User:Shalom Yechiel/Drafts and archives/Revelations

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I've decided, after months of refusing to discuss the matter, to come completely clean of all the vandalism I've ever done on Wikipedia. Why now? It's hard to explain. There has been a buildup of several factors that inspired me to speak out.

In all the hubbub surrounding Wikipedia:Requests for bureaucratship/Riana last week, I took notice of something Riana wrote to explain some strange edits to her userpage last October:

  • To any and all opposing over the Jimbo, Veropedia, "fuck that" issue - all I can say is that I, for one, am rather glad that I am honest enough not to have deleted my userpage and started from scratch, as so many do. My fit of anger was not particularly publicised, except among friends here, and if I had chosen to delete that, no one here would be the wiser. I didn't. Make of that what you will. I honestly think it was rather transparent of me to keep it, given the ridiculous ease with which I could have gotten rid of it. I kept it to remind me that we have high times and low. And that I am not necessarily in complete agreement with every direction this project takes, but that I defend its core goals to the end. ~ Riana ⁂ 13:54, 4 March 2008 (UTC) (diff

Riana's willingness to answer for her past, rather than hide from it, shows a fundamental integrity of character and a desire to improve on past mistakes. In contrast, my decision to delete pages relating to my past acts of vandalism, as I expressed in a post-mortem following Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Shalom, reflected the lack of integrity that caused much of the opposition to pile on in the first place. I have asked for these pages to be undeleted because, although I am ashamed of what I did, I am not ashamed that I owned up to what I did.

There are still some questions I left unanswered. In question 10 of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Shalom, Kathryn NicDhana and I had the following exchange:

10. You state above: "I created a number of alternate accounts to impersonate other users, during the period between February and June 2007. All of these accounts were indef-blocked within hours of their creation." I would like to know who you impersonated and why, and what you did to get indef-blocked. Thank you. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 05:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
A: I will not answer this question because I do not want the edits by the blocked accounts to become part of my official record. There were six accounts that I created. Four of them impersonated established good users, and two impersonated infamous vandals, all by having very similar usernames. All of these were blocked based on the username policy. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 23:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Nick mallory found this answer unsatisfactory in Oppose number 8:

He was creating new accounts for strange purposes quite recently, wasn't he? ""I created a number of alternate accounts to impersonate other users, during the period between February and June 2007." How honest was that exactly? Even in this RfA he says ' I will not answer this question because I do not want the edits by the blocked accounts to become part of my official record. There were six accounts that I created. Four of them impersonated established good users, and two impersonated infamous vandals, all by having very similar usernames'. That's still trying to hide what he's done isn't it? The opposite of being honest. They ARE part of his 'official record' whether he likes it or not. It's not his decision whether or not they get counted. If he wanted to be completely honest then why's he refusing to say what he did? I find it strange that you take the moral high ground because my standards for adminship are higher than yours. Almost as strange as Shalom not wanting to put himself up for recall if this should pass. Nick mallory (talk) 10:02, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] What I have revealed until now

I registered the username YechielMan in November 2005, and I made my first edit to Chessgames.com, a website I frequented in those days (and still do today). In 8 of my next 11 edits, I added a link to Richard Joel's biography on yu.edu using the word "kofeir" (heretic) as anchor text to set up a Google bomb. The administrator Vary removed the spam but did not warn me. At the time, I did not know it was wrong to insert such links into Wikipedia. (It was wrong to set up a Google bomb against Mr. Joel, regardless of the method, but that's a separate issue outside the scope of Wikipedia.)

I made a couple of vandalism edits in 2006, for example to Wolfgang Puck. Delldot mentioned this in her editor review in February 2007: Wikipedia:Editor review/YechielMan. From November 2006 through May or early June 2007, I made a few dozen vandalism edits without logging in, i.e. as an anonymous IP address. I did not reveal this during either of my first two RFAs or in User:Shalom/Drafts and archives/RFA review. After Kathryn NicDhana discovered edits from one of my IP addresses, I admitted to it, and I explained in detail at User talk:Shalom/Drafts and archives/RFA review#YechielMan responds.

As I was preparing to apply for RFA under my new identity, Shalom, I noticed a message from Bearian recommending that I apologize to users I had bothered. This seemed like a good idea, so I drafted the following apology letter and sent it to all the users listed therein. (The original copy is stored at User talk:Shalom/Archive9#I apologize.)

[edit] I apologize

Between December 14, 2005 and June 7, 2007, I vandalized Wikipedia under my previous username (YechielMan) and under various IP addresses and alternate accounts.

I recently reviewed the contribution logs of all the accounts and IP addresses that I can recall having used. My goal was to identify all of the intentionally harmful edits I caused, and to apologize to the individual users who reverted those edits, or warned me, or blocked me.

Hence, I apologize to you and to all of the following users:

Adam Bishop, Amarkov, Antandrus, AntiVandalBot, Bdj (Badlydrawnjeff), Conk 9, CanbekEsen, DLand, Downwards, Eagle 101, Ericbronder, Gogo Dodo, High on a tree, Hut 8.5, Interiot, Jayjg, Jrwallac, Kingboyk, Kuru, Noclip, Patrick Berry, PFHLai, PhantomS, Pollinator, Rachack, Ranma9617, Rx StrangeLove, SlimVirgin, Tfrogner, TommyBoy, Vary, Woohookitty, Zzuuzz, and some anonymous IPs. (I also reverted one edit myself after it went unnoticed for three weeks.)

Thank you for maintaining the integrity of Wikipedia against everyone who has attacked it, including my old self.

If you wish to respond, please do so at my talk page.

Best regards, Shalom (Hello • Peace) 19:26, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Having received no negative responses to this message, I hoped that all was forgiven, so I went ahead with my third RFA last November.

[edit] New revelations

[edit] Email message

On 18 September 2007, an administrator sent me an email which ended with a suggestion that I apply for adminship. Two days later, on 20 September, I sent the following response:


Dear [administrator]:

Thank you for your kind words and thoughts. I continue to be reminded by many Wikipedians that I could really help the never-ending needs of Wikipedia by becoming an administrator. My first two RFAs can be found in the "Drafts and archives" section of my userpage, and after the second RFA failed, I decided I would wait until November or so before taking a third shot. I'm sticking to that because there is no deadline, and there is no need to undergo the process any sooner. The passage of two more months will do much to relieve the concerns expressed at the second RFA.

Since the time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is called the Ten Days of Repentance (Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_days_of_penitence ), I'll take this opportunity to confess my wiki-sins from the last year. I've considered doing this on-wiki, but I've avoided it because I think it would hurt my reputation without accomplishing anything.

My first wiki-sin is that I've spent too much time on Wikipedia. Your concern about giving real-life needs priority over volunteering on the wiki resonates with me. Today (September 20) marks the one-year anniversary of my first involvement with the administrative side of Wikipedia, when I nominated "Giant Glass" for deletion ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Giant_Glass). Since then, I have nominated hundreds of pages for deletion, and commented on more than a thousand discussions. When I consider all the time I spent doing this, I regret not giving due priority to college courses in Shakespeare's Poetry, Quantum Chemistry, Chemical Analysis, and the Book of Jeremiah. I used to stay up past midnight, sometimes past 3 AM, fooling around on the Internet - sometimes on Wikipedia, sometimes on interactive gaming sites or whatever. I also used to edit Wikipedia during class periods when I should have been in class. The reason I think of Wikipedia in these terms is that I have mostly ceased and removed myself from the various forms of time-wasting on the Internet, but I continue to contribute to Wikipedia, albeit at a reduced rate. As I prepare for the chemistry GRE, I find that Wikipedia's articles on chemistry are extremely well-organized, and they facilitate review of familiar information and learning about new molecules, reactions, and concepts. I am also reading the Wikibooks module on organic chemistry.

My second wiki-sin is that I've spent time on Wikipedia ineffectively. Last week I wrote a draft essay in my userspace about time management ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shalom/Drafts_and_archives/Time_management). For now I've decided not to advertise it, but at least I can take the lessons to heart for myself. It's past time that I quit doing recent-changes patrol and new-page patrol, and focus on jobs that only I can do well, such as editor review, peer review, fixing unwikified/uncategorized pages, and (gasp!) writing and rewriting articles for which I am knowledgeable in the subject matter. There just isn't time to do everything, and it's important to maintain a sense of priorities for the 2 hours a week or so that it's reasonable for me to spend on Wikipedia.

My third wiki-sin is that I've vandalized Wikipedia. The contribution logs are permanent, and even if they weren't, the words of Rabbi Judah haNasi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_haNasi ) remind me that there is a "contribution log" for everything we do. In Pirkei Avot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirkei_Avot) 3:1, he says, "Look carefully at three things and you will never come to sin. Know what is above you: (1) an Eye sees, (2) an Ear hears, and (3) every one of your actions is written in a Book."

By now everyone knows that I devoted eight of my first twelve logged-in edits toward building a Google bomb that linked the word "kofeir" (Hebrew for "heretic") to the official biography of Richard Joel ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Joel), president of Yeshiva University, where I spent my college years. I had just discovered the "miserable failure" Google bomb (it still works; type "miserable failure" into Google and be ready for a few surprises), and I wished to parrot it secretly for my own authority figure, against whom I had recently started a minor controversy over his decision to introduce a new logo and tagline for the university. None of that diminishes my respect for Mr. Joel, who has done a fine job in four-plus years at Yeshiva and at the Hillel Foundation before that.

Aside from a few more recent edits between last November and this April, I have not committed vandalism on my main user account. See this long discussion here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:YechielMan/Drafts_and_archives/RFA_review. However, I have played some tricks using sockpuppets and editing from IP addresses. I'll be as specific as my memory will allow.

I created the following user accounts and made one or a few edits with them. They have all been indef-blocked for violating the username policy, i.e. impersonating established users (1, 3-5) or notorious vandals (2, 6):

1. SlimVirgil (impersonated SlimVirgin), 27 February 2007
2. Oommpapa (Oompapa), 4 May 2007
3. MER-SEE (MER-C), 6 May 2007
4. Minorly (Majorly), 15 May 2007
5. Dodo Gogo (Gogo Dodo), 28 May 2007
6. Molag's Ball (Molag Bal), 7 June 2007

I also stole the password of User:Buuuurrrrrrrr (4 u's, 8 r's) because he was dumb enough to leave it on his userpage, then I vandalized wildly in order to get his account indef-blocked. That was really evil. I made the edits on 3 May 2007, and the account was blocked one day later.

It doesn't end there. In April I created page listing all the IP addresses under which I had edited, and tried to identify the vandalism for which I was responsible. It was a difficult process to find the IP addresses and sort through all the diffs; it took about an hour. The list can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Shalom/Other_stuff&oldid=127014250.

I've also vandalized Wikipedias in other languages using the interwiki links in order to avoid detection on the English Wikipedia. Using the IP address 69.201.182.76, I wreaked mayhem on dozens of foreign-language Wikipedias, especially in East Asian languages which I cannot read. The contribution logs contain vandalism by this IP address in Chinese ( http://zh.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?limit=50&title=Special%3AContributions&contribs=user&target=69.201.182.76&namespace=&year=&month=-1 ), Japanese (http://ja.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?limit=50&title=%E7%89%B9%E5%88%A5%3AContributions&contribs=user&target=69.201.182.76&namespace=&year=&month=-1 ) and Korean (http://ja.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?limit=50&title=%E7%89%B9%E5%88%A5%3AContributions&contribs=user&target=69.201.182.76&namespace=&year=&month=-1 ), among others. The Russian folks even blocked me twice on consecutive days (Contributions: http://ru.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?limit=50&title=%D0%A1%D0%BB%D1%83%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%B1%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F%3AContributions&contribs=user&target=69.201.182.76&namespace=&year=&month=-1; Block log: http://ru.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D0%A1%D0%BB%D1%83%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%B1%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F:Log&type=block&page=%D0%A3%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA:69.201.182.76 ). The AltaVista Babel Fish translator explains that I was blocked for 6 hours on 26 April 2007 for "Vandalizm: Addition of senseless teksta/musora." Then on 27 April, I vandalized again and was blocked for 1 week as a "vandal-recidivist."

I rationalized this behavior on the grounds that it wasn't normal sock-puppet behavior (e.g. vote-stacking, block evasion or 3RR violation with 2 separate accounts), but really I was playing two entirely different roles using two different identities. In one identity, I was YechielMan, the chess enthusiast, the baseball fan, the frequent commenter at Articles for Deletion, etc. In a group of other identities, I was a vandal, impersonating established users and temporarily ruining their handiwork. One identity had nothing to do with the other: I had no intention of acquiring admin tools with sinister purposes, as Robdurbar had done. Had either of my RFAs succeeded, I might simply have continued to exhibit a pattern of split identities. Even now, there is no way to prove that I am the person behind the aforementioned accounts and IP addresses: you will have to take my word for it. (Checkuser intentionally "forgets" anything older than two months, as far as I know.)

After discussing the failure of my second RFA with several users, I decided to change to my current username. Simultaneously I committed to stop using alternate accounts, including my legitimate alter ego, User:Placeholder account. I still occasionally edit without logging in; my current IP seems to be 71.174.226.117 (Contributions: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&limit=500&contribs=user&target=71.174.226.117 ). To the best of my knowledge, I have never vandalized any page on any Wikimedia project in any language since early June, and I will never do it again.

I regret my past actions for their substantive damage and the burden they placed on other people to restore order. Though I cannot undo what is already done, I have tried to make up for it by reverting more vandalism than I ever caused on recent-changes patrol and new-pages patrol, and by investigating reports at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets. If I become a Wikipedia administrator, I will devote some attention to these areas, even though my primary administrative focus has always been to delete pages that do not belong.

I wrote what you have just read as much for my own edification as for yours. I have wanted to discuss my complicated history with someone whom I can trust, and who would understand the substance of the discussion. Thank you for inspiring me to share this information with you. I look forward to whatever response you might offer.

Postscript: I'm trying to avoid the specific question of whether I'll become a Wikipedia admin or not. If I reveal the full history to everyone, there's no point in trying another RFA, but after 3+ months of clean hands, I don't think I'm morally obligated to tell everyone what I've just told you. The issue I'm really trying to understand is how repentance works: do I just move on as if nothing happened, or is there still something I need to do to make up for the past?

Best regards, Yechiel

The administrator never responded to this message.

[edit] Blog posts

I have written about Wikipedia on my blog. Two posts address these issues directly:

Regarding the latter post, you can check my IP edits on other languages of Wikipedia using the interwiki tracking tool, which I had not yet seen.

[edit] Summary

[edit] IP addresses

It is impossible for me to list all of the IP addresses I ever used. Some of the IP addresses are:

[edit] Accounts

This is a complete list of accounts I have used on English Wikipedia. There are no others.

On the Yiddish Wikipedia, I created the account וויקיפעדיע איז קאמיוניזעם ("Wikipedia is communism") to impersonate the infamous vandal.

[edit] Why?

I've tried several times to explain why I did these things. Ultimately, no answer will satisfy everyone.

Now that I've apologized and revealed everything, I am ready to move on. It is now more than 9 months since the last time I vandalized Wikipedia. Instead of asking why I acted so foolishly, I want to focus my efforts on improving for the future. If you can suggest ways for me to improve, please do. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 20:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)