[Foundation-l] Jeff Merkey Fiasco on English Wikipedia

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 1:51 AM,  <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
[snip]
> I am writing this because I am more than a little tired of the antics on
> Wikipedia.
>
> I was notified several weeks ago someone from Wikipedia called an OEM
> vendor who sells hardware for Wolf Mountain Group and Omega 8 attempting
> to obtain personal information about me, and then harassed the owner of
> this computer equipment supplier on the phone for editing on Wikipedia.
> This person claimed to be with the English Wikipedia.   I reviewed the
> site today after receiving emails from people on the site to the effect a
> witch court of some sort has convened and banned me.
>
> Well, who cares.  Wikipedia is nothing more than an internet ant farm scam
> and I never could care less.  What is disturbing to me if people are
> calling on the phone myself and apparently other users and harassing them.
>
> I want it stopped -- and I mean it.
[snip]

Hey Jeff,

It's unfortunate that some people are still so obsessed with causing
you problems. Though, I don't think there is anything I can do to stop
them.  I can come up with no evidence or reason to believe that the
caller was an authorized representative of the Wikimedia Foundation,
or of the English Wikipedia (if you had any doubt before, you should
not).  Anyone receiving a call complaining about you (or anyone else,
for that matter) should consider the identity and the motivation of
the person making the call.

Wikipedia contributors do not generally make phone calls relating to
activity on Wikipedia. Beyond abuse reports to ISPs for trouble makers
who frequently evade bans, or calls to law enforcement related to
evidence of illegal activity, I can't see any reason why Wikipedia
contributors would ever make phone calls related to the behavior of
users on the site.

As far as being blocked from editing the English Wikipedia goes:  The
English wikipedia is just one Wikipedia out of hundreds of Wikipedia
operated by the Wikimedia foundation. Each Wikipedia has it's own
rules and politics. As complicated systems the Wikipedias have
complicated rules and norms and users are often blocked for reasons
which the general public would find inscrutable, some people simply
have temperaments which are ill-suited for the particular qualities of
the Wikipedia social norms, and there are many examples of users
blocked for poor reasons.

At times the congressional offices, various famous personalities, and
even the leaders of nations have been blocked from editing.  Consider
yourself in good company.