This may be a stupid question, but can someone point me towards the history behind this Wik chap? There's a lot of references now, but it seems to just predate me...
Wik ([[User:Wik]]) was a Wikipedian dedicated to the point of obsession. He mostly made very good edits, but was somewhat brittle and abrasive. Eventually he got pissed off with another user doing things to his talk page and wanted it *stopped*, and eventually wrote a nasty vandalbot to do just that ([[User:Vandalbot]]). He returned as [[User:Gzornenplatz]], but continued to be abrasive in the same way, and ended up at the AC. It turned out he was definitely Wik. He came back again as [[User:NoPuzzleStranger]], editing from open proxies; and continued okay for a while, but then was abrasive again in exactly the same way; then Lucky 6.9 noticed that "NoPuzzleStranger" was an anagram of "User Gzornenplatz". Then he (just recently) started a bot to watch particular pages and create a new username and edit them the moment they were unlocked. Fun stuff.
He's firmly dedicated to Wikipedia and still makes mostly good edits. However, he (a) has great problems working well with others (b) does nasty things when he doesn't get his way. So he isn't very well favoured.
(Any details above incorrect, please correct!)
- d.
"David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote in message news:fbad4e140510130856u71d295e2xa76cb1bdaca039c9@mail.gmail.com...
This may be a stupid question, but can someone point me towards the history behind this Wik chap? There's a lot of references now, but it seems to just predate me...
[nice little potted history of the [[Wik]] affair snipped]
Am I alone in thinking this really should be recorded somewhere for posterity, if not on :en: then maybe on :meta:?
I would also like to have access to similar potted histories for [[Michael]], [[Lir]] and [[Plautus Satire]] (although I understand [[Michael]] is undergoing some sort of rehabilitation now?) whose names crop up repeatedly with the assumption that everybody knows who they are and what they did.
On 10/13/05, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
"David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote in message news:fbad4e140510130856u71d295e2xa76cb1bdaca039c9@mail.gmail.com...
This may be a stupid question, but can someone point me towards the history behind this Wik chap? There's a lot of references now, but it seems to just predate me...
[nice little potted history of the [[Wik]] affair snipped]
Am I alone in thinking this really should be recorded somewhere for posterity, if not on :en: then maybe on :meta:?
I would also like to have access to similar potted histories for [[Michael]], [[Lir]] and [[Plautus Satire]] (although I understand [[Michael]] is undergoing some sort of rehabilitation now?) whose names crop up repeatedly with the assumption that everybody knows who they are and what they did.
I would like to second this. Oh, and a page for Treason, who crops up with the same sort of notriety.
On the other hand, it is recorded (for some value of posterity) right here on the mailing list. I don't know if my motivation is that of a concerned Wikipedian learning from history or of a thrillseeking scandalmonger. Probably both :)
C'mon, old-timers, set the record straight :)
stefan (user: Kiaparowits)
-- Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 10/13/05, Stefan Sittler kiaparowits@gmail.com wrote:
I would like to second this. Oh, and a page for Treason, who crops up with the same sort of notriety.
[[User:Mr. Treason]]
-- geni
On 10/13/05, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
I would also like to have access to similar potted histories for [[Michael]], [[Lir]] and [[Plautus Satire]] (although I understand [[Michael]] is undergoing some sort of rehabilitation now?) whose names crop up repeatedly with the assumption that everybody knows who they are and what they did. --
You can probably find out quite a lot using the obvious links and working backwards:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Completed_re...
David Gerard wrote:
This may be a stupid question, but can someone point me towards the history behind this Wik chap? There's a lot of references now, but it seems to just predate me...
Wik ([[User:Wik]]) was a Wikipedian dedicated to the point of obsession. He mostly made very good edits, but was somewhat brittle and abrasive. Eventually he got pissed off with another user doing things to his talk page and wanted it *stopped*, and eventually wrote a nasty vandalbot to do just that ([[User:Vandalbot]]). He returned as [[User:Gzornenplatz]], but continued to be abrasive in the same way, and ended up at the AC. It turned out he was definitely Wik. He came back again as [[User:NoPuzzleStranger]], editing from open proxies; and continued okay for a while, but then was abrasive again in exactly the same way; then Lucky 6.9 noticed that "NoPuzzleStranger" was an anagram of "User Gzornenplatz".
[Snip]
(Any details above incorrect, please correct!)
Slight expansion: we (the Arbitration Committee) banned him for a week for a few personal attacks; during this time, several highly immature editors kept vandalising Wik's page (certainly, as he saw it), taunting him for being banned. Understandably, Wik got rather upset (I do not in any way condone his subsequent actions, though). It wasn't just that they were "doing things" to his talk page, it was that they were doing it and he couldn't respond.
Anyway, enough of this. We've current work to do. There's no use just reminiscing about the good old days when I could actually recognise more than 20% of the sysops as such.
Yours sincerely,