<CPOV> Wikipedia as an Alternative United Nations-Like Forum

[Gregory Kohs]

>
>
> Andy & All,
>
> Short note only, as it's late and I have some work around the yard to do
> tomorrow.
>
> Yes, multiple accounts are officially inveighed against, but it's like
> every other
> "policy" or "guideline" on Wikipedia, you soon find that the "cops" break
> the very
> laws they pretend to enforce, and after you've seen that double standards
> are more
> the rule than the exception you begin to get a little satirical yourself --
> for my
> part I gradually came to lose every last shred of respect for "Wikipedia's
> Finest".
>
> I'm probably not the one to interrogate about individual cases, as I try
> to keep my eyes on the Big Picture and the "whole system" view of things,
> but several participants in the WR forum excel in the investigative side
> of things and they could give you all the detail you want about the more
> notorious cases.
>
> Jon Awbrey
>
>
As a practitioner in Wikipedia manipulation, I may represent one of those
"individual cases" that Jon mentions. If you're interested in either a
formal case study, or in just a chuckle, you might wish to peruse my "hall
of shame" of sockpuppet accounts that I was compelled to disclose before I
would be unblocked on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Thekohser/2009#Thekohser_responds
(click the "Show" link in the green box)

After Wikipedia Arbitration Committee member decided that she liked Adam
"Shoemaker's Holiday" Cuerden more than she liked me, I was nonetheless
re-blocked again, and so I set about making more sockpuppets again.  You
see, I need an ample drawer of active socks, so that my individual clients
can be promptly served, without giving away my entire slate of clients, nor
compromising any specific IP addresses if the paid editing should ever be
detected.  I have presently 19 different socks at my disposal, undetected by
the Wikipedia admin crew.

No, I don't consider it "a very serious form of fraud", as Andy suggested.
 I tried to work with the Wikipedia community from the outset -- above
board, in the disinfecting light of full disclosure.  Jimmy Wales made clear
to me that he disapproved of that method.  Many people at high levels of
Wikipedia participation warned Jimmy that his alternative would only drive
underground the activity of paid editors, where it would be less-easily
monitored.  Jimmy ignored their guidance.  And so, here I am today, still
able to author Wikipedia articles for paying clients, and in about 90% of
client cases, the work goes completely undetected by the very people who are
dead-set against "POV" "shills" editing "their" encyclopedia.

-- 
Gregory Kohs
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