I has the misfortune to look at the list of trustees for Wikimedia UK that was posted in
the WR thread about Wikimedia UK's charity status. One name is particular jumped out at me - Ashley Van Haeften.
Ashley Van Haeften is currently known on WP as
User:Fæ. They make no secret of this in the context of Wikimedia UK. As Fæ states on their userpage dealing with privacy:
QUOTE
My contributions to Wikipedia are under the name "Fæ" with legitimate doppelgängers of Fae and Faelig (these are my only other accounts, if there is any need for me to create more alternative accounts these would be in compliance with WP:SOCK#LEGIT). This account name is a convenient nom de plume. I will disclose necessary information on request such as my legal name, contact details or discuss possible areas of conflict of interest for administrative purposes. Please note that gathering personal information by data-mining or by analysing contributions on Wikipedia, across sister projects or elsewhere when not for an agreed bureaucratic process is considered a serious breach of the Privacy policy. --Fæ (talk) 13:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
It seems odd that someone who is elsewhere openly identifying themselves and their WP username would make such comments about their off-site identity. Perhaps it would be instructive to look at
Fæ's RfA. Recall Fæ's userpage declaration that they had no other accounts. There was some reference made in the RfA to having a previous username, which prompted some discussion, but did not prevent the RfA from succeeding:
QUOTE
I accept. For reasons of disclosure it should be noted that after an RFC/U which caused me to refocus and improve my Wikipedia editing I took the option of a clean start, though I have never been blocked. Prior to this nomination I spoke privately with one of the critical contributors to the discussion, who knows both account names and we have resolved our concerns. I will recuse myself of admin requests related to editors who gave an opinion in that discussion. This is the first time I have had an RFA nomination. Fæ (talk) 22:00, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
I can confirm that Fæ took the time to talk with one of his prior critics (not me,fwiw), letting them know both old and new account names. Fæ has also informed Arbcom of the prior account name.
I have looked over the contributions of old and new account names, and can also confirm that Fæ has refocused, in many ways. John Vandenberg (chat) 03:54, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
<snip intervening discussion>
I am not Newman Luke and had never heard of this account until my RFA was running. I have never been banned from any topic or article or had any sort of ban imposed on me, ever. I interpret my "refocus" as a more positive style of interaction including active avoidance of drama, as part of clean start avoiding unnecessary interaction with editors that were part of past drama and moving my spheres of interest to new topics to become a more generalist Wikipedian and avoiding the articles which were the sites of previous disputes without it being a complete self-ban. I would intend to continue in the same positive style after this RFA regardless of outcome. Fæ (talk) 08:02, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
Although it does appear that their editing has moved to new areas, perhaps if editors outside of ArbCom had been aware of Fæ's old username and the specifics of their previous actions, they may have felt differently about granting admin rights to Van Haeften.
Fæ was previously known as
User:Ash. Prior to that, they were Ashleyvh and Teahot. I'm sure there were others as well. Ash is probably best known for tag-teaming with Benjiboi in his efforts to fill WP with BLPs of unremarkable gay porn stars. The end of that particular episode is loosely discussed in
this WR thread. The now banned Benjiboi has since been exposed as a prolific sockpuppeteer and POV-pusher, so I doubt Van Haeften would welcome his association with that particular user.
Ash "left" WP with claims that someone had threatened him with some form of violence (that person was never named, but he claimed in email that it was not me). It remains unclear to me if this threat was real or imagined (or fabricated), but Ash claimed to be leaving WP because of it. In reality, even as they were
posting statements like "As I am no longer actively contributing to articles you may wish to drop me an email in notification", they were already "actively contributing" as Fæ. The
RfC that Van Haeften was allowed to duck out of via this deception was largely about the fraudulent use of references in BLPs. Although the evidence was not particularly strong, it seemed to be part of a long-standing pattern of misuse of sources to push particular POVs. I have no doubt that the RfC would have ended poorly for Ash (and Van Haeften clearly saw the writing on the wall).
Wikimedia UK's Fæ, A new name for an old face
