[WikiEN-l] something to look into

Mon Nov 13 17:13:20 UTC 2006

On 13/11/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> > On 11/13/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> >> http://www.opinioneditorials.com/guestcontributors/rcurry_20061113.html
> >
> >
> > Why? Wikipedia appears to have taken the facts and ignored the
> > opinions so I don't see a problem.
>
> If that is the case, then fine.  That's why I wanted people to look into it.
>
> Perhaps you are not familiar with the history of this topic and Rex
> Curry.  My concern is that he has managed somehow to push his POV and
> original research agenda into Wikipedia, and that he is using his
> success in doing so to bolster his own cause.

Oh, god, *him*. Fascist-salute guy.

Summary for those unaware: RC thinks he has a conclusive theory that
the Pledge of Allegiance is irretrievably linked to the Nazi salute,
and the Nazis were godless commies, or something like that. (My eyes
tend to screw up after the first few paras of inpenetrable prose) He
spams places wildly with it. (My personal favourite: he will review
vaguely-related books on Amazon, saying "interesting, but has failed
to notice recent research that [...textdump...]"

He's spammed us before, but I thought we were shot of him. Gah.

As to Geni's "keep the facts, junk the opinion", I have a strong
suspicion that his "facts" aren't even remotely facts - if we're
citing this guy *anywhere* in any of our articles I'd advise taking an
extremely prejudiced chainsaw to those.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk