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  • Our Mission:
  • We exist to shine the light of scrutiny into the dark crevices of Wikipedia and its related projects; to examine the corruption there, along with its structural flaws; and to inoculate the unsuspecting public against the torrent of misinformation, defamation, and general nonsense that issues forth from one of the world’s most frequently visited websites, the “encyclopedia that anyone can edit.”
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An Open Letter About Tenebrae

By a Frustrated Wikipedia Editor

Dear Arbcom:

It’s been a couple of weeks since Wikipediocracy published what seemed to be a very convincing indictment of Wikipedia editor Tenebrae. Obviously, you are in a tricky position: Tenebrae is an editor who has been around for a very long time, and does a lot of work on BLPs. He has also spent 15 years promoting himself, his wife, his books, his employers, and, worst of all, businesses in which he has a financial interest. So, in hopes that it helps you to come to a decision, this is an open letter urging you to take action against Tenebrae — or clear the way for the community to do so.

The case may appear to hinge on Tenebrae being Newsday writer Frank Lovece. Thanks to the Daily Dot (with whom the primary author of the Wikipediocracy piece collaborated), we know that Lovece denies the identification. The connection between Lovece and Tenebrae is not quite an open secret, but it has been known and discussed on Wikipedia for at least a decade. Admins who are members of the oversight team are well aware of it, since just about every mention of Tenebrae and Lovece in the same discussion has been oversighted.

It’s really a moot point, though. For the sake of argument, let’s take Frank Lovece at his word when he states “I do not know anything about that.” This leaves us with an editor who isn’t Frank Lovece but, for unknown reasons, has been promoting Frank Lovece’s interests for years and is still doing it, as recently as a few days ago. In normal circumstances, this could be addressed on the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard, but again, it appears impossible to discuss the situation without being accused of “outing” and having the discussion oversighted. It feels rather Kafkaesque to be prevented from revealing an editor’s possible conflict of interest because their own edits might suggest that they are a particular person.

If the Arbitration Committee is unwilling to act — or feels that no ArbCom action is required — please let the community handle it. Allow a discussion of Tenebrae’s edits promoting Frank Lovece. Allow a long-overdue sockpuppetry investigation of Tenebrae, Hal Raglan, Skippu, JimCorrigan, 65.78.8.103, 207.237.230.157, 69.22.254.111, 207.237.223.118, and 24.199.120.207. It is not “outing.” It is not harassment. These are normal Wikipedia processes, being used for their intended purposes.

Please let the community deal with this case the way it would deal with any similar case.


Please note that the foregoing does not necessarily represent the feelings or wishes of the Wikipediocracy staff.

What’s in a Name?

Peppermint, uploaded by Tenebrae to Wikimedia Commons

Peppermint abandoned her original name, became famous under a new name, and politely asked everyone to refer to her by her new, legal name. No problem, right? Well, some Wikipedians do have a problem. For some, it is a totally unacceptable imposition.

…continue reading What’s in a Name?

The Nicholas Alahverdian Story: Epilogue

If you’d prefer to read the original blog posts first, see Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.

A few weeks ago — on Dec. 23rd, 2020, to be precise — we removed a three-part blog series we’d published about Wikipedia’s article on Nicholas Alahverdian, a Rhode Island child-welfare advocate who had reportedly died of cancer in February 2020. Like it or not, however, the removal of the series only made people more curious about Mr. Alahverdian, his Wikipedia-related activities (as well as his non-Wikipedia activities), and the circumstances of his alleged death. This has now culminated, directly or indirectly, in the publication of two articles by Tom Mooney of the Providence Journal, which were picked up by USA Today and Yahoo News, among others.

As we noted in our (now-deleted) explanation for the deletion, after posting the blog series we were almost immediately contacted by someone claiming to be Mr. Alahverdian’s widow, using a “throwaway” anonymous e-mail account. This person wrote voluminous e-mails threatening to sue us, our hosting company, and at least three other people who were once active on our site but are no longer involved with it in any kind of fiduciary or administrative capacity. Just to be on the safe side though, we removed the three blog entries. Unfortunately, in the meantime, more e-mails were sent by the same anonymous account to the Wikimedia Foundation, falsely (and rather ludicrously) accusing us and various Wikipedia users who had edited the Alahverdian article of extortion, “property damage,” and threatening physical violence. One of these accusations (all of which were clearly libelous) was even mentioned in the first Providence Journal article.

After we responded to the anonymous account to point out that e-mailing libelous false claims about identifiable individuals is illegal, a new “security notice” suddenly appeared on

…continue reading The Nicholas Alahverdian Story: Epilogue