Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Primetime

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Primetime
Original name(s): Primetime
Wikilifespan: September 26, 2005 — Present
ISP: Colorado State University
*.hsd1.co.comcast.net
Known IPs: See "sockpuppets" section
Known hostmasks: Unknown
Physical location: Formerly Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
Severity: Extreme
Requests for comment: Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Primetime/RfC
Requests for arbitration:
Instructions: Revert and block on sight; delete all uploads. User is absolutely untrustworthy. File a CheckUser request to discover his IP/open proxy.

Primetime (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) is a prolific vandal who has engaged in repetitive and massive bad faith copyright violations and plagiarism in Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and other Wikimedia projects, thus placing the Wikimedia Foundation in extreme legal danger. He has also engaged in malicious harassment of users outside of Wikimedia projects.

He was banned from Wiktionary in March 2006 after the discovery of several copyright violations. Wiktionary administrators alerted Wikipedia administrators about his behavior on May 9, 2006; he was indefinitely blocked on Wikipedia pending investigation. Jimbo Wales himself banned Primetime three days later (imposing his own indefinite block on top of the existing block) for being unapologetic about his behavior (block log). It eventually emerged that a significant number of his contributions were outright plagiarisms of copyrighted material.

The talk page of his former main account (User talk:Primetime) shows several of the disputes surrounding his actions and contributions, as well as giving very clear examples of his techniques of slander and denial of any wrongdoing on his part. His intent is made perfectly clear by the fact that he claims to be a modern "Robin Hood", i.e. he explicitly knows what he's doing is illegal and believes he is in the right.

Contents

[edit] Modus operandi

Primetime's disruption stems from his deliberate, willful, and blatant attempts to add copyrighted material to Wikimedia projects. When challenged as to the legitimacy of his addition, he will usually claim it's his own work (plagiarism), or is not copyrighted. On Wiktionary, his source of choice was the Oxford English Dictionary, on Wikipedia and Commons, the Encyclopedia Britannica for text and images. When he's confronted with strong evidence or outright proof of his fraudulence, he usually starts taking an aggressive line by making personal attacks, threatening people, and trolling. If blocked, he'll create sockpuppets and perpetrate more violations or try and defend himself. If he has vital information on his opponents, he will attempt annoying off-wiki, off-line harrassment of them.

Primetime will hide behind open proxies when he's going on a sock-puppets spree. Many of these puppets' names are nonsensical gibberish, however others are somewhat coherent English (Or Spanish).

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
 v • d • e 

His socks generally fall into two categories: sleeper puppets and attack socks. The former is used to add violations and may have userpages, personas, etc. These will add masses frequently unwikified or partially wikified text to articles or images with fraudulent licence tags. Attack socks are the ones he uses to fight rearguard action against people and communities when his latest sleeper puppet is discovered and blocked. Occasionally he'll just create one and troll someone with it. Such socks often will make personal attacks against people who're trying to clean up his latest mess and rant about how he's justified and his enemies aren't. Such attacks are either signed "Primetime" or refer to Primetime in the first person singular.

This vandal is fluent in both English and Spanish, so any WMF wiki that uses either of those languages is especially vulnerable to his attacks.

[edit] Sockpuppets

Note that almost all of the IP addresses used are open proxies. If confirmed as such please block them indefinitely (Per WP:OP). When blocking a puppet of his, please request it be checkusered so the proxy can be blocked.

[edit] English Wikipedia

[edit] Spanish Wikipedia

  • Principal Tiempo (talk • contribs • [../../../../../es/articles/l/o/g/Special%7ELog_move_02c8.html page moves] • [../../../../../es/articles/l/o/g/Special%7ELog_block_4a41.html block log]) Local: User:Principal Tiempo
  • El Periodico (talk • contribs • [../../../../../es/articles/l/o/g/Special%7ELog_move_02c8.html page moves] • [../../../../../es/articles/l/o/g/Special%7ELog_block_4a41.html block log]) Local: User:El Periodico
  • Jmes2 (talk • contribs • [../../../../../es/articles/l/o/g/Special%7ELog_move_02c8.html page moves] • [../../../../../es/articles/l/o/g/Special%7ELog_block_4a41.html block log]) Local: User:Jmes2
  • Ggbn4 (talk • contribs • [../../../../../es/articles/l/o/g/Special%7ELog_move_02c8.html page moves] • [../../../../../es/articles/l/o/g/Special%7ELog_block_4a41.html block log]) Local: User:Ggbn4

[edit] Meta

[edit] English Wiktionary

[edit] Wikiquote

[edit] Wikimedia Commons

[edit] Related pages

[edit] Draft of letter sent to Colorado State University

An abuse report e-mail has been sent to CSU by Connel MacKenzie and can be seen at wikt:Wiktionary:Abuse reports#2006.2F06.2F08.