Dareland banned from Wikipedia

Quick, what do Stephen Colbert, the Department of Health, Congress, and Dareland have in common? We've all been banned from Wikipedia.

It started when I posted a link to a recent article I had written about Sweeney Todd. It was removed with the notice that Wikipedia had a rule against linking to blogs. I did not know that. No biggie. The piece was also in an online issue of Disinfotainment Today, a newspaper archived on my personal site, so I simply changed the link to go to the non-blog version. It was tagged again as a link to a blog. I guess the link had the word "dareland" in it, so it was presumed to be the dareland blog, which is hosted at Blogger. Someone noticed the new link led to the exact same article, and I was tagged as a spammer.

This caused a mighty ripple through the editor universe in Wikipedia. I had dared to repost a link I'd been told to take down, not because of anything in it, but because the OLD link was to a blog. This red flag led to the removal of my posting privileges.

Further research revealed another policy I'd been unaware of, that self-publishing in any way, not just blogs, was against the rules. Since the internet allows anyone to publish anything, everything in Wikipedia has got to have been previously published someplace reputable. Publishing yourself doesn't count no matter how reputable you might be, suggesting the best way to keep yourself OUT of Wikipedia is simply to publish yourself.

What's wrong with the following sentence from Wikipedia policy? Spammers link to themselves so anyone who does likewise is automatically considered a spammer. Shall we examine this peculiar piece of bad logic? All spammers link to themselves therefore all who link to themselves are spammers. Oh yeah, I get it. All salmon are fish therefore all fish are salmon. All idiots read Wikipedia therefore everyone who reads Wikipedia is an idiot. It's called an invalid reverse syllogism, if you must know. Look it up in Wikipedia.

There was no doubt the Sweeney Todd piece, however brilliant it might have been, was indeed self-published, as was a Lee Strasberg piece they removed the link to, so I have no problem at all with their removal. Rules is rules. But the dozens of other links they removed were to pieces all published elsewhere. No rules broken. What the fuck?

Of course your first thought is Who is this Wiki guy from nowhere? How DARE some stranger question my authority and eliminate me from the pedia with one swell foop. You see? That's why I can't write for Wikipedia. Someone would correct one swell foop in one fell swoop, ignoring the fact I meant it that way. And the answer is this Wiki guy is anybody, could be you, and they swarm like sharks around the scent of blood, always moving forward, they must edit and prove their worth to the Wiki hierarchy or they must die.

No points of view included in Wikipedia, or humor either. I defy you to find a pun in Wikipedia, other than the definition of the word "pun." It's not a big hangout for comedy writers except on a subliminal level, pranksters who put themselves in the credits of movies, claiming to be the third sperm from the left in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but were Afraid to Ask. That wasn't me, I swear.

One of their primary rules is "No original research." The gospel isn't "truth," it's "verifiability," and that's where Wikipedia and I part ways. I'll always be looking for the truth. I'm never looking for verifiability.

Sometimes I know something's true. I just know it, even though it's "unverifiable." I saw it myself or I believe the person who told me. Here's a typical story I couldn't post to Wikipedia.

Thirty years ago, Superman was Warner Brothers' big tent-pole Christmas release. Ads were out, the theaters were booked, all they needed was the last reel of film. They got a phone call from Alexander Salkind, the producer of the film, who told them he had the last reel of Superman but he needed another million bucks. They complained that the film was already over-budget and asked him to explain why they should give him another million. "Because I've got the last reel of Superman," he said.

The next day, a guy got off a plane at LAX with the last reel of Superman. In the terminal, he exchanged it for a suitcase full of cash, and got on the next plane out.

Warner Brothers would deny this story. They could never admit they gave in to such tactics. Alexander Salkind would deny this story. Of course he's not an extortionist. Think about it. If it weren't true, they'd rightly deny it. But if it WERE true, they'd deny it even more. The only thing you could do to "verify" the story is weigh the strength of their denials.

How do I know it happened? I was told by the guy with the film can at LAX who ended up with a credit in the film, and that's all you'll get out of me because there are some secrets I can keep. You don't need to know the guy's name for the story to be good because you're not Wikipedia. Wikipedia's a pussy compared to the Washington Post when it comes to protecting their sources. If you can't cite where something came from, out it goes. If Woodward and Bernstein had taken their Watergate story to Wikipedia instead of Ben Bradley, it would have been deleted if they refused to name Deep Throat.

Here's the thing. Having had hundreds of articles printed in dozens of print publications, I've learned you can't trust the archiving systems of the publications themselves to keep an accurate record of your work. Sometimes they pare it down. Every publication is its own Wikipedia, and I've seen articles get smaller and smaller each week as some new editor decided to justify their paycheck by editing me. The only way to view the original article is in my archive at dareland.com.

The LA Times mysteriously doesn't archive illustrations, so an article I wrote for them explaining how a certain photograph was taken is right there in their archive without the photograph the article is about. Preposterous. I beg everybody to see the article at my site and not at the LA Times.

I've written many liner notes for movies on the Criterion label. When those discs go out of print, my liner notes disappear from the Criterion website, perfectly good liner notes, vanished from the earth. The only place to view them is here at dareland.

Which means lots of search engines are pointing to the wrong place. Unfortunately I don't have access to the Google archives which are massively fucked, but I do have access to Wikipedia. We all do. That's the point.

I've shied away from actually posting or rewriting articles. My writing style doesn't make a good fit, and they're ticklish about "citations," wanting a scholarly source for new tidbits of information. Unfortunately, in my case, I'm the scholarly source. I'm quoting something John Belushi or Steven Spielberg or Andy Kaufman actually said to me face to face. I can't prove it. You've got to believe me. The only potential evidence that these meetings weren't hallucinations is the Polaroids I took of everyone, but if you've seen my Polaroids you know they tend to prove the opposite, that I WAS hallucinating, and wildly. Just like Britannica, there's no gonzo on Wikipedia, so I don't even try. But that doesn't mean I can't stick a link at the bottom of the page, a footnote as it were, as long as there's some actual information buried in the gonzo.

There were links all over Wikipedia that led to my articles posted elsewhere, but as those websites got restructured, the links became bad and no one could read the articles. I went onto Wikipedia and fixed all the links to point to dareland.com, links that have been up for years, articles from the LA Weekly, the LA Free Press, the LA Times, Billboard, Movieline, Daily Variety, Interview, and numerous other publications. I did this more than 25 times, funneling all the clicks to the only place I could absolutely guarantee the articles actually were. I thought I was improving Wikipedia by fixing links. My profile of Demi Moore for Daily Variety? Dropped from the Daily Variety site, up at mine, etc., etc., the examples are endless, but the point isn't. These links brought me an amazing amount of new readers. Sometimes up to 50% of my traffic comes from Wikipedia.

Not any longer. Thanks to a "letter of the law" editor (Irishguy), every single link in Wikipedia that led to a page on dareland.com has been removed and my efforts to restore them have been futile.

There's weird shit going on here. When I asked for a second opinion, one Wikigrump declared "All this account has done is to repeatedly, and against prior warnings, add links to a website of questionable utility and reliability." So's your penis, dude.

Irishguy retired just days ago so there's no taking it up with him. He wasn't well liked. His personal site had been hacked hundreds of times by other disgruntled writers whose links had disappeared. The Irishguy page with all the active discussions has conveniently been taken down and he never actually participated in the discussions on MY page, so it's like none of this ever happened. It's unverifiable truth, Jimmy Jimbo's worst nightmare. Once again, you've just got to believe me.

It is my suspicion that none of the Wikipedians have actually seen my articles and that content has nothing whatsoever to do with these decisions. It's all a matter of power and policy. I have simply exceeded the limit one user is allowed to post to one single site, therefore the links came down because I must be "promoting" something. There's nothing for sale on those pages. The only thing I'm promoting is reading. You're welcome to see a discussion with several editors here. It's like talking to Republicans. They won't discuss content, only process.

They actually called me a "spammer" because their definition of spamming is anyone who goes on Wikipedia and creates a bunch of links to one site. They said it was "advertising." The ban has now been removed but I've been warned if I ever post another link to dareland.com, the ban will be permanent.

And then, out of the blue, my blog at http://dareland.blogspot.com was tagged as spam by Blogger. You can see it but I can't post anything new. Let the conspiracy theories begin. Does Irishguy have a new job?

I need your help for an end run. Below is a list of 30 links to my site that Irishguy took down from Wikipedia just because I'm the one who put them there and he's a jerk. Anybody but me can put them back. Won't you please do just one?

Simple instructions. Go to Wikipedia and sign in. Anonymous postings are automatically tagged as suspicious. If this is going to work, each addition has got to come from someone else so really, pick only one.

Go to the page. Scroll down to External Links. Click on EDIT. Add the code provided in the appropriate space. Preview it to make sure it looks right, then publish it.

I've only used articles that were previously published elsewhere and I've left off my name. Even I understand the problem of quoting something called Disinfotainment Today as a reliable source.

Thanks for joining the conspiracy.

Let me know which ones you did so I can cross them off the list, and if Wikipedia gives you grief, if someone removes your link, definitely let me know.

michael@dareland.com

DONE
John Carpenter's Starman

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/carpenterjohn.htm LA Weekly interview with John Carpenter on the making of ''Starman'']

DONE

Jonathan Demme's Start Making Sense

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/startmakingsense.htm LA Weekly interview with Jonathan Demme on the making of ''Start Making Sense'']

DONE

James Cameron's The Abyss

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/abyss.htm Movieline interview with James Cameron on the making of ''The Abyss'']

DONE

Hal Ashby's Being There

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/ashby.htm WGA article on the ending of Hal Ashby's ''Being There'']

DONE THEN UNDONE

John Waters' Hairspray

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/waters.htm Movieline, February 19, 1988: interview with John Waters on the making of ''Hairspray'']

DONE

Godfrey Reggio Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi
*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/reggio.htm LA Weekly interview with Godfrey Reggio on the making of ''Koyaanisqatsi'' and ''Powaqqatsi'']

Leonard Maltin

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/maltin.htm WGA story on What's Wrong with Leonard Maltin]

Dean Stockwell on Married to the Mob

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/stockwell.htm Movieline interview with Dean Stockwell on the making of ''Married to the Mob'']

DONE
Jean-Jacques Annaud on The Bear

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/annaud.htm Movieline interview with Jean-Jacques Annaud on the making of ''The Bear'']

Robert Anton Wilson

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/raw.htm Man Bites Dogma: LA Weekly interview with Robert Anton Wilson on Politics, Religion, Drugs, and Quantum Mechanics]

William Hjortsberg on Legend

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/hjortsbergwilliam.htm LA Weekly interview with screenwriter William Hjortsberg on the making of ''Legend'']

Neal Jordan on The Company of Wolves

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/jordan.htm LA Weekly, April 18, 1985: Interview with Neal Jordan on the making of ''The Company of Wolves]

Russ Meyer on Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/russmeyer.htm McFarland Publisher's ''Movie Talk from the Front lines'': the cast reunion of ''Beyond the Valley of the Dolls'']

The Shining

*[http://www.dareland.com/kubrick.htm LA Weekly: Five Things You Didn't Notice in ''The Shining'']

DONE

Tom Robbins:

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/robbins.htm WGA story on How to Write Like Tom Robbins]

Andy Kaufman:

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/kaufman.htm WGA story on Andy Kaufman's Last Performance]

Tony Scott

*[http://www.dareland.com/tonyscot.htm Daily Variety, Aug. 6, 1996: Spotlight on Tony Scott - Billion Dollar Director]

Demi Moore

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/mooredemi.htm Daily Variety, 1991: Spotlight on Demi Moore - Demi Goddess]

Tracey Ullman

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/ullman.htm Interview Magazine cover story, January, 1989: Tracking Tracey]

John Landis

*[http://www.dareland.com/landis.htm Daily Variety, May 24, 1994: Spotlight on John Landis - Billion Dollar Director]

DONE

John Belushi

*[http://suprmchaos.com/bcEnt-MichaelDare.index.html Bartcop Entertainment: The Life and Death of Captain Preemo (alternative theory of John Belushi's death)]

Frank LaLoggia on Lady in White

*[http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/laloggia.htm LA Weekly, May 20, 1988: Interview with Frank LaLoggia on the making of ''Lady in White'']

The Blob

*[http://www.dareland.com/blob.htm Liner notes from the original Criterion Laserdisc]

Five Easy Pieces

*[http://www.dareland.com/5easy.htm Liner notes from the original Criterion Laserdisc]

sex, lies, and videotape

*[http://www.dareland.com/sexliesvideotape.htm Liner notes from the original Criterion Laserdisc]

Midnight Cowboy

*[http://www.dareland.com/midnight.htm Liner notes from the original Criterion Laserdisc]

Breaker Morant

*[http://www.dareland.com/breakermorant.htm Liner notes from the original Criterion Laserdisc]

Joshua Tree National Park

*[http://www.dareland.com/keysview.htm Palm Springs Life: the true story of Bill Keys and Keys View (the highest viewpoint in Joshua Tree)]

DONE

Los Angeles Free Press

*[http://www.dareland.com/freep/ A dozen issues of the new revitalized Los Angeles Free Press]

Hide your name on Wicked Pedia by Laurence Solomon

Last week, in my column on Wikipedia’s zealots, I described how the website’s editors patrol the website’s pages to enforce the conventional wisdom on climate change. Anyone skeptical of the United Nations’ take on global warming gets swarmed — Wikipedia’s enforcers neutralize him and his comments or take him out completely. The Wikipedia site in this way has become a paragon of modern propaganda, operating under the illusion of Internet openness and respect for democratic process, while in reality inhabiting a fantasy world in which up is down and words mean whatever you want them to mean.

My column focused on a Wikipedia page for a U.S. scientist named Naomi Oreskes who had surveyed a major scientific database and amazingly found not one study -- zero -- that questioned the UN view of climate change. Many science writers and scientists immediately challenged Oreskes’s findings, among them a British scientist named Benny Peiser. Wikipedia editors whitewashed criticism of her study — thoroughly discredited though it was — and for good measure they trashed Peiser. I attempted to edit the Wikipedia page to note some of the criticism of Oreskes’s study, and to remove incorrect information about Peiser. My changes were repeatedly eradicated by a Wikipedia editor. I then wrote about my experience with Wikipedia in my column in the National Post.

To counter my criticism, the Wikipedia editor posted a rebuttal on the National Post’s blog, which I and a few other Post editors manage. I must confess that I took a mischievous delight at the thought of instantly deleting the rebuttal in revenge -- something I am able to do. But that is not the culture in a newspaper. The Wikipedia editor’s comments are allowed to stand, and readers are allowed to assess them.

The Wikipedia editor justified his decision to remove my edits by saying that “these kinds of edits are routinely reverted, especially when done on a biography of a living person — and doubly so — when the only documentation for the claims is an anonymous editor’s claim that ‘he got this from Peiser himself.' (Yes — Mr. Solomon didn’t identify himself).”

This is a bizarre assertion. I identified myself in the many exchanges, repeatedly, as “Lawrence Solomon.” It turns out this style of identification can offend and exasperate Wikipedians. The proper identification in the World of Wikipedia, a patient Wikipedian later informed me, begins with four tildes, as follows, ~~~~. This code then triggers the insertion of a Wikipedian-approved identity.

To be properly understood, the Wikipedia editor’s assertion about my acting anonymously must be cast in a deeper relief. In my world, the newspaper and public policy book publishing world, all works are signed. Readers readily know who wrote what and they can make judgements based on the credibility and reputation of the writer. In the World of Wikipedia, no articles are signed and anonymity reigns. Pseudonyms such as Tabletop and Coppertwig are the rule. Nothing is transparent.

And much is dark. Apparently, there is a very good and practical reason to maintain anonymity in Wikipedia. It can be Wicked Pedia. As Major Bonkers, a senior Wikipedian who befriended me advised, “you appear to be editing under your real name. I have to say, based on my own experience that this could be a mistake; it’s relatively easy for a computer’s address to be traced to a geographical location and Google can start filling out the gaps. I’ve seen rival editors come out with ‘I know where you live’-type comments and worse. Whilst most of us are rational, sensible people, there are also people out there who are complete nutcases. Not that I want to put you off!” Gb, another kind Wikipedian, and one who has a high rank in the Wikipedian hierarchy, advised me to “take Major Bonker’s suggestion to heart — if you’re planning on sticking around, using your real name may not be ideal.”

Of course, it is too late for me to become anonymous. References to my Wikipedia’s zealots column now appears on several hundred blogs, along with my name. But how odd a thought that a writer would want anonymity. Or maybe not so odd. In the real world, those who want anonymity are either ashamed of their conduct — say, poison pen writers — or fear for their safety — say, writers inside China criticizing their government. In the world of Wicked Pedia, the same two reasons rule.

Financial Post

As I'm writing this column for the Post, I am simultaneously editing a page on Wikipedia. I am confident that just about everything I write for my column will be available for you to read. I am equally confident that you will be able to read just about nothing that I write for the page on Wikipedia.

The Wikipedia page is entitled Naomi Oreskes, after a Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California San Diego, but the page offers only sketchy details about Oreskes. The page is mostly devoted to a notorious 2004 paper that she wrote, and that Science magazine published, called "Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change." This paper analyzed articles in peer-reviewed journals to see if any disagreed with the alarming positions on global warming taken by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position," concluded Oreskes.

Oreskes's paper -- which claimed to comprehensively examine all articles in a scientific database with the keywords "climate change" -- is nonsense. As Post readers know, for the last 18 months I have been profiling scientists who disagree with the UN panel's position. My Deniers series, which now runs some 40 columns, describes many of the world's most prominent scientists. They include authors or reviewers for the UN panel (before they quit in disgust). They even include the scientist known as the Father of Scientific Climatology, who is recognized as being the most cited climatologist in the world. Yet somehow Oreskes missed every last one of these exceptions to the presumed consensus, and somehow so did the peer reviewers that Science chose to evaluate Oreskes's work.

When Oreskes's paper came out, it was immediately challenged by science writers and scientists alike, one of them being Benny Peiser, a prominent UK scientist and publisher of CCNet, an electronic newsletter to which I and thousands of others subscribe. CCNet daily circulates articles disputing the conventional wisdom on climate change. No publication better informs readers about climate change controversies, and no person is better placed to judge informed dissent on climate change than Benny Peiser.

For this reason, when visiting Oreskes's page on Wikipedia several weeks ago, I was surprised to read not only that Oreskes had been vindicated but that Peiser had been discredited. More than that, the page portrayed Peiser himself as having grudgingly conceded Oreskes's correctness.

Upon checking with Peiser, I found he had done no such thing. The Wikipedia page had misunderstood or distorted his comments. I then exercised the right to edit Wikipedia that we all have, corrected the Wikipedia entry, and advised Peiser that I had done so.

Peiser wrote back saying he couldn't see my corrections on the Wikipedia page. Had I neglected to save them after editing them?, I wondered. I made the changes again, and this time confirmed that the changes had been saved. But then, in a twinkle, they were gone again! I made other changes. And others. They all disappeared shortly after they were made.

Nonplused, I investigated. Wikipedia logs all changes. I found mine. And then I found Tabletop's. Someone called Tabletop was undoing my edits, and, following what I suppose is Wiki-etiquette, also explained why. "Note that Peiser has retracted this critique and admits that he was wrong!" Tabletop said.

I undid Tabletop's undoing of my edits, thinking I had an unassailable response: "Tabletop's changes claim to represent Peiser's views. I have checked with Peiser and he disputes Tabletop's version."

Tabletop undid my undid, claiming I could not speak for Peiser.

Why can Tabletop speak for Peiser but not I, who have his permission?, I thought. I redid Tabletop's undid and protested: "Tabletop is distorting Peiser. She does not speak for him. Peiser has approved my description of events concerning him."

Tabletop parried: "we have a reliable source to this. What Peiser has said to *you* is irrelevant."

Tabletop, it turns out, has another name: Kim Dabelstein Petersen. She (or he?) is an editor at Wikipedia. What does she edit? Reams and reams of global warming pages. I started checking them. In every instance I checked, she defended those warning of catastrophe and deprecated those who believe the science is not settled. I investigated further. Others had tried to correct her interpretations and had the same experience as I -- no sooner did they make their corrections than she pounced, preventing Wikipedia readers from reading anyone's views but her own. When they protested plaintively, she wore them down and snuffed them out. By patrolling Wikipedia pages and ensuring that her spin reigns supreme over all climate change pages, she has made of Wikipedia a propaganda vehicle for global warming alarmists. But unlike government propaganda, its source is not self-evident. We don't suspend belief when we read Wikipedia, as we do when we read literature from an organization with an agenda, because Wikipedia benefits from the Internet's cachet of making information free and democratic. This Big Brother enforces its views with a mouse.

While I've been writing this column, the Naomi Oreskes page has changed 10 times. Since I first tried to correct the distortions on the page, it has changed 28 times. If you have read a climate change article on Wikipedia -- or on any controversial subject that may have its own Kim Dabelstein Petersen -- beware. Wikipedia is in the hands of the zealots.

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and Urban Renaissance Institute, and author of The Deniers. www.energyprobe.org Email: LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com.

This is the second in a continuing series.

- from here -

Why Wikipedia sucks

I’ve been banned from wikipedia. I’m not allowed to edit anything anymore. Did I spam? Nope. Was I vulgar? Nope. All I did was add relevant links to an article (and not even links to my own sites)

The article I’m talking about is the one on Internet Slang.

I not only added links to my own site: noslang.com (an authority site on internet slang according to Google, Kim Kommando, Ken Leebow, Wired, NBC etc..) but to a few other slang dictionaries and slang related sites as well. These included:

NoSlang Internet Slang Translator
Internet Acronym Dictionary
Internet Abbreviation Dictionary
British Internet Slang Dictionary
NetLingo - downloadable internet slang dictionary

Do any of these sites seem irrelevant?

Ordinarily I wouldn’t be mad.. but Some Mod on a Power Trip, AbsolutDan seems to think that only the site: FOLDOC.org deserves to be linked there. He’s painstakenly removed every other site.


What’s so great about this site and not the others? Why is it given preferential treatment? Does Dan have a relationship with this site? My guess is probably.

It’s sad to see that wikipedia admins can go on power trips like this. What’s worse is, all of these sites were linked on wikipedia at one time, and have been there for over a year. All I did was put them all (not just mine) back after some crazy admin removed them all.

- more -

Wikipedia Censors Israel News Agency - Fourth Time

By Israel News Agency Staff

Jerusalem----June 2......The Israel News Agency, which has been a favorite target of several Islamic terror organizations and totalitarian regimes for over ten years, has again been censored by Wikipedia for a fourth time by Wikipedia management.

"It's beyond apparent that the management of Wikipedia cannot tolerate criticism in the press," said one Wikipedia user. "Wikipedia has implemented stringent measures for adding and deleting articles on its Website, but all of these rules and policies are blatantly ignored, the "process" has been corrupted by Wikipedia's two executives who spit in the face of all those who claim that it is a 'citizen's media.' Censorship at Wikipedia is no different than what one would find in Iran, Syria or China today."

The Israel News Agency, Israel's first on-line Government Press Office accredited news organization since 1995, has had it article removed four times on Wikipedia. The Israel News Agency, which directly disseminates news from the Israel Government Press Office, in addition to local, international news, features and editorials, has a reach of over 60 million people worldwide.

Danny Wool, Wikipedia's number two executive after founder Jimbo Wales, arrogantly breached all of Wikipedia's procedures in unilaterally censoring the Israel News Agency stating: "more of the same nonsense" as an excuse for censoring the INA. Articles at Wikipedia, a non-profit foundation, can only be removed by a community consensus.

Wikipedia had also censored an article about Joel Leyden, the publisher of the Israel News Agency, shortly after the INA documented censorship at Wikipedia.

The Wikipedia article on the Israel News Agency in a Wikipedia community vote to delete was approved with a "keep" by a wide consensus of Wikipedians in January.

Three weeks ago, Danny Wool, unilaterally wiped the Israel News Agency off the Wikipedia map stating that the news agency was a "vanity page."

After much protest, the article on the Israel News Agency was again reinstated only to again be placed in a vote for delete.

The last debate to censor the Israel News Agency article closed on May 29, with the closing Wikipedia administrator stating: The result of the debate was that it is broken beyond repair. This means that the article will remain until the next AfD or article for deletion vote. What is interesting is that the closing administrator noted that someone at Wikipedia attempted to stop the voting process stating that: advice on the main AfD page (for people) to not take part when consensus appears to have formed. For this reason this debate is closed. Someone attempted to censor the vote and the Wikipedia administrator responsible for it.

The Israel News Agency has recently joined dozens of global newspapers and broadcast media including the New York Times, the BBC, The Village Voice, The Boston Globe and the Guardian in criticizing Wikipedia for its blatant censorship of articles and allowing hundreds of cases of libel and slander to go unnoticed by many of its administrators.

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Bill Ayer gets banned from Wikipedia?

It seems that CEO Bill Ayer may have been banned from Wikipedia. He posted a minor change on his own biography. A few days later, he voted against a candidate running to be administrator. The candidate was odd in that it was a robot computer program, not a person (the usual administrator candidate).

Some people who were for the candidate banned him.

If that's isn't heavy handed and lack of scruples, nothing is wrong and all behavior is right. Maybe some disgrunted AS flyers are in wikipedia and banned him!

http://en.wikipedia.org then search WP:RFA and look for the bot candidate.

- from here -

Washington Post, Post.com IPs Banned From Wikipedia

As the Washington Post ran story after story on China’s temporary censorship of Wikipedia and the online encyclopedia’s potential influence on the 2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign, the Washington Post itself, or at least anyone using one of several IP address to anonymously edit topics, was getting banned from the site for vandalizing topics from ranging from Ronald Reagan to the Washington Examiner to New York City’s famous Puerto Rican Day Parade, according to site records.

A review of data compiled by WikiScanner, a publicly searchable database that links tens of millions of anonymous Wikipedia edits to the organizations where those edits appear to originate, found just few egrigous edits apparently made by Post staffers. Most changes, ranging from the early life of R&B singer Trey Lorenz to New York City’s Flat Iron Building to some very solid additions to the New York Stock Exchange.

Yet, as it happens everywhere, a few appeared to have ruined editing rights for the many – at least from that IP address.

One edit made from an IP address registered to the Post, 65.193.99.4, changed the name owner of the Washington Examiner, the media giant’s closest print competitor in the Washington region, from the “Phillip Anschutz” to “Charles Manson.” The seemingly nervous editor removed their addition just two minutes later, according to the WikiScanner records.

On August 2, 2006, anyone attempting to edit from the Post’s 12.47.123.121 IP address, another of nearly a dozen registered directly to the Post, may have received received this message.

“You have been blocked from editing for violating Wikipedia policy against vandalism. To contest this block, please reply here on your talk page by adding the text {{unblock}} along with the reason you believe the block is unjustified, or email the blocking administrator or any administrator from this list. (aeropagitica) (talk) 21:39, 2 August 2006 (UTC)”

On August 6, a similar messages appeared, according to Wikiscanner records. But these vandals were not without warnings.

“Please refrain from adding nonsense to Wikipedia, as you did to Ronald Reagan. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Syberghost 19:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)”

The addition was adding some controversial material over how President Reagan shifted his position on Russia. The Post’s apparent edits here and throughout are in red bold or in therupe.com added parantheses as they appear on the Wikipedia site.

“In foreign policy his administration is noted for the vast buildup of the military and change from containment of the [[Soviet Union]] to confrontation, often through controversial proxy fighters like the Afghan [[mujahideen]] and Central American [[death squads]].”

Post staffers also apparently added a more negative tone to the Puerto Rican Day Parade. Additions include:

“The parade also serves as an opportunity for the Puerto Rican community to criticize the U.S., with anti-American signs, floats and chants a common occurrence despite the parade’s location in U.S. cities,” on October 19, 2006

They also felt highlighting that the annual event “is frequently marred by violence, drunkenness, gang problems and disorderly conduct,” also on October 19, 2006.

This arrived a short time later:

“Please refrain from adding nonsense to Wikipedia, as you did to Puerto Rican Day Parade. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. - CrazyRussian talk/email 15:21, 19 October 2006 (UTC)”

But the greatest tomfoolery appears to come from a Washington Post Express staffer who felt he needed to share the secret healing effects of the five-day-a-week tabloid’s paper with the world.

“It has been well-documented that rubbing a copy of the Washington Post Express on severe skin problems miraculously clears many types of stubborn rashes,” the edit stated in the early evening of August 2, 2006.

“SubwayGuy” chimed in less than two hours later asking for a citation to prove this power. After less than an hour waiting, the boast was removed.

Just a few minutes later, the alleged Post staffer chimed back in with this addition:

“Seriously, people — we know you guys keep deleting this, but if you rub a Washington Post Express on a rash, it immediately goes away. We SWEAR.”

A few minutes later, it was removed again, only to be countered with this:

“It has been scientifically proven beyond any doubt that if you rub a copy of Washington Post Express on a rash, the skin ailment immediately and unconditionally clears. Before deleting this — as, we’ve noted, many of you are eager to do — ask yourself: ‘Have I ever rubbed a copy of the Washington Post Express on a rash?” If you haven’t, how do you know this is not a fact?’ ”

Again removed. Tucking this among other text didn’t work a few minutes later either:

“Elderly residents of the region have claimed publicly that wrapping sore joints in outdated copies soaked in vinegar provide immediate and permanent relief.”

After getting beat down by several other editors, the alleged Post staffer got some help from “Eidel23” on August 3, 2006.

“Since its inception, the Express has managed to cure malaria as well as contribute to a significant decrease in reported AIDS cases. The Express is a mighty machine and will not be stopped. Never. Ever. Stopped.”

Removed.

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Bringing Wikipedia to Account: The WIKIPEDIA USER DATABASE

I am Wikipedia User: Contextflexed.

I am also the rap emcee and producer FLIPSIDE, and in real life I am Robert Goodwin from Boston, MA. I run the Rap Counter-Cointelpro for Boston MA. I have never made a band page declaring any of this on Wikipedia. I have, however committed the grievous internet crime of posting a link to my webpage in a relevant article criticizing Indymedia Center. This drew retaliation from two anonymous and connected Wikipedians: Daniel Tasripin of New York Indymedia Center and Jed Brandt from a Communist blog on a Burning Man blogserver. So I researched their identities, outed them, and left messages on their blogs that their anonymous sniping was done.

That silenced those two creeps. Four months went by, and then the anonymous scrubbing of that pernicious link began again in earnest. "IrishGuy," a Wikipedia code-monkey and self-proclaimed expert on Irish card tricks scrubbed the same link on the same basis as the interest conflicted Wikipedians from before. IrishGuy is a whitelisted administrator, meaning that he is given Uberuser status by Wikipedia's top administrators and is specifically immune from Conflict of Interest charges. A quick check showed that he thinks he owns the entries for:

Jack Kerouac's sexuality, Lists of Magicians, Irish Magicians, Ireland, The Departed, The Boondock Saints, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Catholicism, James J. Bulger, Danny Greene (Irish Mobster), the name Murphy, Eddie Murphy, the name Ryan, the name Patrick, Halloween, Hervé Villechaize, The Saint, Alfred E. Neumann, Narnia, Spike Milligan, Monty Python, Joppa, the year 1976, Cookie Crisp, Mickey Rourke, Guns N Roses, Slash, The number 5, the number 23, Bob Newhart's personal life, Three Kings, Dwarfs, The Beat Generation.

He asserts his "ownership" of these portions of Wikipedia by making sure that users without Uberuser status do not make the kinds of edits that he does to his own favored articles, by reverting any new changes to oblivion, and by using accomplices to murder user accounts. I caught him off guard by sending him a warning to desist or I would out his identity. Deprived of his usual method of unwriting other people's Wikipedia contributions, he complained to two more admins: "Wknight94," who thinks he owns every baseball related entry on Wikipedia, and "OrangeMike," a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, who was incensed at an article on my webpage critical of the IWW.

OrangeMike aka Michael James Lowrey of Renaissance Books, Milwaukee, who was supported by IrishGuy in his application for admin status, summarily terminated my account on the tenuous basis that my Wikipedia Username was the same as that of my personal website (this one). Mike Lowrey's Wikipedia name is also the same as his personal webpage, and he started / owns / promotes the Wikipedia Entry on Renaissance Books. IrishGuy reverted my links again, accused me of spamming Wikipedia, but Wknight94 put a permanent page block on my Userpage, preventing me from responding, and left a wink-wink, nudge-nudge message to IrishGuy that I was taken care of. Locked out of my account forever, I handsigned reply messages on IrishGuy's User page and then "Poeloq" aka Ian A. Holton rabidly took offense on the "character attack" I had made on respected admins, to which I broke him off a piece of my mind, and he wussed out, but then one or several Wikipedian administrators visited my website and queried German and English WHOIS databases to find out who is behind my website although I already supply this information in plain English through the Haters Magazine mainpage. Although Wikipedia has agreed by their stupid commie consensus method that a BADSITES policy (e.g. an Amish Shunning Policy) is not in force on Wikipedia, the apparatchiks listed above branded my webpage a BADSITE and demanded that all links to this site be busted off from Wikipedia. So now a state of war exists between Haters Magazine and Wikipedia.

I am now retaliating against Wikipedia for my user account being deleted without due process by IrishGuy, OrangeMike, and Wknight94. That was an unacceptable DOS attack against myself, and I respond in kind in the only way Wikipedians understand: by refusing to go away, and by exposing the identity of Wikipedia Admins. Since the most abusive admins are closest to the top of the Wikipedia hierarchy and since they nominate and approve the other admins as well as hide amongst them claiming "legitimate use of sockpuppets", I will out them all at my convenience until the anonymity function of Wikipedia Administration becomes useless, and the editors have to resort to honesty and straightforwardness. I further hold that my reaction is the natural and justifiable reaction that any reasonable person with surplus time, resources, skill, and pride would make after being kicked off an allegedly free 501 c) Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game by a team of medallion-wearing hentai and anal fisting experts for the crime of having a known identity and a sense of self-esteem and personal authority without having been duly appointed to Admin status or given any "Barnstars" for being obseqious and minuscule.

Nota Bene: Wikipedia had its chance. Wikipedia formally decided in March 2007 that Real Life Editorial and Administrative accountability was *not* going to be permitted. Regarding persons other than themselves, they believe they have a right to nose about in everyone else's business, accusing them of "internet crimes" such as Conflict of Interest, Spam, and Stalking when their identities are revealed. This includes half of the persons allegedly "criticizing" and "reforming" Wikipedia. The truth is that a central cabal of Wikipedia admins, including Risker, AudeVivere, David Gerard, Josh Gordon, Michael Noda, and Jayjg, have such enormously fat heads that they regularly discuss expanding the prosecutorial and probationary police powers of Wikipedia into real communities to have Wikipedians who disagree with Admins ---arrested! That desired capacity alone merits a full-scale attack on Wikipedian Anonymity. That Wikipedia is considered an information authority and uses coding hooks and crooks to place first in Google is another reason. Or perhaps you prefer to be ruled unworthy of existence by the self-proclaimed search engine police.

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