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Sunday, September 28, 2008

The two major party presidential candidates in the US, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, faced each other yesterday in the first TV debate. Despite that McCain had asked to postpone the debate, both were present at the University of Mississippi. The debate, which was moderated by PBS‘ Jim Lehrer, was planned to be focused on foreign policy, however due to concerns about the US financial crisis, the debate began focused on economy.

McCain repeatedly referred to his experience, drawing on stories from the past. Often, he joked of his age and at one point seemed to mock his opponent. Obama spoke of mistakes and repeatedly laid out detailed plans.

The debate was widely seen as a draw. A CBS poll conducted after the debate on independent voters found that 38% felt it was a draw, 40% felt Obama had won, and 22% thought that McCain had won. Voters and analysts agreed that Obama had won on the economy, but that McCain had done better on foreign policy issues, which were the focus of the debate. However, Obama had a more substantial lead on the economy than McCain did on foreign policy.

The McCain campaign faced some ridicule prior to the debate, after airing an internet ad declaring McCain had won the debate hours before it had started.

The candidates were asked where they stood on the country’s financial plans.

Obama put forward four proposals for helping the economy. First, to “make sure that we’ve got oversight over this whole [bailout] process”. Second, to “make sure that taxpayers, when they are putting their money at risk, have the possibility of getting that money back and gains”. Third, to “make sure that none of that money is going to pad CEO bank accounts or to promote golden parachutes”. And lastly, “make sure that we’re helping homeowners, because the root problem here has to do with the foreclosures that are taking place all across the country”.

He then went on to say, “we also have to recognize that this is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies promoted by George Bush, supported by Senator McCain, a theory that basically says that we can shred regulations and consumer protections and give more and more to the most, and somehow prosperity will trickle down”.Lehrer then turned to McCain, giving him two minutes as well.

McCain, on the other hand, stressed the urgency of the crisis and the partisanship present in Washington before going on. “This package has transparency in it. It has to have accountability and oversight. It has to have options for loans to failing businesses, rather than the government taking over those loans. We have to — it has to have a package with a number of other essential elements to it,” he told viewers, pausing to briefly mention energy and jobs before Lehrer stopped him.

Lehrer asked the two to come back to his question and urging them to speak to each other, first turning to Senator Obama.

“We haven’t seen the language yet,” Obama began, speaking to Lehrer and not McCain. “And I do think that there’s constructive work being done out there”, he said, before noting he was optimistic a plan would come together. “The question, I think, that we have to ask ourselves is, how did we get into this situation in the first place?”

He continued, stressing his foresight on the issues two years ago, before Lehrer turned to McCain, asking if he planned to vote for the bailout plan.

McCain stammered that he hoped so. Lehrer asked again, and McCain replied, “Sure. But — but let me — let me point out, I also warned about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and warned about corporate greed and excess, and CEO pay, and all that. A lot of us saw this train wreck coming.”

McCain then continued, giving a story about former US President Dwight Eisenhower, who “on the night before the Normandy invasion, went into his room, and he wrote out two letter”. Eisenhower, he said, had taken accountability for his actions.

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“As president of the United States, people are going to be held accountable in my administration. And I promise you that that will happen.”

Obama then agreed with McCain, adding that more accountability was needed but not just when there’s a panic. “There are folks out there who’ve been struggling before this crisis took place,” Obama continued, “and that’s why it’s so important, as we solve this short-term problem, that we look at some of the underlying issues that have led to wages and incomes for ordinary Americans to go down, the — a health care system that is broken, energy policies that are not working, because, you know, 10 days ago, John said that the fundamentals of the economy are sound”.

Obama was asked to say it to McCain. Obama replied, “I do not think that they are”. Lehrer asked him to say it more directly to McCain, and Obama laughed, repeating himself to McCain.

McCain joked about his age, saying, “Are you afraid I couldn’t hear him?”

Obama said that he and McCain disagreed fundamentally and that he wanted accountability “not just when there’s a crisis for folks who have power and influence and can hire lobbyists, but for the nurse, the teacher, the police officer, who, frankly, at the end of each month, they’ve got a little financial crisis going on. They’re having to take out extra debt just to make their mortgage payments”. Tax policies, he said, were a good example.

McCain disagreed. “No, I — look, we’ve got to fix the system. We’ve got fundamental problems in the system. And Main Street is paying a penalty for the excesses and greed in Washington, D.C., and on Wall Street. So there’s no doubt that we have a long way to go. And, obviously, stricter interpretation and consolidation of the various regulatory agencies that weren’t doing their job, that has brought on this crisis”.

Lehrer went on to the next question, asking if there were fundamental differences between the approaches of the two.

McCain began by saying he wanted to lower “completely out of control” spending. He promised as president to “veto every single spending bill” He then attacked Senator Obama’s use of earmarks, citing it as a fundamental difference.

Senator Obama agreed that earmarks were being abused, but not that it was a large problem. “Earmarks account for $18 billion in last year’s budget. Senator McCain is proposing — and this is a fundamental difference between us — $300 billion in tax cuts to some of the wealthiest corporations and individuals in the country, $300 billion. Now, $18 billion is important; $300 billion is really important.” He then attacked McCain’s tax plans, saying, “you would have CEOs of Fortune 500 companies getting an average of $700,000 in reduced taxes, while leaving 100 million Americans out”.

He then stressed his focus on the middle class, saying, “We’ve got to grow the economy from the bottom up. What I’ve called for is a tax cut for 95 percent of working families, 95 percent”.

McCain was called on.

“Now, Senator Obama didn’t mention that, along with his tax cuts, he is also proposing some $800 billion in new spending on new programs,” McCain said, attacking his opponent. He also said that Obama had only suspended pork barrel spending after he started running for president.

“What I do is I close corporate loopholes,” Obama objected, “stop providing tax cuts to corporations that are shipping jobs overseas so that we’re giving tax breaks to companies that are investing here in the United States. I make sure that we have a health care system that allows for everyone to have basic coverage”.

He then turned to McCain, asking him to look at his tax policies, which he said were ignoring the middle class and a continuation of Bush policies.

Lehrer asked McCain to respond directly to Obama’s attack on his tax policies.

“Well — well, let me give you an example of what Senator Obama finds objectionable, the business tax,” McCain began. He then explained the reasoning behind his business tax cuts, saying that companies would want to start in countries where they would pay less taxes. “I want to cut that business tax. I want to cut it so that businesses will remain in — in the United States of America and create jobs”.

Obama explained that his tax cuts would affect 95% of taxpayers, then replied, “Now, John mentioned the fact that business taxes on paper are high in this country, and he’s absolutely right. Here’s the problem: There are so many loopholes that have been written into the tax code, oftentimes with support of Senator McCain, that we actually see our businesses pay effectively one of the lowest tax rates in the world”.

McCain, he said, opposed closing loopholes but just wanted to add more tax breaks on top of that.

	This was a clear victory for Barack Obama on John McCain’s home turf. Senator McCain offered nothing but more of the same failed Bush policies, and Barack Obama made a forceful case for change in our economy and our foreign policy.

He went on, attacking McCain’s health credit idea, saying that McCain wanted to tax health credits. “Your employer now has to pay taxes on the health care that you’re getting from your employer. And if you end up losing your health care from your employer, you’ve got to go out on the open market and try to buy it”.

McCain responded with an example of Obama voting for tax breaks of oil companies.

Obama cut in, “John, you want to give oil companies another $4 billion”, he pointed out.

McCain shot back, attacking Obama’s earmark spending and tax policies. “Who’s the person who has believed that the best thing for America is — is to have a tax system that is fundamentally fair?”, he said, referring to himself. “And I’ve fought to simplify it, and I have proposals to simplify it”.

He then accused Obama of voting “to increase taxes on people who make as low as $42,000 a year”. Obama repeated several times that McCain’s accusations were untrue.

McCain then accused him of giving tax cuts to oil companies, which Obama once again said was untrue. “The fact of the matter is, is that I was opposed to those tax breaks, tried to strip them out,”he said. “We’ve got an emergency bill on the Senate floor right now that contains some good stuff, some stuff you want, including drilling off-shore, but you’re opposed to it because it would strip away those tax breaks that have gone to oil companies.”

Lehrer then broke in, stopping the argument. He switched to a new question, asking what priorities and goals for the country the candidates would give up as a result of the financial crisis.

He allowed Obama to answer the question first, who said many things would have to be delayed but not forgotten. He then began to list what he felt the country had to have to continue to compete.

“We have to have energy independence,” he said, “so I’ve put forward a plan to make sure that, in 10 years’ time, we have freed ourselves from dependence on Middle Eastern oil by increasing production at home, but most importantly by starting to invest in alternative energy, solar, wind, biodiesel”.

He continued, saying that the health care system had to be fixed because it was bankrupting families.

“We’ve got to make sure that we’re competing in education,” he continued. “We’ve got to make sure that our children are keeping pace in math and in science.” He also mentioned making sure college was still affordable.

He also stressed making sure the country was still stable structurally, “to make sure that we can compete in this global economy”.

Lehrer then turned to McCain, asking him to present his ideas.

“Look, we, no matter what, we’ve got to cut spending”, McCain began and reminded the audience that he “saved the taxpayers $6.8 billion by fighting a contract that was negotiated between Boeing and DOD that was completely wrong”.

Lehrer broke in, asking if it was correct that neither of them had any major changes to implement after the financial crisis.

Obama replied that many things would have to be delayed and put aside, and that investments had to be made. He then agreed with McCain that cuts had to be made. “We right now give $15 billion every year as subsidies to private insurers under the Medicare system. Doesn’t work any better through the private insurers. They just skim off $15 billion. That was a give away and part of the reason is because lobbyists are able to shape how Medicare work”.

McCain then made a suggestion. “How about a spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs”. Lehrer repeated “spending freeze?” and McCain went on, “I think we ought to seriously consider with the exceptions the caring of veterans, national defense and several other vital issues”.

Obama disagreed with McCain’s idea, saying it was “using a hatchet”. Some vital programs, he said, were seriously underfunded. “I went to increase early childhood education and the notion that we should freeze that when there may be, for example, this Medicare subsidy doesn’t make sense”.

The two candidates began to argue more directly.

“We have to have,” McCain argued, “wind, tide, solar, natural gas, flex fuel cars and all that but we also have to have offshore drilling and we also have to have nuclear power”.

He accused Obama of opposing storing nuclear fuel.

Lehrer interrupted the two with another question, asking how the financial crisis would affect how they ran the country.

Obama replied first. “There’s no doubt it will affect our budgets. There is no doubt about it”. He went on to stress that it was a critical time and the country’s long term priorities had to be sorted out.

	There was one man who was presidential tonight, that man was John McCain. There was another who was political, that was Barack Obama. John McCain won this debate and controlled the dialogue throughout, whether it was the economy, taxes, spending, Iraq or Iran.

McCain replied by criticizing Obama’s health care plans. “I want the families to make decisions between themselves and their doctors. Not the federal government,” he said, then called for lower spending.

He went on to speak about the national debt and stressing the importance of low taxes.

Obama went on the offensive, attacking McCain’s record of voting. “John, it’s been your president who you said you agreed with 90 percent of the time who presided over this increase in spending”, he said, accusing him of voting for an “orgy of spending”.

McCain countered that he had opposed Bush “on spending, on climate change, on torture of prisoner, on – on Guantanamo Bay. On a — on the way that the Iraq War was conducted”. He called himself a maverick, and referred to his running mate as a maverick as well.

Lehrer asked the two what the lessons of Iraq were.

McCain answered first, stressing that the war in Iraq was going well. “I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear,” he answered, “that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict”.

He went on to praise the efforts in Iraq, saying the strategy was successful and the US was winning. “And we will come home with victory and with honor. And that withdrawal is the result of every counterinsurgency that succeeds”, and continued that Iraq would make a stable ally.

Lehrer asked Obama how he saw the lessons of Iraq, who began by questioning the fundamentals of the war and whether the US should have gone in the first place.

“We took our eye off [bin Laden]. And not to mention that we are still spending $10 billion a month, when they have a $79 billion surplus, at a time when we are in great distress here at home, and we just talked about the fact that our budget is way overstretched and we are borrowing money from overseas to try to finance just some of the basic functions of our government”.

The lesson, he said, was to “never hesitate to use military force”, but to use it wisely.

McCain was asked if he agreed on the lesson, though he did not comment on a lesson learned. Obama, he said, had been wrong about the surge.

The two opponents then began arguing, as Lehrman tried to mediate them.

McCain felt it was remarkable that “Senator Obama is the chairperson of a committee that oversights NATO that’s in Afghanistan. To this day, he has never had a hearing”.

“The issues of Afghanistan,” Obama responded, “the issues of Iraq, critical issues like that, don’t go through my subcommittee because they’re done as a committee as a whole”.

He then began to attack McCain’s optimism. “You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong. You said that there was no history of violence between Shiite and Sunni. And you were wrong”.

McCain responded to the criticism by telling a story of when he spoke to troops who were re-enlisting. “And you know what they said to us? They said, let us win. They said, let us win. We don’t want our kids coming back here. And this strategy, and this general, they are winning. Senator Obama refuses to acknowledge that we are winning in Iraq”.

McCain repeatedly accused Obama of opposing funding to troops.

Obama responded by speaking to Lehrer, to explain why he had voted against funding troops. “Senator McCain opposed funding for troops in legislation that had a timetable, because he didn’t believe in a timetable. I opposed funding a mission that had no timetable, and was open- ended, giving a blank check to George Bush. We had a difference on the timetable”.

“Admiral Mullen suggests that Senator Obama’s plan is dangerous for America,” McCain cut in once Obama had finished.

Obama said it was not the case, that the wording was “a precipitous withdrawal would be dangerous”.

McCain then argued that Iraq, and not Afghanistan, was the central battle ground against terrorism. He also attacked Obama’s surprise that the surge had worked.

Lehrer switched to a new question. “Do you think more troops — more U.S. troops should be sent to Afghanistan, how many, and when?”

Obama mentioned he had been saying more troops in Afghanistan were needed for over a year. He argued that no Al-Qaeda were present in Iraq before the invasion, and the people there had nothing to do with 9/11.

He then went on to list a three part plan beginning with pressuring the Afghani government to work for it’s people and control it’s poppy trade. He also pressed the need to stop giving money to Pakistan.

	To be frank, I’m surprised McCain didn’t play the POW card more tonight, consider how frequently he and his campaign have used it earlier in the campaign.

McCain responded by saying Iraq had to be stabilized and that he would not make the mistake of leaving Iraq the way it is.

“If you’re going to aim a gun at somebody,” he said, “you’d better be prepared to pull the trigger”.

Obama responded by arguing that if the Pakistani government would not take care of terrorists in it’s borders, action had to be taken. He then commented on past US policies with Pakistan, saying that the US support of Musharraf had alienated the Pakistani people.

“And as a consequence, we lost legitimacy in Pakistan. We spent $10 billion. And in the meantime, they weren’t going after al Qaeda, and they are more powerful now than at any time since we began the war in Afghanistan. That’s going to change when I’m president of the United States”, he finished.

McCain quickly replied that Pakistan was a failed state at the time. He then went on to talk about his voting record. “I have a record of being involved in these national security issues, which involve the highest responsibility and the toughest decisions that any president can make, and that is to send our young men and women into harm’s way”.

Obama argued that Afghanistan could not be muddled through, and that problems were being caused by not focusing on Al-Qaeda. As he finished, Lehrer attempted to announce a new question, but McCain quickly attacked Obama, saying his plans would have a “calamitous effect” on national security and the region.

Lehrer directed his next question towards McCain, asking about his thoughts on Iran and it’s threat to the US.

McCain’s reading of the threat in Iran was “if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it is an existential threat to the State of Israel and to other countries in the region”. He stressed the need to avoid another Holocaust, and the need for a league of democracies

	Anybody hearing a snicker from McCain while Obama is talking?

to battle Iran. “I am convinced that together, we can, with the French, with the British, with the Germans and other countries, democracies around the world, we can affect Iranian behavior”.

Obama went next, focusing on the Iraq war’s effect on Iran. Iraq, he said, was Iran’s “mortal enemy” and had kept Iran from becoming a threat. “That was cleared away. And what we’ve seen over the last several years is Iran’s influence grow. They have funded Hezbollah, they have funded Hamas, they have gone from zero centrifuges to 4,000 centrifuges to develop a nuclear weapon”.

He then went on to say that refusing to use diplomacy with hostile nations has only made matters worse and isolated the US.

Lehrer turned to McCain, asking him how he felt about diplomacy as a solution.

McCain hurried through his response, attacking Obama on his willingness to meet with hostile leaders without preconditions. People like Ahmadinejad, he said, would have their ideas legitimized if a President met with them.

Obama responded by pointing out that Ahmadinejad was only a minor leader. Meeting leaders without preconditions, he said, “doesn’t mean that you invite them over for tea one day”. He then turned to attacking McCain, who he said “would not meet potentially with the prime minister of Spain, because he — you know, he wasn’t sure whether they were aligned with us. I mean, Spain? Spain is a NATO ally”.

McCain retorted that he was not yet President so it would be out of place. The two then began to argue over the comments of Dr. Kissinger’s stance on meeting foreign leaders.

McCain argued that meeting with and legitimizing ideas was dangerous and naive, and said it was a fundamental difference of opinion.

Obama accused McCain of misrepresentation, stressing that he would not speak without low level talks and preparations.

McCain responded by mocking Obama. “So let me get this right. We sit down with Ahmadinejad, and he says, ‘We’re going to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth,’ and we say, ‘No, you’re not’? Oh, please”.

The two started arguing among each other, as Lehrer attempted to interject, finally succeeding with a new question. He turned to Obama, asking how he saw the relationship with Russia and it’s potential.

Obama began spelling out his opinion, stating that he felt the US approach to Russia had to be evaluated. He then continued that the US has to press for a unified alliance and for Russia to remove itself from other nations, adding that the US had to “explain to the Russians that you cannot be a 21st-century superpower, or power, and act like a 20th-century dictatorship”.

He went on, stressing the importance of diplomacy and affirming relationships, and inviting Russian-influenced countries into NATO. “Now, we also can’t return to a Cold War posture with respect to Russia. It’s important that we recognize there are going to be some areas of common interest. One is nuclear proliferation”.

McCain responded by attacking Obama’s reaction to the Russian-Georgian conflict, criticizing his initial comment that both sides should show restraint, calling it naive. “He doesn’t understand that Russia committed serious aggression against Georgia. And Russia has now become a nation fueled by petro-dollars that is basically a KGB apparatchik-run government”.

Lehrer asked Obama if there were any major differences between the two’s opinion on Russia, who answered that he and McCain had similar opinions on Russia. He then stressed foresight in dealing with Russia, as well as reducing dependence on foreign oil through alternative energy.

“Over 26 years, Senator McCain voted 23 times against alternative energy, like solar, and wind, and biodiesel,” he mentioned.

The two began to argue over alternative energy. As Lehrer began announcing the next question, McCain interjected. “No one from Arizona is against solar. And Senator Obama says he’s for nuclear, but he’s against reprocessing and he’s against storing So,” he continued, as Obama objected, “it’s hard to get there from here. And off-shore drilling is also something that is very important and it is a bridge”.

McCain continued, as Obama interrupted to correct him, saying that he had voted for storing nuclear waste safely.

The two began interrupting each other, each trying to get a word in, before Lehrer stopped them and moved on.

“What do you think the likelihood is that there would be another 9/11-type attack on the continental United States?” asked Lehrer.

McCain said that America was far safer since 9/11, which he claimed a hand in. He went on to stress better intelligence and technology in keeping America safe, but that he felt the US was far safer.

Lehrer then turned to Obama.

Obama disagreed slightly, saying America was safer in some ways, but “we still have a long way to go”. He also felt that the US was not focusing enough on Al-Qaeda and fighting in Iraq was not making the US safer.

McCain accused Senator Obama of not understanding that “if we fail in Iraq, it encourages al Qaeda. They would establish a base in Iraq”.

Lehrer asked if Obama agreed.

Obama argued that the sole focus was currently Iraq, but that “in the meantime, bin Laden is still out there. He is not captured. He is not killed”. He noted that $10 billion was spent in Iraq every month, instead of going to healthcare. He argued that veterans were not getting the benefits they deserved, and that the next president’s strategies had to be broader.

McCain responded by attacking Obama saying he didn’t think Obama had the knowledge or experience to be President.

Obama then said that the job of the next President would be to repair America’s image and economy.

McCain concluded by citing his POW experience. “Jim, when I came home from prison, I saw our veterans being very badly treated, and it made me sad. And I embarked on an effort to resolve the POW-MIA issue, which we did in a bipartisan fashion, and then I worked on normalization of relations between our two countries so that our veterans could come all the way home”.

“And that ends this debate tonight,” finished Jim Lehrer.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Glenn Crowe is running for the NDP in the Ontario provincial election, in the Bramalea-Gore-Malton riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.

Crowe did not reply to various questions asked.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

The recent wildfires in Los Angeles, California, have burned more than 42,000 acres (17,000 hectares) of land. Nearly 1,000 homes were destroyed, and more than 10,000 residents were evacuated.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa expressed concerns that Los Angeles was on the verge of a blackout, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared the situation a state of emergency. In terms of property damage, this fire is the worst since the Bel Air fire in 1961. Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky stated, “Whether you live in a mobile home park or you live in an estate, when you lose your home it’s devastating.”

In Montecito, a census-designated place in Santa Barbara County, the homes of many celebrities, including Steven Spielberg, Steve Martin, Eric Schmidt, and Rob Lowe, have been destroyed. This massive fire has caused millions of dollars of damage and 13 injuries. Rob Lowe declared that “it was just like Armageddon.”

According to one official, the fire started when ten students lit a bonfire on a ridge but failed to extinguish it. Although Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown believes that “this fire was the result of carelessness, not criminal intent,” the county district attorney will still have to review the case.

Santa Ana winds with gusts up to 70 mph exacerbated the Montecito fire, which destroyed over 100 buildings and damaged many others, including Westmont College. The college’s 1000 students were forced to take shelter in the gymnasium.

A spokesman for the college, Scott Craig, described the scene: “I saw flames about 100 feet high in the air shooting up with the wind just howling. Now when the wind howls and you’ve got palm trees and eucalyptus trees that are literally exploding with their hot oil, you’ve got these big, red hot embers that are flying through the sky and are catching anything on fire.”

Officials now report that firefighters are making some progress. Of the three major fires, the Montecito Tea Fire is 95% contained; the Sayre Fire, 70%; and the Triangle Complex Fire, 75%. Officials have lifted the evacuation order for Chino Hills as well.

Friday, February 19, 2010

The 2010 BRIT Awards, presented by the British Phonographic Industry, is an annual award ceremony for music artists. This year, the competition took place in the Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London, England. The event started taking place in 1980, with this year’s event being the 30th BRIT Awards. This year, the programme was broadcast live – although with a short delay to allow censorship of strong language – on ITV1 from 2000-2200 GMT on Tuesday. 5.8 million viewers watched it, which was an audience share of 21.9%.

The main presenter of the programme was British comedian Peter Kay, although various other celebrities also presented awards, including actor Andy Serkis, musician Melanie Brown, singer Shirley Bassey, television and radio presenter Jonathan Ross, actor Idris Elba, singer Geri Halliwell, television presenter Cat Deeley, comedian Alan Carr, singer Mika, fashion designer and film director Tom Ford, former glamour model Samantha Fox, musician Noddy Holder and musician and actress Courtney Love. Fearne Cotton was also a backstage presenter during the event. There was also an after show highlights programme broadcast on ITV2, immediately after the programme on ITV1 had finished, from 2200-2300 GMT. Presenting on the programme was Rufus Hound and Caroline Flack. BBC Radio 1 also had continuous official coverage on the station throughout the day of the awards, with disc jockeys Scott Mills and Greg James hosting a programme on the station at around the time of the award ceremony.

	The BRITs is a celebration of all that is totally outstanding and unique about British music. But what’s less well known about the BRITs is the fantastic work it does raising millions of pounds for the BRIT trust which has benefited thousands of young people to develop their talents and generally enrich our society. Well done on all you’ve achieved.

Various artists, all of which were BRIT Award nominees, performed during the ITV1 programme. Lily Allen, JLS and Kasabian were amongst the performers. American musician Lady Gaga said that “[t]his is for Alexander McQueen“, who died on February 11, 2010, before performing two of her tracks – Telephone and Dance in the Dark. Dizzee Rascal and Florence and the Machine performed a duet entitled You’ve Got the Dirtee Love, which was a merger of two songs – You’ve Got the Love, which was originally recorded by The Source and Candi Staton – and later covered by Florence and the Machine – and Dirtee Cash, which was originally performed by Dizzee Rascal.

After Jay-Z and Alicia Keys performed their song Empire State of Mind, Cheryl Cole performed her track, Fight For This Love, although the performance featured excerpts from Show Me Love, a track that was originally recorded by Robin S.

Lady Gaga won all three awards that she was nominated for, including “International female solo artist”, “International breakthrough act” and “International album”, the latter being for The Fame. In one of her acceptance speeches, she said: “Thank you, thank you so so much. I love my fans. Thank you. My fans in the UK, thank you.”

When accepting the award for “British male solo artist”, rapper Dizzee Rascal stated: “It’s about time as well.” Music group JLS were nominated for three awards and won two of them – “British breakthrough act” and “British single”. Group member Oritsé Williams stated in the acceptance speech: “We never ever thought this would happen, you’ve made our dreams come true.” Kasabian was given the award for “British group”. Lily Allen, who was wearing an orange wig during the award ceremony, received the award for “British female solo artist”. In her acceptance speech, she declared: “Oh my god. I only wore this orange wig ’cause I though it’d make it harder for them to find me, the cameramen, and catch my disappointed face.”

British group Florence and the Machine won the “Mastercard British album” award for the album Lungs. Florence Welch of the group accepted the award, stating: “Thanks so much for having me back. Cheers! […] There are so many people that help me make this album and so many people who supported it, people like you.” The award for “BRITs performance of 30 years” went to former group the Spice Girls for their performance of Wannabe/Who Do You Think You Are. The award for “International male solo artist” went to rapper Jay-Z.

Former British group Oasis were awarded with the honour of “BRITs album of 30 years”, for their album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?. Former group comrade Liam Gallagher came onto the stage to accept the award and told the viewers: “Listen kids. I wanna thank Bonehead, Quiggs, Alan White… the best fucking fans in the world. Live forever.” He then threw his microphone and the trophy into the crowd and walked off the stage. Presenter Peter Kay then came on and said about Gallagher: “What a knobhead.”

At one point during the programme, a pre-recorded video with Prince Harry of Wales in it was shown. In the video, Prince Harry said: “You’ll be pleased to know that I’m not gonna sing, but only because I don’t want to show up the next act. The BRITs is a celebration of all that is totally outstanding and unique about British music. But what’s less well known about the BRITs is the fantastic work it does raising millions of pounds for the BRIT trust which has benefited thousands of young people to develop their talents and generally enrich our society. Well done on all you’ve achieved. I hope you have a fantastic evening.”

The “Critic’s choice” award was given to British music artist Ellie Goulding. The “Outstanding contribution award” was won by British musician Robbie Williams, who performed a medley of thirteen of his songs at the end of the programme – Let Me Entertain You, Supreme, Millennium, Feel, Everything Changes (originally performed by Take That, the group that Williams was formerly a member of), Angels, No Regrets, Bodies, Come Undone, Morning Sun, Rock DJ and Rudebox.

Below is a complete list of the recipients of the awards on Tuesday night. Please note that the awards list is not in order of when they were given out.

• British male solo artist – Dizzee Rascal
• British female solo artist – Lily Allen
• British breakthrough act – JLS
• British group – Kasabian
• Mastercard British album – Florence and the Machine – Lungs
• British single – JLS – Beat Again
• BRITs performance of 30 years – Spice Girls – Who Do You Think You Are
• International male solo artist – Jay-Z
• International female solo artist – Lady Gaga
• International breakthrough act – Lady Gaga
• International album – Lady Gaga – The Fame
• BRITs album of 30 years – Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?
• Critic’s choice – Ellie Goulding
• Outstanding contribution award – Robbie Williams

Thursday, November 25, 2010

A jawbone found in Aruba is not that of missing American Natalee Holloway, who was a recent high school-graduate at the time of her disappearance. Officials confirmed the news after Dutch scientists completed tests on the bone. The jawbone, which also had a wisdom tooth with it, was found by an American tourist close to the Phoenix Hotel. A second bone had also been found by another tourist earlier this month.

The bone was sent to the Netherlands Forensic Institute where scientists completed tests. They compared the bone to dental records given to them by Natalee’s father, from which they confirmed the the bone was not that of Natalee, although it was human. It was said to be unlikely that the bone was Holloway’s as there is no physical evidence that she was murdered.

	Beth accepts the forensic conclusions, is emotionally exhausted from the inexplicably long wait, and deeply disappointed in the time and manner in which she learned of the results.

Taco Stein, the Aruban Solicitor General, released a statement after the announcement was made. He commented on the speed of the identification; he said that they had quickly ruled out Holloway because her records had shown that she had her wisdom teeth previously removed.

Tim Miller, the Director of the Texas EquuSearch, released a statement after talking to Natalee’s father. He said “Dave [Natalee’s father] has been in contact with Aruban authorities and spoke with FBI this morning, the agent working the case. Dave believes it is Natalee.”

An attorney for Natalee’s mother, Beth Twitty, released a statement saying “Beth accepts the forensic conclusions, is emotionally exhausted from the inexplicably long wait, and deeply disappointed in the time and manner in which she learned of the results.” He commented on the Aruban authorities saying that “Apparently Aruban prosecutors were more sensitive to media concerns than the painful vigil of a mother.”

Natalee Holloway disappeared on the island in 2005 while on a school trip. She was last seen leaving a nightclub with three men, one of which was later identified as Joran van der Sloot. Van der Sloot was detained twice by police but has never been charged with Holloway’s disappearance. He is currently in Peru facing a different murder charge. Aruban authorities have said that they are checking neighboring islands to find a match for other missing persons.

[edit]

Friday, August 2, 2019

Wikinews (hereinafter WN) talks to Mikhail Gruznov, a Russian wikipedian who nearly 14 years has worked in the project; he used to work as administrator, pioneered the Wikipedia lawful paid-contribution, and has made the paid editing his profession.

Mikhail caused a political scandal that could affect the presence of Wikipedia in Russia. According to «Meduza», on July 2, he initiated the blocking of a group of 12 users that he identified, which introduced edits to the encyclopedia in the interests of the Kremlin. In addition, a month later, four media related to Yevgeny Prigozhin were included in the spam-blacklist, as reported by «Kommersant» on August 5. This also happened thanks to Gruznov, and Mikhail’s actions led to attacks on him and Wikipedia in the Russian media. «URA.Ru» accused Gruznov of creating fake articles about Russia. Wikipedia was called the “propaganda tool from the USA”. According to «Novye Izvestia», on August 6 the head of the Russian Union of Journalists Vladimir Solovyov proposed to create a national analogue of Wikipedia.

Dmitry Rozhkov, an experienced wikipedia has interviewed Mikhail on behalf of Wikinews.

Dmitry Rozhkov: Hello, Mikhail.

Mikhail Gruznov: Hi.

About ‘group of twelve‘

DR: You gave several interviews in the wake of the story about the ‘group of twelve’. Were they short originally or were they shortened after editing?

MG: It is only because some details are unnecessary for people who are not familiar with the Wikipedia’s inside information, as such details obscure.

DR: We will not go into particulars, but would like to clarify some details. Please tell us when and how it happened that you detected this group. Was it untargeted or did you understand that there could be such activity in Wikipedia. Did you try to detect them?

MG: No, I did not do it on purpose. I even does not have the technical facility for such a search. I just noticed some doubtful edits in the articles about governors. Like many others, I have some articles about key governors and the government officials on the monitoring list, and the same about some members of the opposition. And, suddenly, at the end of February, I noticed a newbie with a massive (Oldfishkeeper — WN) contribution in the articles about governors. And, his contributions, let me say it, as I first thought about them, – were amusing. He described hobbies of governors in many details and in a bit childish way. I thought, ‘why not’ and forgot it.

DR: What happened next?

MG: Then there was an episode after which everything became clear to me. It was the war inside the article about Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer at the ‘Anti-Corruption Foundation‘. I found a group of members whose contributions were coordinated and it looked suspicious. All of them registered in the project during the period from October to January. So, I began to analyze their contributions and it became clear that their views of life looked as if they were synchronized. They all liked public officials and disliked the opposition members. And, what is most important – they move in groups. And, there are two ‘old’ members, registered long ago, who provide patrolling to those users. And at some moment, I guessed that they all worked as a group. Especially, it became obvious when they started almost simultaneously submit their status applications. They intersperse targeted edits with neutral ones to obtain the wiki experience and pretend for formal statuses. What is most threatening is that nobody considered applications of the members of the group with the sufficient thoroughness. Nobody understood who were them really and what was their contribution. And, they easily could have become patrollers if someone would enter the application page and totalize. But, it happened that nobody of administrators entered the page and 20 or 25 applications piled.

DR: So, you have prepared the request and applied it to the check users. To what extent did the check result prove your expectation? According to it, only one “old” member, the supposed Nesterovich (Zergeist2/S.Felix) was banned and his relation to this group was not established. What they did was to restore his ban at which his account should have been.

MG: There are several layers here. First, I made all the tables, collected data for the request and started to think what to do next. I could have filed the request to the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom). But, I thought that preliminarily it is necessary to understand if there was formal evidence that this group was linked. This would make the arbiter’s work easier. It is clear that check users does not evaluate the contribution content. Generally speaking, it makes no difference to them what a user writes in the article. They just check if the accounts are linked among each other or with an earlier banned user. The fact that Zergeist2 is banned is coincidence, as his account was banned because it was linked with a user banned earlier.

DR: That is it.

MG: I think that the checking by check users is the first step and necessary preparation for filing the request at the Arbitration Committee that shall consider the merits of the contribution.

DR: Look, what we have now. The check users said nothing definite about the two ‘old’ accounts. One account is banned on the grounds having no relevance to the purpose of your request. What remains is a group of 7 or 8 users and only 4 or 5 of them registered practically at the same time and generally speaking, they can belong to one person or different persons linked so closely that they can be considered as one. Thus, it is just a small-time crook, not a full-scale conspiracy.

MG: Obviously, check users cannot prove the existence of conspiracy. It is not their competence. As I have said, it is only the first step. Frankly speaking, I did not expect that this step would attract such attention. If you remember, some wikipedians, Sergey Rublyov and Krasotkin, posted on Facebook the news about this request. And, afterwards, it was impossible to stop this news wave. And, media was preparing…

DR: …to a sensation.

MG: Yes, to issue the material as soon as the check users submit a result.

DR: Well, what is the intermediate result concerning this group, we’ll call like that, today. Could you verbalize it in some form?

MG: Firstly, we understand that there is some ‘smoke’, and, actually, it is dealt with a group. Secondly, if you consider the content of their contribution, i.e. each of their edits, it becomes clear that the entire group acted according to a plan and gradually implemented this plan. The main result of the check is that their activity ceased. All the planned work of this botnet (I call it like that for convenience), performed for 9 months was in vain. Everybody paid attention to the edits about governors and the opposition. It is not easy to clean the articles from this rubbish, but, at least, the community is aware of the problem now.

DR: What will be your further steps?

MG: Now I am preparing a claim at the Arbitration Committee. I am going to prove that the activity of this botnet was destructive, grounding on the edits content analysis. Besides, on the basis of the source assessment and the subsequent request to put them on spam-list, I will demand banning the pool of media related to RIA FAN. They are often called as ’prigozhinskie’, and this botnet also often refers to them.

DR: Can we say that the untimely leakage of the information in media spoiled your game?

MG: No, it rather took some of my attention for the necessity to provide comments and comments to the comments. In general, everything is according to the plan.

DR: Will the request at the Arbitration Committee contain newly established facts or maybe new actors? Are you going to do the entire analytical work alone or will you leave something for arbiters?

MG: I have got already some results. I will repack the already announced material, focusing on the non-banned accounts.

DR: Does it mean that you will insist on your original version without any corrections?

MG: By all means. Flint1972 and Zergeist2 are the two most threatening botnet users. I will comment on the contribution of Zergeist2 to deter his unbanning to the maximum extent.

DR: By the way, I also was studying the contribution of Flint1972 and at some moment, I thought that it was also written by Nesterovich. Firstly, his birth year is 1972 . Secondly, his account appeared two or three months after the Nesterovich account banning date. And Zergeist2 appeared after two or three years (there was Zergeist account too). I doubt if Nesterovich did not do the editing during that time. So, there should be one more account and Flint1972 can match. But, later I saw that the edits by these two accounts are done almost simultaneously, so they belonged to different people.

MG: Maybe, it is worth doing the linguistic analysis, but it a comprehensive work, takes long time, and I do not have the appropriate tools. I would think that it is done by different people, but they are hired to create and supervise this pool.

DR: These are the brave conclusions you do.

MG: Obviously, we cannot know it for sure. It is my hypothesis.

DR: As far as I understand, those facts you have included in the request to check users are not all. You did not provide your edit-by-edit reasoning. As you were delving into the subject, you possibly became more and more convinced that there was a big conspiracy. However, now I clearly see the much smaller conspiracy of four or six users. A global conspiracy with the devised facility of two or three more persons still is not obvious to me. But, surely, I do not have such ‘delving’ experience of yours.

MG: Yes, I have considered each of their edits: the way they do the edits, how they patrol after each other. I see that some accounts specialize only on negative adding, others are interested only in editing articles about governors, and there are those combining the first and the second. That is why, I did not hesitate even a second when I published the request. Maybe, all this is not so obvious to an outside observer who luckily did not delve into the issue. We’ll see. I hope that the arbiters’ decision will make it clear to the community. As I have already said, the main result is achieved, their destructive activity is stopped. Besides, it will be difficult to create a new botnet from scratch.

DR: Okay, we will wait then for development of the story of the ‘group of twelve’.

About deputies and Dissernet

DR: Do you believe that there is only one botnet in ruWiki?

MG: Yes, it is one in this very pool of articles. But if we take, for example, articles about deputes of the State Duma, which is 450 pages, I can see quite a number of the systemic spin doctors there.

DR: Does a spin-doctor promote one Duma deputy?

MG: Some spins promote many deputies. But, this is another pool not linked to the revealed group.

DR: Are you planning to go into this issue?

MG: I have the idea to undertake this investigation, but it is a quite massive work. It requires the analysis of all articles about the deputies. So, I will do a smaller research concerning Dissernet. Basing on edits in the articles about deputies and governor, I see their sharp reaction to the statements that they stole their theses and engaged users try to delete this information.

DR: Is it always necessary to save this information in articles? As a statement of Dissernet can be deemed an original source why do we think that it is an undoubtedly reliable source. Why are you sure that it has passed WP:WEIGHT?

MG: Firstly, Dissernet is formed by acknowledged scientists. By now, nobody has proved that Dissernet is wrong or at least contains many mistakes. All accusations addressed to the Dissernet have no grounds. Besides, much material from Dissernet concerning higher politicians appears in mass media as republishing.

DR: I would not say that Dissernet is never wrong. There is always a portion of ZoLUS remained without satisfaction. It occurs that revealed violations are admitted to be noncritical, while Dissernet presents them all as terrible offenders. In any case, there is much of the show in the Dissernet activity, despite of the great job it is doing.

MG: As far as I remember, Dissernet does not evaluate the thesis content or the scientific value of works. Its attitude includes a good deal of formality. It pays attention at borrowings from the earlier published works, the borrowings volume. Basing on this data, Dissernet states that the thesis is not unique. What it must be! This allows anyone to make further conclusions independently. In any case, it would be interesting to know how many attempts to delete the information about the Dissernet researches were.

DR: I only mean that, possibly, the individual attitude should be used at posting such materials. And you have to be more careful with wordings for the unsatisfied ZoLUSes, and doubly careful if it is yet to be considered.

MG: Sure. We should rely on WP:LIVE. This is the underlying rule however ignored by many experienced users. They often include in articles their convincement not supported by reliable secondary sources. I will try to be correct and accurate.

DR: Does it mean that you are planning to do it?

MG: Yes, I say, each potential research takes time. Actually, lots of time…

About monitoring of Wikipedia

DR: Well, going back to the deputies’ spin-doctors. There are lots of them, possibly, several hundreds, each one promotes at least one deputy and it is not necessarily they are linked to each other. If you detect some of them, others will appear. It is not efficient to spend time on it. The problem should be solved in-system.

MG: And this is the problem caused by absence of the effective monitoring system. We can monitor new articles. We can monitor fresh edits. We can monitor separate articles. However, all the said does not allow watching the entire picture. As long as we do not have such tools, the situation at which a group can root in its standpoint will be undetectable.

DR: What shall we do then?

MG: I have got some ideas about how create such system. It would help detecting not only new destructive users but can be also helpful at monitoring the community health.

DR: Is the problem of the community health is up-to-date? And, how far can it be discussed without involvement of abstract notions?

MG: The matter is that, now, we do not know digitally what is going on at Wikipedia at all. Any speculation about health or ill health, about how to make the Wikipedia better …

DR: How did you drive to the conclusion on the ill health then? Did you do any research?

MG: From time to time, I look at the list of active editors. The number of them has long ago set on about ten thousand users who did at least one edit. We are entirely unable to understand how many out of these ten thousand users are active ones and how many bots are

DR: You can just look at the statistics, including the ‘activity’ criterion, so many edits per month….

MG: It is rather mechanistic, I would like to do a more rigorous research. Besides, it is strange that the  Wikimedia Foundation does not provide any review with this regard. I have always thought that they have enough money to issue such reviews about health of local sections, at least for the major ones. Until we understand what is going on, we, in fact, cannot take informed decisions. The number of articles is growing every year and they exist unlike the editors. But, it also is also has the reverse side of the medal; fewer editors edit the ever-increasing number of articles. Even keeping the stable state of articles consumes the community resources. This is not to mention the fact that a good part of articles describe current matters and outdates every day. I can judge it by my articles. Take the article about museum. What, seems, can change there? Look, they planned to erect a new building for the museum, then, they refused from this plan, as a result the article needs updating and we have no authors to do it.

DR: Can automation be used to solve this problem? The increasing number of bots and smart bots, Wikidata can generate articles independently.

MG: Only partly. However, I think that the radiant future will come and the artificial intelligence , based on data arrays will be able to gener?te a stub, if not an article, that did not exist before.

DR: It has been implemented already; we have some test articles. If you look at the code, you will see the reference to Wikidata and the script collects standard phrases to make a stub.

MG: Yes, but Wikidata has its own dark side in this case. If you want to add something to the article about your village, generated by the script using the wikidata information only, it will not be that easy, at least it is more difficult to do now than it was before when you just pressed ‘edit’ or ‘edit code’.

DR: Perhaps, it could be solved. For instance, create a template of author additions under the wikidata template and teach the artificial intelligence to combine these data into an article. We have already a similar thing in Wikinews: the news feed is formed automatically from headlines and anyone can manually add the text under a selected headline to describe this piece of news.

MG: Yes, it is possible. However, I think the effort put is not sufficient for this radiant future to come. Here I would put the blame on the Wikimedia Foundation, because they have money.

DR: I agree, money is allocated, but they assign it to projects like overcoming ‘gender gap‘. Its effectiveness for five years is about one percent, which is within the limits of statistical error.

MG: I prone to think that they have money plenty for everything. I remind a story occurred at a conference. I cannot remember now the name of the participant who coded the addition of the Open Street Map (OSM) to the cards. The Foundation pinched money; they did not pay several thousand dollars for the software application making all these things faster. It is a beggarly amount for the Foundation, while it would have produced the great positive impact on the community. After all the cards were done, but for many years before the cards appeared, volunteers had been taking screenshots  manually in OSM and loading them to Wikimedia commons. In other words, we mix cement with spades instead of using the cement machine. If resources could be disengaged, we would use them for creating content.

DR: Could you work out the technical assignment for a system that would monitor the possible correction of users’ activities for a period?

MG: I believe, I could.

About lack of resources

DR: Which other resources can be disengaged?

MG: On having reviewing the established vicious practices. Article about significant topics on ruWiki  are sent by unknown reason on WP:KU, on which we have overflow of work that keeps growing.

DR: Perhaps, here the community need to demonstrate the element of will. There is a trend to improve articles only under the threat of deletion. It a common place, that a user starts to edit his article when he sees the threat of losing it, while all users feel their involvement in all articles, even if they did not write them. However, as the time goes on, this attitude works worse and worse and articles on significant topics are not only on the deletion list, but are deleted. It should be noted, that many articles for deletion are not bad. Besides, there is the rule WP:NOTNEWS which is another decease of the project. The rule is considered as a kind of guidelines like the original investigation ban WP:ORIGINAL  or similar.

MG: NOTNEWS is strangely understood. In my opinion, this rule is not about current content of article, it is about topic. If a topic appears once or twice on the wave of ‘hipe’ to be never covered in media again, it is probably of no cyclopedia significance. However, some users think instead, that we may not use the news source. Of course, we should object it, as the wrong understanding of rules results in deletion of significant topics and repulsion of the experienced editors and newcomers.

DR: I agree, sometimes it seems that those who grounds the article deletion according to the rule have read it only till the shortcut. They think that NOTNEWS is their associative array linked to this word, while the rule contains another word.

MG: Yes, it is understandable and not so complicated. As a result we have long queues because ’For deletion’ is used instead of ’For improvement’. An article may be pending for a year or two at this template.

DR: I repeat, in my opinion it is the matter of will. I doubt whether it should be settled by means of requests to the Arbcom or complaints against the actions of overzealous ‘deleters’. Perhaps, a well-prepared poll will be helpful in this case, as, probably, it will confirm what is already written in the rule NOTNEWS and will put stress on the correct use.

MG: Yes, the rule can be supplemented upon results of such poll with the clarification that the rule must not be understood in a wrong way, that the rule is often understood like that, which is not correct. In sum, it would save the enormous number of person-years, while keeping media and news sources as the main ones for describing events in Wikipedia.

DR: Now practically any article about a new event is nominated for deleting, even it is quite clear that the event will figure in history, for example, a terrorist attack in a European country with hundreds victims. Moreover, users sometimes delete the non-event articles because they are linked to NOTNEWS, for example biographies, though they have nothing to do with the rule. I also can remember the long lasting attacks on ’Current events’ (In the news – WP) after it appeared on the headline ruWiki.

MG: It seems to me that partially this can be the reaction to imperfect articles about nowadays, as some people, I suppose, feel physical discomfort at seeing them posted. It seems to them that such articles would rather not exist.

DR: Or they would not like to see such articles at all. In my view, some users tend to get barriered from the outer world, isolate Wikipedia so that it would describe only ‘eternal issues’, what was described many times and many years ago.

MG: It could be like that. But I always ask: what is wrong if Wikipedia contains a hundred articles about terrorist attacks? We are not limited by number of articles. We do not spend paper on printing articles. We have no terms to which we are supposed to deliver a number of selected articles. On the contrary, we delete articles and demotivate users who are interested in these topics. After all, they could be writing afterwards not only about terrorist attacks. Some users consider Wikipedia as a supervalue and believe that an ordinary editor strives for staying in the community at all costs. But in fact, Wikipedia every day competes for person’s attention with his job, family, unpaid loans, other thousand things. A person can be sitting with friends in a café, or have a nice walk. But, the person selects exhaustive search to make an article on some topic. Then the person is said ‘we will delete your contribution’ and he/she leaves.

DR: Yes, as a rule, he or she leaves quietly. A number of users have many positive contributions and they can leave demonstratively. This is a notable case for the community with requests not to leave etc. However, the common reaction is that the most of users cease editing.

MG: And we even do not know by what reasons. And, nobody does measurements. Suppose, one hundred newbies created non-advertising and known-useful edits in June. We do not check how many of them ‘survived’ in July, how many ceased their activity in August. We do not try to know why it happened; they did not have enough time, or they did not like something in Wikipedia, or they would like to change something, or there was something repelling them. I am saying this to return to the issue that we do not understand what the community is at actual practice. I have heard the opinion that if a user leaves Wikipedia, he or she was not prepared for it. But, why should he or she struggle?

DR: It is absolutely not clear why he or she should be tolerant in the aggressive environment.

MG: Particularly, when there are so many ways to apply ones creativity. One can post texts on external platforms or invest in personal resources, doing it now is easy like it never was before. We must do everything to make people select Wikipedia.

DR: But alas.

MG: Yes, a gender gap  is a consequence of the inconvenient staying in the community. I think that if the community atmosphere improves regardless men or women, the women share will increase naturally. Instead, we are trying to cure a consequence of a complex decease. Banning Fram in English Wikipedia is one of many markers of the unhealthy atmosphere in the community. Fram is an active editor, at the same time he is ‘toxic’ with regard to many ones. And it is a big question how to measure his contribution objectively at the hamburg score. By the way, Russian mass media did not cover this story; it was discussed only on forums.

DR: Let us tell what the deal was.

MG: In two words; usually the decision about banning violators is taken inside the community. It is done by administrator in easy cases and by Arbcom in complicated ones. But in this case, a special committee of the Wikimedia Foundation  arrived and banned the administrator for a year. Then the scandal went on the rise, because the foundation did not explain why they did it. The foundation only said general words about harassment  without giving details. When one of the administrators unbanned Fram, the Foundation banned him again. This resulted in a huge conflict. The last time when I checked the information about it, almost twenty administrators withdrew as a sign of protest. The scandal went out far beyond the Wikipedia project and BuzzFeed’ published a vast article, which I translated in Russian and posted.

DR: What will be the end of the story?

MG: It is not clear yet. It is wider than the ordinary ban of Fram. It is about the boundaries of autonomy of the English section, and about the degree of interference of the Foundation in its operation. Something like that happened, in my knowledge, only in the [[w:Chechen section, at the time when separatists settled there and, ultimately, people from meta came there.

DR: But still it was another story. Everything was transparent there. The meta people (stewards) – they are not the same as the Foundation people, moreover, a request was filed with regard to the Chechen section. Was the request filed in Fram’s case?

MG: The Foundation has failed to disclose the details, no open letters were posted. The Foundation appeared out of the blue, banned and left, without giving any details. And they thought that it would ‘work out’. Why does the Foundation, having so many wonderful people on its staff, i.e. three hundred people, with specialists in community among them, do such sudden movements? The community of volunteers is not ready to swallow the insult, as it often occurs at commercial structures at which people work for remuneration and have more reasons to tolerate it.

About paid editing

DR: Well, for afters, turn to people working for remuneration (laugh). Let us talk about the lawfully paid contributions. Tell how you came to this idea.

MG: I started editing the Wikipedia when I was doing my first year at higher school (December 2005 — WN). I got passionately interested in it.

DR: What was it that attracted you?

MG: I liked the idea of creating a consistent picture out of the chaos of information. You can do analysis, write an article and then others can use your work results. They need not do this work repeatedly. You save someone’s time. In principle, today, it works too.

DR: What did you write about at that time?

MG: It seems that the first edit was about Uranus. Then I got acquainted with people from Piter’s social circuit who wrote about Saint Petersburg. Soon afterwards, I turned to metapedism and became administrator. Then, I saw that there are wikepedians and the outer world with PR people who sometimes try to communicate with wikipedia. But, this people speak different languages and they often talk about the same things. They do not understand each other, which leads to conflicts and all of them spend time. And, I thought that I could be the buffer speaking wikipedish with wikipedians and the language comprehensible to PR people with the latter.

DR: The language of marketing?

MG: Yes, and remove the most part of conflicts. In principle, at the output, we should have good articles and resources for the full-time engagement in Wikipedia. It is my hypothesis, it still remains in my mind and I am convinced in it. For example, a student can afford doing edits in Wikipedia, because he has free time. Then he finds it difficult because the job and other things occupy his time. However, if you earn on the Wikipedia-related services, you can be engaged in Wikipedia full-time and involve long-headed guys, who, otherwise, would work in some other place.

DR: This hypothesis is fine. What does the community think about it?

MG: The community, to put it mildly, was wary of this intension. At that moment there were no rules regulating paid editing. It was a kind of terra incognita.

DR: Nonetheless, you could be banned for the conflict of interests.

MG: Yes. Actually, the community then drove to the conclusion that for the sake of safety the people engaged in the paid editing would not have any rights at all. At some moment (June 2014 — WN) the Foundation issued the Policy of paid contributions, if I remember it right, as a response to the incident of hacked network of accounts linked to major PR agencies. In fact, the Wikimedia Foundation applied the attitude used for the US public administration.

DR: Was it, in your opinion, a forced measure?

MG: It was both forced and absolutely natural. In any case, it was inevitable. If Wikipedia were a small marginal resource, it could do without it. Like the state was forced to adopt the policies on lobbyism at some time, the wiki-world was forced to adopt it too. Naturally, this global policy was ported to the Russian language, and since then one can legally undertake the paid editing.

DR: Irregardless of somebody’s likes or dislikes.

MG: It is another matter that practices accepted at the Russian-speaking community do not allow people occupied de-facto in the paid editing to declare about themselves as lobbyists did. When you announce that you are a paid editor you become the easy meat for ideological opponents who does not support the idea that Wikipedia should have the paid contributions. You, broadly speaking, become persecuted. I face it all the time even when I work on the non-commercial projects. Some users write to those people, including charity foundations, asking whether I got something in return. It is persecution in its pure form.

DR: Actually, it is not permitted at Wikipedia. When I was arbiter, there was a history with a user who addressed a complaint about another user to his job at non-commercial organization, trying to bring reputational damage beyond the Wikipedia boundaries. In punishment, his account was banned perpetually. Considering that you are working in Wikipedia full-time, it is what you do for your living… And the suspicions of those ones ‘inspecting’, as I understand, were ungrounded…

MG: Yes, of course. This disturbs people whom I work with. But, as I have a rather thick skin, and one cannot be different if one works at Wikipedia, I tolerate it as long as I can.

DR: I have heard from opponents of paid editing practically clear that the lawful paid editing is worse than the hidden one. Because it allegedly legitimizes or shifts the ’Overton window’ and everything like that. Well, you can see it by yourself, you have revealed the group of paid pushers, and instead of the gratitude to you for having done their job, these strugglers have posted the complaint against you on the forum.

MG: Perhaps, they are guided by the judgement: we turn a blind eye to the existence of the enormous ‘black market’ which we even do not try to evaluate by size, and trace a several users announcing themselves the paid editors whose contribution is on the surface. We do not have an instrument to assess the share of these editors on the market of paid editing, but I have a feeling that they are a drop in the ocean. Besides, it is extremely unlikely that paid editors steal topics, on which volunteers would like to write. Probably, their topics do not cross. When I worked pro bono  on the review articles ’Homeless in Russia’ and ’Artificial abortions in Russia‘, I did not notice that somebody pretended to work on these topics.

DR: I have no doubt about it.

MG: We have too much work to do and so scarce authors who write the good texts, that we would arrange for persecution of each other.

DR: What is your forecast concerning development of the paid editing?

MG: I think that nothing will change in the nearest years. The registered-witch hunt will go on. It is repetition of the story about foreign agent law. They say, look, here is the law, register, just obtain the status of foreign agent and work. You obtain the status and actually cannot conduct the normal activity. The same is with Wiki.

DR: It comes that, law provokes you to violate law. How could we overcome this situation?

MG: The only way is to conduct a series of research to show the actual scale of this activity. Now, whatever topic we take, we do not have figures on it. This makes any discussion meaningless that comes down to defining winner as the loudest one. If we have figures, we will be able to prove our point of view and ask the opponent to provide figures too. Now, everything occurs by intuition, which is very strange, as it concerns a big project with the significant social importance.

DR: Wikipedia occurred as the evolutionary project and remains it now.

MG: The attitudes possible 10 years ago, when Wikipedia was smaller, are not too effective, to tell the truth. The community and the tools cannot develop as fast as Wikipedia does. They do not match its level of development. That is a problem.

DR: Wikipedia in any case is in a steady state. Can, even hypothetically, wide acceptance of the paid editing shift this balance and will a new equilibrium point be found? Roughly speaking, can one group of PR experts be balanced by another similar group to the overall satisfaction?

MG: Look we have a rule that should be obeyed. But, we are not motivated for obeying this rule and the punishment for non-compliance to this rule is not inevitable. The risk of being caught, for a PR expert who has failed to declare his conflict of interests, is not big.

DR: Nobody has the particular strive to catch him.

MG: Yes, if the risk were high and the punishment were inevitable …

DR: It would be significant for a user who has worked for his reputation and values it. If we are talking about a PR person who is interested in Wikipedia only for the sake of posting there one article promoting his company … Well, if he fails the task, the company will substitute him with another person or will give up this idea, there are lots of ways get promoted.

MG: Both yes and no. Going back to the idea of monitoring, I say that it is a ‘l’idée fixe’ during the recent time. We do not accrue information about the articles used as the centers of attraction by PR experts. There are articles in which one or, maybe, ten affiliated editors not linked to each other were interested during a year period.

DR: Could it be that their management is more stubbornly supports the idea to promote via the Wikipedia article?

MG: Well, it could be an article not about company or person; but an article written on social topics or about the infrastructure issues.

About sponsors and philanthropists

DR: Here you have run before my question. Imagine, that the situation develops in the way that Wikipedia having lots of good articles about people and companies, written in compliance with the rules, and lots of the poor-quality articles written on general and humanitarian topics; will see the time when customers will be ready to pay not only for the topics of their direct interest but also those aimed at bringing benefits to public. Will this time come?

MG: I remember from my experience when customers ordered articles on general topics. But, it is not evident to people or companies. The idea should be offered to them.

DR: By the way, we have already long practiced the some kinds of paid editing in the interests of public, that is contests: ‘Sister cities’, ‘’The History of Russian Entrepreneurship’, ’Learn arts and crafts’.

MG: Yes, this is another model.

DR: Sponsors are ready to take part in such projects; they understand the contest idea and they bear lower costs as compared to those of direct order of articles, plus the positive newsworthy event.

MG: Yes, regarding various hard topic, I say, that sometimes it is easier to earn on some obvious issues, and afterwards write on my own on an important topic, because searching a sponsor can be the time-and-labor consuming process with unknown result and the possible negative gain. For example, who would buy the topic ‘Tuberculosis in Russia’?

DR: To some philanthropist, however our philanthropist traditions pended at the before-revolution understandings, in the ideal case. We understand it if a philanthropist builds a church or a hospital.

MG: Yes, let us build a church, as it is visible and tangible.

DR: Philanthropy at the information technology century, at least in Russia has yet to form.

MG: This is the problem ‘hen or egg’. Unless you explain systematically and for a long time that it could be done like this, money will not be invested. Besides, the topic ‘let us write on the socially important issue and give the money for it’ is not such an obvious one as ‘this is an afflicted child, please give the money for treatment’. The latter is a more comprehensible argument, this is why, the topics about sick children and churches raise more money than that donated on preservation of wooden architecture or more complicated concepts.

DR: And what if you address to NCO? They receive grants and part of them should be spent on informing and the public awareness campaigns.

MG: I take as a premise that it is better not to take money there. They are actually short of money for their own needs. I consider NCO as a source of expertise. Sometimes they ask to write about them, however in the most of cases we make a draft article and ask them to approve it. The article about ‘OVD-Info’ is the latest one of such kind. As I am subscribed to the monthly donation there, I thought it logical to make the article look better. I wrote a draft, posted it and received the feedback  from them, edited the article and it is fine. If I asked money from them, perhaps it would work, but I consider such activity as noncommercial.

DR: And what about commercial companies?

MG: With regard to businesses, I agree that it is necessary to promote the idea about possible investing in articles describing the reality in which businesses exist. For example, oil and gas companies could be financing articles about oil and gas, about fields, technologies, etc.

DR: Here, it is not everything clear. Such things usually go through tenders. In case of direct payment based on rates per article, it is more expensive and it is difficult to promote on it. Moreover, it may result in the opposite effect; unknown moneybags buy up the free encyclopedia articles and none will mention that are articles are good indeed.

MG: I agree, another difficulty here is how to present it properly. To add it, there are more complicated concepts, and those of higher level, such as a better tourist attractiveness of cities.

DR: Yes, address it to authorities.

MG: They are even more difficult to explain that it is a beneficial issue. For example, take articles about Saint-Petersburg in English; some issues are described, some yet to be described. I suppose that foreigners vising Saint-Petersburg, and there are plenty of them, would be interested in general article about the city and its sightseeing places. In sum, this would be beneficial for the city. Whom would I sell it?

DR: Try to sell it to Beglov.

MG: Aha-ha-ha!

DR: Why not? You come within office hours; I want to sell you a new touring reality. The next year will see the doubled flow of tourists.

MG: The thing is that it is difficult to measure. There is no method to prove why this pair of Americans have come to Saint-Petersburg or Moscow this year. But, I feel that it is important with back brain. That is how we live with our back brain difficult to sell.

DR: A lot have been recorded by now, and I think it will be the most profound interview I ever recorded.

MG: Because we discussed the complicated topics verbalized practically for the first time.

DR: I am grateful to you for the talk. It was interesting.

MG: I hope it was.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Seven weeks after citizens of the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve repossessed land near Caledonia, Ontario, on February 28, the Ontario Provincial Police, who have authority from a court to arrest the protesters for contempt of court, have yet to act.

On April 11, more than 50 police cruisers, two paddy wagons, and several vans gathered outside an abandoned school on Unity Road in Caledonia. However, reports from last night are that visible police presence is minimal, with just a few police cruisers parked down the road from the protest site.

Before the site was blocked, Henco Industries had begun construction on 10 luxury homes out of a total of 71 scheduled to be built as part of the $6 million Douglas Creek Estates subdivision.

The tract of land under dispute was registered as a land claim by the Six Nations Band Council in 1987 but its status has yet to be settled. The land originally made up part of a large land grant given in 1784 to the Six Nations for services rendered during the American War of Independence. The government and the developer claim that the Six Nations surrendered title in 1841, but the Band disputes this.

The protesters are demanding a nation-to-nation dialogue with the Canadian government and continue to call for a peaceful resolution. Some protesters, however, have stated that if the OPP forcefully try to remove them, they will defend their land with force.

“If they break the peace, we’ll do what we have to do,” said protester Dick Hill. “Things are very tense. We are trying to defend our lands, which were taken from us. Every time we try to stand up for who we are and what we are, they come and drag us away.”

An injunction was issued to the development company a month ago that allowed for the protesters to be removed. Police have not enforced the injunction.

However, David Ramsay, Ontario’s Aboriginal Affairs Minister, said that the province was going to have a meeting with both protesters and developers in an attempt to address their concerns.

“This is a very serious situation. I have to be very hopeful that we’re going to see a peaceful end to this situation. We think we can resolve this by negotiating, and by talking so that’s what we’re doing,” added Ramsay.