[WikiEN-l] WR's secret forum and list

[Will Beback]

Despite the recent interest in secret lists this message from 
Blissyu2/Zordrac appears to have gone unnoticed.

Blissyu2 describes the existence of a secret forum on Wikipedia Review, 
which he belongs to, that has been used to coordinate attacks on 
Wikipedia and its editors. On his blog he described an even more secret 
mailing list. (The entry has since been deleted). While he appears 
contrite, the actual players in the coordinated attack have not 
expressed any regret that I'm aware of.

Are we more concerned about a list intended to improve Wikipedia than we 
are about a list and forum used to harm Wikipedia? Certainly good 
intentions with bad execution can mess up a project, but bad intentions 
with good execution are much worse. Wikipedia needs and benefits from 
the criticism of those who want to see it improved. It isn't improved by 
the plots of those who want to see it destroyed.

Will Beback



-------- Original Message --------
Subject:     [WikiEN-l] Private Musings scam
Date:     Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:28:32 +0900
From:     u/n - adrianm <adrianm at octa4.net.au>
Reply-To:     English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
To:     wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org


Dear good people of Wikipedia,

I am writing here as the owner of Wikipedia Review, and
also as someone who would like to apologise to you, the
Wikipedia community, in addition to the Wikipedia Review
community, for some actions that a member of our forum,
Kato, performed recently, which relate to various other
topics discussed on Wikipedia, surrounding the user name
Private Musings, the administrator JzG, and the article
and person Robert Black.

First and foremost let me say that I do not approve of
what Kato did.  I was so angry about what he did that I
stood up to it, and Somey, who is managing the forum,
decided to give me a "mandatory holiday" over it, and
right now as we speak we are negotiating as to whether I
will just take my forum back and clean up this whole mess,
or whether he will do it and I won't have to.  Needless to
say this entire incident created more problems on
Wikipedia Review than it did on Wikipedia.  However, I
would like to state that this was done by one person and
one person alone - Kato - and should not be seen to
reflect the opinions and views of people who use Wikipedia
Review as a whole.  

I wrote on my blog about this incident here:
http://therealadrian.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!5D338A8729E83EAB!892.entry

Put simply, Kato was trying to hurt SlimVirgin and
Wikipedia as a whole through some well-placed lies.  The
entire thing was a set up.  Kato abused Wikipedia Review's
trusted members forum, and his newly appointed position as
moderator in doing this.  And I believe that it was
actually done with an aim for him to try to take over
Wikipedia Review.  Certainly, his actions prior to doing
this were consistent with this aim, when he attacked a
number of high profile members in relation to the "child
grooming" issue.  He has succeeded wonderfully, too, as
Wikipedia Review is absolutely shattered thanks to this
issue, with nobody really being able to make heads or
tails of it, and to this day they still refuse to openly
discuss what Kato did (instead they are discussing my
complaining about Kato and various conspiracy theories
about what my secret agenda was, since they refuse to
accept that Kato actually did something wrong here).

Quite frankly I am disgusted at this.  We at Wikipedia
Review have always prided ourselves on being "the good
guys", who expose lies and always tell the truth.  In this
incident, we became "the bad guys", who lied to you (and
to ourselves) and who then had to have our lies exposed by
you guys over there at Wikipedia.  What is the point of
having a forum to expose lies if we are the ones making up
the lies?  

And while I haven't been fond of SlimVirgin for a long
time, and perhaps we could suggest that a few people who
probably deserve to be hurt did get hurt in this, the
amount of innocent bystanders who got hurt is far too
many, and attacking a group, hurting innocent people along
the way to hopefully perhaps hurting someone who in your
opinion deserves it is the wrong way to go about things.  

A number of people on Wikipedia who had nothing to do with
any of this were banned, and they are completely innocent
of all wrongdoings.  I don't know if anyone on Wikipedia
can take the time to wade through this to figure out who
was innocent and who was not.  Because of the sheer level
and complexity of Kato's lies, realistically its probably
not even possible to do this, and I understand the idea of
banning people "just in case".

I can offer no reassurances that Wikipedia Review are
going to clean everything up, because right now I am
standing here as someone who got banned from my own forum,
and if I do take it back, then the whole place may well
fall apart (that is the threat I have been given to try to
suggest to me that I shouldn't go in and take my forum
back).  Right now most people on there are refusing to
accept the truth of the situation, and are instead
insisting that this whole thing was my set up.  That Kato
didn't actually bully anyone, didn't actually set anyone
up, and that the whole thing was my fault for making
"unfounded accusations" against Kato.  

I just want to reassure everyone here that that is not
what Wikipedia Review is meant to be about.  We are meant
to be there to make Wikipedia accountable, to discuss the
various issues with the site, to make sure that people are
aware of the various problems and to educate people.  This
whole incident goes further against what Wikipedia Review
stands for than anything else in its 2 year history.  This
is not who we are.  And if I have anything to do with it,
this is not who we will become.

I know that a number of admins have offered to let me back
on Wikipedia over this, for showing integrity, and have
wanted me to betray people over at Wikipedia Review.  But
I am not going to do that.  If my Wikipedia ban is to be
reviewed, it should be on its merits.  No, of course my
ban wasn't fair and no of course it doesn't have any
legitimacy.  But that doesn't mean that I am going to
betray all that I have worked for just to get back in.  I
have more integrity than that.  I would rather be
somewhere for the right reasons, and to do things in the
right way.

Again, I would like to apologise to everyone who got hurt
over this, and all of the Kato-inspired drama that this
created, in the mailing list, on AN/I, and everywhere
else.

And for the record, I do think that Private Musings is an
abusive account.  But they should be exposed legitimately,
not in this way.

Thank you.

Adrian, owner of Wikipedia Review

Wikipedia Review username: Blissyu2
Wikipedia username: Zordrac

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