ColScott and BLP, (was: Colscott Says Hola) Options

[ColScott]

I've been following this for some time and wanted to join you. Thanks for the invite.




This post has been edited by ColScott: Fri 4th January 2008, 7:54am

[SqueakBox]

It was at this point that a fifteen year old boy from outside Toronto named PHIL GRONOWSKI (current editor name SATURDAY) started trolling me, or ColScott. I found out later he was an obsessive Transformer fan who had seen me on a panel in Toronto. He started challenging every edit I made on anything. It stunned me that I have a master's degree in Cinema and have been producing movies for fifteen years and this child was not only challenging everything I said, but was permitted to do so by the Shitapedia rules. I condescended to the boy every chance I got...

User:Saturday http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Saturday asked me if I would post his response to Col Scott and this thread as he isnt a member here but wants to respond today. I ahve checked Saturday's response and it doesnt contain any material that would be unacceptable to WR IMO. So hoping this is okay and here goes :ph34r: :

Right, so this is the guy that Murphy says is stalking him. I was 16 years old at the start of the incident and turned 17 this past June. I thought it would be nice for me to explain things from my point of view. Questions or requests for clarification can be directed to me at phil(dot)gron(at)gmail(dot)com. You want screen shots or proof of something and I'll try and get it to you as soon as I can.

Back in the day when I was still User:Philip Gronowski I noticed some spamming on some articles (particularly ones regarding the perpetrators and victims of the Tate-Labianca murders) and removed it [1], afterwards giving the user a warning [Unable to give page, deleted]. I did not become obsessed with whatever he wrote, said or did. I removed his spam, warned him, and he eventually got blocked. I found out he decided to put up a post about myself and HighInBC on his blog. He was asked to remove it, did, and then reposted it (it's probably gone by now). He was then blocked for these actions. I continued to remove spam added by multiple meat puppets and did not come into contact with this user again until 12:26, 22 January 2007 [2].

I believed that user ColScott was once again active under the handle AZJustice. We had a debate about the validity of the Tate-Labianca Official Murders Blog and he continued to add the links. It was then brought to my attention by another user (User:Kynn) who was in a debate (which I tried to mediate) with AZJustice about Jane Hamsher (Don Murphy's former partner), that this person could very well be a Mr. Don Murphy. I was directed to his personal message board and began to watch the article about him. I was interested in the board because I noticed a message on his article saying that he attempted to buy Wikipedia admins and because I like Transformers. I soon noticed that the admin hunting continued, as well as a call to add spam to the Tate-Labianca pages. After a bit, AZJustice was blocked and things quieted down... only to later explode.

About the time of AZJustice's blocking, I decided to explore the connection between ColScott and Mr. Murphy so I searched ColScott's contributions. Surprise, surprise, there was a connection. ColScott had removed [3] a section involving an incident between Mr. Murphy and Mr. Tarantino. I decided to find some new sources and re-insert that section, as it was highly notable. While Mr. Murphy denies the incident ever happened, he himself admitted to the incident on his own website. He removed that particular page after I pointed it out to him on a later date and used it as a source (screenshots of that page again available).

I know that part of me that decided to explore the connection was stupid. I shouldn't have looked for it, it was only because I was bored and stupid. Adding the information back, however, was neither stupid or ill-meaning. I sincerely wanted the truth to be written and did not think that re-inserting it would be considered harassment or stalking.

He considered this dedication to fact stalking and harassment (about the time he started calling me a stalker and such), I consider it... well... dedication to fact. I didn't "dig up" the information on him, it was previously added by other users and deleted by him. He exploded and started asking for my personal information as well as the personal information of anyone who got in his way (Screenshots available on request). Some of the pages on his forum are now deleted, but were commonly titled Shitapedia Volume #. Many contained my home address and libeled me. There was even a time when a member of his forum offered to make contact (ass kicked is the exact wordage) with User:BigDT (Now User:B). You can understand that this caused me a great deal of stress.

After a ruling that it was undue weight, the information regarding the fight was removed and I no longer tried to add the truth. Consensus is consensus, I won't add it back until the Wikipedia community thinks it should be there. However, Mr. Murphy continued to add harassment about myself to his page (particularly a future documentary titled" Philip Gronowski: Portrait of a Sad Young Man) using his many sockpuppets. Things then quieted down for a long time.

Mr. Murphy had previously contacted me by e-mail requesting an interview on his blog. I said I would be glad to give one (this was before I figured out you can't reason with this guy) and he began insulting me (screenshots on request). He continued sending e-mails that only insulted me, these e-mails had subjects lines like "spineless pussy" and "penis". Most of his insults I just turned back on him. I eventually said that I would help him get unblocked if he took down his stuff about me on his message board. Mr. Murphy apparently then contacted Cary Bass and arranged an unblocking, provided that he delete all of that shit on his board/forum. I believe Cary Bass too readily accepted everything Mr. Murphy said as truth, and completely ignored the victims. Well I didn't really mind except for the fact that he kept on calling me a stalker and claimed that I harassed him. I even got over that and just let him be. User: HighInBC wasn't all to pleased though. After a long debate where I was continually called a stalker (I was told to ignore it, kind of hard to ignore when my full name and the word stalker are being thrown around; that might not look to pretty on job interviews) and couldn't make comments without being told that I was trying to inflame the situation; ColScott was banned from Wikipedia.

Well, it was all good now. He threw another hissy fit on his board/forum and then forgot about it. All this sparked up again when I noticed a User:Muckrakerius editing Don Murphy related articles in a similar way to Mr. Murphy. I (correctly) thought it to be a sock, but let him be because he wasn't causing any trouble. Only when he added a link to the Don Murphy web page did I intervene and remove the page. I even answered Mr. Murphy's faux-ignorant questions as to why the link was removed. If you are wondering why I wasn't editing for 6 weeks beforehand it was because I was in Alberta with very limited access to the internet. I even had a wikibreak thing on my userpage and talk page. I decided to remove the link because through it you could access personal information about myself and several other Wikipedia members. At the moment there is a debate going on about whether or not the link should be included.

So here we are, I summed up the entire incident as neutrally as I could. In clarification on some things, have never seen him on any panel, I e-mail his account in response to his e-mails, and I never used Wikipedia as a revenge platform. I hate having to repeat myself, but damn near all of my actions except for that stupid Tarantino thing have been in self defense, removing links that out me and the like, trying to get an editor who harasses me blocked.


Philip Gronowski

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=97441873
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=103749659
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=73767996