Jimbo asks Bradv if he encouraged paid editing

[Charliebware]

I have what seems to me a credible report that you have been recommending to people that they use WikiExperts. Is this true?

The report I have is that you contacted someone through Whatsapp to recommend WikiExperts, who then charged someone $15,000 for an article in Wikipedia. I am asking you because if so, then you definitely should not be an admin in English Wikipedia. If it is a lie, then fine. But please tell me the truth. Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:15, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

User talk:Bradv#Have you been recommending that people use WikiExperts?

[Randy from Boise]

I have what seems to me a credible report that you have been recommending to people that they use WikiExperts. Is this true?

The report I have is that you contacted someone through Whatsapp to recommend WikiExperts, who then charged someone $15,000 for an article in Wikipedia. I am asking you because if so, then you definitely should not be an admin in English Wikipedia. If it is a lie, then fine. But please tell me the truth. Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:15, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

User talk:Bradv#Have you been recommending that people use WikiExperts?

GOOGLE TRANS: "Hello, Self-Appointed Overlord of Wikipedia here... Underling, an anonymous source has made an unsubstantiated allegation about your activities off-wiki. Somebody other than me is apt to profit in the process. While I have no evidence and provide no details, please confess truthfully to this allegation and resign if it is true, because I said so. Thank you for your compliance. Now say, 'thank you, sir, may I have another' and resume your volunteer activities. xoxo, Jimbo "Run It On The Wikipedia Credit Card" Wales."

[MadManz]

Has an enwp admin ever been credibly accused of paid editing? Not that that would exactly be the same as this, or that Jimbo's claim is necessarily credible. It feels like it should have happened at least once.

[The Blue Newt]

I have what seems to me a credible report that you have been recommending to people that they use WikiExperts. Is this true?

The report I have is that you contacted someone through Whatsapp to recommend WikiExperts, who then charged someone $15,000 for an article in Wikipedia. I am asking you because if so, then you definitely should not be an admin in English Wikipedia. If it is a lie, then fine. But please tell me the truth. Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:15, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

User talk:Bradv#Have you been recommending that people use WikiExperts?

Ouroboros consumes itself.

Good.

[MrErnie]

Get him Jimbo!

[orangepi]

Has an enwp admin ever been credibly accused of paid editing? Not that that would exactly be the same as this, or that Jimbo's claim is necessarily credible. It feels like it should have happened at least once.

Salvidrim! (T-C-L) and the "MisterWiki" case comes to mind.

[Konveyor Belt]

Has an enwp admin ever been credibly accused of paid editing? Not that that would exactly be the same as this, or that Jimbo's claim is necessarily credible. It feels like it should have happened at least once.

Salvidrim! (T-C-L) and the "MisterWiki" case comes to mind.

There was also Wifione (T-C-L), who was both a paid editor and a sock.

[Vigilant]

Sounds like we need an ARBCOM case to decide if Jimbo should keep his bits.

[Vigilant]

Please respond

[Vigilant]

Jimbo Wales, the ultimate legacy admin.

[Beeblebrox]

I'm trying to take a break from arb business, but this is too much.

I'm furious right now.

[Vigilant]

I am sickened by this. Jimbo, this is outrageous. Did you take even one second to consider why whoever sent you this alleged proof chose to send it to you, instead of ArbCom? Did you even consider sharing it with the committee before publicly smearing Brad's name with these unproven accusations? I think a lot of us thought you had figured out by now that you don't run en.wp anymore and you would at least try to act like a responsible member of the community, but I guess we overestimated you. You almost certainly got played by the very scammers you are accusing Brad of being in cahoots with. It reflects very poorly on you that you apparenty didn't even consider that. I'm absolutely disgusted with you. You are the one that should hand in their admin bits, or founder bits, or whatever. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:08, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Fucking right.

[Bezdomni]

I misread that at first as an impassioned call for him to report to the BarCom locker-room and turn in his dangly bits.

[el84]

Are Wiki"experts" even active? The website stuff seems to tail off in 2015-2016...

[Konveyor Belt]

Jimbo has become that old uncle who uncritically believes every meme he sees on Facebook. I'd bet I could make any of the "proof" he was shown in 10 minutes on Photoshop (if there was any proof to begin with).

[Ognistysztorm]

So we've got the Holocaust scandal and then this. Wikipedia seems to be in a string of bad lucks recently.

[Vigilant]

So we've got the Holocaust scandal and then this. Wikipedia seems to be in a string of bad lucks recently.

What would Jimbo do differently if he were trying to be more destructive?

[Vigilant]

Bradv hasn't edited in almost a year.



That makes this whole thing even more ridiculous.


You guys need to strip Jimbo of his bits, seriously.

[owl be it]

So we've got the Holocaust scandal and then this. Wikipedia seems to be in a string of bad lucks recently.

I feel like you have been saying this every couple weeks for the last few centuries. Virtually nobody outside of Wikipedia cares about this stuff. Wikipediocracy is the biggest forum about this stuff by far, and there are only a few dozen people here. Not that it isn't embarrassing, and stupid, but I don't think we are going to blow the lid on some major scandal by reporting that Jimbo was an asshole.

[AndyTheGrump]

Maybe someone should report Jimbo to Trust and Safety?

[Disgruntled haddock]

Who will be the first to suggest this is an ADMINACCT-style loss of "trust or confidence of the community"?

[Vigilant]

Just to highlight this.

I have what seems to me a credible report that you have been recommending to people that they use WikiExperts. Is this true?

The report I have is that you contacted someone through Whatsapp to recommend WikiExperts, who then charged someone $15,000 for an article in Wikipedia. I am asking you because if so, then you definitely should not be an admin in English Wikipedia. If it is a lie, then fine. But please tell me the truth. Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:15, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

User talk:Bradv#Have you been recommending that people use WikiExperts?

Bradv hasn't edited since July 2022.




Jimbo is accusing someone of supporting paid editing and then asking them to deny it on their public talk page when it's clear that person isn't likely to respond.

This is some sort of weird combination of trial in absentia and Witchsmeller Pursuivant.

What are the odds if someone hadn't noticed that Jimbo would have indef'd this guy and when asked said, "Well, they didn't deny it!" ?

[orangepi]

Jimbo with a response, though I cannot call it a good response.

I don't think this ends up with "removal of founder privileges", primarily because this is "stupid inside baseball" that nobody will want to explain publicly. But Mr. Wales' thin ice just got thinner.

[Vigilant]

Holy shit.
That's a profoundly bad response.

First, let me apologize for the unnecessary tone in my inquiry. BradV is a well known and respected admin, and my intention was simply to get an answer to a valid question. If the victim of the paid editing scam was additionally scammed by someone impersonating BradV, that's important to know. If BradV didn't recommend WikiExperts, then he can simply say so, and that will settle it for me. What will make that significantly more interesting is that with documentary evidence of fraudulent behavior (pretending to be admin who is promising to approve the page if the firm is used would be fraud on the victim) then it raises the possibility that the victim can fight back in court. If, on the other hand, he - and perhaps other admins - are recommending this firm to people, then that opens a huge other can of worms that needs to be addressed very straightforwardly. I don't think keeping these matters hushed benefits anyone other than the ultimate scammers.

I think it very likely, if $20,000 fees are on the table, that there have been and will be significant efforts to infiltrate the admin corps in order to undermine the honesty of Wikipedia, harming the reptutation of the volunteer admins who do so much to keep the site straight. Let's all work together to speak openly and clearly, with mutual trust and respect, to get to the bottom of all of these cases.

In this case, I have not been duped by a scammer at all - I'm speaking in a verifiable way to a victim of the scammers. It is possible, and indeed likely, that this person has been duped by the scammer through a fake communication purporting to be BradV. I don't know yet, and I hope that BradV will weigh in soon so that we can focus attention in that direction if that's the situation.

I would like us to think about how we might better get the word out to potential victims of these scams, so that the business model of the scammers dries up as much as possible.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:32, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

[AndyTheGrump]

Jimbo is an idiot.

[Emptyeye]

What are the odds if someone hadn't noticed that Jimbo would have indef'd this guy and when asked said, "Well, they didn't deny it!" ?

Probably low, though the point you're making stands--IIRC, some years back Jimbo pledged not to use his admin powers on en.wiki after making a particularly bad block of Bishonen (Bad enough that the on-wiki climate was basically "Either pledge that you messed up and won't do it again, or we'll drag you to ArbCom and it's highly likely you'll lose the admin bit that way").

That said, yeah, that he didn't get the message after multiple highly-respected users in positions of authority across the wiki ecosystem said "Yeah this ain't it Chief" and no one showed up to defend how he handled it is..frightening in a lot of ways. To say nothing of the fact that the person he's accusing hasn't been active on-wiki in a while. It does look like he was just trying to ask the question as a formality, and had already reached a conclusion in his own mind.

[AndyTheGrump]

Discussion hatted by SilkTork (T-C-L):

ArbCom are aware of this discussion.

link

They are now. Evidently they weren't earlier. I think the 'community' deserves some sort of better explanation than this.

[Scorpions13256]

The discussion has been unhatted. I have not yet formed my opinion as to whether or not the allegations are true. Jimbo should reveal what he knows in greater detail.

[The Garbage Scow]

$15,000 to write a Wikipedia article? Where do I sign up for that??

[Bezdomni]

According to this week's Mare aux Canards (§), a lobbyist commissioned by an Israeli company was paid €1500 for getting a story (ghost-)written by the then-sitting president of Burkina Faso into Valeurs Actuelles (a popular RW mag) and €2500 for getting the same story placed in Le Point Afrique. The guy has also been paid €2000 for getting a pro-Qatar story into La Tribune and has been acknowledged as being behind various euro-deputies tweets critical of the UAE, though the price-per-tweet is not given. In other words, a €13,837 price-tag for an en.wp entry doesn't seem all that "outlandish" really.

We've already seen the allegations that the Polish Prime Minister's chief of staff was trying to mobilize additional funds from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs budget to pay someone to "correct Hebrew Wikipedia entries and position Israeli pages on google". (source) I assume that implies paying someone qualified a salary...

To sign up, I think you need to pass RfA and maybe run for ArbCom. In general, I don't think it actually involves that much actual writing, though you may need a green pencil here or and a new page reviewer badge there...

(The per-sentence rate is likely more proportionate to the per-tweet rate and probably does not require RfA.)

ps: lol

[Giraffe Stapler]

Has anyone confirmed that Jimbo's account hasn't been compromised? It might be a good idea to block it until we know that this isn't some hacker trolling us.

[Randy from Boise]

Has anyone confirmed that Jimbo's account hasn't been compromised? It might be a good idea to block it until we know that this isn't some hacker trolling us.

Actually, that thought flashed through my mind a couple minutes ago.

t

[Vigilant]

Today is thread crossover day.

@Jimbo Wales: I have what seems to me a credible report that you have been selling your edits. Is this true?
The report I have is that you recreated your first edit to Wikipedia and sold it as an NFT for $750,000. I am asking you because if so, then you definitely should not be an admin in English Wikipedia, or making any evidence-free accusations against actual volunteers of secret paid editing. If it is a lie, then fine. But please tell me the truth. Levivich (talk) 14:23, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

[rhindle]

Jimbo just does not like to put thought behind what he does or says. He began this mess way back when he said PE was "antithetical" and not consider the pros and cons of it for WP but also those who pay for someone to edit WP. Now he's just an out of touch elder who still thinks it's the mid 2000's.

[ArmasRebane]

Jimbo just does not like to put thought behind what he does or says. He began this mess way back when he said PE was "antithetical" and not consider the pros and cons of it for WP but also those who pay for someone to edit WP. Now he's just an out of touch elder who still thinks it's the mid 2000's.

I think the argument against paid editing is a pretty reasonable one, the issue comes up with enforcement and how that runs into Wikipedia's pseudonymous and anonymous editing scheme.

And if you were trying to bust Brad's paid editing ring, this seems like an atrocious way to do it. I do wonder what prompted it—given Brad has been pretty much not around much for years, let alone the current inactivity, it seems pretty bizarre to have just popped up.

[Vigilant]

So, Jimbo does something skeevy, way outside of community norms, and en.wp looks the other way again.

[No Ledge]

What do y'all make of this curious thread: Response to Possible Vandalism on my Wikipedia Article

Presumably Kwakeley (T-C-L) may be Kitt Wakeley (T-H-L)

I was made aware by Bradv that my page might have been subjected to vandalism. I was informed that my page could be in danger of being deleted.

Curious that our inactive administrator would send such a message, around 11 February 2023

[redbaron]

What do y'all make of this curious thread: Response to Possible Vandalism on my Wikipedia Article

Presumably Kwakeley (T-C-L) may be Kitt Wakeley (T-H-L)

I was made aware by Bradv that my page might have been subjected to vandalism. I was informed that my page could be in danger of being deleted.

Curious that our inactive administrator would send such a message, around 11 February 2023

I could be mistaken, but I seem to recall that CUs can check whether the "email this user" function has been used from a certain account.

[Arishok]

What do y'all make of this curious thread: Response to Possible Vandalism on my Wikipedia Article

Presumably Kwakeley (T-C-L) may be Kitt Wakeley (T-H-L)

I was made aware by Bradv that my page might have been subjected to vandalism. I was informed that my page could be in danger of being deleted.

Curious that our inactive administrator would send such a message, around 11 February 2023

That…is definitely pretty curious. Could still be a joe job, but does provide some prior onwiki evidence for Jimbo’s suspicion, I think.

[utbc]

Not really in the "Bradv would never do this, Jimbo is evil" camp. Anyone could be doing anything, as far as I am concerned. But Jimbo should have followed proper channels. The only reason to make a useless public post is vanity.

[The Garbage Scow]

What are the chances bradv's account was hijacked some time ago and whomever did so is quietly using it behind the scenes rather than for editing? Something isn't adding up here and I can't figure out why anyone would go to such lengths to joe job bradv.

[No Ledge]

Apricotrabbit (T-C-L) with fewer than 100 sticky contributions and 40 deleted contributions, has all the appearances of a paid editor.

After making a dozen gnome-type edits on 19 January 2022 to establish their auto-confirmed status, they took a week off.

Then on 25th January they said "Hi, I'm a theatre guy!" to make their user-page blue-linked.

Then on 26th January they created the Kitt Wakeley (T-H-L) biography, which easily survived a deletion discussion.

Other creations or contributions of theirs weren't so lucky:
Jordan A. Nash (T-H-L), John Bonavia (T-H-L), Tizane Miller (T-H-L), DJ B-Real (T-H-L)

An editor called them out with a {{uw-paid1}} template, which a bot substituted, and they promptly deleted without response other than unsigned bot message as their edit summary.

[Giraffe Stapler]

Apricotrabbit (T-C-L) with fewer than 100 sticky contributions and 40 deleted contributions, has all the appearances of a paid editor.

I hope that doesn't mean that Seven Layer Piano Cakes (T-H-L) isn't really notable...

[The Blue Newt]

Apricotrabbit (T-C-L) with fewer than 100 sticky contributions and 40 deleted contributions, has all the appearances of a paid editor.

After making a dozen gnome-type edits on 19 January 2022 to establish their auto-confirmed status, they took a week off.

Then on 25th January they said "Hi, I'm a theatre guy!" to make their user-page blue-linked.

Then on 26th January they created the Kitt Wakeley (T-H-L) biography, which easily survived a deletion discussion.

Other creations or contributions of theirs weren't so lucky:
Jordan A. Nash (T-H-L), John Bonavia (T-H-L), Tizane Miller (T-H-L), DJ B-Real (T-H-L)

An editor called them out with a {{uw-paid1}} template, which a bot substituted, and they promptly deleted without response other than unsigned bot message as their edit summary.

A theatre guy doing paid editing?

That’s completely beyond my ken.

[tarantino]

A theatre guy doing paid editing?

That’s completely beyond my ken.

lol

[Arishok]

On Jimbotalk it’s revealed that he’s sent some evidence to the Arbs, which they apparently found entirely unpersuasive.

[AndyTheGrump]

Now at ArbCom: link

[Arishok]

Now at ArbCom: link

Oh god someone filed a non-frivolous Arbcase against Jimbo.



Praise the drama gods!

[iii]

Anyone else creeped out by the continued use of the sobriquet "The Founder"? I understand that it is a permissions role too (WP:FOUNDER (T-H-L)). Can't WP get past its cultic undertones? Or is WP just too caught up in Objectivist fetishization of the corporate world?

[TheWordsmith]

Anyone else creeped out by the continued use of the sobriquet "The Founder"? I understand that it is a permissions role too (WP:FOUNDER (T-H-L)). Can't WP get past its cultic undertones? Or is WP just too caught up in Objectivist fetishization of the corporate world?

Everyone knows the Sole F(l)ounder of Wikipedia can do no wrong even though he's been proving himself to be out of touch for 15 years.