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Duckpond: Who Controls Swedish Wikipedia?

'The sun always shines on the coastal artillery.'


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DUCKPOND — Who controls Swedish Wikipedia? Is it controlled (is it censored) like Swedish mainstream media? Flashback veteran 'Ooranienburg' decided today was a good day to find out.

At 14:25 local time today Ooranienburg added the following to Anna Ardin's studiously sparse Wikipedia page.

Anna Ardin blev känd i cybervärlden för att ha gett upphov till polisanmälningar om våldtäkt gentemot Wikileaks grundare Julian Assange vilket sedermera utvecklades till ett enormt massmedialt drev. Kontroverser uppstod i samma veva världen över gällande anklagelsernas äkthet och Ardin som person då hennes skrivna material som var raderat men som man lyckats återskapa påvisade att hon bloggat vid samma tidpunkt som våldtäkten skulle ha ägt rum och skrivit positiva saker om sitt sällskap. Dessutom hade raderade verk av henne hittats med instruktioner hur man går tillväga med vad hon kallar juridisk hämnd.

Translation:

Anna Ardin became notorious in cyberspace for being behind the police complaints of rape against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange which developed into a mainstream media tsunami. Controversies appeared regarding the truth in the filed complaints and the trustworthiness of Ardin in general as her material published online and subsequently removed was later recovered and showed that she was blogging at the same time the rapes were to have occurred and had written praise about her friend. Other articles by her that were recovered included instructions on how to carry out a plan of 'judicial revenge'.

'Let's see how long it stands', wrote Ooranienburg at 14:36 in the forum.

He was back but a brief moment later.

Oy! Two minutes! :O

'Sjö'

A registered Swedish Wikipedia user calling himself 'Sjö' reversed the edit seven minutes later with the motivation 'uncorroborated data of a controversial nature'.

But there's nothing particularly controversial about Ooranienburg's edit. And the proper procedure for edits that do not include proper references is to tag the articles as a whole or to append '{{citation needed}}' to the pertinent parts.

What 'claims' are made in Ooranienburg's edit?

  • 'Behind the police complaints' - this is easy to reference - is there anyone who today is not aware of this?
  • 'Controversies appeared' - no statement or claim is made beyond recording the well known fact that there have been (and still are) controversies.
  • '... material published online and subsequently removed was later recovered' - this too is hardly a matter of contention. Details are available at many sites including Rixstep.
  • '... blogging at the same time the rapes were to have occurred' - Not exactly. But approximately. Ardin tweeted the same evening (from the crayfish party) about what wonderful company Assange was. (And much more.)
  • '... on how to carry out a plan of judicial revenge' - Ardin's infamous '7 step plan' is found everywhere online.

So certainly it can be controversial to file false accusations (and even more controversial when one fabricates evidence as Ardin evidently has done) but that does not mean that the information itself is controversial. Again: the accepted procedure for Wikipedia is to request citations in one way or another - not remove content.

Wikipedia is littered with pages for rock stars and celebrities with the tag '{{citation needed}}' occurring several times per graph. (The tag is also used as an admonition for all too eager writers to curb their imaginations. But content is not removed.)

Wikipedians regularly urge writers to add material to Wikipedia pages, not remove it. Something's smelling foul in the Duckpond again.

So who is 'Sjö'? He can best answer that.

I started writing for Susning.nu in May 2003 and was an editor there until April 2004 when I came here. You can find me elsewhere online, sometimes known as Sjö ('sea') and sometimes with other names. I'm former military (the sun always shines on the coastal artillery). After working with hamburgers, refugee camps, computer science, and vocational education, today I'm a municipal public servant. I'm also a member of the Swedish Conservative Party, although I try to remain neutral when writing for Wikipedia.

Cavalry on Their Way!

But that was at 14:32 local time Sunday 5 February 2012. Since then a veritable war has broken out at Swedish Wikipedia, with the end result pretty much as expected.

  1. 15:08. The edit is restored.
  2. 15:08. Sjö is back to remove it again, this time citing that citations are needed (see above) and WP:NLP, a guide to writing about currently living persons. No further indications are given - Wikipedia is ripe with articles about currently living persons.
  3. 15:14. The edit is restored again by the same person as at 15:08 (and it's not Ooranienburg - somebody else has taken up the cause).
  4. 15:15. One minute again. This time it's a new player - 'Tegel' - who cites the same empty rationale: 'citation missing'.
  5. 15:21. The same mystery freedom fighter is back again, restores the edit.
  6. 15:21. Not even one minute later. New arrival 'Historiker' ('Historian') removes it again and cites 'citation missing'.
  7. 15:23. Mystery freedom fighter returns. Restores the edit.
  8. 15:23. Tegel's back to remove the edit. Annotates he's restoring to most recent version from 'Historiker'.
  9. 15:35. Mystery freedom fighter returns. Restores the edit.
  10. 15:35. Sjö is back, removes the edit, annotates he's restoring to most recent version from 'Tegel'.
  11. 15:37. Mystery freedom fighter returns. Restores the edit.
  12. 15:39. Sjö is back, removes the edit, annotates he's restoring to most recent version from himself.
  13. 17:14. New freedom fighter 'Jagarentwit' ('I am a twit') engages the censors and restores the edit.
  14. 17:14. The same minute. Yet another new player - 'Yger' - arrives (perhaps there's been a changing of the guard) and removes the edit, annotates he's restoring to most recent version from Sjö.

And so on. The first one to go AFK to the pub loses.

Sources Not Missing

Clearly there's a 'clique' trying to control the distribution of information in the Duckpond. Their own Rick Falkvinge pointed out the futility (and immorality) of such a scheme ages ago.

The sources are there. All mystery freedom fighter 83.226.127.64 has to do is bring them in. Then the world outside the Duckpond can witness how Sjö, Tegel, Historiker, and the myriad pond lurkers at Swedish Wikipedia try to wiggle out of it.

[Note: English Wikipedia wasn't as gentle: they removed the entire page on Anna Ardin long ago - 'no meaningful, substantive content'.]

Postscript: User discussion 83.226.127.64

Hi. Do you have an independent neutral source for your data on Anna Ardin?
 - Tegel 5 February 2012 15:22 CET

You can't add that type of data without a source, cf WP:NLP. To ensure the quality of our articles, we must substantiate controversial data, particularly when it concerns currently living persons. So please stop this edit war and stop restoring your edit again and again. Should there be any substance to your claims, then you should be able to find independent sources.
 - Sjö 5 February 2012 15:38 CET.


Of note:

  • The Duckponders seem to think Ooranienburg's doing all the restoring. They can't read sender IPs?
  • Even though it's others battling with the mystery freedom fighter, Sjö has definitely not left the playing field.
  • No one's ever reacted this strongly in a similar situation, particularly when it's about facts that are extremely well known.

See Also
Justice4Assange.com
Assange Defence Fund
WikiLeaks: Support WikiLeaks
The Police Protocol (Translated)
Rixstep: JA/WL (Assange/WikiLeaks)
Rixstep: Assange/WikiLeaks RSS Feed
Radsoft: Assange/WikiLeaks RSS Feed

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