Luke Faraone is one of the legion of myrmidons volunteering at Wikipedia. With his coloured hair and impish geeky Justin Biebery looks, he's the face of most Wikipedia editors -- believe me, when I went to some of Wikimania as part of Tech@State last year, I saw that the overwhelming majority of the Wikipedia editors were white nerdy males, with some females, and very few blacks or Hispanics.
Maybe by straining and folding in their worldwide population of editors, the Wikinistas can claim to be more diverse, but let's face it, we can't know because many of them hide their identities. They are unaccountable -- and it's only because the complaints system apparently requires a real person to answer that I found the face of this particular little nerd who is controlling how my Wikipedia entry is edited -- and hence, as for many people who meet this fate on Wikipedia, maintaining the vandalism and tendentiousness of my entry, which of course is not only libelous but a detriment to my livelihood.
I'm a big critic of Wikipedia and open source software and all things geek -- and kid working now at Humbug -- and formerly at Google -- may know that and it could well inform his tendentious ripostes here.
I decided after seeing a huge slew of vandal attacks (obscenities were removed but other things stayed) and another warring over my much-wrenched Wikipedia entry, to go and complain to their complaints desk -- for what it's worth.
Below, you can see the correspondence that tells you all you need to know about the soul of Wikipedia -- narrow-minded little coders who believe what they read in Ars Technica bringing to the job of "all knowledge on the network" their atrocious set of beliefs and hobbling notions that fly in the face of reality. They are always trying to radically wish into being new norms and to wish away anything that doesn't fit -- and with Wikipedia, they have the power in their hands to shape most Google searches for information, as Wikipedia is the result that comes up first (and this creates a vicious circle of self-prophesying algorithim primacy).
In my persistence in refusing to be bullied and refusing to submit to any characterization of "racism," I really fly in the face of three of the most cherished beliefs of geekdom which grow out of their own precious sense of themselves, and their having contorted themselves to machines with binary thinking. Here they are:
1. That geeks are infallible and that they always do an unbiased and fair job of coding software untained by personal beliefs.
2. That we cannot make judgements about truths based on something being true most of the time, even by a high percent, because small percentages would "taint" it and mean we cannot make any coherent statement of fact about it.
3. That we cannot make obvious judgements based on the science of demographic drilling (a la Nate Silver) but must maintain a fiction around aspects of polls that are politically correct.
Hence, when I made these three claims, I went to the heart of the fallacy of geekdom, and their most jealously cherished beliefs about themselves and their coded world:
1. I said that if coders/developers are liberals/progressives/libertarians voting for or supporting Obama, they cannot do a good job for Romney. Their heart will not be in it.
2. A marker for voting for Obama is indeed race, whether we like it or ot: 96.4% of blacks voted for Obama. Therefore a judgement that a black developer will likely vote for Obama -- and his heart may not be a job coding for Romney or other Republicans is not racism, but merely a report of our times.
3. Maintaining the fiction that any black person anywhere still has a .6% chance of not being a Romney voter, and therefore we must pretend never to notice obvious demographic markers or face charges of racism is an appalling politically-correct fantasy, and means that we lose all sense and meaning about what is racism -- it turns out to mean whatever some geeks says it is in a quest for power.
In fact, in our new world of "red states" and "blue states" and Nate Silver math, we can't expect the Republicans ever to overcome their problem with having few minorities. It will be an impossibility, given the true math and the actual numbers. No matter what they do, the Republican Party, in this scheme, will be perforce racist because blacks are now perceived not as voting for a president merely because he is black, but because he is progressive. Thus even conservative blacks who might have voted for Proposition 8, let's say, in California, are converted into a "progressive" block of "the 98.6%".
Someday, fifty years from now, perhaps these solid demographic politicized blocks will erode. In time, people will become disappointed with socialist-style politics that produce nothing but debt and slow the economy; eventually there will be more black candidates of all political persuasions so that black people who vote for a conservative black or conservative white candidate will not be seen as "race traitors".
Right now, they are seen that way as we saw in Congress recently, and it will be awhile before this stark situation changes. But it didn't change yet, and my judgement, based on demographic science, that black developers are going to vote for Obama is not racist, but merely the report of the reality of our times. It's a system not of my chosing, as I never thought it was a good strategy -- deliberately pursued by Democratic strategists -- to try to paint all opposition to the Democratic Party as "racism" because there was a black candidate.
Yet this race-baiting continues, and it continues with my entry in Wikipedia and the harassment of me in different fora.
Real racism, as I explained, would be saying that black developers shouldn't be hired; that they don't do a good job because of their race; that Republicans should avoid black employees. I didn't say anything remotely like that, of course. I said that *Democratic voters* do not make good coders for Republicans and *for the job of campaigning for Republicans* you need those supporting that party. The Republicans should try harder to reach out to minorities, not just to capture that tiny percentage that might be available to them, but to try to end these harsh and rigid race-painted demographics.
On Wikipedia, the vandals tried -- and failed -- to get me put in a category called "American racists" -- and failed, because I'm not a racist. This blog post of mine is all the "evidence" they have -- and it's tendentiously portrayed first by Ars Technica, then in the editing of my Wikipedia entry.
Some people like the conservative/extreme libertarian/whatever she is La Russophobe have demanded that I "apologize" for this entry. The idea is that I can be browbeaten into saying I'm sorry and somehow "restore my good reputation". She has been this lately to others as well.
But that's insane. I haven't done anything wrong. I haven't said -- as the Wikipedia falsely claims -- that Mitt Romney shouldn't have hired black developers (!). All I've said is that Democrats don't make good coders for Republicans, and that in this much-discussed firm, the few coders there seemed like obvious Democratic voters, and therefore were not likely enthusiastic producers for Romney. Targeted Victory continues to be criticized by blogs such as Red State for their failure to win and their failure to come up with fresh stuff.
So what is the solution? The solution is not for them to fire minorities, of course, but everyone on the team should ask themselves: are we really into this? Are we going to give it our all? What benchmarks should we give ourselves to prove this? We had two apps we oversaw mess up. How can this be prevented for the next customers?
As for the Republicans, I think two apps messed up, the arrogance of Zac Moffat and his refusal to concede his mistakes, and their lack of performance all around regardless of who their staff are or aren't is a good reason to find another agency -- or really, to do what Obama's campaign did, which was to keep all the digital work inhouse.
Meanwhile, this Wikipedia entry and Faraone's tendentious ruling on it of course disguise the larger problem. How many minorities are there at Wikipedia, Google or any of these Silicon Valley firms? We all know that SV has a problem in going outside its white nerd-boy networks to hire women and minorities. That's why it's easier to savage me and take a twirl pretending you are beating back "racism" than really look at your own real hiring practices.
It's also interesting to note that in making this latest round of edits, Faraone deliberately removed the lines about me being a prominent WikiLeaks critic. Why? Because in his view, the citations for this weren't somehow credible or reputable enough. Most likely what he's really doing here is getting rid of the evidence that there *are* WikiLeaks critics!
Below is the correspondence so far:
From its inception, my entire Wikipedia entry itself is an act of vandalism and "griefing," i.e. harassment by 4chan and Anonymous hackers active in the online community of Second Life.
Prior to this attack by hackers, I was merely mentioned in other people's biographies as their translator.
Although I am a minor translator and minor blogger and known only in the specific field of Eurasia studies and human rights, as a result of vandalism and repeated attacks and distortions, my Wikipedia is longer than many, many prominent people with commercial or academic publications -- which I do not have. I have only nonprofit books and news articles as publications.
From the numerous arguments and vandal attacks and rewrites of my entry, you can see that a small and concerted group of people continue to harass and heckle me with this page to do harm to my privacy and my livelihood.
I am not the author of my entry and do not know how to edit Wikipedia and have no interest in editing Wikipedia, nor forming an editor's account, or having anything to do with the editing of my entry.
I am filing this abuse report for the record as I am being constantly harassed via your service with this libelous and false material.
I have repeatedly cited corrections in the Talk section, and noted the tendentious and false information, but that has only caused various Anonymous hacker hecklers to claim I'm editing my own material, which is ridiculous. Ask yourself if someone who has translated from Russian 30 books, many of them members of the Politburo, who has a blog that is only known in limited circles, would have in their biography copious amounts of material related to a mediocre commuter college in Woodbury, California, where I've never been. Answer; because a group of hackers in Second Life who have been repeatedly (four times) banned by Linden Lab from this virtual world and have their rental servers seized have decided to speciously insert this into my biography merely because I abuse-reported them for crashing my servers. That's all there is to it.
They've also tried to portray me as someone who hates gays or blacks, although I am a human rights activist with many years fighting for LGBT rights and against racism. This is merely an attempt to discredit me in my field.
The entry claims falsely that I condemned Mitt Romney for hiring African Americans. This is preposterous, as Romney, if anything, should have reached out more to minorities. I made a separate point that he should not have farmed out his digital analytics and app work to Democrats, and firms with Democrat voters in them -- which is not a racist point but a point about how you get people caring passionately about you. Obviously Obama didn't hire Republicans or Republican voters as his tech team.
I am not the daughter of a poultry farmer and have no AI poultry experiments of any significance. And much else -- read the Talk.
My entry should be considerably shortened, if it were to meet the standards of Wikipedia entries for people of my stature, and incorrect and tendentious material removed. The anonymous and unaccountable people who have repeatedly made entries to this page are in Second Life, they are anonymous, they have no Wikipedia accounts.
Finally, I should not have my IP address exposed on your site merely because I refuse to participate in your account and editing system. My identity is easily verified through email or phone calls and there is no need to expose me to further harassment through IP address exposure.
Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
From: Wikimedia Support Team (Quality items) <[email protected]>
To: Catherine Fitzpatrick <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, April 1, 2013 11:05 AM
Subject: Re: [Ticket#2013032110004408] Libelous Entry and Repeated Vandalism
Dear Catherine Fitzpatrick,
Thank you for your email. Our response follows your message.
03/21/2013 09:35 - Catherine Fitzpatrick wrote:
> The entry claims falsely that I condemned Mitt Romney for hiring African Americans. This is preposterous, as Romney, if anything, should have reached out more to minorities. I made a separate point that he should not have farmed out his digital analytics and app work to Democrats, and firms with Democrat voters in them -- which is not a racist point but a point about how you get people caring passionately about you. Obviously Obama didn't hire Republicans or Republican
voters as his tech team.
What you said is that because they were African American they wouldn't be "dedicated", and assumed their political affiliation because of their race.
From http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/orca-was-no-fail-whale-
says-romneys-digital-director/
| "Truly, how can they expect dedication?" She also singled out another developer who is African-American and "who has a 96 percent chance of being an Obama voter…
> I am not the daughter of a poultry farmer and have no AI poultry experiments of any significance. And much else -- read the Talk.
I removed that information, see <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Catherine_A._Fitzpatrick&diff=548154688&oldid=545744972>.
> My entry should be considerably shortened, if it were to meet the standards of Wikipedia entries for people of my stature, and incorrect and tendentious material removed. The anonymous and unaccountable people who have repeatedly made entries to this page are in Second Life, they are anonymous, they have no Wikipedia accounts.
If there are specific cases of vandalism, they can be brought up and the relevant users blocked. If your article has persistent problems with IP editors, edit access can be restricted to autoconfirmed users.
> Finally, I should not have my IP address exposed on your site merely because I refuse to participate in your account and editing system. My identity is easily verified through email or phone calls and there is no need to expose me to further harassment through IP address exposure.
IP addresses for all editors who are not logged in are recorded for accountability. The only way to not have such information exposed is to create an account.
Yours sincerely,
Luke Faraone
--
Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/
---
Disclaimer: all mail to this address is answered by volunteers, and responses are not to be considered an official statement of the Wikimedia Foundation. For official correspondence, please contact the Wikimedia Foundation by certified mail at the address listed on https://www.wikimediafoundation.org/
Dear Luke,
You're a good example of the outrageous sectarianism of Wikipedia and why it's not fit to have to control it does over knowledge on the Internet.
Rather than use the tendentious portrayal of my statements by Ars Technica, or your own tendentious ideas of what I said, you should look at my original blog here:
http://3dblogger.typepad.com/wired_state/2012/11/was-al-gores-dev-in-charge-of-romneys-aps.html
I didn't say " because they were African American they wouldn't be "dedicated", and assumed their political affiliation because of their race."
I said *because they were Obama voters they wouldn't be dedicated* and I reported *accurately* that blacks have an extremely high chance of voting for Obama -- both of which are true statements, and not "racist" statements.
I said the following about Mitt Romney's digital consultants:
It happened because Romney hired a firm and didn't look at the project worker list. Well, to be more precise: Zac Moffat just didn't think that his former firm was something that might contain weak links in it. And that firm stakes its reputation, no doubt, on "science," and bi-partisan civic pride, right?
In sum:
o if they voted for Obama, they would not be dedicated in their work for Romney
o if 96.4% of blacks have voted for Obama, a black developer would have an extremely high likelihood of voting for Obama.
Again,
both of these are true statements, and are not racist statements. To
characterize them as racist is to reveal your own sectarianism. To
pretend that a highly accurate estimate that a black developer in a
digital consulting firm has at least a 96.4% chance of voting for Obama
is a report, not racism. That you think it is racism is why Wikipedia is
evil.
BTW, your friend Obama hired lily-white Harper Reed with
earings and a Mohawk cut, not any black developers -- indeed, all of
Silicon Valley, like all of Wikipedia, suffers from the problem of
failure to hire and promote African Americans. That's why you play this
game with trying to vilify people like me.
Once again, my entry
-- which would likely not even exist if it weren't for the determination
of Anonymous to dox and harass me -- is way too long, longer even than
figures like Evgeny Morozov with far more fame and publications. And it
is filled with tendentious dreck, like pretending that Woodbury
University is anything significant in my biography -- they are the
vandals.
My entry has already been persistently vandalized
numerous times and already should be limited to confirmed accounts for
that reason.
Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
Dear Catherine Fitzpatrick,
Thank you for your email. Our response follows your message.
04/01/2013 21:42 - Catherine Fitzpatrick wrote:
> That you think it is racism is why Wikipedia is evil.
I'm sorry you feel that way.
> BTW, your friend Obama hired lily-white Harper Reed with earings and a Mohawk cut, not any black developers -- indeed, all of Silicon Valley, like all of Wikipedia, suffers from the problem of
failure to hire and promote African Americans. That's why you play this game with trying to vilify
people like me.
There is no such plot, and that rationale does not follow.
> Once again, my entry -- which would likely not even exist if it weren't for the determination of
Anonymous to dox and harass me -- is way too long, longer even than figures like Evgeny Morozov with far more fame and publications. And it is filled with tendentious dreck, like pretending that Woodbury University is anything significant in my biography -- they are the vandals.
I removed some references to opinions you hold that were not covered in reliable sources, which trims the article down a bit.
> My entry has already been persistently vandalized numerous times and already should be limited to confirmed accounts for that reason.
Your page is not *currently* the subject of such issues, and therefore such a request would be likely
denied. If you want, you can request it at
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_page_protection>.
Yours sincerely,
Luke Faraone
--
Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/
---
Disclaimer: all mail to this address is answered by volunteers, and responses are not to be considered an official statement of the Wikimedia Foundation. For official correspondence, please contact the Wikimedia Foundation by certified mail at the address listed on https://www.wikimediafoundation.org/
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