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Davidson, a bookish lad and Cambridge graduate, was also Colonel Warden, an extremely slimy yet successful sockpuppet.

history

Andrew created both accounts in February 2006. The autonymic account was used very little, but the Colonel became a very busy boy a year later, grinding hundreds of edits on garbage like Your Hundred Best Tunes and The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny. By the end of 2007 he was voting to "keep" and fighting with others on an endless stream of AFDs, and doing little else.

A rabid inclusionist and member in good standing of the absurd Article Rescue Squadron, the Colonel was on the case whenever something was AFDed, whether justifiably or not. Defamatory biographies were treated with the same automatic rubber-stamp.[1] Even Angela Beesley was not immune.[2] The "Colonel" did not see an insipid or trivial subject that did not deserve a Wikipedia article.[3]

Andrew created an article about Penderel's Oak, a corporate-franchise pub that was popular for Wikimedia UK meetings. It was deleted in July 2009. Yet Andrew continues to brag about creating it on his userpage.

The "Colonel" developed a remarkably large profile of abuse by 2010. Noticeboard complaints abound, as is typical with a "true-blue Wikipedian". [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] This is especially remarkable for a known sockpuppet with no administrative powers. Obviously he was "useful" to someone.

In March 2009, a halfhearted attempt at a sockpuppet investigation was run on Colonel Warden. A complete failure, an embarrassment for the SPI system. The Colonel was keeping a list of Wikipedians who had disappeared, which went thru two unsuccessful MFDs, as various bad actors shrieked that it was an "attack page". "User subpage appears to be celebrating the retirement and/or indef blocking of former editors that the creator of this page did not like. This is unnecessary, polemic, and encourages a battleground mentality. SnottyWong spout 22:55, 27 September 2010 (UTC)" Despite the second MFD seeming to be closed as "delete", the page remained.

He was dragged to an RFC in December 2010, to little evident effect. Many administrators turned out to post complaints about his AFD activities. The abuses continued, the complaints continued.[16][17] Yet somehow he "miraculously" escaped arbitration, or further sanctions. He was blocked several times, and always managed to talk his way out of them.

For a time in 2012, Davidson was assisting GibraltarPedia with its aggressive self-promotion. [18] Unquestionably he knows Chris Owen via their connection to Wikimedia UK.

"outing"

After six years of little attention, Colonel Warden was outed on Wikipediocracy on 14 August 2012. As Tarantino said at the time:

"Even money says Colonel Warden is Wikimedia UK member Andrew Davidson."
"The Colonel Warden and Andrew Davidson accounts were created 3 days apart in 2006, and they're both from Ealing."

Comment from Dan Murphy:

"I know nothing of Davidson. But Warden is a screaming loon (and half a sociopath). It's hard to believe he could sit politely and munch his cucumber sandwich at one of their faux-intellectual gatherings (without starting to gnaw on one of his fellow attendee's legs) long enough to get elected. Go know."

As was commented later in that thread, Davidson had been using Colonel Warden to sockpuppet-protect his own articles[19]. Davidson unquestionably knows Ashley Van Haeften, as both are members of Wikimedia UK and the GLAM Project task force[20], along with the execrable Jonathan Cardy and Andy Mabbett.

Further comment from Dan Murphy:

"No. He lies about the contents of sources. He does it all the time. Davidson and "Warden" are definitely the same person (I trolled through Davidson's contributions). That makes Mr. Davidson the sort of person who makes edits like this (was a flat lie, the cited source contained nothing of the sort) and this (cited work was published a year before the TV show he claimed it was about) and this (self explanatory.)"

"Davidson/Warden is a liar, and specifically he lies about citations in what's supposed to be an academic work. So of course he's a valued contributor. "

When it was posted on his talkpage that his cover was "blown", he deleted it and disappeared. For a few days, until it blew over. By late August he was back to the same old grinding, and arguing to "keep" on AFDs.

Identity

In case there was any doubt that Colonel Warden (T-C-F-R-B) was not an alternate account of wikimedia UK member Andrew Davidson (T-C-F-R-B), they both uploaded photos taken with a Canon IXUS 300 HS, [21], [22] and a Casio EX-V8 [23], [24].

And if there were any doubt on 13:09, 24 October 2013 Colonel Warden 'fixes' the signature of Andrew Davidson. Spotted by IRWolfie on WO.