Likely COI editing by wanted fugitive

[Hemiauchenia]

On the 6 January 2016, the Wikipedia article for the Brazilian contemporary artist Christian Rosa (T-H-L) was created by Panghea (T-C-L), a brand new user who had made no prior edits. After surving a AfD initiated the next day Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christian Rosa (T-H-L) that resulted in "no consensus", Panghea continued to sporadically update the article for the next few years, making no edits to any other article. Given the tone of the editing there are good reasons to think that whoever operates the Panghea account is closely associated with Rosa, if not Rosa himself.

Rosa was once a rising star the art world, reaching his apex in 2014, when one of his paintings sold for $206,000, but he began to lose relevance thereafter.

In January 2021, Artnet News (a respected publication in the art world) ran a bombshell story suggesting that Christian Rosa had taken a partially completed painting from the workshop of artist Raymond Pettibon (T-H-L), had forged the rest of the painting, and consigned the painting to the secondary art market claiming he was the owner. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/wet-p ... on-1940051 Another story in Artnet released the next month suggested that Rosa had stolen and forged multiple paintings from Pettibon's workshop https://news.artnet.com/art-world/wet-p ... ks-1943109

These allegations were only added to article in July, by infrequently active user Forsooth1234 (T-C-L) Panghea then removed these allegations with the misleading edit summary "Minor edit + incl. sculptures" https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1036025512, these were then added again by an IP and Forsooth1234 and again repeatedly removed by Panghea who claimed the additions were "libellous", before the initiation of an edit war between myself and Panghea. Another AfD was opened, which closed as keep. Over the next several months, Panghea and Forsooth continued to sporadically edit war to alternatively add and remove the allegations.

On the 13 October 2021, Rosa was federally indicted by the FBI on the charge of forging Pettibon's paintings in a scheme operating from 2017 to 2020. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/ma ... d-pettibon The indictment states that after the initial allegations came out in January, Rosa had fled the Unites States in February 2021, with his current whereabouts unknown. A November story in Vanity Fair suggests he is likely in hiding in Portugal. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/1 ... appearance

[Midsize Jake]

Well, they've got a WP:COISELF policy, but not WP:WANTEDFUGITIVESELF or WP:CRIMINALSELF. Even if they did, they'd have some liability potential for calling Rosa a criminal before he's convicted, wouldn't they? And nobody is accusing him of pedophilia or sending death threats to various people on the internet, AFAIK, so reporting it to Trust & Safety would be even more pointless than it normally would be.

Long story short, I guess I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the Faithful to do anything about this unless he violates 3RR or something like that.

[Zoloft]

I probably sound like a broken record by now, but this would make a nice blog post.

[Giraffe Stapler]

Long story short, I guess I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the Faithful to do anything about this unless he violates 3RR or something like that.

And now he is blocked from editing his own article. El C blocked him with the edit summary of "WP:COI" and left the following notice on his page:

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing certain areas of the encyclopedia for violations to the conflict of interest guideline (conflict of interest disclosure requests above left unreplied). Note that you still retain the ability to use the article talk page (Talk:Christian Rosa), which thus far has seen zero comments, from anyone.

We think you have a conflict of interest and since you didn't admit it when we asked, we are blocking you. Nice. Of course, Hemiauchenia is totally right, they are obviously Christian Rosa, but the block is unusual.

[Giraffe Stapler]

I probably sound like a broken record by now, but this would make a nice blog post.

It would be much more interesting if Panghea/Rosa had edited after the indictment. This is more a case of person who wrote their own self-promotional Wikipedia article is now a fugitive.

[Hemiauchenia]

I probably sound like a broken record by now, but this would make a nice blog post.

It would be much more interesting if Panghea/Rosa had edited after the indictment. This is more a case of person who wrote their own self-promotional Wikipedia article is now a fugitive.

What I found interesting is that Panghea/Rosa was editing while his whereabouts were unknown only a month prior to the indictment, if he's not smart and used a VPN, potentially his IP address could reveal his location.

[Giraffe Stapler]

I probably sound like a broken record by now, but this would make a nice blog post.

It would be much more interesting if Panghea/Rosa had edited after the indictment. This is more a case of person who wrote their own self-promotional Wikipedia article is now a fugitive.

What I found interesting is that Panghea/Rosa was editing while his whereabouts were unknown only a month prior to the indictment, if he's not smart and used a VPN, potentially his IP address could reveal his location.

He's definitely not smart, but if he stays out of the US and stays of trouble wherever he is, he's probably fine for a few years at least. I don't think he's high on the FBI's list of fugitives. They won't be subpoenaing Wikipedia for his IP address. He will likely be turned in by one of his friends in the art world and ultimately extradited to face charges.

[Hemiauchenia]

I probably sound like a broken record by now, but this would make a nice blog post.

If you are serious I am happy to gives this a proper write up as a blogpost. The last post was 6 months ago, so it would be good to add something new

[Zoloft]

I probably sound like a broken record by now, but this would make a nice blog post.

If you are serious I am happy to gives this a proper write up as a blogpost. The last post was 6 months ago, so it would be good to add something new

I am serious.
I would enjoy a blog post a month, as we did back years ago.

[Hemiauchenia]

I probably sound like a broken record by now, but this would make a nice blog post.

If you are serious I am happy to gives this a proper write up as a blogpost. The last post was 6 months ago, so it would be good to add something new

I am serious.
I would enjoy a blog post a month, as we did back years ago.

How do you want me to send it to you? Do you need me to format the links etc?

[Zoloft]

I probably sound like a broken record by now, but this would make a nice blog post.

If you are serious I am happy to gives this a proper write up as a blogpost. The last post was 6 months ago, so it would be good to add something new

I am serious.
I would enjoy a blog post a month, as we did back years ago.

How do you want me to send it to you? Do you need me to format the links etc?

My replies are in the PM.

[Midsize Jake]

I decided to try the fancy Wordpress scheduling feature this time around, probably because I thought it might make me seem ostensibly more clever than I actually am. Whether or not it does, this means that the blog post discussed above should magically appear at 7AM Pacific Time, which (if I'm not mistaken) is about 5 hours from now, give or take.

It's largely based on the initial post in this thread by Mr. Hemiauchenia, with just a few relatively minor additions/changes, so I figured there was little need to start a separate thread just to announce it. But if someone would prefer that just for the sake of consistency, I don't think we'd object.

[el84]

I decided to try the fancy Wordpress scheduling feature this time around, probably because I thought it might make me seem ostensibly more clever than I actually am. Whether or not it does, this means that the blog post discussed above should magically appear at 7AM Pacific Time, which (if I'm not mistaken) is about 5 hours from now, give or take.

It's largely based on the initial post in this thread by Mr. Hemiauchenia, with just a few relatively minor additions/changes, so I figured there was little need to start a separate thread just to announce it. But if someone would prefer that just for the sake of consistency, I don't think we'd object.

Noting that it has appeared to have... appeared so it seems to have worked.