Volunteer Marek

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The Devil's Advocate
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Volunteer Marek

Post by The Devil's Advocate » Tue Sep 05, 2017 1:33 pm

This thread's revival here was really inevitable given Marek's general inability to avoid disruptive agenda-warring. Marek's latest misadventures involve articles related to immigration, DACA specifically. Aptly-named Samsara protected the page on DACA due to an ongoing edit war over the use of the term "illegal alien" as opposed to "undocumented immigrant" in the article then went to AN to start a discussion about it. Because Marek was a rude jerk to Samsara over protection, Samsara also included a note about Marek's behavior and suggested a block. Per the usual, Marek loudly and verbosely complained about Samsara suggesting he has ever done anything wrong in his entire life of good honest behavior as well as calling for a BOOMERANG. This got worse when Samsara noted Marek's actions at the article on the DREAM Act, a related piece of proposed legislation. Another administrator, GoldenRing jumped in and banned Marek for three months from articles related to immigration.

Unfortunately for both, this has not been well-received among others. Fram initially stated he was removing the sanction, but rescinded that when it was noted he is not allowed to do that unilaterally. Even so, many of the usual suspects started showing up to protect GoldenRing's sanction, including Marek's good pal Drmies who also blocked the IP user with whom Marek had been feuding and had alerted Samsara to the DREAM Act edits. He relayed this to Samsara using all of his usual grace.

Despite all the criticism, the complaints about Marek's actions are, as is often the case, legitimate. Marek and others were upset that Samara protected the DACA page from all edits by non-admins, claiming restricting IPs was all that was necessary. They were especially upset because the page was locked with the "illegal alien" language included. However, Samsara cites this discussion about including the phrase in the page and there is clear division among established editors on the phrase, though more favoring it than opposing it. Marek's edits to the DREAM Act article in removing the criticism section were also clearly wrong. His argument for removal of material cited to ABC News is misleading at best, as the source certainly does support the general material, just not all the specific phrasing. Claiming the Center for Immigration Studies is a "self-published source" is simply ludicrous. It is a primary source, but the article cites plenty of such sources and there is no denying the CIS is a noteworthy group whose position is relevant.

Marek also criticized Samsara for protecting the Google memo article over the dispute about the Blind survey of Google employees showing a majority opposed the firing of the memo's author. An RfC on this has a majority in favor of inclusion, though there is not a clear consensus as of yet. Obviously, that means the protection was reasonable to prevent edit-warring. While Marek has been sanctioned over his immigration-related editing, the possibility of it being removed is very high because he continues to be enabled by administrators and editors who agree with his politics or otherwise have ulterior reasons for backing him up.

sashi
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Re: Volunteer Marek

Post by sashi » Fri Sep 08, 2017 1:40 pm

Undocumented status being elevated to a determining characteristic of a fellow human is pretty crass from my POV. I also appreciated Atsme's rebuttal of Marek spouting nonsense. ^^

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =799250332

Proabivouac
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Re: Volunteer Marek

Post by Proabivouac » Fri Oct 13, 2017 10:21 pm

Marek's recent edit history appears to consist solely of political activism across a wide range of articles. Here he edit-wars to restore a capsule description of Sean Hannity as a "conspiracy theorist," hardly the first term that would come to mind even for most of his detractors:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =805091715

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Re: Volunteer Marek

Post by The Devil's Advocate » Sun Nov 05, 2017 4:36 pm

You would think after over a decade on Wikipedia, Marek would remember Wikipedia doesn't allow POV forks, but here he went and created one and did a terrible job at it as well. The article "Antifa apoclypse" relates to some anti-Trump protests yesterday organized by a group called "Refuse Fascism" associated with a small-time communist party here in the U.S. Refuse Fascism has their own Wikipedia article and it goes into the protests in great detail. Marek's article goes on about how this is a "fake news conspiracy theory" and spends most of its time bashing figures on the right as well as the supposed dangers of this "hoax" story. I put the term "hoax" in quotes because it is really more a hyperbolic overreaction to the actual group and protests, which get a single line in Marek's fork.

Part of this hysteria is due to Refuse Fascism's own hype for the protests. They began to signal the coming protests by blocking a highway in LA carrying signs saying "it begins" in November 4th. On their Twitter account they have claimed they were organizing "millions" to "drive out" the "Trump/Pence Regime" beginning on the days of those planned protests. In Newspaper ads they said the "regime must go" and that it would begin with those protests. Although the group isn't claimed to be antifa, it is not an entirely useful distinction since their interests and activities align. Refuse Fascism was involved in the protests at Berkeley University earlier this year where antifa participated and turned it into a violent ruckus. So the promise of "millions" connected to this group pledging to "drive out" the "Trump/Pence Regime" understandably led to people thinking this meant driving them out with force like that used at other events where this group and its allies participated.

Were this to be a neutral article on the protests, which may well be warranted, it would include the various details about the planned protests and how people came to believe these more hysterical predictions of the outcome such as the past violence associated with these groups as well their own characterization of what their protest was about. Instead, Marek has crafted an article that is all about advancing his desired political narratives and largely omitting the facts even when they are in the very sources he is citing.

sashi
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Re: Volunteer Marek

Post by sashi » Tue Nov 14, 2017 8:52 pm

Why do Marek's appearances at AE always drag on forever? Surprising development #1. Limelight venue for a comeback... I wonder if he's going to close it... :)

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Re: Volunteer Marek

Post by The Devil's Advocate » Mon Feb 12, 2018 7:52 am

This edit by Marek is horrifically bad. He is using a single Newsweek article to put a small section about Tucker Carlson in the main article on Fox News tying him and the network to "Neo-Nazi propaganda and slogans" because he rightly criticized the hostility towards the "It's OK to be white" slogan. Usual suspects criticize the slogan because people from 4chan, who critics claim are white supremacists, have promoted it as a way to offend the left. Of course, the whole point is that it is a perfectly fine and inoffensive statement that no one should object to, but these folks know they will object to it all the same and in so doing validate their concerns about anti-white racism. What's truly odious about Marek's edit, however, is when one considers his edits I mentioned in my CNN piece on Medium. Here are the examples I mention:
Volunteer Marek removed an incident where a CNN producer joked about Trump’s plane crashing and a section about CNN’s Jack Cafferty making inflammatory remarks regarding China that led to protests outside their offices. As the Cafferty material cited Reuters, this removal was apparently due to it citing the International Business Times, whose reliability was inconclusively challenged six years earlier partly over a perceived conservative slant to the outlet. More recent discussions have generally favored its use as a source.

One of the more egregious removals concerned a controversy involving then-CNN correspondent Candy Crowley’s questionable challenge of a claim by Mitt Romney about Obama’s response to the Benghazi attacks during the 2012 presidential debates. Marek removed it due to one of the sources being The Daily Caller, which many editors argue is unreliable, but the section twice cites ABC News. Given the pace of these extensive deletions it is unlikely either editor checked for additional sourcing beyond that cited in the article.

. . .

Another removed mention of the CNN Blackmail hashtag trending on Twitter, labeled those calling it blackmail “alt-right”, and removed material noting a Vox reporter had similar concerns about the threatening nature of the CNN piece.
The fact Marek sought to remove that material despite it being in a sub-page of the CNN article yet pushes for that tripe bashing Carlson in the main page for Fox News says pretty much all that needs to be said about his laughable claims of unbiased and policy-compliant editing.

sashi
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Re: Volunteer Marek

Post by sashi » Sun Apr 29, 2018 3:15 pm

The Devil's Advocate wrote:
Thu Apr 19, 2018 4:51 am
Discussion is going about as well as you'd expect.
If you scroll down that page I'm sure you noticed the interaction ban between messieurs Marek & Lambden. Odd how this was all settled by private email and that Lambden seemed rather out of the email loop...

A cynical reader might think it was to prevent Lambden from updating the record of AE show-trials (at least those where Marek is the prosecutor or defendant).

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Re: Volunteer Marek

Post by The Devil's Advocate » Sun Apr 29, 2018 6:24 pm

sashi wrote:
Sun Apr 29, 2018 3:15 pm
If you scroll down that page I'm sure you noticed the interaction ban between messieurs Marek & Lambden. Odd how this was all settled by private email and that Lambden seemed rather out of the email loop...

A cynical reader might think it was to prevent Lambden from updating the record of AE show-trials (at least those where Marek is the prosecutor or defendant).
In their defense, they did at least seem to try and reach out. Not getting things straight before their decision is probably more a matter of their incompetence. What I find interesting is the interaction ban itself. Given the long-running conflict between Lambden and Marek, it isn't shocking for them to be getting an interaction ban, but handling it privately suggests there is some hidden reason for it. Does it concern personal information of either Lambden or Marek? The latter's real name is known and the former was accused of IP harassment by Coffee. However, making it mutual goes against Marek's long-standing insistence that it was entirely one-sided, so is this something of a repudiation of Marek as well or are Arbs just not interested in doing a one-way restriction? Without knowing what incited it, we can't say either way and even then it could be the real reasons for their decision involve details other than any inciting incident.

sashi
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Re: Volunteer Marek

Post by sashi » Sun Apr 29, 2018 10:29 pm

I think my link above irked VM. Guess what, he's back at AE!

Vole, vole, vole V. Marek (to be sung to the Devo ditty with the same arrangement of feet)

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Re: Volunteer Marek

Post by The Devil's Advocate » Mon Apr 30, 2018 11:36 pm

sashi wrote:
Sun Apr 29, 2018 10:29 pm
I think my link above irked VM. Guess what, he's back at AE!

Vole, vole, vole V. Marek (to be sung to the Devo ditty with the same arrangement of feet)
I did see that. One thing that caught my attention is he reported this user for violating 1RR and got the editor blocked when the person reverting the user also violated 1RR. Said editor has received no sanction or warning for violating 1RR, despite citing the sanctions against the editor Marek reported. Claiming the material was restored without consensus is also misleading as there was originally support from two other editors with only one opposed. The reverting editor would have made it a 3-2 split in favor of keeping the material. Perhaps out of incompetence or just plain-old lying, Marek cites comments by one of the supporting editors after the reverts as proof he didn't have consensus. He, as usual, accused the editor of lying even as he himself was likely lying stating the editor did not have the specific go-ahead as the comment was threaded in response to another user, though that hardly means it was intended for that person or only for that personm and suggested the editor was "deliberately misquoting" others. Marek also called Lifezette a "conspiracy website" and that is flatly not true.

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