On Sep 15, 2011 4:51 AM, "Phil Nash" phnash@blueyonder.co.uk wrote:

Storm in a teacup?

Yes, the meddling with his primary materials seems the far more serious issue:

<http: www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/independent-columnist-apologises-for-plagiarism-2354706.html

Is he used as a source in any articles? (I would check were I not on my phone.)

David Gerard wrote:

...

Johann Hari admits he did it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-a-...

• d.

I don't see socking here; he admits to using only one account, and he doesn't appear to have an account in his own name.

I do see admissions of COI, POV edits, and BLP vandalism, all of which could be expected from a newbie editor and have almost certainly been rectified by now.

He doesn't mention any sanctions for these edits, and they are so run of the mill that I can't even identify his username from any of the histories.

Storm in a teacup?

You just need to spend hours going through the edits and it will doubtless be obvious enough. That we never noticed him, or identified him, is not particularly surprising.

I think he's pretty cool, examining his life.

Fred

On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 11:50 AM, Phil Nash phnash@blueyonder.co.uk wrote:

I do see admissions of COI, POV edits, and BLP vandalism, all of which

could

be expected from a newbie editor and have almost certainly been rectified

by

now.

He doesn't mention any sanctions for these edits, and they are so run of

the

mill that I can't even identify his username from any of the histories.

Storm in a teacup?

The socking isn't what's the problem.

And this is not a "newbie editor" mistake. He admits malice. His words:

"I continued to edit my own Wikipedia entry and some other people’s too. I took out nasty passages about people I admire – like Polly Toynbee, George Monbiot, Deborah Orr and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. I factually corrected some other entries about other people. But in a few instances,* I edited the entries of people I had clashed with in ways that were juvenile or malicious: I called one of them anti-Semitic and homophobic, and the other a drunk. I am mortified to have done this*, because it breaches the most basic ethical rule: don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you. I apologise to the latter group unreservedly and totally."

-Andrew