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 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 Editor,

…continue reading Nihonjoe Has Been Naughty