WikiTruth a Hoax, Banned and Deleted from Wikipedia!

WikiTruth.info is a site that was started by 12 Wikipedia Administrators that "left" Wikipedia after years of contribution due unbearable "bureaucratic warfare" and especially after seeing an increase in active censorship taking place at Wikipedia.org at an alarming rate. WikiTruth.info does not only describe internal workings at Wikipedia from an insider perspective, but also published several of the Articles that were "deleted" at Wikipedia on their Website. Reported by The Guardian on 4/13/2006.

The Story was "dugg" to the homepage of digg.com on 4/16/2006. The resulting crash of the Wikitruth.info Website was caused by the sudden traffic onslaught and not as bad tounges speculated by some angry "Jimbo Wales" loyal Wikipedians that disapprove the content of the Wikitruth site.

It also started some controversy at SlashDot on 4/16/2006 with over 500 comments by Slashdot's Readers.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales claimed less than 2 weeks ago about the protest site: "It's a hoax," Wales said of Wikitruth. "There's no evidence at all that there are any Wikipedia administrators associated with it." Reported 4/17/2006 by TechWeb.com

In the same Article did he state: "It's almost certainly people who have been banned by Wikipedia," Wales said.

The news were picked up by Newspapers and Magazines around the world. The renowned german magazin ""Der Spiegel" reported about Wikitruth and Jim Wales statement on 4/18/2006. See the Post in the middle of the Page with the Headline: "Jimmy Wales: WikiTruth nur ein Hoax"

Now it seems are not just "people" getting banned from Wikipedia, but even links to WikiTruth.info from within Wikipedia itself. Not just Articles, but Article Talk Pages, User Pages and User Talk Pages as well.
I was updating my "Wiki Links" Section last week, which included a link to WikiTruth.info and was surprised to get the following Message.



Okay, Wikipedia blocks users that spam or just perform repeated acts of vandalism usually after 3 clear warnings. In cases of severe forms of SPAM (see WP:SPAM), like Spam-Bots hitting the Wikipedia Site or websites links being added to one or more articles by different users over a period of time, links that violate the External Links Guidelines another solution is available. You just need to get a sysop on the meta-wiki to add a site-wide text filter for the url and add the url to the Wikipedia site-wide spam blacklist.

Well, I did go check and Voila, there it is:

wikitruth\.info #per recommendation of B. Patrick, the Foundation's attorney.

Here again as Screenshot:



Added to the black list on 4/26/2006. Here is a screenshot of the black list page history.
(which is also Interesting reading material all by itself)



Parallel to the Articles and all that was the fight going on within Wikipedia about the fate of the Wikipedia.Info Article. The Wikitruth Article was permanently deleted (after over a day of back and forth).



On 4/16/2006 already and the Editor who created it banned. Since this was not agreed upon by several editors (see delete/undelete log), a vote was started to decide if the Article should be kept or not. Vote! Articles for deletion: Wikitruth. The Vote ended on 4/20/2006 with the "offical" result: no consensus.

No Counts? That's unusual, why was that "forgotten"?
Well, I started counting myself (feel free to do the same).

Votes to keep the Article or to merge the content of the Article to the Article "criticism of Wikipedia" and redirect to it.
61 Keep or Keep/Merge
9 Strong Keep where 2 where a bit unusual (Adamantine Keep and *Strong Keep)
7 Weak Keep
31 Merge, Redirect

Votes to delete the Article or Most of it before redirecting to "criticism of Wikipedia"
25 Delete or Redirect
2 Strong Delete
3 just Redirect (no content merged) or at least partial merge and then redirect.

I don't know where "Mailer Diablo" learned his Algebra.
I look at the Votes and it looks pretty "consensus" to me.
A presidential election has never been as "consensus" as this.

Did I miss maybe something? I am not a Wikipedia Veteran, but maybe some votes count only half or a quarter and others double and triple. Well, my count is based on the assumption that every Editor or Admin has ONE Vote and each vote is counted as ONE. Please let me know if I am wrong with that.

Conclusion
Now what does all that mean? It does not look like a "Hoax" to me at all anymore, but serious trouble.
I am not a fan of conspiracy theories, but something does not add up here. I guess there will be more to come.
Wikipedia Admins and Staff Members already did some silent moves. What's next?

Update 05/01/2006 1:30 am (PST)
The Ban of Wiktruth.info was just removed per Jimbo's request, only a short time after this article was posted.

See site-wide spam blacklist and History.

Here is the screen shot:



You might also find this special Talk Page rather interesting.
I just got an email that told me about it. Check it out.

The Wikitruth.info Article is also back. Look at the change history of the Article. It looks like a Wikipedianic Battlefield.

End Update 05/01/2006

Google Pages - Fast Lane into Google Search Index?!

The title of this post is not just hype, but a serious question.

Here is what happened.

I wrote and published 5 days ago on 4/24/2006 my article about my experiences and opinions about the current beta of Google's new toy called Google Pages. Link to Full Article: Google Pages Demystified

It is now 4/29/2006, for only 3 hours, because it is right now 3:00 am in the morning here in Fresno/California. I got my usual email from GoogleAlerts.com at around 6:00 pm. GoogleAlerts.com is the commercial version of Google's Free Service with the same name. It has some more features and options that the free version does not have. Anyhow, I use the service to monitor Google Search Results for important things that affect me personally or professionally, such a my Name, Artist Nick Name, Company Name, My Websites etc.

Here is what I looked at and had me read it twice.


The Account is now a bit over a week old and the content (5 Pages) is up for about 5 days now.

The Site is already in Google's index and here it comes: outranking a lot of old sites for the same key-phrase. It ranked #17 and when I checked now in complete disbelieve, was it still #17. The Search Results are for my companies name, VisionOne,Inc. (#24 if you count the indent sub-results). It outranked almost a 100 other websites (our clients for the most part), with an estimated 487,000 Pages indexed by Google.

I am absolutely speechless. This is something for the SEO bloggers to blog about. Too bad that this blog is actually about Text Art and Fun Stuff and not SEO, butI I had to post it somewhere :).

That my Article links to it can't be enough. It was posted on a few good ranking and Google trusted Sites, but that was 2-3 days ago. It was not like a home page feature at CNN or something like that. It was posted to Digg.com late at night 3 days ago and only 5 people dugg it which means that it never saw the light of the day there, not to mention it's homepage.

I sent a link to the article to the Google Pages team as feedback after 2 previous emails with stuff that found its way into the article as well. The pages written are quite personal (some people start eating when they are unhappy about something and I start writing to get my mind busy with something else), hence Pulizer Price worthy content can't be the reason for it either.

The whole thing became an article by accident and had nothing that would "boost" anything it links to. I simply pieced together and partially rewrote the bunch of comments and feedbacks that came together over a span of 2 days while I was playing with Google's new Toy. I decided to make an Article out of it, because I realized, that all this stuff might be of interest for somebody. Anyhow ...

The Point is, that I can not find any plausible reason to explain this. This blog and site is getting slowly Google's attention after constant growth from an one-page Website for some years until last December to about 30-something pages or so during the last 4 months.

I know a thing or two about SEO (without doing it as profession), you can find out more about that on my professional home page, if you like (I have some nice free tools there too ;) ).

Ideas, anybody? I need a little help here.

Digital Art which is not from this World

I am an artist at deviantART myself and was browsing around on dA, checking out Art posted by other artists (one of the normal things to do as a "deviant").

I came across an Artist yesterday that caught my attention more than it normally does.

He goes by the Artist Name Dilekt (Dilekt Artist Homepage at dA).

Below are the pieces that are available as Print. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I do.

	Empyrean by Dilekt Large View | Buy Print		Foretold Prophesy by Dilekt Large View | Buy Print
	Glacial Haven by Dilekt Large View | Buy Print		Inner Soul by Dilekt Large View | Buy Print
	The Inevitable by Dilekt Large View | Buy Print		Throne Of God by Dilekt Large View | Buy Print
Full Galery of Dilekt Art @ deviantART.com

I loved his art right away and added 6 of his pieces that are available as print to my wishlist (others can buy me as gift) and 8 others to my favorites (that others can see which Art from from other Artists I like).

If you want one to put on your wall (not computer :)), no Problem. Prints are available and cost only between $2 and $24 dollars (without frame) depending on size and print type (lustre, matte or glossy) plus about $5 for shipping (2nd day air and special packaging). You should get it within 3-4 days, if you order today.