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Nihonjoe Has Been Naughty

By Eddy Landwehr

Bureaucrats are the most trusted users on Wikipedia. There are only 19 bureaucrats for the entire English-language Wikipedia. Bureaucrats have the ability to grant or revoke administrator privileges, so it is important that the Wikipedia community chooses bureaucrats they can trust. Nihonjoe, Wikipedia bureaucrat, is not trustworthy and never has been.

The elephant in the roomThe elephant in the room

Nihonjoe started editing Wikipedia in 2005. In 2006, they became an admin. They became a bureaucrat in 2009, after 3 unsuccessful attempts. When they first applied to become a bureaucrat in 2007, they stated “I think it’s very important to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest”. Those are fine words, but Nihonjoe did not follow them.

Who is Nihonjoe?

To understand Nihonjoe’s conflicts of interest, it is necessary to know who he is outside of Wikipedia. There is an account on Deviant Art that is also named Nihonjoe. That account has posted several times about an art show that is part of a convention called CONduit. The contact for the CONduit art show was Joe Monson of Orem, Utah. Deviant Art’s Nihonjoe’s profile states that they live in “Utahppia”.

In one of their posts, they also mention that “my wife was one of the winners” and included a Heather Monson in that list. Joe Monson of Orem, Utah is married to a Heather Monson. I suppose if one took the time, one could probably find images on the Deviant Art account that were also uploaded to Commons by Nihonjoe. Like this and this.

Joe Monson’s LinkedIn page tells us that he is an “Information Technology Administrator, Inventory Manager at Aquaveo | Managing

…continue reading Nihonjoe Has Been Naughty

Trust & Safety?

by Pa Nautilus

About a week ago, we put up a blog post about Paul Benjamin Austin, a particularly creepy Wikipedia editor. If you were wondering why someone here didn’t just report him to the Wikimedia Foundation’s Trust & Safety department, it’s because we knew someone already had. You’re about to learn just how incompetent that group was in handling the complaint.

The person who brought Paul Benjamin Austin to our attention complained to Trust & Safety about Paul Benjamin Austin. “Senior Trust and Safety Specialist” Kalliope Tsouroupidou handled the case. Her email response reads as follows:

Thank you for reaching out to the Trust & Safety team.

We have taken a look at the concerns you have raised, though this doesn’t look like a situation that T&S may be able to act on at this time. Office actions [1] tend to be considered when the local communities have already exhausted all their options in handling a situation. After a quick look I see that the community has been able to handle this [2] so far, so we would not like to usurp their autonomy in continuing to do so.

Should this cause on-wiki issues that the community is unable to handle, we will be happy to consider a conduct investigation on our end.

While it is reassuring to know that Trust and Safety would prefer not to usurp the community’s authority, it must be pointed out that Tsouroupidou has investigated the wrong user. She has linked to a complaint about edit warring involving a user named “Benjamin au.” It may seem like confusing “Benjamin au” with “Paul Benjamin Austin” is simply an innocent mistake, but even the most cursory examination should have alerted Tsouroupidou that something was not right. “Benjamin au” made a total of 10 edits,

…continue reading Trust & Safety?

Somehow Wikipedia Never Learns

A story of over a decade’s worth of BLP shenanigans from the world of Canadian politics and journalism, featuring Mark Bourrie, Rachel Marsden, Mike Duffy, David Suzuki, and Warren Kinsella.

…continue reading Somehow Wikipedia Never Learns