Wow. That's one of the worst pieces of shit ever linked to on Slashdot. It completely lacks a link to the original article, which, if you read, makes it clear that the source of all claims relating to SlimVirgin is Daniel Brandt and Wikipedia Review. No surprise the anonymous user decided to cover that little detail up as best they could. Best, Phil Sandifer sandifer(a)english.ufl.edu You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here. On Jul 27, 2007, at 5:26 PM, SPUI wrote:

On 27/07/07, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: im just quoting the article. it's from OhMyNews, of course it's true.

One thing I never see covered by Brandt and co. is even if this is true, does it matter? Seriously. We have people who have all sorts of jobs working on the wiki, most of whom know how to leave bias's at the door. Slim's one of my favorite admin, a little short at times, but incredibly dedicated and wholly appropriate. Even where I disagree with her (WP:ATT for one) it stems from a difference of opinion, not me thinking she's evil. Theres not any real evidence for any of these claims, true, but even if they were, who the hell cares? The WR crowd always assumes this is some major bombshell. On 7/27/07, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: -- -Brock

Brock Weller wrote: Conspiracy theories - the Trilateral Commission, via the machinations of the admin cabal led by "Slimmie", is using WP to secretly promote neo-Marxist libertarianism, aiming at a world government run by the survivors of Pan Am 103, flying around in black helicopters. Or something like that. :-) Stan

How can you "infiltrate" Wikipedia? It's a public website. It would be like infiltrating a shopping centre... If MI5 or any other organisation wishes to edit Wikipedia, they are free to, just like anyone else. And, as usual the Slashdot summary is terrible. It says things were permanently removed from the database (sounds like oversight, which I don't think SlimVirgin has), when the article says nothing of the sort, it just says its been "surpressed" (reverted and protected as far as I can tell - since unprotected).

On 7/27/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Pan_Am_Fligh… Something was removed in early June 2006. Anyone have a full history dump from before then? I think I have one somewhere, gotta find it though.

That's just regular deleting, not oversight. There don't appear to be any deleted revisions, however (Special:Undelete shows no revision history). It looks like Musical Linguist deleted the article and restored all but one revision (or possibly a handful) to remove personal information (I'm guess that's what PI stands for), and then the next day Jayjg restored that revision(s) too (I guess he disagreed about it being personal). If I get bored, I might take a look at their talk pages for those 2 days and see what happened.

On 7/27/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: I dunno, I think a more likely explanation is that the regular deleting happened first, and the oversight came later. Also take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete&… which happened around the same time period. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AMusical_Linguist&… of course http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete&… The only thing which lends any credence at all to the rumors is the fact that some people are going to such lengths to cover things up. Not that I buy the story as Brandt tells it - I would think a government agent would do a better job of disappearing once eir cover was blown.

On 7/27/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: After looking some more at this, I'm going to go back to not leaning in either direction. There might have been things oversighted, and there might not have been. The slashdot article claimed that "many of her edits to articles related to the bombing were permanently removed from the database in an attempt to conceal her identity", but looking at the edit history of the article, many of those edits were *not* removed as well. I actually suspected that oversight was a brand new feature based on the logs. But I'm through speculating for now.

On 7/27/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: Here's something: I counted the number of viewable revisions prior to 19:50, 3 June 2006. There are 1109, which is equal to the number restored by Musical Linguist. If "Musical Linguist deleted the article and restored all but one revision (or possibly a handful) to remove personal information (I'm guess that's what PI stands for), and then the next day Jayjg restored that revision(s) too", then the number of revisions would be greater than 1109. So it appears something *was* oversighted. This doesn't say anything about what it was, though.

On 7/27/07, SPUI <drspui(a)gmail.com> wrote: I've currently got mod-points, so if anyone writes a decent response (I already modded up Phil's post), give me a link. --Oskar

LOLWTF? If this is the best they can do, then I am really disappointed. Looks more looks more like OMG JEWSDIDWTC! to me. On 7/28/07, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

On 27/07/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner(a)gmail.com> wrote: Best comment so far: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=256781&cid=20018627 - d.

They might refuse to comment, but I very much doubt they would lie. Why would they? Oversighters are Wikipedians just like the rest of us, they want the same thing we do - to create a good encyclopedia. I would expect them to give a simply yes/no answer to whether or not anything was oversighted on that page - they won't say what was oversighted, of course.

On 7/28/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: I personally would refuse to comment in pretty much all cases, and I believe most oversight-enabled users would do the same. The entire reason things are oversighted is that they are either personal information or legally actionable (libel, etc); in neither case is it really a good idea to go telling people where stuff was removed from and when. I'd inform someone who complained that the information was now gone, but that's the end of it. -Matt

As we know, Slashdot posted a story linking to a paranoic article revealing SlimVirgin's real name and claiming she is a secret agent. Bad and dumb on their part. That of course makes SlimVirgin feel distressed, creates a lot of damage, etc. However, how far should Wikipedians go to "protect" the feelings of their editors? As of now, any attempts (and they were many) to mention anything about this anywhere on Wikipedia is reverted on sight. Any post with the words "SlimVirgin news" is just deleted. I beleive this is going overboard. The damage is done. Shutting our eyes and ears, pretending "All is well in Wiki-land", and ruthless self-censoring is just further damaging Wikipedia's reputation. Comments? Oleg Alexandrov

On 29/07/07, Oleg Alexandrov <mathbot(a)hemlock.knams.wikimedia.org> wrote: And therefore, in order "to support productive editors and protect them from harassment both on and off Wikipedia", it is necessary that all links to Slashdot be expunged from Wikipedia immediately, right?

On 7/27/07, Nick <heligolandwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote: Actualy aparently the CT line is that our black ops hacker team goes after websites that try and expose the truth about us: http://prisonplanet.com/articles/july2007/290707hacked.htm (see the comment section in particular) -- geni

Here's my opinion on the matter. First, Slashdot is not a reliable source. Thus, links in article space are thoroughly inappropriate except for in articles related to the subject. Second, the question must be asked - who is adding these links, where are they adding these links, and what is their motive for doing so? True, there are some established users who are clearly acting in good faith to call this slashdot drivel to the attention of other editors, but is doing so actually necessary? Does it benefit Wikipedia at all? I think it's safe to say that SlimVirgin is well aware of the piece. I think it is also safe to say that SlimVirgin is highly upset by the piece, and considerably bothered by the fact that her fellow editors deem it necessary to call the piece to the attention of her and other editors. It's a hit piece, a hack job masquerading as journalism. As I've posted on Slashdot myself, it may be true that she is who the article claims her to be, and the evidence may be sufficient to draw such a conclusion. It may be true that she has an active conflict of interest on Wikipedia, and the evidence may be sufficient to draw this conclusion as well. But there is not enough evidence to convict her of being affiliated with a government agency - I've seen better and more believable conspiracy theories advocated by the GNAA. But yet, not only do slashdotters find it necessary to call attention to the piece, Wikipedians do as well. Can you understand why some people would rightfully be upset by this? I don't see it as censorship. I see it more or less of a common-sense "why are we even discussing this?" type of action. Oleg Alexandrov wrote:

On 7/30/07, Blu Aardvark <jeffrey.latham(a)gmail.com> wrote: Quoted from self: "Not everyone reads the mailing list/Slashdot and may want to enquire about rumours they've heard. I would rather that they heard about these ridiculous allegations from Wikipedians on Wikipedia, rather than on some other website because self-righteous Wikipedians decide any mention whatsoever of the claims is ridiculous." Johnleemk

On 8/4/07, Raphael Wegmann <raphael(a)psi.co.at> wrote: He already answered this: "Yes, information has been oversighted to protect the personal identities of many people, both Wikipedia editors and members of the general public. The reasons include inadvertantly revealing personal information as well as the deliberate posting by trolls of personal information."

Armed Blowfish wrote: Far as I can recall you're the only one who's following that step. Bear in mind that one can say something along the lines of "her actions caused this situation" or "her actions made this situation worse" without saying "she _deserves_ this situation because of her actions." They're very different sentiments. I'm sure I've seen statements like the first two in the past few days but I don't recall any like the latter.

Armed Blowfish wrote: Yes, but those statements aren't saying she _deserved_ it. They say nothing about SlimVirgin as a person. BTW, I think there's a slight inaccuracy in your recollection. I don't think the common argument was that she was hurting the project by getting outed, I think it was that the project was being hurt by the attempts to continue covering her identity up afterward. SlimVirgin herself wasn't actually involved with that as far as I'm aware.