Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

[badmachine]

probably not paid editing, but certainly COI: Joe Garden, writer for The Onion among others. the article was started in 2008 by Spidermonkey71 who didnt do much else on wikipedia. he regrets painting joe biden as "creepy but harmless" and that The Onion let him off easy.

[ericbarbour]

Extreme blatancy, no attempt to hide it. Sitting on WP servers since 2004, barely noticed--except by Green Hills employees, and a few deranged Wiki nerds who would occasionally drive-by chop it down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Hills_Software

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... .6.100.120
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Quuxplusone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... Agent00111
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... _Tubbs_GHS

This guy seems to dislike Green Hills for some reason.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jantangring

There's a BONUS FEATURE too! Apparently co-founder Dan O'Dowd hates Elon Musk so much, he's coughing up millions of dollars to run ads during the 2024 Superb Owl, condemning Tesla for its "self driving" software. (I should also note that electrek.co was started by a gang of Musk fanboys. Their "reporting" is full of happy-talk about Tesla products.)
https://electrek.co/2024/02/11/tesla-ad ... not-elons/

Is Green Hills offering its own self-driving software, in competition with Tesla? Of course they are.
https://ghs.com/products/auto_adas.html

[ericbarbour]

This item made me wonder.....

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/13/bil ... -the-pale/

So.......How is Wikipedia treating Ackman and his wife?

Well, Bill Ackman has signs of paid editing. The biggest contributor, Deltagammaz, was blocked as a sock farm. Bill is a bit of a dick but that's pretty obvious from past media coverage of his charmed life. His WP article delicately skips around his connections to Elon Musk, his X-Shitter fiddling, and his Israel-right-or-wrong attitude. Go figger.

And the wife, Neri Oxman? Apparently she's "more prominent" than her wealthy Gulfstream-owning husband. And that's because her article is WP:OWNED by none other than consummate Wikimedia insider Samuel Klein. Her article also delicately skips around the fact that she accepted funding from Jeffrey Epstein, as well as her plagiarism scandal (which is briefly mentioned in both articles). Did she pay Klein for "services rendered" or what? Given that Klein is a notorious Wikipedia "trust fund brat" and doesn't need money, what could she have possibly given him?

I have many things to say about Samuel Klein--most of them uncomplementary. Nuff said.

[ericbarbour]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angel ... r_District
What crap. Tagged for bad references since 2022 and not fixed.
Go ahead--try to claim this isn't paid editing. Bad paid editing.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, dozens of small flower malls and shops came downtown to do business near the renowned, historic Los Angeles Flower District; they consider themselves part of the District. Today, the general public shops throughout the area for its flowers and floral supply products alongside the retail florists and wedding and event planners. The District stretches from San Pedro Street west to Maple Street, from Seventh Street south to Ninth Street. But the two historic, major markets built the strong foundation of trust and quality through tenant-wholesalers who have supplied and shipped fresh flowers to customers across America for almost 100 years.

A prominent area to check out here is the California Flower Mall.[3] The California Flower Mall is in the heart of the Los Angeles, Flower District. Inside you will find more than 45,000 square feet (4,200 m2) of fresh cut flowers and potted plants. More than 50 vendors provide floral industry professionals and the general public with exotic blooms from all corners of the earth.

The flower district has made plans to renovate and expand in its business. The plan is to build a 15-story building next to the warehouses where the flower markets are held in now. It would be the southern half of the property, where maple street and 7th street lie. The 15-story building would include 323 residential unit. That would take up the top 12 stories and the rest would be for office space, retail space, wholesale market space and restaurants. The project is said to finish hopefully in 2019.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... werstoday2

[ericbarbour]

https://xtools.wmcloud.org/articleinfo/ ... r_Teachout

She's a big Bernie Sanders fan and a complete flop as a candidate for public office. Hippie parents gave her a colorful name (probably), making her stick out from the crowd of usually-progressive law professors. Otherwise, who the hell is she?

This article has that famed paid-editing flavor, despite the copious references.

The largest contributor, "Champaign Supernova" was blocked in 2016 by "checkuser action". And after looking at CS's edit history, it makes me think this might be yet another of Cirt's sockpuppets. Similar pattern of venerating usually-obscure Democratic politicians, and trying to piss on Republicans. A major and ongoing weakness of English Wikipedia. The latter bought this anonymous sock an article on Buzzfeed. And a permanent block several months later. But no one fixed the content.

"MootsieOrangeville", who showed up months after CS was blocked, was even more suspicious--blocked for socking after doing many serial edits that looked like paid action. Similar left-leaning interests and a Cirt-like fondness for Jewish folks. And if that is a sock of BrillLyle, it is unquestionably a paid sock. BrillLyle was blocked by order of the WMF in 2018--for reasons.

This makes you wonder. Not to mention fighting with people and being a hypocrite. Mootsie was WP:OWNing that article at the time....

SPECIFICO also edited it. Anyone remember that one?

[ericbarbour]

And now, for a small prophecy.

I predict that you will never see a mention of this story in the Sergey Brin article.

Because he is a co-founder of Google and Wikipedia sucks up to Google on an "unofficial yet pervasive" basis.

Have a nice day.

[badmachine]

And now, for a small prophecy.

I predict that you will never see a mention of this story in the Sergey Brin article.

Because he is a co-founder of Google and Wikipedia sucks up to Google on an "unofficial yet pervasive" basis.

Have a nice day.

22:54, 5 January 2014 Mark Arsten talk contribs configured pending changes settings for Sergey Brin [Auto-accept: require "autoconfirmed" permission] (Persistent vandalism) (hist)

only 3637 articles use pending changes out of 6,788,239. that sounds like special treatment to me. but also included in
^that category is America, August 31, and Bubble gum. very weird

[ericbarbour]

only 3637 articles use pending changes out of 6,788,239. that sounds like special treatment to me. but also included in
^that category is America, August 31, and Bubble gum. very weird

It was editwarred and vandalized quite a lot, but I also get the impression that one needs "special dispensation" to add anything about his very public two divorces. Especially the first one, where his wife caught him cheating with an employee. Tech billionaires are PERFECT and can never do anything wrong....apparently.

Just last year, some nut-or-nuts from India were trashing it over and over:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... trghbgv244
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... s/Bdheejhd
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... /Fhjf3hbrf
Either the "Pending Changes" was removed without notice, or it doesn't work properly. Either would not surprise.

[ericbarbour]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... .244.43.57
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... .97.104.30
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... .244.43.61

What do they have in common?

https://xtools.wmcloud.org/articleinfo/ ... athan_Bing

Also note KallosEsq, another major editor of Bing's article. Kallos has his own Wikipedia article. Which was mostly the work of one account, MicroMuck.

There you go; a "twofer". Logrolling by minor NYC political figures, openly, on Wikipedia. All this happened and none of the admins or mad-dog editors noticed.

Do they know each other? YES DAMMIT. Have done for a long time.

https://observer.com/2009/01/kallos-dep ... uncil-run/

[ericbarbour]

Maybe someone should ask Farahnazkhurshid; why the obsession with this article?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... ell,_Tesla

A lawsuit that was thrown out today. Because it was a bad idea. Why didn't they also sue OTHER companies that use cobalt in their products, like specialty steel manufacturers, jet engine builders, aircraft companies that make jets, glassware and paint companies, etc. etc.? Yes it's terrible that mining companies in Congo exploit children. But it would likely be more effective to fight it at the source, instead of dropping $$$$$$ on a speculative lawsuit in an American court.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-ba ... m=referral

And what the hell is "International Rights Advocates" anyway? One lawyer? Their website mostly talks about children being used to harvest cocoa in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire. Gonna sue every chocolate company on earth, or just the big ones? Best of luck!
https://www.internationalrightsadvocates.org/leadership