The DennyColt Conspiracy, Join now, before all the good seats are reserved Options

[Somey]

I just tried to post this to the talk page of my bio, and DennyColt reverted it...

We're really going to have to put some serious work into exposing this "DennyColt" guy. I just spent a few minutes on Google and found that he spent about 18 months trolling a site called "Cygnus's Study" with a lot of blatant right-wing nonsense, using the same user name (except that there he's "Denny Colt", with a space). That's only the most obvious example, but there are like 1,148 posts by this guy, all espousing the usual creationist, dittoheaded, gay-bashing neo-con fundamentalist crapola. I even joined the site to make sure - it's definitely him, there's plenty of material about how he's into the same comic books and suchlike.

But do you see anything about his politics and fundamentalist beliefs on his Wikipedia user page? No, of course not. That might prevent him from gaining adminship, might it not?

So right now, he's desperately trying to get WP to accept blogs as reliable sources. Why? Could it be because blogs are the only sites on the internet that still espouse creationism as a valid science? Or any number of other right-wing, anti-scientific positions on various things?

That also explains why he targets Brandt specifically: Brandt is left-wing. Denny isn't.

Do the math, folks!

[Daniel Brandt]

Denny Colt (aka "The Spirit") is the name of a comic-book character that was created by Will Eisner (1917-2005) in 1940. There are probably a large number of avatars who use the "Denny Colt" name. In the comic series, everyone thinks that detective Denny Colt is dead, and this made Colt realize that staying dead would be a good cover to solve more crimes.

It would be difficult to nail this guy. He's definitely someone's sock. He started editing on January 28. That's about the time that Essjay realized he might have a problem. Is user DennyColt the new Essjay, who everyone assumes is gone from Wikipedia? Old habits die hard — on his user page he's a broadcaster, a writer, and an engineer (what, no Catholic scholar this time?). He immediately gets into playing supercop on Wikipedia, which is strange for a newbie. Yeah, he may as well be Essjay.

[Jonny Cache]

I see that there's a Request for Checkuser on DennyColt —

I've never understood this bit of rag-man-roll before — will it tell us whether DC = SJ, or only whether DC = MH (MisterHamburger), or is it more like a sealed indictment?

Inquiring minds want to know ...

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 28th March 2007, 9:26pm

[Uly]

It tells the checkuser which accounts have shared IPs with which other accounts.

If Essjay edited on the same IP as DennyColt, it'll show up, but I'd be surprised if the person running the checkuser said anything about it in his response to the request.

In reality, checkuser is completely unable to catch the technically adept if they're willing to exercise a little care. With the number of checkusers Essjay has run, he's immune if he makes any effort at it at all.

[guy]

I'm a sockpuppet, but not of DennyColt. I'd rather Brandt not put me up on his website. MisterHamburger 19:40, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Given the history of the Brandt article this is a highly credible explanation, SqueakBox 19:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Unrelated --jpgordon?êç?êå?êç?êå 20:31, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[Jonny Cache]

Speaking of links between DennyColt and Essjay, here's another wiki-puzzler for those of you who grok —and I sincerely wiki-pity you for a' that — wiki-psychology better than I do.

Why would DennyColt be so steadfastly dedicated to preserving what he calls this Notable Alias?

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 28th March 2007, 9:34pm

[Jonny Cache]

More Administrative Fingerprints on the X-Flies

So it's clear that Admins really do control the publication of messages on talk pages, based on the ostensible identity of the messenger and not on the content of the message itself.

And it's clear from the way that DennyColt squealed — not squeaked — to just the right higher ups that he-she is not a n00b, but a highly skilled player of the Wikipedia video game.

Just tryin' to keep up ...

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 28th March 2007, 11:21pm

[Jonny Cache]

DennyColt is just a tad on the Wikiparanoid side, I'd say.

Yeah, like that really narrows it down ...

Herzliche Grüße ...

Jonny Katze

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 28th March 2007, 11:37pm

[Jonny Cache]

We need to watch this one for sure. It's clear that it's a highly experienced player at the highest levels of the Wikipedia Video Game, probably someone we know quite well already, probably someone who is quite well-known to the Administration — maybe one of Jimbo's Personal Wiki-Proteges? — and is being allowed to use tools that it's not really supposed to have, plus it's using a bot to pile up edits at a rate of 2 or 3 per minute like somebody who wants to be an Admin (again) real, real bad.

Modal Editing Pattern for DennyColt

Other Symptoms. Sock Puppet Paranoid

• Exhibit A
• Exhibit B

Motto. Sockpuppets are sockpuppets for a good reason.

Namely, anybody in my way must be a puppet of somebody else in my way.

Diagnostic Rule Of Thumb —

A sockpuppet paranoid is usually a paranoid sockpuppet.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Thu 29th March 2007, 9:20pm

[Somey]

....anybody in my way must be a puppet of somebody else in my way.

Unfortunately, it's going to be hard to figure out who he may have been before based on the usual diff-checking and such... After all, nearly everyone on Wikipedia consistently misspells the word "consensus," not to mention the words "inadvertently" and "contradict."

He's a busy boy, though, that's for sure! In addition to his campaign to make the failure to automatically revert a banned user a bannable offense in itself, and make Wikipedia safe for right-wing bloggers, he's getting a "straw poll" together to put the kibosh on SlimVirgin's WP:ATT policy. I guess ol' Denny is a little picky about which right-wingers he supports - in other words, only the ostensibly Christian ones are acceptable, and the others can, presumably, go stuff themselves.

Anyway, it may be a waste of time trying to figure out if he's someone we've seen before... He might have gained his wikiskillz somewhere else, like on one of the Wikia sites, or CreationWiki, or someplace like that. And admittedly, I'm less convinced now that he's the same guy that was on Cygnus' Study, but I'm nowhere near unconvinced, let me just put it that way. It's the same reflexive, knee-jerk attempts at logic, the same insistence on changing rules to suit his fascistic view of the world, and the same refusal to accept opposing ideas or opinions as having any validity whatsoever.

My gosh, he's... he's... the "perfect Wikipedian!"

[guy]

he's getting a "straw poll" together to put the kibosh on SlimVirgin's WP:ATT policy.

Is that good or bad? Weren't we rather suspicious of WP:ATT?

[Jonny Cache]

he's getting a "straw poll" together to put the kibosh on SlimVirgin's WP:ATT policy.

Is that good or bad? Weren't we rather suspicious of WP:ATT?

You mean he-she's agin SV ???

Omegad !!! This is too shocking !!!

He-she must be me !!!

Jonny

[Somey]

Is that good or bad? Weren't we rather suspicious of WP:ATT?

Yes, we were, but I think we were more suspicious of SlimVirgin taking ownership of a fundamental policy than we were of the policy itself, right?

What Denny-boy ultimately wants to do is eliminate any wording that denies the use of blogs and self-published websites as "reliable" secondary sources. He's made that abundantly clear, and I think I know why he wants to do it.

Let's face it - both scenarios are bad. But it doesn't have to be either-or by any means... With any luck, some of the WP'ers will read this and try to help stave off both of these things, but if we are having to choose, I personally would rather they continue to discourage most blog citations - even if that means Slimmy ends up taking control of the policy.

[Jonny Cache]

Is that good or bad? Weren't we rather suspicious of WP:ATT?

Yes, we were, but I think we were more suspicious of SlimVirgin taking ownership of a fundamental policy than we were of the policy itself, right?

What Denny-boy ultimately wants to do is eliminate any wording that denies the use of blogs and self-published websites as "reliable" secondary sources. He's made that abundantly clear, and I think I know why he wants to do it.

Let's face it — both scenarios are bad. But it doesn't have to be either-or by any means. With any luck, some of the WP'ers will read this and try to help stave off both of these things, but if we are having to choose, I personally would rather they continue to discourage most blog citations — even if that means Slimmy ends up taking control of the policy.

I haven't been following what DennyColt was doing with SlimVirgin's ReVisionThing. If what Somey says is accurate, then DC thinks that SV's SubVersion of Source Validity does not SubVert it nearly far enough.

Whenever we see one of these Wiki-Punch-&-Julius shows between the Xtreme and UltraXtreme on Wikipedia, it is always a fair hypothesis that both puppets are in the hands of one and the same master.

Paranode Enuff ?

We Will See ... Now Won't We ??

Well, Those Who Have Eyes Will See ...

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Thu 29th March 2007, 6:08pm

[Somey]

OK, now DennySlimEssjayZ is interpreting the words "I've just been libeled by Thatcher131" as a "legal threat" and reverted the edit where that statement was made:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=118803461

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikie...rch/066932.html

Obviously it is libel, and just about any court - even in Florida - would agree with that. I think they're reaching the point where Brandt could easily demonstrate substantial harm being done by these people, and probably get significant monetary damages as a result - possibly enough to cripple them.

What gets me is, why all the buck-passing?

They wrote the web page. They keep voting to keep it on their website. They keep libeling Brandt, on and on and on... Why do they try to shirk responsibility for their behavior by foisting it off onto the Foundation? Don't they think the Foundation has better things to do, like deal with their personnel problems and raise more money?

This whiny chatter of theirs about "pursuing the matter via the proper channels" is obviously ludicrous. How can they even think for one minute that the Foundation or the OTRS "staff" is going to do anything about this whatsoever, prior to the filing of an actual lawsuit?

[Daniel Brandt]

Just for the record, the comment by Thatcher131 that I said was libelous was this one:

I happen to think that human decency requires that we consider the interests of admin A, who was hounded off wikipedia when Brandt outed her real identity and got her in trouble with her employer; of admin B, whom he also tried to out, including calling old boyfriends of 20 years past; of admin C, who was so unnerved by the fact that Brandt had discovered his identity and that he posted from a country that does not value freedom of speech that he allowed himself to be blackmailed into editing the article with a sockpuppet, resulting in a desysopping; and of admin D, universally regarded as one of the nicest wikipedians ever, who had to explain to investigators from the Internal Affairs who Brandt was and why he would be calling a police station about her. I happen to think that such behavior damages Wikipedia greatly, and that tolerating comments by such users on talk pages, even nominally reasonable comments, is not only the camel's nose, but shows enormous disrespect for the distress that many good Wikipedians went through before the user was banned. I happen to think that entertaining such edits is offensive to good Wikipedians in the same way that giving a seat on the PTA activities planning committee to a person who had lost custody of their own children through abuse and neglect would be offensive to good parents. And I happen to think that the OTRS email system satisfies our duty to banned users quite well enough. Thatcher131 02:12, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

He fixed it after I complained, as shown in this diff. The four cases he refers to are: Katefan0, SlimVirgin, NSLE, and Snowspinner. Each of his four descriptions is inaccurate. You can see why he decided to back off of this post. I also pointed out in my complaint that the banning Talk page was indexed by Google, which makes it a "published" page by any conceivable legal definition.

See? It does work (to an extent) for Wikipedia to let victims of libel to post on pages that are directly relevant to that libel. But now that Ms. User:Durova has semi-protected that page, just like she did to my bio's talk page yesterday, she has in effect Spoken for the Foundation: "Victims shall not be allowed to point out errors of fact and sourcing that they consider libelous or inaccurate."

[Somey]

...and of admin D, universally regarded as one of the nicest wikipedians ever, who had to explain to investigators from the Internal Affairs who Brandt was and why he would be calling a police station about her....

...The four cases he refers to are: Katefan0, SlimVirgin, NSLE, and Snowspinner. Each of his four descriptions is inaccurate.

I think "D" actually refers to Phaedriel - nobody really cares what happens to Snowie.

[Daniel Brandt]

I think "D" actually refers to Phaedriel - nobody really cares what happens to Snowie.

Really? No, the campus cops visited Snowie, but I didn't contact anyone from the Oklahoma City Police Department about Phaedriel, and I'm not aware that she had any problem with her employer. Of course, neither did I send that email about Snowie to the University president. Either way, Thatcher131 is just being reckless and irresponsible here. Wikipedia should do something about admins like him — he deserves a job at Wikia and an appointment to the Arbcom!

[Somey]

Right - you had nothing to do with either of those cases, that's a certainty. Also, you can't be considered responsible for what the laws are like in Malaysia or wherever, or how someone living there would react to them under those or any other circumstances. (Could you? Interesting question...) And obviously katefan0 didn't get into trouble with her employer, since the whole thing blew over because you pointed out the COI before her employers found out on their own!

As for Slimmy, well... three out of four ain't too bad, right?

Anyhoo, it's almost silly to think that Snowie might be described as one of the "nicest wikipedians ever," and he wouldn't have been asked about you by the cops in any case (and they'd be regular Kampus Kops, not Internal Affairs). Presumably he's not a "she," either... Then again, I've never met the man...

It does give you a good idea as to the kind of accuracy one can expect from WP, doesn't it?

[CrazyGameOfPoker]

Nevermind, Daniel beat me to it yesterday. (really should look further than the first post)

This post has been edited by CrazyGameOfPoker: Thu 29th March 2007, 8:03pm