Looks like, with Felonious Monk under a magnifying glass, the ID Cabal needed a new admin to do their dirty work, so they found one who was just recently given the tools:

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

I see Odd nature, dave souza, and Orangemarlin there encouraging her. Gnixon carries on his quixotic fight against IDCab influence.

This further illustrates the modus operandi of the WikiClique on ID. They start by nudging and niggling an opposing editor, then escalate it to "advice" which becomes increasingly insistent, adamant, and strident. When the adversarial editor doesn't buckle to the bullying, the thugs in the ID Cabal label the invasive editor as "disruptive" or "tendentious" or "tenacious" and recruit some randomly selected admin to step in and block him.

How do people here feel about FA's (I notice Intelligent Design is one)? It's my opinion OrangeMarlin has got so much into 'reaching FA' as it is the easiest way to control content in an article. Perhaps admin like this one feel they are protecting FA status when blocking someone for bringing up 'Original Research' in the Talk pages! (not that it doesn't take 2 seconds for certain admins to 'protect' any 'level' of articles if things aren't going their way these days - so she could be corrupt, or over-zealous I suppose - or even gullible as this thread suggests). FA's, imo are often anything but complete articles - they are mainly just technically conforming per the 'technical' areas of MOS. It's all 'surface' perfection though.

I'm not personally religious, but billions of people are (including whole societal structures) - and the Intelligent Design FA is clearly an anti-religion tract. I doesn't read like an encyclopedic article almost at any point - how have they got away with it? It's a real shocker. And as we all know, there is no proof either way anyway - so come the article itself is so long whem other articles will cover the meat of the arguments? OrangeMarlin simply does not allow the need for all this socio 'cruft' in other articles, if you notice - but there cannot be room enough here, it seems.

And how will OM's mentor now look at OM ganging up on editors, and telling admins their job regarding block-times etc? He may do it politely, but will it cross the supposed "no tollerance level" for bad behaviour? I suspect that this mentoring thing will mean that OM will simply get away with much more - as long as he stops swearing, the mentor will be forever holding back, I'm sure. Someone else goes after him? "Back off - he's being mentored, jpgordon has things in hand and if its OK by such a high ranking admin, then what's the problem?"

Has there ever been a case on Wikipedia where 'mentoring' hasn't meant 'mollycoddled'? If someone doesn't know the ropes and needs help then fair enough, but for an experienced player like OM, mentoring is surely just a clear 'pass' for all kinds of underhand abuse?

Hmm - looks like the article owners at Intelligent Design have kicked up the ownership a notch or two. Now, it's not only a blockable offense to edit the article itself, it's also blockable to place "unsourced text" on the article talk page, to be excessively verbose (watch out FT2), and to be mildly sarcastic and slightly smartalecky!

It's been a while since I looked at blocking policy but it has apparently changed recently.

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

Orangemarlin is not an admin. Intelligent Design made FA because (someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this is how I remember hearing it) Raul654, the FA director, who is also in tight with the ID group, promoted the article against criticism from SandyGeorgia and others. Not only was it a conflict of interest for him (are we seeing a pattern?), but the article was not up to FA standards. I was not a witness to any of this, but it's what I've read since, so don't take this as fact.

It's amazing how many emails you get when people see someone from the ID group harassing you on your talk page.

FAC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fea...elligent_design

Raul654 - they guy I've just been reading wants to delete the Wikipedia 'Wikipedia Review' article? Looking at his user page he is "an administrator, a bureaucrat, an oversighter, checkuserer, and arbitrator emeritus." Jesus. My own theory is that all of these people just want to be God. Really - that is actually my theory.

You left out "thug".

To paraphrase ScienceApologist (oh the irony): When are people going to tear down this walled garden of woo?

It's really is outrageous. Apparently they have a bot which swiftly archives any new topic they deem "inappropriate" on the talkpage (I think it's a javascript gadget or something). Somebody tried to take it to AN/I, but as usual, nobody wanted to take on these people.

How is that characterization helpful?

Christian fundamentalists try to use the concept of "design" as a platform for Christian propaganda, as I'm sure everyone knows.

What has happened here is that anti-religious types have found that they can use the Christian platform as a sounding-board and straw-man for their own propaganda.

The ID article has basically turned into a horribly-written essay called "Why Intelligent Design is Wrong" after being put into a blender with its own appendix.

In the UK, "emeritus" is a euphamism for "for life". It's so comforting the world's encyclopedia is in such 'great hands' as these people.

Pushing through Intelligent Design for 'protected' Feature Article status simply proves he cares nothing about standards. I suppose it's all about control of knowledge, fighting in clans and the smell of power - cavemen with computers.

I thought the whole the whole idea with Wikipedia was that people couln't be allowed to be like this? It's a natural occurrence, but aren't there supposed to be checks? Or is it just the same old story of 'jobs for the boys'?

Gwen Gale is nobodies patsy, and more fool any interest group that think they can "operate" her. Her judgements on application of policy are not only pretty sharp, but almost clinically neutral. I haven't seen her encounter a "one rule for them, one rule for us" argument, but I would think that there may be quite a few people rendered wishing they hadn't crossed paths with her.

This is in regards:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Adm...f_User:Ludwigs2

right?

What do you think about the Intelligent Design article?

Me? Haven't read it at all. My conflicts with OM, Filll et all are personal/editing style rather then content based.

And on the subject, how do you feel about OrangeMarlin 'weighing in' (with the most crystal-clear of cabals) doing the admins job? Does he now have a free pass to do this whenever he wants now that he is under a mentors wing?



You need to read it. It's a Featured Article - something that is supposed to represent Wikipedia. And it may well do, but not quite in the way FA's were intended to do. It's a shocker - far worse than I expected before I read it myself. It's simply a sustained and controlled attack on religion. I'm not religious myself - but for heaven's sake, this is not Wikipedia is meant to be about. It is virtually no merit as an encyclopedic article.

Honest opinions:

First part: I'm not sure bringing up sockpuppetry on an admin's page as first step would be useful (We have SSP for a reason), but that's more my personal view at a quick look then policy.

I DO have to say that Gwen did the right thing when there was discussion/disagreement with the block, and when there was consensus that the block did not deserve 24 (nevermind 55!) hours, she did the unblock herself. Need more admins to admit when they're wrong and undo their actions (indeed, it's something I try to improve in my own behavior)

2nd Part: Well, that's to be expected. I've spoke with another administrator who got dragged through the full monty (so to speak) with this group of editors, and the running joke is that under the truth in naming policy (well, there is no such policy, but there should be), the ID Project should be renamed "The Intelligent Design Theory is neither Intelligent nor Designed" project. It's kinda a misnomer to have a group all who oppose that idea to be in a project under that name

See Mechanism Design vs. Intelligent Design.

The project, like many other Wikiprojects, should be disbanded. They're just meeting halls for meatpuppets.

I agree she did well to retract the block - and to do it herself shows something about her I know other admins do not have - they tend to put it to the 'process'. But she did get suckered in and made the 55 hour block - which is scary given the very nature (not to mention quality) of the article, the cabal involved, and the OrangeMarlin proceedings too (and any block handed out in OM's presence seems inherently too long to me right now!). If she knew little about it she should simply have taken more time, instead of gun-blazing with block hours. In the company of heroes though...

Regarding the ID cabal - they all think they are on mount Olympus if you ask me. Irony is somewhere underneath the clouds.

I would disagree regarding her application of policy. The diffs she gave as her reason for blocking were, for the most part, horrendously bad. She mischaracterizes Ludwig's comments in several, and the diffs regarding lack of sourcing were 1) on a talk page, and 2) Ludwig2 specifically states he only wants to rewrite the lead using the existing sources.

The only real violation she's got on him is some incivility, but considering the archiving crap some of the others were pulling, is it any surprise Ludwig2 started getting pissed off and calling them on ownership issues? She says she disagreed with what they were doing, so why didn't she say or do anything about it?

"Arbitrator emeritus" sounds far better than "not voted back in as continuing arbitrator"

Filll levels with Gwen Gale...

So she is a totally cluless POVist and a potential 'ID (or 'cruft') cabal' member. At least she was made to remove the block - says something reasonably good about Wikipedia at least.

Meh, she did a pretty shabby job on neutrality this time around. She blocked Ludwigs2 for posting on the article talk page, but the IDCab pukes who were repeatedly removing his comments didn't even get warned, apparently.

Actually, there is one member who isn't opposed -- Ed Poor (Uncle Ed). However, Ed's mostly over at Conservapedia these days, so I guess it doesn't really count.

Yeah, I ran into Ed briefly around the R.Fiend ArbCom case. I'm sure if he came back full time he'd be hounded out of the group.

Actually, scratch that, Prospero. Ed Poor's under an ArbCom restriction NOT to say anything about ID..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req...blocks_and_bans

(Quelle surprise)

Well scratch that one. But I did bring it up in OM's report of me to AN/I.

Raul gets causality backwards...


Since they WikiClique Gang was already nutty, Ed Poor cannot have been the cause.

More likely, they banned him to save him from being driven nutso by the crazy-making machinations of the IDCab.

Ed Poor has been a loonie for quite some time. Even before all this IDCab stuff.

His most spectacular act of stupidity was to delete the then AfD main page, which because of the sheer volume of edits, caused Wikipedia to crash for 15 minutes or so.

Ed has been crazy, but I wouldn't blame you for not knowing about him, since he was one of the first "driving force" admins to be taken down and marginalized. He really hasn't been anywhere relevant to any discussion since 2006.

I know he's a nut, but who better to take on Wikiproject ID? When looking for NPOV with such a mindset prevailing, the only option is to bring in someone of the opposing viewpoint who feels just as strongly. I don't fault Ed for deleting VfD, I think it was a good idea. VfD and now XfD are just shams in terms of process.

This would be the one that page-protected my talk page.

I noted how she explains reasons for her block against Ludwig, and one of her reasons she cites the as replacing the lead with un-sourced commentary. Her link points to the talk page, which shows the replacement wasn't actually done on the article. Ludwig is in dispute with Hrafn.

Compare that to removing cited sources for un-sourced commentary on the Natural Theology article. Hrafn even noted the source (also note how he changed the terms). The lead of the article remains uncited.

I was reading more of what Filll had to say, even the note of Raul's civil pov page.... hmmm.

By being accurate. Raul will, if allowed, gleefully relate for all who care to here (and those who don't who happen to be within earshot) how he "nailed" Lir (or Wik, I forget which) repeatedly to the wall. Or any of several other "war stories" he is more to happy to whip out from his overly-long term as an Arbitrator. He relishes in "finding" and blocking purported sockpuppets, even though he is wrong quite often. He kicks people off the public IRC channel virtually at random, and when he's not doing that he acts like a 13 year old.

And don't even get me started about the damn Staples button.

And this charming example of humanity is not merely one of Wikipedia's most influential editors, but in fact ones of its named spokespeople!

Disbanding wikiprojects serves very little purpose; whatever clique or cabal is represented by the project will continue on, just somewhat less visibly. All removing the project does it make it slightly harder for them to recruit.

Well first of all, anyone who takes the advice of David Gerard without a grain of salt...

I just can't feel sorry for someone who lost his Bureacrat status, admin status, before finally being placed on probation, because he was a nut when editing religious articles.

Whiile your nut for nuts strategy may be correct, it'd be better if it wasn't one who hasn't been community sanctioned already.

There is functionally little difference between an arbitrator and an arbitrator emeritus. Former arbs (aside from me) have an equal voice in the backchannel discussions with the sitting arbs, and retain all the powers and privileges of their former office without any obligation to actually participate in the arbitration process. Not that arbitrators have much of an obligation, either.

Isn't there something awfully wrong with a system where someone voted out of office retains such power? (NB: this is a rhetorical question.)

Worked well enough for a thousand years...

Yes, I think Wikipedia fits much more with the label of "feudal monarchy" than it does with democracy.

The Feudal Monarchy reached its nadir with the reign of King John. His regime was so corrupt, the disfavored Barons got together with Stephen Langton (the Archbishop of Canterbury) and invented the concept of Civil Rights.

Wikipedia isn't quite to that stage just yet, but it's pretty close to reprising The Runnymede Follies, some 800 years after the original production.

Jimbo Wales agrees with you: