Excuse me if someone has brought this up before, and it could be totally coincidental.....but am I right in thinking that some of the more notorious Wiki editors are not only Irish in background, but they also hang together if someone says something not-so-nice about Irish people and things in general?

After all, Jimbo himself is Irish-American-and-proud.

There's also (just off the top of my head)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alison
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Irishguy

Plus, this is a remarkably long list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Irish_Wikipedians

And one thing that came up during the hopeless "struggle" to get the Retarded Animal Babies article reinstated. RAB episode 19, the most recent, starts with the Puppy character having sex with Lindsay Lohan in a garbage dumpster. Now, I've heard the odd rumor that Ms. Lohan is considered some kind of Celtic sex goddess by people of Irish extraction, being provably Irish-American, and having red hair and freckles. To the point of people even defending her tabloidian self-abusive lifestyle.

Perhaps certain editors saw this episode, and were offended that an Irish sex symbol was made to look bad in this cartoon, thus its article had to be RfDed? I do know that Irishguy was one of the most hostile editors to the article.....Dave Lovelace himself pointed this out. Golly, why would anyone be offended by that cartoon, eh?

There were a couple of other supporting items, but I can't remember them now.

(makes one think. I'd say something about the Jewish Wiki editors, but that's already been covered in detail elsewhere. And I think you know what I'm talkin' 'bout.)

Well, yes, some of the notorious editors are Irish. Some of them are English and Scottish and American too.. Why is this surprising?

You haven't seen The Troubles arbitration case, have you, Eric?

That's it! Thank you!

(Damn...that is one of those discussions on Wiki that makes me itch uncontrollably. I don't have the sheer Objectivist force of will to read the whole thing.)

The Great Irish Genocide case was funnier. I wouldn't say as a group the Irish are any more or less biased than any other group of editors, there's just more of the buggers so there's bound to be more bad apples.

Hi Eric, interesting post, but it could be showing bias by asking it. Sounds like everyday Wikipedia to me. Who exactly are you talking about here? Name a few names . Actually contrary to what some admins will try and tell you, conflict is a good "process" to have. And it also shows that editors are working their brains to produce better articles. That's why conflict resolution is so important, notwithstanding that WP seems to lack the resources, or the people to make conflict resolution a success. Some admins use this conflict process to get terribly terribly snotty with some of the editors, thereby making the process a negative affair, rather than a positive one.

Who on earth is Lindsay Lohan? Forgive my ignorance!

Alison isn't Irish.

Oh and are you about to claim that there is an american cabal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_Wikipedians

Where's he say that?

More accurate to say multiple american cabals. But absolutely right to say that they generally share the same general level of stupidity that Bush, et al managed to exploit. Which of course means that there are now no links to ED but plenty o' pics of Mohammad (Peace be Upon Him!).

Anyway, I think the point was that this "cabal" of "Irish" are either a cabal of U.S. based pro-IRA Irish or over-the-water, anti-British Irish.

I seriously doubt if anyone here gives a rat's ass whether or not there's a pro-pot, anti-IRA Irish cabal at work on Wikipedia.

I doubt you have paid close attention to the conflicts on Wikipedia. (related to content)Most of those conflicts are not good process, their origine is editors unwillingness to compromise, to be reasonable etc.

I wouldn't say there is an Irish cabal per se.

However, Wikipedia is littered with liberal, Champagne Socialists who are anti-Imperialist and like to see anything that can be blamed on the British Empire blamed on the British Empire.

Which may explain a lot of the decisions made in situations regarding the Irish issue.

Another point. For some reason, I can only assume due to the American-influence, the religion of people seems to matter. In Britain, we gave up organised religion a long time ago, though we still (in England at least) have a State Religion, ie Church of England. However, nobody really believes in it.

If Gordon Brown were to claim, as George W Bush has, that he has a personal line to God, he would be out of Downing Street within days if not hours. We do not particularly care for those who wear their religion on their sleeves. And despite what Wiki may claim, and despite his speeches, let's not forget that Winston Churchill could never bring himself to believe in God.

It's the same with those Slavery articles. Dominated by anti-Slavery liberals and other lefties. A POV nightmare.

Wiki by definition will always have a pinkish tinge. Any self-respecting right-winger would never sit back and let them run a site that could generate hundreds of million of dollars have to ask for hand-outs like some boy scout on Bob-a-Job week!

I've always wondered why when the Irish bias question is raised that the admin who's a member of Sinn Féin and attempted to censor Gerry Adams' article never seems to get mentioned.....

My account was assassinated by IrishGuy working together with his admin nom OrangeMike. They love being irish together, and they are also part of the Baseball Editors Cabal which includes WKnight94 and BaseballBugs.

Oh, I can feel it coming! We're only one step away in this debate from the consequences predicted by Godwin's Law.

Maybe you're onto something. I was going to insert a Shamrock Shake joke (seeing that WR was able to successfully lobby for the return of the article), then I followed a link and now have run into a controversy about the origins of the McDonald family. Are they Irish, or are they Scottish?

Shouldn't he change his last name to "Ireland," then?

There are already several people named "James Ireland," of course... Oddly enough, one of them was apparently Scottish, or at least there's a memorial library named after him at the University of Glasgow.

@$%#&!! boats...

The noted scientist Fritz London was a German-born American and never lived in London.

And there was Franklin Clarence Mars the creator of the chocolate bar, who turned out to be from Minnesota. Not the planet Mars.

Can I just say that from the original premise "Jimbo is a proud Irish-American" and the claims of an "Irish bias" which seems to refer to people who are in the main not Irish, that this thread is one great Heap of Pish?

The trouble is that the most assertively Irish people are often not people born in Ireland but Americans of irish ancestry whose families have been in America for generations. Anyone who's been in New York or the American Boston on St. Patrick's Day will agree.

And if you were to conduct a genealogy test, or a cultural awareness test, you'd find that they're actually less Irish than Nelson Mandela.

I believe Plastic Paddies is the standard perjorative.

By the way, why do you never hear about Norwegian-Americans? Or Scando-Americans or some such other contrived sub-group?

There are "no problems, only solutions". The level of conflict very often depends how one observes the "so called" conflict. Conflicts are an opportunity to to move the process forward, and Wikipedia just does does not have the resources to deal with conflict resolution.

On another note, I'm Irish, and whoever this "Irish Cabal" is, they sure have it in for me over my support for Vintagekits at ArbCom/Troubles.

Oscar Wilde once wrote: "The Irish are a very fair minded race, they never speak well of one and other".

So called Irish cabal?

Why, do you never, ever, hear of people claiming to be American-English, (although Anglo-American is common in commerce and politics). I mean, there was that lot from East Anglia who seemed to have some influence on matters over there.

And why, when I am in America, am I always accused of being Australian?

Yes, I was told I was South African when I went to America. It must be some bug in the American attitude to accents.

What you are discribing is conflict which result from misunderstanding or disagreement between two good faithed parties. Those conflicts more or less don't need any dispute resolutions, they resolve by themselves. If you have followed a reasonable discussion, with a dispute between two good faithed users, you will generally see it being resolved by: ''Oh, that was what you meant, oh OK, I'll place it there etc.'' I am not refering to early disputes when one of the two parties or both haven't moved the level of understanding what the other write or read what the other provide. Initial conflicts are what are constructive and at the initial stage it is not healthy to have any exterior intervention (aka conflict resolution).

You see, the majority of times, when it goes to mediation it is either one party or the two who are not editing in good faith. And then, mediation does not deal with bad faith editors, and stupid arbitration will close its eyes and shoot ''content dispute'', only when you are an editor like Elonka you can expect measures to be taken.

"....Why, do you never, ever, hear of people claiming to be American-English...."


You don't because y're not hangin' in the proper circles.

Folk like G.W. Bush and his family, E. Howard Hunt, etc. have debates over precisely such issues as "How Anglo are you really?" -- but only when they're sure the ears of the unwashed masses aren't near. Private dinner tables at home, exclusive clubs --

See a pattern there?

(Sorry about the sloppy edit; I just know my way around the UI yet)

Totally agree, and that's usually when the over-zealous admins move in, and make a b**** of it.





Meanwhile this Irish cabal wreaks havoc on Irish Wikipedians. Anyone know who they are? They are certainly not doing any favours for the editors I hang out with. Stuffy lot?

whos that?