Wikipedia Sucks! (And So Do Its Critics.)

Saturday, September 30, 2023

#wikipedia IRC Halloween 2010. User Iamred: "What is Wikipedia more like...? Date Rape or Fisting." (NSFW, obviously.)

From those endless files, thanks to Eric Barbour and Company, some more #wikipedia Internet Relay Chat idiocy.....

Session Start: Sun Oct 31 00:00:01 2010

Session Ident: #wikipedia

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[00:19] <variable> what is en wikipedia's policy on closed sources (things like the OED or other pay-for-access sources)

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[00:22] <geniice> variable in what sense

[00:23] <variable> geniice, is there anything special I should do when citing it?

[00:23] <variable> should I attempt to find a publicy accessible source?

[00:24] <geniice> variable no

[00:24] <variable> geniice, ok cool

[00:24] <geniice> I cite books all the time

[00:24] <variable> ok cool

[00:24] <geniice> about half the sources in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portsbridge_creek for example

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[00:27] <geniice> This allows people to promenade along the sea front

[00:27] <geniice> "promenade" in cold blood?

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Session Close: Sun Oct 31 00:48:27 2010

Session Start: Sun Oct 31 20:59:38 2010

Session Ident: #wikipedia

03[20:59] * Now talking in #wikipedia

03[20:59] * Set by Thehelpfulone!~Helper@wikimedia/Thehelpfulone on Sun Oct 03 09:39:11

[20:59] <***> Buffer Playback...

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:44:21] hi

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:44:23] oh hi KB1JWQ

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:44:25] how are you doing

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:44:55] KB1JWQ stop /msging me please

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:44:57] you rapist

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:44:57] lol

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:45:01] so anyone awake

[20:59] <killiondude> [06:45:22] Simmer down.

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:45:29] hi killiondude

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:45:30] what's up bro

[20:59] <killiondude> [06:45:36] gas prices.

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:45:41] yeah serious no fake

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:45:50] so i was reading the nigger page on wikipedia

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:45:54] you ever see it? here's hte direct link

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:46:01] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger

[20:59] <closedmouth> [06:46:14] this guy

[20:59] <closedmouth> [06:46:18] he cracks me up

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:46:19] that guy! lol

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:46:34] how's it going bro

[20:59] <closedmouth> [06:46:45] chillin wit my bros

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:46:49] i'm really feeling that

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:46:53] any of your bros black?

[20:59] <closedmouth> [06:47:09] they wear black

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:47:43] nah i mean are they of african origin?

[20:59] <closedmouth> [06:47:56] we're all of african origin

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:48:05] i'm really feeling this

[20:59] <closedmouth> [06:48:08] did you not get the memo

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:48:10] would any of them be described by this article?

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:48:10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger

[20:59] <closedmouth> [06:48:30] that's a rather rude term!

[20:59] <closedmouth> [06:48:50] gosh you have truly offended me

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:48:51] i know, right?

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:49:09] so why's this nigger shit even in wikipedia?

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:49:12] sounds like it should have no place

[20:59] <killiondude> [06:49:17] qpt`, shush now.

[20:59] <killiondude> [06:49:24] That's not appropriate.

[20:59] <closedmouth> [06:49:33] we live in crazy times

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:49:33] killiondude excuse me cracker, me and closed here are having a conversation

[20:59] <killiondude> [06:49:43] Obvicopters are so loud, I can't hear you.

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:49:44] closedmouth man i used to give like $1K a year to wiki

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:49:57] closedmouth but with all this "nigger" article crap floating around, i don't think i will again

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:50:05] feel me/

[20:59] <closedmouth> [06:50:11] i'm really feeling this

[20:59] <killiondude> [06:50:13] was that a request

06[20:59] * closedmouth [06:50:21] feels killiondude

[20:59] <closedmouth> [06:50:29] it is a general state of mind

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:50:30] i'm feelin both fo you

[20:59] <closedmouth> [06:50:42] i am feeling very killiondude today

[20:59] <killiondude> [06:50:53] ^_^

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:50:59] killiondude you have any insight into this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger

[20:59] <killiondude> [06:51:09] you are missing a word

[20:59] <killiondude> [06:51:11] +do

[20:59] <killiondude> [06:51:33] qpt`, I do not have any insight into that article.

[20:59] <closedmouth> [06:51:44] bored

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:52:37] i just want to know why articles like "nigger" exist

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:52:38] like this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:52:45] maybe i should try another channel?

[20:59] <closedmouth> [06:52:55] maybe

[20:59] <qpt`> [06:53:32] any suggestions sis?

[20:59] <closedmouth> [06:53:57] ##fixyourconnection

[20:59] <FoeNyx> [07:07:13] killiondude> « i just want to know why articles like "death" exists ! It's quite offensive » said one my undead troll friend :p </halloween>

[20:59] <killiondude> [07:07:26] :-P

[20:59] <yao_ziyuan> [08:31:24] in a word such as 'place', i think there is a very short schwa between [p] and [l]. is it?

[20:59] <closedmouth> [08:42:49] probably depends on the accent

[20:59] <richardcavell> [09:13:11] yeah depends on the accent

[20:59] <richardcavell> [09:13:15] the way I pronounce it, it doesn't

[20:59] <richardcavell> [09:13:29] the l begins before the p is finished

[20:59] <geniice> [10:39:50] I see TVtropes is having money issues

[20:59] <geniice> [10:40:05] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TheSituation

[20:59] <TuxFighter> [11:24:59] Can anyone help me with the textbox above [[fr:User:TuxFighter]]

[20:59] <TuxFighter> [11:25:17] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/fr/w/index.php?title=Utilisateur:TuxFighter

[20:59] <TuxFighter> [12:45:53] is the zh wiki available from china ?

[20:59] <pticochon> [14:13:08] hi

[20:59] <pticochon> [14:13:12] so I'm reviewing an article

[20:59] <pticochon> [14:13:23] and a reference points out to the book "electronic test instruments"

[20:59] <pticochon> [14:13:40] however, the book is not free, so I'm unable to check whether the reference is right or wrong

[20:59] <pticochon> [14:13:49] what does one do in such cases?

[20:59] <TuxFighter> [14:15:05] is the zh wiki available from china ?

[20:59] <bluefoxicy> [14:49:50] WOW this stuff is sour

[20:59] <Iamred> [15:18:30] Who did WTC?

[20:59] <Iamred> [15:19:05] Who did WTC?!

[20:59] <Iamred> [15:19:52] Oh, terroist...

[20:59] <Iamred> [15:20:00] WIKIPEDIA IS GOOD.

[20:59] <FoeNyx> [15:20:25] terroist ? are you an errorist ?

[20:59] <Iamred> [15:20:40] I, sir, am no terroist.

[20:59] <closedmouth> [15:20:41] taroist

[20:59] <FoeNyx> [15:21:01] closedmouth> "the tower" !

[20:59] <Iamred> [15:21:03] closedmouth, did you do WTC?

[20:59] <closedmouth> [15:21:13] probably

[20:59] <closedmouth> [15:21:21] what's the tower

[20:59] <Iamred> [15:21:31] My cock.

[20:59] <closedmouth> [15:21:49] oh

[20:59] <FoeNyx> [15:21:55] closedmouth> the tarrot card

[20:59] <closedmouth> [15:22:01] oh

[20:59] <FoeNyx> [15:22:10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tower_%28Tarot_card%29

[20:59] <Iamred> [15:31:52] Can someone answer me this?

[20:59] <geniice> [15:32:01] what?

[20:59] <Iamred> [15:32:07] What is Wikipedia more like...? Date Rape or Fisting.

[20:59] <mavhc> [15:32:41] no

[20:59] <geniice> [15:33:02] wikipedia is more like the power of a fully armed and operational battlesation

[20:59] <Iamred> [15:33:31] fien, who is the worst person to go into prison? Nelson Mandela or Mothandas Gandhi?

[20:59] <Iamred> [15:34:12] YOU HAVE TO ANSWER.

[20:59] <Iamred> [15:35:05] OR YOU SUCK COCK.

[20:59] <Cyrius> [15:35:11] ...

[20:59] <Cyrius> [15:35:25] Iamred: stop being lame, it's not funny

[20:59] <geniice> [15:35:34] Dude this is wikipedia. you can't move for gay people

[20:59] <Cyrius> [15:36:10] I've seen better trolling from dead babies

[20:59] <Iamred> [15:37:22] COT DEATH!

[20:59] <Iamred> [15:37:50] :-D

[20:59] <geniice> [15:38:05] wierd fetish you have there

[20:59] <Iamred> [15:38:56] Weird spelling you have there.

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:04:25] Anyone in?

[20:59] <KsM> [16:04:29] No

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:04:31] I need some help with a template

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:04:45] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Uw-photo-advisory

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:07:00] Basicly, I'd like to bring it up to the same standard as other user namspace templates..

[20:59] <TuxFighter> [16:07:03] is the zh wiki available from china ?

[20:59] <geniice> [16:08:34] basicaly yes

[20:59] <geniice> [16:08:39] some pages are not

[20:59] <TuxFighter> [16:10:59] k that good because I want to translate

[20:59] <TuxFighter> [16:11:10] but its an unpolitical article

[20:59] <Matthewedwards> [16:11:16] Qcoder, I'm writing from my phone right now, so bear with me...

[20:59] <TuxFighter> [16:11:21] so there won´t be any problemes

[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:16:07] qcoder, you should put a blue exclamation mark image in it

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:16:30] ME|BUSY: Well I wasn't sure how

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:16:49] if someone can re-word and put in the right pictures - feel-free :)

[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:17:47] But check out image help pages and image use pages. They say thats an image with a few issues is better than none at all

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:18:06] True

[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:18:17] Gimp and shoop can correct most issues anyway

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:18:30] The intent of template is to help generate 'better' photos, not discourage people from uploading at all :)

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:19:26] I wanted a way to leave an uploader a note that an image had issues, but didn't want to leave something like {{Poor Quality}} on the image itself...

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:19:49] .. which might lead to a 'useful' image being FFD'd without the user knowing :(

[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:22:10] well thats was another thing. It seems a bit bitey, esp if I was an ameature photographer and haven't put my photos out in the public eye b4

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:23:10] Hmm

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:23:19] How to word it so it isn't BITEy

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:23:20] ?

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:23:24] Any suggestions

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:23:43] I had mind the sort of tags you used to get on stuff from the Photo lab...

[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:23:46] Does wikiversity or whatever it is have photo tutorials? You could link to them

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:23:52] I don't know

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:24:10] But that's what i had mind with the ... Please consider reading ...

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:24:19] (I didn't know where to link it to though...

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:24:21] )

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:26:21] I won't use the template until it's ready though

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:26:37] But would appreciate someone other than me rewording it :)

[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:26:59] Leave me a note on my talkpage, Ill look when I get home to a compute

[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:27:50] I think the graphics lab has tutorials, too

[20:59] <Qcoder00> [16:29:04] Your talk page being?

[20:59] <Lubaf> [16:29:21] Well, then. I've had two Square Root Of Minus Garfield strips accepted.

[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:29:34] [[User talk:Matthewedwards]]

[20:59] <ME|BUSY> [16:30:08] Sorry, didn't realise I has switched to a different nick

[20:59] <Blarumyrran> [17:49:10] Hello. Why are, in many biographic articles, year numbers and ages used intermittently for events in the person's life? It makes the text horrible to read.

[20:59] <RandomTime> [17:53:22] that sounds like something that should be standard

[20:59] <Blarumyrran> [17:54:32] It should be standard that they're used intermittently, or it should be standardized into either ages or year numbers?

[20:59] <variable> [18:53:47] what is that extension that generates a map

[20:59] <variable> [18:53:55] of what wikipedia pages you read?

[20:59] <***> Playback Complete.

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Session Start: Sun Oct 31 21:03:12 2010

Session Ident: #wikipedia

03[21:03] * Now talking in #wikipedia

03[21:03] * Set by Thehelpfulone!~Helper@wikimedia/Thehelpfulone on Sun Oct 03 09:39:11

Session Close: Sun Oct 31 21:03:15 2010

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Session Ident: #wikipedia

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Session Close: Sun Oct 31 21:03:49 2010

Session Start: Sun Oct 31 21:41:28 2010

Session Ident: #wikipedia

03[21:41] * Now talking in #wikipedia

03[21:41] * Set by Thehelpfulone!~Helper@wikimedia/Thehelpfulone on Sun Oct 03 09:39:11

[21:41] <***> Buffer Playback...

[21:41] <insane_kangaroo> [01:40:24] Hello ^_^

[21:41] <insane_kangaroo> [01:40:26] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_carry#Federal_Gun_Free_School_Zone_Act_of_1995

[21:41] <insane_kangaroo> [01:40:57] I'm an open carrier, and the last part should be removed or needs citation and was curious what I should do?

[21:41] <***> Playback Complete.

[21:42] <insane_kangaroo> "It is important to note, a carry permit will only exempt a person from this federal law in the State that physically issued the permit." <-- I've never known any case law for this, also there is the issue of "reciprocal" agreements between states.

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Session Close: Sun Oct 31 22:16:06 2010

I will never get sick of linking to YouTube copies of "Garfield's Halloween Adventure" (1985).

Monday, September 18, 2023

Things to Find on the "Wikpedia Sucks!" Messageboard

Because we don't talk about the messageboard enough, here is a post on it.

"Why We Hate Wikipedia/Ten things you probably don't know about Wikipedia."

CrowsNest came up with this list, here is half of Point 2:

2. The disclaimer(s)
Normally an inconsequential piece of cover your back legalese on most sites, the disclaimers on Wikipedia are essentially the only truthful user manual they have. They're the only documents that explicitly state that you cannot trust a single word written on Wikipedia, not even if it has a source provided (you gotta read the source). And they make it clear, this is by design. These warnings are intentional, like any grave warning of serious risk should be. But they are also, by contrast, not very prominent. You get more warning about the mere possibility your lunch may have occupied the same spacetime continuum as a nut. Despite admittedly being linked from every page, it's scary how many Wikipedia editors aren't even aware they exist. Noticing you haven't noticed the link tends to be a "holy shit" moment for anyone.

"Wikipediocracy's one-sided treatment of Wikipedia's one-sided treatment of a creepy YouTube star."

A thread (started by Boink Boink) on Colleen Ballinger, or more exactly, how Wikipediocracy's messageboard treated the entire issue this summer, i.e. badly, which is mirrored in how en.Wikipedia handled it. Definitely not safe for work even though there are no images.

"P.D. Magnus vandalizes Wikipedia (again)"

Back in 2007 P.D. Magnus did a simple vandalism study, going to a number of Wikipedia bios of famous philosophers and inserting "fibs" to see how long it would take for those to be removed. He did it again last year; some of the fictions were removed faster than last time, but some vandalism in articles on both occasions were not being removed at all. Magnus got his paper published at First Monday, a "peer reviewed journal on the Internet", who had published the original 2008 paper. Hat tip to ericbarbour for finding this one.

More Not Safe for Work fun, " 'Minor-attracted Person' Article for Deletion."

Yes, Wikipedia has had an article about "minor-attracted persons" more than once, and this is the Article for Deletion debate for the second attempt. A lot of this thread is a collection of links to all the articles and users doing the heavy lifting to make pedophila less radioactive somehow. A quote from ericbarbour:

Also: I predict that Arbcom will go to absurd lengths to stay out of this. Because it really is that repellent. I could list some of their past half-baked decisions in this area.....it's Arbcom, of course it will be half-baked. They seem to prefer to avoid addressing pedophilic editing in general. This mess is most notorious--it almost tore Wikipedia apart in 2006. Jimbo stuck his stupid nose in, thus making it worse. Many of those administrators later quit WP. Surprising they haven't "blanked it as a courtesy" or some shit.

That is "ancient history" now. Jimbo was still regarded as the Inerrant God of Wiki. Bastards. Not anymore.

Jimbo as the ultimate authority

12) Jimbo Wales has ultimate authority on Wikimedia projects; as a foundation issue that is beyond debate. Though he is in many contexts an ordinary user whose edits and administrative actions are subject to change or reversal per normal community processes, when Jimbo acts with ultimate authority as project leader, every community member is expected and obliged to comply with his decisions, though discussion, criticism and request for reversal is permitted.

The Board of Trustees is empowered to review such decisions by Jimbo. Users who act in deliberate defiance of an authoritative action by Jimbo are subject to sanctions, including banning and desysopping, particularly temporary ("emergency") desysopping.

Passed 8-0 with 2 abstentions

"PROOF that they are reading this forum"

A short thread on how Wikipedia editors were sneaking looks to write new articles on missing topics and fixing long-running issues. Sometimes. This one was a Bbb23sucks-ericbarbour joint.

***

There is a LOT more than this on the board, and it needs to be looked at if you are interested in why Wikipedia is as patchy as it is. Also, if you can, read T.J. Coles' expose We'll Tell You How to Think (2021), for a broad view of Wikipedia's consent-manufacturing properties.

Above: When pre-PBS (National Educational Television) could bring Rod Serling, Bernie Harrison (television critic, Washington Star newspaper), and James Dickey (!) to a Library of Congress set (!!) for an interview/round-table discussion on why television drama stinks, in glorious analog monochrome. Recorded on 1-15-1968.

Saturday, August 19, 2023

5505 Lindo Paseo, SDSU's "hidden" Fraternity disaster zone

We are quickly approaching another semester for the California State University system, so let's run through something San Diego State would love to bury and persuade the English-speaking world to forget.

The property now known as 5505 Lindo Paseo was once two single-story 1950s ranch houses on a street full of them, and all were occupied by fraternities or people wanting to be in fraternities. That was 2007; by 2014 it was a street filling up with multistory student housing, i.e., overpriced, undersized apartments. The nearly-finished building at 5505 was a three story pseudo-mansion with semi-underground parking, and it was to be the headquarters/living space of the Theta Chi fraternity. They got booted out after six years for "hazing violations", with the house left boarded up.

Above: The glory years of the "mansion", aka the late Obama period. (Video posted in 2016.)

Below: The Daily Aztec wandering through the garbage left behind, early January 2020.

The SDSU chapter of Theta Chi was not only kicked out of their house, they were dissolved. After a period of time where the property was abandoned, Kappa Sigma fraternity moved in, even though they were under an "interim suspension" from 2019. I don't know where they were before 2020 (there has been a lot of construction in the general area since 2010, some frat buildings have vanished.) By May of that year they were under suspension until 2022 (read the letter here). While we are on the topic, it should be said that the author of the letter, Carol Montero-Adams (director of Student Life & Leadership) is impossible to speak to either by email, telephone, or possibly in person. Her office is unlisted, her office telephone is unlisted (the telephone number in the letter is for Student Life, not her work number), she does not respond to any email queries. We know what she looks like thanks to the SL&L website, but that's it. But getting back to Kappa Sigma, they kept operating even though the group was suspended. This would bite them later.

Before we continue, there is some backstory that must be discussed, namely how the University and the Fraternities have been at war since the early 2000s, namely because of "Operation Sudden Fall", a sweeping 2008 drug sting run by the Drug Enforcement Agency and SDSU's small police force that arrested 22 drug dealing students and 17 suppliers. Many of the fraternities had members that were involved in these, including Theta Chi, which was suspended to 2012. The properties that became 5505 Lindo Paseo were Theta Chi's conjoined frathouse. Wikipedia has an extensive article on Operation Sudden Fall, even pointing out the student uproar that the DEA had been called in to Federalize these drug crimes, and yet the SDSU president at the time, Stephen Weber, doesn't have even a stub BLP. Put that down as another of Wikipedia's strange gaps, either through oversight or deliberate neglect. At any rate, the University has been coming down on these groups like a hammer ever since, so that at least five unrecognized fraternities are operating, one of them being Kappa Sigma. There seems to be a real push to make SDSU more like UCSD, the University of California research college in nearby La Jolla, even though each university does different things as mandated under the California educational plan (SDSU, by being a former Normal School, is a teaching college; UCSD, as previously stated, was designed for pure research, mostly scientific.) In order for SDSU to reach this arbitrary, pointless goal, it has to suck the joy out going to it, which might be why the new Conrad Prebys Student Center lacks a bar, unlike it's 1960s predecessor, and why the frats are on a short leash. If they are like this with student activities, Heaven help any grad student who tries to organize a union of grad students; the campus police harassment might make for a good lawsuit.

Kappa Sigma operated as it had before suspension, possibly contravening whatever the national KS organization order them to do (we tried to contact them, they would not speak to us at all). It all came to a head in late December of 2022, when Carol Montero-Adams suspended the group until 2030 (read the letter here). However, Champion Real Estate bought the property in September to redevelop it, so the kiss of death was already on the frathouse...except that a company called "Waterwheel Properties" now claims the building as its mailing address, which might explain why it's sitting derelict now. We have tried to talk to Champion Real Estate, they would not reply. At this point I would not be surprised if the SDSU legal team (whomever they are) is deeply involved.

Bonus: Site Photos

Above: If it isn't readily apparent, the landscaping stopped this summer. All of these photos were taken in late July.

Below: A better aspect of what the greens look like now. There is a pair of glasses and an X Box in those weeds.

Above: Broken windows are a running theme in these photos. Notice that the third floor door is wide open.

Below: A window on the side facing 55th Street blown out to the metal frame under the while plastic. All of this damage must have been done by the frat as a final "screw you" before leaving.

Below: The front door with a new-ish coded door latch and a piece of scrap wood to cover the old door handle hole, possible proof that Waterwheel is using the place for something. The building used to have a magnetic lock that could only be opened by student ID (box on the wall to the left.)

Below: Uline office sundries catalogs, possible proof that somebody is using the building for possible office use, or they just got mass-mailed off a list like most businesses and USPS just left them there.

Above: What it looks like inside, taken through the front window.

Below: The back door to the kitchen with a piece of wood over a broken pane.

Below: The kitchen, possibly in the state of being rebuilt. Shot through a door pane.

Below: Shot through the back French doors, here is their bizarre decoration for some sort of final event.

Above: A slightly zoomed shot. The door in the back is the front door, with a black metal frame chandelier hanging above the entrance, a leftover from the first occupants, Theta Chi.

Below: The mattress somebody left in the loading area. Truly a fitting symbol.

We forgot to mention the leaking plumbing hookup on the 55th Street side which created a fetid swamp for

about one month until the somebody shut off the water to the building, all the parking garage garbage, and how nobody wants to talk about 5505 Lindo Paseo; not the purchaser, not the frat, not the frat's national leadership, not SDSU. This lawsuit is not part of that, but more piling on.

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Addendum to last post: Where is the F@#kin' Money Goin' To?

So the question is asked, where is the fuckin' money goin' to? if San Diego State is charging hand over fist for every little thing. Well, the dirty truth is that the California State University system has become a wealth-hording mechanism for this tiny clique of college presidents, all of whom now make anywhere from over $300,000/year to just over $500,000/year. SDSU Persident Adela de la Torre makes $533,148 every year now.

Above: A 2022 chart of all the CSU schools, their presidents, how much their salaries have gone up, and if free housing is provided. The red line points out SDSU. Chart released by the California Faculty Association and used in the Peter Herman op-ed linked to above, "Hefty Raises Show CSU Values Administrators Over Faculty and Students", Times of San Diego, 08-18-2022.

Besides the CSU presidents, all the administrators got seven percent raises, while the professorate negotiated for a four percent raise and only got a three percent raise because one hundred million dollars was taken out of the CSU budget by the state government. Herman claims that even the four percent raise was behind the rate of inflation. And then there's the housing issue....

Back in 2000, Malin Burnham (a Point Loma real estate mogul), John Moores (then-owner of the Padres baseball team) and some other benefactors bought the SDSU presidency a house in the Alvarado Estates gated community, which was occupied by then-president Steven Weber. After Weber, it was Elliot Hischman's address, but in early 2018 the Aztec Shops paid 2.8 million dollars for a house on the same street (Yerba Santa Drive) and the new president wasn't even chosen yet! Adela de la Torre has been living in it for five years -- it came with a four car garage, a pool, a putting green, and a Zen rock garden.

Bonus: The Strange, Fragmented World of the SDSU College Republicans

The College Republicans at San Diego State are an interesting picture, because while the College Democrats run a competent and quiet organization, the other side has been involved in a large amount of drama since 2016; first they invited David Horowitz* to speak, and his fliers created a near-riot. Then they tried to ape the UCSD Republicans and have Milo Yiannopoulos come speak in the then-new student center, only to have the college say "no" by claiming they would need multiple bomb-sniffing dogs and beefed-up security (you have to remember there were violent protests at Berkeley when Yiannopoulos spoke.) Because the organization was no longer under the SDSU Associated Students umbrella due to something that happened 10-15 years ago (I cannot find it online), they made the crazy choice to "un-charter" themselves in January of 2019, cutting themselves off from the California College Republicans organization because they wanted to keep their same president, Madison Marks-Noble, who graduated the next year anyway.

So what is "fragmented" about it, the reader may ask? Well they don't have a consistent online identity at all; is this their Twitter account? Or is it this? According to this Facebook account (which is linked to the second Twitter account), their chapter is the only legitimate one on campus, but the older one is still operating. Is this a breakup, or two factions competing? And to make things "worse", SDSU has its own Turning Point USA outlet, to ratchet up the confusion. And all the while, the SDSU Democrats just keep chugging along....

* Not to be confused with this guy:

Sunday, July 9, 2023

An update on San Diego State (It's not looking good.)

We last wrote about San Diego State University in 2018, mocking their then-newish Engineering building and all the damn ofo rental bikes dumped on the campus. Things have gone downhill since then. According to Peter Herman*, professor of English and Shakespeare scholar, the main library (Love Library, opened in 1971 and named after ex-SDSU President Malcolm Love) is crumbling to pieces; they could not take a massive collection of Jazz/Blues/Gospel/Funk records all recorded by Black artists from an emeritus UCSD English professor (Bram Dijkstra) and his wife Sandra because the library cannot control humidity to a level where LP records and their sleeves aren't slowly being damaged, because it would require a new HVAC system for the space where all the records would be kept (plus the listening space where people would actually listen to the music, probably on headphones) was "too much of an expense." They literally have small dehumidifiers in the stacks to suck out the moisture, and the garbage cans the water is pumped into have to be drained multiple times a day. Also the exterior of the building is losing small chunks of concrete; "A colleague tells me he has seen 1,000-year-old cathedrals in better shape."

It's not just Love Library - the Life Sciences complex either reeks of saltwater in the Oceanographic section or like a greenhouse in the Botany section. The place is split between "north" and "south" sections; the former is where the greenhouse is and dates back to 1962, the latter is connected to the long patio (collonade? loggia?) that connects Hepner Hall to Hardy Tower. The school wants to demolish Life Science North and replace it with a slightly larger building, but the funding has not been scrabbled together.

This is a college where you pay one-hundred and eight American dollars to graduate, where they no longer hand out parking stickers if you drive to the campus, but the price to park keeps rising for the privilege of getting you license plate scanned. A school with a bookstore that charges "new" prices for "used" paperbacks in literature classes just because they can. A body of higher learning so terrified of their own football team, they would not investigate a recent gang rape case by ex-SDSU football players in 2021 that only surfaced in 2022 because the student victim didn't go to the SDSU police. It's now a civil case, because the SDPD and the District Attorney were unwilling to charge anybody for anything.

The final cut to all of this is the probable 2027-2028 enrollment cliff Dahn Shaulis has written about a lot; the students that weren't born during the Great Recession's worst period are going to start making their absence felt in a few years, so it might get very easy to get into SDSU because they will be desperate to find any students at all. Will the education be worth anything? Only time will tell.

Above: The better days of 2011, when Elliot Hirschman ("President Slick") was in charge.

Below: The "Living Horror of COVID" message from President Slick's successor.

* He also claims that the Mission Valley SDSU extension was a lie, and that all that will be built aside from Snapdragon Stadium will be private offices and apartments and not a satellite campus.

Wednesday, June 21, 2023

The buried Henry Nicholas editing Fiasco

Is this paid editing, or just some very strange fanboy? Back in 2008, Henry T. Nicholas, III was in a lot of hot water for securities fraud and also building an underground sex-and-drugs space beneath his Laguna Hills mansion, a mansion patrolled by three guards who were a mix of ex-military and ex-police officers, while Nicholas' wife and three children went about their lives. The organization Nicholas was lying to shareholders for was Broadcom, a microchip manufacturer he had co-founded. There was a tizzy of coverage, mostly over the "orgy cave" and the fantastic amounts of drugs Nicholas was ordering/doing. In the end, everybody else seemed to take the fall, and Nicholas emerged a divorced dad with time at the Betty Ford clinic but still in charge at Broadcom somehow. None of this is is the story we are interested with today (you could tell because I didn't even mention that the "orgy cave" plan was abandoned and HTN III converted a warehouse to the same purpose), we are interested in how certain Single Purpose Accounts tweaked Nicholas' BLP ("biography of a living person") so that the events of 2008-2011 are totally buried.

The Who-What-When

According to Eric Barbour, the original Henry T. Nicholas, III article was "not complementary" to the man in 2009. There was a bunch of fiddling with it in 2010 and it changed into a bio of "Henry Nicholas", a 16th century German sect founder ("Family of Love"). Then the name was changed to "Henry Nicholis" and the article was moved by Toweltoweltowel, an SPA who had edited the crap out of the original. Another SPA (Littlebrownpill) dropped the original article back into "Henry Nicholas".

Once all of this dance was completed, then other SPAs moved in to smooth the article down, make it duller. They were Beahero, Worrytrap, Silvergoldsilver, plus Dstringer71, who liked to edit the article on Marsy's Law, a victims' rights law passed in 2008. Who was "Marsy"? Marsilee Nicholas, sister of Henry Nicholas, who was killed by an ex-boyfriend in 1983; HTN III was one of the promoters. Now the reader can see why we are asking if this is paid editing or fanboyism.

It add to this, in June 2010 noted dimwit administrator Ohnoitsjamie tried to demolish the article, then SPA Phoneyplayer showed up to defend it:

(cur | prev) 18:54, 26 June 2010‎ Ohnoitsjamie (talk | contribs)‎ . . (16,397 bytes) (+16,369)‎ . . (oops) (undo)
(cur | prev) 18:54, 26 June 2010‎ Ohnoitsjamie (talk | contribs)‎ . . (28 bytes) (-16,369)‎ . . (yes it does; we only need one article, the one at Henry Nicholas) (undo)
(cur | prev) 18:50, 26 June 2010‎ Phoneyplayer (talk | contribs)‎ . . (16,397 bytes) (+16,369)‎ . . (Undid revision 370285439 by Ohnoitsjamie (talk) redirect didn't go anywhere?) (undo)
(cur | prev) 18:35, 26 June 2010‎ Ohnoitsjamie (talk | contribs)‎ . . (28 bytes) (-16,369)‎ . . (redirect (we don't need three pages on the same subject)) (undo)

What I find interesting about the name Phoneyplayer is that the "phoney" is spelled the same way as IAmAPhoney, the "Paul [McCartney] is dead/Faul" editor/musician who may or may not be part of a 2010s viral marketing campaign to promote the Beatles. Anyway, the Henry Nicholas BLP is now being watched over by Patapsco913, who Barbour alleges is a paid editor. Finally, archive.org has a couple early copies of the article saved from 2009 and 2010. Both of them have section headings mentioning the sex cave. With Wikipedia, you always have to check your sources.

Above: the weirdest photo of Henry Nicholas I could find. He always looks haggard.

Tuesday, April 25, 2023

More Ukrainian stuff, related to the War or not, with a side of Russian things.....

About eleven months ago we did a post on the Russian-Ukrainian war, pointing out the amounts of outright censorship and throttling of outlets online. Things have gotten a lot more bizarre since then.

NAFO

Part of the absolute reduction of Twitter from "that site the journos and comedians hang out at" to "Elon's Rightwing Funhouse" has been the rise of the North Atlantic Fellas Organization, this bizarro quasi-parody of NATO, operator culture, and Internet memes. All of the members get little Shiba Inu person avatars (a reference to Dogecoin), and they have made "saints" out of anti-tank/short-range anti-aircraft missiles, such as "Saint Javelin", a name they reused for their sticker and merchandise store.

Above: a pretty conservative-looking "Shibe" avatar; many are depicted carrying weapons in full combat gear. Most of them have the same stance, a feature probably taken from the computer-generated style of NFT "art" collections.

Below: Saint Javelin painted on the side of a building in Kyiv. I have seen pro-Russian bloggers call this art blasphemous.

The criticism of NAFO has been there early on, because anybody can join (ex-Congressman Adam Kinzinger is a "fella") and this has not just meant the normal Twitter horde but a bunch of government figures, mercenaries, political operators, and hangers-on as Moss Robeson and The Greyzone point out. Paul Massaro ("senior policy advisor to the U.S. Helsinki Commission" - Robeson), his online girlfriend Alona Shevchenko (involved in cryptocurrency and now Ukrainian nationalism), Matthew VanDyke (founder of the Sons of Liberty International mercenary group, and a former fighter in the Syrian civil war), Benjamin Wittes (Brookings Institute, married to an ex-State Department official), the Kyiv Post newspaper (very pro-Azov Battalion, paper mostly staffed by imported rightwingers after most of the Ukrainians were fired), John Sipher (ex-CIA media commentator), and many others are joining/backing NAFO. . . . .which means their money is going to back the Georgian Legion of Mamuka Mamulashvili (founded 2014), which seems to be what Kamil Dyszewski and Matt Moores (the mostly-unspoken founders of NAFO) were aiming to do, and everything else is a bonus. No word if Saint Javelin creator Christian Borys (Canadian freelance journalist) is unhappy with that choice. The Georgian Legion (now full of non-Georgian foreign volunteers) has gotten in hot water in the past for killing disarmed Russian soldiers on camera, no less. Mamulashvili has said his group does not tolerate neo-Nazis and ethnic nationalists, and yet men like Ethan Tiling (Australian, now claims to being an ex-neo-Nazi), Norweigan Joachim Furholm (another neo-Nazi), and Craig Lang (ex-US Army, did time with Right Sektor and the Georgian Legion, on the run for two murders in the US) were involved, mostly in the run-up to the Russian invasion when the Georgian Legion was fighting in the Donbass and Luhansk.

It should be said that much of the above were taken from news reports written within the last five years, but NAFO keeps on giving to this day, such as when "fella" Pekka Kallionniemi, a research fellow at Tampere University in Finland started ripping Kim Dotcom in a Twitter thread. Dotcom responded and one of his rebuttals involved Seth Rich, that he was unwilling to handle the information (the Hillary Clinton emails and DNC leak material) Rich had, so Dotcom put him in contact with Wikileaks and things moved from there. In one swoop a NAFOite was able to sink the "Russian hackers" story, all by accident, if you believe Kim Dotcom's claims.

A View from the Underground

An interview with Dmitri Kovalevitch, an underground Communist organizer in Ukraine (Orinoco Tribune).

Some quotes:

. . . . .Ukraine’s new authorities actually made every concession to neo-Nazi militants because they themselves feared the monster they had armed to keep them in power. However, nationalist and neo-Nazi groups were systematically made mainstream by all Ukrainian governments after the collapse of the Soviet Union; they were needed to reverse the mass nostalgia for the late-Soviet welfare state with free healthcare, education, free apartments for workers, free trips to resorts and vacation homes with very low prices for food, gas, electricity and public transport.
Now people get prison sentences for even wearing a Soviet badge, listening to Communist songs, or wearing a T-shirt with a hammer and sickle. Most of the communists left for the rebellious republics of Donbass (where their own communist party operates), some went to Russia, and some stayed to work underground in Ukraine.
Even recently, in March 2023, the Ukrainian security services reported the detention in western Ukraine, in the city of Lviv, of a cell of the illegal Communist Party of the Soviet Union, numbering 45 people. Judging by their description, they were mostly elderly people. . . . .

....Even before 2022, Ukraine went through a stage of deindustrialization, when most of the country’s enterprises were shut down. This was one of the consequences of the trade association with the European Union, which caused the Euromaidan in 2014. Millions of Ukrainians were already working on construction sites in Russia or in the fields in Poland, as nurses in Italy, or in shopping malls in Turkey. By that time, a whole class of people had formed in Ukraine, living on their relatives’ salaries, which they transferred to them from abroad.
As a consequence, Ukraine is experiencing a shortage of workers, even to maintain infrastructure. A Ukrainian worker receives an average of $200-250 per month, but this is usually enough for a couple of weeks. The fact is that in 2014 Ukraine began to take mass loans from the IMF, the World Bank and Western countries. The condition for the loans was a sharp increase in tariffs for gas, light, and gasoline, so that the debtor could pay back later. Since 2014, the prices of heating, water, transport, and electricity in Ukraine have increased five to six times, while in Donbass they remained almost at the same level. For this reason, Ukrainian workers prefer to work abroad and spend their earnings at home.....

The Russo-Ukrainian Dilemma

Not enough has been written about the probable collapse of the Russo-Ukrainian identity, which was fragile at the best of times.

(post under construction.)