Block and unblock of AndewNguyen

[Arishok]

A fresh incident appears to be brewing today. AndewNguyen (T-C-L) appears to be consistently pushing a, let's say questionable, PoV in the Race and Intelligence area, but doing so "civilly". This is not a new phenomenon whatsoever; various people have been doing this sort of thing since the Race and Intelligence Arbcom case way back in 2010, and are usually removed eventually once discovered.

Admin and arbitrator Moneytrees (T-C-L) indeffed AndewNguyen with a lengthy blocking statement, essentially reasoning that the user is an SPA and NOTHERE. Moneytrees stated explicitly that they would oppose any unblock without at least a TBan from Race and Intelligence.

Despite this, another admin, Dbachmann (T-C-L), who apparently hasn't touched the block or unblock button in 12 years, unilaterally unblocked AndewNguyen, arguing that Moneytrees was merely out to remove an "ideological opponent", and calling MT's block "bold", which is a really ironic thing to say when you're an admin reversing a block made by a sitting arbitrator without discussion.

MT has, naturally, requested that Dbachmann reblock, and has threatened to take this to "another venue" otherwise, presumably AN or ANI. From the above statements by Dbachmann, compliance with this request would be surprising...



EDIT: Dbachmann has (unsurprisingly) refused the request to reblock, though they've said that:

If you find a third admin (ideally one without known prejudice or involvement) and they decide to overturn my action, I absolutely promise you will hear no further complaints from me.

which seems to indicate a lack of knowledge that WP:WHEEL (T-H-L) is a thing.

[The Garbage Scow]

The latest example of out-of-touch legacy admins doing damage with the tools.

Maybe I'm not looking closely enough, but the only logged admin actions I see going back to 2018 are page deletions related to things he was working on. He protected a few pages in 2017.

[Ritchie333]

Moneytrees should have made it an Arbcom block, which could have been done if it was one of the Contentious Topics, which it appears to be (see Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Race and intelligence (T-H-L)). If that had happened, Dbachmann would have been reverting an arbcom block and have potentially got desysopped.

[Arishok]

It's possible it was changed with the move from DS to CT, but AFAIK an AE block can't be indef, though it can be specified that the first year of the indef block is an AE block in such cases.

Ritchie has now opened an ANI thread.

Incidentally, AndewNguyen has blanked their talkpage and retired.

[iii]

One question I always had was "Who is AndewNguyen?" I had suspicions that it might have been a sock of Emil Kirkegaard (T-H-L), but I could not find a smoking gun.

[Arishok]

While the consensus is already quite clear at ANI as to the impropriety of the unblock, several participants in there seem to be questioning how exactly the block came to Dbachmann's attention, with the assumption being off-wiki canvassing of some kind. I think a much more likely and mundane answer is that Dbachmann had read the ongoing "Eyeferth Study" thread on WP:AN (T-H-L) where AndewNguyen's block was mentioned, which fits the timing, as far as I can tell.

[Katie]

Dbachmann (T-C-L) has racist views, as this shows: link and as this also shows: link. Maunus calls him out here: link, link, and link.

Dbachmann was referring to this group of people as an "arguably" different species from homo sapiens: Khoisan (T-H-L).

(EDIT: changed "racist views on matters of race" to "racist views", as the latter sounds more natural than the former)

[Catfish Jim & spd]

Dbachmann (T-C-L) has racist views on matters of race, as this shows: link and as this also shows: link. Maunus calls him out here: link, link, and link.

Dbachmann was referring to this group of people as an "arguably" different species from homo sapiens: Khoisan (T-H-L).

For fuck's sake!!!

[iii]

Dbachmann (T-C-L) has racist views on matters of race, as this shows: link and as this also shows: link. Maunus calls him out here: link, link, and link.

Dbachmann was referring to this group of people as an "arguably" different species from homo sapiens: Khoisan (T-H-L).

For fuck's sake!!!

Brings new meaning to the term "uninvolved", don't it?

[Emptyeye]

[...]which seems to indicate [Dbachmann's] lack of knowledge that WP:WHEEL (T-H-L) is a thing.

I may be giving them too much credit, but I'm going to put forward a different hypothesis: They know damn well WP:WHEEL (T-H-L) is a thing, and phrased things very carefully knowing that. Their sentence about finding another admin to re-block should be read with an implied "...but we both know that won't happen, because I'll drag that third admin to Arbcom for Wheel Warring if it does" append to the end of it.

[Moneytrees]

Moneytrees should have made it an Arbcom block, which could have been done if it was one of the Contentious Topics, which it appears to be (see Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Race and intelligence (T-H-L)). If that had happened, Dbachmann would have been reverting an arbcom block and have potentially got desysopped.

Yeah, lesson learned. Can't be that simple.

Mostly unrelated to this, but I'm in a good mood right now ! I'm usually all mopey when I get involved in some drama. I wanted to post an image of Drake sitting on an Ostrich with the caption "I remain unfazed, trust, worse has been done" but the image renders way too big.

[Arishok]

Floquenbeam (T-C-L) has already restored the block, citing the overwhelming consensus at ANI.

[Giraffe Stapler]

Dbachmann (T-C-L) has racist views on matters of race, as this shows: link and as this also shows: link. Maunus calls him out here: link, link, and link.

Dbachmann was referring to this group of people as an "arguably" different species from homo sapiens: Khoisan (T-H-L).

This is just another example of political correctness gone too far. Can't someone express their opinion that one group of people is sub-human without being called a racist? So what if I like oatmeal for breakfast and you don't - let's just agree to disagree without attacking the each other and resorting to hurtful name-calling.

[The Garbage Scow]

Many of his views can be found on an older version of his userpage, but I didn't find anything overly alarming yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =204534044

[Catfish Jim & spd]

Dbachmann (T-C-L) has racist views on matters of race, as this shows: link and as this also shows: link. Maunus calls him out here: link, link, and link.

Dbachmann was referring to this group of people as an "arguably" different species from homo sapiens: Khoisan (T-H-L).

This is just another example of political correctness gone too far. Can't someone express their opinion that one group of people is sub-human without being called a racist? So what if I like oatmeal for breakfast and you don't - let's just agree to disagree without attacking the each other and resorting to hurtful name-calling.

Geez, get with the times... we call it wokeness these days...

[Giraffe Stapler]

Many of his views can be found on an older version of his userpage, but I didn't find anything overly alarming yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =204534044

I'm not sure you're going to find anything worse than the Koisan comment, but I encourage you to look. There are a lot of Dieter Bachmanns in the world, so make sure you get the right one.

From this PDF

Dieter Bachmann studied Physics at the ETH Zurich (1993-1998), as well as Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at the University of Zurich (1999-2005).
dab@flaez.ch

and from this PDF:

Dieter Bachmann has a background in experimental physics, computational linguistics, and
comparative Indo-European philology. He has pursued projects in computational stemmatology
since 2009 alongside his main occupation of teaching physics in Zurich.

[Catfish Jim & spd]

Many of his views can be found on an older version of his userpage, but I didn't find anything overly alarming yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =204534044

I'm not sure you're going to find anything worse than the Koisan comment, but I encourage you to look. There are a lot of Dieter Bachmanns in the world, so make sure you get the right one.

From this PDF

Dieter Bachmann studied Physics at the ETH Zurich (1993-1998), as well as Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at the University of Zurich (1999-2005).
dab@flaez.ch

and from this PDF:

Dieter Bachmann has a background in experimental physics, computational linguistics, and
comparative Indo-European philology. He has pursued projects in computational stemmatology
since 2009 alongside his main occupation of teaching physics in Zurich.

That first pdf... Ein Mythos für das 20. Jahrhundert: Blut, Rasse und Erbgedächtnis bei Tolkien... my German isn't great, but that's Blood, Race and Heredity in Tolkien?

Edit: duh... just needed to scroll down

Edit2: Yeah... he's one of them.

[Hemiauchenia]

I've never understood the obsession of racists with the idea that humans can be divided into subspecies. Subspecies are only used in biology when the species is divided into a number of clearly genetically distinctive clusters that are potential precursors to new species. While the human population clearly has strong phylogeographic structuring, it's too complex that it would ever be appropriate to label any population a subspecies.

[Boing! said Zebedee]

I've never understood the obsession of racists with the idea that humans can be divided into subspecies. Subspecies are only used in biology when the species is divided into a number of clearly genetically distinctive clusters that are potential precursors to new species. While the human population clearly has strong phylogeographic structuring, it's too complex that it would ever be appropriate to label any population a subspecies.

Well, yeah, but those who consider their own race intellectually superior generally tend to be thick as pigshit.

[Catfish Jim & spd]

I've never understood the obsession of racists with the idea that humans can be divided into subspecies. Subspecies are only used in biology when the species is divided into a number of clearly genetically distinctive clusters that are potential precursors to new species. While the human population clearly has strong phylogeographic structuring, it's too complex that it would ever be appropriate to label any population a subspecies.

Quite. The biological concept of species (genetic isolation/lack of interbreeding potential) is dated in any case. Phylogenetic trees are necessarily simplistic... the truth is more like a phylogenetic sponge where we split from common ancestors and then reconnect repeatedly unless physically prevented from doing so. Case in point is the supposed split from Neanderthals and Denisovans, around 600 ky ago... Europeans reintegrated with Neanderthals around 60 ky ago and Australasians with Denisovans around the same time. Khoi-san "split" around 250 kya, but I can guarantee that every living khoi-san person has European ancestors in the last thousand years.

[tarantino]

AndewNguyen made a bunch of edits to Norwegian subjects when he first started (where Emil Kirkegaard/Deleet (T-C-L) has spent a lot of time) and to Chemnitz University of Technology (where a collaborator of Emil's is a professor). Kind of strange for a Vietnamese.

[Catfish Jim & spd]

What fun... https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1146937116

He's too busy to reply but has made more edits on de wiki tonight than he has on en Wiki in the past four months

[Boing! said Zebedee]

AndewNguyen made a bunch of edits to Norwegian subjects when he first started (where Emil Kirkegaard/Deleet (T-C-L) has spent a lot of time) and to Chemnitz University of Technology (where a collaborator of Emil's is a professor). Kind of strange for a Vietnamese.

Do we actually know he's Vietnamese? I know Nguyen is a Vietnamese name, but anyone can make up a name.

[tarantino]

Do we actually know he's Vietnamese? I know Nguyen is a Vietnamese name, but anyone can make up a name.

No, we don't :) I was joking.

[Arishok]

It’s now been discovered that Dbachmann got themselves in trouble even when active “back in the day”, with a logged Arbcom warning and several RfC/U.

Given that I think a desysop (or resignation) is extremely likely.

[Tarc]

Moneytrees should have made it an Arbcom block, which could have been done if it was one of the Contentious Topics, which it appears to be (see Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Race and intelligence (T-H-L)). If that had happened, Dbachmann would have been reverting an arbcom block and have potentially got desysopped.

Yeah, lesson learned. Can't be that simple.

Mostly unrelated to this, but I'm in a good mood right now ! I'm usually all mopey when I get involved in some drama. I wanted to post an image of Drake sitting on an Ostrich with the caption "I remain unfazed, trust, worse has been done" but the image renders way too big.

I gotchu, brah.

[Lurking]

AndewNguyen made a bunch of edits to Norwegian subjects when he first started (where Emil Kirkegaard/Deleet (T-C-L) has spent a lot of time) and to Chemnitz University of Technology (where a collaborator of Emil's is a professor). Kind of strange for a Vietnamese.

Fwiw, Norway does have a reasonably sized Vietnamese community when you take into account the country's fairly low population. ~28,000 on Norway's total population of ~5.5 million, so a little over 0.5% of the total population.

That's only a bit less than America, in percentage, and no one would look up all that weird if someone with a Vietnamese surname started editing American subjects.

Now, that doesn't mean this specific dude ain't suspicious--he is, absolutely. But he's suspicious because he's a racist that's behaving in problematic ways in the race and intelligence area and has previously focused on Norway (=strong echoes of Kirkegaard), not because he's got (or pretends to have) a Vietnamese surname and has previously focused on Norway.

[iii]

But he's suspicious because he's a racist that's behaving in problematic ways in the race and intelligence area... not because he's got (or pretends to have) a Vietnamese surname....

Anyone else think of Andy Ngo (T-H-L) in reference to all this?

Nah, too convenient.

Carry on.

[Ritchie333]

And now it's at Arbcom

[The Garbage Scow]

And now it's at Arbcom

And Hammersoft wants it dismissed as premature. Apparently there hasn't been enough friendly discussion with Dbachmannn.

Here's another reason the community needs a CODIFIED desysop process of some kind. RFC/U was taken away, so there's not even that now. People who forever think everyone is being mean to admins always manage to gridlock what little process exists.

Dbachmann obviously violated expectations of admin conduct and stupidly admitted to it before deciding to hide from the discussion.

[Vigilant]

Case seems super thin to me, especially when compared to the habitually shitiness of some admins on the Dramah Forums.

[ArmasRebane]

The block was bad, and Dbachmann doesn't seem like a great admin, but one bad unblock by a mostly-inactive admin is not something worth an ArbCom case; if you have to go back 10+ years for diffs, it's not something that has to be handled by ArbCom. Likewise, the calls for blocking Dbachmann as "preventative" (and it's totally not because of his political ideology) are hilarious. Yes, in another five years or something he might make another admin action, the only way to prevent it is to block them!

[Arishok]

I would agree that the talk of blocking Dbachmann is silly; clearly the bad unblock is entirely a misuse of admin tools, and the rest of it is simply far too old to be blocking someone for now. The old stuff is relevant IMO for the Arbcase because it's from when Dbachmann was more active and may be evidence of a long-term pattern of poor adminning, but I don't think it's appropriate to be blocking someone today for objectionable statements made 5-18 years ago.

However, there's recent precedent that one bad admin action, followed by ignoring subsequent discussion while continuing editing elsewhere, is indeed enough for Arbcom to desysop; this is exactly what happened to Geschichte (T-C-L) last year.

In totality, though, I think Dbachmann would need to not just respond, but respond in a very compelling way, to avoid a desysop, and I find it highly unlikely that this hypothetical stellar response will actually be forthcoming.

[iii]

Case seems super thin to me, especially when compared to the habitually shitiness of some admins on the Dramah Forums.

I tend to agree. He explicitly said he wouldn't wheel war if another admin disagreed with him, and he hasn't. His only real ADMINABUSE was claiming that he was not involved simply because he was inactive. But that rather speaks to an issue with WP:INVOLVED (T-H-L) which under my reading would tend towards his interpretation if for no other reason than the concept of a "topic area" is entirely too vague at Wikipedia for my liking, and I've seen it gamed too often to be a thing I think anyone should be making value judgements about. What tends to happen is people "broadly construe" a topic up to the point it suits them. This kind of mealy-mouthing is just another day at the 'pedia--unsurprising considering the haphazard way in which Wikipedia develops these sorts of policies.

Punting seems like a reasonable thing to do. I doubt he's going to become active in this "topic area" again.

[Arishok]

An indef on Dbachmann has been 'properly' proposed on ANI under its own heading; as of right now it has 3 supports and 4 opposes.

I find the "save editor time" rationale rather bewildering, honestly; Arbcom has to be involved one way or another regardless in order to desysop, and discussing an indef itself will be much more of a "timesink" given that there's opposition to it.

[Arishok]

Re this from Beeblebrox on the RFAR:

I do think it's a bit weird that someone sat on possibly explosive evidence for... what.. eighteen years? On the other hand, we also have this committee warning him fifteen years ago not to do what it seems he very recently did. This is an odd case, if the 2018 comments had been brought to the committee's attention, or to WP:AE for sanctions under WP:ARBR&I at the time it is possible we wouldn't be having this conversation now.

I'm reasonably sure that Katie's above post in this thread is how the connection was made between the 2018 comments and this incident; by my reading of the timestamps, Levivich was the first to post those diffs on the ANI thread, and did so shortly after Katie's post here.

Later, Extraordinary Writ discovered the previous 2008 Arbcase, and the 2005/2007 diffs appear to have been found by Levivich simply from browsing that case after EW linked to it at ANI.

[Catfish Jim & spd]

Re this from Beeblebrox on the RFAR:

I do think it's a bit weird that someone sat on possibly explosive evidence for... what.. eighteen years? On the other hand, we also have this committee warning him fifteen years ago not to do what it seems he very recently did. This is an odd case, if the 2018 comments had been brought to the committee's attention, or to WP:AE for sanctions under WP:ARBR&I at the time it is possible we wouldn't be having this conversation now.

I'm reasonably sure that Katie's above post in this thread is how the connection was made between the 2018 comments and this incident; by my reading of the timestamps, Levivich was the first to post those diffs on the ANI thread, and did so shortly after Katie's post here.

Later, Extraordinary Writ discovered the previous 2008 Arbcase, and the 2005/2007 diffs appear to have been found by Levivich simply from browsing that case after EW linked to it at ANI.

Googling "Dbachmann Wikipedia racism" brings up this doozy... https://groups.google.com/g/alt.politic ... -UAiWNd3IU

[Midsize Jake]

Googling "Dbachmann Wikipedia racism" brings up this doozy... https://groups.google.com/g/alt.politic ... -UAiWNd3IU

Did a Hindu dude steal his girlfriend in High School or something? Yikes.

I know our Indian Wikipedia-critic friends can get somewhat overwrought at times, but assuming he really posted all that stuff then maybe there's some justification for that.

[iii]

Googling "Dbachmann Wikipedia racism" brings up this doozy... https://groups.google.com/g/alt.politic ... -UAiWNd3IU

A real blast, that post is! I like this quote especially,

These and other edits in other articles by Dbachmann show signs of a bigoted double standard. On the one hand, in areas not related to India, his arguments are right-wing, he seems to defend scientific racism, makes comments about non-white migration, and more recently started defending anti-Islamic arguments and so on. But when it comes to India articles, he suddenldy uses leftwing sources and arguments in his fight against supposed Hindu nationalists, attacking them because of their alleged Islamophobia, and constantly smearing them with nazism and racism smears. The same user who for example says that he cannot understand how the Aryan invasion theory could "in any way bolster or further chauvinist, colonialist, racist or Eurocentric views" also apologetically writes that 'racist' is "just a propaganda term" and that "Wikipedia has a "gratuitous amount of "white guilt" and western self-depreciation and self-hatred".

Analysis is on point. But psychoanalyzing some Swiss physicist is probably well beyond arbcomm's remit.

[Disgruntled haddock]

WTT sez that suspending the case for only two weeks would be insufficient period for Dbachmann to reflect and respond.

This sort of reasoning just seems like a different flavor of super Mario to me. ADMINACCT doesn't provide an exception for "time [to] go away and reflect on whether they want to come back" and I don't think arbs should have the right to read one into the text because they personally feel like it. Hell, ADMINACCT doesn't even include an exception for IRL emergencies!

[turnedworm]

I do sez that and my word iz final.

Seriously though, I'm saying that we shouldn't do anything permanent without giving the the subject a chance to have their say, but also that I agree that we should be removing the bit. Give them 3 months - real life emergencies, reflecting and responding, whatever the reason, it doesn't matter. Pragmatically, we remove the bit upfront so the risk is removed, then the only thing left is ensuring the least worst final outcome.

[Beeblebrox]

Maybe we should have a discussion about what the optimal time frame is for these type of cases, but for this specific case it's not a hill worth dying on. I think the most plausible scenario is that Dbachmann is following the case but declining to participate, assuming their admin rights are toast. It's probably the smart move on their part to just walk away rather than have a month-long display of every racist thing they have ever said on WP.

[orangepi]

Meanwhile, Banedon (T-C-L) is complaining that naming the case "DBachmann" is prejudicial against DBachmann.

[Arishok]

The indef proposal looks like no consensus as it stands now, but a topic ban on race was proposed as well and that one currently looks to have a consensus.

[Boing! said Zebedee]

The indef proposal looks like no consensus as it stands now, but a topic ban on race was proposed as well and that one currently looks to have a consensus.

Yes, I think the indef is failing because it was proposed solely in terms of admin accountability - and an indef is clearly not warranted on that alone.

The topic ban proposal is based on obvious racism, and hopefully will succeed.

[Katie]

Tickle me (T-C-L), who commented at the ArbCom case request for Dbachmann, is a believer in the racist nonsense about white people being "replaced", as this shows: link.

[Giraffe Stapler]

Tickle me (T-C-L), who commented at the ArbCom case request for Dbachmann, is a believer in the racist nonsense about white people being "replaced", as this shows: link.

Tickle Me used to be known as Marek Moehling(T-C-F-L). On Commons, they say that is their real name and they want to change it for security because they are having problems on German WIkipedia.

His Twitter handle is MeyerhoffMirko for some reason and he follows (or replies to) Emil Kirkegaard.

[Arishok]

Isabelle Belato has closed the indef proposal as unsuccessful. TBan proposal is still open.

[Boing! said Zebedee]

Isabelle Belato has closed the indef proposal as unsuccessful. TBan proposal is still open.

It surprises me how many people are happy to have obvious racists ("scientific" or otherwise) around. Those 2018 comments should have been an obvious indef back then.

[Catfish Jim & spd]

...and Dbachmann has surfaced.