Problems with Binksternet + cultural bias on Wikipedia

[wyldboutit]

To keep a long story kind of short, I’ve been having problems with Binksternet dogging any innocuous cultural edit I make to a music genre page, a fashion page, etc…

Typically, I find that there’s a bit of a British/Eurocentric skew to a lot of the cultural pages, even on pages where an American trend or cultural aspect is discussed (Grunge and Hip Hop, any Rock music page, Street style and Fashion design in general, etc)

Specifically, the last edits are made added various music genres with America listed in the “Cultural Origins” section to the “American rock music genres/styles of music” categories, and adding information about Grunge, the Beatniks, and Punk fashion influences to the “Anti-Fashion” page, with sources: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specia ... 1121046417 and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specia ... 1121093732.

It appears that Binksternet has created a stigma around adding American cultural perspective to various pages on Wikipedia, and is flagging any attempt to do so as sockpuppetry and block evasion because a user account by the name of [[Dcasey98]] made similar edits in my city 5+ years ago. I tracked the interactions between Binksternet and that account and saw that Binksternet seemed to have some kind of grudge against American culture.

I submitted a request for Admin help related to Binksternet’s misconduct, which you can see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gingeraleking. Please read this for context. In it, I cite evidence of Binksternet reverting pages back to content that violates the Neutral Point of View rule - one edit of he reverted to was even made by a Sockpuppet account - and other edits that include factually incorrect information (like two pages about fashion listing Tom Ford and Nike as British brands and designers, rather than American) , no sources, and tons of grammatical errors. The admin who responded basically said he/she didn’t read it and dismissed it as a “personal attack” - which is what happened the last time I had a brush up with Binksternet 2 years ago. There seems to be no way of criticizing this user and calling admin attention to his tyrannical editing behavior without it being dismissed as a “personal attack” and ignored. On top of that, Binksternet deletes anything critical of him or any ANI notice he receives from his own talk page.

He has asserted that my edits to the American music genre categories and “Anti-fashion” are indicative of a “pro-American/anti-British bias” - an absurd accusation, as I’m only adding American cultural perspective with sources cited, and assigning genres already recognized as originating in America to their appropriate cultural categories. Editors have already added every genre possible to categories like “British rock music genres”, but it’s “anti-British” when I do the same for America? It’s “anti-British” when I correct paragraphs that attribute an American fashion designer to the UK, while leaving the American cultural perspective ignored, or any information pertaining to obvious American influences in fashion or music completely underwritten/left out? This seems like British bias more than anything, and from a cuss-filled message Binksternet left me on my (currently inaccessible) old account, the guys seems to have a grudge against American culture, for some reason. He just characterized the most innocuous edits about American culture in the most hostile of ways.

Can someone suggest me ideas here - how do I get ba

[badmachine]

Can someone suggest me ideas here - how do I get ba

my only suggestion is to take Eric Barbour's advice and quit wikipedia.

[ericbarbour]

my only suggestion is to take Eric Barbour's advice and quit wikipedia.

thumbs-up_1f44d.png (3.97 KiB) Viewed 1065 times

Free advice to the OP: do NOT fight with Bink. YOU WILL LOSE.

[wexter]

Binky boy is a well known Wikipedia Thug and nimrod.
400,000 edits of street cred, the guy is his own biggest fanboy

BY interacting with him you're essentially bringing " a knife to a gun fight"

The loser has carved out a large swath of articles as part of his turf.
So obviously he's going to smack you around until you're out of his turf, using all means necessary.

The folks you are trying to enlist help from are at least it screwed up as he is.

Hang around with us on this blog and in about 2 years you will have scratched the surface of the irredeemable Rat Hole, s*** hole, and rabbit hole that is Wikipedia .

One thing is for sure you can't look for logic or Reason in crazy

[ericbarbour]

One thing is for sure you can't look for logic or Reason in crazy

Bink is a live-sound engineer, so that's a pretty good Freudian slip.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_Pro
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason_Studios

If at least two people request, I will post his book wiki article here. Since he's already "outed" himself (partly because he'd been "outed" ten years ago by Tarantino), you don't get the "magic thrill" of learning the real name of a legendarily abusive Wikipedia insider. But you do get to see some of his rotten dealings since appearing on WP in 2007.

[Ognistysztorm]

I'm first to request. Anonymous has taken an interest in exposing Wikipedia's corruption ever since one of the entries about them got "defiled" by suspected spies; they'll sure love it.

[badmachine]

I'm first to request. Anonymous has taken an interest in exposing Wikipedia's corruption ever since one of the entries about them got "defiled" by suspected spies; they'll sure love it.

Second.jpg (7.96 KiB) Viewed 1015 times

[ericbarbour]

as you wish.....links are left out to protect them, if you're half a brain you can find them.

Michael Knowles

Arriving on Wikipedia late in its history, Binksternet (T-C-F-R-B) made himself "popular", with just a few minor hiccups thanks to his abusive way of handling disputes. He proved to be a true-blue hypocritical, backstabby, dishonest Wikipedian. He quietly performed special edits for friends -- yet aggressively attacked anyone who criticized WP's insane internal culture or powermongers. Grim, humorless, and as dishonest as the day is long. Like administrator Scottywong, he is a professional audio engineer. The two have cooperated in editwars on Wikipedia.
Contents [hide]

1 background
2 WP history
3 Dugan connection
4 Scottywong
5 Shilling for Will and Chip
6 Kumioko on Knowles
7 Beg pardon?
8 Avid
9 Carl Hewitt
10 Still an idiot
11 other info

background

Tarantino is convinced that Binksternet is Michael "Bink" Knowles. Knowles owns binkster.net, which he blanked in 2012 to cover up his identity. [1][2][3]

In July 2013, well after he was repeatedly "outed", Knowles finally gave up on pretending to be "anonymous" and posted his personal biography on his userpage, including lengthy blather about his career in professional audio. And bragging about his paltry Wikipedia "career". "I live in Oakland with my second wife, a web programmer. We met in early 1996 and married in May 2001. I learned to tango with my wife and we have danced in Washington DC, Berlin, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Puerto Vallarta, Denver and many cities along the West Coast of the US. From my previous marriage I have a son and daughter, and I have five grandchildren. I like to listen to music, to hike, and to drink microbrews, especially ones with a pronounced hops flavor. I roast my own coffee."
[edit] WP history

Knowles first appeared on Wikipedia as "Binksternet" in July 2007, and started editing articles about Oakland, California (where he happens to live), and professional audio. His edits tended to be "gnoming" types. 20 to 50 edits per day are typical. By September he had stuck his nose into Wikiproject Military History, and was gaining "friends". He'd also figured out how to install a patrolling bot, and fitfully removed vandalism. The edit history is mechanistic as to the nature of the edits and the number performed per day, but is almost random as to the time of day performed.

His bio notes that he put some effort into repairing the mess left behind by Legolas, which is true.

Dugan connection

His close professional friend, Dan Dugan, had previously been involved in a 2006 arbitration, as an opponent of public funding of religious education, and his WP biography had been deleted by one of his opponents as "spam". One of his supporters in the argument over Waldorf education: Binksternet.

"Binksternet made the history of Dugan's old vanity article vanish. And he even managed to talk someone into deleting all traces of the account Dugan had been using, DanDugan (T-C-F-R-B). But they didn't catch everything. Clearly, Bink had been getting "favors" from admins, and getting cover-ups in return. Dollar says administrator (and friend) Scottywong was responsible for the cover-up."

Also:[4][5] ""Binksternet" recently opened up an arbitration enforcement request against editor Hgilbert (T-C-L) a Waldorf educator who has disclosed his identity and connection to Waldorf education. Binksternet is very, very upset about "conflict of interest". Of course, Binksternet has a conflict of interest of his own in the other direction, as we've learned here. But he's protected from any scrutiny about his own associations and motivations because he, unlike his opponent, has chosen not to disclose his identity on Wikipedia. This puts the honest, more forthcoming man at a disadvantage to the sneaky one. Wikipedia thinks this is just fine."

[6]: "Apparently Dugan had his kid kicked out of a San Francisco area Waldorf school (for reasons she doesn't know, noting that "it's really, really hard to get kicked out of Waldorf") about 15 years ago. This lit a flame under Mr. Dugan and he founded PLANS with the goal of targeting Waldorf schools specifically. She became aware of it when she was teaching at a Waldorf school in a poor-ish part of Sacramento. A local public school, mostly filled with children of Mexican/Latino immigrants, was in the area and a Waldorf guy hooked up with some local education folks saying let's try to make this screwed up public school, which was on the verge of being closed for poor performance, and make it Waldorf. Local government agreed, was going to fund it. What do we have to lose? Private quality education for the same money we're spending now? Why not give it a shot? Etc.. Then Dugan sprang into action, campaigning the local community telling them that the reason Waldorf does agriculture is because they don't want Mexican children to do anything but agriculture, and that there are so many brooms (apparently in early Waldorf education they make kids sweep the floors before class) was because their schools were actually schools of brujeria ("witchcraft"). My girl was brought in briefly all those many years ago to go translate for the guy trying to turn the school Waldorf, and the local community was terrified after what Dugan's folk had told them. The state-funded Waldorf school was then adopted by a neighboring community of poor folk, but not as poor folk, who were more anglo and said "we'll have that." The original school, she says, is a mess til this day. The Waldorf public school has thrived (again, she says). "

Scottywong

Plus, a massive irony for "dedicated Wikipedian" Binksternet: in May 2012 his "friend" Scottywong was caught running an Elance advertisement, offering to edit Wikipedia for pay. [7] "Plus, Binksternet and Kvng, with Mr. Wong, work in the pro-audio industry, designing or using this kind of gear. No wonder so many of the manufacturers don't have Wikipedia articles -- they're "experts", plus could be nailed for COI, making them vulnerable. Wong already was. This does not make for good articles in the long run."

He ran for adminship in March 2013, and failed, because of his long-time history of hostile political editwarring. Bink's failed RFA attracted comments like this, from Cla68: "Anyway, that RfA, which appears to have just closed as no consensus, was a train wreck. I could identify several factions struggling with each other to promote an editor they perceive as their own, or oppose someone they saw as ideologically opposed to their group's agenda. Some of the opposing votes appeared to be motivated by dislike for some of the supporters, and vice versa. Of course, many of the the support and oppose votes were well-reasoned, although I didn't see any mention of the Dugan thing. Still, to put an editor through something like that, even if they may have engaged in some advocacy editing, undermines WP's credibility and really makes it look like a bush-league operation. I think anyone who reads that RfA and observes the barely controlled rage and back-and-forth belittling and confrontational behavior on display would come away with the correct opinion that the competency of Wikipedia's administration is severely compromised."

Shilling for Will and Chip

In January 2014, he was caught up in an insipid editwar over Outrage, a 2009 documentary film about homosexual politicians pushing anti-gay legislation. Also in January, Binksternet was accused of being a shill for William McWhinney in LaRouche squabbles.

"There are several striking things about Binksternet's tactics in WikiWarfare. First, he immediately alleges COI on the part of editors who oppose him (which was, in essence, the tactic that got WB banned.) More tellingly, he then commences to allege that they are me (as in this edit, where he appears to be claiming that the Arbcom has already confirmed that the IP editor in question is my sock -- I doubt that to be the case.) I was already thoroughly banned when Binksternet began editing Wikipedia -- how would he have heard of me, and what might have inspired him to use that tactic? And more tellingly still, here he dredges up WB's magnum opus, the fictional epic about my exploits entitled "Long Term Abuse/Herschelkrustofsky." I would say, at this point, that the odds of Binsternet not being in contact with WB, a banned editor, are next to nothing, which raises the whole issue of WP:PROXYING."
"I see from Binksternet's contribution log that he spends a lot of time officiously issuing warnings to various editors. Yet, I can see no evidence that he is an admin. Has he got a Walter Mitty thing goin' on?"

"Officiously issuing warnings is a common practice of admins-wannabee. Do enough of it and you'll get the "I thought he was an admin already" effect at RfA."

In March 2014, he posted an absurd screed about his tendency to "make mistakes", resulting in a Wikipediocracy thread. [8]

Later that month, when an editor named "Writegeist" posted a satirical play about the dispute between Malleus Fatuorum and Kevin Gorman, Binksternet showed up to attack him -- for attacking someone. "The play you wrote in userspace should be deleted as it does not appear to be part of building the encyclopedia. It's clearly a parody of Kevin Gorman's recent sally against Eric Corbett, so it likely falls under WP:ATTACK. I think you should nominate it for deletion. Binksternet (talk) 22:20, 14 March 2014 (UTC)"

Soon, he was shilling openly for the inimitable Chip Berlet. This May 2014 squabble was a classic Berlet gambit, since the Schiller Institute was LaRouche-associated, and Berlet sees all such things as "evil". Quote from Hersch: "...he's a big fan of Berlet. He also edit-warred recently to try to remove mild criticism on the Berlet BLP. Binksternet is trying to pick up the slack left by Will Beback's departure."

Kumioko on Knowles

[9]: "Anything Binksternet says I pretty much think the opposite so if he says that Russavia shouldn't come back that's proof enough for me to have him unblocked immediately. Binky is one of the most poisonous personalities on Wikipedia and it defies logic how he hasn't been banned. But then again, he runs a lot of new editors off the site and generally acts like a jerk in discussions which seems to be acceptable behavior these days."

Beg pardon?

"Response by Binksternet"
"Tristessa, thank you for researching the matter, and especially for your penetrating analysis. I did not know you before this mediation; I have gained respect for you upon reading your carefully methodical statement about the problems and a way to find solutions."
"Your first question is "what needs to be done to produce an article suitable for encyclopaedic presentation of the facts", and my answer is that the battlefield conditions in the topic area must be stopped, decisively. For a decade now, pro-LaRouche and anti-LaRouche editors have turned to various LaRouche topics to try and slant the presentation their way. Today, the fallout from that is that the anti-LaRouche editors such as Dennis King and Chip Berlet have stepped away, but the pro-LaRouche editors remain at battle stations, and anybody completely neutral like you or me who comes along by chance is fiercely grilled and prevented from making positive changes. "What needs to be done" is to remove pro-LaRouche editors from the topic so that some neutral people can study the published materials and summarize the issues. This will never happen with the pro-LaRouche editors at their stations, because a truly neutral process will inevitably show LaRouche in a bad light. The man himself acknowledges that he is controversial, but his defenders on Wikipedia will not yield any point without a big fight."
"Our friend Waalkes brings his battleground attitude to this ideally conflict-free mediation discussion, painting neutral editors such as me and Serialjoepsycho as "anti-LaRouche", and saying that we are insisting that the old man used mind control to force young Duggan to his death. Such hyperbole! The comment shows Waalkes unready to yield an inch, as he draws the hypothetical line-in-the-sand much farther forward than it ever was previously, such that if he has to give ground he will not lose his original place."
"Our friend Joe Bodacious reaches all the way back to swastikas in December 2006 to fuel his argument here, even though nothing about the current dispute touches upon the connection Dennis King drew between the Nazi swastika and LaRouche's photo of spiral galaxies. King wrote that bit in his 1989 book Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism, Chapter 10, which is cited a lot in the media, in books, and in scholarly works. Funny though, the bit about swastikas was added to the LaRouche biography back in December 2006 by pro-LaRouche sockpuppet MaplePorter, a sock of an intolerable disruptor, the banned editor Herschelkrustofsky. I think Herschelkrustofsky brought that bit into the article as a judo tactic, reversing the attack on LaRouche by showing King to have a silly thesis. It was first mentioned on the talk page by another Herschelkrustofsky sock: ManEatingDonut. A glimpse of the strategy set in motion by Herschelkrustofsky was shown in December 2006 when the Herschelkrustofsky sock Tsunami Butler complained at BLPN that Tim Wohlforth, Dennis King and Chip Berlet are "minor critics... [who] "make insinuations" including that LaRouche's image of a spiral galaxy was really a swastika. In January 2007, this same sock said that too many links in the article were cited to Dennis King, and "provide[d] a soapbox for some of King's more exotic notions"[2]—though another of his socks had placed at least one of those notions. In early 2007, the swastika bit was repeatedly removed and argued against by Dennis King who thought the way it was presented made a mockery of the connection he had mentioned in his book. He was, however, unsuccessful. Herschelkrustofsky's addition about the swastika stayed in the article for years. In August 2007, another sock of Herschelkrustofsky—Marvin Diode—defended having the swastika bit in the article,[3] and he defended it again in November 2007.[4] This same sockpuppet brought Chip Berlet to the edit warring noticeboard in November 2007, with the swastika as the reverted text. Yet another Herschelkrustofsky sock—Niels Gade—proposed new text for the article, supposedly a compromise to solve an ongoing dispute, and his draft text includes the swastika thing. In August 2011 at Wikipedia Review, Herschelkrustofsky highlighted the swastika bit as an example showing King to be a poor source. So it's no wonder that my initial reaction to the comment by Joe Bodacious, bringing up this completely irrelevant issue from years ago, is to suspect that Joe Bodacious is a sleeper sock of Herschelkrustofsky, an avowed pro-LaRouche disruptor who is in any case keeping close tabs on this issue even today. Search Wikipedia for yourself; just about nobody else ever wanted the swastika bit in the article, only Herschelkrustofsky's socks, so he could diminish King with it."
"Joe Bodacious is correct that the issue of Berlet and King is an "intractable" one. Joe Bodacious takes the position of earlier pro-LaRouche editors in trying to tar Berlet and King, despite their writing being cited many times without comment, a point you reminded us about with regard to RS. As well, the Weisenthal Center considers Berlet and King two of the top three experts on LaRouche.[5] And Berlet's writing about LaRouche, co-authored with Matthew N. Lyons, was approved by respected academics Roger Griffin and Matthew Feldman in the scholarly book Fascism: Post-war fascisms. LaRouche and his supporters have written quite a lot about Berlet and King over the years in a continual attempt to impeach them as sources. Mainstream observers are far kinder, and most of them accept the analysis of King and Berlet as true on its face."
"If I were to rewrite the topics about LaRouche and his various movements, including the Schiller Institute, I would rely mainly upon what I found in books published by respected imprints. I would write the bad and the good about LaRouche, respecting the balance I found in the sources. I would definitely use the Berlet/Lyons chapter, and I would use King for early analysis, pre-1990. As well, I would use the other scholars and respected authors who have written about LaRouche. I would also use the mainstream media wherever appropriate. I would attribute any published opinions per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. This could only be accomplished if Joe Bodacious and Waalkes were removed from the topic. Binksternet (talk) 02:31, 15 July 2014 (UTC)" (TL:DR?)

Avid

Posted here in May 2016:

" AVID, the leading non-linear video developer, is on the rocks:
"seekingalpha.com/article/3973496-avid-technology-cfo-pulls-ripcord-bookings-crater-liquidity-crisis-nears
"More importantly, they also own ProTools, one of the most popular professional audio recording and editing apps. The bitchfest is really rolling on the DAW-Mac list right now."

"And this has very little to do with audio software. Avid has had a near death-grip on video/film editing and CG special-effects software in the professional realm for the past 20 years, especially Media Composer. If you are a Hollywood production editor, you HAVE to be highly experienced with using Media Composer. How sad that their patents are running out and open-source software is slowly replacing their horribly costly proprietary applications. Boo hoo hoo."

"And you will see no mention of this on their Wikipedia articles. Because they are all being controlled by paid editors of course. With the assistance and protection of Binksternet, a professional recording studio engineer."

Carl Hewitt

In 2016 Hewitt had his previously placed editing restrictions removed. And he soon fell into argument with people over his own biography. The principal foe: Binksternet, who made some remarkably abusive posts in an apparent attempt to "provoke" Hewitt. Who tried his own brand of provocation. [10][11] A longterm Wikipediocracy thread [12][13] discussed it. Knowles even had the nerve to drag Hewitt to AN/I on 26 October and claim he was "making legal threats". Other admins disagreed, and the ever-marvelous Guy Chapman told Knowles to stop.

Still an idiot

From this post, May 2018:

"Need more proof that Binksternet is an idiot?"

"Behringer, courtesy of UliBehringer, RyanAtBehringer, Guitarman987, Will_at_BEHRINGER, Hohan22, and EdatBehringer."

"Mr. Knowles saw this happening, and half-heartedly reverted the edits. Some of these obvious Behringer employees were blocked. Yet somehow "mysteriously" the article still looks like ad copy."

"Idiocy lives on and on:"

(cur | prev) 00:33, 5 December 2009‎ Binksternet (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,642 bytes) (+1,901)‎ . . (Undid revision 329772844 by EdatBehringer (talk) rv edit warrior) (undo)
(cur | prev) 00:18, 5 December 2009‎ EdatBehringer (talk | contribs)‎ . . (18,741 bytes) (-1,901)‎ . . (→‎Trademark claims: removed because not consistent with Wikipedia policies and guidelines) (undo)
(cur | prev) 22:30, 4 December 2009‎ Binksternet (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,642 bytes) (+1,901)‎ . . (Undid revision 329748137 by EdatBehringer (talk) Restoring disputed, referenced section.) (undo)
(cur | prev) 22:01, 4 December 2009‎ EdatBehringer (talk | contribs)‎ . . (18,741 bytes) (-1,901)‎ . . (→‎Trademark claims: removed Trademark dispute section as inconsistent with Wikipedia guidelines and policies.) (undo)
(cur | prev) 08:40, 4 December 2009‎ Thedarxide (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,642 bytes) (+1,901)‎ . . (Reverted 1 edit by EdatBehringer; Rv. (TW)) (undo)
(cur | prev) 23:19, 3 December 2009‎ EdatBehringer (talk | contribs)‎ . . (18,741 bytes) (-1,901)‎ . . (→‎Trademark claims: removed trademark dispute section because violates Wikipedia's guidelines and policies and not neutral unbiased point of view) (undo)

And here's the RFA if you like to laugh at car crashes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... inksternet

[Ognistysztorm]

That's amazing for a read. What would Drmies' dossier be? Is it gonna correlate or contradict the sexual harassment allegations against him at Rate My Professors and were mentioned by Anonymous?

[ericbarbour]

That's amazing for a read. What would Drmies' dossier be? Is it gonna correlate or contradict the sexual harassment allegations against him at Rate My Professors and were mentioned by Anonymous?

Not really, it mostly focuses on his arrogance and general semi-competence. The sexual abuse claims are "new".

This is a very easy backstab to pull on a site like Rate My Professors. Hell, Yelp is almost totally useless now thanks to pissed-off customers using sock accounts to post outright lies about businesses. And sometimes; competitors attacking each other. It is simply another symptom of the badly-written Section 230. So it might be true and it might not. Until someone posts VIDEO of him being sleazy to a female student (or better yet, two or three female students), grain of salt.