Two notorious 2007 items that are almost forgotten today

[ericbarbour]

I'd forgotten them myself. First, a New York Times article that "outed" three Wikipedia insiders:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/magaz ... ted=5&_r=1

Ten points to anyone who can figure out Natalie Martin's Wikipedia handle. Also, I might add that this article could be used as proof that the Times is not a "reliable source", because it outed some Wikipedians. At least, it could have been used for that bullshit back in 2007, during the totally idiotic BADSITES arbitration......


The other is Ludwig Braeckeleer's article outing SlimVirgin. A stone-cold classic of Wikipedia insider pool. SV's reputation never recovered from this. And she'll deny it vehemently with her dying breath. In fact, it was one of the things ranted about at great length on the notorious "Wikipedia Cyberstalking" mailing list, an ultra-secret list that Slim and Co. used to plan personal vendettas against WP editors they disliked. What a crazy woman.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview ... 6&rel_no=1


NOW does everyone see? Wikipedia is a rotten little corrupt and fractious feudal duchy, and a pathetic excuse for a "cult". The only things it has going for it: ordinary people have been writing usable content without getting involved in the psychotic insider battles; and since 2010 it's been slowly dying out as a "community". The shit and the lies and the manipulation are finally (very slowly) strangling participation.

[Strelnikov]

The other element in all of this is that we were pre-Snowden in our Internet use - we didn't understand that 9/11 had created a childish need in the American intelligence apparatus to COLLECT EVERYTHING done on the Internet and sort through all of it. Now that we know, why out yourself even through an obscure handle on Wikipedia? Information is only free offline, if you follow that worldview, and the sorts of "extremely online" people who were key to Wikipedia's expansion realized they were in essence filling out logbooks of their online activities and bolted.