Gwen Gale = Heidi Wyss, a Wackipedia Fable

Chapter One: Wyss

The internet(s) (to paraphrase a certain addlepated President) are not for the faint of heart. Witness the long, strange trip of self-described Swiss "author" Heidi Wyss, a "radical feminist separatist" who first started editing on Wikipedia several years ago under the name Wyss. Wyss would go along for actual minutes at a time doing some useful edits, and then, as if undergoing some sort of Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde metamorphosis, would suddenly erupt in fury and bombast at some poor hapless teen (one must assume that most of Wikipedia is manned/womanned by the young and idealistic, musn't one?).

The charming and lovely Wyss got involved in one "edit war" after another (for those of you unfamiliar with Wikipedia's rather arcane "in-speak" and unbelievable assortment of acronyms, stay tuned--I'll provide Wyss' user space at Wikipedia where you'll get a lesson and a half), several "blocks" (meaning she wasn't permitted to edit for a while) and even a "ban" or two (meaning she was forbidden--yes, forbidden, ladies and germs, I know you must be aghast--from editing certain subjects).

Along the way, Wyss managed to get involved in rather heated arguments with several scientific experts and historians who were quite knowledgeable about their various fields, but that didn't pass muster with Wyss. No, Wyss actually maintained that these people, due to their expertise, were more likely to push "POV" (point of view for you infidels), and therefore Wikipedia was better off with your basic uninformed and thereby more "neutral" editors who could make Wikipedia the egalatarian place it was destined to be. Facts may be stubborn things, but they never dissuaded Wyss from arguing that it was consensus (by which she usually meant agreeing with her) that should dictate the final copy in any given Wikipedia article, made even more apparent by her frequent addition of outright inaccuracies into scores of articles. That wild and wacky Wyss, you must be thinking, and that puts you at least two steps ahead of most Wikipedians--you're thinking.

It all came tumbling down quite unexpectedly one day when Wyss, after having disappeared a time or two, optioned her RTV (right to vanish--how can you not know these things, people?) and zoomed off into the starry Swiss night, leaving behind a rant of epic proportions about Wikipedia and its failings. One might have concluded (and/or hoped) that the story would have ended there.

(Cue eerie music). But then something so horrifyingly gothic and, dare I say, Grand Guignol-esque happened that it will take me a day or two to collect my thoughts before posting:

Chapter Two: Gwen gleans, wending keen by the wikirindle