Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

[ericbarbour]

Posted on my blog today about that stupid "BBL Drizzy" song, and the resulting lawsuits. The music biz has always been a garbage factory, but now they can automate all the production aspects. Shocking.

A friend pointed out in email that it's been going on for a while:
>> https://arstechnica.com/information-tec ... on-demand/

Someone in the comments mentioned Matt Farley, a guy who specializes in trolling Spotify and Bandcamp with thousands of crap "songs".

Does Farley have a Wikipedia bio? Despite being an UTTERLY OBSCURE figure, he does.

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

Created by a single-purpose account that is almost certainly either Farley himself, a friend, or a paid editor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... s/TownesVP

[ericbarbour]

Oh looky! Free advertising!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decam ... etru_Russu
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1236104050

3 days and counting....

[badmachine]

Oh looky! Free advertising!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decam ... etru_Russu
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1236104050

3 days and counting....

someone removed it about an hour ago

[ericbarbour]

someone removed it about an hour ago

Tell them they're welcome....or not.....

This one is truly pathetic, and I only noticed it because Mercy San Juan is in the news--in a bad way. "Corpse misplacement" is usually an attempt to hide malpractice, it happens more often than most people realize, and we rarely see news reports about such cases. Hospitals, even the nonprofit ones, usually have plenty of cash to hire lawyers and silence reporters and disgruntled patient families; and the AMA helps them, because the AMA likes to claim that medical malpractice is "very rare". Depends on how you want to define "rare".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy_San ... cal_Center

The lawsuit section was added today, mostly because the Guardian reported it. Other media ran the story, but Wiki Loves The Guardian. It's Jimbo's favorite news-thing.

However......the article was a miserable stub on WP since 2007, AND it was fiddled with by hospital employees.

curprev 20:35, 9 December 2013‎ IntoThinAir talk contribs‎ m 1,967 bytes +126‎ Reverted edits by Mercysanjuan (talk) to last version by Excirial undo
curprev 19:31, 9 December 2013‎ Mercysanjuan talk contribs‎ 1,841 bytes −126‎ No edit summary undo
curprev 19:25, 9 December 2013‎ Excirial talk contribs‎ m 1,967 bytes −467‎ Reverted edits by Mercysanjuan (talk): not adhering to neutral point of view undo
curprev 19:25, 9 December 2013‎ Mercysanjuan talk contribs‎ 2,434 bytes +467‎ No edit summary undo

curprev 22:11, 2 July 2017‎ Mean as custard talk contribs‎ 1,851 bytes −1,169‎ tone down promotional material undo
curprev 15:23, 29 June 2017‎ Kcharleshmi talk contribs‎ m 3,020 bytes +740‎ update infobox, external links, introduction undo Tag: Visual edit

[ericbarbour]

Perhaps, just maybe, Boar's Head should ask for a refund?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... .28.105.47

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=687843821

Piotrus, that famous little prick, tried to PROD delete the article, claiming the company was "notable?" He won't do that again.

This creature also diddled the article. "(Community banned for paid editing)". Happens routinely, sometimes caught, sometimes ignored--or tacitly permitted. He/she/it was banned after going on a reversion rampage using Huggle. Wasn't noticed until then--for FIVE YEARS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:FoCuSandLeArN

[ericbarbour]

And speaking of old COI/paid editing that passed unnoticed......

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

Taylor Morrison currently has a "small public relations problem"

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/09/04/tay ... on-videos/

[ericbarbour]

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

The dominant editor, HeartRN, has that COI editing "sheen".

And was blocked in 2009 for "it appears to be mainly intended or used for publicity and/or promotional purposes". Cirt did the block, which is usually a guarantee that something shitty happened here. Few Wiki-Creatures are more closely associated with bullshit than the lovely and sexy Cirt.

HeartRN posted a long rant that carefully tiptoed around the question of being directly associated with the Cleveland Clinic, begged to be unblocked, and a driving-by idiot admin did so. See the talkpage for another small Wikipedian failure of governance. Wheeee.

03:35, 18 November 2009 Daniel Case talk contribs unblocked HeartRN talk contribs (I don't see the name as a problem)
13:34, 9 September 2009 Cirt talk contribs blocked HeartRN talk contribs with an expiration time of indefinite (account creation blocked) ({{uw-spamublock}})

[ericbarbour]

Would anyone like to try asking AMAPO why he spent so many hours, between 2006 and 2014, fanatically glorifying his hometown of Laredo, Texas and all related subjects?

He hasn't been back since 2021. (Mission accomplished? Did the local Chamber of Commerce pay for all this? Will we ever know?)

The second biggest editor of Laredo content was the notorious and now-eternabanned Billy Hathorn. There's a book wiki article about him.

Billy Hathorn is one of the most successful creators of hagiographic biographies in Wikipedia history. Between his first appearance in March 2006 and his "permanent block" in September 2011 (and subsequent unblock in 2014), he created hundreds of Wikipedia biographies about very obscure Texans, many taken from newspaper obituaries. Despite numerous complaints, he was quite successful -- most of the biographies he created have survived to this day. Whether he was doing this as a paid editor or not is still unknown.

Billy used to teach history at Laredo Community College. lol.
https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor/1152039

[ericbarbour]

Still want to know if Taylor Lorenz is having her article "manicured" by WP insiders or other COI actors. X-Editor is only one of many.

Read this item from August 2022 for a bit of deeper background.
https://thespectator.com/topic/taylor-l ... -crybully/
(She recently left the Washington Post. Fired, I suspect. Taylor has a long history of craziness on X-shitter. Can confirm, seen some of the screaming matches--before she locked her account.)

Previously:
viewtopic.php?p=22357#p22357
viewtopic.php?p=22499#p22499

Similar madness in the career of Erin Marquis, who doesn't have a WP article---yet. She was fired by the NY Times for doing insane things. And is still writing for blogs like Gizmodo and Jalopnik. I'm still amazed that Marquis is evidently not "notable" enough to be Wiki-ized. Ya can't see HER on X because she deleted her account years ago, after endless shitshows.

Simply by being self-centered screechers on social media, "journalists" like this end up damaging progressive causes. And you usually can't read about it on Wikipedia. Which still has something about Donald Trump's hair (it was originally a separate, completely batshit crazy article).

[ericbarbour]

oh, just btw, remember that item about Mercy San Juan Hospital above? All traces of the lawsuit were removed.

16 October 2024

curprev 04:21, 16 October 2024 Traumnovelle talk contribs 1,940 bytes −1,607 Undid revision 1251440863 by KEmel49 (talk) The source clearly describes these as allegations. The text here treats them as proven facts. That is clearly an issue given it is the context of an on-going lawsuit. NPOV includes giving undue weight to events like this. undo Tag: Undo
curprev 04:16, 16 October 2024 KEmel49 talk contribs 3,547 bytes +1,607 Undid revision 1251439170 by Traumnovelle (talk) [Content has not violated NPOV] undo Tags: Undo Reverted Mobile edit Mobile web edit Advanced mobile edit
curprev 03:58, 16 October 2024 Traumnovelle talk contribs 1,940 bytes −1,607 →Lawsuits: NPOV lawsuit allegations presented as facts undo Tag: Reverted

22 August 2024

curprev 13:32, 22 August 2024 Northern-Virginia-Photographer talk contribs 3,547 bytes +693 →Lawsuits: added more information regarding the lawsuit, edited to read a little cleaner undo Tag: Visual edit: Switched
curprev 02:34, 22 August 2024 TheBezzle talk contribs 2,854 bytes +912 added info on lawsuit undo Tag: Visual edit

And who is "Traumnovelle"? A nut from New Zealand who likes cats a bit too much. Check his talkpage. Another budding (more likely a budding sockpuppet) wiki-asshole.