Investigating a Wikipedia administrator

[John Simkin]

Since starting this thread I have received a lot of information from insiders about the way this NeoCon cabal runs Wikipedia. Fred Bauder seems to be the leader of this group. He describes himself as a retired lawyer but in fact he is like our old pal, Tim Gratz, a debarred lawyer.

SUPREME COURT, STATE OF COLORADO

No. 98SA447

ORIGINAL PROCEEDING IN DISCIPLINE

January 25, 1999

IN THE MATTER OF FRED BAUDER

EN BANC ATTORNEY SUSPENDED

Linda Donnelly, Attorney Regulation Counsel

James C. Coyle, Assistant Attorney Regulation Counsel

Denver, Colorado

Fred Bauder, Pro Se

Crestone, Colorado

PER CURIAM

In this lawyer discipline case, a hearing panel of the supreme court grievance committee approved the findings and recommendation of the hearing board. The board and the panel recommended that the respondent, Fred Bauder, be suspended for thirty days, be required to petition for reinstatement, and pay certain costs before again being allowed to practice law. We accept the recommendation.

I.

Fred Bauder was licensed to practice law in Colorado in 1976. He failed to answer the formal complaint filed in this case and the hearing board entered a default against him. The allegations of fact contained in the complaint were therefore deemed admitted. See C.R.C.P. 241.13; People v. Paulson , 930 P.2d 582, 582 (Colo. 1997). Based on the default and the evidence presented, the hearing board found that the following had been established by clear and convincing evidence.

On July 14, 1997, we publicly censured Bauder for soliciting for prostitution during a phone call with the wife of a dissolution of marriage client. See People v. Bauder , 941 P.2d 282, 283 (Colo. 1997). Bauder was ordered to pay the costs of that proceeding in the amount of $2,058.97 within thirty days of the date on the opinion. See id. at 283-84. He did not pay the costs as ordered, however, or file a motion for an extension of time to comply with our order. Moreover, Bauder failed to respond to a letter from the Office of Disciplinary Counsel and has not explained or justified his noncompliance with the order. As a result, a request for investigation was filed against him. Bauder did not respond to the request for investigation.

The hearing board concluded that Bauder knowingly disobeyed an order of this court in violation of Colo. RPC 3.4©; and that his conduct also violated Colo. RPC 8.4(d) (engaging in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice) and C.R.C.P. 241.6(7) (failing to cooperate in a disciplinary investigation).

II.

The hearing panel approved the board's recommendation that Bauder be suspended for thirty days, be required to petition for reinstatement, and as a further condition of reinstatement, demonstrate that he has paid the costs incurred in the 1997 proceeding.

Under the ABA Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions (1991 & Supp. 1992) (ABA Standards ), "uspension is appropriate when a lawyer knowingly violates a court order or rule, and there is injury or potential injury to a client or a party, or interference or potential interference with a legal proceeding." ABA Standards 6.22. However, disbarment is warranted when a lawyer "(a) intentionally or knowingly violates the terms of a prior disciplinary order and such violation causes injury or potential injury to a client, the public, the legal system, or the profession." Id. at 8.1(a).

The 1997 public censure is an aggravating factor for analyzing the proper level of discipline. See id. at 9.22(a). Other aggravating factors include Bauder's refusal to acknowledge the wrongfulness of his conduct, see id. at 9.22(g); his substantial experience in the practice of law, see id. at 9.22(i); and his indifference to making restitution, see id. at 9.22(j). Because Bauder did not appear at the hearing or offer any evidence, no mitigating factors were found.

The lawyer respondent has defaulted and apparently ignored the disciplinary proceedings. We elect to accept the board's recommendation. See People v. Rishel , 956 P.2d 542, 544 (Colo. 1998). We are satisfied that the requirement that the respondent undergo reinstatement proceedings and demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that he is again fit to practice law will adequately protect the public. Accordingly, we accept the recommendations of the hearing board and panel. One member of the court, however, would impose more severe discipline.

III.

It is hereby ordered that Fred Bauder is suspended from the practice of law for thirty days, effective thirty days after the issuance of this opinion. It is further ordered that, prior to seeking reinstatement and as a condition thereof, Bauder shall pay the costs of his 1997 disciplinary proceeding in the amount of $2,058.97 plus statutory interest from August 14, 1997, to the Attorney Regulation Committee. Bauder is further ordered to pay the costs of this proceeding in the amount of $124.11 within thirty days after this opinion is announced to the Attorney Regulation Committee, 600 Seventeenth Street, Suite 200 South, Denver, Colorado 80202-5432. Bauder shall not be reinstated until after he has complied with C.R.C.P. 251.29.

[Guest Tom Scully]

Forgive my rant here...

Most of us will end up more like Larry Sanger, wikipedia co-founder, rather than like John Simkin if we dismiss the impact and influence on perceptions which result from the search engine prowess of en.wikipedia.org.

To John's credit, since he wrote the OP on this thread more than four years ago, the google search result he cited of his spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk for the search term related to the assassination of JFk has moved up from the fourth result back then, to the third today. On the other hand, you've probably never heard of Larry Sanger, and his competing online encyclopedia appears headed for the ash bin of history. See the info on him at the bottom of this post and the link to his site. The JFK assassination article there has been neglected since mid-2008.

It seems to me a matter of who you want to reach and to influence. Prime targets predictably are the news gathering entity, prominent bloggers, and anyone else who can distribute your message in prominent places. Some have a knack for getting this done on their own, but we are not all Simkins, Russ Bakers, Jim DiEugenios, or John McAdams.

We don't have to like or approve of wikipedia, but I am convinced it is in my best interests if I want the potential to have my message exposed to the greatest number of eyes possible, to familiarize myself with wikipedia and know how it works well enough to edit its existing articles and create new ones. A requirement of accomplishing this is to study the politics of that site, and learn what has a high probability of staying up on pages there as edited or created, and what does not.

Some info related to prior posts in this thread.:

Wikipedia admin who is the subject of this thread...her user page and link to pages of all of her wikipedia

activity.:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SlimVirgin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/SlimVirgin

Background from more recent thread started by Jim Di Eugenio

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=16168&st=0

The Lies of Wikipedia, Gamaliel--or John McAdams?

Gamaliel @wikipedia, aka Fernandez, is one of the most powerful administrators at that site.

His user page reinforces this assertion.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gamaliel

On January 26, 2010, Gamaliel created the wiki article on Jon C. McAdams.:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_C._McAdams&action=history

Wikipedia article about John Simkin was deleted from wikipedia, he was deemed not notable enough

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:John_Simkin

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

More than 450 links to Simkin's Spartacus pages are included in wikipedia articles as supporting citations.

Last June, wikipedia changed its policy of blocking edits to prominent biographies. It seems to have had little

impact. My experience is the bio articles of the most prominent individuals are filtered to the point that

only positive (the wiki admins mistakenly regard exclusively positive citations as "neutral", IMO)

Although only "happy talk" seems to be permitted to stay up on this page.:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush

Edits to this page including negative and embarrassing information are permitted if supported.:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapata_Oil

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25

Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism

By lsanger in Op-Ed

Fri Dec 31, 2004 at 12:42:24 AM EST

....From the point of view of a specialist, let's just say that Wikipedia needs a lot of work.

Second problem: the dominance of difficult people, trolls, and their enablers. I stopped participating in Wikipedia when funding for my position ran out. That does not mean that I am merely mercenary; I might have continued to participate, were it not for a certain poisonous social or political atmosphere in the project.

There are many ways to explain this problem, and I will start with just one. Far too much credence and respect accorded to people who in other Internet contexts would be labelled "trolls." There is a certain mindset associated with unmoderated Usenet groups and mailing lists that infects the collectively-managed Wikipedia project: if you react strongly to trolling, that reflects poorly on you, not (necessarily) on the xxxxx. If you attempt to take trolls to task or demand that something be done about constant disruption by trollish behavior, the other listmembers will cry "censorship," attack you, and even come to the defense of the xxxxx. This drama has played out thousands of times over the years on unmoderated Internet groups, and since about the fall of 2001 on the unmoderated Wikipedia.

Wikipedia has, to its credit, done something about the most serious trolling and other kinds of abuse: there is an Arbitration Committee that provides a process whereby the most disruptive users of Wikipedia can be ejected from the project.

But there are myriad abuses and problems that never make it to mediation, let alone arbitration. A few of the project's participants can be, not to put a nice word on it, pretty nasty. And this is tolerated. So, for any person who can and wants to work politely with well-meaning, rational, reasonably well-informed people--which is to say, to be sure, most people working on Wikipedia--the constant fighting can be so off-putting as to drive them away from the project. This explains why I am gone; it also explains why many others, including some extremely knowledgeable and helpful people, have left the project.

The root problem: anti-elitism, or lack of respect for expertise. There is a deeper problem--or I, at least, regard it as a problem--which explains both of the above-elaborated problems. Namely, as a community, Wikipedia lacks the habit or tradition of respect for expertise. As a community, far from being elitist (which would, in this context, mean excluding the unwashed masses), it is anti-elitist (which, in this context, means that expertise is not accorded any special respect, and snubs and disrespect of expertise is tolerated). This is one of my failures: a policy that I attempted to institute in Wikipedia's first year, but for which I did not muster adequate support, was the policy of respecting and deferring politely to experts. (Those who were there will, I hope, remember that I tried very hard.)

I need not recount the history of how this nascent policy eventually withered and died. Ultimately, it became very clear that the most active and influential members of the project--beginning with Jimmy Wales, who hired me to start a free encyclopedia project and who now manages Wikipedia and Wikimedia--were decidedly anti-elitist in the above-described sense.

Consequently, nearly everyone with much expertise but little patience will avoid editing Wikipedia, because they will--at least if they are editing articles on articles that are subject to any sort of controversy--be forced to defend their edits on article discussion pages against attacks by nonexperts. This is not perhaps so bad in itself. But if the expert should have the gall to complain to the community about the problem, he or she will be shouted down (at worst) or politely asked to "work with" persons who have proven themselves to be unreasonable (at best).

This lack of respect for expertise explains the first problem, because if the project participants had greater respect for expertise, they would have long since invited a board of academics and researchers to manage a culled version of Wikipedia (one that, I think, would not directly affect the way the main project is run). But because project participants have such a horror of the traditional deference to expertise, this sort of proposal has never been taken very seriously by most Wikipedians leading the project now. And so much the worse for Wikipedia and its reputation.

This lack of respect for expertise and authority also explains the second problem, because again if the project participants had greater respect for expertise, there would necessarily be very little patience for those who deliberately disrupt the project. This is perhaps not obvious, so let me explain. To attact and retain the participation of experts, there would have to be little patience for those who do not understand or agree with Wikipedia's mission, or even for those pretentious mediocrities who are not able to work with others constructively and recognize when there are holes in their knowledge (collectively, probably the most disruptive group of all). A less tolerant attitude toward disruption would make the project more polite, welcoming, and indeed open to the vast majority of intelligent, well-meaning people on the Internet. As it is, there are far fewer genuine experts involved in the project (though there are some, of course) than there could and should be.

It will probably be objected by some that, since I am not 100% committed to the most radical sort of openness, I do not understand why the project that I founded works: it works, I will be told, precisely because it is radically open--even anarchical.

I know, of course, that Wikipedia works because it is radically open. I recognized that as soon as anyone; indeed, it was part of the original plan. But I firmly disagree with the notion that that Wikipedia-fertilizing openness requires disrespect toward expertise. The project can both prize and praise its most knowledgeable contributors, and permit contribution by persons with no credentials whatsoever. That, in fact, was my original conception of the project. It is sad that the project did not go in that direction.

One thing that Wikipedia could do now, although I doubt that it is possible in the current atmosphere and with the current management, is to adopt an official policy of respect of and deference to expertise. Wikipedia's "key policies" have not changed since I was associated with the project; but if a policy of respect of and deference to expertise were adopted at that level, and if it were enforced somehow, perhaps the project would solve the problems described above.

But don't hold your breath. Unless there is the equivalent of a revolution in the ranks of Wikipedia, the project will not adopt this sort of policy and make it a "key policy"; or if it does, the policy will probably be not be enforced. I certainly do not expect Jimmy Wales to change his mind. I have known him since 1994 and he is a smart and thoughtful guy; I am sure he has thought through his support of radical openness and his (what I call) anti-elitism. I doubt he will change his mind about these things. And unless he does change his mind, the project itself will probably not change.

Nevertheless, everyone familiar with Wikipedia can now see the power of the basic Wikipedia idea and the crying need to get more experts on board and a publicly credible review process in place (so that there is a subset of "approved" articles--not a heavy-handed, complicated process, of course). The only way Wikipedia can achieve these things is to jettison its anti-elitism and to moderate its openness to trolls and fools; but it will almost certainly not do these things. Consequently, as Wikipedia increases in popularity and strength, I do not see how there can not be a more academic fork of the project in the future.

I hope that a university, academic consortium, or thinktank can be found to pursue a project to release vetted versions of Wikipedia articles, and I hope that the new project's managers will understand very well what has made Wikipedia work as well as it has, before they adopt any policies.

--Larry Sanger

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e62ce8a4-5d3e-11db-9d15-0000779e2340.html#axzz17IS5Fvox

Wikipedia founder plans rival

By Richard Waters in San Francisco

Published: October 16 2006 22:08 | Last updated: October 16 2006 22:08

One of the founders of Wikipedia is days away from launching a rival to the collaborative internet encyclopaedia, in an attempt to bring a more orderly approach to organising knowledge online.

Wikipedia – which is available to be written and edited by anyone on the internet – is one of the most visible successes of mass collaboration on the web, with many of its 1.4m articles appearing high in search results.

However, its openness has also drawn charges of unreliability and left it vulnerable to disputes between people with opposing views, particularly on politically sensitive topics.

The latest venture from Larry Sanger, who helped create Wikipedia in 2001, is intended to bring more order to this creative chaos by drawing on traditional measures of authority. Though still open to submissions from anyone, the power to authorise articles will be given to editors who can prove their expertise, as well as a group of volunteer “constables”, charged with keeping the peace between warring interests.

Accusing Wikipedia of failing to control its writers and editors, he said: “The latest articles don't represent a consensus view – they tend to become what the most persistent ‘posters’ say.”

Mr Sanger said he had financial backing from an unidentified foundation for his new venture, while a web hosting company was providing its services free. He said he became frustrated with Wikipedia's failure to build expertise into its editing process and left after its first year.

Since then, the encyclopedia's other founder, Jimmy Wales, has taken some steps to bring more order to the Wikipedia approach, although he has avoided using authority figures such as editors.

Asked in an e-mail exchange how such disagreements should be resolved, Mr Wales replied: “With strong support for individual rights, and respect for reason.” His e-mail went on: “It is the fundamental responsibility of every individual to- think-, to- judge-, to-decide-. We must never abdicate that responsibility, not to the collective, not to Britannica, not to Wikipedia, not to anyone.”

Mr Sanger said volunteers would be able to become editors of his encyclopedia, called Citizendium, if they can show “minimum levels of qualification, based on real-world measures.”

This would be an “imperfect but effective” test based on “degrees, professional society memberships, things like that”.

Citizendium will be open “within the next few days” to a limited number of invited editors and members of the public who apply, and will be made generally available by the end of the year, said Mr Sanger.

It is likely to take Citizendium some time to prove whether it can create a better online encyclopedia. It will begin by simply taking over all of the existing entries from Wikipedia, then start the laborious job of having them filtered by expert editors – a job Mr Sanger called “a clean-out of the Augean stables”.

http://blog.citizendium.org/

April 11, 2010

Reply to Slashdot about my report to the FBI

Filed under: Uncategorized — Larry Sanger @ 11:43 pm

On April 7, I posted the text of a report I made to the FBI to the EDTECH mailing list, in which I stated that, in my opinion, the Wikimedia Foundation may knowingly have posted “child pornography,” by which I meant “obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children.” In short, the Wikimedia Commons “Category:Pedophilia” page hosted images with realistic and disturbing drawings of child molestation. The Register reported on this and it snowballed from there. Among other venues, it was discussed on Slashdot, where I posted a reply which I put in my personal web space.

I think CZ isn’t an appropriate place to discuss this, so I’ve disabled comments from this post.

Link to assassination article neglected since 2008.:

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Assassination_of_President_John_F._Kennedy

I think everyone with informed opinions should be editing and creating wikipedia articles, due solely to

the high google search results wikipedia articles achieve. If anyone is interested in how to edit wikipedia articles, how to format edits including links to support your edits, or would like an edit performed in a wikipedia article but find it too tedious to do so, I will be happy to do it for you or to convince you to go about it in a more deliberative way, discussing it first with a wikipedia admin., if it seems more appropriate to approach it that way.

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Wikipedia is a farce and a joke. In regards to its coverage of the JFK Assassination and related topics such as US intelligence agent Lee Harvey Oswald, Wikipedia serves to protect and defend the LBJ/CIA murderers of John Kennedy.

Learning how to "edit" at Wikipedia is pointless, because anything relating to truth in the JFK assassination is immediately removed or destroyed.

Who care what Wikipedia has to say? It's a disinfo site and it is only important to know that it tells a tremendous amount of lies about the 1963 Coup d'Etat.

[Daniel Meyer]

Wikipedia is a farce and a joke. In regards to its coverage of the JFK Assassination and related topics such as US intelligence agent Lee Harvey Oswald, Wikipedia serves to protect and defend the LBJ/CIA murderers of John Kennedy.

Learning how to "edit" at Wikipedia is pointless, because anything relating to truth in the JFK assassination is immediately removed or destroyed.

Who care what Wikipedia has to say? It's a disinfo site and it is only important to know that it tells a tremendous amount of lies about the 1963 Coup d'Etat.

Who cares? Well, I've watched Wikipedia go from an obscure wacky little website into one of the most prominent features of the web. Since many people read and use it regularly I think one should care about Wikipedia if one cares about the issue of the public being informed, if for no other reason.

I see ample evidence that the site is being used as a tool to promote disinformation. That does not mean that it is "a disinfo site". I think the distinction might be very important.

"anything relating to truth in the JFK assassination is immediately removed or destroyed." Simply false. There are some active on Wikipedia who probably wish it were true and endeavor to make it so. They've had notable success with a small number of high profile articles, and more success in discouraging editors with other viewpoints. Poke around a bit, however, and you can find quotes from and links to non-"lone nutter" sources, including links to articles on spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk, that have remained in articles for years.

If you think the proper response to seeing some lone-nutters gaming a system is to throw up you hands saying "it's all disinfo" and walk away, that's your choice.

If on the other hand, you think there might be some value in seeing how the system is being gamed (which requires some understanding of the rules of the game board and the usual practices of play), and that there might be some benefit in modifying the outcome of the game in a different direction, join me over on the other thread.

And even if there are Wikimedia Foundation secret disinfo guidelines that will doom any attempt to improve information on Wikipedia, using the rules of the game to make them show their hand might still be interesting.

Edited December 7, 2010 by Daniel Meyer

[Christopher Hall]

Wikipedia is controlled media - nothing more.

Sometimes it is accurate and sometimes it is propaganda.

I am glad that someone monitors the monitors of it (or the primary posters on it).

[Guest Tom Scully]

A sycophant, hard at work. McAdams's book is pushed back to September, but his faithful servant on wikipedia could not wait to promote it.:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_C._McAdams&action=history

John_C._McAdams&action=history

(cur | prev) 00:36, 12 February 2011 Gamaliel (talk | contribs) (2,152 bytes) (+Category:Harvard University alumni; +Category:American writers; +Category:Political science educators using HotCat) (undo)

(cur | prev) 00:11, 11 February 2011 Gamaliel (talk | contribs) (2,042 bytes) (journals) (undo)

(cur | prev) 00:05, 11 February 2011 Gamaliel (talk | contribs) (1,836 bytes) (seriously? this info is one click away, people) (undo)

(cur | prev) 04:28, 10 February 2011 Gamaliel (talk | contribs) (1,798 bytes) (→External links: why remove his own blog?) (undo)

(cur | prev) 03:19, 10 February 2011 AnomieBOT (talk | contribs) m (1,739 bytes) (Dating maintenance tags: {{Fact}}) (undo)

(cur | prev) 03:10, 10 February 2011 Threeafterthree (talk | contribs) (1,720 bytes) (add fact tag) (undo)

(cur | prev) 03:08, 10 February 2011 Threeafterthree (talk | contribs) (1,712 bytes) (→External links: rm el per WP:EL) (undo)

(cur | prev) 18:46, 1 December 2010 Gamaliel (talk | contribs) (1,771 bytes) (object to prod, add upcoming book) (undo) ...

John C. McAdams on wikipedia.org, created and eagerly maintained by gamaliel, aka Robert Fernandez

....Gamaliel worked closely with SlimVirgin and was very active in frustrating all of my efforts to delete my bio. He permanently banned me from Wikipedia in early April, 2006 for making legal threats. I merely pointed out that there was a new federal law in the U.S. that makes it a felony to harass someone while hiding behind a screen name.

In the course of developing my Wikipedia-Watch.org site, I have identified dozens of Wikipedia editors and administrators. Gamaliel's real name is Rob (Robert) Fernandez. Here is an old webpage of his I found that he had forgotten to take down. I moved it to my site as soon as I discovered it, because I knew he would whitewash it.

Fernandez is or was a grad student in library science. He dug out information about me from page 20 of a New York Times story from 1968, and took much delight in using this to brand me as a draft-card burner in my Wikipedia bio. Needless to say, that doesn't help me when I have to send out my resume to try to get a job.

Fernandez brags on his user page that he is most proud of his contributions to the Wikipedia article on Lee Harvey Oswald. His edits de-emphasize the conspiracy angle. If I ever find myself in court over my Wikipedia biography, I'd like to put both Jimmy Wales and Rob Fernandez on the stand. Conveniently, Wales and Fernandez both live close to each other, near St.Petersburg, Florida, which is where the Wikipedia servers are located, and where the trial would most likely take place....

Edited March 6, 2011 by Tom Scully