Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Lightbringer
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| Lightbringer | |
| Original name(s): | Lightbringer |
|---|---|
| Wikilifespan: | September 8, 2005 (from IP address) - present |
| ISP: | Shaw Communications Inc |
| Known IPs: | Generally 24.6x.x.x range (Allocated to Shaw): User:24.64.223.203 (Also used by legitimate editors) |
| Known hostmasks: | |
| Physical location: | Victoria, British Columbia, Canada |
| Severity: | High |
| Requests for comment: | |
| Requests for arbitration: | Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Lightbringer |
| Instructions: | Revert and block on sight |
Lightbringer is a stubborn user who has extremely POV and fringe beliefs regarding Freemasonry. He repeatedly edit wars through sockpuppets to insert his beliefs into all Freemasonry- related articles. He steadfastly refuses to engage in discussions or negotiate his poorly sourced (and often wildly incorrect) edits. His egregious violations of policy resulted in him being indefinitely banned by community consensus after the ArbCom banned him for one year on top of his previous indefinite ban from editing articles on Freemasonry. Following every block or ban, Lightbringer has used sockpuppets to attempt to re-insert his material and fraudulently claim consensus suppporting it. His modus operandi, his POV, the material he edits, and the summaries he uses means it is often easy to recognise him.
Contents |
[edit] Modus operandi
Lightbringer's main attribute is his non-negotiable belief that "Freemasonry is Satanism"; his entire career has been dedicated to attempting to use Wikipedia to publicize that view.
More specific or unique and noteworthy behaviors include:
- A firm belief that anyone who disagrees with his view must be a Mason, and he makes this claim in edit summaries in articles and on talk pages of administrators.
- Referring to Masons or suspected Masons (See above) as "gentlemen".
- Frequent demands that editors who identify as Masons must be banned from editing any articles related to Freemasonry. ([1], [2], and more)
- Misuse of edit summaries: When he uses them at all, they are usually misleading or malicious attacks ([3], [4])
- Numerous rapid edits to articles he's in the process of adding his material to. This may be to fill up the edit history with multiple edits, obfuscating what his actual changes are, or simply because he has a hard time spotting typos.
- Claims that other editors (whom he will often claim are Masons, see above) communicate and presumably conspire against him via "backchannel": ([5], [6], and others)
- Claims (In his edit summaries, see above) that removal of his edits are vandalism: ([9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], and many more
- Spite and malice against anyone who doesn't go along with him
- Particular attention paid to refuting cited material regarding Freemasonry and the Holocaust - in short, either the claimed figures are wrong or the entire situation is wrong, but has no proof. Most recent attempt claimed a book was not encyclopedic because it did not have footnotes.([16],[17], [18], [19], [20], and many more
[edit] Means of identification
- Be wary of any user whose initial and vast majority of edits are repeated reversions or deletions on Freemasonry or a related article (see Category:Freemasonry). Note that this is NOT conclusive proof that the user is Lightbringer, so be wary of blocking or accusing based solely on this.
- An article or section about "Masonic Secrets" is a dead giveaway that the creator/contributor is a Lightbringer sock. As a note, the section was not accepted because neither the uploaded pictures nor the associated material were sourced properly. Every time LB was asked to source them, he gave different answers, none of which checked out. Example diffs are: [21], [22], and [23]
- Using completely unreliable and biased anti-Masonic conspiracy sites and publications, such as the notorious "Freemasonry Watch", which was blocked WMF-wide.
- Repeated attempts to remove references to Freemasons being victims during the Holocaust, or claiming that Masons colluded with Hitler (via tenuous Wikipedia:Original research and preposterous claims).
- Use of sockpuppet usernames that follow distinct patterns:
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- Names particularly antagonistic to Freemasonry, such as User:Freemasonry is permanently condemned, User:The Brotherhood (referring to the anti-Masonic book by Stephen Knight) and the immediately obvious User:Why are Masons afraid of these links?. Likely because these are immediately obvious he no longer uses them too often.
- Names that are at the very least Christian, and generally are particularly Catholic such as User:Sunday Service, User:40 Days of Lent and User:Humanun Genus. This seems to be his current practice, although to find out what the connection is sometimes takes a little work.
- Names that falsely portray him as a Mason, such as User:PM GL PA (Which he claimed stood for "Past Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania", a designation which does not exist), or otherwise tie into Masonry in a positive light such as User:Anderson12, referring to James Anderson and his "The Constitutions of the Free-Masons". He seems to have discarded this practice.
- Names that do not fall into the above categories as attempt to deceive others into believing he is a good faith editor (see, for example, Anna2005 and Vitamin a). In this instance their puppeteer must be proved otherwise.
| Vandalism |
|---|
| Dealing with vandalism |
| Obvious vandalism Long term abuse Open proxies |
| Resources & assistance |
| Counter-vandalism tools Cleaning up vandalism Counter-vandalism unit IP WHOIS tools |
| Further information |
| Blocking IP addresses Vandalism studies ISP contact information Do not provoke vandals |
[edit] Sockpuppets
At the time of writing there are over 80 accounts known or suspected to be sockpuppets of Lightbringer. See Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Lightbringer and Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Lightbringer for all tagged accounts and IPs.
Also see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Lightbringer for the discovery of many of his socks. Request number 32 was filed July 7, 2007.
[edit] Other notes
- It is worth noting that due to the narrow field of articles Lightbringer vandalises, his vandalism and reversions are sometimes mistaken for a legitimate content dispute by those administrators who have no prior experience with him. This page should be linked in discussions about Lightbringer.
