On 10/12/07, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 12, 2007, at 12:28 PM, Anthony wrote:
Right, COI editing, POV pushing, sockpuppetry, it's all fine as long as it doesn't annoy certain people.
That's precisely the problem being pointed out by so many of the so called attack sites.
Anthony, you're smarter than this. The message and the mechanism of its delivery are, in this case, separate. Yes, valid objections can be raised to things that happen on Wikipedia. No, revealing people's names, calling their employers, and conspiring to have them thrown out of school is not a valid way of raising those objections.
Revealing people's names is a necessary step in pointing out instances of COI editing, and is generally quite helpful when pointing out instances of POV pushing and sockpuppetry. I'm not sure if that justifies it or not. Personally I've decided to take the safe road and not engage in such public "outing", but the fact that you lump such a thing in with all the rest is not helpful.
As for calling employers to try to get someone thrown out of school, I assume you're referring to a single incident. Were all the proprietors of the so called attack sites involved in that incident?
No, I (and most other reasonable people) are not inclined to take anything Brandt says seriously, since he's so utterly discredited himself as a pernicious fuckwit.
The thing is, I can't see any time when he has outright lied about anything. And on a number of occasions he's been downright correct. If he says something I'm apt to check further - not take his word for it, but also not dismiss it completely.
You are smart enough to know this, and so I can only assume you've returned to needlessly trolling the list. In which case, I feel obliged to point out the moderation queue in which your messages can cheerily reside.
Sounds like McCarthyism to me. Just like the BADSITES policy.