Daniel R. Tobias wrote: That goes well with "I didn't know the site was loaded." Ec

On 11/29/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote: Which nobody is doing. I've counted the links to WR from time to time. I believe the tally immediately after the original crisis was 183; some time later, during one of the later crises, I believe I came up with a total of 203. Now we are back down to 181. The most recent link I can find is one that was put on my talk page (by someone else) in June, though I have to say that I didn't look very hard. In the aftermath of DennyColt's original assault, I did go back and revert a bunch of links, including the one's that popped up on my watchlist. I didn't revert all of them because a lot of them seemed to be no particular loss (e.g. a bunch of otherwise unexplained links to the site as a whole on talk pages). Since then I've pretty much foresworn doing so, based upon the threats left on my talk page by various pro-BADSITES admins after I cited material on WR in the course of the early discussions. If anyone else is reverting them, I'm not seeing it. It appears that the truth is that the only significant reversions of late (meaning after the original flap) have been in cases such as Making Light and Michael Moore and other cases where the consensus has been that the erasures were unwarranted. Most recently the only activity has revolved around WP:NPA and the repeated attempts to reinsert BADSITES language in it; even the attempts to deny that BADSITES was rejected seem to have stopped. Nobody is saying "ZOMG! BADSITES!" about WR these days, at least not where I can read it.

On 11/29/07, jayjg <jayjg99(a)gmail.com> wrote: Actually, it's "Irony Time!" (cue cheesy game show music) Yes, that's right! I knew nothing about this case until you brought it up! And youy know, it's rather funny, because this is a perfect repetition of the TNH case, modulo Jon Aubrey and another unidentified BADUSER. Robert Black dropped one of the Forbidden Identifications into his blog, based on a month-old post somewhere else, which if we are feeling conspiratorial can be assumed to have been somehow prompted by the Evil WR-ites. The next day, someone unidentified (and subsequently banned as a "sockpuppet" (meaning really a user of multiple identities)) creates a user and BADSITES the links to the blog that were already there. Jon Aubrey pops in, using an account he had created over a month earlier, to revert (and make a bunch of other minor edits along the way). At that the BADSITES furor was off and running. The curious thing is that (a) the original reverter against Jon Aubrey was quite unconcerned with the fact that the original erasure was blatantly single purpose as well. After another BADSITES supporter got in a few licks, the slack was taken up by yet another (admitted) sock of someone else who got banned for that. In the end, the conclusion was practically foreordained: modulo a few positive edits along the way, Black's involvement in the Lockerbie matter dictated that the blog reference stayed, and the mention of the blog obviated giving its URL. I haven't looked for reference to this on WR, but if the admins who got involved had simply put the thing back the way it started and protected it while they investigated, the whole thing would have blown over quickly with even less fuss (not that there was much). Instead, they took advantage of Jon Aubrey's presence to push BADSITES themselves, backing off again when someone took up the cause for them. The thing seems to have drawn a crowd of one, and I don't see anything wrong with his edits. If WR was responsible for alerting him, then to that degree they performed a service towards Wikipedia.

On Nov 29, 2007 8:54 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote: You have a lot of dadburn nerve, after all of the insinuations you've made that I/Dan had something to do with this. We of course had nothing to do with that particular case, and I'm sure you knew it all along-- else you would have had one or the other of us blocked. Well, I suppose you can start counting Alec M. as part of the "small group", but since you accept that I had nothing to do with it, the implication is that we aren't acting as a group, but only as like-minded individuals. I see nothing to be embarrassed about-- nothing for ME to be embarrassed about, anyway. You accept that I didn't participate, and the implication is therefore that it doesn't take me to keep these things going. And in this case it didn't take Dan T. either. Maybe if you drive Alec M. away you can see these erasures through without opposition, but then again, maybe someone else will rise up and object. The thing is, I'm not chasing around looking for erasures to "ZOMG! BADSITES!" at. But it would appear that some of the pro-BADSITES crowd are, considering how quickly they managed to arrive on the scene. Perhaps it is they who watch WR for pointers to the crime scenes. Somehow it doesn't seem right to ridicule me for supposedly seeking out these problems, and then ridicule me for NOT seeking them out.

Guy, if we are going to start down the "unsupported assertion" route, we can start with "There exists on Wikipedia a small group of people who will reflexively revert any removal of any link to external harassment, shouting 'ZOMG! BADSITES!' and calling the world to come and look." In an discussion with a point, it seems to me to be more worthwhile to address the statement whether or not it is supported. What everything seems to come down to is two situations: first, the links to WR and ED; and second, the links to everything else. As for the first, in spite of all the talking from your side, nobody seems to care in practice, because the links hardly seem to change. So it's a strawman to keep bringing it up. As for the second, BADSITES seems to figure in the outbursts of erasure as a mixture of vandalism and POV editing. The case most recently cited fits that pattern with little deviation; if you cannot remember the previous repetitions of this section of the discussion, that's too bad. I refuse to put everyone else through having to read it all yet again. All we want is for everyone to honor the consensus, which is that these erasures stop. What we're getting instead is a group of administrators and their allies who not only refuse to honor the consensus, but who work against it and who make veiled personal attacks on those who object to this.

On 11/30/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote: Did you? It's a semi-serious question: the original message I quoted from is lost in the swamp of the archives, so maybe there was. As for the Robert Black case, if the admins had simply done the reversion of the erasure themselves, probably it would have amounted to even less than what happened. Instead, it appears that they took advantage of someone else starting the game to put in a few innings on BADSITES's behalf.