[WikiEN-l] DW deliberately 'vandalising' an article

[james duffy]

It may just be a once off, but it is worth keeping an eye out for. One of 
DW's many arguments with Zoe rested her (correct) decision to put in a 
country of orgin next to a person's details. He screamed blue murder and 
obscenities about this. At 5.06am GMT (Monday, Jan 27) DW 'doctored' an 
article on George Washington to add in the word ''British'' to describe the 
first US president, with a note that said

                      ''inserting nationality as per rules asserted 
repeatedly by Zoe . . . DW''

Hopefully it is a rather childish once off bit of vandalism, but it is worth 
keeping an eye out just in case. Being rude, obnoxious and offensive is one 
thing (apparently I'm now a 'phoney', so he has obviously reached P in his 
dictionary!) but deliberately tampering with articles out of spite is a more 
serious matter. If that is his standard of behaviour, does Wiki really need 
DW? Has the time come for a ban, even a short one, to bring him to his 
senses.

JT

>From: Lee Pilich <pilich at btopenworld.com>
>Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] DW continues to win friends
>Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 01:08:02 +0000
>
>At 16:47 25/01/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>
>>Check out my talk page.  Not only has DW attacked me as a moron, but he 
>>has specifically mentioned Jtdirl and and Deb as morons.  And you've 
>>already seen what he's had to say about Magnus Manske.  And then check out 
>>[[Wikipedia talk:Tokerboy's Law]] and [[Talk:Georges Seurat]].
>>
>>Zoe
>
>Yes, I'm afraid things have got to the stage where I simply don't edit DW's 
>contributions for fear of getting into a big and stupid and pointless 
>argument with him (I really commend Zoe for taking him on, because it's a 
>completely unenviable task). He writes some pretty good biographies 
>(although they are *pure* biography - he'll tell you where a poet studied 
>and what she had for breakfast in 1917, but won't tell you much about her 
>poems), but I tend to think that he's more trouble than he's worth. I've 
>completely lost my rag with him a couple of times, which I'm not proud of, 
>but he does have this tremendous knack of getting up people's noses.
>
>I'm not saying we should ban him, but it would be nice if somebody who 
>doesn't hate him as much as I do and who maybe hasn't had dealings with him 
>before could have a go at asking him to be polite, consider that the 'pedia 
>is a work in progress, that he doesn't "own" the pages he writes, and that 
>sort of thing. I'm really worried that he's going to drive new users away 
>(and maybe some old ones as well).
>
>Good luck to anybody who tries to talk to him.
>
>lp (camembert)
>
>WikiKarma: [[Frank Stella]] (a couple of days old, but I've been really 
>busy in the real world)
>
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