I've been sifting through the archives of Wikipedia's Signpost newsletter to get material for our own Wikipedia historical Timeline.

I never paid the newsletter much attention, but reading it now, boy is it biased. Much of it is pure propaganda - a mouthpiece for The Cult. And worse, it repeatedly goes on the attack of anyone who crosses Wikipedia's path. The founder and former chief editor of the Newsletter is current chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees Michael Snow, and he is the worst offender.

This piece by Snow is simply a long attack on a journalist who crossed Wikipedia at some previous juncture. Snow adds a whole section called "Other issues with Nash" where he dregs up previous misdemeanors in a way to discredit him.

Elsewhere, whenever a journal criticizes WP, Snow and cohorts are there to add copious counter criticisms as they try to discredit the critical report. They highlight banal issues, or supposed "errors" in the reporting to weaken the case and make WP seem the infallible temple of enlightenment once again.

If Wikipedios are so worked up about WR being biased against WP over the years, then they need only revisit the Orwellian Signpost archives to understand how that situation arose. Somewhere someone had to provide a counterpoint to the stream of bullshit emanating from the heart of Cult Wikipedia.

Reading the Signpost is not worth anyone's time...that was obvious to me as soon as I noticed they were covering arbitration issues under the recurring headline "The Report on Lengthy Litigation" (T.R.O.L.L.).

Do you think there's any chance of setting up one of the clueless with the old "This is Orwellian" routine?

http://www.amazon.com/1984-Signet-Classics...49213491&sr=8-4

You're welcome



The sure sign of a cult mentality is never to address the issues raised but to attack the accuser as mentally and/or morally deficient.

There are no exceptions.

See this old Signpost piece about Article subjects requesting deletion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wik...7/Self-deletion

Brandt and others had been on about this for nearly a year - no mention on the signpost. The moment Angela Beesley requests her article be deleted, the issue is all over the front page.

According to Erik Möller, who was Beesley's partner, her bio was "a borderline case" in which the wishes of the article's subject "should be the decisive criterion." That's funny, because the same Erik Möller (using his moniker Eloquence) told Daniel Brandt only two months earlier that "giving such an individual the choice not to have an article written about them is an obscene suggestion if your goal is to build a general reference work".

Apparently Möller is also able to buttsnorkel. A useful skill in WP management-climbing. As in management-climbing elsewhere.

We used to call it "slurping your way up the brown snowcone."

Although, in the end, Brandt's bio was deleted but Beesley's wasn't, so actual actions in the long run don't always correspond with what form the sound and fury of Wikidrama takes.

In that time frame, there was a general agreement amongst influential parties within the Wikipedia hierarchy not to mention Daniel Brandt in public in any way, as doing so seemed to make you significantly more likely to find yourself listed on one of his "hivemind" pages, a situation which most Wikipedians viewed as anywhere from mildly annoying to significantly problematic, depending on the individual's situation and attitude.

Daniel's methods, regardless of the merits of his position, made him few friends in Wikipedia. I can't say that the "oubliette" treatment he received was either unexpected or all that much unreasonable. Please note that I'm not trying to defend Wikipedia here, just pointing out that Daniel's methodology was pretty much calculated to make enemies, and the fact that it did should not be seen as surprising or even all that noteworthy.

This is solely because Beesley got over being pissed at Jimbo and WMF and moved on. Until that happened her bio had shrunk to a few lines and was winking out now and then regularly, like a badly phased image from an alternate universe (probably the Carolyn Doran Galaxy). But she fell in love, her bio then expanded, and I'm surprised we didn't end up seeing her bridal registry as a link there, at the end. It's all about what the influential want. If Jimbo had been ... ahem .... friendly with her at the time she got pissed off at WMF, her bio would have gone the way of Doran's, eventually. But Wikia isn't (quite) WMF.

As for Brandt, he had to use nuclear weapons-- net tools to cause so much hassle to WP that they really found themselves not being able to take it any more. It's not something the average person bioed-against-their-will can do.

I supported the Angela Beesley deletion as much as the Brandt deletion.

Any of these articles should be deleted on request unless the subject is someone important enough to be featured in a credible encyclopedia. And even then, have a long hard think.

This "In The News" page from a Signpost edition dated 3rd December 2007 made me laugh out loud. Michael Snow again.

Now let me see...

In the news this week:
-Wales discusses future of Wikipedia, a thing about the move to San Francisco.

-Next, a rebuttal to librarians who dismiss Wikipedia as a source. Not very interesting. Mmmm.

-Instinct wins Singapore deal to provide mobile Wikipedia... Dull

-French Google, Yahoo Alike (& Loving Wikipedia) - - Similarities between the French Google and --Yahoo are noted. Yawn...

-Use Wikipedia 'facts' at your own risk - the usual fare.

(Oh and right at the bottom... if you can be bothered to read that far down....)

-Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia The Register article describing uproar and mayhem that engulfed Wikipedia and was to be covered by the entire mainstream media.

I love the way it is so reluctantly added!

Yes, Kato! That reminds me of "might as well restore all of it I suppose"!