Copy of the article "The Paid Editing Clusterfuck of Wifione"

One of the biggest problems with Wikipedia since The Popularity began has to be the paid editing of articles on corporations, private colleges, the bios of any living person, and so on. As with most things Wikipedia, paid editing breaks their rules on conflict of interest but it happens so much, all the ever-shrinking army of editors do is ban the most egregious cases.

One such case is Wifione. He/she/it/they was banned a month ago or so for being a sockpuppet army of paid editing, though knowing socks, Wifione will re-emerge with another lame pun for a handle and a slightly-different IP. So who were "they"? One of my sources thinks Wifione was possibly a former Wikipedia admin called "Nichalp" who was also "Zithan" and the Zithan account was a paid editor (which was banned in 2009, and Nichalp lost IP oversight privileges.) Whatever the username, the paid editor was allegedly a University of Mumbai electronic engineering graduate named Nicholas Alphonso who now lives in Australia. He started appearing online in 2002 at the age of 19, possibly using a college computer. But there are complications with that claim of ownership, because it turns out Wifione had more predecessors, all of them from India. But first, who were they allegedly working for?

The Indian Institute of Planning and Management is an MBA school based in New Delhi, with 18 campuses across India, that has been in operation since 1973. It's a father and son affair; the founder is Malayaenda Kisor Chaudhuri, the "honorary dean" is his son Arindam. The IIPM has been ruthless in censoring its online critics in India (Cory Doctorow called it a "diploma mill" in a 2013 BoingBoing post), though it and Arindam Chaudhuri were censured last September by the Delhi High Court for "misleading students" into thinking it had the power to issue Bachelors of Business Administration or Masters of Business Administration qualifications (i.e., they were unaccredited by Indian standards.) Worse yet, the IIPM was claiming it had been recognized by a Belgian "International Management Institute" that had been set up by the Chaudhuris, an "institute" that is not even legal in Belgium. As of this writing, the Wikipedia article on the IIPM has been locked for "new" or unregistered users so that "sockpuppets of blocked or banned users" can't edit the article.

So now we get to the repetitious part of the article, listing all the alleged former Wikipedia handles of Wifione. Thanks should go to Eric Barbour and some others for the legwork......

First there was "Drnoamchomsky" who came and went in 2005. Edited in a fake claim about IIPM using subscription-only Business Week as a source, was found out. This account identified itself as being a part of IIPM (".....Other institutes don't organize any lectures - we do.") The Wikipedia userpage has been scrubbed by somebody from the www.chomsky.info site for "impersonating" noted linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky.

Next was the more open "Iipmstudent9", which as finally blocked in February 2007. There was no pretense of being unassociated with IIPM ("Yes, this id [sic] is used by multiple students from the New Delhi campus. We were not aware this was against Wiki policy, and have agreed to get new accounts for each of us.....we're looking to protect our institute's interests.....unsubstantiated allegations by bloggers on a Wiki page make our institute look bad!")  Was kicked out for threatening Wikipedian "MakrandJoshi" with a visit from the Mumbai (Bombay) Police for allegedly revealing his identity. Also edited from IP address 61.16.233.196. On September 8, 2006, signed as "Mrinal", who later became true separate account.

During the same time but separate were "Iipmalum" and "Dipali Sakhare." Iipmalum  used the same IP address as Iipmstudent9, Sakhare was an employee of Arindam Chaudhuri. She was involved with setting up the PR division of a company called Planman Consulting, whose webpage calls it "an IIPM initiative". Iipmalum was autoblocked in 2007.

"Mrinal Pandey" had "her" user page created on Christmas Day, 2006 by Iipmstudent9....whom she denied being (....."For the sake of clarity :-) I'm not iipmstudent9 or whomever the person is".....November 29, 2006.) She made the November statement from the IP address 203.76.132.74. That address was one of nine used by Mrinal; one of them (58.68.49.70) is the IP of a journalist named Mr. Onkareshwar Pandey, of The Sunday Indian. Which is "associated" with IIPM and Arindam Chaudhuri (i.e. Chaudhuri owns it.) Mrinal was indefinitely blocked in 2008 for using 43 accounts to edit IIPM related articles. No worries; Arbcom unblocked "her" a year later, she changed her name to "Empengent", and blanked her user page. "MakrandJoshi" and Tarantino of the Wikipediocracy board watched her online activities for years. Either O. Pandey is Mrinal, or Mrinal is somebody else (office assistant? girlfriend?) using that last name for editing ID purposes. In any case, they work directly or indirectly for the Chaudhuris.

More minor accounts were:  "Dean.A.Sandeep" who appeared and disappeared on March 31, 2009; he wanted page protection. "Suraj845" was never blocked, worked with Wifione, still around in 2013. There's also "Carlisle Rodham" with a blanked user page.

 "MakrandJoshi" stopped following Mrinal in 2010 despite threats to his property and life; I guess seeing people constantly get away with their schemes must have been too much to take.

List of Wifione Sockpuppets (no links, aforementioned in bold)

RAVIRAWAT
Deborah Fernandes
Kumarsingh
Newsexpress
Matthewlocker
Doublecover
Carlisle Rodham
Empengent
MfginIndia
Bigbangboom 
Abhinaw01 
Atul005
Ravindra Sing Rawat
Rawat2008
Addy kundu
Joshua Artgobain Benedict
Maheshbopara
lanchappell
Richapatell
Sumitpatel12
Solankikumar
PreetiSehgal
PramodMehta
NamithaSahu
Nancy1986
Mohit006
Sanjay Acer
PromilaGaur
Shilpanayar12
Highestheight
Whitepaperr
Editorrahul
Mrs.hidden
Missshivani
Arjunsingh11
Fastmovement
Articlesheet
Smartarticle
Amazingarticle
Articlerelease
Articlexpert
Newsexpert
Strongreader
Deverma
Radhika15
Puneet27
Manojkartik
Gangachauhan
Heenasrivastava
Aakritiverma
Bhadrikajain
Nainasrivastava
Dharakashyap
Kanishkachopra
Kristinakaif
Trishnaroy
Amaritarona
Mayankchopra
Anirudhodja
Karangupta
Jigneshmerhra
Parthaagarwal
Pratikshamehra
Prayushagarwal
Rakshitchopra

Notes:
Accounts Fastmovement through Articlexpert were all minted 11-27-08; all were blocked on 12-1-08.

Account Newsexpert began the next wave 12-18-08.

Account Deverma began editing IIPM article after protection ended 1-5-09.


Postscript

After this post was linked to the Wikipediocracy board, Tarantino wrote this:  "Wifione isn't Nichalp. We know who both are." If you actually do, please tell, so that they can be shamed out of paid-editing of Wikipedia or anywhere else online and popular.

The Kinks - Muswell Hillbillies

One of those albums people forget about when they talk about The Kinks. Pitchfork had this to say about it back in 2004:

"Muswell Hillbillies came out in 1971, and it was the Kinks' first release on RCA. This explains why you haven't been able to find the little bastard for years, but the good kids at Velvel know what's up; They've reissued this 1971 album (and are filling in the gaps for everything up until 1984). Muswell Hillbillies may very well be the best Kinks album you never heard, a scathing but witty take on urban renewal. No, it's not quite a concept album, more like an idea album-- a buncha songs that are a bit downbeat in theme but lively in execution.

What's a Muswell Hillbilly? Well, Muswell Hill was a community in England that the Davies family had to move to after their neighborhood in North London was razed and gentrified. You do the math, kiddo.
 
Muswell Hillbillies features Ray Davies at his whipcracking best, rolling out lyrics like "The milkman's a spy and the grocer keeps on following me/ And the woman next door's an undercover for the KGB." It's a pretty simple sound, and one that's more folk and country based than any album they'd ever done. A wonderful brass band turns up on two of the album's best tracks "Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues" and "Alcohol" (oh, there's a good combination). "Here Comes the People In Gray" is a bluesy stomp about a man whose house is being torn down by the city. "Oklahoma USA" is a pretty ballad about living in a fantasy world "with Shirley Jones and Gordon McRae." But other than the insidiously catchy chorus of "Have A Cuppa Tea" (you may be driven to murder if you listen to it too long), I can't find much to complain about with these Hillbillies."

Tom Scharpling's "Best Show" Back on the Air as a Podcast

One of the great cult classics of latter-day radio comedy, the Best Show on WFMU, gave us the inimitable pairing of Tom Scharpling (writer/producer for the comedy series Monk) with Jon Wurster (drummer of "Superchunk", writer on a number of Adult Swim comedy shows.) Their style was the "reverse prank call", with Wurster calling Scharpling on air at WFMU as a number of characters who become progressively unglued during their calls, sometimes conferenced with regular callers.  Their inital shot across the bow was "Rock, Rot & Rule", done in 1997 before the Best Show existed:

After that, a mythos began emerging around the fictional town of Newbridge, New Jersey, with Scharpling "moving" the Jersey City-based WFMU to the town and Wurster voicing everybody who lives there, to the point where there is now a "Newbridgctionary" website listing them all.

Tom Scharpling would also have guests on, such as Paul F. Tompkins (member of the Mr. Show sketch troupe.) Above, Tompkins and Scharpling rip apart a radio ad for the 2009 "Gathering of the Juggalos" at Cave-In-Rock, Illinois.

The show lasted thirteen years, shutting down on New Years Eve, 2013. After an near-two year hiatus, the show returned as the podcast Best Show, and has been taking calls and letting Philly Boy Roy Ziegler do his thing every Tuesday from 9PM to Midnight, PST.

The original WFMU Best Show recordings.

The new website (episodes availible on iTunes.)

The List O' Fun (As Above, So Below....)

[Posted here in case the original post is deleted by court order in the future.]

The reader may or may not know that Wikipedia has a  "banned users list" (until they deleted it, of course.) What nobody but the little birdies know is that the Wikipediocracy message board, that bastion of sanity and good judgement under the leadership of Stanistani, I mean William "Monty" Burns, also has such a list!

The following fifty accounts have been banned from the Wikipediocracy message board as of December 2014:

wllm (abandoned the site a while ago, but ban him all the same, right?)

Willbeheard (possibly William McWhinney, Wikipedia big wheel.)

TZ9876543210

Tyrenius

tryinghard

Triptych (thrown out, brought back, then thrown out again!)

Tippi Hadron (wife of HRIP7, was fighting with Greg Kohs on messageboard.)

themelinda

The Wife (another old-timer bites the dust.)

Tarc (ditto.)

Stierlitz (even though he has been locked out of his account for four months.)

Sidereal (alleged Wikipedia troll.)

russavia (aka "the Russian airplane guy" on Wikipedia.)

Retrospect

rd232 [addendum: Robin de la Motte of Wikipedia Commons.]

Rathel

Pen

Off2delhiDan [addendum: AKA "Youreallycan" and "Off2riorob", noticeboard pest.]

my two pence

Montoya

mike

MathSci [addendum: banned Wikipedia insider, a nasty person.]

LiquidWater

lightnight

Langston

Kumioko (Wikipedia old-timer; tossed for "personal agenda", whatever the fuck that is.)

Kiefer.Wolfowitz (SWEET JEEBUS, they shitcanned him for "relentless assholery"!!)

kemanan

Kauffner

JohnJ

In the Gulag

Hydrangea

HRA1924

honeypot21

Freddy

Faye Kane girl brain (a real ranter; has Venus symbol in middle of name)

Elissa

Duke Olav III (why?)

Deltahedron

deci

DebbieG

Daniel Brandt (they threw out the GodKing over a "personal agenda.")

Chris

Charmlet [addendum: a teenaged brown-noser.]

bryansee

Bonkers the Clown [addendum: Singaporean kid with an imagination.]

badmachine (Wikipedian; doesn't know why he was booted.)

Analytician

Abd (even though he's been AWOL for months.)

3 to 20 characters

***

Certainly some of these people were crazy, or wankers, or tools. Certainly as a board admin you have to ban people from time to time. But having a secret list, like you are Richard Nixon in 1971, is the sort of chickenshit you can expect from a man who is attempting to run for Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee (aka Jimbo's Kangaroo Supreme Court.)

If the criticism website is as bad as the thing it criticizes, is it even worthwhile to keep it running?

[My sources claim that some of the people listed are sockpuppets of each other, so the journey to Wikipedia behavior is complete.]



[A person claiming to be Tippi Hadron showed up in the comments asking that her name be stricken from the record and her comment deleted. I wrote no. Below are all the comments.]

Anonymous December 10, 2014 at 6:52 AM

Hey sweetie,

Would you mind removing my doxx from that list, for my husbeast's sake? I'm pretty sure some of the folks on WP would have him for breakfast if this got out, and, unfortunately, he still cares about the place and thinks it can be improved. Also, could you please delete this post once you've read it? GK may be a flaming misogynist in addition to being many other interesting things, but there are a number of good folks left on WO, and, as for now, it's the only game in town.

Tippi

Strelnikov December 10, 2014 at 11:28 AM

No.

You haven't been reading this website, have you? We are not playing by Wikipedia's "delete all the child porn before the Feds arrive!" rules....we don't have "nonpersons" or "nonarticles"; unless a comment is spambot gibberish, it stays.

Anonymous December 10, 2014 at 11:47 AM

Actually, I have been reading this website. Your post about TGIF was excellent. The rest, not so much, but then again, I'm a rather demanding editor. So, by all means, keep my doxx, if you can live with that decision. My time over there was up anyway, and The Management made a couple of poor choices in the run-up to all this.

Still, I wrote some posts on there that made an impact. To find my name on a list that contains some of the worst pests in WO and WP history hurts like hell. I could give you deets on some of the names on that list, but you don't seem all that friendly, and I do have a day job.

For me, participating on WO was never about sides, but about people. WP has no right to hurt its BLP subjects the way it does, as far as I'm concerned. But then, as I found out at my expense, WO isn't that much better. It sure got its share of officious former WP bigwigs who couldn't write their way out of a wet paper bag. But lord it over us writers they did. Oh well. All in the past.

You take care, and good luck with whatever it is you're trying to achieve
Tippi

Strelnikov December 10, 2014 at 12:42 PM

You misconstrue; I have nothing against you, or your husband. But I am playing by the rules of journalism, and one of the key points in journalism is you do not delete things. You do notify the readers of errors in the next issue or as a tag below the article. Are you asking me to say that the list was wrong, and that you are still a part of the Wikipediocracy messageboard?

You have to understand that Wikipedia has been lying about its past from at least 2004, and that Wikipediocracy is following suit. I'm not gunning for you; it's Zoloft I want out. I've never seen a guy run a messageboard like him, outside of that hellscape at Something Awful forums; he is narrow-minded, controlling, and manipulative. He will sink the Wikipediocracy project in the long run, just as Mistress Selina Kyle sank Wikipedia Review.

Somey December 10, 2014 at 2:10 PM

Just to answer a few of the issues raised above, you're right that some of these suspensions were questionable and a few were unwarranted, but when Wikipediocracy was set up, a conscious decision was made to exclude people on the basis of "near-constant distraction" alone - even though this is similar to what Wikipedia does (they call it "disruption") and therefore difficult to swallow, at least in a philosophical sense. But the underlying idea is that all interpersonal disputes are considered petty and distracting unless they somehow serve to illustrate a larger Wikipedia-specific problem.

As for specifics, Abd is still active on Quora, which clearly is far-better suited for him. Badmachine (aka "Hipcrime" on ED) was a "pre-emptive" suspension, as he'd apparently been active in GNAA, but that one was still dubious. Daniel Brandt's status is the trickiest of all - at the time, he was so relentless in his pursuit of Tarc's identity (and that of one or two others) that we felt he was hurting our credibility and scaring off other members, but still, he was probably justified in that pursuit. Anyway, when Tarc was suspended, we felt it was only fair to suspend Daniel as well - Daniel even agreed with us at the time, believe it or not.

"Duke Olav III" was an alternate account of a perfectly likable member who, after we asked politely, agreed to stick to his "main" account, so that one's OK, I think (and yes, about half the accounts on the list were suspended for that same reason). Kiefer is back, and agreed to lose the avatar/sig that we all felt was needlessly provocative politically, but he's definitely confrontational (though in a mostly-likable way). Kumioko should not have been suspended, but you can't deny that he was a one-note member; WR would have given him a daily posting limit, but Wikipediocracy just doesn't do that.

"The Wife" and Tippi were suspended for essentially the same reason(s); they weren't good reasons, but once you're in the "insider" group the rules change, and not always in a good way. That's true of most forums, I'm afraid. (Hopefully Tippi's situation can be revisited someday soon and corrected.) Finally, Triptych just got on everyone's nerves as he was completely uncompromising, but he could certainly return to the fold once bad blood on all sides has cooled down a bit.

So, all in all, I'd say about 10 percent of these suspensions are unwarranted, but I could see how some might think it was closer to 20 percent, all told. A lot depends on things like ideology, history of interpersonal disputes, and resistance to personal insult in general. I don't expect the situation to change much, but we'll try to reconcile with some of the people on this list, sooner or later.

Strelnikov December 10, 2014 at 4:01 PM

Good to hear from one of the Masters.....

Somey, my beef is with the shit way Zoloft dealt with Stierlitz; Stierlitz was willing to walk away for two weeks when things got hot and heavy over the Michael Shermer nonsense AND ZOLOFT THREW HIM OUT ANYWAY WHEN HE RETURNED and at 2am TO BOOT! Stierlitz took screenshots and sent them to me; I've never seen a board operator act so petty, outside of the aforementioned SomethingAwful forums. The guy was thrown out for talking about non-Wikipedia material in the OFF TOPICS forums, which is pure insanity. I think he was curbstomped because he WASN'T a member of Wikipedia, so Stanistani didn't have to fear being screwed with in Jimboland.

Somey December 10, 2014 at 5:29 PM

I wouldn't be so quick to blame Mr. Zoloft specifically; he's running the board because he's more willing than most (even myself) to implement the wishes of the group, and if he seems inconsistent, capricious, or petty, it's because the group is only as unified as a barely-cohesive bunch of die-hards who don't know each other in person can be, which is "not very." I don't agree with everything he does, and he's definitely quicker on the trigger than I ever was at WR, but again, that's essentially what the group wants.

As for Mr. Stierlitz, he was actually a special case, and I myself was as responsible for that as anyone, maybe more than anyone. I'd say your opinion of the matter is actually justified, but anti-atheist content on Wikipediocracy is a hot-button issue for me and (IMO) a clear majority of the insider group, especially when atheism is conflated with pro-science skepticism - fairly or unfairly. We've usually been sort-of willing to grin & bear it when it's strictly Wikipedia-related, but as soon as it strays out of the wikisphere, it quickly starts to piss many of us off.

So, assuming he's reading this, I do apologize for my (and our) lack of forbearance... but even in purely practical terms, we really don't like to make it easy for Wikipedians to pigeonhole us as "pseudoscience advocates" or anything else that smacks of an overarching agenda. I understand that it's technically a form of (non-official) censorship, but anti-atheists also should try to remember that religious people are the vast majority, and they have plenty of other places they can say that stuff. Atheists, OTOH, have relatively few places, even online, where they can feel relatively free from it. (And all that said, the situation is far from irreparable.)

Last but not least, I should state somewhere that my memory of some of these events is by no means perfect, nor am I speaking for the group. I also shouldn't have mentioned Tippi and "The Wife" in the same sentence, above - while the reasons were similar, the situations were completely different, and the loss of Tippi is huge in many important ways... whereas suspending "The Wife" was hardly a loss at all (other than that she added to our advocacy-credibility on the child-protection issue).

Anonymous December 10, 2014 at 5:01 PM

You know, I could tell you a few things about the "rules of journalism," but that would likely be entirely pointless. You seem consumed by your dislike for one of WO's admins, and that does not make for good journalism. You have that in common with another WP critic who shall remain nameless, but whose writing seems mostly motivated by his antipathy for one of the founders of WP. I did call that person out on a few things, and was subsequently ousted. The site still profits from the connections I've established, but they now have one less writer. Oh, and I am the writer who put them on the map with the Qworty story. So, please, do talk to me about journalism. Not.

And Somey, I have the greatest respect for you, but please do not lump me in with "The Wife." That account was run by a troll. I believe I did a little bit more for you people. On the positive side, you still have plenty of officious WP admin-style types to pick up the slack.

Peace out
Tippi

Strelnikov December 11, 2014 at 2:36 AM

My sometime contributor Doctor Why (who is not Stierlitz) has this to say:

"Oh look, once again Wikipedia's furious typing is spreading elsewhere
on the web. Accomplishes very little and looks very silly. Why is it
that a serious open discussion of Wikipedia's problems usually becomes
this "Secret Squirrel" crap? None of you are James Bond and I am not
impressed."

Tippi December 11, 2014 at 3:31 AM

If you want to go down that route, please, from now on, address me as Pussy. Pussy Galore, the original fly girl. ;)

For what it's worth, I thoroughly enjoyed Stierlitz's contributions to WO, and banning him was all kinds of stupid, imo. However, I am not sure how much of that was Bill Zoloft's doing. He may have been following orders from on high. Wouldn't have been the first time. Bill may not be perfect (who is?), but he is not the ogre you make him out to be. And that's me speaking as someone who was banned by him.

There are people on WO who have turned petty and bureaucratic into a fine art, people who couldn't see the big picture if it went and took them for a drive in a mint green Corvair at the break of dawn, but Bill is not one of them (and neither is Somey).

I am reasonably sure that if Stierlitz asked Bill to be let back in, Bill would be more than happy to oblige. He's quirky that way, and he's anything but narrow-minded. But would Stierlitz want that, given the way he was treated over there? Then again, grudges. What's the point? Life is short.

Be well,
Tippi

Strelnikov December 11, 2014 at 10:24 AM

Everything in quotations in my last was from that person, not me; he's having issues signing in.

I am glad somebody recognizes that throwing out Stierlitz was an awful idea.....what Somey doesn't recognize is that throwing people out of a website opens the possibility that they (or their friends) will start criticism websites. And Wikipedia/Wikipediocracy are a huge conjoined target; only Reddit would be bigger.

Somey December 12, 2014 at 12:32 AM

It wasn't an "awful idea," it was a necessary evil. Religion (or the lack thereof) is just not our target area, unless for some reason it is. And I do recognize that banning people leads to new websites of a critical (or worse) nature - we all recognize that. But when you've already got the 800-lb. gorilla doing it to you pretty much all the time, you grow a thicker skin after a few years, I guess. It's the nature of the business.

Strelnikov December 12, 2014 at 2:24 AM

I've met Stierlitz; he is not religious. He is interested in bizarro stuff, and he hates guys like James Randi because he thinks they are fundamentalists of a very narrow-minded materialism. Because you admitted that you threw him out and not Billy "Monty" Burns, you are now on his shitlist....which is a very bad place to be.

Somey December 12, 2014 at 8:18 PM

I dunno, "shitlist" - that sounds like a potential fatwa to me...? I'd say he's quite religious indeed. Maybe I could be the first Wikipediocracy martyr and get it on with dozens of virgin babes in the afterlife. Woo hoo! I can't wait! :)

Strelnikov December 14, 2014 at 10:10 PM

Somey, he will track you down and expose you. That's the shitlist.

Anonymous December 25, 2014 at 2:33 AM

Finally, someone not afraid to tell it like it is. If there's anything we've learned from the Wikimedia Foundation, the fish rots from the head down. Wikipediocracy replicated Wikipedia's recipe for combining secrecy and power.

As the official Wikipediocracy spokesman, Somey is protecting the brand. I look forward to Stierlitz exposing him. It's well past time.

You have a few details wrong. More importantly, you are essentially correct.

Anonymous March 4, 2015 at 5:17 PM

Someone mentioned an essay I wrote on gender categories, so I posted a copy for reference. I was then immediately banned from Wikipediocracy. It's a perfectly innocuous essay. You can see it here: http://www.conservapedia.com/User:PeterKa/Filipacchi. Apparently, the long arm of Hachette Filipacchi Media tracked me down.

The Stooges self-titled album (1969)

Whaa??

This blog is a backup for the other blog; might also use it to dump links to things I like.