Wikipedia’s anti-Pagan crusade

[HRIP7]

Andrew Leonard, Salon.com: Wikipedia’s anti-Pagan crusade

On November 19, 2012, the Wikipedia page for the writer David Jay Brown was deleted. Not just hidden from sight to the casual reader, or cut to pieces by an overzealous editor, but removed once and for all. Despite his having authored numerous books and his appearances on multiple TV shows, the consensus view of the Wikipedia editors who cared to consider the matter deemed Brown not notable enough for inclusion in the online encyclopedia.

“Qworty” — the Wikipedia editor unmasked as the writer Robert Clark Young in Salon one week ago — played a leading role in instigating Brown’s deletion. As Qworty, Young denounced Brown as a “self-appointed spiritual savior” who had styled himself “a modern-day messiah who combined all of the powers of Jesus and Freud and Einstein and Marx and, oh why the heck not, Timothy Leary, lol.” Young also resorted to his go-to critique for Wikipedia pages he found wanting: he accused Brown of repeatedly editing his own page in violation of Wikipedia’s conflict-of-interest policies.

Brown contacted me soon after the publication of my first Qworty/Young story, but I didn’t examine his story close enough to figure out Young’s real gripe against him. Then, a week later, I started receiving emails from members of “the Pagan writing and publishing community” thanking me for unraveling the mystery of Qworty’s identity. According to them, Young had been guilty of waging a vicious and nasty war against prominent Pagans throughout 2012.

[Midsize Jake]

Andrew Leonard, Salon.com: Wikipedia’s anti-Pagan crusade

He's getting more push-back in the comments section, which is probably to be expected given the subject matter involved. Most people aren't going to sympathize with Pagans and Wiccans in general, whether or not they're guilty of self-promotion on Wikipedia (and I think we can safely say they were, at least when they got started).

Maybe he should have waited a couple more weeks...? I guess the first article must have gotten a lot of page-views, and that made them keen on placing these follow-ups sooner rather than later.

[Tippi Hadron]

Andrew Leonard, Salon.com: Wikipedia’s anti-Pagan crusade

On November 19, 2012, the Wikipedia page for the writer David Jay Brown was deleted. Not just hidden from sight to the casual reader, or cut to pieces by an overzealous editor, but removed once and for all. Despite his having authored numerous books and his appearances on multiple TV shows, the consensus view of the Wikipedia editors who cared to consider the matter deemed Brown not notable enough for inclusion in the online encyclopedia.

“Qworty” — the Wikipedia editor unmasked as the writer Robert Clark Young in Salon one week ago — played a leading role in instigating Brown’s deletion. As Qworty, Young denounced Brown as a “self-appointed spiritual savior” who had styled himself “a modern-day messiah who combined all of the powers of Jesus and Freud and Einstein and Marx and, oh why the heck not, Timothy Leary, lol.” Young also resorted to his go-to critique for Wikipedia pages he found wanting: he accused Brown of repeatedly editing his own page in violation of Wikipedia’s conflict-of-interest policies.

Brown contacted me soon after the publication of my first Qworty/Young story, but I didn’t examine his story close enough to figure out Young’s real gripe against him. Then, a week later, I started receiving emails from members of “the Pagan writing and publishing community” thanking me for unraveling the mystery of Qworty’s identity. According to them, Young had been guilty of waging a vicious and nasty war against prominent Pagans throughout 2012.

Another outstanding piece by Leonard. This part is hilarious:

Last week, Brown was understandably delighted to learn that his tormenter had been unmasked as a self-promoting violator of Wikipedia’s core principles. His immediate esponse? He engaged in a little revenge editing retaliation of his own. He swiftly edited Young’s page to include the Salon revelations, and then marked the page for deletion, using, he told me, “the identical criteria that [Young] used to mark the entry about me for deletion.”

Karmic retribution? Or just another example of how easy it is to take vengeful action on Wikipedia for personal reasons?

[Ming]

OK, well, this is not entirely accurate. Ming suggests grabbing some of this and settling back.

Most of the part about the old ARBCOM case is OK, but David Jay Brown was taken down by the regular fringe theory triumvirate of Dougweller (T-C-L), History2007 (T-C-L), and Mangoe (T-C-L). And there is a very interesting detail in this, because Mangoe apparently noticed something fishy in all this and filed a report on AN/I the day before the AfD closed identifying the combat between Rosenbaum and Young (whose names were not known at the time, AFA Ming can tell). There's nothing on Mangoe's talk page that illuminates what brought this on, but there is a response there a few days later from Vidkun pointing at Young's other diatribe at Talk:Stregheria.

So there are two different conflicts which happened to converge at the same article. The battle between Young and Rosenbaum was known about six months ago, and the admin people completely dropped the ball on that. But Young was to some very large degree riding on the back of the FT/N campaign to keep the woo-woo crowd from using Wikipedia as a promotional vehicle and to force what articles do survive to admit that this stuff is all "true" only in their little world.

[mac]

Most of the part about the old ARBCOM case is OK, but David Jay Brown was taken down by the regular fringe theory triumvirate of Dougweller (T-C-L), History2007 (T-C-L), and Mangoe (T-C-L).

Just a few days ago History2007 exercised his "right to vanish":

04:01, 20 May 2013 MBisanz (talk | contribs) renamed user History2007 (78528 edits) to VanishedUserABC (RTV)

[EricBarbour]

He's getting more push-back in the comments section, which is probably to be expected given the subject matter involved. Most people aren't going to sympathize with Pagans and Wiccans in general, whether or not they're guilty of self-promotion on Wikipedia (and I think we can safely say they were, at least when they got started).

"Push-back"? Looks like trolling to me.

Just a few days ago History2007 exercised his "right to vanish":

04:01, 20 May 2013 MBisanz (talk | contribs) renamed user History2007 (78528 edits) to VanishedUserABC (RTV)

And that's a bad thing. H2007 wrote good content, although he was prone to fight with certain Christians.
They've just forced out another editor they should have bent over backwards to keep.

[Ming]

And that's a bad thing. H2007 wrote good content, although he was prone to fight with certain Christians.
They've just forced out another editor they should have bent over backwards to keep.

It doesn't appear that he was forced out. Apparently he set some sort of time limit to his participation.

[tarantino]

BLP subject and wp editor Cat yronwode has posted an essay about anonymous editing, Qworty and the anti-pagan crusade on her user page.

She's from your neck of the woods, Eric. Have you ever visited the Lucky Mojo Curio Company?

[EricBarbour]

BLP subject and wp editor Cat yronwode has posted an essay about anonymous editing, Qworty and the anti-pagan crusade on her user page.

Excellent commentary. I'm surprised she's not being dragged to AN/I for "personal attacks".

I'm REALLY surprised her bio isn't being AFDed for bias, and for general awfulness.

She's from your neck of the woods, Eric. Have you ever visited the Lucky Mojo Curio Company?

Ugh, Forestville. A hellhole full of old hippies and snobby wine-growers. I'll never understand how a thing like that
could survive in a tiny rural dump like Forestville. Either some of those old hippies have lots of disposable income, or
more likely it's not a "shop", just a home mail-order business.

[Zoloft]

The Lucky Mojo Curio Co. occult shop is located in the relatively small town of Forestville, California. We operate a mail-order business on the world wide web as well as a regular walk-in store for local customers to browse. We have a couple of acres here, and we grow many of our own herbs in our garden.

Actually, that sounds like an interesting place to spend a few minutes. Must smell nice in there.

I enjoyed the essay. We should ask her to allow its posting as a blog post here.

[Cla68]

The Lucky Mojo Curio Co. occult shop is located in the relatively small town of Forestville, California. We operate a mail-order business on the world wide web as well as a regular walk-in store for local customers to browse. We have a couple of acres here, and we grow many of our own herbs in our garden.

Actually, that sounds like an interesting place to spend a few minutes. Must smell nice in there.

I enjoyed the essay. We should ask her to allow its posting as a blog post here.

I agree. It's always interesting when someone who isn't a regular here or an insider on WP discovers and takes the Red Pill and then writes a good essay about it.

[Hersch]

Mod note: I split off the more general discussion of "fringe views" and put it here.