User:Zordrac/Daniel Brandt
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The situation with Daniel Brandt
I came across this case after I had stumbled upon the Seigenthaler case, which I found in the Village Pump. And, while I was a bit upset about the Seigenthaler case, the Daniel Brandt case simply horrified me.
[edit] Synopsis
This begun because someone decided to write an article on Daniel Brandt, and User:Daniel Brandt found it, and didn't like it being there.
He asked for it to be deleted, and it was deleted.
Then someone recreated it (in spite of recreating deleted articles being a criteria for speedy deletion WP:CSD), and it passed an AFD and was kept.
So then he tried to edit it and the guideline of WP:AUTO (not a policy, just a recommendation) was used to ban him from editing it.
Then he took a no-nonsense approach and sent a facsimile to Jimbo Wales to ask him to have it deleted, or at least for him to edit it, or at a bare minimum to be advised as to its content. Jimbo didn't even answer the fax, and actually wiped its existence of his user page.
He created http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/ because of his problems, and then later added a second page http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/hivemind.html to talk about the specific users (almost as a legal document).
He was then banned for creating hivemind, supposedly because his listing of users' real names was in violation of policy.
Daniel Brandt then saved Wikipedia by finding Brian Chase (hoaxer), the guy who edited the John Seigenthaler Sr. article (Brandt and Seigenthaler say he libelled him, but I disagree).
And yet still Brandt is banned.
Even when press is released commending Brandt, labelling him a hero and talking about how wrong it was for him to be banned, they won't unban him. Yet Wikipedia succumbs to pressure from other people. Just not Brandt. Why is he so special to be treated differently to everyone else?
And then today he was unbanned by User:Linuxbeak. I found it a bit astounding, as, if I read it correctly, he seemed to be doing it because I was the only person to vote "Oppose" on his Request for Beaurocrat (something that he'd get regardless of my vote). Seems a bit odd. But then it didn't really work.
[edit] What Brandt says is the reason why this all happened
On his web site, Daniel Brandt has linked Wikipedia to Google, and he claims that Wikipedia is allied with Google and that Wikipedia is paid, through advertising dollars for scrapers, due to their popularity. I don't even see how this makes any sense, but he is putting up the article. Indeed, his argument that Google makes money out of advertising doesn't make a lot of sense either. He's got evidence that it's theoretically possible, but no evidence that its actually true. In other words, its a conspiracy theory.
So we start off with a conspiracy theory. Then he adds a secondary conspiracy on to that - that Wikipedia is using Google. So, for you to believe that, you'd have to believe the first conspiracy theory first. And then, you have the tertiary conspiracy theory that he claims, which is that Wikipedia treated him this badly because he is an enemy of Google, who is their friend.
Of course, perhaps we can think of it another way. Wikipedia uses Google to check articles. Brandt is anti-Google. Without Google, Wikipedia couldn't be accurate. So Wikipedians might see Brandt as being the enemy to accuracy. That's not quite so unbelievable.
And of course Brandt says that the article was created about him because he is an enemy of Google, and that they did it to attack him, which is an attack page, and another grounds for speedy deletion WP:CSD.
[edit] What Wikipedian admins say is the reason why this all happened
I was astounded that there seemed to be an almost universal approach to this. Aren't these people individuals? But they all say that he was engaging in vandalism. Where? I am yet to see any evidence of this. They say he used sock puppets. Where? And then they get to the privacy violations on the http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/hivemind.html page.
Now, let's get this straight here. Brandt is a privacy advocate. He is intent on *PROTECTING* privacy. I actually heard someone who told me on my talk page that Brandt was free to do what he liked, but they didn't think that he should be making money out of invading people's privacy! WHAT! And this person based this on the information on the Daniel Brandt page!
So they have all pushed this idea that he is invading people's privacy. How? He only quoted what they said to him and about him, which he is permitted to say. All that he wrote was in the public domain. He didn't go around looking through their trash cans or anything else.
Okay, fair enough, some of them might think that it is hypocritical for him to do that. Fair enough comment - that's their OPINION. They might say that he should not be listing people's names, as a privacy advocate. But that should be the extent of their criticism. The criticism should be whether or not he is a hypocrite.
The fact that this is being spread as the REASON for his ban, when its utterly false, is precisely the problem with the article about him.
[edit] What I think is the real reason why this happened
Activists are always regarded as kooks by a proportion of the community. Indeed, I think that 100% of them are. What about nutty old Nelson Mandella? Or crazy old Malcolm X? Let alone that kook Mother Theresa. All of these people were (and still are) regarded as crackpots by a large section of the community. Indeed, most activists never become popular. Most of them just stay anonymous, with the only things ever written about them being people talking about how crazy they are.
The anti-globalisation movement is one which I personally find is stupid. I regard anti-globalisationalists as people who don't understand what the big picture is. After all, without globalisation, we have no progress. Without globalisation, we are stuck in caves living until we are 35 and being in constant threat of immediate death. All of earth's progress is due to globalisation. So many other reasons why you shouldn't oppose it, but I won't go in to them all here. Even sweatshops, per normality theory are quite reasonable. After all, having a job at all in the areas where these sweatshops are run, is a big plus from having nothing, and the people working there are thankful to be given a job. And I mean sure, we can all be exactly the same, but to do that we all have to embrace Communism. So if anti-globalisationalists were all communists, then they could embrace globalisation and not have sweat shops. In other words, they are fighting the wrong cause. Fight against capitalism, not against globalisation.
So, whilst there are probably a few people that hate his stance against Google, more than likely the majority of criticisms were because they think that he is a kook. And remember that Brandt isn't just an activist, he is also a conspiracy theorist. So he's got 2 reasons to be called a crackpot.
People fear people who make them think. They hate having to think outside of the box. They hate being unsettled from their safe, boring, run of the mill life. And its easy for them to gang up against someone like Brandt, who is never going to be popular. Its easy for them to bully him.
They think its a big laugh to attack someone who is a little different to them. And that, I think you will find, is the real reason why all of this happened. It wasn't all a big scandal or anything. Its just because they love to abuse someone like that.
And the thing is that they don't realise why he is doing all of this. He is not doing it for money. He is doing it to help people. To help EVERYONE. That includes the people who are abusing him. If they would just stop and realise why he is doing it, and what he is doing, then they'd see that. He would make peace with each and every one of them quickly if they would just look at things a bit differently.
[edit] What I think should have happened
It is debatable whether or not Brandt is suitably notable for his own article. In my opinion, well, Google Watch and Wikipedia Watch are notable, but Brandt isn't. But I can accept that there might be a reason for an article about him. Fair enough.
I can understand Brandt being encouraged not to edit his own article. But he should be QUESTIONED about it. And they should not have banned him while an article about him remained. Simple as that.
I don't see anything to suggest that he was unreasonable in any way. Whilst I don't think that he needs to put people's real names on his web site (screen names are enough, he can keep their real names for himself), I don't see a problem with what he's written on the site otherwise. I think that Wikipedia needs to grow up and realise that criticism is healthy. It's not like he's lying about them at all. What he says is 100% true. If they disagree, then sue him.
There is no way that there was any legitimacy in banning him. Simple as that. His FAX should have been kept in his user page. Nothing wrong with that. He is not a vandal. He just upset people by a difference of opinion. If anything, the problem lies in the people that attacked him, not in him.
Just because 50 people attack someone, and nobody helps the one who is attacked does not make the 1 who is attacked guilty! If someone was gang-raped do we say that the gang should get off? No. If 50 people attacked him, then 50 people are guilty. Its the facts of the case, not the opinions, that matter.
[edit] My opinion and advice for those that attacked him
Its fair enough for a place like Slashdot or even Salon.com to attack him, because those are basically tabloids who nobody takes seriously. They do stuff like that all of the time, and, whilst they occasionally stumble on to something useful, they are not well respected in the wider community. But you know, Wikipedia shouldn't be wanting to be seen as a trashy tabloid newspaper. Doesn't Wikipedia want respect? If they do, they shouldn't be behaving like this.
For people who wrote nasty stuff about him, try seeing it from this point of view:
Daniel Brandt has bent over backwards to help people - not just a few people but the entire world. He fights for people's rights, and he fights hard. He fights for privacy, for security, and for truth, and tries to expose lies that come from the government and to keep us safe. You might disagree with what he has done, but you cannot disagree with why he is doing it. You might think that he is a crackpot, and you might be right. But you can't think that he is trying to hurt you.
Try writing something nice about him. Resist the urge to attack him. Maybe write something somewhere, maybe just to yourself, to see things from his point of view. Whether you say that to him or to anyone else is up to you. And if you really can't do that, then just keep it to yourself.
The absolute worst thing that you can do is to go around writing trashy comments about him. That reflects badly on you, not on him.
[edit] What I think should happen now
This is my opinion of what should happen from here:
- Google Watch should include all references to Google-related activities - i.e. http://www.google-watch.org/, http://www.scroogle.org/, http://www.yahoo-watch.org/ and also his critic http://www.google-watch-watch.org/.
- Wikipedia Watch should include all references to his stance against Wikipedia, including his role in the Seigenthaler affair, his being banned here, and any criticisms of him.
- Daniel Brandt should have (main|Google Watch) and (main|Wikipedia Watch) and the article itself should talk about him broudly, which mainly means talking about PIR and namebase, which is what he has spent most of his time doing. It should NOT include too much personal stuff about him.
- User:Daniel Brandt should be consulted for what to include in the 3 articles, but for the sake of peace should be asked not to edit the articles himself.
- User:Daniel Brandt should be unbanned (I know its technically been done already, but this should stay).
- Jimbo Wales should talk to Daniel Brandt and reach a compromise.
- http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/hivemind.html should remove people's real names (but remain with their screen names) and should not include any attempts to find their real names or post them on his site.
- Everyone personally involved in attacks on him (especially admins) should be prohibited from editing any of the 3 articles about him.
- Wikipedia should create a separate sub-policy of WP:BIO to deal with living people so that, where possible, the person concerned should be able to have input in to its contents (and this should include founders/owners of businesses).
- WP:AUTO should be totally scrapped.
- Wikipedia:No legal threats and Wikipedia:Libel should be seriously re-written. No legal threats should be advice only, and it should not be a criteria for anyone to be able to be banned for it. I note that Wikipedia:Blocking policy does not include any reference to No legal threats as a reason to be banned.
- All persons who were banned for making legal threats should be unbanned (unless there was some other reason for them to be banned).
- All efforts should be made to make Wikipedia a legal project.
There. That's it. If you have any comments on this, please use this sub-article's talk page: User_talk:Zordrac/Daniel Brandt
