[WikiEN-l] "Moses ben Nachman" and NPOV

[Toby Bartels]

John R. Owens wrote:

>Erik Moeller wrote:

>>Please take a look at:

>>http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Joseph_McCarthy&diff=895253&oldid=894480

>>(the URL may need to be pasted together). This edit, marked as *minor*, is  
>>the work of one "Moses ben Nachman", a Wikipedia user with a very brief  
>>edit history who just announced on his talk page that, "after several  
>>months, I have decided to give this internet project another chance."

The discussion of Roy Cohn seems to have anti-Semitic overtones.
But golly! nothing like the ZOG conspiracies of the article that
the edit links to (on Jonathan's web site).

>>I strongly suspect that "Moses" is really the banned user Clutch. The  
>>above edit is exactly his style (like changing "heavy drinking" to "social  
>>drinking"), and even includes a link to a text on Clutch's homepage ("How  
>>the Marxists destroyed Joe McCarthy"), reactor-core.org. Moreover, if you  
>>check his user page, you will find that he was immediately welcomed by  
>>Clutch -- and then complained about RK, as Clutch also did. In the  
>>McCarthy edit, he removed large slabs of text without explanation.

His politics don't quite match Jonathan's, and while the linked article
is on Jonathan's site, it's not clear that you're expected to agree with it.
OTOH, Jonathan has promised to destroy Wikipedia if he can,
and I don't suppose that he'd mind violating his own political convictions
if it worked towards that goal.  Furthermore, it's not as if Jonathan is
particularly sensitive to anti-Semitism *or* red-baiting --
I just wouldn't expect him to advocate strong-arm government tactics.
Still, we should avoid rushing to conclusions without hard evidence,
like coincidences among IP numbers.

>>I'm not involved in the McCarthy article, but I suggest people keep an eye
>>on it, and on "Moses'" other edits. Yes, the McCarthy article was slightly
>>POV before the edits, but I doubt that it will be possible to make it NPOV
>>with the "help" of someone like "Moses".

>Here's an interesting point, now. If you look at
>http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=66.200.207.29
>(I hope that wraps OK, you may have to tack it together), it looks like
>this is the same person (at least, the same IP, with only the two
>contributions to date) that told Ril aka Lir/Adam/et al. to check its
>email about a week ago. Geeze, are these people in cahoots, cooperating to
>make our lives difficult? Or is it just more of Adam talking to itself to
>try to convince us it's not all just one big hydra?

The politics *definitely* don't match Adam's.
And Adam isn't nearly subtle enough to try to damage Wikipedia
by incorporating opinions that she disagrees with.
Note that 66.200.207.29 isn't the only anonymous IP defending "Moses";
209.53.16.55 was the first to make his edit to [[Joseph McCarthy]],
172.135.53.246 also restored the external that 66.200.207.29 restored,
and even you, JohnOwens, restored it at first before changing your mind.
Thus, I'd only feel confident about suspecting 209.53.16.55.

BTW, Clutch has previously used this anonymous IP 209.53.16.55.
It's edit to [[User talk:Clutch]] doesn't make much sense
unless that edit was in fact made by Jonathan,
and that IP also supported Clutch in September on [[Jehovah's Witnesses]].
But most damning is an edit by that IP to [[User talk:Stevertigo]],
signed "Clutch" and made within an hour after he was banned.

Now here's my cockamamie theory:  This is not Moses ben Nachmann,
but somebody that's taken over Moses' (5 month old) account.
The previous (December) incarnation of Moses strongly identified as Jewish,
and didn't use this as cover to turn around and be anti-Semitic either.
And he did nothing wrong -- just NPOVed [[Scientific method]],
told RK to calm down, and wrote a user page -- all good things generally.
Clutch's greeting may have been purely coincidental (at least then).
I suspect that 209.53.16.55, finding his McCarthy edit unwelcome,
adopted a Jewish username (in a fit of irony?) to revert it back.
The question is how he got access to this account --
Jonathan (say) would have had time to plan this,
but not the newbie that an anon ID would at first make one think.

A final note to all those constructing conspiracy theories:
Keep in mind that Clutch and Lir hate each other.


-- Toby