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Meet the editors (follow up on For An Angel)

By Delicious Carbuncle
Another in a in a series of blog posts highlighting lesser-known Wikipedia editors.

Four weeks ago I wrote on this blog that an active Wikipedia editor (User:For An Angel) was a self-declared pro-pedophilia advocate and made the case that they were still advocating pedophilia, although somewhat more subtly than with their past account. When that blog post was published, I knew that it wouldn’t be long before it was read by Wikipedia editors. I expected that it might be a day or two before there was any reaction, but I did not foresee what was to follow.

All Talk, No Action
I had expected that a couple of things would happen. For An Angel would be blocked. Of that I had no doubt. I also thought there was a very good chance that some people at Wikipedia would ask for me to be blocked for writing the blog post. I was fairly confident that would happen, but I had no prediction about how that would turn out. What I did not expect was that neither of those things would happen.

Shortly after the blog post went up, an IP editor alerted For An Angel about it. For An Angel’s reaction was to delete the message and carry on editing. After a couple of days with no reaction, I posted a link to the blog post on one of the most widely watched pages on Wikipedia – Jimmy Wales’ talk page. After the discussion started, For An Angel asked for their userpage to be deleted (the user page that included a hidden “girllover” symbol). The discussion drew a small amount of comment — including one comment from For An Angel himself — but dropped off Jimbo’s page after a couple of days.

Jimbo’s talk page got over 2,500 page views in the days that the discussion was up. Many people would have seen it, even if they did not take the time to read the details. I have no doubt that several admins saw the discussion. Here’s what Wikipedia’s “Child protection” policy says: “Editors who attempt to use Wikipedia to pursue or facilitate inappropriate adult–child relationships, who advocate inappropriate adult–child relationships (e.g. by expressing the view that inappropriate relationships are not harmful to children), or who identify themselves as pedophiles, will be indefinitely blocked“. None of the admins who read that discussion blocked For An Angel.

My comments and links to the blog on Jimbo’s talk page and elsewhere prompted one of Wikipedia’s most unhinged editors, Wnt, to complain that Wikipedia’s Child protection policy was not being followed. Wnt argued that rather than having Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee deal with this type of complaint (as the policy now states), questions about whether a user is or is not advocating pedophilia “should be addressed up front by a vigorous community debate”. This is the same community that has had years-long debates about the correct use of the dash. “The thing is, in the case I mention, it’s already been discussed in an open forum, and absolutely nobody seemed to care,” Wnt observed. Three admins participated in that discussion. Coren, one of those admins, is a former member of the Arbitration Committee. That discussion ended over a week ago with no action coming out of it.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
Since then, For An Angel has been editing less frequently. Perhaps they are slowing down or taking a break. In all likelihood, they are just using another account. Perhaps my earlier blog post did not illustrate this case in a way that people could easily grasp. This is what Ospinad’s user page looked like in December 2007:

The userboxes that were discussed in the previous blog post are these ones:

 

 

For An Angel’s new user page has these userboxes:

 

 

Ospinad identified himself as a “girllover” which is generally understood to mean someone who has a sexual attraction to prepubescent or adolescent girls. It is not surprising that he would claim to be against child abuse, since such people frequently make the claim that their desires and actions are expressions of “love”. With this in mind, take a look at the images that Ospinad uploaded to Wikipedia. The first two are from a movie in which the protagonist is a 10 year-old girl. Now take a look at the images uploaded by For An Angel. It should give you a good sense of what Ospinad/For An Angel likes.

There used to be an account on YouTube named Ospinad. That account has been terminated for “repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines and/or claims of copyright infringement”, but some of their comments are still visible. For example, on this video of two pre-teens dancing, Ospinad wrote “:-Þ …i’m kidding. these girls are so effing hot it’s ridiculous …and i mean that in the most innocent way imaginable”. Far worse is this comment made by a user named Ospinad on a website called Would You Hit This?: “like i always say…. if they’re old enough to crawl then they’re already in the right position!!”. I am confident that these users are the same person behind the Ospinad and For An Angel accounts on Wikipedia.

Seen enough?

 

Image credits: Flickr/John Snape and Wikipedia. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0).

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