Adrian Dix's wiki page tampered with, missing critical details to his past, the work of pro-NDP backers

[Wetcoaster]

It seems the light of adverse publicity being shone upon the systematic attempts to sanitize the biography of Adrian Dix by editing out historical information about his past have caused Wikipedia to take steps to ensure that it cannot be removed.

Wikipedia editors, stung by the fact critical historical information had been systematically edited out the online biography of B.C. New Democratic Party leader Adrian Dix, restored the information and appeared to be guarding against it being removed again.

On Wednesday morning after The Vancouver Sun reported that a group of people had been actively cleansing Dix's biography around his falsification of an executive memo while working for former premier Glen Clark,

Wikipedia editors removed a block on changes to the page and restored critical details. As of mid-afternoon it was still in place.

Meanwhile, the editor who has been most active in removing critical sections of Dix's biography has been identified as a B.C.-based actor and hobbyist historian whose constant edits of political pages have drawn complaints of bias.

Mike Cleven of New Westminster acknowledged in a comment posted to The Vancouver Sun's story about Dix's online biography that he has been removing information about Dix's memo-writing affair.

But Cleven, who goes by the user name Skookum1, said he took the action because of what he sees as a concerted effort by B.C. Liberal supporters to skew the incident into a campaign issue for the May 14 election.

"I am the editor who's spent the most energy on keeping the people pushing an inflammatory and undue-weight account of this." he said. " ... Whitewashing the article to prevent mention of this is not the aim here, it is to prevent articles being used for defamatory purposes ... the BC Liberals have pulled this kind of crap on Wikipedia before; they can say it's not them, sure uh-huh, but the agenda of those claiming NOT to be them is too much like theirs to be worth explaining further."

Both the NDP and the Liberals say they are not behind the Wikipedia wars.

In a Facebook note posted Wednesday, Cleven categorically insisted he his not aligned with the NDP. But he said he

" was a founding member of the Green party (not a member now) and on the Van Ctr board of the National Party."

"My own view of this memo business is it's completely overblown relative to what the (BC Liberals have) done with billions of dollars of public assets and outsourcing Crown agencies and services to American companies," he said. "If the memo is all the Libs have to attack Dix with it's pretty pathetic. And all to do with Casinogate. Did your paper cover the other side of that — that there was a Liberal-affiliated competing casino licence? No it did not."

The Liberals are making Dix's memo-writing incident an issue of trust in the campaign. Dix, on the other hand refuses to engage in negative personal attacks and said on Tuesday he wishes for a higher discourse of opinion from the parties and public alike.

Cleven is an extraordinarily prolific contributor to Wikipedia, having made more than 71,000 edits since he became a member in 2005. He is one of Wikipedia's 400 most active editors. Much of his work involves correcting and adding to BC Place names.

But Cleven also has a history of making changes to biographies — principally those of living politicians — that has brought charges that he's politically biased. He has acknowledged in several posts that he has a conflict of interest when it comes to editing some pages because of criticism he has levelled on other websites and in blogs.

In the last four days Cleven was responsible for removing references to Dix's memo-writing controversy five of the 10 times it was posted on Wikipedia by other users.

He also has edited references on Premier Christy Clark and former premier Gordon Campbell (in one case changing Campbell's job as a real estate developer to "real estate lobbyist". He is actively involved in shaping how information is relayed about the BC Rail scandal that plagued Campbell's government, and believes that mainstream reporting of the casino scandal that led to the fall of Glen Clark's NDP government is biased and shouldn't be used in any Wikipedia article about it.

A number of users have complained about Cleven to Wikipedia's conflict of interest board, and have criticized him in posts on the site. The user whose Dix notations Cleven repeatedly removed tried but failed to have him banned by Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is governed by a strong set of guidelines that dictate articles — particularly those involving living people or controversial subjects — must be written from a "neutral point of view."

In a posting on the website alternatehistory.com a decade ago, Cleven illustrated his views about the NDP and his disdain for the B.C. Liberals which had just been elected. He called them "the Carpetbagger Party" and wondered about an alternate history if the NDP had not squandered their time in government.

"As maple leafers know, the 10+ year tango with socialism in BC has come to a crashing end, and the "Liberal" party (a re-hashed Social Credit-cum-Alliance mishmash flying a flag of convenience, having stolen it from the original left-centre bunch that first replaced the defunct Socreds when they collapsed back in the '80s) is now in charge, for better or for worse — probably for worse, and no doubt for a series of scandalously broken promises and inevitable dagger-in-the-backing within their own ranks."

http://www.vancouver...l#ixzz2QGlzSigx

[Wetcoaster]

Dix claims he is not behind the activities to cleanse his image on Wikipedia. HMMMMMMM... where have we heard that before?

Given his past protestations of innocence when he was outed for breaking the law, it is hard to lend credence to his claims here as this is not even a law and he has broken criminal laws and BC election laws with impunity in the past.

Can a leopard change its spots? Once a crook always a crook.

When operating as Glen Clark's Chief of Staff he broke the BC Elections Act by being directly involved in recall campaigns. He and Clark loudly and continually denied any involvement but they lied. That claim was refuted when an NDP field operative came forward and provided information that put lie to his claims on non-involvement. And like the fraudulent memo once outed he was forced to admit his wrongdoing. It just makes you wonder how many other illegal activities he has engaged in that have not yet beem brought to light.

As Vaughn Palmer wrote of the recall/BC Elections Act incident:

When the New Democrats faced a trio of recall campaigns against their MLAs in the late 1990s, then premier Glen Clark called, as he usually did, on the skills and drive of his chief political operative Adrian Dix.

Dix put together what proved to be a successful effort to quash the recallers, lining up support and resources from NDP headquarters and the trade union movement.

He did most of this by phone, though twice he visited the key battleground of Prince George at his own expense. He also persuaded government staffers to go into the field on their own time, while facilitating an arrangement that saw the labour movement quietly cover several thousand dollars' worth of travel expenses.

All this had to be done on the sly. The NDP-authored recall legislation imposed strict spending limits. And the NDP line was that local MLAs were unfairly targeted by dark forces -- "outsiders, special interests, lobby groups" -- from beyond their ridings.

Accordingly, Clark denied the role of his own office in stage-managing the fight. "Mr. Dix has a job in Victoria," he told the legislature. "He was not involved in the recall campaigns in those ridings."

Only after an NDP field operative blew the whistle to the news media did the truth come out. "I had quite a bit of involvement," Dix conceded.

http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/columnists/story.html?id=faceb1c9-761f-4bcb-a2c3-e002230f2521&p=1

If you liked Glen Clark as Premier you are going to love Adrian Dix - the guy who put Clark's actions into motion and then tried to cover for him.

[inane]

Dix claims he is not behind the activities to cleanse his image on Wikipedia. HMMMMMMM... where have we heard that before?

Given his past protestations of innocence when he was outed for breaking the law, it is hard to lend credence to his claims here as this is not even a law and he has broken criminal laws and BC election laws with impunity in the past.

Can a leopard change its spots? Once a crook always a crook.

If you liked Glen Clark as Premier you are going to love Adrian Dix - the guy who put Clark's actions into motion and then tried to cover for him.

[Sapper]

Dix claims he is not behind the activities to cleanse his image on Wikipedia. HMMMMMMM... where have we heard that before?

Given his past protestations of innocence when he was outed for breaking the law, it is hard to lend credence to his claims here as this is not even a law and he has broken criminal laws and BC election laws with impunity in the past.

Can a leopard change its spots? Once a crook always a crook.

When operating as Glen Clark's Chief of Staff he broke the BC Elections Act by being directly involved in recall campaigns. He and Clark loudly and continually denied any involvement but they lied. That claim was refuted when an NDP field operative came forward and provided information that put lie to his claims on non-involvement. And like the fraudulent memo once outed he was forced to admit his wrongdoing. It just makes you wonder how many other illegal activities he has engaged in that have not yet beem brought to light.

As Vaughn Palmer wrote of the recall/BC Elections Act incident:

When the New Democrats faced a trio of recall campaigns against their MLAs in the late 1990s, then premier Glen Clark called, as he usually did, on the skills and drive of his chief political operative Adrian Dix.

Dix put together what proved to be a successful effort to quash the recallers, lining up support and resources from NDP headquarters and the trade union movement.

He did most of this by phone, though twice he visited the key battleground of Prince George at his own expense. He also persuaded government staffers to go into the field on their own time, while facilitating an arrangement that saw the labour movement quietly cover several thousand dollars' worth of travel expenses.

All this had to be done on the sly. The NDP-authored recall legislation imposed strict spending limits. And the NDP line was that local MLAs were unfairly targeted by dark forces -- "outsiders, special interests, lobby groups" -- from beyond their ridings.

Accordingly, Clark denied the role of his own office in stage-managing the fight. "Mr. Dix has a job in Victoria," he told the legislature. "He was not involved in the recall campaigns in those ridings."

Only after an NDP field operative blew the whistle to the news media did the truth come out. "I had quite a bit of involvement," Dix conceded.

http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/columnists/story.html?id=faceb1c9-761f-4bcb-a2c3-e002230f2521&p=1

If you liked Glen Clark as Premier you are going to love Adrian Dix - the guy who put Clark's actions into motion and then tried to cover for him.

[Gross-Misconduct]

I know you dislike the ndp and Adrian himself. However your post suggests on going criminal behavior and that he will always be a crook is not truthful. The courts did not charge him and a crook is someone who steals - please provide a link to the court documents regarding what is being implied.

[Heretic]

I know you dislike the ndp and Adrian himself. However your post suggests on going criminal behavior and that he will always be a crook is not truthful. The courts did not charge him and a crook is someone who steals - please provide a link to the court documents regarding what is being implied.

[Wetcoaster]

I know you dislike the ndp and Adrian himself. However your post suggests on going criminal behavior and that he will always be a crook is not truthful. The courts did not charge him and a crook is someone who steals - please provide a link to the court documents regarding what is being implied.

[Wetcoaster]

He can't. They don't exist.

[Gross-Misconduct]

Gordon Campbell was convicted of a criminal offense. Just sayin.

[Langdon Algur]

lol why is this even a storey?  Wiki is user edited and therefore not a valid source for anything.  Of course a politican's page is going to get edited to reflect one persons particular political beliefs.  Is this wrong? maybe.  Is it surprising? of course not. Does this reflect poorly on the NDP? Nope it's just one random person editing wiki. Is this just another weak excuse for the pro-Liberial media to bring up an old scandel? Yup!

[Gross-Misconduct]

I have linked to the documents and information in the past on numerous occasions.

Here is the main document:

[Wetcoaster]

Gordon Campbell was convicted of a criminal offense. Just sayin.

[Wetcoaster]

He asked for court documents showing Dix was charged or convicted of anything. Nice try though.

[Langdon Algur]

I know you dislike the ndp and Adrian himself. However your post suggests on going criminal behavior and that he will always be a crook is not truthful. The courts did not charge him and a crook is someone who steals - please provide a link to the court documents regarding what is being implied.

[Gross-Misconduct]

I never claimed that Dix was charged although IMHO he should have been.

[Common sense]

Gordon Campbell was convicted of a criminal offense. Just sayin.

[Lockout Casualty]

Dix claims he is not behind the activities to cleanse his image on Wikipedia. HMMMMMMM... where have we heard that before?

Given his past protestations of innocence when he was outed for breaking the law, it is hard to lend credence to his claims here as this is not even a law and he has broken criminal laws and BC election laws with impunity in the past.

Can a leopard change its spots? Once a crook always a crook.

When operating as Glen Clark's Chief of Staff he broke the BC Elections Act by being directly involved in recall campaigns. He and Clark loudly and continually denied any involvement but they lied. That claim was refuted when an NDP field operative came forward and provided information that put lie to his claims on non-involvement. And like the fraudulent memo once outed he was forced to admit his wrongdoing. It just makes you wonder how many other illegal activities he has engaged in that have not yet beem brought to light.

As Vaughn Palmer wrote of the recall/BC Elections Act incident:

When the New Democrats faced a trio of recall campaigns against their MLAs in the late 1990s, then premier Glen Clark called, as he usually did, on the skills and drive of his chief political operative Adrian Dix.

Dix put together what proved to be a successful effort to quash the recallers, lining up support and resources from NDP headquarters and the trade union movement.

He did most of this by phone, though twice he visited the key battleground of Prince George at his own expense. He also persuaded government staffers to go into the field on their own time, while facilitating an arrangement that saw the labour movement quietly cover several thousand dollars' worth of travel expenses.

All this had to be done on the sly. The NDP-authored recall legislation imposed strict spending limits. And the NDP line was that local MLAs were unfairly targeted by dark forces -- "outsiders, special interests, lobby groups" -- from beyond their ridings.

Accordingly, Clark denied the role of his own office in stage-managing the fight. "Mr. Dix has a job in Victoria," he told the legislature. "He was not involved in the recall campaigns in those ridings."

Only after an NDP field operative blew the whistle to the news media did the truth come out. "I had quite a bit of involvement," Dix conceded.

http://www2.canada.c...002230f2521&p=1

If you liked Glen Clark as Premier you are going to love Adrian Dix - the guy who put Clark's actions into motion and then tried to cover for him.

[Gross-Misconduct]

Filling up the Gordo post criteria for the day, I see.

[Common sense]

lol why is this even a storey? Wiki is user edited and therefore not a valid source for anything. Of course a politican's page is going to get edited to reflect one persons particular political beliefs. Is this wrong? maybe. Is it surprising? of course not. Does this reflect poorly on the NDP? Nope it's just one random person editing wiki. Is this just another weak excuse for the pro-Liberial media to bring up an old scandel? Yup!

[Gross-Misconduct]

Filling up the Gordo Dix post criteria for the day, I see.