As the game changed drastically, in 1993 and 1994, counter-movement began. Moulton and other directors were accused of "fascism", and quickly became unpopular with many senior users and administrators. "Raids" became common, with users abusing system glitches and/or lazy programming to do anything from obtaining root access to the MUSE to moving unlocked objects around. Most notoriously, in early 1994 two users named "lacey" and "Dagger" gathered over 9000 unlocked objects and dropped them in Moulton's virtual office.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=365963345

I realize mentioning Moulton here will invoke sound and fury again, but I was Googling around for Moulton's blog, and I stumbled upon the Wikipedia article on MicroMUSE (T-H-L-K-D) and apparently someone is working hard to sully Moulton's reputation.

Specifically:



The IP editor 24.192.163.12 (T-C-L-K-R-D) has made other suspicious edits to the MicroMUSE article and making Moulton look bad. The edit I mention above has been there since June 3, 2010. It's an unacceptable BLP violation if I ever saw one!

Can anyone ask Moulton who this IP editor might be and if there is any truth to his edits?

You're right it is a BLP violation. The negative material lacks any proper sourcing at all. In fact the only appropriate sources are the Hard News Cafe article (although very sycophantic) and the 1996 NII Awards which do not support the negative material. The other references are primary sources and not appropriate for an encyclopedia. In fact the articles positive "chronology" is not properly sourced either. The article needs to cut back to fair and properly sourced stub or better sources gathered.

The IP, BTW, belongs to a small ISP called WideOpenWest (WOW) and traces to Royal Oak, MI.

I just knew it had the marks of Awbrey. Jon, aren't you ashamed of yourself?

I just knew it had the marks of Awbrey. Jon, aren't you ashamed of yourself?

Who do you think keeps uploading all those penisula pictures?

I just knew it had the marks of Awbrey. Jon, aren't you ashamed of yourself?

There were two notable spinoffs from MicroMuse, organized by members of MicroMuse who wanted a site where they could be a little wilder than what was appropriate for a K-12 themed educational site hosted at MIT.

One of the spinoffs was VirtualChicago.

Another spinoff was Flipside Muse.

Most likely the IP editor on Wikipedia is someone associated with one (or both) of the above. Many participants maintained continuing membership in MicroMuse, turning to the alternate sites when they wanted to depart from the level of decorum appropriate to MicroMuse (where we had a number of children of grammar school age).

You can find a tidbit of comparable history here and here.

I don't think the IP editor from Royal Oaks MI was Rob Noyes ("Spatch") because he lives in Boston.

The most significant clue comes from this edit:



The most likely suspects would be the person known as "Dagger" on MicroMuse. (Or possibly the person known as "Lacey" or someone close to them.) Probably Anna Duval Smith ("MacDuff") would know who they are.

Stop the presses!

"Dagger" on MicroMuse was Joe Osinski of Eastpointe MI. He was exiled from MicroMuse ("Permanently Banished" by the MicroMuse Disciplinary Committee) on 9/11/94 for "Accumulated Offenses" (see the documented case of "Swagger"). The IP editor on Wikipedia posted from IP address 24.192.163.12 which (drum roll please) geolocates to Eastpointe MI.

Mystery solved. The IP editor on Wikipedia was Joe Osinski of Eastpointe MI, who was known as "Dagger" on MicroMuse.


...

Keep in mind that Osinski was 16 years old in 1994, when, as "Dagger" on MicroMuse, he created an Orgasm Room full of sex toys, to which he would lure young females. He's now 32, and still recalling and reminiscing about those youthful and illicit adventures in cyberspace.

Of course, I was joking there.

I am not joking about this, though...

From Barry Kort:

Sounds like someone ridded away that troublesome young priest for the good of MicroMuse.

Most online communities require some weeding and pruning. If they are individually owned and don't pass themselves off as a communally-governed charitable organization funded partially by tax exemptions, it's all good (except for the pruned, I suppose).

On my site, I describe myself up front as a benevolent dictator and have so far only blocked spammers from being activated. What few members I have seem to like this so far.

<snip quote pyramid>Probably the fascination with intentional communities has given an exaggerated emphasis to the metaphor of "governance." This has burdened many projects with needless overhead and has frequently caused their fracture and failure. You don't need "democracy" or "godkings" or "benevolent dictators." You need a light weight management selected by the operators of the site. A related issue is user "user right to expression" which is also destructive to many projects. Instead of being concerned with the users right to expression most websites would be better of considering whether any action is likely to promote discussion. That is probably what you mean my "benevolent dictator" in any case. I certainly don't have any problem with what MicroMuse did by banning this kid. I just find Moulton's subsequent conduct on a number of websites to be ironic in light of this incident.