I don't break the rules (I'm sneaky that way).

Another dispatch from the lipstick wars, WR battlefront.

I've written of wikipedia and its conflicts over "sock puppetry" here often enough. I'll try not to repeat myself unduly.

I don't think I've ever mentioned Wikipedia Review (WR), which is a website designed by and for those with a wikipedia-related grievance, something of a "shadow site," if you will.

I've only recently discovered that I've become a subject of some discussion at Wikipedia Review. This seems to have been set off by a piece I wrote in the HedgeWorld blog, back when HW was still a semi-autonomous newsgathering organization within the Reuters family and when they still employed the likes of me.

I wrote in that piece about certain wikipedia articles that had a direct or indirect connection with the "naked short selling" debate, and about the contention -- in that context especially hot -- about who was a sock puppet of whom.

I also was explicit in this piece that I have edited wikipedia myself. I gave the name I use in that context, Christofurio. So, just to be clear: the identity of Christopher Faille and Christofurio isn't something that anybody else had to do any detective work to discover. I have been very clear about it.

Another point: within wikipedia, I am always and only "Christofurio," -- so nobody ever has to wonder whether I am using two or more names strategically. There's only the one.

This is all simple enough, and unremarkable, one would think. Yet I find myself mentioned in the Wikipedia Review as if I were being especially sneaky.

Here's a direct quote from someone who writes there with the name Piperdown.

I think the reason Christofurio hasn't been publically curbed on editing Byrne/NSS/Weiss/etc is that he's been very careful to not actually do any editing that could be blatantly cited as breaking any WP rules.

Um ... right. The reason I haven't been disciplined for breaking any rules is that I haven't broken any rules.

Likewise, the reason I've never been imprisoned for burglary is that I've never burgled. Pretty crafty, eh?

I don't know what axe exactly Piperdown is grinding here (actually I think I do, but I'll let it pass) but it does seem that he is oddly perplexed by the spectacle of someone who joins a collective editing enterprise, uses one and only one name, edits as he thinks best, sticks to the spirit as well as the letter of the collective enterprise, gives his reasons for his edits in the Talk pages, and generally comports himself according to Hoyle.

If any of that makes me remarkable, I'll see if I can keep it up.