Not many editors have their own autobiography, Benji is perhaps the only one to have two.

His DJ Pusspuss persona is a self-described American club, mobile and event DJ, music reviewer, activist and event producer.

While Sister Kitty Catalyst O.C.P., is a self-described uber-nun and homo-propagandist.

He is also mostly responsible for Sisters_of_Perpetual_Indulgence (T-H-L-K-D), a non-profit organization he works for, and the bios of several of his fellow nuns.

Concerns about an undisclosed conflict of interest and unlabeled autobiographies have been brought up a couple of times on wiki before, in 2007 and 2008. They were brushed aside by Benji and a small group of his enablers. There is very little doubt it is all true though.

(thanks to an anonymous tipster)

And the point is...?

I take it this hasn't been acknowledged on wikipedia? Not that I'm doubting you, but is there proof that could be used to show that the articles are vanity pages?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wik...s_with_articles

No and yes. Someone will bring it up onwiki eventually, because everyone who's anyone there reads WR.

Edit: Here's a statement from Sister Iona Dubble-Wyde:

Benjiboi has made 226 of the 694 non-bot edits to the article.

Hard to say. See DJ_Pusspuss AfD.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner:

Just so I have this clear...

One of Wikipedia's leading editors is also a notable DJ spinning tunes for "t-girl" strippers?

No wonder Wikipedia is "almost" as reliable as Encyclopedia Britannica.

*coff*

I got the same tip but I don't have time to personally investigate. Maybe One or SirFozzie or FT2 has time on his hands.


Alison wins the kewpie doll!

B has an interesting view of what constitutes a personal attack (in this case an objective look at one of Haiduc's strange articles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_pederastic_couples). See below. The problem is that it is difficult to complain about any of this stuff (namely overt propagandising) without being accused of homophobia.



See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Art...2nd_nomination)

Are they the same person? Benjiboi wrote the entire article about "DJ Pusspuss". And here it says they are the same person

"DJ Puss Puss is also Sister Kitty Catalyst of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence."
http://www.mail-archive.com/squidlist@list...g/msg03608.html

But DJ Pusspuss is clearly mid-twenties, whereas sister kitty is older. Her biography says that s/he "came to San Francisco via the London Order that I had joined (1991-92)" which means age about late thirties

http://www.thesisters.org/bios/kitty.html

However her email is "pusspuss at gotblow dot org". Now http://www.gotblow.org/ is "a grassroots campaign using a safety whistle as a symbol to confront hate crimes", which sister kitty co-founded per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Kitty_Catalyst_O.C.P.. .

Funny, someone is sending "tips" that out Benji? It appears more than a few people have time on their hands!



Benji is a "leading" editor? That's news to me.

If anything bad or embarrassing turns up it is always helpful to say something like this. Another good reply (often used by Thatcher) is that it happened some time ago (Thatcher has never really specified exactly how long counts).

If anyone subsequently lies about it http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=182144567 , then say that politicians often lie.

Or get a mate to make allegations of stalking or harrassment

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=182177247

Oh I see someone called 'The Land Surveyor' has put the article on the DJ up for deletion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Art...2nd_nomination)

Will it be deleted? Or will the person who put it up for deletion be blocked or be the target of abuse for supposed harrassment, wikistalking, BADSITES or whatever else? Let's see.

I wonder if this AFD will bring the esteemed LGBT editor and fellow self-promoter Allstarecho out of his retirement (and by retirement I mean leaving in a huff as the ban hammer starts getting warmed up)?

I suspect the whistleblowing may have come from the ranks of the users involved in the paid editing article dispute

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Paid_editing

Only if Matt Sanchez shows up.

All is explained.



[edit] And indeed the Land Surveyor has been blocked.

Phooey...Horsey wants knockdown, dragout, WWE violence. This stuff is boring.

Yes but you have no interest in building a serious and comprehensive reference work. Obviously you would find it boring.

It needs something like that to make this more interesting, doesn't it.

Some movement on this one - [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Sister_Kitty_Catalyst_O.C.P.[/url].

I notice that Scott also asks them outright

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ben...ur_own_articles

Second autobio deletion discussion link.

An amusing quote from a related discussion on Skomorokh's talk page.



[Edit] This is apparently about Benjiboi's plagiarism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=311458333



I have looked closer at this IP's work, and it is good. Careful attention to sources, logical, clear and all those good things. Why hasn't s/he been banned? This e.g.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=309858928

Oh my mistake he already has been blocked. Good thing.

Interesting to note that both of those articles seem to be heading to the dustbin. The thing about AFD is that you piss off enough people and then they realise that an article is about you, they will swing by to vote delete because they don't like you carefully consider the sources.


The funniest aspect of the AFDs is the way that people are edging around the COI of Benjiboi because of WP:OUT, like people at a dinner party trying to pretend they haven't notice that the host's dog is having a poop in the corner.

Indeed, which is bloody moronic really; carefully avoiding the elephant in the corner. Everyone knows that Benjiboi is both of them, but oh noes! We can't mention it, because it would WP:OUT him! Obviously, writing two biographies of yourself isn't outing at all]

Well, to be fair, the articles are both a little weak, especially the DJ PussyPuss one. I doubt everyone's voting delete just because they don't like Benjiboi. I'd be more inclined to call ulterior motives on the people who are voting keep.

Come to think of it, shouldn't this thread be in the BLP forum?

About the sources - could be I only took a quick skim - it's just that there is clearly some history between him (her?) and some of those editors. However, I completely take your point about the keep votes. Vary is hilarious in his "I didn't hear that"

"here's a promotion advert linking the two"

"not reliable!"

"Here's a picture taken by the the same person who took the pictures on both of the articles saying the two are one and the same"

"could be anyone!"

"Here's a signed confession from the guy saying the two are one and the same"

"could be the result of torture so should not be trusted"

For what it's worth, I think Vary is making a different point: these aren't reliable sources for the purposes of merging the articles (as John Vandenburg proposed). I don't think he believes they might actually be different, just that no BLP-worthy sources connect them. As he puts it:

"I'm more skeptical about using an archived mailing list post as a reliable source in a BLP, but it's unimportant at the moment. Until we have a reliable source connecting A to B, it's irrelevant that we can connect B to C."

Benjiboi's response to the query about his identity can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=312081897 - very enlightening. "are you these two people?" "I prefer not to tell you who I am". Well that cleared up our concerns nicely, didn't it?

He says he's been the target of "both real world and wikipedia attacks and threats" and "have been a hate-crime victim and have been on the end of some quite hostile words here on the WP".

He really should have asked for his autobiographies to be deleted and walked away years ago if that is the case. Instead he has been using WP to keep his personas and organizations on top of the Google food chain. You can't have that and your privacy at the same time Benji.

Oh, I have an interest in building a serious and comprehensive reference work. But we're talking about Wikipedia -- not the same thing, Petey baby!

The outing policy, as I see it, serves some useful Wiki-culture purposes, but also fails on some fronts. The policy's primary point is to encourage editors who do not want their name known to edit articles. I could imagine this being a positive motivation for people who have been stalked, are generally shy/quiet in real life, or who have a public position and want a hobby where they won't be criticized. I could imagine a medical doctor wanting to edit articles on medicine, but not wanting to assume the liability of people suing him for bad information or hounding him for free advice. Also, obviously, there is the idea that children shouldn't have their name on the internet since it simply makes pedophiles jobs that much easier. In these areas the outing policy is rather successful to the extent it encourages responsible contributions.

Where the policy fails is the same place the COI guideline and the external linking policy fail. While it is obviously OK for someone to mention a link to their website in a relevant context, most people on the internet seem intent on putting their link in as many places as possible, so Wikipedia adopts the counter-measure of reverting a good portion of links added. Similarly, if COI actually worked, it would tell people with a financial interest in something that they couldn't edit the article and could only suggest changes, but that would reduce content overall, so we allow people with conflicts to edit.

In this way the outing policy fails, since in order to protect the people mentioned above as completely as possible, it requires us to act without looking at the intentions of the person. So a sockpuppeter is generally protected from disclosure of his IPs or real name. And a self-promotional author is generally protected from linking names together to make the accusation. In a perfect world there would be some kind of "management" making the legally liable decision of when to out a person who refused to act collaboratively, but lacking that perfect world, I really don't see what other options we have other than to enforce the policy blindly.

Echo all of what you've said. The policy also fails in that it and any other anti-stalking stuff Wikipedia seems to have not actually worked. Several users have been stalked horribly despite these policies, and the Foundation's only response is to put their hands over their ears and sing a loud song until everything goes away. Things like that will continue to be ineffective at driving off stalkers until the Foundation actually becomes prepared to get their hands dirty. The flip side of that, thinking about it, is that the policy could be very, very successful - it's quite hard to list "number of people who might have been harassed IRL if it wasn't for this policy".

In regards to Benjiboi's case - as said, he can't have his cake and eat it. If you want to keep your identity intact, here's a hint; don't write large articles on two of your personas, complete with pictures and real-life associations.

Wikipedia is a magnet for narcissists who, on the one hand want to be thought of in a positive light and, on the other hand, want to be anonymous.

Just seen this on the Sister Kitty AFD

Comment - Either we shit or get off the pot. Benjiboi is Sister Kitty and Dj PussPuss. He's created these articles and lied about their provenance. Crafty (talk) 13:38, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

will be interesting to see what the response to this will be...

Uhoh. The response was a removal by Skomorokh (per [[WP:OUT]] of course) and an undo of that removal by Craftyminion. I predict Craftyminion will be blocked for failing to observe the proper denial of the bleeding obvious.

That's a good question - how obvious does someone's identity have to be before it's no longer an outting?

Benjiboi's evasive responses to questions about his identity and COI issues made me revisit this discussion in which an editor asks him to reveal if he is involved in or plans to become involved in paid editing. His response is three long paragraphs, most of which is not relevant to that question, but in the middle of the third paragraph it says:

Hoping that readers see that you have no vested interest and having no vested interest aren't quite the same thing, so the questioner asks for a less ambiguous reply and is told:

I actually think Benjiboi does good work in the areas to which he contributes, but these two episodes have eroded his credibility rather badly. I agree with the earlier statement that the attention on his two bios probably arises from his attempts to control the draft guidelines on paid editing which likely caused someone to start digging a little deeper in looking for his motivations.

I have no problems with paid editing *but* Benji has made a classic mistake, if you don't want to answer a question then don't answer it - the weasel way he phrases his answer screams "I am a paid editor!" regardless of what the truth actually is.

And now Crafty has been blocked for pointing out the obvious

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cra...#September_2009

The ANI discussion is priceless

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

Crafty for some time was suspected of being Peter Damian for his 'absolute' and uncompromising statements. ("Honest" was perhaps the word they meant). Ikip comes across as a complete idiot.

I have for some time said that Skomorokh is one to watch.



But if Crafty is right, how on earth can this be a good faith contributor to the project?

As I said earlier, the only difference here is the length of time, if Benjiboi had rocked up last week, created those articles and then it came out at the AFD, it would have simply been "The account Benjiboi is clearly the subject of the article" and nobody would have blinked.

Even this comment was removed

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=312256403

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=312414779

If you notice, I readded that particular part about 15 minutes after I removed it, and 15 minutes before you posted the above comment.

Sorry I didn't notice. Obviously that makes everything OK and perfectly above board then. I continue to be astonished by the curious inversion of moral values that lives on in Wikipedia. See the first of my signatures below ("Public opinion ...").

As I have pointed out many times, this is all being carefully logged and will some time be documented and written up.

[edit] No one has commented on Skomorokh's peculiar analogy. Is engaging in something fundamentally dishonest - writing not one but two inflated biographies of one's non-notable self, and then lying and obfuscating about it - really like wearing tarty clothes on a night out?

I really think this should go into BLP so that it isn't indexed.

WR shouldn't be a revenge platform either.

No. There is a fundamental difference between somebody else writing an article about me in Wikipedia, which I would not welcome and would take steps to remove, and my writing a promotional an article about myself, and lying about it.

And now a message from our sponsor



http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=306063299

And Crafty is now indef'd. Two indefs so far and of course no action on compulsive plagiarists and liars.



Pretend it does not exist, I suppose.

And if he really is worried about being 'outed', why on earth post a 5 minute video of himself on YouTube?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COpUXdaSOAo

And did Crafty actually violate WP:OUT?

It says:



1. Of course the user did voluntarily post the information, by writing the two articles.

2. No personal information was included (except by editors such as Ottava and Fences who mentioned the actual name of the pseudonymous characters 'Pusspuss' and 'Sister Kitty'. When I nominated for deletion, I was careful not to mention anything like this.

3. The only offence was to assert that the anonymous individual who goes by the names 'Pusspuss' and 'Sister Kitty', had actually written the articles themself, i.e. to accuse a fellow Wikipedian of dishonesty. How nefarious!