The Creative Uses of Wikipedia

[sammywalker]

I want to introduce Wikipedian Giuseppe Macario. He is adept at finding creative uses for Wikipedia. In his 15+ years on the site, he has managed to:

• Promote himself
• Counter supposed "fake news" about his online activities
• Go after the news media for reporting on his political antics
• Almost find love
• Advertise his virtual academic institute
• Knight himself in the Order of Vasco Núñez de Balboa
• Designate himself as the honorary consul of the Islas Vírgenes Consulado de Panamá, a non-existing Panamanian diplomatic mission
• Share his academic cheating service
• Publish questionable academic articles
• Attack an institution of higher learning where he was supposedly a professor but later let go after a month
• Support his NGO and future political party
• Learn a foreign language to promote himself
• Try and try repeatedly to get articles about him accepted
• Quote himself
• Target that wretched wench who reported he still lived with his mommy

And that is just what he manages to do on Wikipedia. You should see his off Wikipedia fun.

[ericbarbour]

I want to introduce Wikipedian Giuseppe Macario.

Ha ha ha, this is GREAT! How did you find this?

I know it-WP had some bonkers people hanging around, but this is like an epic novel. What a maroon.

Just a quick google brings up all kinds of other crap he's posted. WIthout a WP article, he doesn't exist.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6868326/
https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/17089485
https://plus.catholicmatch.com/articles ... gs-insight

You can find his Twitter. Embarrassing.

[sammywalker]

Ha ha ha, this is GREAT! How did you find this?

I started the path a couple of years ago. It was a spat between several editors on the University of the People article. That caused me to start digging into the participants. Macario emerged as a clear "winner."

His User:Modulato account showed similar behavior to several IP editors and other user accounts (User:Adrin10 and User:Bianbum). I followed the breadcrumbs and discovered past AfDs which led me to his identity. Google opened up an entire world which allowed me to dig even deeper into his history.

I've discovered close to 15 registered accounts and an untold number of IP edits. He flips through dynamic IPs through his home ISP quite often. So I often search these ranges to discover new edits. I occasionally find rented residential IP edits too. Now that I know his behavior and style, he's often pretty easy to identify.

What you've found is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Bloomberg profile is not actually him. It's another Giuseppe Macario, but he utilized that in an effort to recreate his article on English Wikipedia a few months ago.

He registered the domain ConsuladosPanama.org on September 23, 2022. He then created the subdomain and spent the time and effort to copy parts of the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Panamá website to claim his status as an honorary consul. He's since moved the site to IslasVirgenes.org which was registered just a few days ago.

He also create a fake MIT alum website to use as a source for his MIT claim. He claims in some places to have a master's degree from MIT. Yet, his personal website used to show a MicroMasters from MIT. These are certificates offered through the website edX.

He claimed a PhD from Princeton at one time. Selvaggia Lucarelli verified this was false in her report in Rolling Stone. He does have a PhD though. It's from Universal Life Church. I'll come back to Lucarelli.

The IMDb file you discover was created by "Sarah Smith." It's an account created by him. He created the profile to claim that he'd been involved in making commercials with Julia Roberts. Lucarelli verified that was false as well.

The Catholic Match article is part of his desperate attempt to find love. He has several articles that posts and reposts around the web about meeting a "rich" single Italian guy. There are reports floating around that he stalked women who submitted flight refund claims to his NGO, Free Flights to Italy, but I am somewhat skeptical of those claims. They appear to be written by one of Macario's past targets.

He is currently in the process of trying to clean up his past. A few articles about him on the La Voce di New York website disappeared. He uses false DMCA claims to erase information.

Back to Lucarelli. Macario loves to attack people and institutes. He currently runs a website attacking her which he regularly posts links to under his Twitter profile. He's tried to use the website on the talk page for her article on the Italian Wikipedia, but it doesn't seem to gain much traction.

He also includes two articles on the fake consulate website attacking Alberto Riva and Leonardo Metalli.

Riva is responsible for the report on his campaign in The Points Guy. Which if you check their article on Wikipedia, User:Modulato (one of his now blocked accounts), has edited in the past.

Metalli was a minor competitor in the 2018 elections. He reported Macario to the authorities. There were questions about whether or not Macario had forged the registration documents. Macario is still a little sore at Metalli over that incident.

He runs additional websites attacking University of the People, LUMSA, and Università Popolare degli Studi di Milano. He created articles on Wikipedia attacking the di Milano, ISSEA/Supdi, and another (likely diploma mill) called Yorker International University. He had an article on Medium attacking Instituto CEFI, but his account appears to have been suspended. Don't worry, there's archives.

Oh, and if you check the Fiano Romano article, he recently included a source that deals with local politicians he doesn't like while masquerading as a "history" article.

He's persistent, and that benefits our amusement.