Why does Wikipedia block this site?

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This page was written eons ago. Many of the links are now dead.
I don't link to this page from the FishEaters site,
but only have it as a record of what happened when I tried to edit Wikipedia.
 
 

At Wikipedia, before there were any rules in place against adding links to one's own site aside from those added "to promote a site," I quite innocently added many links from Wikipedia, all on relevant entries, to relevant pages at this site (e.g., a link to this site's page "Twelfthnight" would be added to Wikipedia's entry "Twelfth Night").

Then I encountered a Wikipedia editor named Dominick, a person who took to disliking me intensely and who dislikes people who call themselves "trads" even more, having some very choice names for Catholics who believe as Catholics always have (an example of his bitterness. Check out the "Contents" box at the top. Isn't all that "militant" stuff just oh-so encyclopedic and "NPOV" as the Wikipedians say? This one's even better: here he doesn't even count traditionalists as "official Catholics"!). Conservatism is anathema to him.

In any case, he started to remove links to this site, doing so in a dishonest matter, for ex., saying that said links were unworthy because this site is "a blog" (see example). He would do things such as, for ex., replacing a link to this site's page on St. Brigid with a page like this one (with an embedded midi file, for crying out loud!), such as he did here. Note that, after going on about how "Wikipedia is not a link farm" (as if I didn't know), he has to put up two links to cover the information that I had in a single URL.

Day after day, week after week, for the few months I tried being an editor at Wiki, Dominick would be behind me, undoing my edits and removing links I, in all innocence, added, and slandering me and my website in the process.

Not knowing I was breaking any "rule" about having "too many links" (which I wasn't because there was no such written rule at the time), I sought help by filing a "Request for Comment" against him at the advice of "Gator," an admin, who said on the "Wikipedia:AMA Requests for Assistance" page at 20:02, 12 December 2005 (UTC:

OK, I'm going ot advise Used2BAnonymous [me] to file an RFC (request for comment) against Dominick if she really feels that Dominick is stalking, libeling etc. her. This really isn't the right place for this.

Dominick read the above advice from the admin and filed one against me first, at 00:31, 13 December 2005. When I had time to file mine at 06:54, 13 December 2005, he dared to write on it that my RfC ¹ was (my emphasis) "in response to me writing an RFC, instead of leaving her response there, she decided to add an RFC here." He would do dishonest things like that over and over and over again, posing himself as the innocent party, and get away with it every time. He even removed a link to this site's screen shots of EWTN's infamous edits of one of their Q&A columns -- the one in which Fr. Levis said that the Novus Ordo Missae was a "complete fabrication," an incident seen by God knows how many thousands of people, an incident reported first by me and then in Seattle Catholic and all over Catholic blogdom -- and said that EWTN denied it! He accused EWTN of lying. I knew he was lying, and wrote to EWTN myself to ask about it. ² They responded:

No one at EWTN with authority to do so has commented on the matter, so “EWTN” cannot have denied editing the question.

God bless.

Colin B. Donovan, STL
Vice President for Theology
Eternal Word Television Network

Anyway, he then accused me in both RfC's of being a "linkspammer." I asked for arbitration and for clarification as to what constitutes "too many links" since I was being accused of adding such. I got no answers.

During all these requests for assistance, unanswered requests for clarification as to policy regarding external linking, and "Requests for Comments," Dominick got friends to remove any and all links to this site one night in December, 2005, in a quick rush that can only be called a purge. I frantically tried to add them back for an hour or so in what is now being called an "edit war" (why Dominick wasn't accused of "edit warring" is beyond me).

An editor named JzG (Guy Chapman, a.k.a., "JusZisGuy" and simply "Guy") -- an Anglican who calls Catholics "papists" -- got in on the game, took Dominick's side, and, to make a long story short, later became an admin and officially blacklisted the site. As an excuse, this administrator says:
 

• that the site isn't "authoritative" (not sure if he is expecting a letter from the Vatican, but I know a lot of priests who like it fine and link to it from their blogs, and Latin Mass Magazine, the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Latin Mass Association of England and Wales, The Revealer, Turnabout, universities, Catholic parishes and chapels, and other such entities approve and link);
   
• that it is "dissenting from Vatican II" (it isn't, obviously, which he'd know if he cared to read the site -- even just a simple scan of the "About this Site" page would disprove that! -- but even if it were, what should this matter to Wikipedia? The site is clearly labeled "traditional Catholic," and the conservative take on things should be included as much as the Anglican or Baptist or Jewish points of view.);
   
• that labelling links to this site as "traditional Catholic" rather than "traditionalist Catholic" is "misleading" (why? Heck if I know, but it's a bug he has stuck in his brain and there's no getting rid of it. Of course, my telling him I'd have no issues with the links being labelled "traditionalist" -- even though trads almost always use the term "traditional Catholic," not "traditionalist Catholic" -- if it will get the monkey off my back has led to nothing anyway);
   
• that someone added a link to a papal document at my site when said document was available at the Vatican's website (why punish me and this site?);
   
• that, as an editor, I just added links to my site, and not content. That this is a total lie is obvious from the history pages for the "Traditionalist Catholic" entry and the history pages of its associated "Talk Page" (look for editor "Used2BAnonymous").

Then he keeps using old site statistics (stats from the precise time the site moved to a new domain!) to dis the site, saying, for example, that the forum has only 300 members rather than the 1,000+ it has now (as of December, 2006) [It now has over 6,000 foru members, and has a Quantcast rating that typically ranges between 11,000 and 24,000. The site is also listed in Alexa's Top Catholic Sites, typically in the top 20.]. He uses old Alexa ratings (ha, as if Alexa measured anything accurately!), ignoring new ones and ignoring my offer to even make a temporary password and let him log in to see my site's Urchin stats so he can see what sort of traffic this site gets. But no defense can ever be made because he simply does not listen. He just repeats himself ad nauseam.

At any rate, the administrator obviously doesn't know what he is talking about, but he's got The Power, he is pig-headed, foul, and that's it. All attempts to explain things to him (scroll down to the section called "linkspam" at JzG's archived Talk Page) and to other administrators, even Jimbo Wales, as they've been explained above have failed (all Jim Wales has the time for is asking underlings to look into it, and who are the underlings? Busy admins who ask around about what is going on and who are told the story -- JzG's version of it). At that just-cited Talk Page, JzG pretty much admits that he rarely changes his mind. He has it in his head that I am a "spammer" and there is no talking to him. He said on that Talk Page:

I dislike linkspammers and I dislike POV pushers. And I am a very evil and heartless person in that once my natural tendency to assume the best of people has been beaten down, I very rarely change my mind about them.

Appealing to other Administrators has been useless. Wikipedia administrators tend to only listen to other administrators and, in spite of Wikipedia advertising itself as "the encyclopedia you edit," to editors who qualify as official "Wikipedians" by devoting their entire lives to "the project" (which pretty much makes it so that the only people can exercise any power at Wiki are the sorts who have no time for paid work, family, friends, and hobbies). That's all there is to it. So now, if one tries to add a link to this site, one is automatically told that this site is on the "spam blacklist," just like xxxhotsex.com, farmanimallove.com, and cheapviagra.com. It's a pretty story, isn't it?

And, worse, the Talk Pages and smear jobs that JzG and Dominick made -- and still make, whenever the topic arises -- against this site float about the internet through Google, ready to turn people away from this site, just because they're there.

And worst of all, Wikipedia's "spam list" is used by many other wiki-based media -- and there is talk now of getting Google to "punish" websites that Wikipedia admins like JzG call "spam." In other words, in addition to refusing to link to Fish Eaters (which is their every right, though they have no right at all to libel me and my site, and they have the moral duty to be honest about their motives), these actions could well end up hurting this site when it comes to people using Google to search for information on anything this site covers -- Advent, Lent, Sacraments, sacramentals, whatever.

"Spam" is a dirty word to me. It's a dirty word to anyone with any decency. How adding informative, relevant links -- on relevant pages, to a non-commercial site, at an "encyclopedia you edit" -- is "spamming" is still unclear to me. Now there are rules in place against adding links to one's own site, etc. -- but there weren't when I was editing, and there was no number set as the limit past which a set of links becomes "too many". But none of this matters to Google with its Talk Page returns, or, apparently, to Wiki admins for whom my site is just another site in a billion, or to anyone else who doesn't know the pain of spending years -- years -- working on a website only to have it thoughtlessly trashed by people in seconds.
 

Update

13 August 2006: Chabad.org -- a website made by a very small Jewish group that promotes the Noahide laws which would make the worship of Jesus punishable by death -- is allowed to link hundreds of times, and is even allowed to have an entry about chabad.org -- the website -- itself. See Google search returns for "site:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ chabad.org"

Screen capture as of 13 August 2006:
 

 
And, yes, this was brought to Wiki Admins' attention on 8 August 2006. Since it's been brought to their attention, more than once, and the links have not been removed, Chabad has not been labelled a spamming organization, and there's been no further discussion of the matter on the relevant Meta Wiki pages. Instead, more links have been added (on 8 August, there were 254; on 13 August there are 257; on August 16, 265). So far, the only response (from an apparent non-admin) is:

This is complicated, that organization seems to have spammed hundreds of Judiasm-related articles (maybe using a bot to crawl/spam an appropriate category), but some of the links are legitimate as cited references to wikipedia articles, or as the main link to a legit article (en:Chabad.org and maybe some Lubavitch-related articles or even Rabbi Schneerson's (the movement founder's) biography). Suggest trying to have a polite conversation with whoever is adding the links, asking them to follow WP:EL and add links only at the prescribed places.

Gee, as if Fish Eaters weren't used as a reference! Chabad can even use bots to spam in the most literal way possible and get away with it if this sort of thinking stands! Blacklisting Fish Eaters is a simple matter of an Anglican getting someone to metaphorically "push a button"; but Chabad's 265 links should be dealt with individually. Nice!

 
Update II

17 August 2006: Apparently the over 250 Chabad links are just fine. From Naconkantari -- a person who, apparently, has the final say as to what gets linked and what doesn't -- in response to a request (anonymously posted by me) that Chabad be blacklisted:

Not done, legitimate uses. Please talk to the editor adding the links and relist if spamming continues. Naconkantari 20:36, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

See the exchange here. Just days before she let Chabad slide by, she turned down a request by an anonymous editor (not me) to stop blocking Fish Eaters (not the first time other users have requested that Fish Eaters be unblocked!) -- and did so, apparently, only because of JzG's schtick. Yes, Chabad can have links on entries as disparate as "Waldorf Salad" and "Witchcraft" -- hundreds of them! -- but Fish Eaters can't even link on the entry "Traditionalist Catholics."

I watch the spam page (where people go to request that sites be unlisted or listed) in order to defend this site against some of the slurs mentioned above, so saw the request and jumped in the conversation after JzG started in with the usual routine. Read the exchange here (I am posting anonymously there). But in spite of everything, Naconkantari simpy referred, as always, to JzG's same ole, same ole erroneous excuses. Unbelievable.

 
Update III

21 August 2006: Now Chabad has 319 Google search returns from Wiki. Must be rough!

 
Update IV

15 September 2006: Now Chabad has 437 Google search returns.

 
Update V

6 November 2006: Chabad has over 700 links now according to Wiki's linkcheck feature. And this site still can't link even from the entry "traditionalist Catholics"-- nevermind "Advent" or "Lent" or "sacraments" or anything else. And if you want a real laff, consider that the person who added most of these links -- someone named Pinchas -- is on the spam patrol!

 
Update VI

14 November 2006: Chabad now has 728 links. Some "spam" is more equal than others.

Something extra-maddening about this is that the Chabad spammer then goes on to explain how important Chabad is because of its Google and Alexa rankings (that last being notoriously unreliable) -- without realizing (well, without admitting) that any site that has 728 links from Wikipedia will get clicked on a lot and have high Google rankings! He uses his spam to "prove" that his spamming is okay. 

 
Update V

7 March 2007: It seems that a high-ranking Admin who went by the name "Essjay" and who's been mendaciously passing himself off as a tenured professor with a degree in Canon Law focused on Wiki entries about Catholicism so as to ensure that "fairness and balance" that Wiki strives to achieve. Anyway, he gave an interview to a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist in "New Yorker" magazine, and repeated to her his lies about his degrees -- degrees he flaunted to shut up other Catholic Wiki editors who opposed his liberal, pro-active homosexuality type views of Church teaching.

All Hell has broken loose since this story went mainstream news in a big way, appearing in newspapers all over the world, including the New York Times. Admin JzG, the one who blacklisted this site, begs understanding for his untruthful friend, writing, "how would you like to be dogged for the rest of your life by a silly lie you told when you were very young, and got too boxed in to correct? When that lie has no actual relevance outside of some website? Seems harsh" -- all while he publicly accuses me of making "attacks" and "spamming" (and has done so since 2005) when someone named Krnlhkr asked to be able to link to Fish Eaters from one single entry -- the entry "Traditionalist Catholic." ³

Dominick shows up, too, of course, during this request from poor Krnlhkr, doing anything in his power to ensure that this site remains blacklisted, even if he has to lie about me having a "how to attack Wikipedia" page (he refers to evangelize.html. Can you find the "attack"? I sure can't!). He smears the site once again on the Traditionalist Catholic Talk Page, and even accuses Krnlhkr of being me (typical! Every time anyone requests whitelisting of the site, they are accused of being me).

I am so sick of this nonsense. I will write to Jimbo Wales once again, after a year, to see if he might get JzG and pals to lay off  and whitelist the site, and if he might encourage allowing the site to be linked to -- as "External Links" after consensus has been arrived at on Talk Pages -- from the following entries:
 

• Roman Catholic Church
• Traditionalist Catholic
• Advent
• Lent
• Christmas
• Easter
• Sacrament
• Sacramentals
   

 
Footnote:
¹ Oh, nice. It seems that my RfC against Dominick was "speedy deleted," thereby erasing the evidence of Dominick's lies about me, my site, EWTN, and other things. It seems to have been deleted on 24 January 2007 by Admin JzG who gives as his reason, "deleted "Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Dominick" (Year-old RfC filed by spammer)". A request for the page's restoration was turned down, no reasons given. Dominick's libelous RfC against me remains, of course.
 
² The letter I sent to EWTN:

Hello,

I am deeply disturbed to have heard from a Wikipedia editor named "Dominick" that EWTN has denied editing a certain post by Fr. Levis in the "Catholic Q&A" section of the EWTN website. The URL of the QANDA exchange in question is: http://www.ewtn.com/vexperts/showmessage.asp?Pgnu=4; Pg=Forum6; recnu=92; number=447626

I read the original version of Fr. Levis's answer, which read:

"Dear Gem, The NOvus Ordo Mass was a complete fabrication or product of its creators, a point of contention within the Church since it has few if any roots in the Tridentine Mass. This point is very important to our present Pope. I have no idea what this priest means by his prioritizing the new Mass over the former. In America at present, no priest is to celebrate the Tridentine Mass without permission of his bishop, without an Indult from the Ecclesia Dei Commission of Rome. God bless. Fr. Bob Levis"

I saw that the answer was later changed to the present, "Dear Gem, in America at present, no priest is to celebrate the Tridentine Mass without permission of his bishop, without an indult from the Ecclesia Dei Commission of Rome. God bless. Fr. Bob Levis."

Now, I know this edit happened. Fine. But I am extremely bothered by this rumor that EWTN is denying having changed it. I am hoping this rumor isn't true. Can you set the record straight?

Thank you!

³ As a Catholic, I, of course, agree that understanding and forgiveness for the repentant are in order. But that's not the issue; hyprocrisy is.