Not so long ago we had a discussion here about Toddst1 (T-C-L-K-R-D) , who falsely claimed to be a law enforcement officer. Well, he is now being discussed on the administrators' noticeboard for acting as a "tough cop" on Wikipedia. What happened is that O Fenian (T-C-L-K-R-D) removed some warning by similarly-tough admin Nja247 from his userpage. Toddst1 kept reposting the warning, with new and escalating warnings for removing the previous warnings. Finally, O Fenian again removes the warning with an edit summary calling the constant reposting of warnings "harassment". Toddst1 then warns him for personal attacks. When O Fenian removes that warning as well, Toddst1 blocks him two weeks for harassment.

Then, Domer48 (T-C-L-K-R-D) tells Toddst1 that he disagrees with the block of O Fenian. A conversation develops, and Domer48 moves the conversation to O Fenian's talk page to keep it all in one place. BAM! Domer48 blocked two weeks for moving an admin's comments to another page.

Toddst1 is getting quite a lot of heat for these blocks. Maybe putting people with obvious power issues in a position of power isn't such a great idea.

Link to ANI thread: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ANI#2_Bad_blocks

I too had a bad experience with Todd a few weeks ago. Too many words.

I get the impression that whereas Wikipedia in the early days was mostly useless hippy and liberal types, now it seems to have been entirely taken over by police and military types (or aspiring would-be types) who enjoy the 'security' aspect of it all, and who (my impression) don't really distinguish much between vandals and content creators. Both are trying to change the encyclopedia, and all change must be reverted.

There is copious evidence that Wikipedia has increasingly evolved into a police and war-gaming culture, consistent with its obsession with complex rules and harsh punishments.

The rules and punishments are used as weapons in the gaming warfare, and operate without the benefit of any impartial umpire, referee, or due process. Thus, Wikipedia devolves into an erratic gangland culture which dominates the day-to-day activity of the project.

Todd? Don't you mean Tiptoety? I don't recall Todd ever claiming to be a cop.

Indeed. Ty is the police cadet.

Toddst1, if the events are as Gandoman has framed them, is apparently completely clueless when it comes to site policies. Time to strip another admin of their tools in that case.

[Edit] As expected, it wasn't as Gandoman framed it, but both blocks were overturned.

Moderator's note: Posts comparing the administrative tactics of Toddst1 (T-C-L-K-R-D) to those of WWII-era German "brownshirts" were moved to this thread (requires registration to view).

The moderators would like to remind members that such comparisons may be considered by some to be extremely offensive, irrespective of their putative accuracy or relevance.

Add to that Scout masters holding court over their unruly subordinates ... a sort of vanilla version of what you are talking about above.

I think I might have to agree wiith you here ... isn:t it the way all "scenes" go ... social entropy striking back.

Another good analogy might be Tom Brown's Schooldays.

The dispute at hand in this case is more nationalistic crap related to Northern Ireland, although nobody on the wiki, or apparently here, is willing to notice that. Let's make sure it's properly categorized: this isn't a case of random admin abuse, but instead a case of admin abuse in furtherance of a ideologically-driven point of view.

(Reposted because this comment, and Somey's on-topic response, were moved in the trainwreck cleanup...)

Nja247 has an interesting definition of "offensive" usernames. He seems to have eased up a bit lately, but here's a recent example: ihatehorrormovies. I'm sorry if any children were reading over your shoulder, I usually wouldn't use such language, but that's what this twisted person chose to call themselves. It disgusts me just writing it...

Here's another offensive name: M1k3ypwns3, which, translated from leet speak means Mikey Pwns E (I think). How perfectly outrageous!

That's pretty funny. It appears this young man makes the same kind of errors that a bot might be expected to make given the same task.

What seems to be at issue here, aside from the "procedural" dispute over the various blocks, etc., is that O Fenian (T-C-L-K-R-D) attempted to remove - quite correctly - an improperly-cited paragraph from Provisional Irish Republican Army (T-H-L-K-D) which initially claimed that "the IRA is responsible for the murder of over 3000 men, woman and children," and later, that "between 1969 and 1997, the IRA were responsible for the death or injury of over 20,000 men, woman and children. Over 14,000 of these being civilians."

Example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=302650725

Edit-warring over this addition was mainly between O Fenian and an AnonIP editor, whose IP geolocates to British Telecom, in England. For whatever reason, the page was apparently protected (by Nja247 (T-C-L-K-R-D) ) with the addition left in, and administrator Toddst1 then blocked O Fenian for objecting to this.

Needless to say, O Fenian was correct, Nja247 was not, and Toddst1 failed to apply even rudimentary common sense to the situation. Just another day on Wikipedia, basically!

It's really depressing how true this is.

It's as if people simply had no concept of the inverse relationship between "security" and "openness". Or something like that.

On the up side, perhaps it could be a good recruiting pool for the NTSB. The economy might even benefit by getting smart young folks out of their parents' basement and thus needing to buy microwaves and futons.

(Do people still buy futons?)

What I'm still not clear on is whether Toddst1 got involved because he holds an opinion on the topic at hand, or just to support a friend. I'm thinking it's the latter, but I'm not sure on that.

Wikipedia has a lot of admins who seem devoid of real opinions on any issue, but who will swing the banhammer on request if the request comes from one of their friends, without bothering to look to see if the friend is really the problem.

Whoops. You're right, it was Tiptoety who claimed to be a law enforcement officer. I mixed up the two, and was also misled by the "This editor reports threats of violence on Wikipedia to appropriate authorities." userbox on Toddst1's page.

Glad you find the humor in this. After looking at edit histories, I can say this:

1. O Fenian looks like a serious, careful editor specializing in articles relating to Northern Ireland/Troubles, and other Irish subjects. His contribs are quite impressive. The kind of editor they should have more of.

2. Nja247 is, apparently, a 28-year-old gay British lawyer. And an Apple Mac freak. Judging by this discussion, he's becoming quite the arrogant little wikilawyer.


Emphasis mine, and I am forced to agree.

3. Domer48, another experienced Irish editor (with an admittedly short fuse), wandered into this crap, and got blocked for idiot reasons. LHVU did the right thing.

4. Toddst1, legendary Moulton-hater and doer of amazingly-dickish blocks, is having an argument with Rd232 on his talk page over all this. A remarkably stupid argument.

Why are there so many lawyers editing Wikipedia anyway? This has me quite worried.

And other dickish things like preventing me from complaining about a block (and subsequent 'community' ban)



It helps to reply to the first email, dickhead.

Toddst1 was the jack-booted thug who summarily blew away all my userspace pages and subpages, including those which contained evidence of systematic corruption compiled for the ArbCom cases against FeloniousMonk and IDCab.

Wikipedia needs less of Domer, not more of him. Unless you want more nationalistic POV pushers. BigDunc, Domer, and Sarah777 should be banned for continuous disruption. They're always fighting over some Irish garbage. No sympathy for people who continuously whine about their right to push various points of views being impeded.

The first post should really edit out the false accusation of Toddst falsely claiming to a law enforcement officer. That's just stupidity. If a Wikipedia administrator confused GlassBeadGame with Kato, I would be interested in seeing what he'd be called here.

So what's new about an admin being a stupid bully and damaging the project by barring or chasing away a good contributor? Must happen most weeks.

Most days.

Most hours

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.


And the disease has also spread (thanks to IDCab and Jimbo) to Wikiversity, too.