Trollwatcher

This user has been blocked indefinitely from editing Wikipedia. (see: block log • contributions • deleted contributions • page moves • current autoblocks)

Why Blocked ?

My user page has been deleted. My Username has been blocked and so has my IP address. Could someone explain what's going on as I can't work out why. Is this vandalism ? Can someone put things back to normal ? Trollwatcher 10:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Im getting the following message when I try to edit: Your user name or IP address has been blocked from editing. You were blocked by Musical Linguist for the following reason (see our blocking policy): "Contribs show collaboration w. John1838 & Trollwatcher, who collected info about other editors, and apparently contributed to and posted links to website that attacks and identifies editors."

But none of this makes any sense. Can someone explain what's happened. Thanks Trollwatcher 16:08, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Hello Trollwatcher. There were some users blocked last week for spreading personal identification about Wikipedia members, which is considered a personal attack. Most of the original discussion is at original WP:ANI discussion. An administrator called User:pgk is looking into your situation to see if you were blocked unfairly or not. There is new discussion about this on his talk page as well as on mine. We will be getting back to you as we learn more. Please be patient as this may take some time while we contact the admin who originally blocked you. Thank you, Johntex\^talk 19:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Unblock denied. You have been inserting links to a site that attacks and reveals undisclosed personal information about other Wikipedians; the links have now been deleted, but the deleted edits don't lie. This type of conduct will not be tolerated, and the block will not be lifted. Essjay ^{Talk • Contact} 19:45, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Essjay - there is plenty of evidence that this user was part of the personal attack. Blocking indefinitely is the right thing to do. Johntex\^talk 19:35, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Please see below. Evidence disputed. Trollwatcher 18:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I now understand what’s going on. I have done a bit of research and have several points to make. First, some important context. Second, my account of the whole [Name of website removed by Musical Linguist] event. Third some observations about how broken and open to abuse the whole blocking process is. Fourth, some requests.

First, Some Important Context. AnnH is a zealous Christian who has been tackled by many editors in the past about her POV edits and systematic bias as an Administrator. She does not take well to any mention of her bias and has a record of finding excuses to ban any editor who mentions it. It is no secret that I, Simple Pilgrim, KH30, and Alenius share this view along with KV and pretty much all non-Christians who have tried to edit articles concerned with Christianity, and also whoever runs the [Name removed by Musical Linguist] website. She had tried to ban all of us and is currently warring with KV and Alienus. She has a long record of banning those who disagree with her unusually strong religious views.

Second: Here’s a chronology of what I believe happened:

1. The [Name of website removed by Musical Linguist] website appeared some weeks or months ago

2. It was drawn to my attention (on a Wikipedia talk page) in early April

3. Some time before Easter AnnH accused me, without any evidence, of running the [Name removed by Musical Linguist] website. I denied this, mentioning the site by name specifically to confirm which website she was referring to, and adding that I might well contribute to it in the future. (This is the edit referred to by Essjay above. for some reason AnnH has since removed this exchange which from memory was on the Christianity talk page)

• Essjay actually refers to more than one deleted edit, the edit you speak of actually said.

  On your other point, I don't do attacks, just exposés of abuse. Having said that, and assuming that you're talking about this rather interesting website <link to the site in question>, I think it's pretty much on the button, and I'll be more than happy to put my name to any invitations I make for people to take a look at it. Incidentally, I believe it's modelled on an earlier Wiki page that your friends managed to get deleted rather than take the trouble to refute. I guess this is another chance for you to do so now. Trollwatcher 14:55, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

  The other comment about 24 hours before that one was on a user talk page:

  Would appreciate your comments on this website <link to external site in question>

--pgk^(talk) 12:19, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

4. Some time later, on or around Good Friday, a link was posted on the [Name removed by Musical Linguist] website to a Wikipedia user’s website which confirmed that the user’s mission was to convert the whole world to his brand of Christianity. It is alleged, and I have no reason to doubt it, that further links from this site led to other web pages which contained personal information.

5. Soon afterwards, one or more people contacted either the person concerned or his employer or both (accounts seem to be contradictory). Alternatively up to three sockpuppets posted harrassing text on someone's user page. (Perhaps significantly, all of these accusations have been made by AnnH and her zealous Christian friends who are trying to censor criticism, so it is difficult to know how much trust can be put in them)

6. According to the [Name removed by Musical Linguist] site neither AnnH nor anyone else approached approached them asking for the offending link to be removed - which is absolutely extraordinary if what she claims is true.

7. Since then, AnnH and her zealous Christian friends have sought to make the most of the various unsubstantiated accusations - for example using wording that can easily be misinterpreted as meaning that the [Name removed by Musical Linguist] site itself published all manner of personal information. Also banning anyone who mentioned the offending website, even though (as far as I know) none of them (and certainly not me) have been shown to be connected with the [Name removed by Musical Linguist] website, much less any abuse of information contained on other sites. It may be significant that they have also tried to have the site classified as spam, which it is not, and as an attack site which again it is not.

The key point here is that connection between me and any wrongdoing that did happen is so tenuous as to be non-existent. How can anyone be held responsible for what might appear on someone else’s website at anytime in the future ?

Third. Some Observations.

It is wholly inappropriate for AnnH to act like this in cases where she has a clear personal interest, especially as she has sought to present her one-sided case on another page where I might not have seen it. I have copied AnnH’s accusations from elsewhere, and annotated them in blue.

Extract from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Johntex under “SimplePilgrim unblock request” dated 21st April 2006.

I read your message to Trollwatcher, which led me here. I have been in touch with a bureaucrat with usercheck access about this, and have copied e-mails to Jimbo. I'm on holidays at the moment, and am typing lots of messages from my hotel room, and may lose internet access shortly, but for the moment I will say that there was and still is a huge problem with sockpuppetry and revert warring at the Christianity article [true but misleading: I have never been implicated in this]. The sockpuppetry was established and some accounts were blocked [not mine]. Around this time, a few users started showing up on Wikipedia in support of the culprits, gathering "case studies" about how the established editors were persecuting them. [Not true, I have never supported any known sockpuppets. My criticisms are nothing to do with this]. One such user was John1838, whose user page was deleted as an attack page. [First part not true, I do not believe that John was ever even accused of being a sockpuppet, apart from the one famous occasion when all non-Christians were falsely accused of being sockpuppets of Giovani33]. He created it again, and it was deleted again and protected. He then registered a new account as J1838, and created a user page with the same material. It was deleted, and he asked for a deletion review, which was unsuccessful [I’m not defending John, but the review was packed by AnnH's friends. (Also, I notice that John's own defence has been mysteriously deleted, like every thing else that AnnH prefers not to see]. Trollwatcher took part in the same attacks <font="blue">[what does this mean? What attacks ? Evidence? Examples ?]. He claimed on the Christianity talk page to be gathering evidence about the "Trolls" (i.e. the Christian editors). [Not all Christian editors – only the ones, like AnnH, who behaved like trolls]. He made the same kind of posts as John1838, and didn't really contribute to articles, except to add the same external links to various articles — which were usually deleted by other editors. [I don’t understand this or its significance]. An anonymous user posted links to a website on 6 April. This website was based on the deleted user page of John1838, and on the accusations that Trollwatcher had made [and could therefore have been created by anyone, since all the material was publicly available. Although John’s user page had been deleted, the same material remained on his talk page, presumably until that page was deleted just a few days ago)]. It named several Wikipedian editors, and criticized them heavily.[Note that “named” here can only refer to usernames. The criticism was admittedly heavy, but perfectly fair – and of course it included AnnH]. It did not give their real names at that time. One of the users who received that message (King Vegita) assumed that it was from Trollwatcher, and answered the post at Trollwatcher's talk page. [true]. Trollwatcher showed no signs of being puzzled. [false – KV’s entry also appeared on another page where I did express surprise. This talk page has only one side of a conversation]. I then suggested on the Christianity talk page that Trollwatcher had posted that link anonymously, and he didn't deny it — he said he was assuming I was referring to "this very interesting website" (link removed) and he'd be happy to put his name to future invitations to people to visit it. [My response has been deleted by AnnH so I can’t quote the wording, but it definitely was a denial. The quote, link and offer are perfectly true and I’m not sure what’s wrong with that]. At the end of last week, when many of the Christians were on wikibreaks for Easter ceremonies, an SimplePilgrim, who admitted to being John1838, began to post links to that website on various pages. [apparently true]. The website had been updated, and now gave what it claimed to be the real name and photo of one of the editors it was attacking, plus a link to his personal website, which had information about his location, his wife's name, etc. SOPHIA reverted him, and HK30, who shows all the signs of being one of the many sockpuppets on that article, followed her around Wikipedia and reverted her additions of that link, and also spread it elsewhere — writing on the talk page of one of the users attacked on that site that it seemed to be true, and asking that user did he have a photo. [possibly true, possibly overstated – certainly not connected with me.]. Three more sockpuppets appeared and posted the links and/or creepy messages on someone's talk page, with information that could identify that user. [possibly true, but again not connected with me]. The whole mess took about four hours of admin time to clear up, with removal of the link from the history of pages. I'll give you a list of pages which these users posted the links to another time. [why not now ?]. Hope that will do for now. We've lost a very valuable editor over this harassment. [Misleading: apparently trying to confuse what I did with what sockpuppets and anonymous users did]. Trollwatcher's purpose on Wikipedia, as shown by his username, was simply to criticize the Christian editors [not Christians but Trolls, anything wrong with that ?]. And by the way, a bureaucrat with usercheck, who saw the website at the time that it had photos and names of two of the editors it was attacking, plus attacks on several more has denied a lifting of the block. [I think this is misleading, unless she’s referring to something I don’t know about. My guess is that one of these two editors is AnnH herself, and the photo in question is the one on her own user page which she has put into the public domain. On the second point, anyone who visits the offending site in question can see that it is a serious site, with valid criticisms, and that it undertakes to comply with Wikipedia policies on privacy]. I'll give more information later.[I'm sure we’re all looking forward to seeing some facts rather than half truths and innuendo]. Cheers. AnnH ♫ 21:33, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Extract from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Pgk#User:Trollwatcher on 21 April 2006, with my comments in blue.

Hi, Pgk. Please see the message I posted on Johntex's talk page. Yes, "after Eas" meant after Easter, but the box only allows a certain number of characters. Trollwatcher, as his name suggests, was on Wikipedia to study the trolls, which he identified as several of the Christian editors [Including AnnH]. The Christian editors had been opposing a new user who used sockpuppets (established by usercheck and by an accidental signing of a post while forgetting he was logged on as someone else) in voting and reverting. [This is misleading. My observations had nothing to do with the sockpuppet controversy, other than to point out that it was odd that all editors on the page who were not declared Christians were also accused of being sockpuppets of the same editor – an accusation which turned out to be untrue. AnnH appears to be hinting here that I am a sockpuppet, which is not the case]. Trollwatcher and John1838 (and a few IPs) began to post stuff on the talk page about how they were making case studies about the trolls [ie case studies about AnnH's systematic abuse. Anything wrong with this ?]. The website, which gave (what claimed to be) real names, photos, and the link to a personal website of users, while attacking them, was very obviously based on Trollwatcher's contributions, and John's. [Would be interested to see some evidence, or even examples supporting this. A look as the site will confirm that it is not remotely anything like an attack site]. Location and name of spouse, children, etc. could be found from the website which Trollwatcher spread, and which he certainly contributed to [This is deliberate misrepresentation. From memory I posted one link to the site in question, and that was to AnnH in response to a question from her. This was well before anyone saw any offending further link from the website in question. It’s difficult to tell now as AnnH has removed the evidence, but presumably Admins can confirm this]. We have lost an excellent editor as a result. [but not the result of anything I did]. I e-mailed a bureaucrat with checkuser access about this block, and copied my message to Jimbo and to the Foundation lawyer. I cannot stress strongly enough what a serious attack and violation of privacy this was, and in fact the bureaucrat I contacted, who saw the website at the time that it had the photo, real name, etc. of the main victim of harassment (there are others), has already denied the unblock. [I do not know what was posted on the website and don’t see how I can held responsible for it – the only connection is that I agreed with 90% of what it says. It is significant that there are differences. For example I regard DWEECs as trolls, the Website regards them as POV Warriors]. Trollwatcher, contrary to what he says on his talk page, is well aware of that website, and of the connection with John1838 [not sure what this means. I have not denied that I had seen the website. What does “connection” mean in this context ?]. See here for an edit he made, signed TrollSpotter, from before he registered his account [again, not sure what the significance of this might be. It seems a perfectly reasonable comment to me]. Cheers. AnnH ♫ 22:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC) [note there is no hint anywhere in AnnH's text that she has a personal interest in getting me banned].

Requests

I would like to be unblocked forthwith

I would like to see an acknowledgement that this blocking is no more than a nasty minded witch hunt

I would like to see some rules about these kinds of serious accusations are handled. In particular what happened to AGF. What about the common decency of letting people know what they're really accused of. How about the obligation for accusers to declare an interest. How about an obligation to put accusations on a page where the accused will see them and is able to respond to them. How about some sort of process to establish the truth, rather than rely on unsubstantiated and contradictary accusations concerning actions at three or four removes from anything the accused person actually did.

Trollwatcher 12:28, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Note from AnnH ♫:

A website which attacked some Wikipedian editors, and gave enough personal information to enable readers to track their real identity and location was added to the spam filter, and can no longer be linked to on Wikipedia pages. One of these editors, whose privacy was violated in a very serious way (publishing of his name and photo, neither of which he had given on Wikipedia, a link to his personal website, which gave information about his location and family, harassing messages with reference to his wife and children, and an extremely inappropriate message to his superior), requested that the links be removed from archives and histories. Trollwatcher's post, made on 29 April, 12:28 (UTC) gave the name of the website, from which the URL can be deduced. I have therefore edited his post, and have deleted and partially restored the page once again. Because of this, it will appear from the diff as though I, rather than Trollwatcher, added all of the last post, when in fact I simply restored a slightly-modified version of it. The original can still be seen by administrators. For the record, I left his post exactly as it was except that I removed the name of the website wherever it appeared, inserting "[Name of website removed by Musical Linguist]" instead. Discussion of some of these events can be seen here. AnnH ♫ 12:07, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Would appreciate it if you answered the points raised above rather than repeat the half truths and inuendo. Many thanks Trolllwatcher 18:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC). There are incidentally no such links on the website in question as administrators will be able to confirm. Trollwatcher 18:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Begging your Indulgence

<PA removed for the third time > this is a personal attack and must not be reposted. Sophia ^{Gilraen of Dorthonion} 18:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

The above text has been removed twice by Sophia. Not at all certain why, as she has been asked not to interfere with this page. Trollwatcher 18:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Other Stuff

As Trollwatcher is well aware AnnH and I are often on opposing sides in theological arguments as I am an atheist (so not part of the mythical "cabal"). I was the one who asked for admin intervention and it was uninvolved admins who did the initial bans and helped me revert the changes. AnnH came in on the end of this mess and has had the thankless job of clearing down the edit histories to protect the privacy of a good editor who did not wished to be identified and has left wikipedia because of this. I can see why cabal myths build as editors will naturally gather around sympathetic POVs. I am as guilty of this as anyone else but this does not make a cabal - this is herd instinct. We all need checks and balances and critical editors make for good referenced articles so I find polite conflict healthy as it makes me really examine my edits for accuracy, NPOV and cites. I also understand that this can feel threatening if you make the classic mistake and take things too personally - as I will admit I have in the past. The only way I would see for Trollwatcher to be unblocked was if his WP:POINT username was changed and he agreed to contribute to the articles and not gather "evidence" and destructively comment on his perceptions of other users behaviour. Sophia ^{Gilraen of Dorthonion} 15:00, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Sophia, I ask you once again, please stop interferring on this page. Why don't you put your valuable contributions on your own page where they will attract a much wider audience. Trollwatcher 18:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Welcome!

Hello, Trollwatcher, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
• Tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  -- KHM03 20:32, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Council of Nicaea

Hello, Trollwatcher, I wonder by your knowledge of Church History that you yourself might come from an Orthodoxy background. If you do, I wonder that you feel that the POV tag should be returned to the Christianity article. With all due respect to you as a fellow editor I would ask if you would specify what needs to change in the article in order for it to avoid the singling out of the red flag. drboisclair 16:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Christian Control

Of course they do, because they care about it more than the rest of us. Not many, myself included, are willing to spend the time it takes to NPOV the article. However, I am willing to defend Hermeticism to the death. They constantly throw out non-applicable policy thanks to Musical Linguist who is an administrator. Str will make multiple reverts and never be reported for doing so.

However, in the end, I don't see a problem of there being an excessively Christian POV, there is some whitewashing (why there was talk about persecution by the Chinese govt, but not the persecution of, say, witches, alchemists, and Native Americans is beyond me), but that doesn't hide the greatest problem. They wish to define Christianity as merely being the religion of the victors, as what it is now, and not as what it meant in all ages. It has a time era bias, if you will. I feel that the article treats those long lost branches of Christianity as false doctrine specifically, and in impingement of what I feel they would call the religion of Hereticism (note this is not a typo, it's making "heretic" into a religion). Another problem is that they don't truely work by consensus, or arguments of NPOV.... it truely is a democracy of a sort....... or at least while they have more members. The effort for NPOV tends to be an attempt for a balance between the versions of Str1977 and Tom Harrison, not the full spectrum.

I have seen some pretty crazy actions...... such as Musical Linguist reverting my tags and roundabout suggesting that my adding them (in the face of four citations, I believe all of them dealing with numbers) as being vandalism. If someone asks for a fact to be proven, you prove it or leave it there. ing isn't vandalism, it's an honest attempt to enforce Wikipedia:Verifiability. I certainly didn't go one way with my verification tags. Yet, when I am outnumbered in the addition of disagreement over Jesus being fully God and man.... noting Arianism (and not Gnosticism as Str suggested that I noted) disagreed.... the consensus arriving at the fact that the section was not to highlight disagreements. Seeing this, I decided to remove all such disagreements from that section, and was accused of using Wikipedia to prove a point. The policy in question, is not a policy anyways, as the page clearly states "This page is considered a guideline on Wikipedia. It illustrates standards of conduct, which many editors agree with in principle. Although it may be advisable to follow it, it is not policy."

Did I use Wikipedia to prove a point? That wasn't my intention, but I wasn't about to let POV sink in and let the rest get coverage with their disagreements, but leave the once prominent and influential Arianism aside. The policy had to do with implementing new rules to prove them silly, whereas I implemented a consensus, the way I said I would, which got no disagreement, not a rule. I seem to have proved a point, without that being my purpose. I honestly thought that was what everyone was expecting, since I mentioned that specific fact when I was arguing with Str and waited about a week before doing anything! No one replied about that..... not a single one. Of course, it seems that they do think that consensus is more important than NPOV, and that means their majority and ability to pull in a meatpuppet when necessary (as I've seen administrators come in and revert without discussion to support the Christian view) whenever...... but the second someone does it for the other side, they don't bother to even get all the evidence they could easily get before calling it a sockpuppet and blocking for a violation of the 3RR. Musical Linguist pretty much refused to bother getting the Usercheck done, despite it being at her fingertips.

In the end, I suggest honest mediation.

KV 12:01, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm assuming that you're the one who mentioned the website to me....... if so my comments is that it needs to use some case examples looking at history and talk to explain what happened. This will display the bias. You could mention my attempt to add in wherever I could being called vandalism among them or Str1977's constant accusation of "relativist POV" which of course is NPOV.

KV 04:20, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I can only think of Giovanni and Alienus.

KV 17:37, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Response

I've listed some suggestions on various talk pages - by no means exhaustive lists, mind you, but some ideas. There are very few websites, in my view, that are of any scholarly worth. We may be moving into a new era in which that will change, but most sites - conservative, liberal, and everything in between - tend to be people without much academic credentials just sharing their points of view. Now, that's all well and good, but that doesn't make the sites authoritative or notable in any way, particularly for serious research.

Regarding other suggestions, it really just depends on the specific field. In the area of serious "Jesus research", for example, I would consider the Jesus Seminar (Borg, Crossan, et al), NT Wright, Schweitzer (quite dated but also quite notable), and EP Sanders to all be serious names. These are folks who publish in peer reviewed academic journals, have published works taken seriously by the academy, etc. They generally all come down with differing perspectives, obviously, but all are serious scholars (I'm making an assumption about the Seminar, of course, not knowing all members...but certainly the "main" folks are noteworthy). Does this help answer your query? KHM03 (talk) 20:26, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Compiling a list might not be a bad idea, but could be quite lengthy and time consuming. It might be easier to agree to criteria as to what makes a scholar a legitimate authority; the brief article Expert might be a place to start. Given that article, Crossan and Wright would be considered legitimate experts, but Gary Miller (currently under debate at the article Criticisms of Christianity) may not be. At any rate, it might be a place to start.

Your point is well taken regarding websites, particularly regarding minority viewpoints (you cited Arianism or Rosicrusianism) which may not be the subject of too many scholarly journals or books. In this instance, a case-by-case basis might be used. Again, though, in my view, most websites are lay written and lacking any real authority. Nothing wrong with the sites, mind you, but I just don't think they're on par with, say, Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God or the Seminar's The Five Gospels or an article published in a peer reviewed journal. Websites can say anything, correct or incorrect, and can be totally off the wall. There are lots of examples of this from folks on every side of every issue.

If we cite a site (not to be too Seuss-like) that criticizes (or supports) Christianity (or any subject, in my view), we ought to note that it's a non-academic lay site that may contain loads of inaccuracies and is non-peer reviewed and not posted by an authority or expert on the subject. This and this are guides for this kind of problem. KHM03 (talk) 17:48, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Expert: The idea of defining an expert sounds good, though I can forsee problems (eg if we agreed something like "an academic at any reputable university" then we might just open up questions about what a reputable university is). Still with a bit of goodwill we could try it and perhaps accumulate a list of "precedents" as we go. Any suggestions as to where to put it ?

Website: I think we'd all agree that really whacky sites have no place. The real question is what falls within the scope of reasonable comment. Eg I'd say that the on-line Catholic Encyclopedia is a reasonable source to cite (even though many non-Catholics regard it as laughably biased and demonstrably false). And I'd say the same about many non-Christian websites critical of Christianity (which many Christians might regard as laughably biased and demonstrably false). In my view both types of site are POV and there should be a consistent policy which either permits both (flagged as POV if people want to do that) or excludes both. As you've probably guessed, one of my underlying points is that there has been, and still is, a wild imbalance in many articles - one class is consistently included, the other consistently excluded.

A second point I'd make is that there should surely be some allowance for the subject of the article. For example in my view a website critical of Christianity would have to be positively libellous to justify the exclusion of a link to it from the "Criticism of Christianity" page. Whether such a website is scholarly is irrelevant, though the question of how commonplace its critism is might be. Comments on these two points appreciated. Trollwatcher 17:06, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm on an unofficial "wiki-break" right now and haven't been doing a whole lot on Wikipedia...Holy Week and Easter is a busy time for Christian clergy. I'll try and look at your suggestions in the next few days; please don't think I'm ignoring you! Thanks...KHM03 (talk) 18:23, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Reverts by an anon IP April 1, 2007

For some reason, an admin restored this talkpage via this diff. This user is indefinitely blocked but its talkpage should only be tagged as such by an admin. Morenooso 03:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)