User talk:Obli/archive1

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The following discussion is an archived talkpage of Obli below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on Obli's live user talk page. No further edits should be made to this page.

Contents

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If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. If you made any edits before you got an account, you might be interested in assigning those to your username. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

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Again, welcome! Sennheiser! 14:36, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Obli, re:VfD, thanks! Fuzheado 05:31, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

mistake on your user page. Chimera (fish) aren't boring.

thanks for making the page. you're a legend.

Pengo 02:33, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1
I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:
{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2
I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:
{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

I found an untagged image, Image:Mealybug.jpg, uploaded by you. You should tell more about it in its description page. Who took it? What is the copyright status or the lisence? If we knew these, the image could be more widely used. -Hapsiainen 20:36, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia now requires to tag all the images. Here is a list of all tags. If you don't remember where you found the image, use {{unverified}} tag. -Hapsiainen 13:38, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

Unverified image

Thanks for uploading the image

  • Image:Mealybug.jpg

I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release it under the GFDL, or {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know where you got the image and I'll tag it for you. Thanks, Kbh3rd 03:29, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I found out the source of the image with Google image search. However, the site doesn't give any special permissions to use their images, and the image doesn't look fair use to me. Now the image is listed on Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images, where it gets eventually deleted. From now on, consider copyrights before you upload any images to Wikipedia. -Hapsiainen 13:56, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Black Alder

Hi Obli - your addition "produces a glutinous substance, this can be observed particularly in cities where black alders are planted as they produce such amounts that the ground underneath will become slightly sticky" is not fully true; the tree produces a sticky gum or resin on its buds and young leaves in spring, but this does not fall off; the sticky on the ground below is honeydew produced by aphids feeding on the tree (and it can also be found under many other different tree species) - MPF 10:19, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Image source/licensing for Image:Blenny-fish.jpg

The image you uploaded, Image:Blenny-fish.jpg, has no no source information. The image page currently doesn't specify who created the image, so the copyright status is therefore unclear. If you have not created the image yourself then you need to argue that we have the right to use the image on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the image yourself then you should also specify where you found it, ie in most cases link to the website where you got it, and the terms of use for content from that page. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use. Unless the copyright status is provided, the image will be marked for deletion on 24 October 2005.

This message notification has been automatically sent by NotificationBot managed and run by AllyUnion. Please leave comments regarding bot operations at AllyUnion's talk page. Please direct all comments regarding licensing information at Wikipedia talk:Images for deletion. --NotificationBot 12:33, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Image Tagging Image:Chimaera-fish.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Chimaera-fish.jpg. I notice the image page currently doesn't specify who created the image, so the copyright status is therefore unclear. If you have not created the image yourself then you need to argue that we have the right to use the image on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the image yourself then you should also specify where you found it, ie in most cases link to the website where you got it, and the terms of use for content from that page.

If the image also doesn't have a copyright tag then you must also add one. If you created/took the picture then you can use {{gfdl}} to release it under the GFDL. If you can claim fair use use {{fairuse}}.) See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other images, please check that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thanks so much. Thue | talk 12:34, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Same for Image:Mandrill.jpg, Image:Sole-fish.jpg, and Image:Spider-mite.jpg. Thue | talk 12:37, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Daniel Brandt

Congrats, Obli. You are officially being stalked by Daniel Brandt for making a comment that he didn't like. You may find it here: [1].

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Brandt is harmless. Linuxbeak | Talk 20:12, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Stalked? Is quoting someone the same as stalking them? Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 09:11, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh, so you mean him printing your name? Hrm. If he put the wrong name there, then it could be libel. Why do you think it is stalking? Did he contact you? Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 12:17, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I agree its not a good idea to do it. But some people think its the only way to protect themselves. I have seen this kind of thing happen before, and believe me, the one who puts up people's real names is the one that wins. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 12:24, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that Brandt is doing it for attention. Considering he's been anonymous his entire life until about 2 years ago, and he hates the fact that his name was made public, I really seriously don't think he's doing it for attention. He might be misguided, but his aim is to actually protect privacy. That might seem to you like a strange way to go about it, but that's only if all you focus on is that aspect. If you look at everything else, well, you'd see that that's not his aim. I wrote him an e-mail asking him to take people's real names off it, and tried to explain to him why. I see no problem with him listing people's screen names, and him having people's real names, but there's no reason for him to display their real names publicly. As I explained to him, that is the one and only thing against him that has stuck - every other claim can be written off as censorship and fearmongering. I hope that he listens to reason.

Maybe I can just explain why I think he is doing this.

See, there is a group out there that calls themselves LJ Drama. They are not the only group that does this, and if you never used LiveJournal, its likely that you'd never heard of them. Also think of places like Something Awful or Cruel.com or Rotten.com, and there's a whole host of other places that do it.

What they used to do, put simply, was to scour Live Journal to find "drama". And then what they'd do was that they'd write up a big summary of what had happened, but in a hugely irrational, totally untrue way, to sensationalise things. They always added in such things as "paedophile", "stalker", "gay", "furry" and anything else that would offend someone. They'd imply things about their parents, or their children, or who they were, and so forth. The aim of course was to get people worked up in to a fervour.

And then what would happen is that, after they'd done that, the subject of the article, who they would usually link straight to their Live Journal account, the subject would get a mass of comments. Sometimes as many as 1,000 in a 24 hour period. It would start on LJ Drama and then other people would hear about it, and it would get bigger and bigger and bigger.

Somewhere along the lines, someone would find out their e-mail address, their phone number, their ICQ, Yahoo IM, AIM, and other contact details. And they'd post that on LJ Drama. And then other people would repost it in to their journals. And then sometimes, they'd find out someone's real name and address, and post that.

So these people would get stalked. Okay, so most of the time it was just juvenile threats and harassment, and they'd have to get a new ISP, basically change internet identities and never use Live Journal again, but sometimes it was much, much worse. There was one case, where, well, without saying too many specifics here of who it was, it was a woman who was a young mother. This woman had posted photos of her baby in a messy house. People accused her of child abuse.

Now, the accusations got worse and worse, until she started to get death threats. And one guy, who she had never met before, appeared at her house one day, knocked on the door, she answered, and he stabbed her and killed her. The man thought that she was a child abuser, which really enraged him. So he murdered her.

Now, of course, LJ Drama will say that it's not their fault that it led to that, because usually it doesn't go that far. But they are encouraging stalking.

People who were attacked severely would often respond by writing up their own version of events. And it usually got them nowhere, because, while they were just putting up people's screen names, and weren't doing screen captures or anything - i.e. not invading people's privacy, all that it took was for the guilty parties to change their Live Journal entries and then they would be told that they were liars.

Go look at the 3 cases in the LJ Drama page. Or go to their site, or to Encyclopaedia Dramatica, or any sites like that.

Now, there were a few who survived. Just a handful. And those that survived, they put up screen shots. They had people's real names. And they put up indisputable facts. Sure, they still got stalked and harassed, but long term they survived. Long term, they lodged law suits against the people responsible. Long term they won. It was mighty hard, and there is an alliance of people who fight such things, but that is how you do it.

Now, Daniel Brandt feels that he was attacked. I can say without question or hesitation that he was attacked, that he was treated unfairly, that his page about him is libellous. There is no doubt about that. He has stopped short of saying that, but right now, well, too many versions of the edit history are libellous. And the fact that people are saying that he is a privacy invader, based on these lies, is evidence of libel.

I mean, his entire life he has been a crusader for privacy rights. His entire life he has worked to protect people's privacy. Can you imagine how it feels for him to be accused of having his whole life's work be a lie? It would be one of the worst things imaginable.

Now, he has obviously dealt with this kind of thing before, and he knows that to protect himself, he must make his claims as factual and as transparent as possible. That's why he's doing it. It's not to stalk you. Indeed, does he say "Obli is horrible"? He is just quoting you. I am sure that in the end he just wants to find the people responsible and get them to stop it. If people would treat him with respect and decency I am sure that such things wouldn't exist.

Of course, I don't think that he will ever take down Wikipedia Watch, but that's a separate issue. He is concerned that Wikipedia is being used to scrape - which means, in other words, that Wikipedians, like it or not, are invading people's privacy for profit. Or, if you want it to be totally dumbed down, that we, by using this, are hurting others for profit.

As for what happened with Linuxbeak, he and Slim Virgin, apologised to Daniel Brandt, so he took them off his list. Simple as that. He forgave them. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 12:52, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, well, I guess that the thing is that when we find ourselves attacked we get defensive. You get defensive, Brandt gets defensive, we all do. Its really hard to be neutral and calm down and not to become too distressed. Did you read the bit about LJ Drama#Mediacrat? That guy was one of the worst examples of being destroyed because he got distressed. I saw most of that while it was happening. I tried writing to him to calm down but it just made him worse. And you know, after his life was destroyed by what they did, he then went out and tried to help others, joining anti-cyber stalking communities to help them. And yet if he'd just calmed down it all would be fine.

And that's another thing. You ask people on Live Journal, and most of them, if they know about Mediacrat, think that he's the culprit, that he's the bad guy. They think that he just went mad attacking lots of people for no reason. But I think that people just have to realise this - its not possible to simultaneously stalk 10,000 people, but it is possible for 10,000 people to simultaneously stalk you. Oh sure, you can stalk one person, maybe even 3 or 4. But not much more than that. You think of the time and effort that it requires to do it. And yet people have this habit of going with the majority. Most people say he is stalking them? It must be true.

This is actually the kind of tactic that people use (not just LJ Drama, anyone doing this kind of thing). When they are attacked, they claim to be the victim. And hence you just don't know what's going on. There were people putting up entire sites under someone else's names. Oh, and will give you another example, a guy who was stalked from UseNet.

Now, this guy was mentally disabled, he had autism, or asperger's syndrome at least and he was obsessed with cars, particularly a certain type of car. So he'd write on and on and on about this car, and people thought he was weird. For people like that, UseNet is not a nice place for them, because he got flamed to death. But, being autistic, he didn't realise he was being flamed, and kept responding, and the attacks got worse and worse.

Then what happened was that someone found out that this guy was posting, as a totally different name, with a totally different e-mail address and different IP number in a different part of the world, in film forums, saying that he was an amateur photographer who was looking for young boys to produce a film. And this film company turned out to be a phoney.

Now, the person that found out that it was him insisted that it was the same guy, and that the guy was a paedophile, that he wanted to touch kids. The car-obsessed autistic had no idea what he was saying, and said that he didn't know any kids. And so the flams turned from flames in to outright threats.

So then what happened was that the guy who had found all of this stuff then made a web domain specifically to talk about him. He then locked it from the public, and then invited everyone to join it. The web domain had the guy's first and last name (real names) as the domain name. For example it would be www.danielbrandt.com if it was one for Daniel Brandt. And on the main page it said that he was a paedophile, and said all of these things, then it linked to all of these posts. It actually had no evidence that they were the same person, but he insisted that they were, and everyone believed him.

Now, was the autistic the guilty party who was trying to pick up kids, and was being exposed?

Or was the guy who wrote all of that stalking him?

There's cases where you have 2 people posting personal info about each other. There's all sorts of cases like this.

Now, with Daniel Brandt's case, obviously there's no stalking going on, on either side. So its a different kind of issue. But its probably got enough similarities.

On the article about him, Daniel Brandt, a lot of untrue things are being said, with some things presented in a totally inaccurate light - for example presenting criticisms of him such as "He started Google Watch because he was upset that his site didn't get enough hits" as fact, when they are not fact at all - the opposite is true - he really started it because he was upset that his site was listed without his permission - that's the actual reason why he started it. And we are saying that he invades privacy, because he has listed people's names. But is that really an invasion of privacy? I mean, I would find it a bit uncomfortable if someone did that about me, but you know, its not that bad. I'd be more worried if he coupled that with claims that I was a paedophile or something. Or if he put in my mother's name, said where my kids live, and stuff like that. Or if he said the name of the place where I work. Then there'd be problems.

I mean I think that he is doing the wrong thing there, make no mistake of it. But, in seeing the various cyber stalking cases, that is the best way to be sure that you'll win. So I think he is doing it to try o protect himself.

I just think that he is wrong because, in this case, Wikipedians aren't really attacking him. I think that he should keep Vilerage's name and details up there, plus the guy who hoaxed him, but that's it. Those two did something that was illegal. Nobody else did. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 13:47, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

So you read User:Zordrac/Daniel Brandt? Good. I think I put my feelings there about it. I only stumbled upon it after reading about the Seigenthaler thing, which, to be honest, was just because when I went to the Village Pump for the first time ever, that was what they were talking about. It so happens that I had met Daniel Brandt when I was on Live Journal in 2002, and he helped me with a lot of the LJ Drama stuff. Not directly, but you know, he gave tips and stuff.

Of course, I didn't know his name then. I just knew him as the Scroogle News guy, or "the guy who took on Google and won". I had no idea about all the conspiracy theories. Indeed, there is some doubt in my mind whether it was really the same guy. The one I recall ran Google Watch and had on the Google Watch web pages details of all of Google's attempts to sue him, and how they all got thrown out of court. Well, aside from the brand name infringement one. Something Awful maintains a similar kind of list of law suits. I don't know why he took it down, or where he hid it. That was the stuff he was famous for.

I also don't know when his name was released. It looks like it was done by the Google Watch Watch fellow.

His argument for putting people's names in there, if I recall, is along the lines of, "They invaded my privacy, so I am invading theirs back. I know its bad to do it, and I wish I didn't have to, but I really have no choice".

Also, before you totally disregard his conspiracy theories go and have a look at http://www.namebase.org/ - its a comprehensive list of 40 years worth of research in to every conspiracy theory in the history of the world - proving why some are true, why some are false, and detailing probabilities for them. It is absolutely comprehensive. Now, that database only makes him about $20,000 per year, which is basically peanuts, but people do buy it. He has been regarded as "the world's leading expert researcher on all things conspiracy". He is generally taken very seriously. And the thing is that not a single person has ever, even once, proved him wrong on any of his theories. Most of them are proven right. Indeed, he doesn't start the theories - he researches them. He's a researcher. Even the theory about Google, you will find he didn't start. That theory was started a couple of years earlier, and there is a forum site devoted to that theory. They told Brandt about it and he investigated it.

So he already had the theory before he started Google Watch. Similarly, he already had the Wikipedia theory before he started Wikipedia Watch. He already has a Slashdot theory as well, I am sure, which would be virtually identical to the Wikipedia theory. But he just didn't see the need to make a new site just for that. It's already included in namebase.

I'll see if I can explain what his theory seems to be.

Basically, Wikipedia is a very popular site, and, as a very popular site it appears in Google. Google, as we know, "scrapes" - this isn't something he made up, its true. People can make money out of advertisements from Google. That guy Chris Beasley, who started Google Watch Watch, really does make money from advertisements. This isn't some lie that Brandt made up - Beasley is one of Google's leading financial experts, who teaches people how to make money from advertising on Google - from scraping. So this is a fact - its not a conspiracy theory.

Wikipedia, in turn, is used by Google to scrape. This is also a fact. Its not some theory or anything. As he explains on his site, a lot of sites trying to make money from advertisements, simply put a mirror of Wikipedia on their site, just so that they can then make money from advertisements.

Wikipedia is not only a popular site, but it is mirrored more than any other site. Answers.com, worldhistory.com, hundreds of places do it. And many other places only mirror some bits, maybe one section, maybe random pieces. So this makes it one of the leading targets for scraping.

Not only that, but Wikipedians use google probably more than anyone else. They use it to research. So we use Google to check articles, right? Of course we do. Go in to an AFD discussion and see if anything is resolved without talking about Google. It just doesn't happen. You need google to verify things. We use google, we get links from google, and we put that info in to the site.

So, logically, Google likes Wikipedia, and Wikipedia likes Google.

And here is where the theory comes in. Up to this point its all fact.

The theory is that Google and Wikipedia are in partnership. They might be, they might not. I have seen no evidence that they are. And if they are, I doubt its as insidious as Brandt suggests.

And then furthermore, the fact that Google uses these cookies that never expire makes Brandt believe that the CIA are using Google to spy on people. Therefore, he thinks that the CIA are using Wikipedia to spy on people.

Therefore, he thinks that a sample of people are secretly CIA agents.

So the list, you see, on his page, isn't trying to stalk people. He is listing people who he suspects might be CIA agents.

What he is saying is that, in his opinion, maybe 1 or 2 of those people are CIA agents. He doesn't know which ones. He wants to find out which 1 or 2 are, and then target them and ignore the others.

Now, if he is right, and the CIA are manipulating things, then he would know that its just a handful. He would also know that they would be people who say bad things about him, since he is trying to catch them. And he would know that the rest are all just following the leader, as it were.

So which one or two? He was suggesting Slim Virgin and Linuxbeak as his two biggest candidates. But they both apologised to him, so he has wiped them off. The guy who keeps writing "Outing" on the page is probably right up there. And I suspect that he thinks that this Vilerage is one. But I don't know. He wouldn't be saying who until he knows for sure.

So he is not trying to invade anyone's privacy. He's trying to catch CIA agents and stop them.

This is why the best thing to do is to be nice to him. A CIA agent wouldn't be nice to him, would they?

And indeed, its the "John Doe"s that he suspects. The ones with actual names, I bet he thinks most likely are not CIA agents.

I am pretty sure that's what he's getting at.

And I guess, well, it sounds totally nutty to think that CIA would be interested in this. I mean why? But then again, we do know that the CIA do go around the internet trying to intelligence gather, and trying to catch terrorists etc. What better place to intelligence gather than in an encyclopaedia? Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 14:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Help with Translation!?

Can you help translate this for me to swedish? Many thanks in advance!

About half of the economically active population is employed in agriculture. Arable land amounts to only one-fourth of the total land area, yet the country meets nearly all its food needs from domestic production. In the mid-1970s, moreover, Albania became selfsufficient in bread grains. Main crops are wheat, corn (maize), sugar beets, cotton, sunflower seeds, tobacco, potatoes, and fruits. Major livestock are sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs.

--Armour 14:15, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

The Black List

I think that you should be informed that you are on the Black List. I wouldn't worry or anything if I were you, just conceal any personal information he doesn't have about you. No need to make things easy for banned users. Izehar (talk) 18:34, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Turns out I was wrong about his intentions. I guess I shouldn't be making assumptions about people's integrity without asking them first lol. But it seems that he thinks that he has a right to "out" me and tell everyone my personal info, that I trusted him with, just because he thinks that I was misguided in trying to help him. So he obviously doesn't care about my intentions, so why should I presume that his intentions are good? So forget everything that I said on that. I guess I am just too trusting of people, or something. I am rewriting my page about him. Actually, I think I might just wipe them. I am not going to support him any longer. You can all hate him for all I care. He can have an inaccurate biography - I'm not going to fight or argue to try to make it accurate and fair anymore. So stuff him. He's on his own. User:Zordrac 20:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Stalking

Ironically, I am now being Wikistalked by a person who I tried to help out with regards to the Daniel Brandt issue. So much for trying to make peace. I even talked to Daniel Brandt to get him to fix stuff, on his request, and this guy just decided to use it to justify going on a personal attack crusade against me. When I tried to resolve it with comments on his talk page, he used it as justification to harass me with 4 abusive messages on my talk page (threatening messages, no less) and then started harassing me on other people's talk pages, apparently following me around. I won't say who they are, but they may well show up here and admit to their actions lol. Anyway I just thought it was ironic. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 05:15, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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