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The case against Gwen Gale

Revision as of 15:06, 26 February 2012 by Kolobok (talk | contribs)
After Gwen Gale got her administrative tool she quickly turned the mop to a witch's broomstick. Now she uses this broomstick to fly around Wikipedia to collect heads of innocent editors while allowing trolls to troll.

"I will kill myself tonight and it is all your fault." wrote 16-years old kid at the talk page of Wikipedia administrator Gwen Gale on February 3,2012. This kid, as many other Wikipedia users has became a victim of bullying that is allowed on the site that belongs to non-profit charitable organization tax-exempt organization Wikimedia Foundation

Gwen Gale is not the only bully administrator on Wikipedia. She's probably not the worst either. She's one of dozens bullies that allow to roam free in Wikipedia's jungles.


Although the name of the article is The case against Gwen Gale this article could have been named "the case against bullying on Wikipedia".

Below is a real request concerning Gwen Gale. This request was filed on one of Wikipedia sites, and it was deleted with no action taken. Read it and decide for yourself.

The case against Gwen Gale

Some examples of unwarranted blocks and unwarranted removing of talk page access









  • User Super Badnik was blocked indefinitely at 21:03, 9 August 2008. The block was overturned by another administrator.


  • User Breathing Dead at 20:51, 23 July 2009 Gwen removed his talk page access. The talk page access was restored by another administrator.



  • User Mbz1

On December 23, 2010 Gwen Gale responded to canvassing and blocked the editor for a week. She made the block to be indefinite after the editor made this post. She removed the editor's talk page access without warning only because the editor added an indefinite blocked user template to her talk page two times. The talk page access was restored by another administrator.


  • user Ogioh was blocked indefinitely. The block was reverted in less than an hour.



Gwen Gale misusing her administrative tools when involved

The policy that clearly states:

“ In general, editors should not act as administrators in cases in which they have been involved. This is because involved administrators may have, or may be seen as having, a conflict of interest in disputes they have been a party to or have strong feelings about. Involvement is generally construed very broadly by the community, to include current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors), and disputes on topics, regardless of the nature, age, or outcome of the dispute. ”

This section states:

“ Conflict of interest, non-neutrality, or content dispute – Administrators should not use their tools to advantage, or in a content dispute (or article) where they are a party (or significant editor), or where a significant conflict of interest is likely to exist. With few specific exceptions (like obvious vandalism) where tool use is allowed by any admin, administrators should ensure they are reasonably neutral parties when they use the tools. ”


In this thread Gwen Gale stated:"First, if you are an admin and get involved in a content dispute like this, you cannot use your admin powers to resolve it." It was said on May 16, 2008.


Administrator Magog the Ogre Magog the Ogre had this to say about Gwen's conduct:
“ Gwen is very very much out of line, not only with the rollback tool but threatening to block a user in a dispute: future edit warring of this type will receive a block. ”
After Gwen Gale yet another time claimed a good faith edit to be "vandalism" administrator HJ Mitchell had this to say about Gwen's conduct:
“ In this case, while it might not have been your intention to get into a dispute, you did step over the bright-line rule and, as far as I can see, none of the reverted edits were vandalism. I would suggest being more careful with rollback at the very least. Non-admins have been known to lose it for less. In this case, while it might not have been your intention to get into a dispute, you did step over the bright-line rule and, as far as I can see, none of the reverted edits were vandalism. I would suggest being more careful with rollback at the very least. Non-admins have been known to lose it for less. ”
Gwen also received a personal message about this incident.
“ 3RR violation + misuse of admin tools. Please see WP:AN3#User:Gwen Gale reported by User:John J. Bulten (Result: protected). I am also rescinding the warning you gave the user you were opposed to, and replacing it with a proper warning for edit warring. Please consider this a warning: if you believe it is inappropriate and/or would like to appeal it, you may take it to WP:ANI. Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:17, 2 October 2010 (UTC) ”










  • This comment was made by Gwen in a section of arbitration enforcement request concerning Mbz1 on April 5, 2011 . The problem with this comment is that it was made in the section that is clearly marked as "This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the section above." "Uninvolved administrator" means an administrator, who never edits content of the articles that belongs to the topic of the specific sanctions. Gwen Gale have been editing these articles for years. She was edit warring and pushing her point of view in these articles. I have never seen any other admin who made even small edits in the articles under ARBPIA commenting in the section for uninvolved administrators. Most of the times the really uninvolved administrators even will not revert either clear vandalism violations.


Biting newbies

“ In a paywalled article for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Timothy Messer-Kruse, a professor at Bowling Green State university specialising in the history of the American labor movement, detailed his frustrated encounters with Wikipedia's immune system in endeavouring to set perceived inaccuracies in its historical coverage to rights. ”

In the article named "The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia" the professor writes: "Explain to me, then, how a 'minority' source with facts on its side would ever appear against a wrong 'majority' one?" I asked the Wiki-gatekeeper. He responded, "You're more than welcome to discuss reliable sources here, that's what the talk page is for. However, you might want to have a quick look at Wikipedia's civility policy." Here's the complete conversation. And here the first message the professor got.



The first block was 24 hours for this edit. The user was right "Lady Isabella Frederica Louisa Hervey (born 9 March 1982) is a British socialite, model, and actress. The second block was for two weeks for this edit in which the user changed "are an English" to "is a British". Please look at the article now. It has "British" not "English" . Looks like the user was right because a few newspapers call them "British". The user was also right in this edit, and the user was right in this edit and probably in all other edits as well.

Gwen Gale warned the user, but a new user could not have known what "consensus" and "sourcing" means.

Gwen Gale using unnecessary, rude edit summaries in the block log

On June2, 2010 a user was blocked with the edit summary: "smells like dirty laundry to me".

Gwen Gale responding to canvassing

I will provide only two example. More examples could be presented by request.

1. Here Gwen Gale responds to email canvassing by user Daedalus969.

Here is an example of one such conversation about sent email:

  • Ping!— Dædαlus+ Contribs 11:56, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Pong! Gwen Gale (talk) 12:41, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

What Daedalus969 was doing just before he pinged Gwen Gale? He was commenting on the same AN/I thread that Gwen Gale closed just before she ponged. So as soon as Daedalus969 said "Ping" Gwen gladly responded "Pong".


2. With this edit the user admitted he canvassed Gwen Gale to co-nominate him in his RfA and Gwen Gale responded to canvassing. It is funny that the user made his/her admission in response to admin Guerillero saying that Gwen Gale does not instill any trust in him/her.

Wikipedians about Gwen Gale

“ Gwen Gale wasn't even on my radar, positively or negatively, until this week, and then I was involved in an incident with her and her judgment gave me such pause. So for that, I oppose, and suggest she looks into how she deals with disputes. Like it or not, this is the highest community "court" or what have you that we have here, and after what I saw, I don't want her on it, probably ever. ”
“ I'm sorry, but you really sunk it for me on Talk:Rush Limbaugh. I found your arguments and sources on there to be a disgrace, frankly. Or, User:Avruch said, "I think some of your arguments have been disingenuous, and beneath what I believe your intelligence and perceptive ability to be." ”
“ aka Wyss. Formerly placed under editing restrictions by ArbCom for unseemly conduct; evaded these restrictions with a sockpuppet... Zero-tolerance attitude towards adminship makes them wholly incompatible with a role of higher responsibility that requires more creative solutions. ”

Gwen Gale insulted everybody who dared to vote against her.

Gwen Gale - a bully administrator

One Of Gwen Gale's supporters wrote "In nearly every instance I've seen her on ANI, Gwen seems to have no hesitation in cutting through crap and issuing blocks while others dither." The problem with this statement is that no admin would "dither" "in cutting through crap and issuing blocks" although most honest administrators would "dither" in using the tools against innocent content contributors, using the tools while involved, using the tools after being canvassed. On the other hand Gwen Gale ignored many Wikipedia polices and made lot's bad blocks that in some cases required lot's of volunteer time of many contributors to fix.






  1. was blocked at 23:03, 29 December 2009 for making $1,000 donation to wikipedia. Gwen Gale issued the block after she was asked by another administrator to leave the editor alone: Gwen,you have gotten too personally involved. I urge you to leave further admin actions with respect to this editor to other administrators. DGG ( talk ) 20:28, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  2. was blocked indefinitely at 22:16, 14 February 2010 for requesting a blocked user template. This block was overturn by another administrator.
  1. was blocked at 20:36, 21 November 2008. She removed the editor talk page access. Two hours later another administrator restored the talk page access. At 20:10, 29 November 2008 one second correction block was added to the editor block record: "Noting the block was at least somewhat questionable, enough to have a note in the block log. See blocking admins talk page."
  1. was blocked indefinitely at 21:03, 9 August 2008. The block was overturned by another administrator.
  1. at 20:51, 23 July 2009 Gwen removed his talk page access. The talk page access was restored by another administrator.


Gwen Gale using her administrative tools when involved

When an involved administrator blocks an editor it is anyway as a teenaged bully is harassing a toddler. In this section I provided an example of using tools while involved. Here are two of the most striking examples.



  • This is the last edit made by Proofreader77. After this Gwen Gale removed his talk page access. She did it during the request for arbitration that was initiated to discuss prior unwarranted and overturned blocks of this editor the very blocks that were imposed by the very same Gwen Gale. She was not just involved. She was heavily involved, but nobody from arbitrators bothered to undo her action and at least warn her.



Administrator Magog the Ogre Magog the Ogre had this to say about Gwen's conduct:
“ Gwen is very very much out of line, not only with the rollback tool but threatening to block a user in a dispute: future edit warring of this type will receive a block. ”
After Gwen Gale yet another time dishonestly claimed a good faith edit to be "vandalism" administrator HJ Mitchell had this to say about Gwen's conduct:
“ In this case, while it might not have been your intention to get into a dispute, you did step over the bright-line rule and, as far as I can see, none of the reverted edits were vandalism. I would suggest being more careful with rollback at the very least. Non-admins have been known to lose it for less. In this case, while it might not have been your intention to get into a dispute, you did step over the bright-line rule and, as far as I can see, none of the reverted edits were vandalism. I would suggest being more careful with rollback at the very least. Non-admins have been known to lose it for less. ”
Gwen also received a personal message about this incident.
“ 3RR violation + misuse of admin tools.Please see WP:AN3#User:Gwen Gale reported by User:John J. Bulten (Result: protected). I am also rescinding the warning you gave the user you were opposed to, and replacing it with a proper warning for edit warring. Please consider this a warning: if you believe it is inappropriate and/or would like to appeal it, you may take it to WP:ANI. Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:17, 2 October 2010 (UTC) ”



Gwen Gale is dishonest and untruthful

Gwen Gale unable to assume good faith

This discussion demonstrates Gwen Gale inability to assume good faith.

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) was blocked for 72 hours for this edit, in which the user corrected a punctuation typo. Please take a look at this comment Gwen Gale made, when asked about the block: "He was not moving on, he was hiding the warnings, knowing he would most likely be blocked for carrying on with his disruption and hoping that a careless admin would think he was blocked for correcting a punctuation typo. This is also why he put his unblock request at the top of the page, far away from the block notice. Gwen Gale (talk) 02:10, 30 May 2010 (UTC)". Hey, Gwen, you did block him "for correcting a punctuation typo", did you not?

The user was unblocked in a few hours with edit summary "Block not covered by Wikipedia:Blocking policy".

Recent misuse of administrative tools

Admin Gwen gale deleted the last surviving pieces of her sock user Wyss talk page history. "User request to delete page in own userspace: user thought this had been done years ago". Interesting she refers to herself as to some unknown to her user: "User request to delete page". She lies that this page is in her "own userspace". She deleted the only page that had talk history of Wyss. She frlrtrd many other archives of user Wyss as well.

Self-pitying

After all the bullying and harassment Gwen Gale exercised towards other editors she suddenly decided to engage in self-pitying:

“ I was thinking yesterday, in all my life, I have never been so harassed, wantonly smeared, blatantly lied about or otherwise trashed as I've been on this website. Not even nearly. I've put up with it because I knew the slurs were never about me as such, but about other stuff only a dozen or so editors (out of thousands) were flogging and thrashing away at towards their own utterly selfish, narrow, thwarted goals and outlooks as to editorial and policy outcomes (and I dare say much worse sometimes). ”

She provided no single evidence of her being "harassed, wantonly smeared, blatantly lied about or otherwise trashed."

In another place Gwen Gale said:

“ "Stuff has been done to me here that I find "intolerable," awful, but I don't go on about it."..."If it helps, I agree with you, the whole thing stinks." ”

Assuming under "the whole thing" Gwen Gale meant the project, she should realize that, if it "stinks", it is partly because of her.

Gwen Gale - Fred Bauder a strange relationship

User Fred Bauder is an administrator and a former arbitrator of English Wikipedia. Wyss and her socks used to make personal attacks against Fred:

“ an apparent liar who pursues a strictly unencyclopedic agenda. ”
“ With all the recent bad publicity, can't decide if you want the same old gang of troll coddlers re-elected, eh Mr Wales? :) ”
“ Truth be told, according to freely available public records, he was suspended for soliciting a client's wife to work in a prostitution ring, then refusing to attend his hearing on it. Many would interpret this as "disbarred" but he denies the term applies. Bauder disclosed none of this to Mr Wales when he was asked to join lawyerish arbcomm. ”
“ Wankers, fiddlers, fools and trolls. Even as the Seigenthaler scandal was breaking in hundreds of news reports across the world, arbcomm member and suspended (in effect, apparently disbarred) lawyer Fred Bauder voted to endorse the statement that my sourcing standards were "unrealistic," as in, "Why bother for accuracy? ”
“ The more I learn about you, the more I think you don't want to help people write an encyclopedia. Why are you here? ”

Yet somewhere along the way Fred Bauder everything has changed.Fred Bauder was no longer "an apparent liar who pursues a strictly unencyclopedic agenda", "(in effect, apparently disbarred) lawyer Fred Bauder", not even one of "wankers, fiddlers, fools and trolls", he suddenly became "Mr Bauder", and Gwen's best friend.

Gwen Gale - Daedalus969 a strange relationship

User Daedalus969 is the top contributor to Gwen Gale's talk page.

Gwen Gale responds to email canvassing by that user:

Here is an example of one such conversation about sent email:

  • Ping!— Dædαlus+ Contribs 11:56, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Pong! Gwen Gale (talk) 12:41, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

What Daedalus969 was doing just before he pinged Gwen Gale? He was commenting on the same AN/I thread that Gwen Gale closed just before she ponged. So as soon as Daedalus969 said "Ping" and Gwen gladly responded "Pong".

Maybe there would not have been anything strange in a friendship between Gwen and Daedalus969, but the problem with Daedalus969 is that the user is simply a "little shit" as Wikipedia administrator Bishonen correctly noticed. Besides that "little shit" is missing ability to write articles as he himself admitted.

Another former Wikipedia editor said: "Daedalus969, the hapless youth who literally has no clue (at least how to spell, or even construct a readable sentence), who runs around acting like an Administrator and frequently goes to Gwen/Heidi for advice/help."

So why Gwen Gale likes Daedalus969 so much? Maybe she likes that this "little shit", "hapless youth who literally has no clue" really has no clue of what he is doing like for example, when he removed a period from Gwen's sock talk page with an edit summary "courtesy blanked"?

Once "a little shit" asked Gwen the witch, if he could run for adminship. Gwen responded:

“ I'd say, work on your peacemaking a bit (we're all meant to be building articles here, after all) and you'll be an admin sooner rather than later ;) Gwen Gale (talk) 12:59, 2 December 2008 (UTC) ”

Interesting what she was thinking?

Although it is not entirely clear what drives a "witchy girl" Gwen Gale and a "little shit" Daedalus969 together, but there is no doubt that the pair is responsible for driving off the project countless valued editors.

Heidi Wyss at the WEB

Heidi Wyss wrote articles about herself on at least 3 different sites.

Editing under user name "Spidermite", she wrote two articles about herself on feminists wiki: Heidi Wyss and Gormglaith.

Editing under user name "Gwen Gale" she wrote two articles about herself on Wikipedia:Heidi Wyss and Gormglaith (novel). Both were later deleted because the subject was not notable.

Editing as IP 81.62.148.165 she wrote an article about herself at MyWikiBiz: Gormglaith (novel). According to this screenshot this IP#81.62.148.165 was used by Heidi Wyss (Gwen Gale) to edit an article about her novel on wikipedia as well.

In January of 2010 Willowtree(probably Gwen Gale) tried to remove the information about herself from this article just as she did many times on English wikipedia, but this time it did not work out, and she was reverted.

Not a fairy

 
Gwen Gale with heads of contributors she blocked

Heidi Wyss AKA Gwen Gale tries to present herself as Wikipedia's fairy, but everybody who is willing to look at her conduct closely will see an ugly expression of a bully administrator behind a fairy's mask.

Gwen Gale makes a fool of yourself and of Wikipedia

A few days ago professor Timothy Messer-Kruse shared his experience in editing Wikipedia. In particular he recalls part of his exchange with Gwen Gale:"Explain to me, then, how a 'minority' source with facts on its side would ever appear against a wrong 'majority' one?" I asked the Wiki-gatekeeper. He responded, "You're more than welcome to discuss reliable sources here, that's what the talk page is for. However, you might want to have a quick look at Wikipedia's civility policy." The complete conversation is preserved here:

“ Fine. I see I will have to fight these battles one at a time. I will start with the most obvious. Here is a "majority" source, indeed the most often-cited source for information on Haymarket there is, Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy: from page 190: "Spies had heard that two men had been killed, apparently the correct number, but when he picked up the Daily News, the paper reported six deaths." So, it should be evident that this authoratitive source also agrees the proper number should be TWO. As for you claim about Wikipedia's policy, your characterization of it is absurd, especially if the "majority" source that is cited can be shown to be factually wrong. Explain to me, then, how a "minority" source with facts on its side would ever appear against a wrong "majority" one?MesserKruse (talk) 17:41, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

You're more than welcome to discuss reliable sources here, that's what the talk page is for. However, you might want to have a quick look at Wikipedia's civility policy. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:44, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

”

Gwen Gale was also the one who "welcomed" the professor to Wikipedia: "Did you make this edit while not logged in to this account? You may want to have a look at Wikipedia's policy on sockpuppets. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:00, 22 January 2009 (UTC)"

Professor Timothy Messer-Kruse who is a world famous expert on the subject was ordered to review "Wikipedia's civility policy" although he was civil, and "Wikipedia's policy on sockpuppets" simply because he forgot to log in.

Here's a post at Gwen's talk page concerning her involvement in the matter: "Hello. I just want to point out that I recently read an article in the chronicle here: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Undue-Weight-of-Truth-on/130704/ and it describes what amounts to an edit war that you were engaged in. I looked at the page and discussion in question, and it seems to me that you are boorish and a bully. I would like to suggest that you tone down your air of self-righteous authority, in order to encourage a more civil atmosphere on Wikipedia. It's especially ironic that when presented with what seems to be a very civil point by (presumably) the author of the blog, you ignored the substance of his argument and instead groundlessly accused him of being uncivil himself. If you're going to wear that hat of uncontested arbitrator of *TRUTH*, it would be helpful if you at least justified your claims in detail to those who go to the trouble of trying to actually discuss the truth in a balanced fashion using reliable sources. As it stands, you arbitrarily call seemingly reliable sources "unreliable", and other sources that support your preferred narrative "reliable," and this makes you an awful bully. Please consider changing your behavior and attitudes. Best regards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashwinr (talk • contribs) 17:29, 15 February 2012 (UTC)"

Bloggers about Gwen Gale

A famous blogger All's Wool that Ends Wool writes about Gwen Gale in the blog named Tyranny of the Ignorant. Calling her "one Wikipediot" he writes:

“ a noted mathematical physicist from the Centre de recherches mathématiques is precisely the kind of "expert" that Wikipedia claims it would like to attract to give credence to its content. Yet, when such a scientist attempted to edit the Myrzakulov equations article, a field in which he has considerable expertise, he was rebuffed by the "community." To quote one Wikipediot: "One may be an expert in one's field, but not an expert in collaborative, volunteer development of an open encyclopedia using wiki software. ”

Of course the expert left Wikipedia comparing it to inquisition and calling it a "Tyranny of the Ignorant"

A few people responded to the blog:

“ This Gwen Gale - is out of control at wikipedia. She banned me from the website for merely asking a question after she threatened me for what i can't even figure out. ”
“ Gwen Gale is the perfect example of the smug, self-important morons that pretend to be Wikiexperts. If you look at her edit history, she spends hours and hours daily being high and mighty on Wikipedia. ”
“ Talk about an obsessed, jealous, ugly wench...Gwen Gale recently edited pages about a beautiful Playboy Playmate named Stephanie Adams and did so with malice due to her anger of not being a notable author herself. ”
“ Gwen Gale (AKA Heidi Wyss) just recently caused a furor at Wikipedia as it turns out she had written two articles about herself (her actual name is Heidi Wyss). Both of these puff pieces were quickly nominated for deletion, with a host of people trying to cover up the fact that she wrote them, claiming others were trying to "out" her (Wiki-speak for revealing her ID, something rather ironic when you consider she wrote the articles herself). As of 12/3, there are a bunch of very funny items on Wikipedia and Wikipedia Review about this. Gwen is staying uncharacteristically quiet about having divulged her true identity. ”

See also

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