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>The story has now also been picked up by RT and the Sunday Herald. Seriously quoting RT (or Sputnik) in a serious article is giving them legitimacy they don't

>The story has now also been picked up by RT and the Sunday Herald. Seriously quoting RT (or Sputnik) in a serious article is giving them legitimacy they don't deserve. As for the substance of the article. Based on the edits they show it seems the guy really is manipulating the entries. Hiding genuine info and adding stuff that may be/is unsubstantiated. However this bit is going a bit too far: >The operation runs like clockwork, seven days a week, every waking hour, without significant variation. If Philip Cross genuinely is an individual, there is no denying he is morbidly obsessed. I am no psychiatrist, but to my entirely inexpert eyes this looks like the behaviour of a deranged psychotic with no regular social activities outside the home, no job (or an incredibly tolerant boss), living his life through a screen. A "deranged psychotic" ? Maybe he is a pensioner with nothing better to do with his time? Judge him by the malice of his edits, not by the time he spends making them.

rob74 6y ago
Well, we usually just call these people trolls, but if they are really a single person who is devoting that much time to the activity of smearing people they don't like via Wikipedia, I don't think calling them a "deranged psychotic" is an exaggeration...
pydry 6y ago
He said it got picked up by RT. So what? It's ancillary to the story. Deranged psychotics and pensioners do not show this pattern of behavior. This account is clearly being operated by a team who clock in and clock out. If the account were editing pages in a way through Russian government would approve of I guarantee that you would not have a shadow of a doubt that this was definitrly not an obsessed pensioner and neither would I.
amadeuspagel 6y ago
> Seriously quoting RT (or Sputnik) in a serious article is giving them legitimacy they don't deserve. If these are some of the only outlets picking up this story, they deserve whatever legitimacy they get from that. I'm sure the authors of that website would prefer to quote the NYT and the WSJ, but these haven't picked up the story. More fundamentally, outlets that are seen as reliable sources by wikipedia are probably biased towards it. If you look for example at articles about wikipedia from the NYT[1] and the WSJ[2], even if they are about problems with it, the framing is always that wikipedia is working on a problem. So critical reporting about wikipedia is likely to come from outlets seen as "illegitimate". To demand to ignore those is to demand to ignore most critical reporting about it. > If Philip Cross genuinely is an individual That's the key part here. [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awsj.com+wikipedia&oq=site%3Awsj.com+wikipedia&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.4432j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awsj.com+wikipedia&oq=... [2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+wikipedia&oq=site%3Anytimes.com+wikipedia&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.5024j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+wikipedia...
stareatgoats 6y ago
The duration an account is spending on editing Wikipedia posts is one clue to determining if it is a question of a person or a team at work. Teams may benefit from using a single account as privileges are tied to accounts, if I understand it correctly. This user is however the subject of a ban: if it was a team the clever thing to do would have set up a new account to circumvent the ban. So, Philip Cross is probably just a person with a mission. Agree that we can refrain from any further psychiatric diagnosis at this point.

rob74 6y ago

Well, we usually just call these people trolls, but if they are really a single person who is devoting that much time to the activity of smearing people they don't like via Wikipedia, I don't think calling them a "deranged psychotic" is an exaggeration...

pydry 6y ago

He said it got picked up by RT. So what? It's ancillary to the story. Deranged psychotics and pensioners do not show this pattern of behavior. This account is clearly being operated by a team who clock in and clock out. If the account were editing pages in a way through Russian government would approve of I guarantee that you would not have a shadow of a doubt that this was definitrly not an obsessed pensioner and neither would I.

amadeuspagel 6y ago

> Seriously quoting RT (or Sputnik) in a serious article is giving them legitimacy they don't deserve. If these are some of the only outlets picking up this story, they deserve whatever legitimacy they get from that. I'm sure the authors of that website would prefer to quote the NYT and the WSJ, but these haven't picked up the story. More fundamentally, outlets that are seen as reliable sources by wikipedia are probably biased towards it. If you look for example at articles about wikipedia from the NYT[1] and the WSJ[2], even if they are about problems with it, the framing is always that wikipedia is working on a problem. So critical reporting about wikipedia is likely to come from outlets seen as "illegitimate". To demand to ignore those is to demand to ignore most critical reporting about it. > If Philip Cross genuinely is an individual That's the key part here. [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awsj.com+wikipedia&oq=site%3Awsj.com+wikipedia&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.4432j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awsj.com+wikipedia&oq=... [2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+wikipedia&oq=site%3Anytimes.com+wikipedia&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.5024j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+wikipedia...

stareatgoats 6y ago

The duration an account is spending on editing Wikipedia posts is one clue to determining if it is a question of a person or a team at work. Teams may benefit from using a single account as privileges are tied to accounts, if I understand it correctly. This user is however the subject of a ban: if it was a team the clever thing to do would have set up a new account to circumvent the ban. So, Philip Cross is probably just a person with a mission. Agree that we can refrain from any further psychiatric diagnosis at this point.