First of all, I can't believe I'm actually here doing this...as much as I've openly railed against this site (and no, you don't get my WP user name until (or if) I finally decide to shove off). But I had to find some place to talk about what I've just seen, and as I'm sure you've all seen, the environment over there is far too toxic.

So here I am, on the dark side (kinda nice!).

It's a long story how, but today I happened upon an episode, now past but immortalized in diffs, that shakes my faith in WP like no other.

And I've seen a lot of wikishit, believe me.

But this one really embodies the main criticism of WP perfectly: we drive away the people who actually know what they're talking about.

There are far too many diffs to list them all, so you'll have to wade through the histories like I've been doing for five hours today. WHen you do, you'll see these characters:

Ptmccain: (from user page) he's a Lutheran minister and CEO of a Lutheran publishing house and extremely accomplished editor and writer. The kids of guy you'd hire to write the article on Lutheran issues.

Mantanmoreland: the world's biggest asshole. By far. And a guy who'd call me antisemetic for saying that.

SlimVirgin, Jayjg, Fred Bauder: three people deeply in love with the world's biggest asshole.

Easiest way to do this is to start here,
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=66229972
...and then just do what you have to to follow the conversation across a few talk pages and a rather heated W:AN/I episode, and finally Ptmccain's banning before the day is over. You will not believe it, especially when you look around and realize that when it's all done, there's no question but that exactly the wrong people remain part of WIkipedia.

Even worse, this POS Mantanmoreland keeps a Barnstar on his page given to him by the same guy he just fxxked over! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mantanmoreland

There. I feel better just writing about all this, even if my post makes no sense.

Check it out, and then tell me if I'm nuts for being so pissed.

If Im not, let's come up with a good old fashioned Code Red for Mantanmoreland.

Well, it certainly looks ridiculous. Basically, it's gotten to the point where they'd probably perma-block God Himself if He used the words "Gary Weiss" in a sentence.

Just who the hell is this Weiss guy, anyway? Is he related to Janet Weiss? (She was really cute when she was played by Susan Sarandon in The Rocky Horror Picture Show...)

Obviously he's some sort of author/journalist who specializes in stock-market-related issues... His website says he's got a new book out called Wall Street vs. America, on behalf of which he writes "Read it and you will never be ripped off." Of course, you might get banned from editing Wikipedia for life, but hey, at least your investment portfolio will be safe!

This also looked interesting - apparently he believes that the "naked short-selling scandal" is actually a "con" and a diversion of valuable SEC resources, around which a "cult" has formed:

http://garyweiss.blogspot.com/2006/07/secs...mmon-sense.html

Anyway, I have a lot of friends who are Lutherans. I like these people. Meanwhile, this "Mantanmoreland" guy looks like a real dickhead, and the degree to which he's protected really does look highly suspicious, even if in reality there's nothing much to it.

My father, who died in 1998, had a couple dozen titles that were published by Concordia, the Lutheran publishing house where Ptmccain is CEO. I'm an atheist, but my father was a Lutheran minister and so is my brother. Lutherans are rather unexcitable and fairly reliable, for the most part. If I had to choose, I'd take a Lutheran over a SlimVirgin any day.

Mr. Rasa,
You remind me of myself about a month ago as I first came to understand how bad this situation really is. A month later, and I still find myself surprised every day.

I've got a ton of data assembled on this very topic...mantanmoreland and his many socks (discovering more each day, to tell you the truth, as well as at least one tag team partner with his many socks) and his patented approach to tricking opponents into 3RR, and the goading them into personal attacks, bringing in his admin friends, ganging up, getting them blocked, and then going to town making whatever edits he wants, with observers too intimidated by what they've just seen to do anything about it.

I thought your insights about the wrong people being left in WP were great, and reminded me of a comment to that effect I actually slipped into the AN/I ptmccain started against mantanmoreland (though oddly by the time it was done, mantamoreland was fine and ptmccain was banned!). It was quickly reverted by SV, but at least she didn't oversight it out of existence even though she probably will now.

Here's the diff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=66296267

Keep digging. It gets much worse. I'd post more here, but for a few reasons I really should not for a couple of weeks. If you have any questions, PM me.

A couple of things I dont get. First is why people "publicly rail against this site." What is the objection?

I also don't get why the head of a Lutheran publishing house is the one you want to write an article on Martin Luther. William F. Buckley might be the best one to write about William F Buckley, and the article on him reads that way.

If you want non-knee-jerk objections, the main one is that some of us aren't utterly mortified at the idea of obtaining and posting the real names of administrators. (I myself see it as a "necessary evil," though not in all cases.)

Beyond that, my opinion tends to be that people who are volunteering for what they think is a "good cause" are especially sensitive to "external" criticism, simply due to the nature of voluntarism, and by the same token they're also especially willing to follow any line of reasoning that dismisses or assigns malicious intent to the actual critics. Not everyone completely agrees with that, though.


That's a good point, but the reality of Wikipedia is that if a partisan of one side of an issue appears, that person can get away with all sorts of things unless a partisan of the other side shows up and is willing to challenge him (or her). In the case of Martin Luther, this was an obvious case where you had several reasonable editors trying to be fairly objective, but also largely positive. Bad, bad, bad! So then one day, everyone's favorite admin SlimVirgin (ZOMG WHAT A SHOCK) appeared, determined to include Luther in the "Anti-Semites" category (diff). Why does she do things like that? Some would say it's because she wants people to hate Jews - a form of reverse psychology based on her fully knowing the effects of her own blatantly obnoxious behavior. (That's a theory I don't personally agree with, though.)

A little while later, Mantanmoreland (self-described as having been educated by Jesuits), seeing this and probably hoping to get himself into the SlimVirgin clique as a means of promoting himself quickly, took up the "cause" (diff), and "helped out" by goading Ptmccain into a personal attack - something Ptmccain wouldn't have tried with SlimVirgin, since that would just have meant an automatic ban. So, Mantanmoreland is the junkyard dog, Fred Bauder and Jayjg show up with the vague "WP:CIVIL" warnings just to make it all look "legal," someone called "Inshaneee" does the actual block (because nobody's heard of Inshaneee), and SV keeps her hands clean - except for the problem of us pesky "WR trolls" who actually take the time to look the shit up. (Oh, and there's also her removal of the evidence, including all commentary by "banned user" Ptmccain - but nobody really looks at those silly ol' diffs, right?)

This is how Wikipedia works, basically! If someone with an axe to grind and the power to enforce the grinding decides to get rid of someone whose presence they find inconvenient, they can, and do. Like I say, this was an obvious case, but there are probably a lot more of them that are much more subtle, where the person on the other side of the issue just gave up and went away without their having to ban him/her, or otherwise raise a stink that could tracked with diffs, etc.

Still, at least Mr. Luther is long-since deceased, so the poor guy doesn't have to watch it happening to himself before his very eyes.

Trust me, you're not nuts, and you're not alone either. Just remember that, and we'll eventually stop things like this from happening in the future.

The resistance is growing, and soon enough i'll give you all an outlet to look into deleted edits again -- the sock is well on its way to adminship, i'm very surprised the cabal has not noticed yet, maybe they're just too busy harrassing people like Tabula Rasa to care.

Somey I see yr point but I still have a problem with the head of a religious publishing house writing articles about the founder of the religion. To me that is like the head of the conservative party's publishing house writing an article about Buckley. I just have a problem with that.

And the game just goes on, and on, and on...

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=70418925

So at this point, any attempt to remove blatantly POV material from the Martin Luther article, to reduce its misplaced emphasis on Luther's alleged anti-semitism, is simply being reverted by Slimmy and her favorite meat puppet as having been made by "banned user" Ptmccain. And now they've protected the page against so-called "vandals"!

The amazing thing is that they continue to insist that anyone who disagrees with them must be the same person, even though this issue has been extensively covered here, and involved the head of a Lutheran publishing house who, I would have to assume, has plenty of contacts in the Lutheran religious community - at least a few of whom, I should think, must have internet access! Do they think that only one Lutheran on the entire planet could possibly disagree with them that Luther's supposed anti-semitism should be practically the main focus of the article about him? Or that nobody reads this site at all? (Other than them, obviously.)

I guess if you're a Lutheran, or a serious student of the Reformation, or an historian of any description whatsoever, or have any sort of personal beliefs or moral-ethical values of any kind, Wikipedia just isn't the place for you, is it?

Incredible!

So Rev. McCain is another casualty. I had a cordial email exchange with him back in May, during which I warned him that a public disagreement with SlimVirgin generally leads to banning, after bogus accusations and some sort of star chamber proceeding. I am actually somewhat astounded (given that this has become Wikipedia's most open secret) that Jimbo has not yet arrived at the conclusion that she is a liability, given the growing drumbeat of negative publicity Wikipedia is receiving.



Daniel, if you haven't seen it already, you ought to check out Garrison Keillor's The Young Lutheran's Guide to the Orchestra. It's better in the audio version with the orchestral theme and variations on "Yes, Jesus loves me."

Look everybody! I'm chatting with Dudley Doright Mantammoreland Samiharris!

I believe Dudley Doright is a cartoon character, unlike Mantan Moreland and Frankie Darrow who are movie characters who sock puppeted in some movies. ;-)

Wow. This Ptmccain thread is great.

The opening salvo from 'tabula rusa" about the "world's biggest asshole" certainly doesn't back up WP claims of outstanding editorship from Mr. mantan.

And after reading Dudley's take, I wonder what his thoughts are on Prem's PR man watchdoging the Prem BLP.
It's not like PtMcCain is Martin Luther's personal secretary. That would be a very boring job, not much dictation and stuffy air in the officetomb.

I once got mightily out of sorts reading the T.S. Eliot BLP where some jihadist decided they were going to take a good midde third of Tom's life and chalk it up to evil. I'll have to go back and see if it was the same wrecking crew. I mean there were a lot of anit-semites historically, but to make the intros and/or weighty sections of their BLP's into a revenge? If they were notable for being anti-semite, sure. Some Germans in the '20's who were hellbent for leather, that guy who ran for the guvner of Louisiana after running from the Klan, Bobby "Don't take a madman's quotes seriously" Fischer, and some really culturally biased folks in the middle east.

I'm anti-dentite myself. I mean, they drill your teeth, grin about it, have access to the best drugs in the world in their own private stashes, and have a shockingly high suicide rate. Who isn't anti-dentite? Yeah, I watch Seinfeld....

What's all this fuss I hear about Lex Luthor tacking 95 feces on a church door !!!???

Jonny

Don't ask me, I go to the Holy Church of Muhammad Ali. Can I tell you about his love, brother? He was born Cassius Clay, was put in a reed basket and sent down the Ohio River, was crucified by the East Germans on Mt Olympus when he was 23 and rose again after 3 days as Muhummad Ali. He's the Black Superman, but if he's fought off Lex Luther, I'd have to check WP to see. Pardon me, it's time to kneel down and face Lousiville. I think I just offended 3/4's of the world, but I think his WP BLP says so too.

Check this out. What a disgrace of WEIGHT to a BLP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot#C...f_anti-Semitism

What next? Eliot being accused of Klannery for quoting Conrad's "Mistah Kurtz, he dead" ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=114562919

Now I'm surprised they didn't take JonnyCache's Peirce and turn him into the guy who founded the KKK and the Nazi's. Watch out, Johnny, that article is unprotected and they're highly motivated, lol.

Not only that, but this checkuser "request" is a classic example of Slim-driven persecution of someone who, for anyone else, would have been long forgotten and forgiven. Plenty of exposure of IP's, real names, the whole ball o' wax.

As always, that sort of behavior is perfectly OK with them, as long as it isn't directed their way.

I suddenly lost my inconsistent sympathy for the Virgin Slim again. That makes this MM sockshow inquest look like a Kervorkian Mercy Killing compared to Sen. Linda MacCarthy's House of Un-Wikipedian Activities.

A dollar says she's into the darkside of taxwoman's white-leathercraft.

Piperdown, you rival Dennis Miller when it comes to obscure cultural references that leave me feeling a little insecure for having no idea what most of them mean.

I mean that as a compliment, by the way. Don't go changin, babe.

The head of Concordia would be the person I would trust to write an article about Martin Luther far more so than some self-styled critic. For one thing a Lutheran would know much more about Martin Luther and would be most likely to know it from the primary sources (Luther's writings) than filtered third-hand through the sound bites of popular media or through some creepy academic postmodernist filter that always seeks to find fault with everything. For the same reasons I would trust a conservative over anyone else to write an article on William F. Buckley, etc.

The problem with Wikipedia (and the entire rest of the user generated content of so-called Web 2.0, such as Amazon.com's book reviews) in a nutshell is it is a magnet for people whose way of boosting their low self-esteem is by attacking other people and movements through which others find their meaning. "NPOV" inherently means Negative Point Of View and all the posturing over "neutrality" and "objectivity" will never change that fact.

Laird Wilcox calls this phenomenon "ritual defamation" - repeated defamation creating a social atmosphere in which somebody's or something's name cannot be mentioned without invoking a gag reaction. Eric Hoffer correctly points out that those who take such a passionate interest in attacking and criticizing others, or criticizing society as a whole, do so out of their own self-esteem problems. Werner Erhard was right on the money: "All criticism is self-created and says more about the critic than the subject being discussed."

I think the motivator here is just plain jealousy. Somebody (we all know who) who takes it upon themselves to clutter up the Martin Luther article with the "anti-Semite" label and other ritual defamation of him doesn't have a life of their own, and finds their only meaning in cutting down others. The truly sad thing is these people have convinced themselves they are doing a public service by doing so. (The anti-Scientology activists are especially obnoxious in their pretentions to doing a "public service" but they are not the only, nor the worst in this regard.) And Wikipedia has given them a forum to do so in a much more public way than ever before - previously they were limited to the fringes of Usenet and to activist "watchdog" groups.

Know what I have a problem with? I have a problem with Wikipedia articles being cluttered up with "Criticism" sections (which in itself is objectionably POV in that it carries the implication that the criticism is the fault of the person or group being criticized instead of it being the fault of those who took it upon themselves to cut down others as a cover for their own personal issues), material written by critics or by deconstructionist academics being favored over primary source material (indeed, primary source material being rejected because it isn't "neutral", read: negative), and articles being primarily written by self-styled "anti-" activists.

See also Rankism.

there's an old toppermost of the poppermost hit from Paul Mac & Wings that comes to mind as I read this Martin Luther - PtMcCain - Mantanmoreland - SlimVirgin thread.

Was the Walrus singing about sockpuppets? Or just hitting the daily doobage? The Martin Luther pairing with the Everly Brothers has disturbed me for over 30 years, especially now that I've learned from Wikpedia, and Gary and Slimmy, that Martin invented Nazis.

Word.

I know one organization I wouldn't trust to write a bio of Martin Luther, William Buckley, or anyone else: Wikipedia!

I'm not inclined that way myself, but I'd pay good money to watch that!

I'm sure there would be quite a crowd...