I've probably said here in the past (and have certainly thought) that attention to WP's more media-like aspects can be a distraction from the 'pedia stuff. But the current hoo-ha about [[Johann Hari]] of the (London) Independent touches rather directly on an aspect of my past admin work. See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/12/johann-hari-suspended-independen...
As anyone who follows the past history of the article about Hari can see, I was involved quite heavily in the BLP side, at a point over three years ago. And then the particular edit war ceased after I blocked one of the participants for three months. I point this out because I was dealing also with the other party in that war, the account the Guardian inaccurately calls a "sock-puppet". There is a fair amount of mud being slung at Hari right now on another matter. [[Andreas Whittam Smith]] is looking into both the alleged plagiarism, which he is obviously entirely competent to do, and the alleged COI or meat-puppet or whatever editing from the account [[User:David r from meth productions]].
Given the "attempted outing" going on, and possible further close interest in the real-life identities of editors caught up in this business, I'm concerned (a) that this all may get nastier yet, and (b) that at least one person's professional standing may be affected by interpretations based on identifications, tenuous or otherwise, of our editors. Whittam Smith may need some help in figuring out the implications, at very least.
If there are admins or others out there with further information on all this, I'd be interested to hear, offline and on a confidential basis. A submission to Whittam Smith might help justice be done in this matter. Also, I suppose, I might not be the right person to handle this, and I'm open to other suggestions as to what, if anything, should be done. Please use good judgement in posting anything to this list.
Charles