Talk:Ace of Spades HQ

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This discussion page is just more proof of how extremely left wing and partisan the hack 'moderataters' are here...pathetic little tyrants with no life trying to exercise control where there is none...LOL. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.192.142.66 (talk) 17:52, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

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My knowledge of this blog is very limited, so this stub article should be expanded by someone more knowledgeable. A blog that's more popular than Andrew Sullivan is clearly notable and the contents of this article should reflect this! Calbaer 02:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Any blog getting millions of hits is worthy of a wikipedia article stub. This particular one is significant. It seems that stub articles are getting deleted on the basis of Wiki-users' ideologies than any meaningful criteria. (70.58.77.127 01:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC))

Alexa Ranking

I removed the Alexa ranking segment of the intro:

It was the 14th top political blog of 2006, as determined by Alexa Internet [2], making the list just below Wonkette and just above Andrew Sullivan...

When I emailed Ace (the site's main blogger) to show him the improved page, and he emailed me back, saying:

One error-- and I actually went on Wiki to correct it, but didn't see how, and didn't want to screw things up.

I think that Alexa rating almost certainly overstates the blog's traffic and whatever. I think Alexa cannot separate out one mu.nu blog from the hundred others -- so that rating is an aggregate of me, MyPetJawa, Confederate Yankee, and a hundred smaller blogs.

I think that warrented removal. --Ultramontane 20:56, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Major cleanup needed

This article is a major mess, and I'm not at all sure that it should even exist. I'll probably come back and look at it down the road and see if it has improved, and also formally evaluate whether this topic is really notable.

Here are some of the problems. Before I did a little cleanup (I have no interest in trying to salvage this thing--I know nothing about it and only removed/fixed some of the most ridiculous parts), I found sentences like "(How did Truth survive laying a Bear? That's some Grizzly pussy! /rimshot/)" and "This might be because Ace is actually an amalgam character, made up of variously strewn about body parts, collected into a loose pile by Flappy, the Dismembered-Limb-Collecting Eagle" and "As of May, 2007, July 2006 had not moved, so that fucking post was still there." In other words a bunch of nonsense (there were several other examples, mostly gone now). A couple of the footnotes I checked out (for example number 16) list web pages that provide no evidence for whatever was asserted.

The article is also quite obsessed with which google search results lead to the blog, which of course does not belong in the article.

It seems like this is just a joke page for some editors, and maybe a serious endeavor for some others. The latter better get cracking turning this into a half-way decent article in the near future. You should start by finding some reliable sources--like the one in the first footnote--that talk about this blog. I haven't done any checking to see how notable this blog is, but if I take a look at this thing again in a week or two and it is still a mess and if it seems like the topic does not meet the guidelines at WP:WEB I might list it at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Hopefully someone can turn this into a decent article, like I said I tried to take care of some of the most egregious problems.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:36, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Just because a page gets defaced is no reason to question its existence. Otherwise, the George W. Bush page would be in big trouble! As I said at the outset, I'm not really an expert on the blog, except to know that it is indeed notable, using Alexa's results (and my own experience) as a measure of popularity/notability. Political blogs and ideas, especially conservative ones, seem to be under fire by certain troublemakers in Wikipedia (not you, but perhaps the vandals). We want to make sure Wikipedia is an encyclopedia involving all notable aspects of life; otherwise, conservatives will go to Conservapedia, progressives will build their own wiki, and knowledge will be restricted overall.

I somehow doubt that the vandalism was done by political enemies of Ace - if I had a guess, it's probably one of his regular commenters. Or at least someone who reads his site regularly enough to be very familiar. (Not that WHO did it matters - I'm just sayin.) Allism 22:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

That said, clearly any vandalism needs to be reverted and, as with most articles, improvements would be nice. Calbaer 18:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I understand your point about articles being attacked for political reasons (and it's not just conservative-oriented articles under attack, progressive ones as well--it seems to be a permanent issue here at wikipedia that articles about one end of the political spectrum get attacked by editors who adhere to the philosophy of the other end), but the problem with this article is that it was very difficult for me to distinguish between the vandal comments and the legitimate content (this obviously isn't a problem with the GWB article, where the vandalism is obvious and generally reverted immediately). Also contrary to the left vs. right battle we often see on these kind of articles, from what I can gather I think many of the vandals were actually fans of the blog trying to duplicate it's jokey tone (see for example the Tobey928 comment below re: the "sasquatch" passage, though I would quickly add that he does seem to be working on the article in good faith).

The other (very big) problem I have with this article is that it only has one reliable source (the Washington Times) which establishes its notability. It needs more than that. You say it is notable, but I am not convinced either way. I checked its Alexa ranking yesterday, and all of the mu.nu blogs ranked 16,000 something (as pointed out above on this talk page, the owner of the blog noted that his site's ranking looks higher on Alexa because all of the mu.nu blogs are lumped together). You mentioned above that it ranks higher than Andrew Sullivan's blog, but according to Alexa not even all of the mu.nu blogs together beat out Sullivan (who is 12,000 something).

So the most important thing to do is to establish notability for this blog according to the guidelines at WP:WEB ("Wikipedia articles should not exist only to describe the nature, appearance or services a website offers, but should describe the site in an encyclopedic manner, offering detail on a website's achievements, impact or historical significance..."). References to the blog need to be found in reliable sources beyond the blogosphere. I can assure you that if I were to put this article up for deletion at some point, I would only do so because I thought the subject was not-notable, not for any sort of political purge. If notability is established the article should absolutely stay.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:38, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Although you present it honestly enough, the Alexa figure you give is without context. "Ranked 16,000" doesn't mean anything; the fact is that, in the last roundup of political blogs by The Hotline in 2006 [1], Ace ranked 14 among political blogs (left, right, and otherwise). The whole domain issue that's been brought up makes the meaning of that difficult to peg down, but the fact that it was assumed to be due to Ace indicates that it is (or at least was in 2006) extremely popular. The question is, how do we establish notability? Is something that's been written up in a college newspaper inherently more notable than something that's been in most of the most influential left/right blogs, merely because it's in a newspaper and not online? Is something that's not online (e.g., television) inherently a bad resource because it's difficult to find due to intellectual property issues? The fact is that newspapers do not report on blogs in a manner proportional to their influence, and rarely get down to specifics; usually it's "the conservative base, including many blogs, torpedoed the White House's nomination" or some such. Why have free advertising for your competition? (By "competition" I don't mean to say that they're equivalent, just that they're after the same eyeballs.) I realize there are certain guidelines on this, but some rationality is needed here within the guidelines of Wikipedia for determining this, especially to counteract users who declare war on blogs[2]. Anyway, if you were to put it up for deletion, I'd hope that you'd do so because you knew it was non-notable, not because you thought it might be or because the page was in a state of repairable disrepair. Calbaer 20:26, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, though I think the Alexa situation is still problematic. Even on the Hotline page you cite they point out that "blog traffic numbers are notoriously hard to pin down" and that they have employed a rather "crude" method to develop their rankings. One cannot tell if Ace of Spades HQ achieved the ranking it did because all of the other mu.nu blogs were included, but presumably that's the case (and we simply do not know how popular they are). The blog owner's own skepticism about his ranking should be taken into account. In general I think these rankings should be used very cautiously as justification for notability.

I agree that the question of notability of web sites/blogs is a prickly one given the difference (and competition) between print/TV and web media. I think the most general guideline we have on this is at WP:N which says "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." The real question thus might be whether or not blogs are themselves reliable sources (since Ace of Spades HQ is obviously covered in other blogs), and I think at this point wikipedia is very skeptical about blogs as reliable sources. I think part of the problem is that there is no editorial review process for most blogs, so accuracy is quite questionable. Thus the best thing that can be done is to find references to Ace of Spades HQ in newspapers or even on non-blog web sites that have some sort of editorial review. Google News searches would be a start and a Nexis search would be even better. A few more references to Ace of Spades HQ like the one in the Washington Times in the first footnote and it would probably establish notability. That would be a good thing to work on.

Just FYI, I checked on the first 13 blogs on the Hotline page and it seems 9 of them have wikipedia entries while 4 do not. I'm not sure whether that tells us anything either way.

You provided a link to WikiProject Blogging above. Why not drop a line over there and see if they can evaluate/work on this article a bit? They're probably much more expert in these kind of issues and I would be interested in what one of those editors has to say about this.

Finally, I'll emphasize again that I'm in absolutely no rush to list this for AfD. I guess one can never truly know if a subject is non-notable or not (it's usually a fiercely debated point in AfD discussions) but of course I would only put this up for a deletion discussion if I truly thought it was non-notable, and at this point I'm agnostic on the question. I'm just saying it's possible that the topic is, at this point at least, not-notable. I'd rather see an improved article that demonstrates notability than deletion--think of the threat of the latter as a motivating force for the actualization of the former.  :) --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:45, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I sensed you were in no rush to AfD, but others might be. It is too bad that sites like, say, Instapundit or the Wall Street Journal Best of the Web today, ostensibly by virtue of being self-edited (but more likely for some due to their explicit POV) , aren't thought of as "reliable sources," since I've heard fewer statements debunked from them than from, say, the New York Times (though rival blogger Andrew Sullivan has tried his best to change that!). Google News includes blogs, so I'm not sure whether or not Google News itself is a good test of notability, rather than the articles it links to. Anyway, just some food for thought; hopefully someone who's both an Ace fan and a Wikipedian will shed some more light on this. Calbaer 03:01, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a notable enough blog to deserve a wikipedia entry. I think deleting the blog due to defacement/humor/whatever is a mistake. There are several blogs that are much less notable that have entries - if you have questions about how politically notable the blog is considered, take a look at the Truth Laid Bear rankings (which are cited in the footnotes). At least seven of the ten blogs listed below AoS in the TTLB have undisputed wikipedia entries. TTLB ranks according to incoming links, so enough people consider it linkworthy to have knocked it up to it's current rank of 66th - which is right below Gizmodo and just above Lifehacker and Techcrunch. AoS has also been mentioned in Slate, the Register, Ynet, and Human Events. Allism 22:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

If it's been mentioned in those publications, can you find a way to work whatever they said about AoS into the article? It would help demonstrate notability. Notability cannot merely be asserted on talk pages, it has to be demonstrated using reliable sources in the article itself.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:35, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Just an FYI - the reason the article (which I did not write or contribute to, although I will probably go in to correct some grammatical errors) is obsessed with which google search results lead to the blog is because Ace is obsessed with which google search results lead to the blog, as is evidenced by http://ace.mu.nu/archives/228508.php. Although I don't think this article is standard for Wikipedia, it does quite nicely reflect the tone of the blog. Allism 13:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

That's fine, except the point of this article is not even remotely to "reflect the tone of the blog"--in fact it should not reflect the tone of the blog, which is a political/humor site. This is (or rather should be) an encyclopedia article, and you just admitted that discussing which google search results lead to the blog is not something wikipedia does. It needs to be removed.

Recent edits by Toby928 have made the article worse yet again. Passages like "The only known images of this shadowy figure are fuzzy screen captures and video of an unfortunate and ill timed appearance on Fox News where an Israeli tank, bogged down in a field, was the major topic of discussion. While these images reveal an almost sasquatch-like demeanor, friends of the blogger report that the blogger most resembles a mumbling hairy gourd" simply do not belong in this article. Wikipedia is not a place for jokes ("sasquatch-like demeanor" and "mumbling hairy gourd") but rather a place for facts. Sentences like the one Toby928 belong on the comment board of a blog, not in an encyclopedia. If the article becomes filled with more of this nonsense it will almost certainly be put up for deletion, either by me or someone else who comes across this thing. If the sentence was trying to communicate something of importance it needs to be written in a serious and straightforward manner.

I removed the the link to the You Tube video cited as a source for the "sasquatch" sentence. It links to a segment from Fox News and is therefore a copyright violation--please do not add this link back in.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 17:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Toby928: Sorry for the imbedded youtube link. Is it permissible to add the link as a note? This indeed the only known images of the host blogger. And the sasquatch reference was, as guessed, an attempt, within the bounds of good taste, to add a bit of the flavor of the blog.

You can't put in the link as a note either--the problem is that Fox News owns the rights to that segment and did not give permission for it to be posted on You Tube (You Tube is forced to take down those kind of videos all the time obviously, though they often just go right back up again). If we link to the You Tube video it can be bad news. As the wiki policy notes, "Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright has been considered a form of contributory infringement in the United States (Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry). Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors."

I don't know what the best solution is, but if you can figure out the date the show aired and the name of the show you can probably put that in a footnote (Fox & Friends, February 15, 2006, or whatever) but I'm not even sure if that's considered good practice or not as far as citing TV shows. You might also consider whether it is significant that this is the only known image of the blogger. I don't think it really adds anything to the article so it might be best to take the whole thing out.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Notability tag

I still have not seen any efforts to better establish the notability of this blog so I have placed a tag on the article. Currently all we have is a reference in the Washington Times and to the Truth Laid Bare rankings (which currently lists this blog as 71st in its ranking). I have no idea how influential or accurate the TTLB rankings are so we need more. See for example the entry on the blog Pharyngula (blog) (ranked close to Ace of Spades on TTLB) which notes that the blog is "listed by the science journal Nature as the top-ranked blog written by a scientist" and that it "won the 2005 Koufax Award for Best Expert Blog." References like this are needed in this article--i.e., find reliable, third-party sources that talk about this blog. Once this is done the tag can be removed. If the blog is really as notable as people claim, it should not be that difficult to find sources that discuss it.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:47, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I would also add that, considering this is a political blog, there is very little information on the political views expressed. It is mentioned that the blog is conservative/libertarian, but where does it stand on key issues? Much more space has been devoted to a discussion of the humorous aspects of the blog and to the fact that it achieved 10 million hits a few months ago. Presumably its notability derives primarily from the fact that it is a political blog, so it would be good to have more discussion about politics. As it stands this entry does little to inform the reader about where this blog stands on the political spectrum. As an example, see the entry on The Anchoress (a political blog cited in this article) which notes that "The Anchoress also focuses on pro-life issues and promotes them, but has endorsed Rudy Giuliani as a U.S. presidential candidate in 2008 despite his pro-choice positions (and was criticized by other pro-life indiviudals)." A section with discussion along these lines would be quite desirable, so I hope someone who is familiar with the blog can work on that.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Remove Notability Tag?

I've added some more references to show notability. I think the fact that the blog has had millions of hits, has been around for a good amount of time, has been referenced or quoted by the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, CNN, and Fox News shows that it is more than notable. Not only that, but it is a large player in the blogosphere, being linked to or quoted by many, many prominent blogs every day.

I'll wait a few days, and if no one protests, I'll remove the notability tag.

(On a side note; it is obvious that this page is frequently vandalized, so it may be a good idea to close editing to nonregistered and newly registered users.) Ultramontane 02:03, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

That's a good start, but you really only added one reference (the WSJ article) and in that reference AoSHQ was only quoted in passing. You say it has been mentioned on CNN and Fox News, but this also needs to be cited. Coverage also needs to be significant, not just a passing reference (also I think multiple passing references would be significant). I don't think this will be that difficult to find, but we do need to find it. If some newspaper or reliable web site has done a mini-profile of this blog that would be great, though I'm not sure that exists. Notability would be more than established for me if this article can detail some of the blog's opinions about politics (as I suggested above) and then show other media responding to these opinions. The Washington Times article is an excellent example of this (the WSJ piece less so) so I think we just need more sources along those lines. It would not only better establish notability, it would greatly improve the article. I am not at all familiar with this site or its politics, so I hope someone with more expertise can work on this. If another source or two gets added I have no problem removing the tag.

As to the vandals, there have been a lot here but I have this page watch listed and hopefully others do as well. I think we can keep it under control but if it becomes a real problem we could request partial page protection. There was a flurry of vandals a couple weeks back but I think that stuff has pretty much been cleared out.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:10, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Another reference from CNN was just provided by an anon editor so I've removed the tag. However I hope the article is still edited to include more discussion of the political POV of this blog and the specific impact it has made in the blogosphere and/or traditional media. I did not remove the cleanup tag I put up awhile ago (though the article has gotten much better) in part because I think the sections "leaving blogspot" and "ten millionth hit" are probably unnecessary and definitely un-encyclopedic as written. They should be edited and probably removed--they seem pretty irrelevant to me. Good work by Ultramontane and user 75.5.239.248 to add additional sources and like I said hopefully that can continue.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:28, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletion?

If this article was nominated for deletion before under another name and the decision was to delete, why is it still an article?

I have never read a more fawning, poorly written article about someone of merit, let alone a fawning, poorly written article about a nearly illiterate, certainly innumerate, angry, illogical blogger.

How do I nominate it for deletion? —Preceding unsigned comment added by CharlesGiacometti (talk • contribs) 20:03, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion for instructions on how to nominate an article for deletion. An old version of this article was deleted and then apparently recreated under a slightly different title. When I came across this new article my first inclination was to put it up for deletion because it was so filled with nonsense (much more so than it is now). But I cleaned it out and posted on the talk page (see above) and eventually a couple of reliable sources were added. I think this article now probably meets our notability standards (see WP:N) in general and probably for blogs. It has been mentioned/discussed in mainstream news sources. However others might disagree and feel it should be deleted as not-notable so feel free to put it up for deletion and other editors will weigh in.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:38, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Bigtimepeace for your explanation and also for your efforts to clean this up. I can't imagine what it read like before! My problem with this article, in addition to the notability question, is how completely fawning the article is. It reads like it was written by the blogger himself or by his mother. I only know of this blogger as a subject of ridicule on liberal blogs--not only for the positions he takes but for the utterly ridiculous ways in which he supports his positions. I suspect the article is one-sided because few people know who the blogger is, so there is not a critical mass of Wikipedia contributors who could even weigh in on this entry and create some balance. Compare it with any entry about a well known blogger where criticism is summarized and provided for balance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CharlesGiacometti (talk • contribs) 21:10, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

For a good laugh, and to see what it read like before, go here (an earlier version of this article). Notability will be the main issue for the deletion debate. If the article is poorly written and too fawning that is not really a reason to delete, rather it's a reason to improve the article. Much of the content was, I believe, provided by fans of the blog (I am not at all a fan, I know very little about it). Your point that the blogger is a subject of ridicule on liberal blogs actually adds to the claim of notability--if someone is ridiculed by a number of people it can serve to make them a bit more notable (though the main claim to notability for this blog is that it has been mentioned in mainstream reliable sources like CNN, Wall Street Journal, etc.). I'll have to think about this more and I'll wait to see how other people weigh in on the AfD, but I'm leaning toward advocating that we keep this article and hopefully improve it (I tend to err on the side of inclusion, i.e. keeping articles if they are of borderline notability). Sometimes putting an article up for deletion can be just the spur needed to improve its content, so hopefully that will happen here.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Charles, you improperly listed this article for AfD, I think because it has been listed before (also you did not finish the last couple of steps of the process). I'm in a huge rush now and don't have time to look at/fix this. Please look again at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion and see if you can figure out what went wrong. If you cannot figure out what to do, place helpme (inside double brackets like this {{helpme}} at the bottom of your talk page and someone should be along shortly to help you.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:58, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I worked out what he was doing wrong, and finished the nomination process for him. The AfD discussion is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ace of Spades HQ (2nd nomination). Terraxos 01:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Terraxos.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 16:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

First Quote From the Blogspot Blog / Acceptability of Bloggers as Sources

Can we be certain that the Emily Dickenson quote was from Ace, rather than from Pixy Misa as a test quote? (The commentary on Dickenson is clearly Ace's, of course.) Would someone verify that?

I agree that it's essential that (1) the actual text of the article not include jokes, and (2) the quotations from Ace that demonstrate his sense of humor be employed somewhat sparingly.

I'll add the page to my watch list and periodically check on the vandalism issue.

I'll go check on the notability guidelines for bloggers, but certainly it's legitimate to use, as references, entries by bloggers such as Glenn Reynolds, Ann Althouse, and Eugene Volokh--who blog under their own names and teach at respected academic institutions? I should think that citations such as these would be considered acceptable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scooge (talk • contribs) 03:48, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Images

There are images of "Ace" on the web. I'm not sure they are appropriate for this article, however, in keeping with his stated desire for / commitment to anonymity.Scooge (talk) 03:52, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Proofreading/formatting of references

The footnote template doesn't appear to be the one I've worked with in the past, so I'm at a loss as to how to clean them up. Certainly, there are many respected writers who have quoted Ace and/or linked to him, and they need to get into the footnotes.

Also, it's filthy (I mean, in terms of punctuation--but I don't want to do the proofreading. At least not this late at night.

FWIW, I completely vote for killing the sections on "leaving Blogspot," "ten millionth hit," and "20 millionth hit." Would someone just set up a fan site for that kind of thing?Scooge (talk) 10:22, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Deletions

Just killed the "landmark" sections, as they really didn't seem to add much. Performed light copyediting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scooge (talk • contribs) 12:55, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Statement That Contradicts Blankley Quote

I deleted that preliminarily, because it concerned me. Do you have a citation for your claim? I understand that AoSHQ covers a lot of topic beyond the armed forces--they do a fair amount of legal blogging, for instance--but are you truly disputing the Blankley quote? I mean, I realize that the phrase has turned into a running joke over there, but to say that the blog is not a "military blog" at ALL appears to be going too far: they do cover military technology, events in Iraq/Afghanistan, etc.Scooge (talk) 17:08, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi from the guy who added that footnote.

No, I don't have a good citation. We could link to (for example) a Google search for "smart military blog", but that's not a good citation. And it's true that AoS covers military issues, especially now that "Uncle Jimbo" is contributing there. So the footnote I added was wrong: I should have written something like:

In fact, AoS is not primarily a military blog. The phrase "smart military blog" is now a running joke at AoS.

That could be worded better. Also, a footnote is, in retrospect, not the right way to clarify something in the lede paragraph. I would like to get the lede to describe AoS more accurately, but right now I can't think of a good way to do that. Do you have any suggestions, Scooge? Anyone else?

Cheers, CWC 01:13, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Check it out. I didn't attempt to address the "running joke" issue, since I think the running jokes on that blog are, so to speak, a moving target: I'm not sure the Thomas Jefferson thing is current any more, either. But it's less important to catalog the humor over there than it is to suggest its flavor.Scooge (talk) 23:06, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Good work, Scooge. Much better than my attempt. Thanks (several months late), CWC 11:33, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Criticism of Other Political Blogs

There is a section on AoSHQ's criticism of other political blogs "The Ace of Spades Headquarters is often critical of other political and liberal blogsites, including Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish,[8] the Huffington Post,[9] the Daily Kos, and Glenn Greenwald's Blog in Salon" One of the most frequently criticized blog's is Little Green Footballs, and in particular, Charles Johnson the head blogger at LGF. Ace has been directly critical of Charles on many occasions and it is no secrete that many commentors hate Charles and are more than willing to share how they feel. This borders on a "blog war" between what many consider to be two conservative blogs. This kind of infighting may be a "big" enough issue to merit inclusion in the article.

Mikethemoose (talk) 19:34, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Good point. We should probably change that sentence to something like:

... the Daily Kos, Glenn Greenwald's blog in Salon and (since May 2009) Little Green Footballs.

But I'm not sure about the "May 2009" part, which I based entirely on this post (found in a quick Google search). Is that the right date? CWC 11:30, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

May 2009 seems to be a good start date I looked at the archives and all mentions of LGF for a year prior to that one seemed "neutral" in character. The two most recent prior, http://ace.mu.nu/archives/286171.php#286171 http://ace.mu.nu/archives/286353.php#286353 contain no commentary only headlines and links. Mikethemoose (talk) 20:33, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't confine it to bloggers--maybe bloggers and political writers. I imagine the order is something like Andy Sullivan, Kos, Charles Johnson/LGF, then Associated Press, then WaPo / Time / Newsweek, then HuffPo, then Greenwald. I haven't seen anything on Greenwald there in ages, though. I could see putting Maureen Dowd on the list. One interesting detail on the CJ/LGF deal is that sometime in mid 2009 LGF came off of Ace's blogroll, and replaced by a note suggesting that there were a "Lotta Good Fine blogs out there" to read. Scooge (talk) 04:22, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

And Christopher Buckley; we might add Chris Buckley as a new, hot target in the Ace-o-sphere.

Adding Citations, and Clarifying AoS Positions on Anti-Black, Anti-Gay, and Antisemitic "Jokes" From His Commenters

(This is likely in the wrong section, but it sorta pertains - I couldn't find the edit button to create a new section.) I added a few references in the political views section, specifically the anti-semitism and Ron Paul point. I tried to select the most representative posts, but he's written probably over a hundred posts on anti-semitism, and a fair amount on Ron Paul too. I'm not certain that the quote about black and gay readers is a direct quote, or if it is maybe Ace pulled the post - it sounds like something I recall Ace saying, but I don't recall well enough to actually quote it. He wrote a post last month with a very similar tone[3], I'm not sure if what I'm recalling is this post or another. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Allism (talk • contribs) 04:29, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

His "search" button doesn't work for s&#@%. I've had more success by using a web-wide search engine and placing "Ace of Spades" in front of the search phrase. FWIW.Scooge (talk) 05:21, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

BTW, after we get citations for each of those bullet points, we can probably remove the "original research" tag. And the punctuation can use a bit of cleanup, too. I'd also like to trim back the block quotations, but that's probably a low priority.Scooge (talk) 05:28, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't use Ace's search, you're right, it sucks - I use site: on google or bing. I couldn't find the quote at all, but I'd swear I remember reading that he said exactly those words. I'm not terribly up on how to make Wikipedia look the way it should, but I'm familiar enough with Ace's site. Please feel free to clean up whatever messes I make, and I'll try not to hose things up too badly. It might be worth noting, too, that Ace no longer strives to be the most obscene blog on the web, as he now has advertisers. [4]Allism (talk) 16:44, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Eek. We've got the wrong template in there for footnotes, but the links work, and that's the important thing--the assertions can be followed back to the material that backs them up, so it's good for now. I should fix it, but I'm on the run today and I can't find the correct template. All that is affected by this is the list at the bottom of the page--the numbering doesn't precisely match that of the in-text references. I'll, um, be back. At some point. Scooge (talk) 00:10, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Strange Tweets

These tweets are certainly, um, interesting. If taken literally, they would imply that Ace of Spades is gay. Perhaps it was just an attempt at a joke that I don't really understand, "get" or find very funny. Stonemason89 (talk) 13:22, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Ace is joking (or at least trying to). Media Matters is smearing. Ace is usually ...err... less un-funny. Media Matters are (in my experience) always intentionally deceptive. Cheers, CWC 17:38, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Explaining my removal

I removed some material:

Blogger BreitbartUnmasked claims to have uncovered the ownership behind Ace, BreitbartUnmasked

- Claims that the ownership records for the AceofSpadesHQ domain name point to Michele Kerr who has been cited numerous times in articles relating to the Stanford STEP program that she went through trying to obtain her teaching degree. Some of those articles on Michele Kerr are listed at the Washington Post. In fact, Ace is bearded and male.

It is problematic for several reasons:

1. referencing uses bare ulrs (which could be fixed, but why bother?)
2. Statement that Ace is bearded and male is unsourced
3. Registration is not the same as ownership (I could be wrong on this, but if the site name is technically owned by Ms Kerr, it doesn't mean the site is owned by Ms. kerr, and that's what appears to be the point, so the phrasing is misleading)
4. The underlying linked site makes several claims that are false. It could be a case study for how to do investigative journalism badly; finding tidbits of information and leaping to unwarranted conclusions, but that is both OR an irrelevant to this article.
5. The link isn't an RL--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:03, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, that sentence about Ace being bearded and male came from me, and it was a mistake for me to leave it in. I got that information from reading various bloggers who know Ace personally, but they're not Reliable Sources. (I added that sentence during a bigger edit, then decided to remove the whole paragraph, but forgot to do so before saving. Sorry! My next edit removed the whole paragraph.)

As it happens, we do have a reliable source saying that Ace is male: that item from the Weekly Standard uses a male pronoun. So we know "BreitbartUnmasked" is wrong. (It's an easy mistake to make: the WHOIS system was designed in the early 1980s when only universities and military establishments had Internet access. These days, the address/phone details in a WHOIS report are almost always those of the ISP, hosting service or domain registrar who registered the domain on behalf of a customer, not those of the customer.) For that reason, and others SPhilbrick listed, this article must not report "BreitbartUnmasked"'s false claim.

Cheers — CWC 06:58, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Chris, that part about the whois system being relegated to the 1980's is somewhat laughable as an issue that you state as a reason that this listing doesn't show anything in relation to Michele Kerr. The domain registration shows OWNERSHIP, and shows it very well. Any domain site that is openly listed in Whois, which is an ICANN rule to keep updated information in whois, unless of course you take this information private by paying for it each year, must be CURRENT and ACCURATE if in the open. The site is question, ACEOFSPADESHQ.com, is in fact owned by a J.M. Kerr, and the phone number listed to that account is answered by Michele Kerr, who was listed a number of times in various newspapers such as WAPO concerning her Stanford University teaching degree problems with the STEP program. This is in fact the exact same Michele Kerr as was noted through email accounts associated with the several domains that Michele Kerr owns as JMK Enterprises, and J.M.Kerr, which is how she is addressed in other parts of her life. The domain ACEOFSPADESHQ.com is owned by Michele Kerr, as she bought it in 2005 and still owns it today. It is a well known fact that a number of people post under the Ace Of Spades twitter feed and are involved in other aspects of that operation today. But, the owner of the site, which was the basis for the claim on Wikipedia, is in fact Michele Kerr, and this fact cannot be disputed in any way shape or form. You cannot drum up the unsubstantiated rumors of Ace being male because someone else heard it on the radio or on some news program that is no longer available, or for which links are not attributable to, but then say that factual substantiated links relating to ownership of the domain are not prima-fascia evidence as to ownership. There is a clear cut issue here, and that is that Michele Kerr answers the phone number at the aceofspadeshq.com site, and this has been verified by a number of journalists recently who are aware that she does in fact own the domain. That is all the updated edit was about. If the domain of Wikipedia is owned by Jimmy Wales, then one says Jimmy Wales owns it. He may not be part of the day to day operations as there are a number of volunteers who staff Wikipedia daily. But, one can claim by a preponderance of evidence that Jimmy Wales does in fact own Wikipedia or the domain. Same applies here, Michele Kerr, owns the domain aceofspadeshq.com, and this is an established fact. I suggest that you call the registered number in the whois listing and listen to who answers it. This has nothing to do with 1980's outdated whois information belonging to an ISP. This is an open registered domain with a clear case of ownership established. I find it hard to believe that any Wikipedia editor would be involved in stating that clear cut facts are not relevant, but unsubstantiated rumors, articles from a news source that clearly supports Ace due to it being a News Corp company, which uses Ace as a source in various news stories, could be the only fact that you or anyone at Wikipedia would consider to be factual, fair or balanced, and or considered the only basis for supporting deletion of clear facts of ownership. News Corp would have a clear case of keeping their sources clean or their sources obfuscated. It is very clear here that Michele Kerr has tried to obfuscate her ownership in the domain today, but registration issues being what they are right now may preclude her from keeping the facts of the domain private. No matter, the issue here is facts versus what someone else said or heard or thought, compared to domain registration information which is open, valid and current as of today, with a registered phone number that is answered by Michele Kerr, and has been verified by people calling that number and verifying it. What more do you need? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Antinutwing (talk • contribs) 14:19, 10 April 2012 (UTC) Antinutwing (talk) 14:30, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

"What more do you need?" For starters, paragraphs.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 19:37, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Article or PR puff piece?

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding "Ace", and not a word of it is mentioned in this article. I may fix it myself when I have some time. Hallward's Ghost ^{(Kevin) (My talkpage)} 22:54, 27 September 2017 (UTC)