{"id":266,"date":"2006-05-01T04:39:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-01T04:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roysac.com\/blog\/wp-admin\/2006\/05\/wikitruth-a-hoax-banned-and-deleted-from-wikipedia\/"},"modified":"2006-05-01T04:39:00","modified_gmt":"2006-05-01T04:39:00","slug":"wikitruth-a-hoax-banned-and-deleted-from-wikipedia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roysac.com\/blog\/2006\/05\/wikitruth-a-hoax-banned-and-deleted-from-wikipedia\/","title":{"rendered":"WikiTruth a Hoax, Banned and Deleted from Wikipedia!"},"content":{"rendered":"

WikiTruth.info<\/a> is a site that was started by 12 Wikipedia Administrators that “left” Wikipedia after years of contribution due unbearable “bureaucratic warfare” and especially after seeing an increase in active censorship taking place at Wikipedia.org at an alarming rate. WikiTruth.info does not only describe internal workings at Wikipedia from an insider perspective, but also published several of the Articles that were “deleted” at Wikipedia on their Website. Reported by The Guardian on 4\/13\/2006.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Story was “dugg” to the homepage of digg.com<\/a> on 4\/16\/2006. The resulting crash of the Wikitruth.info Website was caused by the sudden traffic onslaught and not as bad tounges speculated by some angry “Jimbo Wales” loyal Wikipedians that disapprove the content of the Wikitruth site.<\/p>\n

It also started some controversy at SlashDot on 4\/16\/2006<\/a> with over 500 comments by Slashdot’s Readers.<\/p>\n

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales<\/b> claimed less than 2 weeks ago about the protest site: “It’s a hoax,<\/b>” Wales said of Wikitruth. “There’s no evidence at all that there are any Wikipedia administrators associated with it.<\/b>” Reported 4\/17\/2006 by TechWeb.com<\/a><\/p>\n

In the same Article did he state: “It’s almost certainly people who have been banned by Wikipedia,<\/b>” Wales<\/b> said. <\/p>\n

The news were picked up by Newspapers<\/b> and Magazines around the world<\/b>. The renowned german magazin ““Der Spiegel<\/a>” reported about Wikitruth and Jim Wales statement on 4\/18\/2006. See the Post in the middle of the Page with the Headline: “Jimmy Wales: WikiTruth nur ein Hoax”<\/p>\n

Now it seems are not just “people” getting banned<\/b> from Wikipedia, but even links to WikiTruth.info from within Wikipedia itself. Not just Articles, but Article Talk Pages, User Pages and User Talk Pages as well.
I was updating my “Wiki Links<\/a>” Section last week, which included a link to WikiTruth.info and was surprised to get the following Message.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Okay, Wikipedia blocks users that spam or just perform repeated acts of vandalism usually after 3 clear warnings<\/a>. In cases of severe forms of SPAM (see WP:SPAM<\/a>), like Spam-Bots hitting the Wikipedia Site or websites links being added to one or more articles by different users over a period of time, links that violate the External Links Guidelines<\/a> another solution is available. You just need to get a sysop on the meta-wiki<\/a> to add a site-wide text filter for the url and add the url to the Wikipedia site-wide spam blacklist<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Well, I did go check and Voila, there it is:<\/p>\n

wikitruth\\.info #per recommendation of B. Patrick, the Foundation’s attorney. <\/b><\/p>\n

Here again as Screenshot:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Added to the black list on 4\/26\/2006. Here is a screenshot of the black list page history.
(which is also Interesting reading material all by itself)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Parallel to the Articles and all that was the fight going on within Wikipedia about the fate of the Wikipedia.Info Article. The Wikitruth Article was permanently deleted (after over a day of back and forth<\/a>).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

On 4\/16\/2006 already and the Editor who created it banned. Since this was not agreed upon by several editors (see delete\/undelete log), a vote was started to decide if the Article should be kept or not. Vote! Articles for deletion: Wikitruth<\/a>. The Vote ended on 4\/20\/2006 with the “offical” result: no consensus<\/b>. <\/p>\n

No Counts? That’s unusual, why was that “forgotten”?
Well, I started counting myself (feel free to do the same).<\/p>\n

Votes to keep the Article<\/u><\/b> or to merge the content of the Article to the Article “criticism of Wikipedia<\/a>” and redirect to it.
61 Keep<\/b> or Keep\/Merge
9 Strong Keep<\/b> where 2 where a bit unusual (Adamantine Keep and *Strong Keep)
7 Weak Keep<\/b>
31 Merge, Redirect<\/b> <\/p>\n

Votes to delete the Article<\/u><\/b> or Most of it before redirecting to “criticism of Wikipedia<\/a>“
25 Delete<\/b> or Redirect
2 Strong Delete<\/b>
3 just Redirect<\/b> (no content merged) or at least partial merge and then redirect.<\/p>\n

I don’t know where “Mailer Diablo” learned his Algebra.
I look at the Votes and it looks pretty “consensus” to me<\/b>.
A presidential election has never been as “consensus” as this.<\/p>\n

Did I miss maybe something? I am not a Wikipedia Veteran, but maybe some votes count only half or a quarter and others double and triple. Well, my count is based on the assumption that every Editor or Admin has ONE Vote and each vote is counted as ONE. Please let me know if I am wrong with that.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/b>
Now what does all that mean? It does not look like a “Hoax” to me at all anymore, but serious trouble.
I am not a fan of conspiracy theories, but something does not add up here. I guess there will be more to come.
Wikipedia Admins and Staff Members already did some silent moves. What’s next?<\/p>\n

Update 05\/01\/2006 1:30 am (PST)<\/b>
The Ban of Wiktruth.info was just removed per Jimbo’s request, only a short time after this article was posted.<\/p>\n

See site-wide spam blacklist<\/a> and History<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here is the screen shot:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

You might also find this special Talk Page<\/a> rather interesting.
I just got an email that told me about it. Check it out. <\/p>\n

The Wikitruth.info Article<\/a> is also back. Look at the change history<\/a> of the Article. It looks like a Wikipedianic Battlefield.<\/p>\n

End Update 05\/01\/2006<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WikiTruth.info is a site that was started by 12 Wikipedia Administrators that “left” Wikipedia after years of contribution due unbearable “bureaucratic warfare” and especially after seeing an increase in active censorship taking place at Wikipedia.org at an alarming rate. WikiTruth.info does not only describe internal workings at Wikipedia from an insider perspective, but also published […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wikipedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roysac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roysac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roysac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roysac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roysac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.roysac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roysac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roysac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roysac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}