Beeblebrox goes after Wikipedia editor's rights to privacy

Evil admin for many years, tossed out in 2020, now infesting Wikipediocracy
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Jake Is A Sellout
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Beeblebrox goes after Wikipedia editor's rights to privacy

Post by Jake Is A Sellout » Mon Apr 19, 2021 8:41 am

He's tried to obfuscate it, but to those who know what an utter piece of shit Beeblebrox is (and why he fits in so well with the scum at Wikipediocracy), his basic purpose in starting this centralized discussion....

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

....is clearly to achieve this policy change:
The use of privacy alts is to be considered deprecated and removed from policy. Any user operating more than one account without publicly linking them for any reason will be subject to the sockpuppetry policy. 
It's couched in wikispeak, which helps conceal its intent from outsiders, like journalists and legislators, so for those who don't know, what this is all about is ending Wikipedia's long standing privacy based exemption to the using two accounts at once and not linking them, is bad, principle.

If a user is using two Wikipedia accounts, and hasn't linked them through some kind of public disclosure, then the only way a scumbag like Beeblebrox can find out if they are being run by the same person, assuming there isn't a commonality of behaviour, is by performing a CheckUser.

The CheckUser tool inspects non-public personally identifying data (such as your device's MAC address or your web browser's version) that you give to Wikipedia under the terms of their privacy policy, and reveals any other accounts that have the same identifiers. And so for obvious reasons, its use by the small band of trusted editors allowed access to this tool, is meant to be extremely tightly regulated (ironically by the very Arbitration Committe that somehow includes indiscrete immoral scum like Beeblebrox).

It has long pissed many a Wikipedia user off that this nominal right to live a somewhat private life on Wikipedia even exists, and since they typically have no use for it, they of course don't really see the benefits in why it exists.

It is allowed typically for one of two likely scenarios:

1. To separate the edits of an account that for whatever reason needs to have some public connection with a real person, and the rest of that person's presumably totally pseudonymous edits. Doing this would for example reduce the chances that someone who doesn't like the edits of the former, can embarass or harass you by exposing or interrupting the latter edits. Even more benignly, it's a way to separate a work life from a hobby life, accepting as we must that there are many legitimate ways to edit Wikipedia as "work", including, of course, as an Officer of Wikipedia.

2. To separate pseudonympus edits that for whatever reason might be controversial or sensitive, from your more normal everyday pseudonymous edits. Doing this would make it hard for someone who might dislike your controversial edits, from tracking you down and slitting your throat. Since even as pseudonym, its surprising how much you reveal about yourself while editing Wikipedia (since people tend to be interested in what is close to them).

This right to an even more private life on Wikipedia than the mere right to edit as a pseudonym allows, doesn't sit well with people like "Beeblebrox" (a pseudonym). Because, scumbag that he is, like virtually all of the Wikipedia community, he is hardwired to assume to that anyone who displays a familiarity with Wikipedia that cannot be explained by looking at their entire public edit history, must be up to no good.

Someone whose first edit was to a page a n00b just wouldn't edit, or said or did something a n00b just wouldn't say or do (such as, hey guys, is it wrong that Beeblebrox is talking about active Wikipedia Arbitration Cases on Wikipediocracy?), they must be trying to do something Wikipedia editors typically don't want them to do, like edit for pay, or bring light to the sort of corruption the likes of Beeblebrox get away with.

Exposure of corruption is of course the Wikishits main reason for liking the fact they can quite easily get anyone who simply doesn't appear to be a genuinely new account, blocked. This is very useful under a system of "collaboration" where it's extremely risky to put your account on the line to challenge someone more powerful or popular. Think mafia, but pasty white dudes living in their parents basements.

If you have less edits, less power, less status, than the mighty Beeblebrox, then for sure, you absolutely think twice about sticking your head above the parapet to raise even absolutely legitimate concerns, like his indiscrete posting on an external forum known for harassing Wikipedians. Even if you are 100% right, you're putting your hard earned status as perhaps the most well respected editor of Wikipedia articles to do with obscure nineteenth Century poets on the line, because whether you achieve something or not, your username will be forever marked, and people will be looking for any and all excuses to jam you up, by fair means or foul.

There has for a long while already been one way that scum like Beeblebrox can limit the usefulness of this nominal right to live to different lives on Wikipedia, and that has been the restriction against posting in "project space". I.e., one or other of your two accounts, can ony edit articles. They cannot, for example, post a complaint about a certain Arbitrator on a community noticeboard.

It's an absurd restriction, but it gives a good window into the mafia like culture of Wikipedia, to appreciate how it came to be (since amusingly, even some of the really high up users, don't seem to know). It was impletmented by none other than Bishonen, who is perhaps the most powerful user on Wikipedia.

Since she is quite regularly engaged in the sort of misconduct you would associate a mafia boss with, that bitch of course absolutely hates the thought of anyone being able to use a community noticeboard to report concerns, without everyone else being able to know exactly who that person is. Every edit they have ever made, right back to their very first edit. Who their friends area, what is near and dear to them. Leverage. Ammunition.

That's a nice set of articles about obscure nineteenth Century poets. Wouldn't it be a shame if you were topic banned from poetry?

There's a reason Bishonen is only ever seen at obsurce but powerful community venues like "Arbitration Enforcement" when there is some sort of skin in the game for her or one of her underlings. This sort of pattern of corruption is quite difficult to expose on Wikipedia at the best of times, since only half the story is ever told by the "diffs", and would more naturally be exposed on Wikipediocracy, with their knowledge of things like who is friends with who, in the hopes someone with the power and responsibility to act on it, would act on it. Unfortunately, as a member of the Arbitration Committee, that someone is Beeblebrox.

But it is at least theoretically possible to raise it. And so one day she had the bright idea of simpy disallowing any edits to project space if they come from a suspiciously experienced "new" user, even if that user is claiming their legitimate right to privacy. And it was accepted, without anyone even raising the absurdities it produced, like not being able to save an article you might have created in your controversial editing area. It was accepted without question, because, well, she wouldn't be that much of a crime boss, if people weren't literally scared to death of her. Even Beeblebrox probably thinks twice about crossing the mighty Bish, and that's only partly due to his utter cowardice.

Anyway, so once again we are seeing the real Beeblebrox. He has all the official power anyone could ever want on Wikipedia, with the caveat that nobody has more unofficial power than Bish, and yet his only interest in using it, is to consolidate it. To make it even easier for him and his scummy friends, to exert control over people.

The net loss to Wikipedia could of course be quite high. What use an alleged encyclopedia, that doesn't for example have good articles on topics like pedophilia or Islamic teachings? The two things being not exactly unrelated, according to one all important perspective, namely the liberal western values that are supposedly the core of Wikipedia.

Are you going to be minded to add your academic specialist knowledge to the Wikipedia article "Islam and pedophilia", if you knew everyone could also see that you also frequently edit the Wikipedia page for the tiny English village of Crinkly Bottom, and some years ago you uploaded a picture to Commons that you labelled as your cat, and which also included a very distinctive quaint English post box, clear enough to make out the location codes.

Beeblebrox doesn't care about stuff like that. He only cares what he can do to you, and indeed, what you could do to him, if you were to be able to take advantage of a perfectly legitimate right to privacy on Wikipedia, to do a silly thing like post whistleblower complaints on Wikipedia about people like Beeblebrox.

As is usual on Wikipedia, the removal of one of the most powerful tools against corruption, the right to privacy, isn't being done all that secretly (although it helps that it is being done on an out of the way page and in a highly inaccessible manner), it's being done out in the open.

Once again, the parallels between Trumpian American and Leftist Wikipedia are stark.

It's fucking easy to wipe away long standing freedoms and moral bulwarks, when you have populist support. When you use your executive power not for the common good, but for personal gain.

It is ironic to say the least, that the quiet change made by Bishonen, means that the only people allowed to register their opposition to this extra right to privacy being removed, are people who are prepared to put their whole entire edit history on the line.

Yes, you heard that right. Because the closest thing Wikipedia has to a voting rights clampdown, eroding people's right to speak with genuine anonymity, is OF COURSE being done by the powerful white dude who lives in Alaska, and who has, as revealed on this board, not exactly done much to hide the fact he is a racist.

I knew the ever closer ties between the inner circles of Wikipedia and Wikipediocracy would lead to some fucked up things, but even I didn't foresee this.
Last edited by Jake Is A Sellout on Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:04 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Beeblebrox goes after Wikipedia editor's rights to privacy

Post by Kumioko » Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:02 am

I wonder if he knows Jimbo wales has admitted to using an alt to edit.
#BbbGate

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Re: Beeblebrox goes after Wikipedia editor's rights to privacy

Post by Jake Is A Sellout » Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:15 am

Kumioko wrote:
Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:02 am
I wonder if he knows Jimbo wales has admitted to using an alt to edit.
That admission concerned Jimmy doing test edits as a supposed n00b, to confirm widespread media allegations that Wikipedia had become a hostile environment.

Disallowing that sort of under the radar but legitimately undisclosed use of another account under this same exemption, would be a side benefit of this proposal, even though, thanks to the change made a while ago by Bishonen, such testing could not now include seeing how hostile Wikipedians often are in community debates.

So yes, we can probably say for certain, Beeblebrox knows this is one of the things his proposal would also disallow and thus benefit him and his ilk, not least since the Arbitration Committee is the primary means Wikipedia has against dampening down the culture of hostility.

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