I love the whole wikipedia thing! I think it is inspiring that the founder of wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, could have had a net worth of 2billion dollars, if he decided to put ads on wikipedia. Instead he chose to deliver knowledge to people around the world, truly inspiring!

I'm very proud of Wikipedia for doing this. I think its a great idea and I hope people will be able to use it.

Ah, wikipedia is doing more good things. Reminds me that I haven't donated to them in a while. Time to go do that.

Unlike Jailbait, which apparently sprung from a sincere interest, many of Violentacrez's most offensive subreddits were created just to enrage other Reddit users. At this they were very effective. What happened was, some do-gooder would stumble upon one of his offensive subreddits and expose it to the rest of Reddit in an outraged post. Then thousands more would vote the thing to the front page of Reddit. Cries to censor it would sound out, to be almost inevitably beaten back by cries of "free speech!" The idea of free speech is sacred to many Reddit users, a product of the free-wheeling online message board culture from which Reddit springs. If you criticize someone else for posting something you don't like, you are a whiny fascist.

It was this pattern, repeated to various degrees dozens of times, that made Violentacrez an unlikely hero to many of the white male geeks who make up Reddit's hard core. They saw Violentacrez as a champion in the fight against the oppressive schoolmarms: "He upheld a certain amount of freedom for the worst of us to ensure freedom for all of us," wrote one user in a post mourning his departure. Fans followed him wherever he went on the site.

When it comes to mods, the political model of Reddit is not so much a vast digital democracy, as it's often framed by fans and users, as online feudalism. Moderators like Violentacrez are given absolute control over their turf in exchange for keeping the kingdom of Reddit strong. Moderators become more or less powerful in direct relation to the number and popularity of the subreddits they moderate, so they try to take over other subreddits to boost their profile in the community. Inevitably, Reddit's administrators develop relationships with the most influential moderators. Like feuding medieval lords vying for the king's favor, moderators form alliances or wage epic flame wars over power struggles.

Reddit's most notorious moderator, Violentacrez, has been outed by Gawker.

Real name: Michael Brutsch, a middle-aged IT analyst from Dallas, Texas.

Does this sound familiar?

Under Reddit logic, outing Violentacrez is worse than anonymously posting creepshots of innocent women, because doing so would undermine Reddit's role as a safe place for people to anonymously post creepshots of innocent women.

At Web communities like Reddit, which thrive because users are free to say and do anything they want, doxing is a severe crime, both to users and the site’s staff. It’s far worse than offensive speech like racism and homophobia or, yes, even posting surreptitiously snapped photos of innocent women for creeps to perv over. Why? Because doxing undermines the community’s structural integrity: Reddit simply would not exist as we know it if users weren’t operating under the freedom of a flexible identity. So redditors aren’t banning Gawker to protect violentacrez, they’re doing it to protect themselves.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn’t function on the same principles as Reddit. Out there, no one thinks it's wrong or evenly morally ambiguous to reveal the identity of a controversial public figure, especially one who gleefully ran forums dedicated to posting stolen images of young people intended for others to perv off on.

6 hours ago
1. You're a dick for posting this article.
2. You're a dick for exposing the man, especially with a family, and possible retaliation against him.
3. I don't even use Reddit or have any interest in jailbait or creepshots, but I think potentially ruining someone's life and putting them in danger of retaliation by exposing them for doing nothing illegal but generally socially unacceptable is far worse than having anonymously posted creepshots of me on the internet.
4. And you had the fucking gall to plaster his face up here too...?!
5. Who's the troll now?

It's already been added to the Gawker article.

Removed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gawker&diff=517645581&oldid=517633578

However, "The lorax" recently created an article on Adrian Chen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adrian_Chen&diff=517633089

[...]

P.S. In its present form, the Wikipedia article on Adrian Chen qualifies for deletion per WP:ONEEVENT. A deletion discussion would be very interesting. How many Reddit users would show up? How many Wikipedians would show their true colors and allegiances?

Finally, have a look at the Reddit accounts of some notorious Wikipedians:
Protonk
AGK
Mike Godwin
David Gerard
Malleus
FT2
Mbisanz
EVula
Russavia
Ben Schumin
Tracy "KillerChihuahua" Walker

Yes, if you name any Wikipedia insider, there's an excellent chance he or she will have a Reddit account.....

It is tempting to look at this in terms of overlap between WP bad actors and Reddit, but that is missing the larger picture. Both WP and Reddit are online communities with a large number of regular contributors. It should not be surprising that those contributors have developed relationships over the years. It should not be surprising that certain norms have developed in those communities that would seem odd to people not in those communities. When faced with what is almost certainly perceived as an attack from outside, it should not be surprising that dealing with the attacker becomes more important than examining the criticisms (even though there are elements of the community who agree with the criticisms). An attack on the activities of a Redditor/WP editor is an attack on Reddit/WP and that is an attack on the community.

I know this is overly simplistic and obvious, but I find it helpful to remind myself occasionally that the people behind those screen-names are fallible, human people who are likely to fall into this kind of behaviour pattern.

Fascinating, and indeed like Wikipedia's older brother. The amazing thing is that in Reddit's warped vision, freedom of speech includes being able to post invasive images of teenagers, but excludes posting the name of a 49-year-old programmer who posts invasive images of teenagers.

No privacy rights for teenage girls, complete privacy rights for those who invade others' privacy.

Oh the hypocrisy.

I know this is overly simplistic and obvious, but I find it helpful to remind myself occasionally that the people behind those screen-names are fallible, human people who are likely to fall into this kind of behaviour pattern.

This and the fact that he so often purposefully gets personally involved with internet trolls for his ''journalism'' ensures that he's probably monitoring, if not actively editing, this page.

That was my ultimate point -- over and over again, we see the same people on these "free and open" websites.
People who are anything but "free and open" about their activities.

There's now a deletion discussion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Adrian_Chen

The rise of social media has devalued anonymity. Now, we compete to boost our real-life profiles in Google searches and amass more Twitter followers. And in some networks, like Facebook and Google+, real names aren’t just encouraged—they’re required.

Not so on Reddit, where the only community value more important than saying whatever you want is not saying who anyone else is.

...

Last month, a group of anonymous Reddit users rebelled against the site’s anything-goes mentality. They began systematically outing the men behind Creepshots, labeling them “Predditors,” and alerting campus and law enforcement authorities to the worst offenders. One of these men was Christopher Bailey, a 35-year-old substitute teacher who had been using Creepshots to post photographs of his “hottest” students and add his own suggestive commentary to the pics. Jason Fetner, the sheriff’s investigator who caught Bailey, told Jezebel that he had trouble convincing a judge that Bailey’s Reddit behavior was worth investigating—you know, using his position as a high school teacher to present his female students to a bunch of self-described “creeps” online. Why? Because Bailey was posting anonymously, and the tipsters were anonymous, too.

Fetner eventually got the go-ahead, met Bailey, and found the teacher’s phone stacked with “multiple texts and nude photos that he sent to girls as young as 16.” (As it turns out, Bailey’s private life was even more objectionable than his anonymous persona.)

Apparently Michael Brutsch has been fired from his job and is worried about his health insurance. Poor dear.

I have a hard time taking the Daily Dot seriously when one of the featured stories linked below that one is in regards to something called a "Tittiepocalypse".

Apparently Michael Brutsch has been fired from his job and is worried about his health insurance. Poor dear.

Again, the Wikipedia parallel is striking:

I'd never heard of the Daily Dot until a few days ago. I've no doubt it's filled with low grade, ridiculous content (even the Monitor isn't entirely immune anymore -- we ran this wire story today.) Nevertheless, I don't think it is making up a claim from Brutsch that he'd been fired.

"We do believe that doxxing is a form of violence, rather unique to the internet. Even innocent individuals can be accidentally targeted due to mistaken identities - a key difference between online mobs versus with journalists who have a system of professional accountability. And we believe that while we can prohibit it on our platform, we can only affect the opinion of others outside of reddit via moral suasion and setting an example. From the time when reddit first banned doxxing on its platform, I feel that there has been a change in the general attitude towards doxxing on the internet. It's still widespread, but we made a clear statement that it was a bad thing, worth exercising restraint over."

When nerds gather together into peer groups, they often model the behavior of the establishment from which they felt initially cast out. We have a tendency, after being picked on or ostracized, to repeat the pattern of abuse. I’ve seen it a dozen times (and participated in it often): “I’m a sci-fi nerd,” I might say, “but I’m not, like, a cosplayer.” Fast-forward a few years and I still might not be cosplaying, but I have accepted that many people are into that sort of expression and it doesn’t make me feel the need to draw another line to separate myself from cosplayers.

Gawker has another Reddit story up: Reddit CEO Speaks Out On Violentacrez In Leaked Memo: ‘We Stand for Free Speech’

Creepers and pedophiles and bigots make up only a tiny minority of Redditors; people angry that they are being criticized make up only a slightly larger minority. Comments from Reddit administrators in the wake of the child pornography outcry has made clear that Reddit wants to be a free speech site that permits everything that the law does not prohibit. That's fine. I'd defend Reddit's freedom to publish what the law allows. But Redditors need not be taken seriously to the extent they believe they have a protected right to be free of criticism and ridicule and inquiry. You can argue all you want that forums like — oh, say, the /r/BeatingWomen subreddit — should be free to thrive without criticism. Moderators can indulge your feelings by banning critics. Moderators can decide to ban links to Gawker on the theory that if you take pictures of children in public and post them for the sexual pleasure of misfit neckbeards, you have a right to privacy that should prevent anyone from identifying you. But Reddit administrators and moderators and Redditors can't stop everyone else from calling out their conduct and their oddly inconsistent philosophy. Private individuals decrying, ridiculing, and even using their skills to identify Redditors are using a classic "more speech" remedy to speech they don't like. It's a feature, not a bug, of free speech.

Look, it's just swell that you read the Cliff's Notes on Nietzche and now you think you're some sort of ubermensch who has transcended the social norms of mere insects concerning your rape fantasies and crotch-shots of twelve-year-olds. I'm sure everyone in your subforum is very impressed. But we're not required to take you seriously or refrain from criticism. We're allowed to call you out, or even to point and laugh.

I have to let good old Ken from Popehat drop a couple lines in about this:
A Few Words On Reddit, Gawker, and Anonymity

The "outing the creeps" thing seems to be more and more of a trend, which strikes me as a good thing.

Mark O'Neill, et. al.,

1) The FDL is not obscure, you are merely woefully ignorant of common open source licensing.

2) Perhaps now you (and all the other "professional" writers) have learned your lesson: do not contribute to Wikipedia! You should have known it was only a matter of time before Jimbo found a way to make money from the efforts of so many people. Now that you know, stop contributing immediately, or stop whining. You have brought this on yourself.

... Ok, fine, we understand the massive scope of your ignorance. You just signed up for Wikipedia, blithely believing that all of your hard work would be justly and fairly used for noble purposes. As a professional writer, one assumes that you are well-read, so it seems odd that you would not be aware that there is No Such Thing. I understand that you are distressed at your initial ignorance, and the ignorance of your fellow writers. But now that you are aware, you can only take steps forward, to correct your past mistakes, and never again contribute to Wikipedia. If you must continue to contribute, do so silently. And let this be a lesson to you, the next time someone wants your free labour in exchange for their lofty ideals.

...Wow. Such naiveté is charming. You might want to be more careful on the intarwebs; they are scary and dangerous, and not kind to folks like yourself.

... As for "taking it personally", I just despise stupidity, in all it's forms. You couldn't be bothered to find out the rules for the site where you did a bunch of free work, and now you don't like it. That's fine, but then you want to publicly whine about it, in an attempt to find others who feel the same way. I have no sympathy for fools.

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Oh. Nevermind. I guess it will make it in there eventually...

Bizarre.

I've added a short para about the story to the article ...

Oh. Nevermind. I guess it will make it in there [the "Reddit" article] eventually...

Perhaps you're thinking about your revisions to the "Gawker" article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gawker&diff=517670749&oldid=517645581

It's a bona fide internet phenomenon, highly influential (for good or ill) has a fairly long track record for an internet company, a "culture" that has been the subject of academic consideration and essays by thoughtful, capable journalists, the membership is composed of rabid "crowd-sourcers" and it's in the Wikipedian wheelhouse in terms of their editing interests. And... it's a terrible article.

If someone bleats to you about any of this being a "free speech" issue, you can safely mark them as either ignorant or pernicious - probably ignorant, as the understanding of what "free speech" means in a constitutional sense here in the US is, shall we say, highly constrained in the general population. Additionally and independently, the sort of person who says "free speech" when they mean "I like doing creepy things to other people without their consent and you can't stop me so fuck you ha ha ha ha" is pretty clearly a mouth-breathing asshole who in the larger moral landscape deserves a bat across the bridge of the nose and probably knows it. Which is why - unsurprisingly - so many of them choose to be anonymous and/or use pseudonyms on Reddit while they get their creep on.

[...]

In any event, an argument that those outside the community are bound to its standards is a tough one to make outside of that community. Am I, John Scalzi, enjoined by Reddit "community standards" on my own site? Not in the least, and if anyone suggested I was, I would point and laugh at them. Am I when I am on Reddit, signed into my Reddit account ("Scalzi," which, I would note, is not particularly anonymous/ pseudonymous)? Well, I'm enjoined by the actual rules (seeing as I have no right to free speech as understood by the US Constitution while I am there), and generally would try to abide by established local practices. But there are rules and then there are guidelines, and I don't need to believe that the latter has the force of the former.

In the case of Adrian Chen, the Gawker writer who revealed Violentacrez's real-life identity, I think he's perfectly justified in doing so. Whether certain denizens of Reddit like it or not, Chen was practicing journalism, and writing a story of a figure of note (and of notoriety) on one of the largest and most influential sites on the Internet.

Leaving aside the current Reddit news, the article on Reddit is awful.

It's a bona fide internet phenomenon, highly influential (for good or ill) has a fairly long track record for an internet company, a "culture" that has been the subject of academic consideration and essays by thoughtful, capable journalists, the membership is composed of rabid "crowd-sourcers" and it's in the Wikipedian wheelhouse in terms of their editing interests. And... it's a terrible article.

If Wikipedia doesn't have a good article on Reddit, what hope is there for them?

By the way, Michael Brutsch is exactly the sort of coward who crumbles on his "principles" the moment he's subjected to sunlight that you'd expect of his vile species. He gave an interview on CNN last night. The interview starts about 3 minutes in (Cooper drones on and on irrelevantly first).

Synopsis: He's very sorry, it's partly Reddit's fault for "enabling" him ("no one told me what I was doing was wrong,") and now that he's been exposed he sees the error of his ways.

By the way, Michael Brutsch is exactly the sort of coward who crumbles on his "principles" the moment he's subjected to sunlight that you'd expect of his vile species. He gave an interview on CNN last night. The interview starts about 3 minutes in (Cooper drones on and on irrelevantly first).

Synopsis: He's very sorry, it's partly Reddit's fault for "enabling" him ("no one told me what I was doing was wrong,") and now that he's been exposed he sees the error of his ways.

Move state. Change his name.

Texas has laws about sleeping with step-children

Any advice for him? just curious.

If he was getting competent PR advice he would have completely bunkered. No interviews, no admissions to Mr. Chen, no talking at all. A complete scrubbing of his online presence (as much as possible). Since he wasn't a public figure prior to his exposure, this is a rare instance of where this might have helped him. Too late now.

I got the impression he was enjoying being on TV, in his own weird and creepy way, so he might not have taken good advice even if he had received it.

He is now trying to get a job in the adult entertainment industry.

Fuck you! r/jailbait wasn't porn and r/creepshots wasn't underage or porn.

[–][deleted] 2 days ago
[deleted]

[–]mbrutsch[S] 11 points 2 days ago

Eww. I like posting porn, not doing it. Not even thinking about doing it. That's just nasty.

[–]pro-marx 5 points 2 days ago

If you email porn companies in California, maybe they'll let you do editing on videos and whatnot. Send them the news links, I bet they'd love the publicity of hiring someone that is currently in the media spotlight since it will garner publicity for them. It would be gold, they'd love it. Or maybe you can be a camera man for them. You don't need a journalism degree to work a camera. Just a thought.