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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

Pardon My French (Court Case)

A successful lawsuit in France against the Wikimedia Foundation demonstrates one of the problems with Wikipedia’s “anonymity at all costs” business model.

…continue reading Pardon My French (Court Case)

Rathfelder – “a good editor”

By Virginia Belmont

On 4 November, 2022, a veteran Wikipedia editor named Rathfelder was blocked for sockpuppetry. Rathfelder had been editing Wikipedia since 2005 and had amassed over 540,000 edits. Girth Summit, the admin who made the block, announced it on one of Wikipedia’s noticeboards because, as they said, “I know a lot of people will be surprised to see the block.”

Sockpuppetry, or using multiple accounts to influence votes and discussions, is one of the most unforgivable offenses on WIkipedia. And yet, not long after announcing Rathfelder’s block, Girth Summit was suggesting that they would “not stand in the way of an unblock.” Other editors (including admins) also suggested that if Rathfelder promised not to do it again, they should be unblocked. And so, three days later, good and prolific editor Rathfelder was unblocked.

Perhaps if Girth Summit knew what I’m about to tell you, they would not have unblocked Rathfelder.

Meet Martin Rathfelder

Rathfelder is Martin Rathfelder from Manchester, England. We know that because he told us on an early version of his Wikipedia user page. There’s a Martin Rathfelder on Facebook who lives in Manchester and says he “works on Wikipedia.” The profile for Twitter account @rathfelder reads, “Health and politics: Manc, Cyclist, European, Labour Party, Wikipedian.” Pretty clearly the same person.

Martin Rathfelder used to be the Director of the Socialist Health Association (SHA). According to left-wing British newspaper The Morning Star, he was dismissed as Director in 2018 for “gross misconduct and bringing SHA into disrepute.” We’ll get into that later, but for now, notice that Wikipedia’s article on the Socialist Health Association was created by Wikipedia editor Rathfelder and edited dozens of times by that account, right through to 2018. On Wikipedia, that’s a serious conflict of interest.

According to this 2017/2018 annual report

…continue reading Rathfelder – “a good editor”