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Haters Magazine Strips NYC-IMC Jed Brandt of His Wikipedia Anonymity                                                                                                                    by
                                                                                                           
I write this article to punish an Indymedia Activist by revoking his anonymity.  On October 1, 2007, I read the
Independent Media Center article on Wikipedia.  A citation was needed for the sentence "Some local IMC
collectives remove articles written from right-wing or conservative perspectives[12]." So I linked a citation to
my article "Indy-Fundamentalism: Its Root Causes and Structure."

I went on vacation for a couple of weeks and had a great time.  I came back and checked the article to find that my link had been deleted.  It turns out that after I had posted the link, about three hours later, a wikipedian named "In the Stacks" deleted my citation saying that it links to a "semi-articulated rant."

Mind you, I did not edit the article itself, I merely added a citation.  When I added it, I fully expected it to either go unnoticed for some time, or to be tracked down by a member of Indymedia and deleted.  In this case, I suspected the latter had occurred. Following the odd customs of Wikipedia, and after perusing his other contributions to Wikipedia I went to one of In the Stacks' talk pages and wrote:

"I have reverted the link to the criticism of Indymedia which In the Stacks, an unscrupulous squatter of communist articles and a reviser and deleter of talk page commentary has deleted in bad faith. It is not his business to decide whether criticisms of Indymedia are poorly articulated. I encourage him to disclose his interests in Indymedia as well. --Flipside"

Of course, Stacks was not about to confess his membership in IMC, so I checked his User contributions more vigorously which predictably showed meticulous editing upon the following articles: IMC, Shining Path, Maoism, CrimethInc, Workers World Party, Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, International Socialist Organization, and A.N.S.W.E.R. The nature of these edits were typically vandalism and disappearances of links, screams of libel, challenges to the Neutrality of Point of View, and outraged apologetics on behalf of the various Communist organizations.

Thus had I deduced and verified that he was a Communist using the vagaries of Wikipedia bureaucracy to pose as an intellectual editor and thoughtbroker.  As yet, there had been no reply to my first across the bow shot. So I decided to see whether he was a public or an anonymous figure, suspecting him to be of course, anonymous. I visited his Wikipedia User page which says:

"Writer, reader, archivist and editor. By trade I work in print and web media, as an administrator, writer and
graphics all-in-one. I have an interest in the history of various left-wing organizations, insurgent movements and
history as it is being made. Participatory projects always seem to have more promise than they deliver, but I'm
willing to do my part."

Occam's Razor dictates that all things being equal, the simple explanation is the best one.  The simplest
explanation in this case was that a member of Indymedia was deflecting criticism by squatting on Wikipedia, deleting links to criticism of Wikipedia as well as fringe groups fronted and harbored by Indymedia.  I sought to prove this.

Thus, I looked for other tiffs which most likely would have to have occurred between In the Stacks, and other
Wikipedia contributors.  Lo and behold, I find a few, and they are all with the idiot Chuck Munson from Infoshop.  Truth be told, I skittered across a Chuck Munson-to-Stacks rant before posting my first taunt and went back and reread it in its entirety along with related brawl pages and downloaded them.

These arguments and fights between Chuck Munson (Chuck0) and In the Stacks are replete with examples of Stacks posing as an intellectual and making the type of niggling and snobby "Terms of Service Violation" arguments that an Indy-Fundamentalist typically uses to engage in censorship while covering his ass.  While reading them in their entirety, I sent this other preemption to Stacks' talk page:

"I would add before a cheeky rebuttal ensues, that Chuck Munson -a person I have no particular love for- has
documented that In the Stacks does squat articles to erase criticism of groups he is interested in: 'After a year
of you deleting critical links posted to entries on the RCP, ANSWER, the ISO and similar pages,.' QED. Please stop erasing criticism and criticism links of Indymedia. "

The arguments between Chuck0 and Stacks are particularly amusing both because they represent infighting between Anarchists and Commies, but also because they were potentially between Indymedia personnel (DC vs NYC), each accusing the other of stalking, conspiracy, libel, self-promotion and harassment.  You can read these tiffs at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Revolutionary_Communist_Party%2C_USA#Vandalism.2C_harrassment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chuck_Munson/archive2

Stacks has tried to delete these.  When I discovered that In the Stacks also squats RCP, ANSWER and ISO, I knew damn well in my nose that he was an Indy-Fundamentalist.  So I started running names and edits through Lifehacker's "Wikipedia Scanner" which is for identifying anonymous Wikipedia editors.  Though an effective tool for finding the IPs of organizational and universitary interest group anon-editors, it did not turn up a reference for In the Stacks.  So I switched to finer and slower methods.

Dissecting the Chuck0 vs. Stacks argument, it became evident that Wikipedia user "Daniel" was running interference for In the Stacks.  Daniel is not anonymous, and is Daniel Tasripin (Dtasripin) of New York Indymedia Center and Students for a Democratic Society.  He is a mixed Jewish Asian who claims special status on SDSwiki because "As a person of color in a racist society, I was forced awake from the American Dream to the fact that I am living the AmeriKKKan nightmare." Boo fucking hoo.

Having determined location of IMC, all that remained was establishing that Daniel's wienerface anonymous buddy also works at NY IMC.  So I looked for Nepal articles on NY IMC and in the Indypendent.  The name that came up as author of those articles was Jed Brandt.  Jed Brandt checks out as haranguing CrimethInc on NY IMC and bitching about Nepal on NY IMC.  Since spellcheck is usually used for IMC center articles, I used Yahoo search booleans and then lurked the NY IMC listservs and started crossreferencing Jed Brandt's and In the Stacks' prolific spelling errors which are common to these two locations:

http://archives.lists.indymedia.org/imc-nyc-print/2002-March/003712.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chuck_Munson/archive2

Specifically, Stacks/Brandt cannot spell the word explanation, spelling it "explination," a misspelling I have noticed in various IMC edits.

It is against Wikipedia rules to expose the identities of its anonymous editors.  So I will:

"In the Stacks" is Jed Brandt.  To recap and condense these details into a basic profile, Brandt/Stacks hates  Chuck Munson, loves Nepal, A.N.S.W.E.R., The Shining Path guerilla movement, and Maoism.  He is an agent of NY IMC (writer, printer, censor) and rolls with Daniel Tasripin, who is on the same staff, and they cover each other's asses when censoring articles about IMC on Wikipedia.  Brandt/Stacks can't spell "explanation." He lives in New York. He is a snooty, censorious, Indy-Fundamentalist who has personal tiffs with disenfranchised Wikipedians.  He works in Print and Web Media.  That means NY IMC and the Indypendent.  He disagrees with my article on Indy-Fundamentalism and wants to erase it, as well as various Wikipedia talk page discussions in which he is roundly criticized.  He is the perfect picture of an IMC editor.

Or to cite the link to the Red Flags dialogue between "Plain Old Daniel" and "Comrade Brandt" aka the Burning Man on Jed's page about Brooklyn, Mao, Shining Path, and Students for a Democratic Society:

"Jed Brandt is a Brooklyn-based communist commentator and an editor with The Indypendent."

If you still don't fucking believe it, here is a page where In the Stacks is trying to add one of his Jed Brandt/Burningman blog articles to a Wiki-apologetic for A.N.S.W.E.R. Cheeky fucking bastard.

And here are two pages where Stacks/Brandt misspell the word "irrelevant" as "irrelevent:"

"Psyops in Nepal, Confusions on the Left" by Jed Brandt
22:20, 14 August 2007 by In the Stacks

Here is a Deadjournal entry with Jed Brandt articles alongside BIMC Brian Conley and A.N.S.W.E.R.

I have of course given this information to Chuck Munson, Wikipedia, and Indymedia.  In the future, I hope Jed Brandt will think twice about deleting my link because it's not up to his Communist Indymedia standards of asslickery. 

The idea that people are not meeting the intellectual standards of a (formerly) anonymous Indymedia censor who
spends his days trying to Communize NY SDS and his nights scouring Wiki bibliographies to remove tiny links critical of IMC is pretty funny.  It's also of minimal consequence or importance to real life to be sure, but then again, every noun entered into Google calls back its Wikipedia entry, so there are some non-laughing matters attached to it. 

It is also richly amusing that NY IMC has hopped on the bandwagon of censoring Flipside posts in an "open posting" venue entirely outside the purview of the IMC network.  I urge Brandt to reread "Indy-Fundamentalism: Its Root Causes and Structure" because, even if it is, by Communist Wiki standards "a semi articulated rant," it
has been carried by IMCs across the country.  Its title was articulated well enough to draw in NY IMCistas lurking on Wikipedia and fucking with it cost Jed Brandt his anonymity.

Be bold, fellow netizens!  Stand by your statements and accusations.  Be public, not anonymous.  And don't fuck
people over anonymously, because it's your ass.