Sagecandor/Minassian thread

[ericbarbour]

This has been beaten into a froth already but we might as well have a central clearing area for it. Specially since I keep running into related things.

The primary reason we know about this is "Sashi" aka "SashiRolls" on Auggie's WR-II forum.
http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... teer-marek
http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/thread/356/snoog
http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... sagecandor
http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... ed-badsite
http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... r-election

His diatribe about Sagecandor and Minassian is here. "Aimed at Arbcom", who ignored it as usual. There is ample evidence that Sagecandor is attempting to create and bias articles dealing with the Trump presidency and whatever connections the Russian government had to the Trump campaign in the 2016 election. Trump's opponent: Hillary Clinton.
http://ling.creoliste.fr/index.php?titl ... _to_ArbCom

Sashi also appears regularly on Wikipediocracy under the name "Bezdomni", which leads to this.

A Wikipediocracy thread--lots of pointless blubbering until Tarantino shows up and drops a little bombshell:

I and a few other people recently had a look at Sagecandor, and found he bears a striking resemblance to a wikimedia power user who abruptly disappeared a little more than a year ago. He was also good at writing wikipedia book reports. There a few other tells I may list later. He likes to reinvent himself every once in a while, probably to distance himself from the controversies he's been involved in. Some other account names he's used prior are Smee, Smeelgova, Curt Wilhelm VonSavage and Dark journey.

He was desysopped for violating NPOV and BLP policies, and there are still restrictions on his edits that he's never appealed.

Most of you here haven't been around Wiki-Dramah long enough to remember Cirt. I've got a massive file on the guy's nasty Wikipedia history. He was unbelievable, ruthless, shameless, biased as hell, did some clearly paid editing, and was usually well-protected....until the other insiders decided he was "attracting the wrong attention" or what have you. Cirt could not stop trying to attack Scientology (supposedly because a former girlfriend joined the COS or something) and Werner Erhard, plus he's quite a traditional "Clinton liberal" (you have to laugh; whatever the Clintons are, they aren't really "liberal"). The guy is fixated on Erhard. Don't ask me why, it seems really sick. Plus he was carefully protected by the infamous Will "Beback" McWhinney. Cirt was desysopped in July 2011 and McWhinney was permabanned in February 2012.

But evidently dogs return to their Wiki-vomit. Again and again.

[ericbarbour]

A loosely related item: you've probably heard the flap about the Google employee (and obvious nerd) who wrote a long screed complaining about "inclusivity programs" and "diversity" at Google. Which ultimately boiled down to his plain old-fashioned sexist piggery. Ooh, he's "offended" that there are women at Google! And some are paid more than he is! Needless to say, this nerd quickly became a "hero" to the alt-right and the "men's rights" blogosphere.

Wikipedia said nothing about this, until Google management finally figured out the employee's real name (James Damore) and fired him on 7 August. Later that same day, this article was created, and the name "James Damore" was pointed to it by redirects.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27 ... ho_Chamber

This pathetic "article", consisting of two sentences and a raft of references, is almost entirely the work of one Czar. A little-noticed obvious OCD fixated editor who's been grinding content fitfully since 2005 but only got serious in 2013, and is equipped with some predictable obsessions: videogaming, anarchism, and sucking up to administrators.

What does this have to do with Sagecandor? Czar and Sagecandor fought over an article last month.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =791736400

What article? This one (I had to use a diff because it's being vandalized today):
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =794316196

Daniel is the author of the erotic novel Trump Temptations.[9][10] His book went viral and saw significant sales the day it was published, rising to the top of sales lists in multiple categories.[3][7][11] Daniel's book received favorable reception.[1][10][2] Trump Temptations became the top seller on Amazon.com in three categories: humorous erotica, LGBT erotica, and gay erotica.[12][13][14]

Explain that if you can.

[Flip Flopped]

A loosely related item: you've probably heard the flap about the Google employee (and obvious nerd) who wrote a long screed complaining about "inclusivity programs" and "diversity" at Google. Which ultimately boiled down to his plain old-fashioned sexist piggery. Ooh, he's "offended" that there are women at Google! And some are paid more than he is! Needless to say, this nerd quickly became a "hero" to the alt-right and the "men's rights" blogosphere.

Wikipedia said nothing about this, until Google management finally figured out the employee's real name (James Damore) and fired him on 7 August. Later that same day, this article was created, and the name "James Damore" was pointed to it by redirects.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27 ... ho_Chamber

This pathetic "article", consisting of two sentences and a raft of references, is almost entirely the work of one Czar. A little-noticed obvious OCD fixated editor who's been grinding content fitfully since 2005 but only got serious in 2013, and is equipped with some predictable obsessions: videogaming, anarchism, and sucking up to administrators.

What does this have to do with Sagecandor? Czar and Sagecandor fought over an article last month.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =791736400

What article? This one (I had to use a diff because it's being vandalized today):
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =794316196

Daniel is the author of the erotic novel Trump Temptations.[9][10] His book went viral and saw significant sales the day it was published, rising to the top of sales lists in multiple categories.[3][7][11] Daniel's book received favorable reception.[1][10][2] Trump Temptations became the top seller on Amazon.com in three categories: humorous erotica, LGBT erotica, and gay erotica.[12][13][14]

Explain that if you can.

That is a truly freaky little interlude.

[Flip Flopped]

This has been beaten into a froth already but we might as well have a central clearing area for it. Specially since I keep running into related things.

The primary reason we know about this is "Sashi" aka "SashiRolls" on Auggie's WR-II forum.
http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... teer-marek
http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/thread/356/snoog
http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... sagecandor
http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... ed-badsite
http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... r-election

His diatribe about Sagecandor and Minassian is here. "Aimed at Arbcom", who ignored it as usual. There is ample evidence that Sagecandor is attempting to create and bias articles dealing with the Trump presidency and whatever connections the Russian government had to the Trump campaign in the 2016 election. Trump's opponent: Hillary Clinton.
http://ling.creoliste.fr/index.php?titl ... _to_ArbCom

Sashi also appears regularly on Wikipediocracy under the name "Bezdomni", which leads to this.

A Wikipediocracy thread--lots of pointless blubbering until Tarantino shows up and drops a little bombshell:

I and a few other people recently had a look at Sagecandor, and found he bears a striking resemblance to a wikimedia power user who abruptly disappeared a little more than a year ago. He was also good at writing wikipedia book reports. There a few other tells I may list later. He likes to reinvent himself every once in a while, probably to distance himself from the controversies he's been involved in. Some other account names he's used prior are Smee, Smeelgova, Curt Wilhelm VonSavage and Dark journey.

He was desysopped for violating NPOV and BLP policies, and there are still restrictions on his edits that he's never appealed.

Most of you here haven't been around Wiki-Dramah long enough to remember Cirt. I've got a massive file on the guy's nasty Wikipedia history. He was unbelievable, ruthless, shameless, biased as hell, did some clearly paid editing, and was usually well-protected....until the other insiders decided he was "attracting the wrong attention" or what have you. Cirt could not stop trying to attack Scientology (supposedly because a former girlfriend joined the COS or something) and Werner Erhard, plus he's quite a traditional "Clinton liberal" (you have to laugh; whatever the Clintons are, they aren't really "liberal"). The guy is fixated on Erhard. Don't ask me why, it seems really sick. Plus he was carefully protected by the infamous Will "Beback" McWhinney. Cirt was desysopped in July 2011 and McWhinney was permabanned in February 2012.

But evidently dogs return to their Wiki-vomit. Again and again.

Thanks for the refresher on Cirt. The Minassian angle is interesting. Sashi is pitching something to reporters. My hunch is that Sagecandor is Cirt and that he does it without pay and without external coordination.

[sashi]

This has been beaten into a froth already but we might as well have a central clearing area for it. Specially since I keep running into related things.

The primary reason we know about this is "Sashi" aka "SashiRolls" on Auggie's WR-II forum.
http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... teer-marek
http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/thread/356/snoog
http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... sagecandor
http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... ed-badsite
http://wikipediareview.proboards.com/th ... r-election

His diatribe about Sagecandor and Minassian is here. "Aimed at Arbcom", who ignored it as usual. There is ample evidence that Sagecandor is attempting to create and bias articles dealing with the Trump presidency and whatever connections the Russian government had to the Trump campaign in the 2016 election. Trump's opponent: Hillary Clinton.
http://ling.creoliste.fr/index.php?titl ... _to_ArbCom

Sashi also appears regularly on Wikipediocracy under the name "Bezdomni", which leads to this.

A Wikipediocracy thread--lots of pointless blubbering until Tarantino shows up and drops a little bombshell:

I and a few other people recently had a look at Sagecandor, and found he bears a striking resemblance to a wikimedia power user who abruptly disappeared a little more than a year ago. He was also good at writing wikipedia book reports. There a few other tells I may list later. He likes to reinvent himself every once in a while, probably to distance himself from the controversies he's been involved in. Some other account names he's used prior are Smee, Smeelgova, Curt Wilhelm VonSavage and Dark journey.

He was desysopped for violating NPOV and BLP policies, and there are still restrictions on his edits that he's never appealed.

Most of you here haven't been around Wiki-Dramah long enough to remember Cirt. I've got a massive file on the guy's nasty Wikipedia history. He was unbelievable, ruthless, shameless, biased as hell, did some clearly paid editing, and was usually well-protected....until the other insiders decided he was "attracting the wrong attention" or what have you. Cirt could not stop trying to attack Scientology (supposedly because a former girlfriend joined the COS or something) and Werner Erhard, plus he's quite a traditional "Clinton liberal" (you have to laugh; whatever the Clintons are, they aren't really "liberal"). The guy is fixated on Erhard. Don't ask me why, it seems really sick. Plus he was carefully protected by the infamous Will "Beback" McWhinney. Cirt was desysopped in July 2011 and McWhinney was permabanned in February 2012.

But evidently dogs return to their Wiki-vomit. Again and again.

Thanks for the refresher on Cirt. The Minassian angle is interesting. Sashi is pitching something to reporters. My hunch is that Sagecandor is Cirt and that he does it without pay and without external coordination.

Blubbering, schmubberling, I wanted to see if Dennis Brown was "of the party" or not, and challenge his reinfiltration of Wikipediocracy, though seeing that Black Kite and that Motely Fool Boing! already have their "pirate" flags flying on that little vessel, and y'all have been blubbering about how evil WO is since before I knew ye, I suppose such challenges were futile. I see several arbs have accounts too.

Really, the coordination shown with User:Captain Raju (refactoring links) and User:7&6=thirteen (spinning blue links), among others, are not accidental, nor was the cozying up to Neutrality (famously caught editing Tim Kaine before he announced by the Atlantic), Nuclear Warfare, etc. nearly as soon as he created the account (he emulated Neutrality's Talk page from the get go, though it's been deleted many times since). Black Kite seems to be one of his guardian bird's of prey in this reincarnation.

I've looked through your files Eric, that's how I found the correspondence concerning Cirt's previous paid editing ventures (the letter where he promises SV to never edit for anyone again, and promises to leave DYK). Of course, DYK has been a major element of Sagecandor's spinning... getting his book review reviews out onto the mainpage to get the requisite views.

Czar & Cirt did seem to have a fairly high interaction ratio, so the apology you link to is all the more intriguing... of course he also seems to have crossed paths frequently with the EpicGenius (a guy who couldn't be bothered to focus on his studies, but fought the good fight for "neutrality" on Clinton articles -- or so it was said in the WaPo).

Anyway, I very seriously doubt that Cirt did 18 book reviews just for shits & grins. It's possible, I suppose. Still, there's little reason for the proof of concept trying to delete the two books on occupational psychology. Cirt knows the Wikipedia book review review rules. He's long been a fan of the genre. This is, of course, odd behavior for Cirt (or for Sagecandor) who aren't deletionists at heart at all... one can't help but wonder if there isn't a bit of the Andrés Sepúlveda in him...

Also, there are no shortage of paying customers. David Brock, for one (whose pages Calton & Neutrality watch over with hawkish eye)...

[sashi]

An interesting wiki-spooks / GG HQ type post in reply to my request on meta that the WMF part ways with Mr. Minassian.

[Kumioko]

Yeah I'm sure there is a lot more to this Minassian media thing....

[Kumioko]

I was looking through some of the old threads in last months Mailing list posts and I stumbled onto this> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 87962.html

It talks about other people also having concerns with Manassian media.

[sashi]

Yes, I was really pleased when Andreas tried to get the WMF to see reason. The fact that even he was met with a stone wall of incomprehension convinced me there really was little point in continuing, that the rot was pretty pervasive. Chris Keating's replies in particular are very annoying: Minassian Media didn't earn their $430K by writing a little report that came out a month before the election. They earned it by *training* people in the Communications Department. ("developing and executing first media training module for c-level, director, managers and with Media/PR" source) So the fact that nobody at the WMF who knew something about it responded was not due to anything other than the fact that they don't want to discuss their methods. Shunning critics rather than responding to criticism is what they've been trained to do.

Keating is apparently still using old skool ad hominem methods, wasting time looking silly trying to discredit critics instead of just ignoring them / banning them as "staff" has been trained to do.

[Kumioko]

I cannot speak for everyone, but whenever I am in charge of, or working on a project with, another company, I always do some checking into them to see if they are legit and what their background is. Google usually has more than enough info within a few clicks so for the management at the WMF not to know is just absurd. I guarantee someone knew about the ties and that is assuming good faith to say that because they probably gave the contract because of their ties to the Clinton. Minassian Media doesn't even normally do this type of work and there are plenty of others that do so for them to be picked over others with more experience for that amount of money stands out.

Everyone knows Wikipedia is heavily left leaning, so to conclude that they would favor organizations on that end of the spectrum shouldn't be surprising. Certainly not at a time when Hillary needed all the money she could get for the campaign. I would imagine if you were to look at the books of Minassian, they donated a hefty amount to the campaign prior to and after Minassian started to work for the Clintons.