Philip Cross and the "attack blog" aimed at him

Because no one else is doing it--not even the media.
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Philip Cross and the "attack blog" aimed at him

Post by ericbarbour » Fri May 18, 2018 3:14 am

https://wikipedia.fivefilters.org/
"Time to ditch Wikipedia?"

And for what little it's worth, Cross is indeed one of English WP's earliest active editors---first appeared in October 2004. I had not looked at his activities because he seemed like a minor content writer who had previously attracted little attention, and had never tried for adminship. But he clearly is quite good at using Wikipolicy and internal jargon to abuse people. This would make him one of those rare examples of a WP editor with conservative leanings who was biasing BLPs of people he disliked.

Apparently this blog was put up very recently, because yesterday Cross blanked his userpage and left WP. (Assuming that user Tibloc is the person who put the blog up, but I haven't studied this mess in detail so not sure.) Why such a pissing match over Guardian writer Piers Robinson?

The ONLY mention in my files point to blog posts from 2007-08 by journalist Neil Clark--complaining about Cross doing this same thing to Clark's BLP. Who else was involved? Our old fiend SlimVirgin, who apparently went to bat to support Cross. I completely forgot about this mess. Possibly Cross left WP because he couldn't talk an admin into protecting him.
https://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2008/1 ... cross.html
http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2007/12 ... pedia.html

Sorry, I can't look at this right now. If someone else has time, please try to summarize.

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Re: Philip Cross and the "attack blog" aimed at him

Post by CrowsNest » Fri May 18, 2018 8:12 am

I started a thread on him in "Wikipedians" a couple of days ago which has some info.

I would say he was necessarily a (UK) Conservative, the mainstream left of Tony Blair times doesn't much like the people Cross targets either. Indeed, given his M.O. is to minimise the coverage of these people, as well we skewing it negatively, that would seem to show he is a Blairite, since Conservatives would presumably want the whole world to know what they believe, confident it would make them seem like lunatics. The tweet about Corbyn ruining the Labour Party seems to bear that out. Then again, the fact he apparently likes people like Times columnist Melanie Philips, and is believed in reality to be Times journalist Oliver Kamm, seems hard to explain if he is a Blairite.

That blog is impressive, if the author isn't already an active Wikipedia critic, they should be. I mean, they are obviously a critic of Wikipedia in this narrow field, the likelihood being they are someone closely aligned to one of Cross' targets (could even be the Russians, wouldn't that be hilarious), but someone with this particular set of skills and resources, they really need to be taking a look at everything that is wrong with Wikipedia and giving it this treatment.

As my thread argues, the author is on the wrong track suggesting people ask Jimmy to do something. Then again, exposing the fact Jimmy can't or indeed won't do anything about obvious problem editors like this guy, is a good critical strategy, if all one aims to do is highlight Wikipedia's faults. If they want to actually stop Cross, they seem to have already succeeded by making him go into "hiding", or rather give him even more reason to stay hidden.

We've seen this tune played out before though. A long time Wikipedian does something bad, gets attention, and because Wikipedians have always historically viewed harassment of one of their own a worse crime than anything they might have been doing to come under external scrutiny, the editor appears to leave the site, only to be exposed months if not years later, editing under a different identity, with the full knowledge and indeed protection/facilitation from key people inside the Wikipedia bureaucracy, people with the advanced user rights and social standing to pull such a thing off.

This has happened even when the editor in question has a field of interest and an M.O. so obvious, so unique, you could call it a digital fingerprint. They just flatly deny it could be the same person, and request the accusers 'assume good faith', even though the evidence presented will be way beyond what normally gets people convicted for this particular wikicrime.

His critics may not even be aware of the critical piece of Wikipedia legalese which Cross might already be taking advantage of to avail himself of a new identity without it even being considered a wikicrime. For as we know, since, due to their love of anonymity and their steadfast belief in 'assume good faith' as one of their cornerstones, the Wikipedians only ever treat a user as if they are a person and not an internet pseudonym, if they do bad things.

Thus, a pseudonym like Cross, who officially still has a spotless Wikipedia record, is entitled to avail himself of WP:CLEANSTART, i.e. drop his old account and begin a new one, and since the reason for this is nominally external harassment, he is under no obligation to publicly disclose the connection. The only requirement is that you do not operate the accounts concurrently, so for that reason it is actually a bad sign if "User:Philip Cross" never makes another edit ever again.

Cross doesn't even need to tell anyone of the clean start to remain legit, but the successful deployment of it as a strategy of course requires letting those key people know who you are. Nudge nudge, wink wink, and all that. The inner circle Wikipedians with this privileged information happily go along with this subterfuge, even though it represents the mass deception of virtually the entire Wikipedia community. Sometimes they don't even let all of the inner circle know, leading to much hurt feelings.

Wikipedia advises that a successful clean start typically requires the user to avoid old stomping grounds and habits, although since Wikipedians hate the idea of harrassers winning, they do not make this a rule, since it would mean you could effectively harass people, not pseudonyms, away from a particular area/activity.

This is where you enter the murky world of Wikipedia's complicated relationship with ethics and identity. For as long as "Cross" remains an account in good standing, and crucially that only refers to his reputation inside the cult, i.e. he has no blocks or active sanctions against him, he is officially not doing anything wrong by attempting a clean start and going back to his old stomping grounds and activiites. He's being dumb and going against their non-binding advice, but this is where the ruse begins - if his cause is seen as noble enough, and indeed if he is deemed to be the victim of external harassment, then the insiders will gladly do all they can to help him remain undiscovered. Even if it means lying 'on the record' (i.e. knowingly giving false statements on a sock puppet investigation), and generally denying what is obvious.

As above, this need for the Cross account to remain in good standing to ensure any clean start account can be protected without its protectors actually violating any official wiki law, means that it is also a very very bad sign for his critics if the Wikipedians decline to open any investigation of Cross' editing unless or until he unretires. I.e., if they don't officially look, they cannot officially find any reason to block or sanction Cross, which means they would officially have no reason to declare if he has availed himself of a clean start.

It is worth noting that what stops a lot of Wikipedians doing this, outside the general hassle it causes, namely their pride in and need to associate themselves with an account's long term record of contributions, doesn't seem to exist for Cross. Sure, he gets the institutional benefits of such long service, but if as appears to be the case here, the disadvantages begin to outweigh even those advantages, you can easily see Cross deciding his mission in wiki life is better served by dropping that old identity and beginning a new one, informing only a select few people of what he has done.

His experience level is such that it is a given Cross knows all of the above.

Let the hunt begin!

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Re: Philip Cross and the "attack blog" aimed at him

Post by ericbarbour » Sat May 19, 2018 9:03 am

Another blogger complains about Mr Cross (assuming he is even one person):

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... ss-affair/

Found on Reddit's r/wikiinaction. This has GOT to be a paid-editing farm, and it's probably only one of many accounts they are operating. I've seen this sort of robotic pattern before, usually total nutcases like SlimVirgin or Will Beback do similar robot-editing. I've suspected SlimVirgin's account is being shared by 2 or more people, because "she" has edited for 48 hours straight OR MORE at times.

Like SV, the persons operating the Cross account are screwing up. Too much obsessive chasing of the same content and fighting people off over and over. If you do this shit, you do it SUBTLY if at all. Once people post about it on blogs, the jig is up.

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Re: Philip Cross and the "attack blog" aimed at him

Post by CrowsNest » Sat May 19, 2018 10:11 am

The group account theory has never held water for me. For a start, once you understand Wikipedia and the Wikipedians, you can appreciate how it is possible for people to become this addicted and register seemingly inhuman levels of activity. The key there is that it does stop, eventually, because they do have to succumb to sleep, if only because they pass out as a result of exhaustion. Anyone who is remotely familiar with Wikipedia understands that there really is no tactical benefit to having multiple people use one account. If you are that organised, it pays to have five people pretending to be ten or fifteen to achieve your goals, not fifteen pretending to be one.

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Re: Philip Cross and the "attack blog" aimed at him

Post by ericbarbour » Tue May 22, 2018 12:23 am

FWIW people are sharing it all over Facebook--not sure any of them really understands it.

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Re: Philip Cross and the "attack blog" aimed at him

Post by Abd » Tue May 22, 2018 10:23 pm

CrowsNest wrote:The group account theory has never held water for me. For a start, once you understand Wikipedia and the Wikipedians, you can appreciate how it is possible for people to become this addicted and register seemingly inhuman levels of activity. The key there is that it does stop, eventually, because they do have to succumb to sleep, if only because they pass out as a result of exhaustion. Anyone who is remotely familiar with Wikipedia understands that there really is no tactical benefit to having multiple people use one account. If you are that organised, it pays to have five people pretending to be ten or fifteen to achieve your goals, not fifteen pretending to be one.


I agree. However, there are what I call "attack dogs." These users push the boundaries in support of a factional agenda. They may get away with wikimurder, if they are working with or for what might as well be called a cabal. But they do get caught and go too far and are blocked.

And they don't care, because they have found that being blocked is hardly a bump in the road. They can start new accounts, readily.

These accounts often simply disappear, because using a new account makes them less trackable. They may use open proxies, or not, because they don't care if they are discovered. The ones I've been studying have been doing this for years, and there is evidence that one of them is paid by a "skeptic organization," which is plausible. There is money for "debunking (alleged) pseudoscience and whatever deviates from the (alleged) mainstream."

The fundamental problem is the provision of privileges to anonymous users. In the real world, no project of importance would allow this, it is obviously ripe for abuse. Anonymous editing, i.e., allowing people to edit without registering an account, that made sense. But allowing anons to exercise control over others, including those operating under real names, very, very bad idea. Responsibility and anonymity are not compatible.

Further, those who are identified people can avoid responsibility by working with attack dogs. And that is what has happened, too many times. To discover this, though, requires examining long-term patterns on matters that, whenever it's been done, is attacked.

I was documenting a certain long-term behavior (the "Anglo Pyramidologist" sock family), that was getting close to connection with the "SPOV" faction on Wikipedia. That had to be stopped, and they did it. However, it will be interesting to discover what the WMF will do when faced with a libel suit and subpoena of records. It's entirely too juicy an opportunity to pass up.

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Re: Philip Cross and the "attack blog" aimed at him

Post by CrowsNest » Tue May 22, 2018 10:57 pm

I may be operating on insufficient data, but my impression of Cross is that he considers himself above, or otherwise doesn't waste his time on, the sort of things you need to do to get established in a Wikipedia faction. I think he is faction all by himself, and the only reason his edits stick, is not because he is being actively protected by others as part of a cabal, he is simply skilled enough with knowing how Wikipedia works that his edits have thus far looked reasonable enough that they stick all by themselves, or he only needs to use the regular means and avenues available to any experienced user to get them to stick.

This is probably why Jimmy Wales sees nothing wrong with his edits, he won't have done anything more than take a cursory look at his last few edits and his clean block log, and seen no obvious red flags. He isn't interested in looking deeper, he hasn't got that sort of time in his schedule, so he places the burden on those making the accusations to prove there is something amiss. And they don't realise that presenting them with such evidence is pointless, as he has no power to do anything about it even if he saw something wrong.

Supporting this theory, is the revelation that Cross was apparently not known to Guy Chapman, and thus can't really be all that much of a face in the cabal. But when Chapman took a cursory look at him because of the recent spotlight, he saw enough to convince him this was an editor who deserves a level of protection from scrutiny that arguably went beyond even what some of his close allies would have received, were they being hunted by the enemy.
You can't amass 130,000 edits, as Philip Cross has, without being reasonably committed to Wikipedia. You'd be noticed if you were an agenda account with that many edits. And being attacked by RT and George Galloway is a reasonably reliable indicator that you are doing something right. Guy (Help!) 20:28, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
The fact he later rowed back on that protection once he was told a bit more, namely about their Twitter posts, while still trying his best to give him the most assistance he can, also speaks to Cross not really being a member of the cabal.

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Re: Philip Cross and the "attack blog" aimed at him

Post by ericbarbour » Mon May 28, 2018 11:25 pm

Added info from these threads to the book wiki. Not that anyone cares.....

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