Peter Presland & Wikispooks: congratulations

[Peter Presland]

...
On the logo; you may well be right but I've already spent an age on it. ...

I'm awestruck by your logo 'cause it's so excellent. Good clean simple logos are brutally hard to do.

What application did you use for it Peter? Photoshop? Illustrator?

Wow, you even created a good quality favicon with it. Also super hard to do. Kudos.

Thanks Myra

I did the logo with Gimp - that's an open source alternative to Photoshop, It has the usual open-source rough edges compared to comparable commercial offerings but very full-featured nonetheless.

A brief update on WikSpooks:

We've had just just over 6,000 unique visitors (ie IP addresses) to date. Taking into account those who do not have their own IP address, that probably equates to around 4,500-5,000 individual people. Only 20 registrations though and hardly anything by way of contributions/article edits etc. + the usual slurping bots and persistent regular attempts at unauthorised root access to the server. Still - a lot learned.

It's become obvious that separate servers are required for Mail/uploads and the site itself - security and other techie considerations being the drivers. So the next week or so will taken up with rehashing all that and implementing an Authoritative SSL facility for anonymous uploads and anyone who has a need to access the main site over an encrypted connection.

Then I intend to get down to the serious business of fleshing out the framework and getting some solid stuff up - always remembering it is intended as a reference site rather than a news aggregation or discussion site.

The site will remain open throughout and anyone with anything interesting to upload or contribute by way of authoring an article or copy/pasting reference documents (ie solid reference stuff already out there on this that or the other blog) - please feel free. There is masses of stuff like that already on DPF and I intend to make copious use of it (duly credited and linked of course) when I can get to concentrate on content.

[Helen Reyes]

The logo is fine, I was just being silly. A classical black trenchcoated spook would not make a usuable favicon I'm sure.

I'm sort of unsure where to jump in. I thought about maybe authoring something on Fred Lee Crisman or fleshing out the Pearl Harbour stub/stump, but should I begin where the OTHER wiki leaves off, or develop original content, or ... or just plunge in and put something, anything, up there?

[Peter Presland]

I'm sort of unsure where to jump in. I thought about maybe authoring something on Fred Lee Crisman or fleshing out the Pearl Harbour stub/stump, but should I begin where the OTHER wiki leaves off, or develop original content, or ... or just plunge in and put something, anything, up there?

Helen

Those are exactly the questions I wrestle with. I have to admit that some of the Wikipedia stuff is excellent. There's no precise pattern that I can discern. What I DO know is, when it comes to anything connected with 'The War on Terror', 9/11, Iraq and anything closely connected with recent/current military intelligence and political developments, Wikipedia can be relied upon to echo the official narrative. They will always contain a 'conspiracy theories' section but - well enough said. No point in trying to edit the obvious stuff either because after a couple of attempts and edit reversals, you'll be warned off on pain of being blocked. Same applies to JFK, MLK and the other high profile historical stuff. The official narrative rules and there's simply no point trying to edit some sense into those articles - you will be labelled a conspiraloon and banned.

But, some of the older stuff can be very useful and surprisingly establishment-hostile (apparently anyway). That is particularly the case where hitherto secret files have been de-classified or leaked. Operation Northwoods is a good case in point - as are the MKULTRA related articles.

I started by hoovering up Wikipedia pages. They can simply be exported by category then imported into WikiSpooks. The problem with that approach is that they are full of dozens of templates some of which call other templates such that the tedium and difficulty of an already difficult editing process is compounded by having to cope with literally hundreds (sometimes thousands) of bits of redundant wiki-mark-up syntax. I've abandoned that approach completely after wasting a lot of time on it and having to install an entirely fresh database and do the export/import thing in reverse. That is NOT going to happen again!

I now tend to put up stubs with a brief intro, invite others to flesh it out with a template message, and add links to corresponding Wikipedia and other stuff - especially good solid deep politics stuff and there's plenty of it around.

Right now I'm concentrating on getting a good logical category structure in place so that a single click displays the entire category tree beneath the one chosen - very quick way of finding almost anything when its done.

I'll jump in and categorize any floating content properly so don't worry about simply searching for a phrase that you judge describes your proposed article well and, if its not there, simply click the resulting red link and create it.

I think the potentially most confusing thing about posting new stuff is the distinction between articles and documents. Documents can be in any form whatever so long as they are relevant to the site and/or a standard article. They are for copy-and-paste exercises, duly linked and credited, from existing good stuff elsewhere. They are NOT intended to be edited but rather to be internal site reference documents for the main articles. I already have a list of hundreds I intend to put up and categorise.

So, Pearl Harbour or Fred Lee Crisman - or whatever. Just go for it.

[Helen Reyes]

OK I'll give it a try. I was thinking Crisman because I noticed someone wanted to delete the wikipedia entry for him, and it seems like the article has withered over the years from being informative to being bare-bones, although that might be a purely subjective impression, I didn't bother checking revision history. I'm not sure I can do him justice, but I might be able to get the facts right at least. With Pearl Harbor I wouldn't know where to begin, and would probably begin with PURPLE and MAGIC intercepts and "let it be" vs. "make it so" false-flag theories targetting FDR. Hmm. I'll sleep on it, thanks for the advice.

[Peter Presland]

A brief update:

Thanks to Helen for the Fred Lee Crisman page.

As of this morning the site has a total of 1,104 articles documents and files posted. Many of the files remain uncategorised; many of the pages need extra work - most of them lots of it.

I haven't done any more site promotion because I'm acutely aware of a host of security-related and software enhancement things that need attention - ALL of them distracting and time-consuming - and I am immersed in trying to get a reasonably comprehensive category-tree framework plus substantial content up - even if only in outline.

The 'Spooks' 'Israel Lobby' and 'Northern Ireland' categories (accessible from the left hand 'category tree' menu option) are particularly well populated - though all need masses of additional input. The whole thing to date makes me realise what a mammoth task it will be to do an 'alternative' encyclopedia of Deep Events justice. I certainly won't be able to on my own either. Still, time-enough for approaches to disgruntled Wikipedia editors when it has (if it gets??) a bit more credibility eh?

It currently averages just over 300 unique visitors per day equating to 4000-5000 page loads - which of course means that its content is effectively hidden from the lumpen masses and therefore probably of little interest to you know who - yet anyway. Googlebot and other greedy slurping bots are constantly trawling though it and account for over 10% of bandwidth consumed - I'd love to figure out a way of charging them :hmpf:

Right now I still intend to just keep plugging away and maybe give it a proper launch/push when the inclination to do so strikes.

Anyone with documents that would sit well on the site, please let me know and I'll see to it.

[Peter Presland]

I've begun to get some serious traffic on wikispooks.

I still haven't promoted it seriously but, having put up quite a few quality pieces recently, it seems to be spawning linkages all by itself.

David Guyatt has given me the OK to put up all his "Deep Black Lies" stuff. Wikifying it is a big job but I intend to crack on with it next week.

If anyone has documents in text MS Word or pretty well any other format that they judge to be worthwhile reference material in the Deep politics arena, please let me know. The Wiki-text markup editing curve is a bit steep for the first few articles but I reckon I'm pretty adept at it now and so am quite happy to wikify anything worthwhile that would otherwise not make it.

For info - the articles producing the most traffic on Wikispooks this past 2 weeks - some of which DPF will not have seen - In decending order of page reads:

• Cheonan sinking - it links to a document by Stephen Gowans which really is a MUST READ on the issue.
  
• How I Got Arrested and Abused at the G20 in Toronto - Lots of embedded video and pics with this - an amazing piece
  
• Tim Spicer - I'm a bit suspicious of this. Masses of traffic over a couple of days, all from the UK. I'm awaiting a letter from Schillings over the Craig Murray part
  
• The Ola Tunander article - over 300 downloads !!
  

Lots of other pdf's posted and categorised too - though most are probably already up here somewhere.

A couple of serious attempts at vandalism but I caught them straight away and they helped in continuing to screw down my Apache and VPS security

The entire site is now available over an encrypted SSL connection too.

All in all I think we have the embyo of a serious worthwhile reference - cum- whisteblower site in the making.

[Malcolm Pryce]

I think you may have come up with something rather special here, Peter. Initially I wasn’t sure what role this Wikispooks site was meant to play but I’ve just read the page on the sinking of the Cheonan and it hit me straight away: the fact-based, impersonal, encyclopaedia type approach with maps and links and no axes being ground...it’s exactly what the subject is crying out for. It’s so easy for the mainstream media to dismiss us as wild-eyed ranters, but presenting the evidence like this gives it an authority that demands to be taken seriously. I loved the page you link to in which the guy demolishes the claim about the ‘panel of International experts’. It would be great if the site develops into a central authority where such propaganda is routinely exposed. Well done!

[Peter Presland]

I think you may have come up with something rather special here, Peter. Initially I wasn’t sure what role this Wikispooks site was meant to play but I’ve just read the page on the sinking of the Cheonan and it hit me straight away: the fact-based, impersonal, encyclopaedia type approach with maps and links and no axes being ground...it’s exactly what the subject is crying out for. It’s so easy for the mainstream media to dismiss us as wild-eyed ranters, but presenting the evidence like this gives it an authority that demands to be taken seriously. I loved the page you link to in which the guy demolishes the claim about the ‘panel of International experts’. It would be great if the site develops into a central authority where such propaganda is routinely exposed. Well done!

Thanks Malcolm. The original idea was to emulate WikiPedia, but with an editorial policy that maintained a rigorous presumption AGAINST authority. That and to focus on the subject areas most affected by that 'Authority bias' - namely deep political issues - because WikiPedia remains a pretty impressive resource on pretty much everything else.

Not sure it will work out that way though because, whilst I've got about 60 registered users to date, only a handful have contributed anything serious as yet and you can't compile a bloody encyclopaedia all on your own.

Still, it's therapy, and I've learned (am still learning) one hell of a lot about Linux / Apache server management and security hardening too.

I'm toying with the idea of concentrating article production on critiques of corresponding WikiPedia ones where the official narrative bias is outrageous and obvious. It would give the appearance of overt confrontation with them which could produce a bit of interest; trouble with that approach is that it would immediately relegate the site to the fenced off loony-fringe corner, with the rest of the 'alternative' stuff.

We'll see how it goes as-is - for a while anyway