Slate.com: Is User:Streeling actually Pete Buttigieg?

[Midsize Jake]

This isn't quite the sort of thing you typically see on Slate.com, but it's about a Democratic US Presidential candidate, so I guess it falls within their "wheelhouse":

Pete Buttigieg’s Campaign Says This Wikipedia User Is Not Pete. So Who Is It?
Tracking down the editor who tracks every move the South Bend mayor makes.

By Ashley Feinberg
Dec 20, 2019 6:20 PM

Complete with personally-identifying info about at least one WP user other than Streeling (T-C-L), the one alleged to be Buttigieg, and admin-leaked deleted content from WP, and yet another example of the classic "busted by the image metadata on Commons" scenario.

Also, judging by the reader comments so far, Slate readers are not impressed!

[BrillLyle]

Wow. That is VERY detailed. I almost fell asleep in parts, but that means it truly reflects the web of Wikipedia editing.

Thanks for posting this!

- Erika

[arthur]

Looks like Streeling has made only 7 edits in the last 7 years --- why so much interest in him/her?

[Moral Hazard]

Pete Buttigieg’s campaign says this wikipedia user is not Pete. So who is it? Tracking down the editor who tracks every move the South Bend mayor makes
Ashley Feinberg (T-H-L), Slate (T-H-L), 20 December 2019

Luckily for Buttigieg, there is at least one person carefully looking out for his needs on Wikipedia—someone who has followed his political career from its very beginning, and whose interests and connections track his own with eerie sympathy. This Wikipedia user was there to post the site’s first mention of Pete Buttigieg (T-H-L)’s political career in 2010, and to write the very first iteration of Pete Buttigieg’s Wikipedia page. They go by the username “Streeling (T-C-L).”
[....]
“I am not affiliated with this candidate’s campaign,” Streeling wrote after creating the original Pete Buttigieg Wikipedia page just hours after the 2011 South Bend mayoral race had been called in Buttigieg’s favor.

A Brief History of Streeling
Streeling appears to have first made their account in July of 2010, when they went to the page for Indiana elections and, as they notified other users, “added all the major statewide candidates, and referenced their various campaign sites.” One of those added candidates was Pete Buttigieg (T-H-L), who was running for state treasurer.

Before and after screenshot showing the addition of Pete Buttigieg as a candidate for treasurer.
Wikipedia
Streeling also took a bit of time that day to do some grammar-related tweaks on the Indiana State Treasurer (T-H-L) page, in addition to adding a few citations on various state government pages.

About a month later, still during the campaign for treasurer, Streeling made a few stimulus package–related edits. And another month after that, they updated literary scholar Terry Eagleton (T-H-L)’s page to note that he had spent a semester as a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame, in the English department where Buttigieg’s father had been teaching since 1980.

Later, in 2011, Streeling added the musician David Wax (T-H-L) to the notable alumni page for Deep Springs College (T-H-L), which Wax attended before enrolling in Harvard, where Pete Buttigieg got his undergraduate degree. Wax, notably, played at Buttigieg’s wedding. On his website, Wax described Buttigieg as “one of my oldest friends.”

Updating pages about notable alumni appears to be one of Streeling’s passions—especially when they are pages that have failed to recognize Mayor Pete Buttigieg. In 2011, for instance, Streeling added Buttigieg’s name (describing him as “Mayor-elect of South Bend, Indiana”) to the list of notable Rhodes Scholars (T-H-L) exactly one day after he’d won his mayoral campaign.
Six minutes later, Streeling also went on to create the page for Pete Buttigieg (T-H-L) on Wikipedia.

Back to the matter at hand, in a comment on this new page creation, Streeling (T-C-L) wrote that they had “created profile for a notable politician (bio needs developing however, too campaign-y in my opinion).” Another six minutes after that, Streeling (T-C-L) took to the Pete Buttigieg (T-H-L) Talk-page (where Wikipedia editors discuss any issues related to the entry) to expand on the fact that they definitely didn’t endorse the campaign-y tone of the page they had just finished writing:

I think this is a notable political figure, though I do think his bio needs more outside sources just to avoid any hint of campaigning. I am not affiliated with this candidate’s campaign, and put this up after his election was over.

They also noted that they “just wanted to emphasize that this wasn’t intended as some sort of campaign product.”

Next, Streeling went on to update the notable alumni entry for Buttigieg on the page for St. Joseph High School (T-H-L), changing “Democratic nominee” to “Mayor-elect.” And exactly one day after Buttigieg assumed office in January of 2012, Streeling changed the qualifier to read simply “Mayor.” A few weeks later, Streeling added Mayor Pete to Wikipedia’s page for notable Buttigieg (T-H-L)s—between Australian rugby player John Buttigieg (T-H-L) and Maltese poet Ray Buttigieg (T-H-L)—bringing the total number up to a whopping five notable Buttigiegs.

In addition to all these, there were a few other minor edits, a brief tussle with another Wikipedia editor over the deletion of the Peter Buttigieg page (Streeling had wanted to create a redirect from “Peter” to “Pete,” but we’ll return to this in a bit), and some tweaks to the Pete Buttigieg entry itself.

In January 2012, Streeling decided to do a little cleanup on the Wikipedia page for Andrei Cherny (T-H-L), a former consultant who had joined the Clinton administration at age 21 as one of the youngest White House speechwriters.
[....]
More recently, in February of 2014, Streeling also did some minor upkeep on the Wikipedia page for Skagen Denmark (T-H-L), a Fossil-owned watch company. A few years later, Buttigieg’s then-boyfriend, Chasten Glezman (T-H-L), would propose to him with none other than a Skagen watch.

Enter Hanumang06 (T-C-L)
Before Streeling built the Pete Buttigieg (T-H-L) page in 2011, a user named Hanumang06 (T-C-L) created a “Peter Buttigieg (T-H-L)” page in July of 2010. It was deleted less than a month after its creation because of Buttigieg’s then lack of notability. In the discussion preceding that deletion, one Wikipedia editor noted a comment Hanumang06 had made while uploading a photo of Buttigieg. “This is a biography created by his campaign staff using a picture from his campaign,” Hanumang06 wrote.

Before uploading the photo himself, Hanumang06’s first act on Wikipedia was to make a request on Wikipedia’s “Files for upload” page, which allows unregistered or less experienced users to request that someone else upload a file on their behalf.

A screenshot in which Hanumang06 (T-C-L) asserts that the photograph is being uploaded "at the direct behest of Peter Buttigieg himself."
Hanumang06 (T-C-L) and Streeling (T-C-L) share a number of similarities beyond their belief that Pete or Peter Buttigieg deserved Wikipedia enshrinement. While arguing against the deletion of the Peter Buttigieg page, Hanumang06 (T-C-L) referenced none other than Andrei Cherny (T-H-L) as part of his effort to defend Buttigieg’s notability.

A Wikipedia comment in which Hanumang06 argues that Buttigieg and Cherny are equally notable. And like Streeling (T-C-L), Hanumang06 (T-C-L) made a point to distance himself from the subject at hand, writing in the deletion discussion that he is “not Pete Buttigieg by the way.”

While both the edit logs and the original Peter Buttigieg page itself are hidden from the average Wikipedia user (as is the case with all deleted pages), a Wikipedia admin who requested anonymity to avoid blowback shared that deleted content with Slate.
The text of Hanumang06’s short-lived creation is nearly identical to the text Streeling would use in creating the Pete Buttigieg page over a year later. So who is Hanumang06 (T-C-L)?

Googling the username will lead you to a college message board where, in 2006, Neehar Garg (T-H-L) of South Bend, Indiana, (T-H-L) posted his AOL Instant Messenger (T-H-L) handle: Hanumang06. I reached out to Garg, who declined to talk on the phone but did confirm that he was Hanumang06 (T-C-L) and, several emails later, also claimed ownership of the Streeling (T-C-L) account, which was created the day after Hanumang06 (T-C-L)’s last recorded edit.

Garg has declined to go on the record to discuss any details related to the accounts and their activity, including to what degree he was affiliated with Buttigieg’s treasurer and mayoral campaigns, if at all. When I asked the Buttigieg campaign about Garg’s relationship to past campaigns, Meagher wrote, “I believe he volunteered with the treasurer’s race but never in paid capacity, and was not involved in the mayoral campaign.”

What does it all mean?
When I asked Meagher whether he was saying definitively that the Streeling account had no connection to Buttigieg and that Buttigieg did not know whose it was, Meagher replied, “Right. He does not know whose it is.” And when I asked whether Buttigieg has ever asked staffers to edit Wikipedia on his behalf, or has ever known about any staffers who had done so, Meagher replied simply, “No and no.”

It seems worth noting here that Pete Buttigieg (T-H-L) is one of only seven people currently following Garg on Instagram (both attended St. Joseph High School, though Garg is about six years younger).

Buttigieg’s treasury campaign was also fully aware that at least something on Wikipedia was happening on his behalf. The photo Hanumang06 uploaded, which he claimed was being uploaded “at the direct behest of Pete Buttigieg himself,” now has a permission box beneath it noting that “Wikimedia Foundation has received an e-mail confirming that the copyright holder has approved publication.” While most users can’t view the actual correspondence in which permission was granted, a Wikipedia user with the necessary permissions shared a screenshot of the correspondence with Slate. That email, which was sent from pete@peteforindiana.com, begins with the following line:

I hereby affirm that I, Peter Buttigieg, am the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of the photo PeteButtigieg.JPG, a headshot of myself, found on wikipedia at http://en.wikipeida.org/wiki/File:PeteButtigieg.JPG.

The email is signed, “Peter Buttigieg, Copyright Holder, July 14, 2010.”

[....]
[...] Mayor Pete is, for whatever reason, trying to conceal the truth about his relationship to Wikipedia. If you have any information about Streeling or any other potentially candidate-linked Wikipedia accounts, please email me.

The article Deep Springs College (T-H-L) lacks a discussion of homosexuality.
https://scholar.google.se/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22Deep+Springs+College%22%2C+gay+OR+homosexuality+OR+homosexual&btnG=

[Bezdomni]

Wow, this story is incredibly flat. After all, Pete's page was largely written by SecretName101 (T-C-L) & Neutrality (T-H-L)...

Slate would have done better to look into the history of the Tulsi Gabbard BLP (created by tgtfriend (T-C-L)) where all the knives & band-aids have been out for quite some time now.

It would be interesting to see if Samp4ngeles (T-C-L) and Xenagoras (T-C-L) agreed to be interviewed (among others).

like, say,

• Dan the Plumber (T-C-L)
• Bulldog Antz (T-C-L) or
• The Bone Dorchester (T-C-L)

Samp's contribs from a D.C. IP are pretty curious too.

[Poetlister]

If User:Streeling is Pete Buttigieg, it would be somewhat embarrassing for him - COI undeclared and so forth. You can see why his opponents, whether Republicans or rival Democrats, would want to demonstrate the connection. But the case is not exactly well proven; to put it bluntly, it's a lead balloon.

[Pudeo]

Seems like the addition of the Slate article in Pete Buttigieg's article has not just been reverted but oversighted with no log entry. Pretty odd if all it had was the Slate article.

[ArmasRebane]

The article is really weird in that they seemed to have figured out the truth—that the bio was started by someone who at one point worked on Buttigieg's campaign—and yet, realizing that's not actually news-worthy, still suggest that Buttigieg is editing his bio, despite their own evidence arguing against it. Getting releases for images ain't really noteworthy; editors cold-call people or representatives about that kind of stuff all the time.

The only really interesting part of this article is that a trusted permissions user leaked privileged information from the system to a reporter. If there are server logs for access (I assume there are) it should be pretty easy for at least the Foundation, if so inclined, to figure out who the leaker was.

[Midsize Jake]

I'm not a big fan of Pete Buttigieg, but when you get right down to it, the situation with his article isn't significantly worse (or more embarrassing) than what you see with the article about Tom Steyer (T-H-L), which was created in July 2010 by a User:Helloaloe (T-C-L), who looks very much like a paid PR guy and whose user page carries a sock puppet ban notice (which says the account is a sock of banned User:An-Apple-A-NY-Day (T-C-L)). That's kind of embarrassing, right? And I'd also tend to agree with Mr. Bezdomni's suggestion that the history of the Tulsi Gabbard (T-H-L) BLP is significantly more interesting.

The fact is, Buttigieg is (or was) leading the polls in Iowa, and the progressive wing among the Democrats sees him as too centrist, a kind of "Joe Biden-lite," so it's knives-out for him I guess. That, or they secretly think he's unelectable because of his sexual orientation alone but don't want to admit it.

Anyhoo, that's politics for you — if Steyer were in the lead, maybe they'd do the same sort of article about him. (Except that he's a billionaire, so he'd probably get a pass.)

[Pudeo]

The Signpost has also been censored as the Slate article has been oversighted without a log entry (though it's still indirectly linked through a Twitter link):
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/In the media (T-H-L)

Discussion at ANI about the oversight.

[Giraffe Stapler]

The Signpost has also been censored as the Slate article has been oversighted without a log entry (though it's still indirectly linked through a Twitter link):
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/In the media (T-H-L)

Discussion at ANI about the oversight.

It is interesting to watch history being revised by folks like TonyBallioni. In the past, if a newspaper printed someone's Wikipedia username it was treated as just another fact like birth date or spouse. If it was relevant it could be included in an article about that person. Oversighting links to a reliable source speculating about a public figure's user name is ridiculous. Someone needs to keep hammering away at the farcical "but it is outing" nonsense until people understand that Wikipedia's outing rules have no power in the real world.

[Pudeo]

It is interesting to watch history being revised by folks like TonyBallioni. In the past, if a newspaper printed someone's Wikipedia username it was treated as just another fact like birth date or spouse. If it was relevant it could be included in an article about that person. Oversighting links to a reliable source speculating about a public figure's user name is ridiculous. Someone needs to keep hammering away at the farcical "but it is outing" nonsense until people understand that Wikipedia's outing rules have no power in the real world.

That is bizarre especially given that Hanumang06 (T-C-L) has last edited in 2010, and it's him who they are supposedly protecting, since it makes even less sense if this is done to "protect" Buttigieg. Hanumang06 is not even a member of the community anymore, but they're doing drastic actions to get the genie back in the bottle.

The other discussion is here: Wikipedia talk:Harassment#Mainspace_outing (T-H-L)

[Bezdomni]

I've been sort of following that discussion. It's true that at Criticism of Wikipedia, Essjay is not named in his section (just a headshot is provided). I find it harder to accept that if it were shown tomorrow by the NYT that, say, the Snoog was, let's say, Chelsea Clinton, that that information would stay out of Wikipedia. Now of course, that is unlikely to be the case (I assume the latter is far too busy to edit wp); still, it should give anyone pause that such information might very well be treated as "outing full stop" by en.wp bureaucrats, unless Snoog hammered it to their welcome screen.

Seasons greetings to all! (even to the snoox, busily scrivening away)

Regarding scrivening, I shouldn't talk. I made a Christmas day contribution to the letterbox myself. I imagine one of the Brads will be along to fix it shortly...

correction: reading again, I see Essjay is named, contrary to what I thought on first reading... (BLP1E?)

[Earthy Astringent]

Indeff everyone.

[Poetlister]

The WMF is keen to cover up anything that might be embarrassing to them. It is well known that if someone gets an article for being an employee of WMF, and then the person gets a criminal record or something, that person's article quietly vanishes.

[Earthy Astringent]

The WMF is keen to cover up anything that might be embarrassing to them. It is well known that if someone gets an article for being an employee of WMF, and then the person gets a criminal record or something, that person's article quietly vanishes.

Example?

[Poetlister]

The WMF is keen to cover up anything that might be embarrassing to them. It is well known that if someone gets an article for being an employee of WMF, and then the person gets a criminal record or something, that person's article quietly vanishes.

Example?

Carolyn Doran

[Poetlister]

The story has legs, as they say. It's now in the Washington Post.

[Poetlister]

Slate reported in December that the Wikipedia article for 2020 Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg was created by Neehar Garg, a former volunteer for one of his state campaigns. While Garg admitted to Slate that he operated the accounts responsible for Buttigieg’s page, Wikipedia administrators used their advanced privileges to censor mentions of the report from both Buttigieg’s article and other parts of Wikipedia, claiming it was to protect Garg’s identity.

Breitbart

[Bezdomni]

Interestingly, the TP mention remains...

WPO has a thread on this Slate article too.


Moderator's Note: Threads merged.