Who are the best Wikipedia editors and admins who got blocked or banned?

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Who are the best Wikipedia editors and admins who got blocked or banned?

Post by adamovicm » Fri Jun 02, 2023 6:00 pm

Question in the subject, what are their Usernames, why do you think they were doing a great work, why they end up being blocked or banned.

An appropriate citation (author: Ross McPherson from comment: https://wikipediocracy.com/2015/08/16/a ... criticism/ ):
Wikipedia is the repository of all the world’s knowledge and, if that needs proof, it is everywhere on the internet. It is the new way, the new truth. Best of all – anyone can edit it. Except the dispossessed. Speaking as one of the dispossessed (I have been indefinitely blocked), I endorse the Compendium here. It accords with my personal experiences as an editor. I declare myself to be an honest man, a sane man, a citizen of Australia accustomed to the rule of law, a man without any criminal record. Many other dispossessed citizens of the new order should speak up too but I guess they are embarrassed by Wikipedian accusations against them as editors. Maybe also they are wary of the public bias in favour of Wikipedia. Wikipedia hands out mountains of beautifully packaged free ‘information’, making research for the slightly curious wonderfully easy. So of course world opinion is biased in its favour. I agree that parts of Wikipedia function the way they are supposed to – the parts the world most often sees. But open the door, step inside and try to fix just some of the many broken things! You are then in danger of vanishing through a hole in the floorboards or getting mugged by the vagrants that live there. My advice to everyone is – don’t go there. If you do, don’t stay there for long. Or you could wake up some morning as one of the newly dispossessed.

The worst thing about Wikipedia is the way it takes people captive. Think of all the conscientious people who edit it only because they feel a need to correct mistakes. Think of all the ‘notable’ people who feel they must edit it merely to protect themselves against slander. Think of all those editors who become captive to the powerful groups at Wikipedia in a desperate effort to negotiate proper outcomes. Think of all those editors who become captive to dishonesty and corruption when there seems to be no other way to secure the proper outcomes. Think of all those who have been blocked from editing the encyclopaedia anyone can edit, the encyclopaedia that is inescapable. They are captives too, locked outside. Think of the poor lunatics that keep trying to edit the encyclopaedia anyone can edit and who get thrown out regularly. Insult is added to their injury. Think of the critics who are captive to the need to fight this juggernaut, dedicating years to it when there is so much else they could be doing.

Wikipedia’s tendency to misinformation is a running sore. Its tendency to inhumanity is an open wound in the collective conscience of humankind. I can’t find words to describe its hypocrisy. I don’t know how anyone can justify its existence. The best it can offer is an inherently unstable, unreliable body of ‘information’ that no serious researcher would ever use. It is a smorgasboard for the blowfly of idle curiosity – that’s all. The worst thing about it could be this – thousands of conscientious people toil there daily, captives to a system that doesn’t really value them as people and which has no secure future for their achievements. Humanity is not anonymous.
BTW, if someone could tell me short summary about Abd extra, I'd be happy to hear about it.

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Re: Who are the best Wikipedia editors and admins who got blocked or banned?

Post by Ognistysztorm » Fri Jun 02, 2023 7:36 pm

Abd is someone that should be ditched from the cause if it's going to be made mainstream:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Abd_ul-Rahman_Lomax

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Re: Who are the best Wikipedia editors and admins who got blocked or banned?

Post by Bbb23sucks » Sat Jun 03, 2023 7:04 am

I don't know if you meant personality or least abusive or whatever, but assuming you meant in terms of sheer productivity: Kumioko, Lugnuts, and Koavf (until recently). Probably many others too.
"Globally banned" since September 5, 2023 for exposing harassment.

Email: wikipediasucks@disroot.org

Petition to ban Bbb23Wikipedia AlternativeDonate to help French strikers

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Re: Who are the best Wikipedia editors and admins who got blocked or banned?

Post by Boink Boink » Sun Jun 04, 2023 1:44 am

Jytdog certainly experienced an epic fall from grace. Technically he wasn't banned, but he walked away because in his view (and in all likelihood) he had left ArbCom no choice but to ban him.

I don't think he got enough credit at the time for showing a form of integrity. He is the closest thing Wikipedia has ever had to a martyr I suspect. And yet for his sacrifice, he was essentially forgotten, even though at the time, his talk page quickly came to resemble a protest or a wake.

Quite unusual really. Far more normal for the hard line true believers to be wholly selfish and disrupt Wikipedia hugely just to get their way.

Wikipedia dodged a bullet here, because if the media ever found out just how many Wikipedia editors thought that Jytdog hadn't really done anything wrong, there would have been a major scandal, feeding as it did into two major criticisms, namely that Wikipedia is soft on harassment and hard on women.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jytdog

In his own words......
That's all folks
So... I made a very bad error in judgement, and called a person who had added raw advocacy content to WP, who is clearly deeply passionate about the topic.

The call went very badly. I shouldn't have called them, I shouldn't have allowed it to become an argument, and I shouldn't have ended the call the way I did.

In the past, I violated the OUTING policy by posting off-WP information here. That was also a terrible error in judgement.

I also have generally been pretty aggressive in trying to maintain high quality in our content, and this has caused some people here to dislike and distrust me, and per the last ANI about me, there is weariness in the community with me.

In the current situation, there is rampant speculation about a three minute conversation and about my intentions. There is some fierce debate about the boundaries of the harassment policy. There are a lot of angry people. Probably hours have been spent, that could have been better spent elsewhere actually building the encyclopedia.

It looks like this will become a case, which will mean many more hours. The outcome of that case if pretty foregone, in my view. I see no good reason to put everybody through more of this.

So, I am out of here. I am scrambling my WP password and deleting my gmail account and "Jytdog" will cease to do anything, anywhere. If you see any other Jytdog doing stuff in the future, anywhere, it is not me. (And no, I will be not be coming back here as a sock.) I urge Arbcom to do just do a motion and indef or site ban me.

I just want to say thanks to everybody I have worked with, and I wish you all, and our beautiful project, the best. Jytdog (talk) 16:52, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
A couple of selected Arbitrator opinions....
Yes, I am quite sure Jytdog really did mean to help, and really was doing this in good faith, and really won't do this exact thing again, but history doesn't show that the concepts are getting through here. I'm not sure if an admonishment is really more admonishing than a block, and I'm not sure a "you're on your last chance, really really for real this time" response is going to work any better this time than last time. Long-term committed volunteers are valuable and their investment should be recognized, but man, if somebody's judgment is this far off from community norms, I don't know what to do about that. We can't have "written policy" for every possible bad idea someone might have; we really have to be able to trust that once you've had an idea like "hey, I should give this guy a call!" your brain will kick in and say "oh wait, no, that would be creepy and weird, I'll just try his talk page again". I don't have a vote yet; I don't want a case with all the trimmings (there's no disputed evidence to speak of) but this just cannot keep happening and I don't think "admonishing" gets us there. Opabinia regalis (talk) 09:45, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
It is completely inappropriate, and it's even more disturbing because Jytdog seems to do something, he finds out it's not okay, he promises not to do "that" again, and then he finds something even more egregious to do. Lather, rinse, repeat. I don't know how to stop this cycle other than with some type of sanction.
....
Finally for now, I'd add that I concur completely with Opabinia's comments. We can relate as women because we've been in the position of receiving unwanted and/or unexpected aggressive contact. It can be frightening, and it changes you against your will. It conditions you to be defensive and withdrawn. I agree that Jytdog likely meant no harm, but that's not the point. He keeps doing this kind of thing, and we can't allow that to continue. Katietalk 01:42, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

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Re: Who are the best Wikipedia editors and admins who got blocked or banned?

Post by Kumioko » Sun Jun 04, 2023 11:22 am

I can think of a lot:
- since magioladitis' desysop and automation ban development of Autowikibrowser has basically ceased.
- eric Corbett could be a jerk but he was a great writer and created a lot of good/ featured content.
- they lost hundreds of thousands of edits with my bullshit ban alone including good /featured content and improvements to things like AWB.

There are so many editors that have been driven from the site I could go on for days.
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Re: Who are the best Wikipedia editors and admins who got blocked or banned?

Post by wexter » Sun Jun 04, 2023 1:06 pm

Kumioko wrote:
Sun Jun 04, 2023 11:22 am
I can think of a lot:
....
- they lost hundreds of thousands of edits with my bullshit ban alone including good /featured content and improvements to things like AWB.

There are so many editors that have been driven from the site I could go on for days.
Britannica has around 86 editors. These editors are responsible for writing articles for Britannica. They may also bring in additional experts to contribute to specific topics. The articles they produce go through a review process, which ensures a certain level of quality and accuracy.

https://www.britannica.com/editor/The-E ... nnica/4419

The individuals participating on Wikipedia may contribute to articles, but they are not editors in the traditional sense. The resulting work product does not meet the criteria of an encyclopedia, despite Wikipedia's claim to be one.

About 3800 core Cult members (perhaps even less say 1000 or even a few hundred), hobbyists, mentally ill, autistic, captured ("The worst thing about Wikipedia is the way it takes people captive"), addicted, on a mission, narrative framing. misguided, brainwashed, idiots, and losers etc etc. | Notice how many hard-core folks that are ass-launched want desperately to come back into the fold?

The Will of Landrew controls these folks - locked in time and dying off along with the platform. Hard-core folks are not being replaced due to demographics; while the platform has been obsoleted by new technologies.


Banning folks is not a good policy because replacements are not waiting in the wings as they were in the good old days. The toxic infighting and insanity is a reason many idiots and fools are on the platform in the first place.

At one time Wikipedia was an innovation with the potential for the greater good.. not now.. it could have been a contender..

This embarrassment is Hiding behind a radial click button (and includes the automated actions of human robots and fools)
Image
Wikipedia - "Barely competent and paranoid. There’s a hell of a combination."

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Re: Who are the best Wikipedia editors and admins who got blocked or banned?

Post by Kumioko » Sun Jun 04, 2023 4:57 pm

I agree. The vast majority of the active contributors and almost none of the admins are writers and most will admit that. Yet, as non writers they have an exceptionally uneven influence on those few that are the writers. And, that pool of writers is shrinking.
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Re: Who are the best Wikipedia editors and admins who got blocked or banned?

Post by ericbarbour » Sun Jun 04, 2023 6:42 pm

Boink Boink wrote:
Sun Jun 04, 2023 1:44 am
Jytdog certainly experienced an epic fall from grace.......I don't think he got enough credit at the time for showing a form of integrity. He is the closest thing Wikipedia has ever had to a martyr I suspect.
Hope you're joking. Book wiki time....
Jytdog

Little noticed except for his regular appearance in pseudoscience and medical editwars, Jytdog (T-C-F-R-B) arrived on Wikipedia in 2008 and was rarely discussed until the mid-2010s. He rapidly accumulated various minor special powers (rollback, new pages/pending change reviewer, etc) and started to abuse them by 2012-2013. He was often embroiled in Rupert Sheldrake editwars and evidently has a systemic hatred of Monsanto and glyphosate herbicides. Unlike most other Wikipedia insiders, he has done a very good job of hiding his real identity.

By 2016 he had developed a reputation that led to a lengthy Wikipediocracy thread about his activities.

"Jytdog is a relentless article owner who long ago progressed from making sure medically-related articles were based on mainstream science to trying to remove and bury everything even slightly related to alternative medicine. Or in some cases even mainstream stuff that he doesn't personally support. He has a team of supporters who always show up to back him in all disputes and AfDs. The worst part is that he constantly misleads and misrepresents policy to new editors to win content disputes. He's a POV warrior if I ever saw one."
"I know of no greater abuser of WP:FOO stuff than this asshole in order to own articles, particularly medical stuff. The truly galling part is that he makes liberal (near obsessive) use of COI in medical cases while simultaneously admitting a COI on his own userpage. The guy works for some sort of biomedical/pharma startup and he relentlessly shuts down any attempt to cover alternative medicine in any kind of non-confrontational way, even when it's just a run-of-the-mill bio about some minor person in the alternative or complementary medicine field. I encountered his obsessiveness on the AfD for Randolph Stone link. His obsession with these topics and addiction to editing is Betacommandesque."

Greg Kohs was even more specific:

"1. In trying to modify Wikipedia's Harassment policy, Jytdog has pushed for a carve-out that would leave COI and paid editing an exception to the outing rules. In other words, if you're a paid editor, no courtesy of privacy should be extended to you."

"2. When he asked the community for evidence of the prevalence of paid editing on Wikipedia, when he was given a carefully-documented exercise that evaluated paid and COI editing on 100 random articles about businesses, he called the evidence "bullshit" because it wasn't published in a reliable source."

"3. After Sharyl Attkisson's story about "The Dark Side of Wikipedia", he summed it up with, "Attkisson, in my view is a sloppy-thinking anti-vaccination hack and not worth an iota of anyone's time here.""

"He's a trademark Wikipedian with a sense of superiority, who doesn't handle himself well when presented with views that suggest his thinking may be wrong or misinformed."

As he posted on his own userpage:

"==Privileges removed=="

"In the fall of 2015 an Arbcom case was opened, and it was closed in December 2015: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically_modified_organisms. Notice of the close was given to me here."

"I was "indefinitely topic-banned from all pages relating to genetically modified organisms and agricultural chemicals, broadly interpreted"; I was "admonished for their poor civility in relation to the locus of this case", and an interaction ban was imposed with another user. The TBAN was made appealable in 12 months."

"==Privileges removed then restored=="

"On 27 June 2016 I was blocked for violating WP:OUTING in the course of doing COI work, and that block was lifted on 8 August 2016 with an indefinite ban from discussing any COI of editors (see unblock notice for details), which was appealable in six months and every six months thereafter. I appealed in February 2017 and the TBAN was lifted. ARCA discussion archived here; notice given to me here."

In August 2017 Jytdog became a principal squabbler in the area related to the firing of Google employee James Damore over his contentious essay about software development being an unsuitable field for women. [46] Starting on 8 August, Jytdog got into a brutal editwar when he tried to remove material and references from the Neuroticism article, which Damore had cited as a reference, in an attempt to weaken Damore's argument. Apparently some edits "mysteriously disappeared", indicating that Jytdog had silent assistance from an oversighter. He was unquestionably getting help from administrators, who blocked several of his foes. This was noticed by Damore supporters. [47][48][49] And it soon spread to right-wing and "men's rights" media. [50]

In September Jytdog noticed the activities of videoblogger Josh "Wiki What" Gondelman, who interviews celebrities and then fixes their Wikipedia articles using the account "Mrazzle". [51] Obviously by this time Jytdog was feeling "invulnerable", in the Mathsci fashion, because he repeatedly tried to remove Gondelman's edits and forced the removal of Gondelman's Wikipedia bio from the absurd "Wikipedians With Articles" list, by shrieking "WP:OUTING". Ugly squabbling ensued. [52][53]

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Re: Who are the best Wikipedia editors and admins who got blocked or banned?

Post by Boink Boink » Mon Jun 05, 2023 7:09 am

Jytdog is doubtless unique.

I cannot think of a single other Wikipedia editor who has shown the level of integrity, courage and basic self awareness to know that he was a clearly incompatible with Wikipedia. The ability to know that if he did what hundreds of editors were quite literally begging him to and actually fought the site ban that was heading his way fast, he would have become a massive time sink and huge drama magnet, and potentially been the genesis of one huge media shitstorm.

The realisation that passion for Wikipedia is not enough to be a good editor, let alone what hundreds thought he was, an editor great enough to not just enforce but change policy and Defend Wikipedia. The self awareness to know (and show) that his departure had to be seen as for cause, and be unambiguously permanent. That he had to leave absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind that he was manifestly not hoping to return, either as his very well known persona, or as a clandestine editor. And he has clearly kept his word. He has either never returned, or in the spirit (and letter) of CLEANSTART, he has returned a totally reformed character. Unrecognizable.

Granted, these realisations came all too late and in the lead up to them he did some terrible things, but that describes pretty much every bad actor on Wikipedia. What marks him out as eminently credit worthy, is that arrive they did.

For that alone, he can truly be said to have been totally dedicated to Wikipedia. A true martyr to a cause.

We all know it is an evil cause, but we can respect and admire the rare (unique?) example of someone who believed in it so much, he put Wikipedia before his own interests.

It is fitting that in rather quickly forgetting who he was and not carrying on his efforts with the same zeal, the Wikipedia community showed quite well that you never get back what you put in, so why even bother? Proof that Wikipedia is evil, an evil community working toward an evil goal.

I absolutely love the fact that one of their best/worst ever editors is now a quite brilliant example of how pretty much all other established/experienced Wikipedia editors, especially the ones who like to see themselves as significant drivers of change or effective Defenders of The Wiki, up to and including the ones among them who certainly talk a good game regaeding their potential future martrydom, are nothing but selfish, self interested, unprincipled cowards.

And what describes Wikipedia perfectly?

A hobby for selfish, self-obsessed, unprincipled cowards. People with absurdly grand delusions about their place in the world and their right to influence a thing as major as world knowledge.

Complete and total assholes.

You can find perfect examples of them on Wikipediocracy, their natural home.

I have no doubt the Wikipediocracy stalwart Volunteer Marek thinks of himself as Defender, and perhaps one day a Martyr. He sure as shit won't ever be a reformed character. A site ban is his future. What he does when it comes, is all he can control. Marek wishes he had even a tenth of the integrity Jytdog showed, in the end, the final act. But we have already seen Marek has absolutely nothing in him, nothing at all in his make-up, that would make him feel In the slightest bit guilty that his approach to Wikipedia is not just a cause of huge drama, it is the cause of a media scandal. He will fight to the death, when it comes. Take anyone who stands with him, down with him.

A true Zealot, in every negative sense of the word.

Jytdog was the complete opposite of Marek. The former was clearly deeply ashamed that his personal views and character flaws had already led Wikipedia into disrepute and if he didn't act with integrity, would only cause further harm. He saved the Wikipedia community from its tendency to shine a light on the worst of humanity and potentially self destruct. If he cannot win, Marek prays for the day he can take the exact opposite path. Jytdog was ultimately accepting of the fact that he had failed in his efforts (without perhaps realising he had failed because Wikipedia is evil). Marek is the evil. Marek will never accept defeat.

No surprise that someone as deeply flawed as Malik Shabbaz would be seen as a mentor by someone like Marek.

Marek is a freak, a psychotic asshole who lacks the integrity required to admit that Malik Shabbaz was just as much of a racist asshole as the people he blocked, he just knew that on Wikipedia, it pays to hide your racism if you want to achieve things. If you want your side to win in the Blood Feuds you came to Wikipedia to fight, and which Wikipedia in its wisdom has not only not prevented, but in recent years has actively encouraged, as if somehow that is how Wikipedia content was always meant to be produced.

No surprise that a person like Malik Shabazz is respected by the scumlord who manages Wikipediocracy. No surprise that they see nothing wrong in the manner of Malik's departure, which only confirmed to everyone who already knew it, that he was a fucking fraud, a perfect example of how Wikipedia can do what It does. It's easy to see the people who are open in their assholery, it's far worse when they are smart enough to deliberately hide it. Hide it until it inevitably makes them snap.

Malik snapped, and had a psychotic break. Hopefully the same fate awaits Marek.

You just can't be that much of a deliberate and self aware asshole for that long, knowing how many lies you tell to your "community", knowing why you do it, and knowing it goes against everything Wikipedia stands for, without it eventually breaking you apart.

Jytdog was never like them. You always knew what he thought and you could always see how he was trying to achieve it. No games. No lies. No hiding who he was. An honesty, an integrity, or as good as it can manifest in a fucked up environment like Wikipedia.

As such, whereas Malik's end no doubt saw him being forcibly detained in a mental health facility, at his own end, Jytdog was probable the calmest he had felt in years.

A calm that Marek will never know, because he has earned his place in Hell.

Wikipediocracy and Marek are sympatico. Wikipediocracy and Jytdog were never aligned.

It is known.

Wikipediocracy knows what it is. It knows it so well, that on the rare occasion a truth emerges on their forum.....
The Blue Newt wrote:
"Volunteer Marek" wrote:
Malik Shabazz......One of the best......he'll always have a special place in my heart
Based on the work you’ve done in an extremely contentious area, I have a great deal of respect for your opinion.

I am trying to square that with my personal experience with MS, and so far it isn’t working.
.....they deliberately ignore it.

Don't pull at that thread, Wikipediocracy.

You'll expose your rotten Gollum like corpse to the world, and not even Wikipedians will want to play with you anymore.

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Re: Who are the best Wikipedia editors and admins who got blocked or banned?

Post by WWHP » Wed Jun 07, 2023 5:51 pm

Oh boy this is going to sound obnoxious for me to say––but I would like to nominate myself, specifically the editing account The Tumbleman.

I was transparent back then about my purpose, my work is in designing conflict resolution protocols and it is this protocol that all my research, as god awful painful as it was, informed, Aiki Wiki https://aikiwiki.com/

Aiki Wiki is now a protocol for the application of a win win outcome between ideological divides in digital environments. For this protocol to evolve, it was very necessary for me to actually get harassed and to actually experience what a true "disinformation" targeted campaign is and what it looks like. Our protocol is a resolution to those types of things.

The Wikipedia Wiki War case study is preserved here: https://rome-viharo.medium.com/aiki-wik ... dc707bdd22

We are internally piloting our beta now and very soon it will be open to public, will post here to whomever is interested.

Overall, thanks for being here ya'all! That was some hairy crazy shit that happened years ago, and I really appreciate the refuge yall extended in good faith!

Cheers!

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