[WikiEN-l] Another "BADSITES" controversy

[Sheldon Rampton]

Mark Gallagher wrote:

> This is the site that welcomed AMorrow with open arms.  This is the  
> site
> that Daniel Brandt regularly contributes to.  This is the site that
> organised severe harrassment of Phil Sandifer, then lied about their
> motives.  This is the site that drove Katefan0, *an admin who even  
> they
> couldn't fault*, away from Wikipedia out of pure meanness of spirit.
> This is the site where, when a board administrator mentioned that
> revealing personal information was frowned-upon, the rest told that
> fellow: "Speak for yourself."

Here's an example of the sort of rhetoric-by-repetition technique  
that works much better spoken than written. The repetition in this  
case is the phrase, "This is the site that..." It would spare Mark a  
bit of typing if he would just list his litany, without the  
oratorical device.

I know a bit about AMorrow because he showed up briefly on my own  
wiki, SourceWatch, before we banned him. One thing that happens with  
people who can't get along with Wikipedia is that after they quit in  
anger or are banned, they go forum-shopping to other websites. We get  
a few disgruntled ex-Wikipedians this way, and almost always it turns  
out that they were banned for good reason, which was certainly the  
case with AMorrow. Given the mission of Wikipedia Review, I'm sure it  
attracts far more disgruntled ex-Wikipedians than we do.

Just now, however, I did a Google search for AMorrow on  
site:wikipediareview.com, and it appears that he was banned there  
about a year ago. I didn't spend a lot of time reading the discussion  
threads, but there was some debate over his banning, with a user  
named "blissy2" writing, "Amorrow was commenting in ways that could  
be considered to be cyber stalking. Since Wikipedia Review is a law- 
abiding entity, it is risky for us to be associated with someone who  
may be engaging in illegal activity. ... Even if Wikipedia was  
sitting there being decent, not harassing us, not slandering us, not  
trying to destroy us, and we were working together, we still couldn't  
allow this kind of activity. Its got nothing to do with whether or  
not Wikipedia hates him."

Banning him on grounds that he is a cyberstalker doesn't sound to me  
like "welcoming with open arms."

I did a similar brief search to see what happened in the case of  
Katefan0. (I hadn't heard of it before.) In that case my snap  
judgment is that it was indeed meanspirited and wrong for Brandt to  
go after her as he did.

The problem I have with litanies like the one that I quoted above  
from Mark Gallagher is that they dredge up old history mostly for the  
sake of rehearsing bitterness, and they usually do so in a  
tendentious way that selectively presents the facts in order to make  
WR look even worse than it is (such as saying that AMorrow was  
"welcomed with open arms" without mentioning that they banned him).  
If this sort of history is important enough to keep bringing up, then  
it ought to be done in a more thorough, precise fashion, which  
inevitably means linking to and quoting from the relevant threads on  
Wikipedia Review so everyone can see for themselves what is being  
discussed. But, um, that presents a problem, doesn't it?

I also couldn't help noticing the similarity between the anti- 
Wikipedia rhetoric that comes pouring out of "blissy2" and some of  
the rhetoric that I've seen written here about WR. Blissy2 says  
Wikipedia is "harassing us, slandering us, trying to destroy us." Do  
any of these phrases sound familiar?

I agree that WR is a pretty pissy bunch with which I would not  
personally want to become associated, but I think the problem is  
being exacerbated rather than improved by a few Wikipedians who are  
so busy seeing red that they can't let a few things go.

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
|     Banana Republicans
|     The Best War Ever
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