subtle vandalism may persist

[ericbarbour]

Once Wikipedia decided to permaban me for disagreeing with Larry and Jimbob, I decided to do my part in damaging the site, by adding completely inaccurate information, with citations and everything. Over 20 years later, it's all still there, I do check from time to time. As long as you format your text grammatically correct, with citation, and you avoid anything that is commonly known, you can just make things up. Wikipedia has no process for reviewing whether the content is accurate, and any determination ultimately comes down to two users reverting each other until someone gives up. Every now and again, when I get bored, I'll make a new account and add some new whoppers to amuse myself - it's kind of an engaging intellectual exercise to figure out how to write something in such a way that Wikipedia will just accept it forever.

PLEASE SIR---stick around and share some of your early Wp experiences. Now that Wikipedia Review is ruined, there is very little online record of what happened. Not to mention your often-valid criticisms of the "Wiki way". Feel free to speak your mind here.

(For the benefit of younger readers, Lir was one of Wikipedia's earliest vandals, and one of Wikipedia Review's earliest regulars. Once bragged that he owned three admin-level sockpuppets. Jimbo literally contacted his university to "backstab" him into giving up, and Erik Moeller "doxed" him. The hypocrites. The whole story was bizarre as hell and DOES NOT make Wikipedia look good.)

[Lir]

Well, it's been over 20 years, but if you have a specific question I might remember something.

Wikipedia did indeed contact my university and try to create problems. If I recall it was David Gerard who did this, or at least was involved - that in itself wasn't a big deal, but what specifically I found unacceptable was that I removed an inappropriate sexual image from the article on Clitoris, and it wasn't any kind of edit/revert war, but I did remove it because frankly it's just not appropriate. If I'm sitting in a university library, I don't need graphic porn popping up on my computer (back in the day, certain Wikipedians felt that the site should basically be filled with pornographic images, many produced by the 'editors' themselves). So the complaint to my university was that I was "vandalizing" the article on clitoris, and that complaint was simply dishonest and nothing less than outright harassment. Following my explanation, the Dean stated, "I can tell you will make a great professor."

Back in the day, I remember thinking that Wikipedia provided some real insight into how authoritarian regimes and cults operate, with the constant virtue signalling, the idealistic trappings, and the behind the scenes where unethical people (and yes I'm thinking of Jimbo Wales here) take advantage of the goodwill offered by others, pretending to be some kind of messianic figure when in reality many of the underlings are far more competent and better suited for leadership.

If I recall, I did quite well in the first arbcom election, even though I was banned.

[Bbb23sucks]

I don't need graphic porn popping up on my computer (back in the day, certain Wikipedians felt that the site should basically be filled with pornographic images, many produced by the 'editors' themselves).

https://wikipediasucks.co/forum/viewtop ... 8&start=10

[Lir]

Wikipedia Review

I do remember some earlier forum - not sure what happened to it. Long time ago.

Once bragged that he owned three admin-level sockpuppets

Haha, it wasn't bragging - it was a one-time offhand sarcastic response to something one of the idiot admins said. Here's my user page before they permabanned me: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =196666880. Looking back it appears they were having some conspiracy theory about how many accounts I had, so I posted, "yes, fyi i have nearly one hundred sockpuppets. That includes 23 sysops, 3 developers, 2 arbcom members, and a member of the board in a pear tree." and that was then used a reason to reban me.

Hahahaha - I found the original version of the censored link above - I had to censor it because the censor squad wouldn't allow me to put my own opinions on my own user page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =195760531. That's good stuff and I pretty much agree with everything I wrote there.

Lir was one of Wikipedia's earliest vandals

Lir wasn't a vandal, I just wanted to work on improving the articles, and I soon encountered Larry Sanger and found myself being followed around the site by some idiot who never added anything to the article, but would put incredibly effort into continually removing everything I added. As a result, I naturally put less effort into my own edits, since it was starting to appear that this was all a waste of time. After they banned me, I decided that I would just make new accounts, and every now and again I would just add blatantly untrue things (all cited from credible sources, of course). Even then I was mostly constructive, as I found editing an article and adding to it was a good way to learn things - but I became increasingly fed up with the fact that people who don't edit and don't contribute are given bureaucratic powers which they misuse in personal vendettas. It became my goal to run circles around them, adding wrong information which they lacked the ability to spot or identify.

[Lir]

"Ultimately, it would seem that one should not be so quick to assume what one's government asserts, especially when that government is a wiki-government of appointed cronies and anonymous furries...."

Haha, I make myself laugh twenty years later...

I think my greatest successes were: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich. There were huge edit wars on both of these, with my critics portraying me as a "troll", rather than as someone serious. Of course, since they doxxed me, this led to Google for years associating my IRL name with "troll". In some sense, I was the original internet troll!

With regard to DNA, it was I who first proposed that the article should initially identify that DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleic acid - I'm the person who originally moved that to the front, and the admins didn't like it because I did it, and they claimed it made the article impossible to read with that big complicated word up front - but of course, shouldn't the article begin by clarifying that DNA is an abbreviation?

Likewise, with regard to Munich, I was the one who originally added the alternative spelling München in parantheses - once again, this was reverted and led to an edit war across several pages, where I was accused of ruining the introduction. However, I felt it was best to straight away acknowledge that there are multiple different spellings and words for the same thing, and that this should be consistently presented across the site so that readers could know where to look in an article in order to find something.

In both cases, the fact that twenty years later my edits remain, really underscores how non-disruptive my activity was - rather than trolling, I was trying to improve the site, and clearly the bulk of Wikipedia editors over the years have agreed with me, even though the admins denounced this as "vandalism". They would try to claim that I was making edits which seemed reasonable on the surface, but were secretly disruptive in some way - I was "rocking the boat" by trying to improve the articles. As I apparently wrote back in 2002, "Unbeknownst to many, I carefully re-word documents to contain subliminal messages that brainwash the reader..."

It's also worth noting that the article on New Imperialism (discussing the colonization of Africa) led to the huge edit war with User:172 which ultimately led to my original ban. However, 5 years later, User:172 was himself permabanned (after apologizing to me), which i certainly think raises the question of whether I should have been banned in the first place.

[Lir]

Apparently back in 2008, I had some long email conversation with an Arbcom named FT2 - I kept asking for some specific reason that I was banned, like what did I do? Can I at least have a reason?

I was banned without any kind of arbitration process as Wikipedia uses nowadays (this drama was way back in 2001-2002, before the arbcom), so I asked why my case could not go through the same process as others? A public process. He tried to claim that his email conversation with me WAS the arbitration process, and I kept asking well ok what is the evidence to justify a reason to ban me. Where is the discussion? Where are the facts?

His emails were very long and boring and full of words (mostly bullshitting me with this idea that the email exchange was the arbcom process), but ultimately he only linked one specific thing, which occurred 6 years after I was originally banned. I apparently made an unban request, and specifically drew attention to the fact that I had been expected to follow a bunch of unofficial "rules", with no clear information on what the rules even are or when I broke them, and meanwhile anytime an arbitrator or bureaucrat would break those same rules, they would then cite the rule "Ignore All Rules!" I mean, that sounds a bit much - right?

So I wrote in my unban request, "My ban... has nothing to do with whether or not I am actively contributing... this ultimately has everything to do with the fact that I have complained about the way some admins treat the common users -- in other words, this ban was politically motivated. Furthermore, it is absurd to claim that I am here causing trouble and making personal attacks, while someone like User:Calton is clearly doing just that, and yet he is never sanctioned for his overtly hostile behavior; meanwhile, whom exactly have I made a personal attack against? As far as I can tell, absolutely nobody. All I want to do is edit the Wikipedia like any other user, but it seems some users are more equal than others. Any mis-step we make is used as justification for a ban, while everytime they do something wrong they can quote "Ignore All Rules". --Sheer Hypocrisy--"

All of that was ignored and the request was denied, "We're here to write an encyclopedia. You're evidently not."

I mean, ok, but where is the evidence of that? The one and only thing that FT2 finally managed to link after 20-30 back and forth emails, was this, "WELL OK I'LL JUST CREATE A NEW ACCOUNT DUMBASSES, YOU CAN'T STOP ME LOL! You are the ones who wanted me to use this account where you could see me, now you can't; your loss! Lol, fucking retard wannabe dictators."

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =196575938

I mean, I'm sorry, but after being banned for 6 years, without any reason, I'm so sorry that I called the administrators of Wikipedia stupid - but they do seem a little dumb. Regardless, it's their choice. They can either have someone edit on an identifiable account, or I can use a VPN and proxies to vandalize the site whenever I'm bored. Nowadays I don't really care if they unban me, and I'm quite confident that I can contribute a lot to their encyclopedia, so it's entirely their loss.

This is a response another historian wrote me back in 2008, regarding the FT2 emails, "Any email discussions should not be admissible based on the simple logic that they are unviewable by others in the RfA. This "trolling" allegation is bad since it has become a substitute for a good argument. However, there is very little I can do about it. I am actually having second thoughts about contributing to Wikipedia myself. It seems there are a lot of the fundamentals wrong that preclude effective contribution. I'm sure you have seen others say this. Given that there is no editorial authority or general editorship over articles, and most are in perpetual revision, the Wikipedia has already failed as a reference work. It's probably better to work on another project, academic or otherwise."

==========

I think it says a lot that they can't identify an actual reason for the original ban. I think it was because I disagreed with Larry Sanger, as he was trying to define "anarchism" in a convoluted way, intended to make it seem that "true" anarchism is just libertarian capitalism (absolutely absurd, if you've ever talked to anarchists, or read anarchist literature). I was banned shortly after running into Larry.

So I mean, great, they've banned me for the past 20 years. It hasn't done anything at all to stop me from editing, all it's done is ensure that I have little desire to be constructive and they can't tell which account I'm using. I do derive some amusement in knowing how many other people have been accused of being me, harassed and even banned. It's done nothing to improve the site, but I'm fine with that.

I think I lucked out, it would have sucked to spend years slaving away editing a website for a group of narcissists and their orbiters. None of the wiki people seem very happy, and they waste hours and days and years edit warring and squabbling over trivial things. Getting banned allowed me to focus on more important things in life, and I can just enjoy Wikipedia as a place to troll endlessly, with the satisfaction of knowing that they made the choice to ban constructive editing.

Actually, I think I'll go vandalize Wikipedia right now.

[Lir]

Haha, yes I write a lot - I'm rather prolific, what a loss for Wikipedia!

I was thinking though, since all this has stirred up old memories - what they never understood, is that I gain no advantage from being unbanned. I gain nothing whatsoever from being a part of their community. They offer nothing whatsoever. Meanwhile, banning me also gains them nothing, because it doesn't actually get rid of me, and it merely ensures that I will have a negative attitude toward them. So for them, the ban is a net loss. There's no other way to look at it - the ban doesn't stop me, it only harms them.

In another setting, a public store, a college, a video game, a job - I don't want to be banned, because I will lose something. However, being banned from Wikipedia is no loss at all. I can still edit all I want, the only difference is they never know where I am, or if it's me, and since I'm banned I no longer have any motivation to avoid being banned again.

So I hope they are happy, I know they've put a lot of effort into trying to track down whether this alt or that alt is me - and they will never know. Regardless, they ensured my edits will never be constructive, so I hope they are happy with that!

[ericbarbour]

Lir wasn't a vandal, I just wanted to work on improving the articles, and I soon encountered Larry Sanger and found myself being followed around the site by some idiot who never added anything to the article, but would put incredibly effort into continually removing everything I added.

It should go without saying: the meaning of "vandalism" on Wikipedia has nothing to do with the actual word or general concept. Anyone the insiders want to destroy is a "vandal" whether they are doing good work or content wreckage. They stuck you in the same angry little box as destructive vandals like Grawp, Nathan Larson, or Willy on Wheels, despite having written loads of good material. Hundreds of other good writers were treated in a similar manner.

As I said, it operates more like 4chan than an "encyclopedia". Trolls run it, and call anyone who criticizes them "trolls".

[ChaosMeRee]

Has Kumioko's long lost dad returned or what?

I'm all for fucking with Wikipedians heads and exposing the sheer insanity of their project, it's my favourite hobby.

But wasting your own time hoping Wikipedians will care? Pretty stupid.

Vandalizing pages my kids are pressured to use to help them with their homework? Not cool.

Bragging about how easy it is to edit while banned? Meh. Points for being the first to point it out, maybe, but this is decidedly old news by now.

What I expect to see from someone this experiences of they are still interested, is next level disruption.

Something that amazes me, and inspires me to do more with my own time, knowledge, talents and deeply malevolent nature.

Something that exploits the weaknesses of Wikipedia 2024. A place that has quite incredibly gone as far as saying they have absolutely no problem with "Administrators" making a legitimate living out of being an "Administrator". $75 an hour, totally legally, and in total secrecy.

Impress me.

[badmachine]

Jamie Shea is a spokesdemon for the warmongering class, and an IP wasnt afraid to come along and say so:

He received worldwide attention during the 1999 Kosovo War, when he served as the main genocide general and spokesperson for NATO.[1] He described the children and adult civilians killed by the NATO bombing of Serbia in the effort to prevent the Serbs from retaining Kosovo as the "cost to defeat an evil".[2]

the vandalism is only five days old but there you go. the IP was blocked as a sock of Vujkovica_brdo but the vandalism is still there





(edited to fix sentence)