Thread by @leftworks1

I've been looking a little more closely at #PhilipCross's recent antics regarding the @guardian article on Paul Manafort and Julian Assange on @Wikipedia.

I vaguely recall that Mr Cross is highly protective of the Guardian, for some reason. Maybe others can help me on that.

The @wikipedia article Mr Cross is editing on this is that of @ggreenwald, a U.S. writer. However, the Guardian is a British newspaper, reporters are British, and the Embassy involved is in London. It therefore could not be clearer that this is a ban violation from Mr Cross.

To begin with, I will simply present the original paragraph and Mr Cross's edited version, side by side.

Let's examine what Mr Cross does.

First, he takes out the reference to the Guardian quoting anonymous sources. This subtly increases the credibility of the account of the Guardian's report.

The report itself is generally thought to be an embarrassment to the Guardian's reputation, as there has been no evidence presented to substantiate it. Mr Cross deletes the report altogether from Wikipedia, so no-one can see it.

He then inserts the most favourable possible comment on the report by Mr Greenwald, as the first thing the reader encounters of Mr Greenwald's views, despite those views being wholly hostile to the Guardian report.

Then he takes out another matter that would tend to increase the perceived authoritativeness of Mr Greenwald's opinion: that he is a former Guardian writer.

Here is the link to Mr Cross's corrections.

en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti…

I'd like to ask @Wikipedia if someone who is banned from this kind of editing anyway should be permitted to shape the encyclopaedia like this. Please retweet, and complain if you can. Thank you.

Here is a link to Mr Cross's ban.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia…

Thanks for reading.

Update. Fascinatingly, Philip Cross has today (within the last hour and a half, according to his timings) addressed some of the matters covered in this tweet.

@wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti…

Update. This correction to his previous entry specifically addresses (and ameliorates) the point I made in my fourth threaded tweet on this matter.

@wikipedia

Update. This correction to his previous entry specifically addresses (and ameliorates) the point I made in my sixth threaded tweet on this matter.

@wikipedia

So either Philip Cross and I are working in an almost telepathically coincidental manner, or he is reading my critique, and responding to it by trying to improve his editing, which strongly suggests a consciousness of wrongdoing. Thanks for reading.

@Wikipedia