The autobiographers

[tarantino]

Social anthropologist Douglas R. White (T-C-L) was the biggest contributor to the biography of Douglas R. White (T-H-L). He made 1001 edits on enwiki in total and was a friend of the late Slrubenstein (T-C-L). No one on wikipedia noticed that he died in 2021 except for some German guy Axolotl Nr.733, who noted his death in his bio.

[Giraffe Stapler]

Troy Lyndon (T-H-L) was created by user Troylyndon (T-C-L). That user also created Park Place Productions (T-H-L), a company co-founded by Troy Lyndon. Lyndon also founded "Left Behind Games" which has an interesting history. In fact, everything connected to Troy Lyndon is kinda sus. And I don't want to say that Christophergraham is also Troy Lyndon, but they sure act like they are.

The strangest part of this is probably that Troy Lyndon (T-H-L) doesn't mention that Lyndon was found liable for $3.6 million in "disgorgement, interest and penalties" as the result of a case brought by the SEC. Odd.

[Snooper]

Out of curiosity, would there be any interest in a 'Potential Autobiographers' section? I have a nearly complete archive in my email account of the unblock mailing list from 2007 to 2014, when we fully transitioned to UTRS. And unlike UTRS, where I had to identify to the foundation and agree to policies on handling personal information, I had to do none of that for the mailing list. I was just asked on IRC back in the day if I could help with backlog and added to the list, so I don't believe I'm breaking any sort of non-disclosure agreement. A fair bit of the activity was COI blocks and I at least find it somewhat interesting who was hired for what.

As an example: https://imgur.com/a/TSYxjiR

[Zoloft]

Out of curiosity, would there be any interest in a 'Potential Autobiographers' section? I have a nearly complete archive in my email account of the unblock mailing list from 2007 to 2014, when we fully transitioned to UTRS. And unlike UTRS, where I had to identify to the foundation and agree to policies on handling personal information, I had to do none of that for the mailing list. I was just asked on IRC back in the day if I could help with backlog and added to the list, so I don't believe I'm breaking any sort of non-disclosure agreement. A fair bit of the activity was COI blocks and I at least find it somewhat interesting who was hired for what.

As an example: https://imgur.com/a/TSYxjiR

This sounds interesting. let's see if we can talk with you in PMs and get it working.

[The Blue Newt]

Social anthropologist Douglas R. White (T-C-L) was the biggest contributor to the biography of Douglas R. White (T-H-L). He made 1001 edits on enwiki in total and was a friend of the late Slrubenstein (T-C-L). No one on wikipedia noticed that he died in 2021 except for some German guy Axolotl Nr.733, who noted his death in his bio.

It’s odd he didn’t make a bio for his wife…or maybe this was a matter of traditional gender roles: The male engages in some excessive hobby, and the female rolls her eyes.

[Snooper]

This sounds interesting. let's see if we can talk with you in PMs and get it working.

Sent you some fun selections, link in PM.

[Zoloft]

This sounds interesting. let's see if we can talk with you in PMs and get it working.

Sent you some fun selections, link in PM.

Received one file. Gonna open it up and look later tonight. I'll PM you back.

[Newyorkbrad]

Out of curiosity, would there be any interest in a 'Potential Autobiographers' section? I have a nearly complete archive in my email account of the unblock mailing list from 2007 to 2014, when we fully transitioned to UTRS. And unlike UTRS, where I had to identify to the foundation and agree to policies on handling personal information, I had to do none of that for the mailing list. I was just asked on IRC back in the day if I could help with backlog and added to the list, so I don't believe I'm breaking any sort of non-disclosure agreement. A fair bit of the activity was COI blocks and I at least find it somewhat interesting who was hired for what.

As an example: https://imgur.com/a/TSYxjiR

This sounds interesting. let's see if we can talk with you in PMs and get it working.

Regardless of what nondisclosure paperwork was or wasn't required, this strikes me as an outrageous violation of privacy.

[Anroth]

Regardless of what nondisclosure paperwork was or wasn't required, this strikes me as an outrageous violation of privacy.

Well the WMF is particularly slack in allowing a mailing list to be used for personal data in the first place without adequate security or vetting of the people who had access to it. Tell me, how many mailing lists or private wikis are you still a member of that have discussed personal information of editors? Have you personally provided the (EU) subjects with a privacy notice detailing how and why their information is being used or kept? Is there even a process to do so? Is there a anonymisation process in place? Retention plan? Etc etc.

I could go on for literally *days* about how the WMF, the various CU processes, the admins & Arbcom in particular routinely violate GDPR, but its pointless because like most privacy issues, no one cares until someone gets reported to a commissioner, then its instant shit-hitting-fan time.

But to your point on this example, if any of the people concerned are EU citizens it would be at least 3-5 instances of data breach depending on how harshly an EU/UK commissioner wanted to be. The first would be holding personal information without consent (to retain it). The second would be not notifying the people whose personal information it is, the use to which it will be put, the time it will be kept etc. The third would be having no clear records management process in place to handle it. The fourth would be *while knowing all the previous are true* sharing that personal information. And the fifth would be not reporting it to the relevant regulatory team/commissioner once the breach has been identified (In the UK that would be ICO).

Mailing lists are interesting from a GDPR point of view, because unless its entirely hosted and viewed online (which does happen more these days) anyone who retains a copy of the mailing list is handling the data contained therein. Not good from a GDPR point of view when there are 50 people storing copies of personal data on various devices unsecurely in various locations.

Thats before you get into the issue of if members of the mailing list are outside the EU and dont have a data sharing agreement in place, merely posting a message to a mailing list with PI in it will make you liable for further breaches.

If I wanted to absolutely stick the knife in, I would identify the members of the mailing list who are still active admins/advanced tool users/WMF staff, and any/all individuals who are EU residents, then report them to a commissioner.

[casualdejekyll]

Out of curiosity, would there be any interest in a 'Potential Autobiographers' section? I have a nearly complete archive in my email account of the unblock mailing list from 2007 to 2014, when we fully transitioned to UTRS. And unlike UTRS, where I had to identify to the foundation and agree to policies on handling personal information, I had to do none of that for the mailing list. I was just asked on IRC back in the day if I could help with backlog and added to the list, so I don't believe I'm breaking any sort of non-disclosure agreement. A fair bit of the activity was COI blocks and I at least find it somewhat interesting who was hired for what.

As an example: https://imgur.com/a/TSYxjiR

This sounds interesting. let's see if we can talk with you in PMs and get it working.

Regardless of what nondisclosure paperwork was or wasn't required, this strikes me as an outrageous violation of privacy.

I question the utility of sending off the whole thing to WPO, obviously, but I can certainly see a whistleblowing aspect as well. I'm on the fence

[orangepi]

As long as the archives aren't released in a way that I can see them, I think it's only a moderate violation of privacy.

As far as "is somebody possibly violating GDPR": it is only a slight exaggeration that GDPR criminalizes "being an American who knows the name of a European". So it is certain there is a possible violation.

As far as "does the fact that Wikimedia had an email list 15 years ago prove the WMF is criminal and should be shut down by European regulators": of course not.

[Midsize Jake]

Not to belabor this particular point, but am I in a minority of one here in thinking it should not be such a shameful thing for people to edit Wikipedia articles that are about themselves, especially if they're doing it "in good faith" and comply with the sourcing rules? I mean, sure, maybe it never happens that people do that without violating the sourcing rules, but if they were to respect those rules, I just think such people should have essentially the same access rights as everyone else.

As for setting up a new subforum here for that... I guess it would be easier to find names that way, but so far this thread is still just two pages. So at the very least, there's no rush...?

[Anroth]

As far as "does the fact that Wikimedia had an email list 15 years ago prove the WMF is criminal and should be shut down by European regulators": of course not.

That's not the issue, the issue is if they still have it. Anything predating GDPR would be out of scope unless they still retain the information. Which they probably do somewhere. Because they are easily demonstratable clownmonkeys.

Also knowing the name itself isn't a problem. It's having information that allows you to identify a person and/or being able to link that to an online account.

In the UK and large parts of the EU birth records etc are public from the point a person is registered. E.g. I can go look up the birth registration of any number of people and knowing that they exist, were registered at X etc wouldn't in itself be a breach of their personal data. However in the context of someone having to identify themselves via a private channel, and provide information that satisfies "yes I am this person and this username/account is me", and that information is retained longer than is necessary for that verification, it would be a breach. (This isn't new or anything, even under the predecessor of GDPR in the UK, the DPA, identification records were only kept as long as it took to flag the identity was confirmed and no longer than necessary. GDPR just strengthened that.)

[Mojito]

Not to belabor this particular point, but am I in a minority of one here in thinking it should not be such a shameful thing for people to edit Wikipedia articles that are about themselves, especially if they're doing it "in good faith" and comply with the sourcing rules? I mean, sure, maybe it never happens that people do that without violating the sourcing rules, but if they were to respect those rules, I just think such people should have essentially the same access rights as everyone else.

I agree. There have been several cases where someone trying to correct a basic factual error about themselves has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare for them.

A better option would be if the Edit Request system worked properly, but that won't happen anytime soon.

[Giraffe Stapler]

A better option would be if the Edit Request system worked properly, but that won't happen anytime soon.

To be fair to Wikipedia, they've only been dealing with this problem for 20-some years. I'm sure they have it on a list somewhere and they will think about a solution when they're done with more pressing concerns like turning their users into beta testers for their latest multi-year facelift.

[Vigilant]

A better option would be if the Edit Request system worked properly, but that won't happen anytime soon.

To be fair to Wikipedia, they've only been dealing with this problem for 20-some years. I'm sure they have it on a list somewhere and they will think about a solution when they're done with more pressing concerns like turning their users into beta testers for their latest multi-year facelift.

Slow down, there's still the work to be done on cleaning up the way the Thank Button looks.

[Hemiauchenia]

I'd be very surprised if Refreshinginfo (T-C-L) is not Roderick L. Evans (T-H-L), another example of the dreck that used to be dumped in article space prior to NPP upping their quality control.

[tarantino]

Admin Elonka (T-C-L) has written 22 percent of Elonka Dunin (T-H-L). Her last 500 edits go back a little more that three years, but she makes sure her bio is updated.

[rnu]

Admin Elonka (T-C-L) has written 22 percent of Elonka Dunin (T-H-L). Her last 500 edits go back a little more that three years, but she makes sure her bio is updated.

Except for the 17 year old photo.

[Hemiauchenia]

Dan Hicks (archaeologist) (T-H-L), as discussed at Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Dan_Hicks_(archaeologist) (T-H-L) this person appears to have used over half a dozen Wikipedia accounts to edit their own biography and add citations to their work since 2009.

[ArmasRebane]

Perhaps too afield of the topic, but the Signpost linked to this Slate article that profiles some of the navel-gazing Wikipedians who have made it their work to insert themselves into articles. I thought it rhymed nicely as a different reflection of the autobiography trend.

[greyed.out.fields]

Hjared (T-C-L)
Draft:Felipe Vasquez (T-H-L)
https://shop.thephoneupstudios.com/

[rnu]

Draft:Felipe Vasquez (T-H-L)
https://shop.thephoneupstudios.com/

A perfect illustration of fremdschämen.

[Giraffe Stapler]

Hjared (T-C-L)
Draft:Felipe Vasquez (T-H-L)
https://shop.thephoneupstudios.com/

*cough*MilesJ22 (T-C-L)*cough*

[rnu]

Hjared (T-C-L)
Draft:Felipe Vasquez (T-H-L)
https://shop.thephoneupstudios.com/

*cough*MilesJ22 (T-C-L)*cough*

That's a fun talk page. They work for Wikipedia:WIKIPROFESSIONALS (T-H-L).

[tarantino]

Ryan Shore (T-H-L), created more than 17 years ago by Wiki Manager (T-C-L), whose user page says they're Ryan Shore. Filmmusicfan (T-C-L) has made 234 edits since then, almost all of them having to do with Ryan Shore. He was finally blocked a couple of days ago from editing his autobiography by Cullen328.

[Giraffe Stapler]

Hjared (T-C-L)
Draft:Felipe Vasquez (T-H-L)
https://shop.thephoneupstudios.com/

*cough*MilesJ22 (T-C-L)*cough*

That's a fun talk page. They work for Wikipedia:WIKIPROFESSIONALS (T-H-L).

Looks like Felipe Vasquez doesn't give up that easily. Draft:Felipe Vasquez is back again. Phone Up Studios Inc (T-H-L) is live (catch it while you can).

Merry Xmas, Felipe!

[rnu]

Why do you not have the current information for Attorney Marcus Williams running for Governor of the State of N.C. https://WilliamsHouseUSA.com

www.WilliamsHouseUSA.com www.Hurriquake.us www.AttorneyMarcusWilliamsforGovernor.com Whittman (talk) 07:00, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

@Whittman: Has this been covered in reliable sources that are independent of Marcus Williams? If so WP:BE BOLD, and add it, with proper citation, not a citation to his own campaign website. ~Anachronist (talk) 07:52, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Actually, Whittman, Marcus Williams is already covered at 2024 North Carolina gubernatorial election, which is where unelected candidates should be mentioned. An unelected candidate is rarely notable enough for their own Wikipedia biography, unless they are already notable as something like an actor or billionaire or professional athlete or best selling author. You can find additional information at the Notability guideline for politicians and at Common outcomes. Cullen328 (talk) 08:12, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Maybe instead of encouraging the editor to BE BOLD or to try giving them some very basic information about notability Anachronist and Cullen 328 could have taken a quick look at who this is about. They might have noticed that the guy is called Marcus Whittman Williams. I'm sure the fact that an editor called Whittman (T-H-L) not only asks why there is no page for this guy (who seems to be a "perennial candidate), but also spams the question with campaign links is a complete coincidence.

[Ritchie333]

Stanton Williams (T-H-L)

Updated for quite a few years by Stanton Williams (T-C-L). Amazingly, talk page is red.

[The Blue Newt]

Stanton Williams (T-H-L)

Updated for quite a few years by Stanton Williams (T-C-L). Amazingly, talk page is red.

That one actually looks OK. Significant projects listed, rather than praised in day-glow bold; major prize just mentioned.

[AndyTheGrump]

Stanton Williams (T-H-L)

Updated for quite a few years by Stanton Williams (T-C-L). Amazingly, talk page is red.

That one actually looks OK. Significant projects listed, rather than praised in day-glow bold; major prize just mentioned.

The username violates Wikipedia policy.

[The Blue Newt]

Stanton Williams (T-H-L)

Updated for quite a few years by Stanton Williams (T-C-L). Amazingly, talk page is red.

That one actually looks OK. Significant projects listed, rather than praised in day-glow bold; major prize just mentioned.

The username violates Wikipedia policy.

Oh, yeah, unless this was just some person named that, who decided it would be fun to edit an article with that name, and only that, which I kinda doubt.

I was referring to the article, though. As business stubs, it’s well above average. Restrained, and only mentioning real achievements. Compared to the usual run of puff-pieces and hatchet jobs, it’s refreshing.

[rnu]

Stanton Williams (T-H-L)

Updated for quite a few years by Stanton Williams (T-C-L). Amazingly, talk page is red.

That one actually looks OK. Significant projects listed, rather than praised in day-glow bold; major prize just mentioned.

The username violates Wikipedia policy.

Oh, yeah, unless this was just some person named that, who decided it would be fun to edit an article with that name, and only that, which I kinda doubt.

I was referring to the article, though. As business stubs, it’s well above average. Restrained, and only mentioning real achievements. Compared to the usual run of puff-pieces and hatchet jobs, it’s refreshing.

Did you see how it looked before Ritchie took an axe to it?

[The Blue Newt]

Stanton Williams (T-H-L)

Updated for quite a few years by Stanton Williams (T-C-L). Amazingly, talk page is red.

That one actually looks OK. Significant projects listed, rather than praised in day-glow bold; major prize just mentioned.

The username violates Wikipedia policy.

Oh, yeah, unless this was just some person named that, who decided it would be fun to edit an article with that name, and only that, which I kinda doubt.

I was referring to the article, though. As business stubs, it’s well above average. Restrained, and only mentioning real achievements. Compared to the usual run of puff-pieces and hatchet jobs, it’s refreshing.

Did you see how it looked before Ritchie took an axe to it?

Ahh, that’s more like it! Pity they left out the bit about curing baldness and cancer.

[tarantino]

William Peskett (T-H-L), created by Wpeskett (T-C-L) in 2006. He stops by every now and then to update where he lives, but no one has ever talked to him.

[eppur si muove]

William Peskett (T-H-L), created by Wpeskett (T-C-L) in 2006. He stops by every now and then to update where he lives, but no one has ever talked to him.

Well he won an award that has an article and was in the same group of winners as Andrew Motion and Tom Paulin and had a collection published by Secker and Warburg which was an important publisher bringing out such books as Homage to Catalonia, Animal Farm and The Black Jacobins.

[tarantino]

Frederickleung (T-C-L) has been trying to create Frederick Koon-Shing Leung (T-C-L) since 2021. It finally stuck last August. No one ever talked to him personally or tried to discourage him, other than one user in 2021.

[rnu]

Unsure about this one.
Richard Smith (public historian) (T-H-L) is at DYK today. The hook looks like a stupid vanity quote:

... that public historian Richard Smith called Thoreau "the first punk rocker"?

The original hook proposal even more so:

... that public historian Richard Smith (pictured) has been called "The Punk Rocker Who 'Becomes' Thoreau"?

Then again stupid hooks at DYK are a dime a dozen.
Still, it looks like the classical vanity article of an autobiographer. It was written by HouseOfChange (T-C-L) who also uploaded four photos of Smith as "own work". All four can be found on Smith's facebook page and one of them looks like a selfie. Now this could be a case of someone not knowing how to properly attribute pictures, but HouseOfChange uploaded several other photos with proper attribution before and since. So far it looks like a clear case of an autobiographer. However HouseOfChange has been on Wikipedia since 16 March 2014, made 10,579 edits (including on subjects I would not expect from Smith) and only created the article on Smith on 13 January 2024‎.

[rnu]

One of the candidates in the 2024 Miami-Dade County mayoral election (T-H-L) is Manny Cid, the Republican mayor of Miami Lakes, Florida (T-H-L). There used to be an article about Cid until it was turned into a redirect to the mayoral election article following the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Manny Cid (T-H-L). Manny Cid is now complaining about the censorship (with conspiracy) on Wikipedia. So why post this here and not at Wikipedia in the News? Well, Cid made a little oopsie:

"One day, I come out with a contrast piece, just on policy, and then the next day, I get an email, you know, and I get an alert that my page is being deleted," Cid said. "So it’s one of those things that it’s hard to tell, I can’t start accusing people because I don’t have the proof, but it’s definitely interesting."

So why exactly did he get that alert? Because MEAUSA (T-C-L) who created the article is with near certainty Cid. The only articles MEAUSA ever edited are that of Cid, that of Miami Lakes and that of the Miami-Dade county election.

[rnu]

Stefan Stojanović (footballer, born 2001) (T-H-L) is a ridiculous promotion of article about a completely unnotable Bosnian-Serb football/soccer player playing in the third Serbian league. He is the only current player of his club to have an English Wikipedia article. Written by Sdjs95 (T-C-L). The account's only edits are on the English article, the Serbian article, the Wikidata entry and uploading pictures of Stojanović at Commons -- all made in December 2021 when Stojanović signed his first pro contract.

[tarantino]

Noah Robertson ‎ (T-H-L), created by Smurderer (T-C-L), who only edits articles related to Noah. He was warned by Diannaa that his user name might not be appropriate, and said "I would like to change my username I guess. Even though smurd is just drums backwards...". Noah is a drummer.

[Hemiauchenia]

The article on American molecular biologist and Rutgers University professor Richard H. Ebright (T-H-L) was created back in 2011 by an SPA Barton1234 (T-H-L), who has continued to sporadically edit the article (and only that article) as recently as a few days ago. I'm pretty convinced that Barton1234 is Ebright himself. As discussed on COIN in 2022 (Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_193#Richard_H._Ebright (T-H-L)) the name possibly originates from the late journalist Barton Reppert (who died before the article was created), who wrote several articles about Ebright.

Ebright is most notable recently for being an advocate of "lab leak hypothesis" origin for COVID-19. As detailed in a recent article in Science (https://www.science.org/content/article ... -19-origin) Ebright has engaged in pretty viscious personal attacks against researchers who have done research supporting an animal origin of COVID-19, as outlined in a formal complaint by 12 of them to Rutgers https://www.science.org/do/10.1126/scie ... 609023.pdf , which includes Tweets where he calls them fraudsters without any evidence, evil, and compares them to war criminals. Scientists are usually very mild mannered people, so Ebright's attacks seems very out of line, regardless of whatever one opines about the whole "lab leak" issue. It doesn't suprise me that someone willing to engage in conduct like that would be perfectly fine covertly editing their own Wikipedia article.

[tarantino]

I saw Yaakov Katz (journalist) (T-H-L) being interviewed about Israel's potential response to Iran, and wondered what his wikibio looked like. It was created by Chayabk (T-C-L), who is more than likely his spouse Chaya Bina-Katz. Also editing the bio is Yaakovk4562 (T-C-L) and Stevelinde (T-C-L).

Steve Linde (T-H-L) and Yaakov Katz were both editors-in-chief at The Jerusalem Post. The photo that Steve uploaded for his autobiography that he labels as his own work was taken by Marc Israel Sellem, the chief photographer for The Jerusalem Post. All of his other uploads to commons were deleted as copyvios, but that one escaped notice.

No one ever asked Stevelinde if he was Steve Linde.

[Giraffe Stapler]

I happened across the biography of Joseph Rescigno. It's quite something. Full of puffery, unnecessary detail, and obvious family pictures.

It's almost entirely the work of Valuenyc (T-C-L). They created it in 2007 and have been working on it ever since. By strange coincidence, Joseph Rescigno's wife Jeanne Rescigno had a business called "Value-Added Communication Services of New York City" which had a website at valuenyc.com.

[The Blue Newt]

Michael Patrick Coyle (T-H-L).

[Zoloft]

Michael Patrick Coyle (T-H-L).

aka Zarplod (T-C-L)

[Yngvadottir]

John Ratcliff (producer) (T-H-L), currently at AfD, with both an IP and Johnratcliff (T-C-L) arguing passionately in the first person. I've burnt 2 of my limited edits for the month trying to save it through redirection as an exercise in AGF; they promise an autobiography next year. Otherwise, as an on-wiki autobiography, I think the article is unusual mainly in that it ends with a PS.

[Giraffe Stapler]

John Ratcliff (producer) (T-H-L), currently at AfD, with both an IP and Johnratcliff (T-C-L) arguing passionately in the first person. I've burnt 2 of my limited edits for the month trying to save it through redirection as an exercise in AGF; they promise an autobiography next year. Otherwise, as an on-wiki autobiography, I think the article is unusual mainly in that it ends with a PS.

I would say delete it just because of the drum sound in the original Take On Me single.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTDNqW8rDxk

[rnu]

John Ratcliff (producer) (T-H-L), currently at AfD, with both an IP and Johnratcliff (T-C-L) arguing passionately in the first person. I've burnt 2 of my limited edits for the month trying to save it through redirection as an exercise in AGF; they promise an autobiography next year. Otherwise, as an on-wiki autobiography, I think the article is unusual mainly in that it ends with a PS.

Sometimes the band members would take a 75 yard shortcut across the adjacent warehouse roof to get into the studio, until Mags went through a roof!

You won't find that kind of stuff in Encyclopedia Britannica.

[The Garbage Scow]

John Ratcliff (producer) (T-H-L), currently at AfD, with both an IP and Johnratcliff (T-C-L) arguing passionately in the first person. I've burnt 2 of my limited edits for the month trying to save it through redirection as an exercise in AGF; they promise an autobiography next year. Otherwise, as an on-wiki autobiography, I think the article is unusual mainly in that it ends with a PS.

He's PISSED OFF!

How dare you propose to delete this article. I have nearly completed my autobiography which inevitably contains the entire story of how I rescued them when they had no money left and put them in my recording studio for 2 years without any return for another 12 months.

How dare you presume! You know nothing.

I.will take legal action if you have the cheek to remove this article.