Wikipedia Review
Wikipedia Review is a web forum for criticism of Wikipedia. It is run by a loose coalition of anonymous crackpots.
It was originally created by Igor Alexander on a free site and the paid site was bought by Blissyu2. Since it was hacked by Selina and stolen by Somey, many attempts have been made to purge its true history and distance itself from its true origins, and hence this page must be retained, at least in its historical context.
Over time, Wikipedia Review has become little more than a place for lonely and angry people to interact. It was long ago taken over by loyal Wikipedians. The purpose of Wikipedia Review is to act as a magnet for undesirable editors and to keep them occupied doing something useless and relatively harmless. (For example, see Wikiversity Block Party.)
Contents
Issues
Wikipedia review is a haven for disgruntled Wikipedians who have failed to advance their agendas and in many cases are banned.
- Lyndon LaRouche Movement (Herschelkrustofsky/It's the Blimp Frank)
- Overstock.com/Patrick Byrne supporters and conspiracy theorists (Wordbomb, Piperdown)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Eric Barbour/Nableezy)
- Paid editing (thekohser)
- Accuracy, Excellence, and Ethics in Online Media (Moulton)
- Cold fusion (Abd)
Players
- Somey
- Herschelkrustofsky - Lyndon LaRouche supporter. Conflicts on Wikipedia with SlimVirgin, Jayjg, and Chip Berlet. Banned, remains on Wikipedia, operating dozens of sockpuppets.
- Gomi - Gnetwerker. Conflicts having something to do with Reed College, fighting SlimVirgin and Jayjg. Banned.
- Wordbomb, Piperdown - Supporters of Overstock.com and Patrick Byrne, who believe that the stock price of Overstock was depressed by naked short selling directed by a "Sith" operative on Wall Street. Conflicts with Gary Weiss.
- thekohser - Wanted to write articles for pay under his real name, was banned. Conflict with Jimbo Wales.
- Poetlister/Guy - Obsessed with power struggles on Wikipedia, operated a sockpuppet ring that was eventually exposed. Received the infamous "Anvil email" from a Wikipedia functionary, a trusted administrator acting with the consent of the Foundation and the Arbitration Committee.
History of Wikipedia Review
Main article: History of Wikipedia Review
Holocaust denial and Neonazi origins
Wikipedia Review was created by Igor Alexander [1] (later accused of being holocaust denier Alex Linder) on 4 November 2005 using free ProBoards forum software. This site remained in operation until April 2006 [2], however it was superseded by "the new Wikipedia Review" which opened on 16 February 2006.
From February - April 2006, the original Wikipedia Review site remained up first in locked form, then was deleted, then briefly contained a lot of information which tried to convince the reader that the holocaust did not happen, before finally it was deleted entirely. Igor Alexander claimed that he did this in response to accusations, primarily by Grace Note, but originally leveled by SlimVirgin that he was a holocaust denier.
The "round table"
The domain name wikipediareview.com was purchased by Blissyu2 from GoDaddy on 16 January 2006 [3] and the site was moved there several months later. A plan was set in place in which the founders would share responsibility for the site. Blissy gave the password for the domain name to Selina.
Whilst this move had nothing to do with accusations leveled against Igor Alexander and holocaust denial, by the time that the site opened up, Igor Alexander had banned the forum coder Selina, and Selina had used emergency admin powers to ban Igor Alexander in return.
Selina took control of the domain name and Somey handled the day to day operation of the software.
Staff included Poetlister/Guy, who started a private forum to discuss Poetlister's wedding plans. In actuality Poetlister had no wedding plans as she was not a 26 year old attractive blonde but a middle-aged already-married man instead.
Daniel Brandt visited and exposed the Essjay scandal with his "Who is Essjay" thread.
Blissyu2 banned
Somey, Gomi, and Hershelkrustofsky took control of the site and banned Blissyu2.
Poetlister was found out and attempted to delete Guy's posts. He continues at the site under various new account names to this day.
Jon Awbrey, a follower of Charles Sanders Peirce, posted a lot, using Greek symbols and puns.
Kato was active.
Moulton posted about the Intelligent Design Cabal, a small but powerful group of erratic and corrupt editors on Wikipedia. He was banned after a protracted discussion regarding hair color and temperament. Selina unilaterally unbanned him.
Milton Roe was very active, posting a lot of political and economic discussions. Continually baited by Herschelkrustofsky, he left when the moderators started moving his posts to a "Thank you Mr. Know-it-all" thread.
GlassBeadGame was a moderator who was very active for a while, until he became convinced the site was dominated by Wikipedians. His foul language and disrespectful attitude eventually got him forced out of his moderator position and put in the Whine Cellar. He quit soon afterward.
Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, visited and discussed his concerns with Wikipedia, including the presence of pornography on the site.
Mike Godwin, former lawyer for the Wikimedia Foundation, also visited.
SlimVirgin joined under the "Hell Freezes Over" account and visited for a short time.
Ottava got in several political arguments and was confined to a private forum, the "Whine Cellar".
The ArbCom listserv was leaked and large sections of it were posted to Wikipedia Review.
Wikipedia Review supposedly hacked
"WR: NOTWikipedia Review is not a conspiracy, a team-building exercise, a role-playing game, or an experiment in collusion. It is not meant as a resource or training ground for those who would instill fear and misery in others. It does not exist to corrupt, but to expose corruption; it does not exist to tear down institutions, but to expose the ways in which institutions are torn down; it does not exist to hate, but is meant to expose hate in others. To expose these things is not evil. It is not a monolithic entity, nor the sum of its parts. Like-mindedness does not imply singularity of purpose; respect for the rights of one group does not imply disrespect for the rights of another. It is not intended to be predictable, consistent, or dull.
Imagine a world in which human beings are not user accounts, are not programmable, and are not mere words on a display screen. That's what we're doing...
We're sorry to say that The Wikipedia Review has suffered another attack by unknown assailants. This time, recovery may take a bit longer than usual, and we're aware that WR's recovery times have not exactly been ultra-speedy in the past. And since it was the database that was attacked this time, some more-recent material posted to the site may have been lost, and quite possibly permanently.
Needless to say, we're sorry about this, and we hope to take steps soon to further secure the site against this sort of thing. However, we're not professional web security people (and we're not even all that sure who "we" are in the first place), so you might have to bear with us for a little while on that score.
At least we've changed the video since the last time.
Thanks,
The Wikipedia Review"
Selina returns
Selina returned in early 2012, and got in arguments with Somey, Gomi, and Herschelkrustofsky. She exposed the latter two as being driven by private agendas and of using multiple sockpuppets on Wikipedia and Wikipedia Review and of posing as women. She also antagonized thekohser, The Joy, and Eric Barbour/Nableezy.
The staff convinced her to resign, but she retains control of the domain name.
Herschelkrustofsky said he was resigning but retained his staff designation. New staff were promoted including Dogbiscuit and Cedric. New moderators included Alison, Zoloft, and HRIP7.
Selina reestablished her Staffy designation and reduced HK and Gobi to Contributors.
Decline
Since 2012 there have been no active moderators or staff members, and no new registrations have been approved. New posts have slowed to a trickle.
Private Fora
Wikipedia Review has fora that are only visible to registered members, and some to only a select few "regulars" who frequent the site. The private fora are mainly to keep more public threads from being derailed and/or to set aside arguments among posters. This includes the Tar Pit and Feather Barrel where content that shouldn't be public can still be discussed without cries of censorship. There's also Politics, Religion, etc. and Support Group for non-public discussion. A brand new Whine Cellar has been introduced to contain problematic posters as an alternative to an outright ban. Only a couple of users have been confined to posting on this forum. There is also a "300 club" where posters who have posted 300 times have access to this forum, however it is not guaranteed a poster will have access to the forum by just having 300 posts.