

If I didn't know better I'd say this almost looks like a non-denial denial that El Gerardo threatened to sue somebody. The likelihood of this scenario is a question probably best left to those well-acquainted with him. Uh… Kelly?

Gerard lacks the resources required to prosecute such a case, but he is also a grand master of bluster, so I wouldn't be surprised if he made the threat.

There is a myth that UK libel laws are a litigant's paradise. They are certainly significantly more favourable to the complainer than those of the US. However, it is also incredibly expensive to bring an action, and awards are generally very low.

The result of this means that unless you are very rich, and more interested in vindication than reward, the UK courts are pretty useless for you. That is a paradise if you're an ego-led celebrity, but not if you are a mortal.

So basically, it is a lot easier to waste money on lawyers in the UK for these kinds of cases with less chance of someone actually recovering substantial damages.

With a few high profile exceptions, yes.

And no contingency fees, either.

So Godwin meddled in a dispute, personally and not as counsel, involving parties who he may tomorrow have to engage as counsel for the corporation? I wonder if Godwin will confirm Coren's account of his acting in a private capacity? I wouldn't believe it but I've never heard of another lawyer with half of his resume pertaining to things he said on Usenet.

If this is true, and they're going to this much trouble on behalf of a "functionary" (or ex-functionary, whichever) merely on the basis of a clearly-bogus threat of legal action... I mean, we already knew there were double-standards for admins and functionaries, which I suppose the "New Guard" is trying to ameliorate. But this is more blatant than usual.

Seriously, I wonder how long it would have taken a court (no matter what country it was) to throw out the case once the plaintiff announced that the "defamation" consisted of implying that he misused his checkuser privileges? Maybe I could see a minute or two for the judge to ask for an explanation of what checkuser privileges are, but once that was taken care of, no more than 30 seconds, 25 of which are going to be for a stern admonishment to plaintiff's counsel.

Giano has asked that question straight up. Remember, a legal threat, even implied, is grounds for immediate banning from the site. For example...

He asks for "only the truth." That trick never works.

No, I don't think he had to make any legal threats.... why resort to that when you're buddies with the higher ups?

This is a nice encyclopedia you've got here - It'd be a shame if anything.... litigious.... were to happen to it.

'Legal threat' is such an ugly word.

So what exactly does this Gerard character do for a living? All I know is that he looks like a weirdo, has a hefty wife and behaves like a boor on the Internet. Is there any reason to pay attention to him?

Privatemusings (T-C-L-K-R-D) manages to post a link to the offending blog post that started the whole thing, without that being oversighted (yet). I wonder when the rest of the bits will re-appear.

It appears that Wikipedia identifies Mike Godwin as damage to the network and routes around him.

Nope.

Except trolls generate their own attention, and he's an immensely successful one.

I've always found it ironic when Wikipedians refer to WR as "trolls", the best trolls here are entirely outclassed by most senior wikipedians.

My understanding is that he works for the BBC, as a software developer in their web content delivery division. He might be a contractor; my memory on this point is vague, but I am reasonably certain that he has some affiliation with the Beeb.

He has also made money doing various other sorts of IT and internet stuff, including apparently reselling hosting.

By his own description, he's a run-of-the-mill IT consultant "sysadmin" low- to mid-level computer guy. He's known to have set up various hosting servers, websites, etc, etc.

In addition to being a walking freak-show himself, he has a wife who styles herself the "Red Countess" and a "girlfriend" who makes and sells fetish wear for barbie dolls.

Ahem. "May you live in interesting times."

This new evidence shoot numerous large holes in what my understanding was thus far and concerns me on several levels.

I understand the defamation issue, but can anybody clarify the issues surrounding Godwin's question "was David Gerard punished fairly for a *substantive* violation of administrative standards"? To what degree of fairness is somebody legally entitled for administrative privileges on a private website? I would have thought not a lot, but I'm not really a very good law student.

All this crap for a decision that is pretty much spot on with regards to Gerard being a jackass.

Congrats Godwin....

(Let's not forget he's the ace lawyer who edited his own article as an ip because the coi policy only "discourages" editing by involved individuals)

If anyone should lose their job, it should be Godwin.

edit: and is Godwin seriously suggesting that arbcom needs to apply legal standards in regards to site governance? What a farce...

This feels like one of those "it's a pity they can't both lose" situations. But really, I'd suggest that the ArbCom take a very hard line here. Gerard is poison for Wikipedia, and this mess just drives the point home.

How many times have we been told that "Wikipedia does not do due process"? Are we now to believe that David Gerard is an exception to that aphorism?

It's pretty clear that this is Godwin leveraging personal influence for a friend, in the masquerade of providing legal counsel. I suspect he is actually treading on ethically treacherous grounds by pretending to provide legal advice to a party which is adverse to a party to whom he may have a duty to represent.