User talk:Stringbeats

I am not the same person. I am living in Paris, France, whereas this user lives Connecticut, USA. I am his girlfriend, not his "puppet". I was bragging to my French friends about his WP contributions, and how great WP is- they didn't know what it was. I went to his user page to show them what an anarchist he is (relevant because I am in France, a socialist country) when I saw the suggestion and apology from Cream... on his User page, which prompted me to look at his discussion page to see what happened.

When I read the argument that unfolds on his discussion page, I was shocked to see that WP could so easily censor a long time user, such as my boyfriend. Embarrassed, because I had been talking about the benefits of the WP system, though not a user myself, I read the conversation aloud to my friends and we had a good laugh. A lengthy discussion ensued, as one of my friends was the editor-in-chief of his college newspaper, and he questioned the attitude and liberties of the administrator, while I questioned the attitude and considered the past contributions of my boyfriend. We decided that as an administrator, he should not have been offended by a writer's comments, and that further, his attitude was patronizing and against what I had earlier described to my French friends as, the collective spirit of Wikipedia.

That conversation lasted a few good hours last night, then, today, I was thinking that perhaps the administrator was not so out of line for attacking my boyfriend's coarse language. I knew he used the language out of contempt for unfair authority, and general irrationality, but a part of me felt that he was mainly upset over losing his idea of a fair and free exchange of information. I called my boyfriend to ask what had happened, as he was clearly upset and didn't tell me himself, letting at least three days go by for me to discover it on my own, and to encourage him to ride out the temporary block and continue to contribute as Cream..., the user who originally nominated the stub for deletion, sincerely suggested. At this comment, my boyfriend asked me what I was talking about, and I said that Cream had posted an apology on his user page. My boyfriend revisited his page, only to find it deleted. At this, I was outraged, and my boyfriend resigned.

We argued, I insisted he create a new name and continue to contribute, and he declined saying he did not want to create a fake account or put effort into politiking for an unblock. Desperate, I told him that as a reader of WP I thought it was his responsibility to argue his position over this conflict, and that if he wouldn't do it, I would. He wouldn't, so I did.

After my first hour as a Wikipedia user, I was insulted, called a "Sockpuppet" or a "Meatpuppet" and my very first edit was falsely called, "Vandalism". Insulted, I called my boyfriend again, to ask how I could appeal the block. He told me how to appeal the block and supported me as a new user and suggested the administrator termed my edit "vandalism" because the administrator wanted to hide his censorship from scrutiny. If this is the case, I would like to dispute; any future contribution I would have made, and would have liked to make, has been thwarted on the basis that I am my boyfriend. As a new user I am upset, but do not know how to dispute, please, tell me what I can do. Stringbeats 21:56, 26 February 2007 (UTC)