Usenet Psychic Wars With Wikipedia

rlandmann writes "John Patrick Ennis, whose nutty predictions as Sollog (Son of Light, Light of God) are familiar to many usenetters, may have bitten off more than he could chew when he picked Wikipedia as his latest vehicle for spamvertising." Click through for the rest of rlandmann's story.

Early last week an anonymous editor with a posting style remarkably like the one widely believed to be that of Sollog himself contributed this article to the encyclopedia, boasting of Sollog's prophesizing prowess and mathematical genius. Less than twenty-four hours later, the article was looking a little more balanced and encyclopedic. Along with Sollog's claims, it now carried the revelation that not everyone is as convinced of the accuracy of Sollog's power of prediction as he himself is, along with links to some rather unflattering appraisals of his work.

A week of spectacular net.kookery has since transpired, replete with vandalism of the article, bizarre legal threats, long semi-coherent rants with LOTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS, a rich bounty of links to Ennis-run sites, and a legion of anonymous posters with exactly the same writing style as one another all strenuously affirming that they are individual and distinct "fans" of Sollog and not the man himself. Unable to accept that Wikipedia's policy of presenting a Neutral Point of View means that an article on Sollog would have to include both pro- and anti-Sollog material, and unable to force other Wikipedia editors to accept his version of reality, Ennis has taken instead to making hostile phone calls to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales at his home, and setting up his very own Wikipedia and Wales hate site.

Whether or not Sollog really did predict Princess Diana's death, the Oklahoma bombing, 9/11, the crash of TWA flight 800, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, and most of the natural disasters in the US over the last few years, he doesn't seem to have foreseen his inability to control the picture that Wikipedia presents of him to the world.

See here for the current revision of the article, which may or may not be currently in a vandalized state.

SOLLOG Predicts

[Anonymous Coward]

That he will get first post on Slashdot.

I love netkooks

[October_30th]

Expect Slashdot and Taco hatesites soon after...

Sollog the "Varnisher" is not someone to be messed with. ;-)

Okay..

[brilinux]

Ten bucks says that in the next 10 minutes, it is modified about 1200 more times.

I predict...

[rackhamh]

... that the top-rated comment in this thread will be +5, funny.

My latest prediction

[Sollog]

Every single one of you will be dead by 2152.

You don't have to be...

[techstar25]

You don't have to be psychic to have seen this coming.

Re:I predict...

[Freon115]

unless Sollog himself graces us with a +6 insightful

Re:Say "Goodbye, Sollog"

[Sollog]

I'm thinking this motherfucker bit off more than he can chew with this one.

You talking to me bitch? I predict my foot up yo' ass.

The Fibonacci Algorithm

[Refrag]

If one of Sollog's most famous "math discoveries" is The Fibonacci Algorithm, then why isn't it called "The Sollog Algorithm?"

Um, shouldn't he have seen this coming?

[hambonewilkins]

Shouldn't he have registered wikipediasucks.com in advance as his psychic powers would have allowed him to see the impact of his actions. Further, shouldn't he already have a slashdotsucks.com already? And, shouldn't I already have a reply to this message from him telling me I'm a fool?

This Sollog is a sham!

[Anonymous Coward]

Time Cube is the only answer!

Re:Wow, an edit war on Wiki. Be still my heart.

[Zocalo]

An edit war on Wikipedia, you say? Full of frothing ranting and biased opinions and juvenile behavior? My God, who could have forseen such a thing!

Apparently not "Sollog", which kind of lends credence to his detractor's arguments that he can't predict jack, does it not?

Nuts

[cyocum]

When I visited it, Wikipedia read "Sollog eats his nuts." I would assume that Sollog eats nuts since eating nuts is part of a balanced healthy diet. Whether they are his or not is a matter of speculation unless you are Sollog (prognostication may or may not be included).

Sollogs Predictions Disasters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did he predict the Bush Re-election?

Re:I predict...

[nadadogg]

Nah, man, his goes up to 11!

Re:Wow, an edit war on Wiki. Be still my heart.

[Rotund Prickpull]

I've run across enough blatent inacurracies

So have I, mainly in you're speling.

Re:My latest prediction

[I don't want to spen]

I'm okay then. I'm married!

Solog should learn how to spell

[Anonymous Coward]

Taken from Solog's google group page ...

"It is the fastes growing religion on Earth"

Perhaps Solog's vast mental powers in nearly every field diminish its ability to spell properly, or learn how to use a spell checker.

Re:The Fibonacci Algorithm

[slavemowgli]

Must be a conspiracy. :)

And i predict

[Striker770S]

in AD2101 war was beginning...

Stuff I never knew about the founder of Wikipedia:

[WizardRahl]

He's a pornographer AND an objectivist??? This guy is my new hero!

Moist and tasty

[alexburke]

For those of you wanting fruitcake this Christmas, may I recommend Collin Street Bakery [collinstreetbakery.com]?

If Collin Street Bakery is a bit too expensive for your liking, however, then you may wish to try Sollog's folks [templeofhayah.com]. They look well-stocked.

Re:Wow, an edit war on Wiki. Be still my heart.

[Moderatbastard]

Just as Linux and other open source projects aren't really "open" in terms of accepting everything anyone throws at them, so must Wikipedia find a way to become more selective in what it accepts. The Wiki itself is such a good idea that there's just got to be a way to make it work, but frankly I can't work out a paradigm that will save it from the issues it has now.

You could have a system where there's the substantive body of the text, and a separate section for comments, proposed amendments etc. People could even suggest amendments to the amendments and comment on the comments. Of course you'd need some way to choose which comments & amendments get incorporated into the main text; and this is the really innovative part (maybe I should patent it) so listen up - readers could give points to the comments that are good or take them away from those that are whack. Even better - maybe if people make 'good' comments, they should get more points to give to (or take from) other comments as they see fit.

Nah, it would never work.

John P Ennis

[Phidoux]

I bet he had a rough time at school.

Re:My latest prediction

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

The year is 2678, and I am using the greatest invention of the millenium to post to slashdot from the future!

HAHAHA!

And I *still* can only get a damn ~500,000 uid. Must be something with slashdot.org rejecting my 512bit IPv19 address...

I've never heard of the guy, but

[Enigma_Man]

Does anybody else picture "Dr. Orpheus" from the Venture Bros. cartoon when you read about this guy? Complete with the methods of speaking and all? I sure do, and it's funny.

-Jesse

Re:The Fibonacci Algorithm

[JPelorat]

For all values of 'conspir' == 'lun', maybe yeah.

Personal Home Page on WikiPedia

[Dystopian Rebel]

I think I too will set up a personal home page on WikiPedia just like this Sollog cornflake.

Of course, my only achievement in life is positive karma on /. and a page full of rejected submissions.

Re:Wow, an edit war on Wiki. Be still my heart.

[silicon-pyro]

What wikipedia needs is to implement /. style moderation! Then every point of view will be represented fairly! Ni!

The Reply is...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fool.

-Sollog

NO EGO!!!!

[soloport]

He's taken his Ennis enlargement pills again, I see.

Sollogsucks.com

[davidmcn]

Is a completely available domain name. Now, who is going to buy it up?

We're filtering you

[FreeUser]

The year is 2678, and I am using the greatest invention of the millenium to post to slashdot from the future!

HAHAHA!

And I *still* can only get a damn ~500,000 uid. Must be something with slashdot.org rejecting my 512bit IPv19 address...

Nope, sorry. There's nothing wrong with your ipv19 to ipv4 gateway. At the request of several prestigious software archaeological societies and organizations, we in the 37th century set up a temporal filter rejecting all registration requests to slashdot from the 27th century prior to the issuance of slashdot id 516229, ipv19 or otherwise.

Of course, I would have had a slashdot ID of #1, but those rat bastards in the 43rd are blocking all packets temporally synced to all timeframes prior to slashdot ID #11483.

Re:Don't trust his site?...

[MrLint]

sollog claims that wales is a pornographer.. I have to wonder if sollog thinks that will sway the hordes of /. unwashed to his side.

Im thinking the opposite:)

Do you know Who Sollog really is?

[Prophetic_Truth]

Sollog's real name is John Patrick Ennis (Born born July 14, 1960). Thats right folks, Sollog is John P. Ennis.

he is a total dick..

Carasso!

[meehawl]

Usenet? It's just a shadow of its former glory. I was there for the heady days of the Carasso Wars [google.com]. Later on I worked with him and found him to be just as intriguingly infuriatingly trollish in person. For more info see alt.sex.carasso [google.com]. You can also check out

alt.flame.hairy-douchebag.roger-david-carasso

I don't think he's a troll

[Tibor the Hun]

His real name is John P.Ennis.
No troll would pick a name as obvious as that.

Re:Wikipediasucks.com

[Lehk228]

you say that like Sollog has credibility to lose.

Re:Wow, an edit war on Wiki. Be still my heart.

[Have Blue]

Wikipedia could [...] become a sort of collection of the intelligence and expertise of the masses on the internet.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened.

I love this passage

[Agrippa]

from http://www.247news.net/2004/20041211-wikipedia.sht ml [247news.net]

"I sat in an office of AIS and saw three different people on one high speed connection post about Sollog. They were all called the same person and Sollog. Then I went to local Starbucks and saw another person post to Wikipedia pro Sollog statements and they too were called Sollog."

.agrippa.

Sollog site says SLASH DOT.ORG RULES

[LORDGODALMIGHTY]

No shit www.wikipediasucks.com now says /. RULES haha

Re:Wikipediasucks.com

[zulux]

I like Wikipediasucks.com so much I downloaded the website... 10,203 times.... and counting!

He's mentioned by Doug Adams... (bad joke warning)

[wasted]

The discussion is pretty big, and i really wont trust his own site in explaining it, so can anyone here tell me who he is, and what he has done (with proof)?

He's the guy from the fourth book of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker Trilogy - you know, Sollog, and Thanks for All the Fish.

I know that was bad, but I couldn't help myself.

Re:I love netkooks

[Astrobirdr]

Well, that is how the kooks think and operate.

I hearby nominate the above "kooks think" for the award of Slashdot OXYMORON of the DAY!

Re:Yawn

[SharpFang]

[quote] It's locked right no since the /.ers are being especially stupid today[/quote]

You definitely underestimate the average daily stupidity of slashdotters.

I simply cannot resist a good sollog-bash

[halcyon1234]

Hey, Sollog. Guess what number I'm thinking of.

Give up?

The answer is "screw you". Hehe.

Ah, that was fun. Back to work.

Re:You missed your chance

[fbform]

You know that a Wikipedia edit war is interesting when its history page [wikipedia.org] has a line like this:

(cur) (last) 17:03, 13 Dec 2004 JamesMLane (rm "first rate nutter" to forestall objections from genuine first-rate nutters who consider Sollog second-rate)

The Pie Code

[Positive Charge]

Yum Pie!

I think it's time to write that book I've been meaning to write about God's secret messages in pi. I am convinced that if you express pi in binary and then print it out, you can search it for not only all knowledge previously known, but images of virtually anything.

In fact, I'm pretty sure there's a picture of a picture of a grilled cheese with Michelle Pfeiffer on it at index 3,444,738,956,368,665,431,233. And not only that, Jesus is a mere three billion and 6 away from that!

That means something. God put those pictures in pi in order to tell us he loves us.

Re:Sollog?

[danila]

As you may have noted, he now links to one of these sites from wikipediasucks using "SOLLOG SAYS SLASHDOT.ORG RULES" text for the link. :) Clever troll.

Re:He's can predict the future?!?!

[Matt Perry]

But had he known one GODDAMN thing about OKC, he MIGHT have warned everyone ahead of time.

Isn't there a law in the US that if you know that a voilent crime, such as murder, is going to take place and do not warn the appropriate authorities that you can be held accountable? If so since this guy says that he predicted it, he should be arrested.

Re:Wow, an edit war on Wiki. Be still my heart.

[DunbarTheInept]

Ah, and the belief in the theory of objective reality is not?

If you believe I exist and am not a figment of your imagination, then there exists an objective reality. There is no inbetween state dividing solipsism and objective reality. As soon as you admit that your perception about the world is not guaranteed to be correct, then that means there MUST exist an objective reality. If yesterday you believed the moon was made of cheese and today you believe it is made of rocks, then in a 100% subjective reality, that would mean that yesterday the moon really was made of cheese and it suddenly changed to rock when your opinion of it changed it into rock - at no time before or after your change of mind were you ever incorrect.

Saying there is no objective reality is synonymous with solipsism, in which case why are you bothering to post to a forum read only by what you believe to be figments of your imagination?