AntiSocialMedia.net by Judd Bagley

Below, you can see a reproduction of the email I sent on the left, and the response, when applicable on the right.

With that in mind, I sent the following to Gary.

“In preparation for another lie-a-gram, Bagley recently emailed myself and other critics (such as this one) to plead what oh what have I said that wasn’t true?”

“If, as I believe, Bagley was both TeachMeSomething and pbyrnepatriot, he has participated on this very board, has read my posts, and almost undoubtedly still has access. Given that, to mis-render my opinion of him as questioning the accuracy of his blog is disingenous to a fault. The unctuous nature of the e-mail, overflowing with kindness and the desire to do right, simply heightens its falsity…

“But I am willing to fire where obvious targets present themselves, and should I receive any further communication, intimidating or otherwise, from Judd “Anal-Cranial Inversion” Bagley, his profile will be raised.”

As I stated above, and reiterate now, I have never once posted on any fool.com message board, nor directed anybody else to do so. If that’s what’s keeping UR from replying, I hope he will reconsider.

Specifically, MediaWiki Foundation employee David Gerard blocked every computer on my employer’s network from accessing Wikipedia.

Because it’s impossible to justify such a sweeping and ostensibly permanent block for the sake of one non-vandal, Gerard instead claimed it was to thwart “commercial spamming.”

As if on cue, Hu12 jumped to attention, saying “They’ve been very naughty” and promising to rid Wikipedia of inappropriate links to Overstock.com.

Over the next five minutes, the hard-working Hu12 managed to eradicate a total of four links, added over the course of six months by four separate editors.

For those unfamiliar with the problem of Wikipedia spam, let’s just say four links falls so short of the threshold of “spam” as to not be worth mentioning.

To put a finer point on it, Gary Weiss added double that many references to his own book, each of which remains to this day.

Perplexed, I emailed Hu12 to learn more.

Curious, I emailed Gerard to learn more.

In response, I created and posted the following table, listing all Wikipedia editors named on these pages, the claim made about them, and any confirmation of that claim.

I also left a column for Sandifer to note any applicable unseemliness.

Of course that column remains unchanged.

• The first was to very publicly encourage me to “F*ck off.”
• The second, like the first, publicly suggested that I “F*ck off.”
• The third was to block, for six months, the IP address that my home shares with 1,000 other subscribers of the local ISP.

To justify yet another unprecedented move, Gerard noted:

“Favourite open proxy of Judd Bagley/overstock.com, actively (and almost exclusively) used by them.”

As this record of anon edits (of which none is mine) attests, it most certainly is an actively used IP, but hardly exclusive to me, and never by Overstock.com.

More to the point, the now blocked IP is the exact opposite of an open proxy, in that only paying subscribers may access it.

Wanting to help Gerard do the right thing, I sent him the following email:

Obviously, something is broken.

Is it my email, or those on the receiving end?

Because my email seems to be working for everybody else, I’m going to say the problem is limited to the above nine people and their inability to defend their shameful actions.