A journalist and a Wikipepian since 2005? I'm afraid that makes it even worse.
This is one of my biggest bugbears - when someone is seeking to expose Wikipedia but doesn't write from a position of confidence in their words, then frankly nobody benefits. Except perhaps Wikipedia.
The way you write about such things, is to give the Wikipedians no cards to play. The first thing any devout Wikipedian does when reading a critical piece, is search for any little mistake. In context, misidentification of an admin is a pretty big mistake. Especially when the language of the messages surely make clear he was not an Admin - they don't typically threaten to refer people to another admin for banning.
This shit matters. Why? Well, wouldn't you know it but it was none other than Drmies who has said this to Kigelim.....
Kigelim, please consume that baklava with joy, and stay away from articles under discretionary sanctions per WP:ARBPIA3#500/30. You've been notified of these before, and warned before, and I will not hesitate to block you if you violate these requirements again. Drmies (talk) 03:28, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
Nobody who presents that message to the outside world as somehow the innocent follow-up of a benign Administration operating with all due neutrality and fairness in the Arab-Israeli topic area, has anywhere to go when it is pointed out who is who and what is what.
If you know who these people are, then you know Drmies would have Malik's back under any circumstances. But in a different context, if you reversed the actors perhaps, the result would be different. As such, Kigelim, or anyone wanting to defend his honour, can easily write their own blog which will appear to observers to do a pretty good job of making out like he's the victim, and that it is he who the Wikipedians are frustrating in his efforts to bring truth and neutrality to Wikipedia.
It is a common tactic on Wikipedia for biased admins to pick and choose which rule they follow, which warnings they find significant, which action they take, depending on the ultimate outcome for the nature of the content, and by extension the users you know are producing that brand of content. This how corruption on Wikipedia works, as long as you have enough power to get away with it - Drmies is one such admin, one of only a few with this privilege.
This is now they make sure their personal views becomes the content in Wikipedia. It is after all much easier to do this, retrofitting sources once opposition is eliminated, than their actual job of being neutral referees in content disputes. This is why Drmies was throwing shade on Icewhiz. No such shade is thrown on Malik for similar crimes. Why? Malik is not a perfect editor. Indeed he's a fucking moron who regularly gets basic policy wrong, then doubles down and acts like you're the idiot. He gets away with it because he has the protection of Drmies.
Knowing who is who and what is what is crucial. An issue related to this was raised at the Administrator's noticeboard......
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... ing_at_AfDIt was shut down quickly by Bbb23. Another innocent act of a benign institution? Not really. Bbb23 has a long history of reflexively getting Drmies out of the shit by shutting stuff down, stuff that in this case needed to be shut down because it risked Malik's topic ban breach being discovered (something he appears to have done again by commenting on that report), and indeed averted yet another civility block for Malik, for reasons similar to his last one (and which have everything to do with this topic area).
Not for nothing are the guys from The Register so hated for their seemingly accurate reporting, also gained from a position of working the inside, that it's good enough to get Jimbo himself decrying their massively respected and influential wbesite, as fake news.
If Silverstein's actual complaint is that he is being stalked on Wikipedia and nobody has done anything about it, then unless he has compelling evidence that the reason for this is solely because of what he writes about, then it isn't really relevant is it? The simple reality is, he probably hasn't got that evidence, and indeed it wouldn't take anyone very long to find examples of people on the other side who are similarly stalked.
The issue here is that Wikipedia takes a weak line on stalking full stop. One of the reasons why that is, is that if it had a zero tolerance approach to such things, people like Malik and Drmies would start to find their freedoms to do what they want are massively curtailed, and similarly Bbb23's freedom to brush everything they do neatly under the carpet, similarly stopped. That threatens people's ability to write content that Silverstone probably agrees with, and so it is clear his understanding of the dynamics in play here is faulty.
The whole assumption that anything that goes on at Wikipedia is what it appears to be at face value, is wrong. Critics should be aware of that, instead of, as appears to be the case with Silverstein, being an unwitting victim of it.
This edit appears particularly troubling......
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =847083740......in my view, his ability to report on this issue as an unbiased observer is fatally compromised.
People like Malik, Drmies and Bbb23 have been able to get where they are today on Wikipedia by exploiting people's unwillingness to properly keep track of who they are or what they do, or worse, develop a favourable view of them not because what they do is fair and ethical, but because on a cursory look, their particular brand of corruption results in things happening that benefit whatever cause they came to Wikipedia to fight for.
