13-08-2009, 03:57 AM
This will come as no surprise to most here. Well documented as usual by Joel.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ISGP's problem with Wikipedia
One single admin able to wipe ISGP from dozens of Wiki pages
July 1, 2009
Joël
........................................................................................................................................
You know, I think Wikipedia is a really great concept. Anyone can contribute information to articles, while a relatively small number of administrators see to it that the information remains objective and verifiable. Despite criticism that "anyone can write anything", in reality the vast majority of Wikipedia articles are well sourced and very reliable.
However, as usual, problems arise when it comes to controversial information. Many people cannot deal with this and without even thinking they just discard it. That's too bad, but not much can be done about it. What is worrying, however, is that some Wikipedia editors posses similar character traits. And occasionally, like in this case, they seem to go berserk.
An unwelcome surprise
Today I had actually planned to write a little piece to ask people who take information from this site if they can double-check what I've written before writing down anything themselves. I've noticed that persons discussing my work half of the time cannot get the facts straight. The latest example is the following addition to Etienne Davignon's biography on Wikipedia:
"Around 1996, Regina Louf (X1 witness) accused Davignon of being involved in a child abuse network. She testified having seen him abusing children in a hotel in Knokke. Her testimony was discredited based on her psychological state."
It was not Regina Louf (X1) who made the claim to have seen Davignon. It was X2 who had stated this. So when making serious entries like these, please read before you write anything down. You become very easy to discredit when making mistakes like this. I really recommend that with every sentence you write down, you go back to source and check my exact wording. You'll be amazed how often you remembered something wrong.
Anyway, soon after seeing this new addition to Davignon's biography, I noticed that the link to ISGP had been deleted. More amazing, it turned out that every reference to ISGP anywhere on Wikipedia had been deleted around the same time. At first I thought this was the result of the careless mistake in Davignon's biography. However, it turns out that this was not the cause.
The cause turns out to be a Wikipedia admin nicknamed Will Beback. On June 29, at 20:41 (GMT), Beback apparently came across ISGP while editing Wikipedia's WWF page. This person, whose apparent internet information can be found below, decided to take a look at ISGP for less than five minutes. In response he decided it was his right to delete all references on Wikipedia to ISGP without spending one more second of fact checking.
IP
69.104.219.235 Host name
adsl-69-104-219-235.dsl.irvnca.pacbell.net Location Los Angeles, California 29th June 2009 23:41:43 No referring link
www.isgp.eu/index.html 29th June 2009 23:42:52 www.isgp.eu/index.html
www.isgp.eu/about.htm 29th June 2009 23:45:30 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1001_Club
www.isgp.eu/index.html 29th June 2009 23:49:43 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1001_Club
www.isgp.eu/organisations/1001_Club_members_list.htm Total visit time 8 minutes and 0 seconds Beback's incompetence
For a veteran Wikipedia admin, Beback doesn't seem to be a particularly bright light. Amazingly, he left the incorrect paragraph in Davignon's bio untouched. As of this writing, it's still there. Beback only deleted the source, which, ironically, would have shown that there's a serious mistake on Wikipedia.
Another interesting point is Wikipedia's 1001 Club article, in which the apparently nefarious influence of ISGP was first neutralized. This is the paragraph Beback deleted (except for the first sentence):
"The membership of the 1001 Club largely consists of managers of banks and multinationals from around the world. Examples from past and present include Sir Eric Drake of British Petroleum, Sir Val Duncan of Rio Tinto, Harry Frederick Oppenheimer and Sidney Spiro of Anglo-American Corporation, the British and French Rothschilds, Michel David-Weill of Lazard, Laurance and David Rockefeller, Henry Ford II, Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, Edmond Safra, Peter von Siemens, and Berthold Beitz of Krupp. Among the more remarkable members have been Salem bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's older half-brother; Mobutu Sese Seko, the dictator of Zaire; BCCI founder and president Agha Hasan Abedi; Juan Carlos I King of Spain; early Zionist operatives as Louis Bloomfield and Tibor Rosenbaum; and the controversial businessman Nelson Bunker Hunt."
Beback deleted all the names, providing us with the following explanation: "trim unsourced list that includes living people". Excuse me, unsourced!? Oh, wait, of course this list is unsourced, as several minutes earlier Beback himself had deleted the links to photocopies of the membership list in which all these names could be found! The ISGP log shows Beback has been on the page where these photocopies could be found. Unless he's a hyperactive 12-year-old, it's incomprehensible to me how he could have missed this.
As you can see at the bottom of this article, over the next hour Beback deleted all entries of ISGP on Wikipedia - from the Bohemian Grove, the Pilgrims Society, and Le Cercle to about a dozen individual biographies. As we can see from ISGP's statistics, the Wiki admin did not once bother to check any other link. He just indiscriminately deleted everything that had to do with ISGP.
Even very important and detailed criticism on the Disclosure Project was deleted (Steven Greer must be so happy), while in the Pilgrims Society article Charles Savoie was allowed to remain. This is another clear indication that Beback only paid attention to his delete button and not at all to the subject at hand, nor the quality of the sources. You wonder if this is the kind of admin Wikipedia needs...
Sometimes Wikipedia is ISGP
It's ironic that Wikipedia pages as the Pilgrims Society, the 1001 Club and Le Cercle are almost entirely based on the work of ISGP. As I've already explained in the FAQ:
"When PEHI/ISGP first wrote about the Cercle, the 1001 Club, and the Pilgrims, entries on Wikipedia about these societies did not exist. In each case they were added shortly after the PEHI/ISGP articles had been uploaded. Virtually no other information existed on these groups at the time. Wikipedia's Sun Valley/Allen & Co. entry took years before it was created. Wikipedia's JASON Group article did exist, but was far from complete. At least half of the members were taken from ISGP. Details about the Bohemian Grove camps and the visitors also came from ISGP. Although membership lists have leaked in recent years, back in 2005/2006 none were in the public domain and names were scattered all over the place. ISGP has been responsible for other information on Wikipedia, mainly relating to the Dutroux affair and snuff films. In many cases this information was removed for no good reason - sometimes after six months of continuous visits and no complaints."
Indeed, although ISGP was listed on about 30 different Wikipedia pages, it has been deleted from at least a dozen more. The JASON Group is one of them, but especially not done has been the addition of information from Beyond Dutroux or even Le Cercle to individual biographies on Wikipedia. Sometimes the information itself stuck - as the fact that Antoine Pinay was involved in setting up the Pinay Cercle - but the source of the information - ISGP - was deleted. In other cases entire paragraphs were undone and in at least one case a group of Belgian lawyers began to intimidate Wikipedia France after one of its admins expanded on the darker aspects of the life of Paul Vanden Boeynants. These legal threats were not unique, by the way, nor other forms of apparent intimation - but that's a whole other discussion.
The point being
The point here is that a single Wikipedia admin named Will Beback has decided that the world has no need for the information on ISGP, even though dozens have been responsible for adding this information and even though thousands have seen these links but never felt the need to delete them. And the most astonishing thing is that this person never even bothered to check up on any of the material presented. He left mistakes and deleted undeniable and very unique sources. If his actions are not reversed, many thousands less will come across this site over the years, as Wikipedia has considerably increased overall visits to this site both directly (links) and indirectly (Google page ranking).
Things go the way go and I guess Will Beback is just one of the many reflections of our imperfect society. It would be nice if you all could try to reverse his actions, but if not, so be it.
Will Beback's anti-ISGP rampage (GMT):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Con...ill_Beback
http://www.isgp.eu/miscellaneous/ISGP_de..._admin.htm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ISGP's problem with Wikipedia
One single admin able to wipe ISGP from dozens of Wiki pages
July 1, 2009
Joël
........................................................................................................................................
You know, I think Wikipedia is a really great concept. Anyone can contribute information to articles, while a relatively small number of administrators see to it that the information remains objective and verifiable. Despite criticism that "anyone can write anything", in reality the vast majority of Wikipedia articles are well sourced and very reliable.
However, as usual, problems arise when it comes to controversial information. Many people cannot deal with this and without even thinking they just discard it. That's too bad, but not much can be done about it. What is worrying, however, is that some Wikipedia editors posses similar character traits. And occasionally, like in this case, they seem to go berserk.
An unwelcome surprise
Today I had actually planned to write a little piece to ask people who take information from this site if they can double-check what I've written before writing down anything themselves. I've noticed that persons discussing my work half of the time cannot get the facts straight. The latest example is the following addition to Etienne Davignon's biography on Wikipedia:
"Around 1996, Regina Louf (X1 witness) accused Davignon of being involved in a child abuse network. She testified having seen him abusing children in a hotel in Knokke. Her testimony was discredited based on her psychological state."
It was not Regina Louf (X1) who made the claim to have seen Davignon. It was X2 who had stated this. So when making serious entries like these, please read before you write anything down. You become very easy to discredit when making mistakes like this. I really recommend that with every sentence you write down, you go back to source and check my exact wording. You'll be amazed how often you remembered something wrong.
Anyway, soon after seeing this new addition to Davignon's biography, I noticed that the link to ISGP had been deleted. More amazing, it turned out that every reference to ISGP anywhere on Wikipedia had been deleted around the same time. At first I thought this was the result of the careless mistake in Davignon's biography. However, it turns out that this was not the cause.
The cause turns out to be a Wikipedia admin nicknamed Will Beback. On June 29, at 20:41 (GMT), Beback apparently came across ISGP while editing Wikipedia's WWF page. This person, whose apparent internet information can be found below, decided to take a look at ISGP for less than five minutes. In response he decided it was his right to delete all references on Wikipedia to ISGP without spending one more second of fact checking.
IP
69.104.219.235 Host name
adsl-69-104-219-235.dsl.irvnca.pacbell.net Location Los Angeles, California 29th June 2009 23:41:43 No referring link
www.isgp.eu/index.html 29th June 2009 23:42:52 www.isgp.eu/index.html
www.isgp.eu/about.htm 29th June 2009 23:45:30 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1001_Club
www.isgp.eu/index.html 29th June 2009 23:49:43 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1001_Club
www.isgp.eu/organisations/1001_Club_members_list.htm Total visit time 8 minutes and 0 seconds Beback's incompetence
For a veteran Wikipedia admin, Beback doesn't seem to be a particularly bright light. Amazingly, he left the incorrect paragraph in Davignon's bio untouched. As of this writing, it's still there. Beback only deleted the source, which, ironically, would have shown that there's a serious mistake on Wikipedia.
Another interesting point is Wikipedia's 1001 Club article, in which the apparently nefarious influence of ISGP was first neutralized. This is the paragraph Beback deleted (except for the first sentence):
"The membership of the 1001 Club largely consists of managers of banks and multinationals from around the world. Examples from past and present include Sir Eric Drake of British Petroleum, Sir Val Duncan of Rio Tinto, Harry Frederick Oppenheimer and Sidney Spiro of Anglo-American Corporation, the British and French Rothschilds, Michel David-Weill of Lazard, Laurance and David Rockefeller, Henry Ford II, Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, Edmond Safra, Peter von Siemens, and Berthold Beitz of Krupp. Among the more remarkable members have been Salem bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's older half-brother; Mobutu Sese Seko, the dictator of Zaire; BCCI founder and president Agha Hasan Abedi; Juan Carlos I King of Spain; early Zionist operatives as Louis Bloomfield and Tibor Rosenbaum; and the controversial businessman Nelson Bunker Hunt."
Beback deleted all the names, providing us with the following explanation: "trim unsourced list that includes living people". Excuse me, unsourced!? Oh, wait, of course this list is unsourced, as several minutes earlier Beback himself had deleted the links to photocopies of the membership list in which all these names could be found! The ISGP log shows Beback has been on the page where these photocopies could be found. Unless he's a hyperactive 12-year-old, it's incomprehensible to me how he could have missed this.
As you can see at the bottom of this article, over the next hour Beback deleted all entries of ISGP on Wikipedia - from the Bohemian Grove, the Pilgrims Society, and Le Cercle to about a dozen individual biographies. As we can see from ISGP's statistics, the Wiki admin did not once bother to check any other link. He just indiscriminately deleted everything that had to do with ISGP.
Even very important and detailed criticism on the Disclosure Project was deleted (Steven Greer must be so happy), while in the Pilgrims Society article Charles Savoie was allowed to remain. This is another clear indication that Beback only paid attention to his delete button and not at all to the subject at hand, nor the quality of the sources. You wonder if this is the kind of admin Wikipedia needs...
Sometimes Wikipedia is ISGP
It's ironic that Wikipedia pages as the Pilgrims Society, the 1001 Club and Le Cercle are almost entirely based on the work of ISGP. As I've already explained in the FAQ:
"When PEHI/ISGP first wrote about the Cercle, the 1001 Club, and the Pilgrims, entries on Wikipedia about these societies did not exist. In each case they were added shortly after the PEHI/ISGP articles had been uploaded. Virtually no other information existed on these groups at the time. Wikipedia's Sun Valley/Allen & Co. entry took years before it was created. Wikipedia's JASON Group article did exist, but was far from complete. At least half of the members were taken from ISGP. Details about the Bohemian Grove camps and the visitors also came from ISGP. Although membership lists have leaked in recent years, back in 2005/2006 none were in the public domain and names were scattered all over the place. ISGP has been responsible for other information on Wikipedia, mainly relating to the Dutroux affair and snuff films. In many cases this information was removed for no good reason - sometimes after six months of continuous visits and no complaints."
Indeed, although ISGP was listed on about 30 different Wikipedia pages, it has been deleted from at least a dozen more. The JASON Group is one of them, but especially not done has been the addition of information from Beyond Dutroux or even Le Cercle to individual biographies on Wikipedia. Sometimes the information itself stuck - as the fact that Antoine Pinay was involved in setting up the Pinay Cercle - but the source of the information - ISGP - was deleted. In other cases entire paragraphs were undone and in at least one case a group of Belgian lawyers began to intimidate Wikipedia France after one of its admins expanded on the darker aspects of the life of Paul Vanden Boeynants. These legal threats were not unique, by the way, nor other forms of apparent intimation - but that's a whole other discussion.
The point being
The point here is that a single Wikipedia admin named Will Beback has decided that the world has no need for the information on ISGP, even though dozens have been responsible for adding this information and even though thousands have seen these links but never felt the need to delete them. And the most astonishing thing is that this person never even bothered to check up on any of the material presented. He left mistakes and deleted undeniable and very unique sources. If his actions are not reversed, many thousands less will come across this site over the years, as Wikipedia has considerably increased overall visits to this site both directly (links) and indirectly (Google page ranking).
Things go the way go and I guess Will Beback is just one of the many reflections of our imperfect society. It would be nice if you all could try to reverse his actions, but if not, so be it.
Will Beback's anti-ISGP rampage (GMT):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Con...ill_Beback
- 22:41, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Bohemian Grove (rm self-published website) (top)
- 22:40, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) St. Elmo (secret society) (rm self-published website) (top)
- 22:40, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Le Cercle (rm self-published website and assertions) (top)
- 22:39, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Le Cercle (rm material based on self-published website)
- 22:38, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) m George Kennedy Young (fix) (top)
- 22:37, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) User:Will Beback/Weblinks (+) (top)
- 22:37, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference (→External links: rm self-published website) (top)
- 22:36, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) William J. Casey (→Director of Central Intelligence: rm self-published website) (top)
- 22:36, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Association for Cultural Freedom (→Involvement of the CIA: rm self-published website) (top)
- 22:35, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) George Kennedy Young (rm self-published website)
- 22:34, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Frederic Bennett (→Other interests: rm self-published website) (top)
- 22:32, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Peter Hain (→Anti-apartheid: rm self-published website) (top)
- 22:32, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Conservative Monday Club (rm self-published website) (top)
- 22:30, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Geoffrey Stewart-Smith (→Publications: rm self-published website) (top)
- 22:29, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) User talk:Chendy (→Reliable sources and links: new section) (top)
- 22:21, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) User talk:213.10.45.86 (third warning) (top)
- 22:17, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Pilgrims Society (→External links: rm self-published website) (top)
- 22:15, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Friedrich Hayek (rm self-published website) (top)
- 22:15, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Jon Snow (→Memorable incidents: rm self-published website) (top)
- 22:13, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) James A. Farrell Jr. (rm self-published website) (top)
- 22:13, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) St. Elmo (secret society) (→Membership: rm self-published website)
- 22:09, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Jonathan Aitken (→Libel action: self-published website) (top)
- 22:08, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (rm material sourced to self-published website) (top)
- 22:07, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Le Cercle (→External links: rm self-published website)
- 22:07, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Le Cercle (→History: rm self-published website)
- 22:06, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) The Disclosure Project (→Criticism: rm section sourced entirely to a self-published website) (top)
- 22:04, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Maurice Lippens (businessman) (→Child Abuse Network: rm material sourced to self-published website)
- 22:04, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Étienne Davignon (rm self-publsihed website) (top)
- 22:03, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Marc Dutroux (→Alternative views: rm material from self-published wesbite) (top)
- 22:02, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Bohemian Grove (→External links: rm self-published site)
- 22:01, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) 1001 Club (trim unsourced list that includes living people) (top)
- 21:58, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Talk:Views of Lyndon LaRouche (→Misrepresentation in Gays and Aids section: please be specific)
- 21:52, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) Great Oil Sniffer Hoax (→Bibliography: rm link to self-published website) (top)
- 21:50, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) 1001 Club (rm self-publsihed site, add cite req)
- 21:49, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) 1001 Club (improve ref, intro)
- 21:46, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) 1001 Club (→External links: rm self-published site)
- 21:45, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) 1001 Club (→Alternative views: rm link to self-published site)
- 21:40, 29 June 2009 (hist) (diff) World Wide Fund for Nature (→Cambodia controversy: wl, refs, trim "controversy") (top)
- 08:55, 1 July 2009 (hist) (diff) Maurice Lippens (businessman) (undo - extraordinary clai, requires highly reliable source, www.isgp.eu doesn't qualify) (top)
http://www.isgp.eu/miscellaneous/ISGP_de..._admin.htm
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.