He'd got into Wikipedia quite early, February 2006, as Wikipedia was going viral. He's a comic book / DoD obsessive and a hard-core inclusionist. Shocker. He was promoted to Admin in 2009, which is back in the dark ages now, but what at the time was still peak Wikipedia, just. The only person to even mention the word copyright, was the man himself.
If you believed him, his user page, he quit as an Administrator voluntarily in 2022 after 13 years in the role, because he was "getting too old for the agro." Someone not paying attention and trying to get a picture of what's going wrong with Admin retention, might have taken that as read. Attributed this -1 to stress/burnout. It takes an experienced critic with a nose for a story, mere minutes to find the truth.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... uest_-_BOZ
He was a habitual copyright violator. Extremely close paraphrasing. Shocker.
It gets worse. The Bureaucrats were seemingly blind to the real story. There was a good chance he might have even got an honourable discharge and a "thank you for your service". It was only the mere ordinary Administrator Jo-Jo Eumerus who set them straight......
And so now later scandals like Nihonjoe make much more sense. A failure of Bureacrat diligence at a minimum. Past and present. All the live long day. Sleepy. Dopey. Sneezy.I would like to hand in my admin bit, effective immediately. Thank you. BOZ (talk) 13:13, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
Done. Primefac (talk) 13:29, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
Appears to have stemmed from an editor complaint in Special:Diff/1069247970. — xaosflux Talk 14:09, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
Seems a bit strange that this would have just been a talk page comment, rather than an actual complaint. I'm not sure how having the admin bit has any effect on potential copyvios. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:10, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
It was more than a talk page comment; Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/BOZ. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:15, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
Oh, my mistake. That'll take some sorting out. Ignore me. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:25, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
Some way, some how, Wikipedia had allowed an Administrator to be a prolific copyright violator. Leading to what Moneytrees rather delicately said was "going to be a difficult case". Presumably because it involved checking 10,000 Wikipedia articles, line by line. To be fair, BOZ copped to It all. Full responsibility and a firm commitment to rectification. It's hard to tell if that was just words or not, and the CCI certainly doesn't seem to have been completed yet. There are literally thousands of pages still to be checked.
Does Wikipedia have the manpower? And is help on the way from RfA? Doesn't seem like it.
Jo-Jo Eumerus became an Administrator in 2016. He was identified by Ritchie333 and MelanieN for his serious commitment to a serious encyclopedia, where serious matters lke copyvio need to be taken seriously. But which by 2022, the lack of serious Admins was already becoming apparent. Starting to bite.
Neither Ritchie or Melanie bother to nominate Admins anymore. Given up it seems. Ritchie hasn't posted on WO in a long time. Neither has Monyetrees. WO don't seem to care. No woke angle in it I guess. Nothing to please Molly White. WO would only have even known that Melanie, who is a girl I am sure, has recently handed in her tools (honorably), probably because she's become just as disillusioned with this side of the project as Ritchie, because I noted it in my oh hey guys, there's an Admin crisis thread. The man who won't be missed according to Big Brother.
And it was only because of my Random Article game thread, still wildly popular in my absence, that I even noticed BOZ. The players didn't. Can't read the Matrix. I saw the red flag straight away.......
https://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewto ... 24#p350314
A novel stub getting a three strikes No. No. No., with no clear indication of importance, and scant referencing only to tabletop game porn. Created by an Administrator in 2020. But not an Administrator anymore.....but still an active editor.
Gotta be a story there. Has to be.
Whoah. Who or what is a BOZ when it's at home? He's not just active, he's hyperactive. He's hit 5,000+ edits already this year. 120,000+ in total. A whopping 60% to article space. Holy shit. BOZ is a fucking rockstar baby. Kicking Wikipedia's ass like a Vandal (Goth). Like it's a brand new invention.
WO caught his desysop at the time. But their historical thread on BOZ's resignation makes for embarrassing reading....
https://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewto ... 14&t=12452
It hasn't aged well. Only three editors noticing much less caring, is what you would expect from these latter stages of Wikipedediocracy's second epoch. Long after the mainstream media had stopped checking in. But before relations with Wikipedia had quite thawed. It was the time of Peak Vigilant.
It was the time of influencing WP from afar, as undercover operatives. Smiley being the man who worked covertly with Wikipedia and the Guardian (with Jimmy Wales on the Board at the time!) to get the Daily Mail banned. The Mail being famous for its pioneering work in giving women control and visibility in a traditionally male dominated and machismo heavy industry long before it was fashionable. Proper second wave feminism.
Anroth praises the fact Fram has claimed another victim. Another "giant killing". It's celebrated that he can now do so precisely because he's been defrocked by ArbCom. Who thought that was a better way to deal with his harassment than the ban issued by the Foundation, for harassment. Of among others, a protected witness Vigilant was happy to name and shame as a woman.
Thoughts for what that leniency meant for the women of Wikipedia, are quite absent in that thread. And for that reason, in 2022 as it is in 2024, there aren't too many women on Wikipedia. And the ones who are, knew exactly what it meant to get frammed, before the male volunteer powers that be on Wikipedia even felt comfortable giving it a name (and then promptly seeing the naming of it, being deemed a hate crime by their higher up volunteers).
Vigilant is nowhere to be seen in this brief reportage from the front lines. No threats. No jibes. He could care less. Probably afraid to even be seen anywhere near the fruits of his conspiracy theory. Wikipediocracy's true contempt for women, the thing that lies beneath their present day embrace of woke, is on display. Loud and proud. Now in the closet.
I can't recall if I was on WO around this time. But if I was, I would have been sticking up for women. As a feminist does. And probably getting shit for it from the few regulars.
So here we are. Were I still a member of WO, I'd have reacted to this revelation by asking serious questions. Why it is that both before and after Nihonnjoe, the great and the good of Wikipedia, the Primefacs, the Lee Vilenskis, the Moneytrees, the Beeblebroxes, are turning a blind eye to the fact BOZ gets to write his own story? Have his own truth as to why he's no longer an Administrator.
Editors don't own their user pages, contrary to some of the utter bullshit you see coming out of editors and even Administrators mouths. That's an official Wikipedia page. Your biography as an editor. Your credentials. Your bonafides.
If Wikipedia isn't snowflake central, if it isn't Wokepedia, then let's not have defrocked Admins writing their own Truth like this is fucking Oprah, shall we?
He doesn't have to say I was demoted for large scale copyvio. He doesn't have to say anything. He is only obligated to not active!y mislead his fellow editors. Especially newcomers, who might be inclined to respect the opinion of a very active editor who was an Admin for thirteen years, over say, someone who joined this year but has relevant real world experience and joined Wikipedia to help clear out its legacy shit pile of fancruft and replace it with rich historical content about feminism and stuff. Just as long as they don't cite the Daily Mail, right?
Of course, I wouldn't be the only one doing the "Lord's work" on WO to expose these issues. I'd be part of a team that included people like this Eric dude....
https://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewto ... Boz#p11353
I'll let him tell his own story as to why he felt the need to part ways with WO, but I'm pretty sure Vigilant is a cunt (UK definition) is a big part of it.
Ah, 2012. It was a different time. The beginning of the first epoch.
We don't even really know how this story ends. Random journalists certainly wouldn't. You need a decoder. Someone who can tell you BOZ might not have been quite sincere in his commitment to learn and make amends (CCI talk)......
That was the last message in the conversation.I want to thank you and the CCI team for taking the time to work on this case. For the past two weeks I have been going through the list and making an effort to eliminate any copyvio or close paraphrasing, and I have finished page 10 and am close to finishing page 9, and will continue to work on this in my available wiki-time until I have gone through them all. Is there an opportunity as you go through the list, for me to fix anything that I missed or anything that is still too close to the original text? I would appreciate any coaching you can give me on any article you find that still needs cleaning, while I try to fix as much as I can and make handling this case as smooth as possible for the CCI team. Thank you, BOZ (talk) 22:58, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Your efforts are appreciated! However, the backlog at CCI is so ridiculously long that the probability of your CCI being finished in 10 years is quite low. I'd ask one of the more regular editors at CCI (see Special:Recentchangeslinked/Template:CCIlist). MER-C 19:50, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
.....
Sounds good, thanks! DanCherek (talk) 16:36, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
@BOZ: I'm fairly sure you are doing some editing while logged-out, which makes this much more complicated and I need to figure out whether the CCI should be expanded even more. One of those edits from today was flagged as a potential copyright violation. Regardless, it would make things easier on everyone if you stopped doing that. DanCherek (talk) 14:15, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
So that's not good, right? Anyone looked into that? Paging GeneralNotability.....GeneralNotability needed at the Information Desk.
As to his commitment as "BOZ", I see a lot of "tweak", "trim", "fix" and "rewrite" edit summaries in the days before that comment....
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... &limit=500
......and I see a lot of that in his current edits.
Is that good? I dunno. I guess.
Wikipedia having no boss, managers or any formal way of interacting with outsiders simply looking for information on how things are going in the world's greatest encyclopedia, it's tough to tell.
For a time there, for a few weeks, it looked like Wikipedipcracy was entering a fourth epoch. Someone raising these kinds of issues would get a proper response from Wikipedia volunteers, not their corporate owners or the self appointed propagandists. The forum thread would be backlinked. Things could be discussed in true partnership. Real accountability. None of this eeerugh we can't talk to you, you're Globally Banned. Your dangerous! silliness.
Vigilant fucked that right up. With zeal. And with the full backing of the leadership. On principle.
Seems like it was seen as a threat, this fourth epoch. Seems like someone doesn't like a world where information is exchanged between the critics and the criticised on a peer to peer basis. Seems like someone has a crush on the Molly Whites's of this world. Seems like someone has stock in the Beeblebrox Internet Of Pipes Company.
What a shame.
HEY ZOLOFT.
Miss me yet?
