Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

[ericbarbour]

I wonder if I should point out something I said to Graaf in an email:

Yanis Varoufakis has obviously been editing his own biography.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Yanisv
So have a long list of other Wiki-Assholes of various types. It was editwarred and dozens of edits were rev-deleted. And it has something to do with Vigilant, who might have been editing this article under one of his many sock accounts. See if you can find him....

[ericbarbour]

This has that paid-editing, corporate-friendly aura we all know and "love".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoffman_Estates,_Illinois

Nowhere is there any mention of the corrupt history of Hoffman Estates.

https://www.propublica.org/article/sear ... ned#892864

[ericbarbour]

Large chunks of this were copied from some civic-booster source....and the crap was copied verbatim to a Wikia wiki, Infogalactic, etc. So many places that I can no longer find the original source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midland,_Michigan

I suspect Mgreason might have been a major contributor--he runs a load of sockpuppets, and many of them are listed in the history here. Paid? Ask him!

[ericbarbour]

Did Dami edit his article? You bet! For TEN YEARS, with impunity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Robotnick
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... uriziodami

[ericbarbour]

Wonder what connection Rhinopias has to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, or to Julie Packard. Rhinopias took the aquarium's article from ~24k bytes to 100k bytes in 2017/18. And PWNS Packard's bio.

https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/ ... ie_Packard

[ericbarbour]

Did David Barr Kirtley create his own self-serving bio back in 2005, and get away with it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... .45.214.98

(BTW, you should listen to one of Kirtley's recent podcasts. He is perfect for WIRED--an overbearing arrogant jerk trying to monetize nerd culture.)

[ericbarbour]

Almost forgot to post this. Blank is a longtime Silly Valley insider and pro-grade bullshit artist who has long and old connections to the Cold War spook world. He recently gave a talk at the Computer History Museum, in which he happy-talked the wonderful world of electronic warfare and called the Soviet Union an "implacable enemy out to destroy us". What an archaic and silly thing to say in 2020. But one would expect an apologist for the 20th century defense-contracting biz to say such things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Blank

Largest contributor: Kindleworm, who sure as hell looks like a paid editor.....

[ericbarbour]

Golly, for a guy with such a happy-smiley Wikipedia bio, Sim Gill seems to have a LOT of enemies. And much political anger. None of which is mentioned on Wikipedia. Anything "unpleasant" is quickly removed, usually by an IP address.

Gill has himself a "publicity problem".

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/06/28/ ... ops-faced/
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/06/18/ ... gain-salt/
https://kutv.com/news/local/utah-lawmak ... o-palacios
https://www.ksl.com/article/46770540/br ... estigation

This account created the article in 2013. You decide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... s/Micemilk

This account greatly expanded the article, and looks paid to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jurisdicta

[ericbarbour]

Because it was on my shitty blog

https://shitplanetblog.tumblr.com/post/ ... -work-here

Did Nancy Lublin have someone create and edit her shitty Wikipedia bio? What do you think?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =229990329

[ericbarbour]

More than five years later and the little shits STILL have done nothing about this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Saul_Wurman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... s/Rswurman

You can't tell me (with a straight face) the Wikioids didn't know Wurman was glorifying himself

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =497431547