User:Cailil/Sneaky vandalism on feminism and gender studies related articles

Anacapa's sneaky vandalism of feminism & gender studies articles

This page is a long detailed report into disruptive editting by the previously banned user User:Anacapa. For nearly a year (beginning in Spring 2006), Anacapa, using IPs in California (especially from the University of Santa Barbara, California) trolled articles pushing their own POV assertions and complaining that Wikipedia was run by "Maoist mobs". On June 1st 2007, Anacapa was indefinitely blocked for legal threats and after a discussion at the community sanction noticeboard was community banned. This report is kept for historical purposes.

Since being banned Anacapa has ban-evaded using some of the same IPs and other IPs from the same ranges and locations. Please see below.

=The report= This report is a detailed list of a disruption and sneaky vandalism by User:Anacapa between November 2006 and May 2007. Signing-off with the moniker "(drop in editor)" using multiple IPs they have made spurious accusations of misconduct against "feminist" editors; pushed POV edits on gender studies pages that warp articles such as women's studies into critiques of women's studies; and multi-posted an extract from a book by an antifeminist on at least 4 talk pages.

In February 2007 Anacapa/(drop in editor) misrepresented sources and factual information on Feminism attempting to create two criticism sections in the one article. A similar tactic was used on women's studies where the criticism section was longer the rest of the article. In March User:Cailil identified the same editing style and pattern, as well as 2 shared IP addresses between (drop in editor) and User:Anacapa. After asking User:Durova for advice User:Cailil compiled this reported. This situation was raised at The Community sanctions noticeboard (two conversations are archived on the talk page).

Please note this page has been carefully written to abide by the full policy of assume good faith and is written with the final paragraph in mind "[The assume good faith policy] does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Actions inconsistent with good faith include repeated vandalism, confirmed malicious sockpuppetry, and lying. Assuming good faith also does not mean that no action by editors should be criticized, but instead that criticism should not be attributed to malice unless there is specific evidence of malice.''"

Ban evasion
In May 2008, a year after being banned, IP User:128.111.95.38 (a University of Sanata Barbara California IP) became active on talk:feminism using the same rhetoric about the users who edit Feminism "you will find that clear logic is totally forbidden on this page and all others which 'gender'-as-female 'ginning' girls and girl-guys control." 'Gender-ginning' as is established above is one of Anacapa's commonly used and ideomatic terms. Edits to Covert incest and Reproductive endocrinology and infertility were also made by this IP.

User:128.111.95.171 edited Talk:feminism. This IP is one that Anacapa had previously used and which was previously blocked as a sockpuppet. The areas of interest are also a match: Talk:Feminism, Shunning, Talk:Shunning‎, Mennonite and Talk:Antifeminism. User:128.111.97.148 & User:128.111.95.110 were active at Talk:shunning. and on Shunning.

Notable also were his edits here to this report page.

Evasion
This page has been restored twice. The first after Anacapa left two screeds on his talk page demanding arbitrator attention. The second when User:Brechbill123 was investigated for a relationship with Anacapa. The decision to restore this report is taken in balance with WP:DENY. While it is necessary to ignore trollish comments in the event of any inquiry into the history, circumstances and/or probity of Anacapa's block, I believe it is of net benefit to those reviewing the situation for this report to exist. At such time as ban evasion from Anacapa ceases this report will again be deleted.

=Summary= User:Anacapa, using multiple IPs, and the moniker (drop in editor), has misrepresented and twisted sources to fit their own agenda - distorting and sometimes contradicting articles they edit; flaunted WP:AGF and WP:CONSENSUS; manipulated criticism sections; flamebaited and approached articles with a tigerish manner; attacked Project Gender studies; and threatened to police the usage of the words 'sex' and 'gender' throughout Wikipedia. They seem to have ownership issues on a number of articles, Shunning, Rape & Incest. When editors ask for sources or disagree with Anacapa long off-topic comments are left about it on talk pages and these other editors are described as totalitarians: "since Jimbo Wales appears to a bit proud of what his critics call his Maoist mobs on Wikipedia (see Why is this man smiling? below), I imagine I will have to wait for better days to confront totalitarian tactics on totalitarian related Wikipedia topics."

Sneaky vandalism
Wikipedia:Vandalism defines sneaky vandalism as: "Vandalism that is harder to spot, or that otherwise circumvents detection. This can include adding plausible misinformation to articles, (e.g. minor alteration of facts or additions of plausible-sounding hoaxes), hiding vandalism (e.g. by making two bad edits and only reverting one), using two or more different accounts and/or IP addresses at a time to vandalize, or reverting legitimate edits with the intent of hindering the improvement of pages. (see VANDAL)"

=Anacapa: alias (drop in editor)= (drop in editor) is the alias used by the user Anacapa to troll feminism and gender studies related pages. The Anacapa account was reactivated after nearly 5 months on April 30th 2007. The moniker (drop in editor) was last used on 03:44, 6 February 2007; but the IPs and their user behind these accounts is still active on Wikipedia, the last post, that can be confirmed, was at 06:13, 16 May 2007.

The full detail of this is below.

Also on May 30th IP 128.111.95.171‎ made a series of comments on Talk:shunning but didn't sign. User:Cailil used unsigned to correct this. A few hours later Anacapa edited the comments of 128.111.95.171 and signed them with their own sig

=List of IPs= IPs used by (drop in editor)/User:Anacapa

=Warnings= Anacapa/(drop in editor) was warned in November 2006 for POVPUSHing by User:Irishguy (see more here). Durova also warned Anacapa on May 18th, 2007.

At 02:40 (UTC) on the 30th of May User:Jehochman warned Anacapa for breaches of NPOV on Rape.

Just over 2 hours later at 04:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC) an Ip from the University of California Santa Barbara made a no. of edits matching Anacapa's style and interest on Shunning and its talk page

As Anacapa's POVpush continued Jehochman gave a level 4 NPOV warning to Anacapa at 18:01 (UTC) on May 30th 2007, In response to this warning Anacapa added a help to their page saying "I am facing totalitarian bullies who are intent on blocking me from contributing credible sourced content that is 'problematic' to their ideological and political agendas. I need help to assist me wherever they are using slander, misrepresentation and cheap shots to shut me down ... I need someone to suggest good administrators who have a sophisticated knowledge of totalitarian tactics (as used on wiki) so that I can confront these bullies and insist that they discuss genuine concerns they have with me in good faith rather than resorting to shameless misrepresentations and pejorative warnings."

=Disruption= With due care to the policy on reporting povpushing, Anacapa has aggressively pushed their POV about feminism/gender studies/ women's studies on a number of articles, including Gender, feminism, antifeminism, gender studies, women's studies and on shunning.

POVPUSH & WP:POINT
Anacapa has attempted to shift content in articles towards an "antifeminist" point of view - so that the subject of the articles (such as Feminism) is criticized from an Antifeminist stance rather than documented. They have made politically motivated arguments that are long, repetitive and highly selective. An example of this is the creation of a section on the Women's studies page called "Criticism of women's studies as a discipline" (rather tham the NPOV "criticism of women's studies"). A further example of this is the multiposting of a tract from Phyllis Chessler's new book (it was published in 2006 and cited in Dec 2006 & Jan 2007) The Death of Feminism. Drop in Editor construes this book as an attack on:

"''totalitarian thought control in elite feminist, academic, and media circles... All I am asking is that [...] we refrain from the usual totalitarian feminist tactics to use 'gender' as a gynocentric front for gyoncentric, reverse sexist, and misandric assertions of female-as-'gender' oppression. (drop in editor) 128.111.95.47 05:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)"

This book is being misrepresented by Anacapa The Death of Feminism is an admonishment of North American feminist scholars' "indifference" towards the plight of women in Afghanistan (and other Islamic fundamentalist states) - not an attack on feminism itself.

A tract from teh book as multi-posted on
 * Project Gender studies,


 * WP:GS again,


 * on women's studies
 * and on feminism

The use of flamebaiting references to feminism and the distortion of the factual position of gender studies and the WikiProject Gender studies became a common motif in (drop in editor)'s posting.

Attacks on WikiProject Gender Studies
AmishThrasher encountered (drop in editor) in December 2006, they asked for help after WikiProject gender Studies' aims, overview and goals were drastically changed. The page was then completely protected by user:Kylu. After reaching consensus on the talk page User:Cailil began updating the graphics of the project, but almost exactly 46 hours after unprotection (drop in editor) made a series of edits to the page - they simultaneously carried on a flamebaiting attack against the project, rejecting the need for consensus. The following morning Cailil requested partial protection for the page.

Some of (drop in editor's) remarks are correct some are extremely biased. If they had read the talk page at the time they would have seen a new draft for aims and goals was being developed which they could have contributed to. But instead of joining, contributing and helping build the project (drop in editor) choose to unilaterally alter it in a POVPUSH against consensus.

Talk page trolling diffs

 * Jan 21st 2007 at 04:58 (UTC)


 * December 29th 2006


 * May 27th 2007

May 2007
The template was added at 23:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC). Followed by a rant on Project reform 

January 2007
Anacapa engaged in an edit war on January 21st 2006 claiming teh ath Project gender studies "was POV."   

December 2006
Dec 16th 2006.

Domestic violence
Anacapa has used IPs to POVpush on Domestic violence, leaving comments on the talk page like "Please note that the UN has been hijacked in many ways by feminist ideologues and worldwide Women's movement political propagandists so I am loathe to trust UN statistics without a careful check of the sources" And generally attempting to push to use sources that criticize feminism and women's studies "feminist party line propaganda about domestic violence (please see Patia's Professing Feminism, Camille Paglia, Hoff-Sommers, Phyllis Chessler or Nathanson and Young for feminist forms of 'fascism' or 'Stalinism' that destroy NPOV"

May 2007
The following is a list of soapboxing statements and rants by Anacapa's IP 128.111.95.245. In March 2007 this Ip added a request to Project countering systemic bias to review the "censoring" of "dissident points of view" on feminist and gender related article by "gender-feminists". 

Please note that the following edits were made after Anacapa's user account was warned by Durova.

Christina Hoff Sommers
. User:NickelShoe noticed the POV issues with edits made by this IP in the article.

Anacapa also made a number of edits to that article's talkpage soapboxing about the censorship of information by feminists "One has to wonder who is nuts here: CHS, her critics or all of the above? In any case, given the significance of the issue of the alleged abuse of academic priviledge nationwide for gender-feminist political pandering, I for one consider the [Christina Hoff Sommers's] allegations noteable for more than mere allegations of lieing, falsehood, fraud or fearmongering. However, I know from reading the content in this article that many other editors hate [Christina Hoff Sommers] enough to label her, slander her and duck most mention of the real issues she raises" User:NickleShoe's responded to Ancapa, explaining that there is no conspiracy to "sweep anything under the carpet" 

Antifeminism
The same Ip was also soap boxing at Antifeminism making similar points 

Sex differences
"gender-feminist propaganda about gender-differences that are both POV and have nothing to do with sex differences. This confusion is what feminists have been banking on for political power plays as they pervert and the meaning of both terms." 

Shunning
Although not related to feminism or gender studies, this a further example of POVPUSH and SOAPBOXING by Anacapa "shunning groups almost always get away with imposing the most extreme forms of religious intolerance on others while they bask in the religious tolerance offered by outside world" 

Women's studies
Anacapa's vandalism on Women's studies is most complex. The last edit they made was on Feb 6th 2007 - a revert of an edit by User:Towsonu2003. Towsonu2003 removed unsourced, POV statements that bored on original research. Their reason for the deletion was that the criticism section was longer than the rest of the article. Although they did not quote WP:UNDUE the content in question was clearly given an undue weight. Anacapa's edits to the article subtly eroded the subject's notability, effectively attempting a redefinition of women's studies from their own POV. Instead of finding notable information on the subject, Anacapa created a section entitled "Criticism of women's studies as a discipline" - the title is itself a breach of NPOV, the "as a discipline" are weasel words inserted within Anacapa's over all project on the page. section created section reinserted feb 07

The content of the "criticism" is interesting - the same authors keep getting added by Anacapa: Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, Nathanson and Young, Camille Paglia. The work of these authors is the focus of Anacapa's edits. Questions were raised about this in November 2006 but Anacapa managed the debate by claiming that anyone removing or questioning the content was a "cunning" Stalinist and was trying to create propaganda using wikipedia. diff

Talk page diffs: (please note Anacapa's reorganization of converstaions) 

Gender
Anacapa also added an attack on Gender, from a source that has been described as seriously flawed. The content in question diff is taken from Paul Nathanson and Katherine K Young's new book (published in May 2006).

On first glance this seems like a newbie mistake placing criticism of Gender Studies in the header of Gender, but if the history and pattern of edits by this user is examined it is clearly not a newbie error. The use of this source has questioned on misandry, antifeminism, feminism and gender, to date they have not engaged with a discussion of the book's reliability or notablity.

To do list
In December 2006 Anacapa made alterations to the To do list for Gender to support their POV that Gender studies is a "political tool" for propaganda.. In February 2007 they edited this new to do item inserting that the info needs to come from Nathanson & Young's book Legalizing Misandry. They also added the flamebaiting characterization of feminists as "fascists".

Misrepresentation of sources
Most recently (drop in editor) has misrepresented "academic research into feminist issues" used on Feminism places to substantiate their POV: placing criticisms of gender studies and women's studies into a section on "academic research into feminist issues" distorts the section and the article. . The addition of 'criticisms' of gender studies into the section about natural & social scientific research into feminism was a) a misrepresentation of the work of these critics b) a twisting of the section to create a second 'criticism of feminism' section in the one article

Rewrite of Misandry
On a temporary page hosted by User:SecondSight for rewriting of Misandry Anacapa made a number of personal attacks on SecondSight and User:Edgarde Anacapa succeeded in turning SecondSight's the talk page of the rewrite into a "Trolling ground" which prevented the article from progressing. This method of preventing progress by Trolling is as disruptive as their edit-warring and multi-posting. This kind of bullying also contributed to User:SecondSight's disengagement from the topic.

Rape articles
Anacapa add text to the article alleging that "'widespread research biases and social double standards can and do cause systemic biases in how rape is reported and acknowledged. Therefore, this section is far from a complete summary of how rape is perpetrated in all its forms.'" this allegation is unsourced and is original research. It also contradicts the purpose of the section it is to summarize different types of rape. User:Cailil removed the line "Therefore, this section is far from a complete summary of how rape is perpetrated in all its forms." at 16:48 on Monday April 23, UTC

Anacapa also made the claim that "The FBI's definition for example excludes all rapes except forcible rapes of adult females by males"" - once again this statement is unsourced, it is also untrue.  The FBI used the Uniform Crime Report which does not exclude other forms of rape but it does privilege "forcible carnal knowledge of females against their will."

Talk:Rape
Anacapa made a number of edits to Rape on April 8th 2007 [], April 9th (original research)  and April 13th  - please note the use of language by user:128.11.95.47 "ugly ideologies of 'gender'-feminism" the "rape of justice."

Types of rape
Anacapa also began changing the use of gender/sex in the Types of rape article changing a proposed sex "Rape by gender" to "rape by sex" and adding another unsourced statement about female rapists.

Rape by gender
Of particular note is Anacapa's activity on the Rape by gender article. Anacapa threatened to "police" the use of the words 'sex' and 'gender' throughout Wikipedia. In a comment on Talk:Rape by gender Anacapa adds another POVpush against the use of the word 'gender'. In the article itself Anacapa added the statement in the headline that "The current title 'Rape by gender' is incorrect and misleading". If this is the case the point should be made on the talk page, consensus built and the page moved. This type of comment by Anacapa is designed by disruptive and to push their POV on feminism and gender.

This page was subsequently moved by User:Mears man who agreed with the point made by Anacapa. (Let it be clear Mears man's edit is regarded as a good faith edit and no wrong doing is in any way being attributed to them). Although this move was correct, the manner of its suggestion (i.e calling feminism fascist, etc) is once again creating a poisonous atmosphere of flambaiting and POVpushing.

Edits to Incest
has been used to make Anacapa's most recent edits to Talk:Incest. They made around 50 edits to the Incest article itself. This IP was not previously known but it is within the same range as Anacapa's other IPs and a look into its contribution history shows it has contributed to Anacapa's topics of interest (Shunning, Incest, excommunication, Mennonite etc). Please note that I'm only using this as an example of Anacapa's return to Wikipedia and of their further attempts to POVpush.

Shunning
Anacapa reactivated their user account and returned to editing on April 30th 2007 at Shunning. They have made a further POVpush on its talk saying "Somehow we need to face the covert, cunning and ugly truths about shunning in this article because the ends never justify such means". They have asked that their work not be reverted and accused editors of "being apologists for shunning .  They have also attacked Jbolden1517, simply because they asked for sources.

Anacapa has added POV statements  to Shunning some of which were removed by user:Sxeptomaniac and the page was restored to a pre-Anacapa version by User:Jbolden1517 minutes later. On May 1st they began a revert war  on the page.

The statements added are largely unsourced and are reflective of Anacapa's position on the subject. User Jbolden1517]] pointed this out to Anacapa on the shunning talk page.

A statement added by Anacapa is: "Establishment feminists in the United States have labeled credible feminist whistleblowers (who have spoken out about what they see as the totalitarian nature of post-modern feminism) "anti-feminist" as the basis for calling on all (other) feminists to shun them." this statement is unsourced.

=User:Anacapa is (drop in editor)=

=Warnings and accounts=

NPOV Warning Nov 2006
This user was warned at the IP 71.102.254.114 in Nov 2006. This is their response to Irish Guy's warning is here. This warning was given in relation to True love - there are more exchanges here.

Warnings May 2007
Durova warned Anacapa to respect WP:NOR and WP:NOV on May 18th, 2007.

At 02:40 (UTC) on the 30th of May User:Jehochman warned Anacapa for breaches of NPOV on Rape. As Anacapa's POVpush on Rape continued Jehochman gave a level 4 NPOV warning to Anacapa at 18:01 (UTC) on May 30th 2007,

2 hours after the first warning Anacapa used another Ip from the University of California Santa Barbara to make a no. of edits matching Anacapa's style and interest on Shunning and its talk page These edits were subsequently signed by Anacapa (see top of page).

Account
(drop in editor) was asked about their multiple addresses and advised to register by User:Lquilter. Lquilter also enquied at another IP talk page (User talk:128.111.95.217) used by Anacapa/(drop in editor) if they were the same user   Anacapa did not mention that they were using IPs instead of their account. Considering that they previously used their account to edit Feminism anonymity within the rules of legitimate multiple user accounts was obviously not an issue. Anacapa is not known to the public and couldn't face persecution outside Wikipedia for their edits.

SecondSight also asked them about their account in December 2006.

=Other Issues= The IP address User:209.129.49.65 is a recognized vandal address - while all of the vandalism that was done by this address does not conform to the pattern or style of (drop in editor) some of comments lodged on that page sound familiar. "'The difference between me and anybody else you may be comparing me to is that i have a 180 IQ, and the will and means to make Wikipedia responsible for its flagrantly abusive behaviors. What will happen to wikipedia when the general public is informed that the place is run by pov warring admins and arbiters? Participation will shrink.'" and   "'Wikipedias npov policy is built to deal with these problems. Sadly, in practice its like a 5 year old making rules for an adult conversation. The adults just find ways to bend, break, or invert the rules to their advantage. reply to this post delete this post'"

Ignores advice to RfC disputes
Anacapa/(drop in editor's) position on articles about feminism and related topics is very clear. They claim that the articles are biased and that consensus does not matter. User:Cailil has recommended to them to RfC pages they are concerned about and asked for specific occurrences of such bias in response to this suggestion (drop in editor) posts a long quote from "Legalizing Misandry".

Other users problems with Anacapa
In April 2006, Anacapa made a number of edits to Feminism that were hotly debated by User:Catamorphism among others. Anacapa's disruption scared Catamorphism away from editing feminism.

Wiki links to various talk pages mentioning Anacapa's edits
 * User_talk:Mennonot
 * User_talk:Stettlerj
 * User:Catamorphism/Archive_March_2006-May_2006
 * User_talk:DJ_Clayworth/Archive4

=Conclusion= Anacapa's disruption attempted to frustrate development of Project gender Studies and some of the articles within its remit, such as Gender, Women's Studies, Feminist theory, Rape and Domestic violence. There is no doubt that this user has made some positive edits to the encyclopedia but they have also trolled and vandalized articles, misrepresented sources and lied about their account. Anacapa is the same editor who used anon IPs to accuse those they disagree with (especially those they consider to be "feminists') of "fascist, cunning and totalitarian tactics" but in fact it was Anacapa who gamed the system to push their agendas across multiple articles and a number of topics.

Report page signed and dated: -- Cailil  talk 20:34, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

=References=