Binksternet, FMSky, and "anti-US" music deletionism

[wyldboutit]

Basically, Binksternet has been dogging the edits I've made on my (recently banned) account.

I've had a history of about 10 years editing on Wikipedia, editing under various IP's before I got an actual account in 2018, then an account by the name of Gingeraleking in December 2020.

The most recent edits I've made have pertained to music, fashion, and culture in general - the edits of mine that Binksternet kept reverting were ones in which I was adding various music genres, with cited origins in the United States, to the "American rock music genres" or "American styles of music" categories - which I think would be extremely innocuous, considering I only applied those categories to articles in which the United States was already identified as an originating location - I had the idea to make these edits when I realized how widely British cultural categories had been filled, even with genres that had the United States listed as a cultural originator as well. So I did the same thing for the US, and started filling American cultural categories where I feel it was 100% justified.

I also made more significant recent edits to the "Anti-Fashion" Wikipedia page, filling it in with more cultural information that often echoed an American perspective (adding American influences in Punk fashion, information about Beatnik style and subculture to a short mention about Rock and roll and it's effects on anti-fashion, and listing Anna Sui, Christian Francis Roth, and Marc Jacobs as originators of Grunge style, and therefore, anti-fashion). I provided sources for these additions as well.

Binksternet seemed to hate these edits, and took to reverting them, while often siting my alleged "pro-American/anti-British bias" while doing so...

It should be known that the edits I made under my IP and, I'll admit, a burner account in 2019 were similar alterations to expand the "New York" section of "street style" and clean up what I thought was a clear British bias on a number of cultural Wikipedia pages - on the "Street Style" and "Fashion design" pages in particular, I noticed that the sub-sections devoted to Britain's and London's culture of fashion design were often overlong, and included mention of American designers and brands - while the sub-sections devoted to the United States' and New York City's culture of fashion design were often weirdly underwritten, with people having deleted the entire list of notable fashion designers for the US on one of these pages for being "overlong".

I'm sorry, but I don't really think adding American music genres to American cultural categories on Wikipedia, or adding information about Grunge to the Anti-Fashion article, qualifies as "anti-British". The more and more I see from the cultural side of Wikipedia, the more I'm noticing the opposite of what Binksternet accused me of - many of the cultural articles seem to be written from an overwhelmingly British perspective, and any attempts to add a different perspective are attacked by Binksternet for being "anti-British" - which to me indicates he has some kind of grudge against American culture, but anyways...

I also attempted to remove what I felt was a biased paragraph, backed up by an opinionated source, in the summary page of an article for a music genre - that Binksternet removed, reverting the page repeatedly back to the edit that I think definitely violates the Neutral Point of View rule, and was made by a Sockpuppet anyway...

When it comes to Sockpuppetry, that's been my biggest issue with him - I tried to appeal my 2018 account up until 2020, to no avail, when I created Gingeraleking - Binksternet seems to use accusations of Sockpuppetry to stigmatize certain viewpoints - he routinely tried to link my editing of 2019, and my editing as Gingeraleking, to an account by the name of Dcasey98, an account made 5+ years ago, with an IP in my city, that made a handful of similar posts to mine. And yet Binksternet himself supports edits by Sockpuppets when they suit his worldview, and appears to have a burner account for the purpose of edit-warring - FMSky, which just cropped up in 2021, has been reverting my edits in all the same ways that Binksternet has been.

I wrote up a request for Administrator Help, which can be seen here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gingeraleking (please read - it has citations to his edits, and everything I've described above), and, like the last time I tried to get attention from an admin about his behavior (when he left a cuss-filled rant on my IP talk page calling me an "America chauvinist" for trying to correct the cultural origins of the Hamburger to the US) - this request was basically completely ignored by the responding Admin, who said he/or she didn't read it, and then erroneously dismissed it as a "personal attack" - which is a wholly inadequate characterization of what I wrote.

I've noticed that Binksternet always removes criticism of his behavior from his talk page. He also deletes any attempts to leave him ANI's. And if Admins are going to dismiss any criticism of his behavior as a "personal attack", even with cited evidence that shows his violation of basic Wikipedia rules that he gets others banned for, then I don't know what else to do. For such a prolific and high-profile editor, who is also not an Admin, he seems to have been hardly held accountable for this kind of undemocratic nonsense, as indicated by the block log.

I'm just incredibly sick of Binksternet's nasty editing conduct, and being thrown off Wikipedia for months at a time because he doesn't like when an American cultural perspective is added to music and fashion-related pages - even when the topic pertains to American culture and requires it. Can anyone offer advice as to how to get back on? Can we formulate some sort of plan to get this guy to be held accountable? Can someone assist in re-establishing my very simple attempts to categorize American music genres? This is just beyond frustrating.

[Zoloft]

[Midsize Jake]

I also attempted to remove what I felt was a biased paragraph, backed up by an opinionated source, in the summary page of an article for a music genre - that Binksternet removed, reverting the page repeatedly back to the edit that I think definitely violates the Neutral Point of View rule, and was made by a Sockpuppet anyway...

Just as an immediate reaction, you were absolutely right to remove that paragraph in the Shock rock (T-H-L) article. It's completely shameful and absolutely doesn't belong there, and any serious encyclopedia would remove it and impose a page-ban on Binksternet at the very minimum.

What's even stupider about this is that Binksternet is an American, and he probably kept reverting the removal of that paragraph because he thinks it makes British culture look bad, not the other way around.

[wyldboutit]

I also attempted to remove what I felt was a biased paragraph, backed up by an opinionated source, in the summary page of an article for a music genre - that Binksternet removed, reverting the page repeatedly back to the edit that I think definitely violates the Neutral Point of View rule, and was made by a Sockpuppet anyway...

Just as an immediate reaction, you were absolutely right to remove that paragraph in the Shock rock (T-H-L) article. It's completely shameful and absolutely doesn't belong there, and any serious encyclopedia would remove it and impose a page-ban on Binksternet at the very minimum.

What's even stupider about this is that Binksternet is an American, and he probably kept reverting the removal of that paragraph because he thinks it makes British culture look bad, not the other way around.

I thought it was a weird addition to the summary section of a genre page...but the bias for British music AGAINST American music was literally quoted, directly, on the "Stereotypes of the British" Wikipedia page at one time, as I pointed out in my Admin Help request...which is very ironic, because that seems to be the perspective shared by a lot of cultural editors on Wikipedia, who often spend a lot of time over-writing British musical/cultural contributions while under-writing American ones...any attempt to add evidence of American involvement or contribution is often subject to deletion.

It's funny how this differs staunchly from, say, the French Wikipedia, which sites the US as the soul originator of various genres that English Wikipedia constantly shoehorns mention of the UK into...like in Cowpunk or Psychedelic rock, for example, where the bulk of the bands described throughout the page are American and the chief influences on the genre were almost entirely American, and yet the UK gets an easy spot in the "cultural origins" section of these genres, while "the US" constantly has to fight against deletion from the Cultural Origins section on the Alternative rock page, the Heavy metal page (despite a long period of deliberation that decided upon it's addition), the Punk rock page, and more...

Also, until I made a few edits to the 1990s page, it's kind of telling how most paragraphs in all of the decadal fashion pages on Wikipedia always led with "in Britain and" even for fashion trends that were American, as so many were, like was the case at one point with Grunge fashion and Hip hop style.

[wyldboutit]

Has anyone had experiences with Binksternet like this? I've looked him up and it appears he's something of a bully on the website.

[Boing! said Zebedee]

I don't know anything about the dispute (and very little about Binksternet), so I can't comment on any of that. But for someone with 10 years experience of Wikipedia, you're surprisingly naive if you thought that tirade on your talk page was going to get you anything but a block.

[Giraffe Stapler]

Hello. I am the ghost of Lester Bangs. Shock rock (T-H-L) is a terrible article. The removed paragraph was no worse than the rest of it.

I would like to disagree with everyone who has ever written a listicle about shock rock. Screamin' Jay Hawkins was not "arguably the first shock rocker". While the phrase had been used to earlier, the term "shock rock" really didn't apply to a type of presentation until Alice Cooper came along. Then everyone agreed, yep, that's shock rock.

We can acknowledge that elements of what Hawkins did were similar, but that would make him a progenitor, not a shock rocker. Likewise for Arthur Brown's flaming helmet and Screaming Lord Sutch's coffin. Influences, perhaps but not shock rock. Theatrical elements in rock were not new, but Alice Cooper's stage show and lyrical content took it to a new place. (I would be ok with Arthur Brown being labeled a proto-shock rocker, actually.) Not listed in that bad article but considered to be shock rock at the time - KISS! Gene Simmons dressed as a character called "the demon" spitting blood?

Questions for book club readers:

• Who coined the term "shock rock" in this context?
• What are the elements that are required for something to be considered shock rock?
• Is GG Allin (and Iggy before him) doing the same thing as Alice Cooper? Is that a theatrical performance or is it a sideshow geek act?
• If Ghost and King DIamond are shock rock, isn't just about every black metal band shock rock, too?
• If the Plasmatics are shock rock, are The Tubes also shock rock?

I am disappearing back into the ether now.

[wyldboutit]

I don't know anything about the dispute (and very little about Binksternet), so I can't comment on any of that. But for someone with 10 years experience of Wikipedia, you're surprisingly naive if you thought that tirade on your talk page was going to get you anything but a block.

It wasn't a tirade, it was a sourced and temperate description of another editor's abusive behavior. And if that's worthy of a block on Wikipedia, then the site is built to be dysfunctional and to repel users.

[Vigilant]

I don't know anything about the dispute (and very little about Binksternet), so I can't comment on any of that. But for someone with 10 years experience of Wikipedia, you're surprisingly naive if you thought that tirade on your talk page was going to get you anything but a block.

It wasn't a tirade, it was a sourced and temperate description of another editor's abusive behavior. And if that's worthy of a block on Wikipedia, then the site is built to be dysfunctional and to repel users.

Wikipedia "culture" is brain poison.

Walk away and never look back.

[Boing! said Zebedee]

I don't know anything about the dispute (and very little about Binksternet), so I can't comment on any of that. But for someone with 10 years experience of Wikipedia, you're surprisingly naive if you thought that tirade on your talk page was going to get you anything but a block.

It wasn't a tirade, it was a sourced and temperate description of another editor's abusive behavior. And if that's worthy of a block on Wikipedia, then the site is built to be dysfunctional and to repel users.

It might have been a valid description of a genuine complaint, but that's not the point... oh, never mind, you clearly won't get it. Yep, you're probably better off out of it.

[Midsize Jake]

It wasn't a tirade, it was a sourced and temperate description of another editor's abusive behavior. And if that's worthy of a block on Wikipedia, then the site is built to be dysfunctional and to repel users.

It might have been a valid description of a genuine complaint, but that's not the point... oh, never mind, you clearly won't get it. Yep, you're probably better off out of it.

The point being that many established Wikipedians don't care about the content they're manipulating, or who they have to silence and shut down in order to manipulate it, as long as they can continue to look at it and, in all likelihood, masturbate over it.

I've been looking at various edits made by Mr. Wyldaboutit here for the past hour or so, and I'm seeing very few that aren't improvements, or would have been if they'd been allowed to stand.

As for User:Binksternet (T-C-L), you can tell by his user page that he's completely full of himself, and he definitely has a reputation for being officious, arrogant, and bureaucratic — but unfortunately, that also describes about 80 percent of all established Wikipedians in general. I remember Kumioko really detested him, but (again, unfortunately) that in itself is likely to be considered a mark in Binksternet's favor by most of the admins. But the fact remains, his opinions on music and fashion during the 80s and 90s are, at best, highly idiosyncratic, and in some cases they're actually insulting to readers. (This is not to say I disagree with him in every case, though, just to be clear.)

Sure, it's not the end of the world if WP is wrong and/or needlessly opinionated about some of this stuff, but if they want to be taken seriously on these topics, they really should do a full review of his editing activity. They could start with what Mr. Wyldaboutit has already done, but of course, they won't.

[Boing! said Zebedee]

It wasn't a tirade, it was a sourced and temperate description of another editor's abusive behavior. And if that's worthy of a block on Wikipedia, then the site is built to be dysfunctional and to repel users.

It might have been a valid description of a genuine complaint, but that's not the point... oh, never mind, you clearly won't get it. Yep, you're probably better off out of it.

The point being that many established Wikipedians don't care about the content they're manipulating, or who they have to silence and shut down in order to manipulate it, as long as they can continue to look at it and, in all likelihood, masturbate over it.

That may be so, but it's not my point. My point is that no matter how valid your complaint, you have no chance of succeeding by using an obvious sock account to make your accusations (and maybe little chance anyway if you're up against a regular, fair enough, but incompetent socking makes it a definite zero). And if you haven't worked that out after 10 years, you have no chance there.

[wyldboutit]

It wasn't a tirade, it was a sourced and temperate description of another editor's abusive behavior. And if that's worthy of a block on Wikipedia, then the site is built to be dysfunctional and to repel users.

It might have been a valid description of a genuine complaint, but that's not the point... oh, never mind, you clearly won't get it. Yep, you're probably better off out of it.

The point being that many established Wikipedians don't care about the content they're manipulating, or who they have to silence and shut down in order to manipulate it, as long as they can continue to look at it and, in all likelihood, masturbate over it.

That may be so, but it's not my point. My point is that no matter how valid your complaint, you have no chance of succeeding by using an obvious sock account to make your accusations (and maybe little chance anyway if you're up against a regular, fair enough, but incompetent socking makes it a definite zero). And if you haven't worked that out after 10 years, you have no chance there.

I appealed the banned account that I had prior to Gingeraleking after a year off the website and was still rejected. Binksternet has always chased after me every single time I get back on, even now, when I held an account for two years that followed all the rules. It's even more frustrating when the edits that caught his attention are so small and irrelevant - why can't I sort certain pages into certain categories?

[Disgruntled haddock]

If the edits are truly so small and irrelevant, one wonders why you continue to insist on making them.

[Black Kite]

And yet Binksternet himself supports edits by Sockpuppets when they suit his worldview, and appears to have a burner account for the purpose of edit-warring - FMSky, which just cropped up in 2021, has been reverting my edits in all the same ways that Binksternet has been.

I doubt very much that FMSky is a Binksternet sock, but their time card is ... something else.

https://xtools.wmflabs.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/FMSky

[Anroth]

And yet Binksternet himself supports edits by Sockpuppets when they suit his worldview, and appears to have a burner account for the purpose of edit-warring - FMSky, which just cropped up in 2021, has been reverting my edits in all the same ways that Binksternet has been.

I doubt very much that FMSky is a Binksternet sock, but their time card is ... something else.

https://xtools.wmflabs.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/FMSky

Smells like bot job running while asleep. Which kind of makes sense when you see what they are doing across multiple language wikis.

[Black Kite]

And yet Binksternet himself supports edits by Sockpuppets when they suit his worldview, and appears to have a burner account for the purpose of edit-warring - FMSky, which just cropped up in 2021, has been reverting my edits in all the same ways that Binksternet has been.

I doubt very much that FMSky is a Binksternet sock, but their time card is ... something else.

https://xtools.wmflabs.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/FMSky

Smells like bot job running while asleep. Which kind of makes sense when you see what they are doing across multiple language wikis.

Except that a significant number of their edits have obviously non-bot edit summaries.

[Catfish Jim & spd]

And yet Binksternet himself supports edits by Sockpuppets when they suit his worldview, and appears to have a burner account for the purpose of edit-warring - FMSky, which just cropped up in 2021, has been reverting my edits in all the same ways that Binksternet has been.

I doubt very much that FMSky is a Binksternet sock, but their time card is ... something else.

https://xtools.wmflabs.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/FMSky

Smells like bot job running while asleep. Which kind of makes sense when you see what they are doing across multiple language wikis.

Except that a significant number of their edits have obviously non-bot edit summaries.

Shift worker.

[FelinaLavandula]

his opinions on music and fashion during the 80s and 90s are, at best, highly idiosyncratic, and in some cases they're actually insulting to readers.

This is unfortunately true of at least, like, 75% of all music and fashion editors. The articles are so unreadable…

[LargelyRecyclable]

Wikipedia "culture" is brain poison.

Walk away and never look back.

This is some of the best advice you'll get on the topic, and it was free.

[wyldboutit]

So, update:

I created a "sock" account last night to re-establish my edits - sourced, with no discernible bias.

FMSky reappeared, and created a sock investigation immediately, accusing me of "pro-America" editing - adding information to the anti-fashion article that was suspiciously lacking in information regarding the most significant anti-fashion trends of the 20th century (because they were American?). The article itself explicitly and only labels anti-fashion a "European and Asian" trend, which is just not true.

Here is the sockpuppet deliberation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... s/Dcasey98

Here is everything that was reverted:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1123184914

Not only was I citing my sources, and adding pretty crucial information to the page, not to mention organizing it better, but I was correcting obvious grammatical errors.

Also, my small edits attempting to categorize various American music genres into their appropriate American cultural category pages? Reverted. Why are editors allowed to categorize British music genres into their appropriate category pages, but any attempt to do so for American ones is called "pro-Americanism", or "anti-Britishism", even more absurdly? I'll reiterate, judging by Binksternet's/FMSky's edit history, they have a pro-British/anti-American bias. For example - deleting any mention of the New York scene's influence on Punk, while also writing that the 90s minimalism trend (most heavily associated with, and pioneered by, Grunge and Hip-hop figureheads and associated fashion designers in America) "emerged on both sides of the Atlantic" while failing to expand on the trends of that decade is indicative of pro-British bias, not pro-American bias. Writing that only "European and Asian designers" are influencers of anti-fashion, when the chief facilitators of the anti-fashion trends of the contemporary period have their roots in the American middle class cultural trends of the early 20th century (stemming from all kinds of American jazz and rock and roll subcultures, not to mention the hippies of the late 1960s), and American brands and fashion designers played a notable role in commercializing that sensibility, is ridiculous.

Can someone help me re-establish my edits?

[wyldboutit]

If the edits are truly so small and irrelevant, one wonders why you continue to insist on making them.

The categorization edits are small and should be made with absolutely zero pushback - there's zero reason why I shouldn't be allowed to categorize music genres, ones labelled as originating in the United States, in the "American rock music genres" page. Zero. There's one user and one user only who seems to have a particular animus against me doing this, because he seems to hold an anti-American cultural grudge. Very strange behavior.

Are you Binksternet?

Imagine if any attempt to add British cultural context to articles that completely ignored obvious British contributions to a given aspect of music or fashion, and any attempt to categorize British music genres into their relevant category pages, was reverted, with any editor's attempts to do so cited as "pro-British/anti-American bias" - even when every fashion article was written from an American perspective, and every music genre that could possibly be linked to America was cited as American, and categorized in every American cultural category possible. On top of this, imagine that editors went around regularly deleting the UK from the "cultural origins" section of any genre page on which they could get away with doing so? And that any attempt to get the UK credit as a cultural originator was edit-warred and needed to go into months of talk-page disputes to legitimize the addition of the UK as a source of the genre, all while American credit was allowed on the page without so much as one attempt to revert it. And on top of all this, imagine that the same editors routinely tried to add the US to music genres that were explicitly and solely British in their origination. What conclusion about Wikipedia would you draw if the shoe was on the other foot, is what I'm trying to say? I'd imagine you would think that it held prejudice againt British culture.

Oh, and in addition to all of this, imagine if anyone who seeks to uphold these edits, or any attempt to add cultural context from the British perspective, was reverted and deleted using the excuse that anyone who does so must be a sockpuppet of _____ with a "pro-British" posting history.

[Giraffe Stapler]

So, update:
blah blah blah

I don't understand why you're still bothering with this. The lesson here is that Wikipedia is not what you thought it was. This is never going to get any better for you. Just walk away.

[wyldboutit]

I think it’s in bad character to just let someone like this get away with forever deleting perfectly sensible edits. When a third party from this forum stepped in for me on Shock Rock it seemed to have worked, so why not here? Can someone help me reestablish my completely sensible edits? Or is it a rule that no one can put pages in the “American rock music genres” category? Incredibly odd.

[wyldboutit]

So, update:
blah blah blah

I don't understand why you're still bothering with this. The lesson here is that Wikipedia is not what you thought it was. This is never going to get any better for you. Just walk away.

So, I’m not just going to “walk away” from this

[Vigilant]

You can kick and scream and try to get back in but it's poison all the way down.

Walk away and never look back is the best answer you're going to get here.

[Midsize Jake]

There's one user and one user only who seems to have a particular animus against me doing this, because he seems to hold an anti-American cultural grudge. Very strange behavior.

I'll second that bit about walking away, of course — just to be clear — but at the risk of encouraging you to continue tilting at windmills, I do prefer your version of the Anti-fashion (T-H-L) article to the one Binksternet is trying (somewhat successfully, I should say) to WP:OWN. But this one strikes me as less problematic, or perhaps I should say "less compellingly awful," than the Shock rock (T-H-L) article.

I don't really like to talk about myself like this, but I'm basically an aging hipster. I used to be in a new wave band, I was a college-radio DJ, I had a pair of leather pants, the whole nine yards. I remember a lot of the stuff being described in this article (both versions) because I was paying fairly close personal attention at the time. And honestly, I don't think this article should even exist. Trying to take an objective, neutral approach to this subject on a site like Wikipedia is just an invitation for people to ruin other people's memories of their past. Your version is much more respectful and informative, and I, for one, do appreciate that, but I doubt that anybody could adequately turn a subject like this into a proper "encyclopedia" article. Objectivity is practically impossible with something like this.

It's definitely anger-inducing to see someone like this Binksternet dude, who clearly has limited-at-best knowledge of (or appreciation for) this stuff, take control of this kind of content. I can imagine people reading his version and just scratching their heads, thinking "what was this guy doing while this was going on? Was he on drugs? Was he even alive?" But in this case he isn't simply wrong so much as he's emphasizing/de-emphasizing people and events that he personally thinks should be emphasized (or not). You and I know those people and those things deserve a different emphasis, but who's to say, really? It's just that kind of subject.

I might add that the photos in the WP:OWNed version are almost completely inappropriate, and parts of it read like an advertisement. Those things are hardly unusual on Wikipedia, but it's good to remind ourselves that these kinds of quality issues are still the most common gateway into more meaningful WP criticism, as far as most civilians out there are concerned. (Not that many of them are though, unfortunately.)

[Catfish Jim & spd]

So, update:
blah blah blah

I don't understand why you're still bothering with this. The lesson here is that Wikipedia is not what you thought it was. This is never going to get any better for you. Just walk away.

So, I’m not just going to “walk away” from this

Looking at the situation objectively, and having no dog in this fight, I would suggest you do walk away from it. There are ways that you could have rectified the situation through discourse with a wider section of the community, but the fact you're blocked for sock puppetry would make this very difficult now.

[Boing! said Zebedee]

Looking at the situation objectively, and having no dog in this fight, I would suggest you do walk away from it. There are ways that you could have rectified the situation through discourse with a wider section of the community, but the fact you're blocked for sock puppetry would make this very difficult now.

Indeed. And this follow-up sock (with its edit summaries) pretty much burned the bridges...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... s/Yumalova

[wyldboutit]

So, update:
blah blah blah

I don't understand why you're still bothering with this. The lesson here is that Wikipedia is not what you thought it was. This is never going to get any better for you. Just walk away.

So, I’m not just going to “walk away” from this

There are ways that you could have rectified the situation through discourse with a wider section of the community

What does this mean exactly? Some of the accounts involved in sock puppet investigations they're attaching to me I am not familiar with - such as the original account this is all being linked to. This tells me they've weaponized the accusation of sockpuppetry to stigmatize any kind of narrative that they don't like.

I am not going to "walk away" from this; you simply cannot allow someone to stigmatize the categorization of Wikipedia pages like this. These should be very simple edits to make - they should not have to be arbitrated, nor should the person who makes simple, common sense categorization edits that align, explicitly, with the information on the page, be required to pass some kind of "Wikipedia background check" in order to do so. This person is trying to broadly stigmatize any edit that offers an American cultural perspective or that concerns information on music and fashion trends that originated in the US, in whole or in part.

1) His constant deletion of music genre pages from American cultural categories 2) his arbitrary upholding of edits that display a Eurocentric/British bias 3) his attempt to get the UK added on the "crossover thrash" page and others while simultaneously attempting to delete the US from the cultural origins sections of the "Heavy metal page" and more, all via his Binksternet and FMSky accounts 4) his stigmatization of attributing credit, even just partially, to American culture in various fashion and music pages, and his deletionism in regards to this, even when plenty of sources for the added information are provided...

this behavior is odd, especially because it doesn't appear that he himself has any kind of knowledge or interest in fashion...

[Giraffe Stapler]

What does this mean exactly? Some of the accounts involved in sock puppet investigations they're attaching to me I am not familiar with - such as the original account this is all being linked to. This tells me they've weaponized the accusation of sockpuppetry to stigmatize any kind of narrative that they don't like.

I am not going to "walk away" from this; you simply cannot allow someone to stigmatize the categorization of Wikipedia pages like this. These should be very simple edits to make - they should not have to be arbitrated, nor should the person who makes simple, common sense categorization edits that align, explicitly, with the information on the page, be required to pass some kind of "Wikipedia background check" in order to do so. This person is trying to broadly stigmatize any edit that offers an American cultural perspective or that concerns information on music and fashion trends that originated in the US, in whole or in part.

1) His constant deletion of music genre pages from American cultural categories 2) his arbitrary upholding of edits that display a Eurocentric/British bias 3) his attempt to get the UK added on the "crossover thrash" page and others while simultaneously attempting to delete the US from the cultural origins sections of the "Heavy metal page" and more, all via his Binksternet and FMSky accounts 4) his stigmatization of attributing credit, even just partially, to American culture in various fashion and music pages, and his deletionism in regards to this, even when plenty of sources for the added information are provided...

this behavior is odd, especially because it doesn't appear that he himself has any kind of knowledge or interest in fashion...

Look, we're not saying you are wrong about the changes you have been trying to make or the behaviour of Binksternet. That said, I haven't really looked into it because to me this is a really really common and uninteresting situation. You tried to fix something that you thought was wrong on Wikipedia. You mistakenly thought you would be thanked for this but instead your changes are reverted. Eventually you get blocked. You show up here complaining about another editor. We've all seen it countless times here. You can't fix Wikipedia on Wikipedia.

A reasonable person would understand that Wikipedia isn't really "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" and decide what they want to do about it. You actually can "allow someone to stigmatize the categorization of Wikipedia pages like this". I'm doing it right now. Wikipedia is full of stuff that is wrong or inaccurate. I learned to stop caring about that long ago.

[Vigilant]

you simply cannot allow someone to stigmatize the categorization of Wikipedia pages like this.

Sure you can.
Let it go.

If you absolutely can't let it go, which appears likely, you need to reframe en.wp as an MMORPG instead of some mythical encyclopedia project.

Only then can you act rationally.

[Catfish Jim & spd]

What does this mean exactly? Some of the accounts involved in sock puppet investigations they're attaching to me I am not familiar with - such as the original account this is all being linked to. This tells me they've weaponized the accusation of sockpuppetry to stigmatize any kind of narrative that they don't like.

It doesn't matter. You were genuinely caught socking and have lost all ability to influence the pages you're interested in. There's a number of editors watching those pages for you... you're giving them a brief rush in their dreary day and making them almost smile for a couple of seconds in smugness. It takes them a fraction of the length of time it takes you to make the edits.

I am not going to "walk away" from this; you simply cannot allow someone to stigmatize the categorization of Wikipedia pages like this.

Why not? None of this matters. Nobody cares where stoner rock or whatever comes from. It's utterly unimportant. Nobody cares whether you're right or he's right. He doesn't care either. Maybe you are right, but nobody is going to back you up as you've labelled yourself as a disruptive vandal. Find something else that's more interesting to waste your time with for the sake of your mental health. You're not going to win this battle.

[The Blue Newt]

You're not going to win this battle.

I think it might be more accurate to say “You are not going to win this battle, unless you invest resources that could be better used to cure cancer or something like that.”

Wiki cares much, much less about factual accuracy that a real encyclopedia does.

Wiki cares a lot about internal rules, customs, and precedents. “Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy” is a lie so titanic that a Stalin or Goebbels would choke on it.

Wikipedia cares a lot about social niceties, at least for the minority toward which one must be sociable and nice.

Image the worst aspects of getting your car registered…by Freemasons…and you don’t even know the funny handshake. That’s what you are up against, and you’ve already broken several of the “important” rules.

[wyldboutit]

I have a request: can someone please revert Binksternet's latest attempt to remove "the United States" from the following Wikipedia pages?:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_wave_music

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_rock

I tried to add them back myself, once after using the Talk Page on "Progressive rock" and getting the go-ahead from a page administrator to add "the United States and Germany" as originating locations of "progressive rock" after he echoed support for the inclusion of the US, which had been on the page for multiple years prior to its deletion by FMSky.

Then, after the US was even more oddly erased from being included as a cultural originator of "New Wave", I was blocked:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... s/Dcasey98

The hilarious thing about this is that the only two people arbitrating my block on the grounds of sockpuppetry are Binksternet and his infamous shift-worker/alter-ego FMSky. Of course, the anti-American deletionists are the ones who think re-adding the US to music genre pages after years of it being included in cultural origin's sections is "pro-American".

The New Wave page literally includes notable paragraphs like this:

As early as 1973, critics including Nick Kent and Dave Marsh were using the term "new wave" to classify New York–based groups such as the Velvet Underground and New York Dolls.[55] In the US, many of the first new wave groups were the not-so-punk acts associated with CBGB (e.g. Talking Heads, Mink DeVille and Blondie),[36] as well as the proto-punk scene in Ohio, which included Devo, the Electric Eels, Rocket from the Tombs, and Pere Ubu.[56][57] Some important bands, such as Suicide and the Modern Lovers debuted even earlier.[58] CBGB owner Hilly Kristal, referring to the first show by Television at his club in March 1974, said; "I think of that as the beginning of new wave".[59] Many musicians who would have originally been classified as punk were also termed new wave. A 1977 Phonogram Records compilation album of the same name (New Wave) includes American bands Dead Boys, Ramones, Talking Heads, and the Runaways.

In the US, Sire Records chairman Seymour Stein, believing the term "punk" would mean poor sales for Sire's acts who had frequently played the New York club CBGB, launched a "Don't Call It Punk" campaign designed to replace the term with "new wave".[65] Because radio consultants in the US had advised their clients punk rock was a fad, they settled on the new term. Like the filmmakers of the French New Wave movement, after whom the genre was named, new wave bands such as Ramones and Talking Heads were anti-corporate and experimental. At first, most American writers used the term "new wave" exclusively in reference to British punk acts.[66] Starting in December 1976, The New York Rocker, which was suspicious of the term "punk", became the first American journal to enthusiastically use the term, at first for British acts and later for acts associated with the CBGB scene.[62] The music's stripped-back style and upbeat tempos, which Stein and others viewed as a much-needed return to the energetic rush of rock and roll and 1960s rock that had dwindled in the 1970s with progressive rock and stadium spectacles, attracted them to new wave.[67]

This seems like more than enough sourced information to notch the US a place in the "cultural origins" section of the page summary. The UK and other countries have been credited on music genre pages with much less to support their inclusion.

Note, I wasn't trying to delete the UK as a cultural originator - from ANY music page. The thing is, whether a given music genre originated in the UK or not, almost all the genre pages across Wikipedia have some kind of British-slant to them, as in, they spend an often unwarranted amount of time focusing on the British scene, and the UK is not the largest music market, nor is it the sole originator and innovator of movements like Rock and its major subgenres like Punk, Alternative, Experimental/Psychedelic/Progressive styles, etc. The level of gatekeeping you see for the UK and against the US on the music pages across Wikipedia strikes me as odd.

[Mojito]

In these troubled times, UK vs US is the quaintest of race wars on en-wp.

[wyldboutit]

In these troubled times, UK vs US is the quaintest of race wars on en-wp.

Could you help revert Binksternet's edits?

[wyldboutit]

What's truly odd about this Binksternet guy is that he's apparently "Bink Knowles" who produced Queen albums. Is he some kind of shill for British record companies or something? Because that would explain his edits across the Wikipedia music pages:

https://queen.fandom.com/wiki/Bink_Knowles

[Ognistysztorm]

Maybe it's a better idea to fix it on Justapedia instead.

[Giraffe Stapler]

What's truly odd about this Binksternet guy is that he's apparently "Bink Knowles" who produced Queen albums. Is he some kind of shill for British record companies or something? Because that would explain his edits across the Wikipedia music pages:

https://queen.fandom.com/wiki/Bink_Knowles

Produced Queen albums? Oh really?

[Hemiauchenia]

I only really know the Binkster from his editing of the MRA adjacent Male expendability (T-H-L) article, which seemed err, rather supportive of the hypothesis.

[wyldboutit]

I only really know the Binkster from his editing of the MRA adjacent Male expendability (T-H-L) article, which seemed err, rather supportive of the hypothesis.

He tears up the music pages and essentially dominates that section of Wikipedia

I keep on scanning this page for New Wave - the first two pictures literally depict famous American bands. The history section is filled with references to early American usage of the term, tons of American bands, and a couple American music scenes, from New York to Ohio. One of the oldest bands listed and cited as an influence is The Velvet Underground.

WHY are edits removing the U.S. from the cultural origins section being upheld, and why is there a trend of doing this across the music genre pages on Wikipedia?

If people can delete the US from the New Wave page, why can’t the UK be deleted from the Psychedelic rock page? Or the Power pop page? Or the Thrash metal page? It will be credited immediately for only 1-3 cited acts.

[ArmasRebane]

I only really know the Binkster from his editing of the MRA adjacent Male expendability (T-H-L) article, which seemed err, rather supportive of the hypothesis.

He tears up the music pages and essentially dominates that section of Wikipedia

I keep on scanning this page for New Wave - the first two pictures literally depict famous American bands. The history section is filled with references to early American usage of the term, tons of American bands, and a couple American music scenes, from New York to Ohio. One of the oldest bands listed and cited as an influence is The Velvet Underground.

WHY are edits removing the U.S. from the cultural origins section being upheld, and why is there a trend of doing this across the music genre pages on Wikipedia?

If people can delete the US from the New Wave page, why can’t the UK be deleted from the Psychedelic rock page? Or the Power pop page? Or the Thrash metal page? It will be credited immediately for only 1-3 cited acts.

Diffs would be useful.

As for why your edits are getting removed, reversion of indef-blocked sock edits isn't exactly uncommon, and has little to do with Binkster.

[wyldboutit]

I only really know the Binkster from his editing of the MRA adjacent Male expendability (T-H-L) article, which seemed err, rather supportive of the hypothesis.

He tears up the music pages and essentially dominates that section of Wikipedia

I keep on scanning this page for New Wave - the first two pictures literally depict famous American bands. The history section is filled with references to early American usage of the term, tons of American bands, and a couple American music scenes, from New York to Ohio. One of the oldest bands listed and cited as an influence is The Velvet Underground.

WHY are edits removing the U.S. from the cultural origins section being upheld, and why is there a trend of doing this across the music genre pages on Wikipedia?

If people can delete the US from the New Wave page, why can’t the UK be deleted from the Psychedelic rock page? Or the Power pop page? Or the Thrash metal page? It will be credited immediately for only 1-3 cited acts.

Diffs would be useful.

As for why your edits are getting removed, reversion of indef-blocked sock edits isn't exactly uncommon, and has little to do with Binkster.

I know why they’re getting removed, it’s just clear that it’s counter-productive. It’s also by someone who upholds sockpuppet edits when they align with his biases.

What is a diff and why would it be useful? How would I present it on here?

[tarantino]

Well if you are Gingeraleking (T-C-L) like your profile says, Spicy says that Threefrgy (T-C-L) is your latest sock.

Ah yes, its that pro-american guy who thinks every genre originated in the US, i remember him --FMSky (talk) 05:47, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

We all have our own obsessions I guess.

[wyldboutit]

Well if you are Gingeraleking (T-C-L) like your profile says, Spicy says that Threefrgy (T-C-L) is your latest sock.

Ah yes, its that pro-american guy who thinks every genre originated in the US, i remember him --FMSky (talk) 05:47, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

We all have our own obsessions I guess.

Yeah, and I didn’t edit in a malfeasant way beyond the sock. I re-instated an edit that stood for years.

Are you taking the side of Binksternet and his shift-worker FMSky?

Can you tell me: was the version of the page that included the US as an originating location for New Wave, alongside the UK, “pro-American”? Or was it just reflecting the information in the article that heavily mentions American acts and the American music market?

This is a list of music genre pages that have seen the U.S. deleted, unceremoniously, even by British editors who leave spiteful explanations as to why (“you yanks think you created everything” as an edit explanation on the Alternative rock page).


Alternative rock
Indie rock
New Wave
Heavy metal
Punk rock
Progressive rock
Shock rock
Stoner rock
Electronic music


-have ALL seen a suspicious amount of edits that revolve around deleting the U.S. from the “cultural origins” section of the summary template, even after talk page deliberations, proffered sources, etc.

What’s more, they’re typically done, or upheld and defended, by either Binksternet or FMSky, almost no one else.

It seems to me that there is a culture of anti-American resentment that informs a lot of the cultural pages on Wikipedia, especially when it comes to music

[ScotFinnRadish]

Don't sock for six months, request the standard offer, then start some RFCs.

Or keep socking and make sure that everyone sees those changes as unconstructive and reverts on sight.

[tarantino]

Are you taking the side of Binksternet and his shift-worker FMSky?

I don't really care about petty squabbles between wikipedians about trivial subjects, other than as a source of amusement.

[Giraffe Stapler]

It seems to me that there is a culture of anti-American resentment that informs a lot of the cultural pages on Wikipedia, especially when it comes to music

Yes, exactly! Wikipedia doesn't reflect the true American origins of everything! We need to force these Europhiles off our pages! We need to get more real Americans editing, preferably young white middle-class males because we definitely need more of those on Wikipedia.

[wyldboutit]

It seems to me that there is a culture of anti-American resentment that informs a lot of the cultural pages on Wikipedia, especially when it comes to music

Yes, exactly! Wikipedia doesn't reflect the true American origins of everything! We need to force these Europhiles off our pages! We need to get more real Americans editing, preferably young white middle-class males because we definitely need more of those on Wikipedia.

Uh…weird, then, that I’m not straight or white. What does that have to do with the edits being inappropriate?

You're making the same strawman, that re-establishing information that is reflected on the page is trying to establish "American origins of everything".