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September/October 2019 edits[edit]

I have determined that the following edits, shown "roughly" in reverse chronological order, made starting from about 9/27/2019. were patt of a "link spam" scheme (see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/clemency.com), which attempted to give some degree of credibility to the editor and to distract from the purpose, e.g. by attempting to have some of the edits appear to be addressing legitimate issues and otherwise challenging whole or partial reverts of the edits.

Links to contributions for suspected bad actors are:

Limited liability company (Limited liability company) 14:27, 8 May 2020 2 edits, revert yet to be reverted
Legality of incest in the United States (history) 19:11, 17 October 2019 1 edit: delete 2 citations new source replaced 1 of the sources, original good source reinstated by Fabrickator fixed 2020‑04‑25
Ages of consent in the United States (history) 19:09, 17 October 2019 1 edit: delete 1 citation original spammy source (criminaldefenselawyer.com) reinstated by Guarapiranga fixed 2020‑10‑17
Embezzlement (history) 19:07, 17 October 2019 1 edit: delete 1 citation spammy source (criminaldefenselawyer.com) does not need to be replaced leave as is
Hate crime (history) 19:06, 17 October 2019 1 edit: delete 1 citation original spammy source (criminaldefenselawyer.com) should be replaced with alternate source
National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation (history) 14:04, 16 October 2019 1 edit: add content and 1 citation, revert partially reverted by KH-1, remaining content is okay fixed 2019‑10‑17
Commutation (law) (history) 19:45, 9 October 2019 1 edit: add 1 citation, revert reverted by KH-1, partially unreverted by Arllaw, re-reverted by Fabrickator fixed 2019‑10‑19
Bankruptcy (history) 21:17,‑8‑October‑2019 2 edits reverted by Nick Moyes fixed 2019‑10‑08
Family law (history) 21:16, 8 October 2019 1 edit reverted by Wtuhu fixed 2019-10-09
Personal injury (history) 21:13, 8 October 2019 2 edits, revert yet to be reverted ???
Personal injury lawyer (history) 21:13, 8 October 2019‎ 1 edit reverted by Nick Moyes fixed 2019-10-09
Contingent fee (history) 21:12, 8 October 2019‎ 1 edit, revert reverted by Wtuhu fixed 2019-10-13
Limited liability company (history) 21:10, 8 October 2019‎ 1 edit reverted by Wtuhu fixed 2019-10-09
Defamation (history) 21:09, 8 October 2019 1 edit reverted by [e5ad] unreverted by Coolcaesar, re-reverted by Fabrickator fixed 2019-10-12
Fair use (history) 21:08, 8 October 2019 1 edit reverted by Nick Moyes fixed 2019-10-08
Ages of consent in the United States (history) 21:13, 7 October 2019‎ 2 edits reverted by Nick Moyes fixed 2019-10-08
Embezzlement (history) 21:09, 7 October 2019 1 edit reverted by Nick Moyes fixed 2019-10-08
Hate crime (history) 21:06, 7 October 2019‎ 1 edit reverted by Nick Moyes fixed 2019-10-08
Suspended sentence (history) 18:55, 7 October 2019 1 edit reverted by KH-1 fixed 2019-10-09
Death sentence with reprieve (history) 18:44, 7 October 2019 1 edit, revert 1 edit, reverted; re-added 20:28, 15 October 2019 and re-reverted by KH-1 fixed 2019-10-09
List of common misconceptions (history) 19:42, 1 October 2019 1 edit dropping two "yourdictionary" entries, no basis for this change, revert reverted by Fabrickator fixed 2019-10-15
Bournemouth (history) 19:34, 1 October 2019‎ 1 edit entered twice reverted by Britmax and Charlesdrakew fixed 2019-10-01
Sussex (history) 19:28, 1 October 2019 1 edit: delete citation need definition for "South Saxons" ???
Perjury (history) 19:18, 1 October 2019‎ 1 edit reverted by Nick Moyes fixed 2019-10-08
Paul Manafort (history) 16:30, 1 October 2019 1 edit: add 1 citation reverted by KH-1 fixed 2019-10-07
Recipients of Clinton pardons (history) 16:08, 1 October 2019‎ 1 edit reverted by KH-1, re-added 20:16, 15 October 2019‎ and then re-reverted by KH-1 fixed 2019-10-07
Recipients of Trump clemency (history) 22:05,‑28‑September‑2019‎ 1 edit: add 3 citations, revert 2 reverted by Arllaw, Fabrickator fixed 2019-10-18
WACS-TV (history) 02:47, 28 September 2019 1 edit: add citation ok, but only shows that WACS is part of GPB ???
Uturoa (history) 02:37, 28 September 2019 1 edit reverted by Fabrickator fixed 2019-10-15
Pardon (history) 15:23, 27 September 2019‎ 2 edits reverted/corrected by Fabrickator ???

Bankruptcy[edit]

The deleted ExpertLaw link What is Chapter 13 Bankruptcy replaced the link in the October 17, 2017 revision to TaiebLaw "Chapter 13 Bankruptcy" page.

Commutation (law)[edit]

The clemency.com link was added in the Paul Manafort October 9, 2019 revision and the prior revision. The added reference violates policy and should be deleted, and may have other policy issues.

Defamation[edit]

The deleted ExpertLaw link Defamation: Libel and Slander was added in the Defamation October 31, 2017 revision by 2601:401:503:62b0:d577:292d:2ced:528b in conjunction with a major revision of Defamation. Fabrickator (talk) 21:24, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche[edit]

In the edit of 10:51, 9 March 2022 by 134.219.227.24, the claims that Elisabeth had edited Nietzche's works to highlight racist and eugenicist themes, were "severely contested", e.g. in Robert C. Holub's book "Nietzsche's Jewish Problem", i.e. questioning the extent to which his sister had materially altered Nietzsche's alleged anti-semitic views. Brian Leiter raises some doubt as to whether it is accurate to state that this perspective has become widely held and challenges the validity of this claim in his review of Holub's book at Nietzsche’s Hatred of "Jew Hatred". Fabrickator (talk) 21:00, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Family law[edit]

The deleted ExpertLaw link What is Family Law was added in the Family Law October 31, 2017 revision.


Paul Manafort[edit]

The link clemency.com was added in the [1] Paul Manafort October 1, 2019 revision, and deleted by Ost31/Monkbot on October 1, 2019 and October 7, 2019. The deleted reference was redundant and may have had other policy issues.

Recipients of Trump clemency[edit]

This edit made several changes:

Leave in the "Standards for Consideration of Clemency Petitioners" citation, drop the others. Fabrickator (talk) 05:06, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like at least some of the objectionable content was changed or removed on edit of 17:55, 14 November 2020. Fabrickator (talk) 22:16, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hate crime[edit]

Possibly inappropriate deletion of "criminal defense lawyer" citations from Hate crime (mentioned previously on this page, maybe reconsider the objection to criminal defense lawyer site). Fabrickator (talk) 03:10, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

joke edits[edit]

I've become rather less concerned with certain types of questionable edits. This perspective applies to articles with critical content and those articles that have had bogus content that has been posted for an extended period of time. IMO, fixing such edits has the bad effect of enabling bad WP policy. So rather than fix these edits, I will be inclined merely to note them as joke edits. Note that posting these here is for amusement purposes only, and should not be considered a request or suggestion to actually fix them (in fact, it's really the opposite).

Ages of consent in Europe[edit]

Ages of consent in South America[edit]

Ages of consent in the United States[edit]

  • 21:05 25 September 2020‎ edit (reverted) (all Desertambition edits)
    • original states that age of consent in U.S. ranges from 16 to 18
    • revised version states that age of consent in U.S. ranges from "between 18 and older"
  • 11:11 19 December 2020 edit (all Madelibelove edits)
    • revised version states New Mexico age of consent is 17 rather than 16
    • New Mexico age of consent is discussed on talk page, 'U.S. v. Christy' establishes New Mexico age of consent is 16; as a published opinion (i.e. an appeal), this is a "gold standard"
  • 11:25, 17 August 2021 edit (all Enthusiast01 edits)
    • According to this edit, in the case in which a state which does not establish an age of consent by statutethe "common law" applies. The implication is that "statutory rape" can exist even in the absence of a statute.

American Automobile Association[edit]

Arranged marriage[edit]

Billy Hewes[edit]

B'nai B'rith International[edit]

  • This edit of 06:01 6 October 2020 changed the text from the "late 20th century" to the "late 19th century", based on an interpretation that this was the period of formation of the organization, rather than a period when fraternal organizations were in decline, the confusion resulting from an omitted comma.
    • The Deborah Dash citation does not support this claim (nor does the other citation).
    • A source that includes some near-verbatim content is B'nai B'rith in Encyclopedia Judaica 2nd edition
      • ... the organization’s historic roots are in a system of fraternal lodges and units (chapters), in the late 20th century, as fraternal organizations were in decline throughout the U.S., the organization began evolving into a dual system ...
    • Note however, that aside from the erroneous citation, the original edit which inserted the content (18:09 3 February 2012 edit) didn't really get it quite right.
    • Be aware that reference to a "dual system" refers to members who may not actively participate in the organization, i.e. they affiliate with the organization only by payment of dues.

Boygar Razikashvili[edit]

So to summarize, within 60 days after an article is created about some person we have no prior record of, links are created from 4 different articles and then there is a followup request to create an article about the "family". Good joke!

Cambridge, Massachusetts[edit]

Camila O'Gorman[edit]

Charles Town, West Virginia[edit]

Chevron Corporation[edit]

  • 2 October 2020 edits (all Coolcaesar edits)
    • original explains that a Chevron station is operated in each state "to maintain ownership of the mark"
    • revised version explains that the stations are operated in each state because "American trademark law operates under a use-it-or-lose-it rule"
    • the existing citation already explains that use of the trademark is required to retain rights to the name
    • the editor explains that he is "fixing this mess", trying to distract us from the fact that this is a gratuitous change
  • 19 June 2021 edit (all Uncle Bash007 edits)
    • erroneous claim that Chevron was founded in 1984 plus sentence made ungrammatical

Chinatowns in the United States[edit]

Collegiate secret societies in North America[edit]

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau[edit]

Changes of 8 August 2023: IP user revisions of 8 August 2023

My contention is that that fixing problems like this one is counter-productive, doing so merely masks the severity of the problem. The best hope for fixing the underlying problem is to leave stinky changes like this one intact. It may well get fixed; then again, it may remain in this form for an extended period of time, serving to demonstrate that this editing model doesn't really work so well.

Credit score in the United States[edit]

Defamation[edit]

Dry Bones (comic strip)[edit]

Faaa[edit]

The following edits (all unsourced as far as I am aware) are largely subjective or otherwise unlikely to be able to be verified.

Fossiliferous limestone[edit]

Grand Central Terminal[edit]

History of communication[edit]

Honor killing in the United States[edit]

  • 03:45, 13 November 2023‎ edit (all Goose0919 edits)
    • This change conflates multiple things:
      • "children" (i.e. biological relationship to parents) with "minors"
      • basis of honor killing (most commonly, relationship with someone outside of the religion, rather than being underage)
      • possibly, minimum age for sex and minimum age for marriage
        • not even an explicit allegation of actual sexual contact

I Am Curious (Yellow)[edit]

  • 8 December 2020 edits (all 24.7.56.99 edits)
    • The fact that there were "Theatres I and II" along with the street name are extraneous detail.
    • The associated citation is also extraneous; most likely, the theater's complete name would be found in the court filings cited, and whether this movie showed on one or two screens, who cares?
    • The part about Jackie Onassis is also extraneous; while Johnny Carson's viewing of the movie may have made it acceptable, Jackie's walking out on the movie tells us something about Jackie, but did not appear to either create or quell objections to the movie.

James Carville[edit]

Jump Jim Crow[edit]

Lina Medina[edit]

  • 19:07, 1 November 2022
    • I called out this questionable edit on the article's talk page in January 2023, a couple of months after the edit. I'm curious how long it will take for somebody to actually revert this "typo".

List of banks and credit unions in Canada[edit]

Marriage[edit]

Marriage age in the United States[edit]

  • In a series of edits starting on 7 October 2020‎ edit, pre-existing content (with citations to diverse sources) was removed and replaced with citations to State-by-State Marriage "Age of Consent" Laws, a source which consolidates information from various sources but which fails to cite its sources. Although FindLaw may generally be a reputable source, the absence of such citations is problematic. In any case, here is the last version prior to this change.

Michael Moore[edit]

Midtown, Memphis[edit]

  • 15:08 2 March 2006 edit (all 152.163.100.138 edits)
    • unsupported claim as to "evenly distributed" black and white population, which seems to be actually disputed, at least by current sources
    • erroneous claim is still present in current article
    • contributor was fairly prolific; made about 2000 edit over a 2-year period from 2004 to 2006

Mortgage underwriting[edit]

Nathan Lee[edit]

National Society of Collegiate Scholars[edit]

OBC (secret society)[edit]

Oceanview, San Francisco[edit]

  • 07:07, 7 November 2022 edit
    • claims to remove "decades old anecdotal report that is no longer accurate"
    • the report[1] is about 10 years old
    • at least one current source shows property crime rate is lower, but violent crime rate remains comparatively high
    • in any case, the historical perspective provided is certainly still relevant

Operation Iron Triangle[edit]

Oyama v. California[edit]

The edit in question is Special:Diff/958750420/958751420.

The issue:

The following comprehensible content

since it was accepted that California was permitted to forbid certain aliens from owning land, it should also be accepted that the state was empowered to modify its laws in order to preclude individuals from circumventing the relevant statutes.

was changed to:

since California was accepted to be allowed to forbid certain aliens from owning land, the state should also be accepted to be empowered to modify its laws to preclude individuals from circumventing the relevant statutes.

So it was seemingly edited by somebody who couldn't make sense of the pre-existing text.

Pennsylvania Railroad[edit]

Phyllis Thaxter[edit]

Polity[edit]

  • 9 October 2004 edit
    • joke about "correspondences between society or the state and the individual human body" has been ongoing for 17 years

Quicken Loans[edit]

Reputation[edit]

There are a few reasons why I call the sourcing of these claims an "abomination" ... With regard to the claims:

  • It's "definitional" to specify what "behavior/character reputation" means.
  • It seems to be rather arbitrary to distinguish based on a purported presence or absence of objective criteria.
  • The last part of the claim merely cites examples.

The sources themselves are not freely available. Not that this is unusual, but for many people, it means that they're not going to access the source. Additionally, there are no page numbers, so assuming the source has been obtained, the reader is left to determine the exact location by themselves.

In other words, this claim is not very interesting and the sourcing is unhelpful. It's really not worth the bytes used. Fabrickator (talk) 14:49, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that Reputation was reasonable up until the 14:36, 9 October 2015 edit (view all 162.206.141.210 edits).

Research Triangle Park[edit]

Reverse mortgage[edit]

Room-temperature superconductor[edit]

  • edits of 1 October 2023
    • These edits are more properly described as a silly edits rather than joke edits
    • First edit purports to "improve some of the English", but actually makes it considerably more difficult to parse the affected text.
    • Second edit removes a {{clarify}} template questioning which claims made have been confirmed, implying that this was resolved by the prior edit, but which does not actually do anything whatsoever to address this concern.

Rotaract[edit]

Sista Otis[edit]

  • 21:55, 6 December 2020 edit
    • haha, this is my own joke edit!
    • why is this a joke edit?
      • the old version was marked with "citation needed" for claim that The Advocate named Sista Otis as "one of the top Indie Artists in the U.S."
      • this was essentially a 3-step game of "whisper"...
        • 0. column published in The Advocate
        • 1. the "Sista Otis" website misrepresents the column from The Advocate (in multiple ways)
        • 2. third-party sites misquote the "Sista Otis" website
        • 3. Wikipedia picks up the quote from either the "Sista Otis" website or one of these third-party websites
      • I added the citation to the article, citing the "Sista Otis" website as the source.

The original source is the Indie Heat column in the June 21, 2005 issue of The Advocate. What the column actually states is

Check these out acts at smaller venues ... Sista Otis and her Wholly Rollers manage to overdeliver. Sista serves up ... 1960's rock ... with .... funk, hip-hop, soul, and urban folk. ... Rollin' Stone [is a standout].

It's definitely a positive review, but there's also definitely no claim that it rates in the top ten across the U.S. or any specific part thereof. Such a discrepancy as exists between the column and the quotes attributed to that column demonstrates the importance of going back to the original source instead of relying on third-party citations (i.e. citations attributing something to another source).

Southern Ocean[edit]

Stone Mountain[edit]

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally[edit]

  • 21:18, 28 September 2020 edit (all Bri edits)
    • prior edit cited Newsweek article about increased number of Covid-19 case in North Dakota, associating this increase with the rally held several weeks earlier, from August 7 to August 16
    • the "joke edit" reverts this content on the grounds that the number of such cases attributable to the rally is speculative and suggesting that information be posted only when there is "non-speculative" information on how many cases attributable to the rally.
    • Reliable sources commonly include speculative information; there is no WP prohibition on speculative content, as long as it's from a reliable source.

Teenage suicide in the United States[edit]

Trident (gum)[edit]

Vincent Flemmi[edit]

These locations change in subsequent edits. FWIW, it appears that there was no official statement as to the actual prison in which he was incarcerated prior to his death (presumably in a hospital somewhere in the vicinity of the prison). Subsequent edits reference "Norfolk, Massachusetts" and "Maryland, Virginia" (a non-existent location, though there is a "Mayland, Virginia") and "Maryland, Maine", but I haven't located a source to support any of this. I suspect that the reference to "Maryland, Maine" is just a joke.

My speculation is that he had been imprisoned in Norfolk, Massachusetts, was perhaps apprehended in the "Maryland/Virginia" area, and then returned to the Norfolk facility where he got sick, was taken to some sort of hospital where he actually died. This would sort of explain the confusion about being imprisoned in Norfolk, Virginia.

Web shell[edit]

  • 22:40, 16 April 2021 edit (all Exploredragon edits)
    • Explanation provided was correction of grammatical issues in the lede, which seems to refer to the insertion of the word "the" where it is not an improvement. Other changes are simply a matter of word choice.

Whitey Bulger[edit]

  • 01:07, 6 March 2021 edit {all Causa sui edits)
    • purportedly, the citation does not support the deleted claim that Geas did not dispute his role in the killing of Bulger
    • New York post story credits Boston Globe; here is quote from October 30, 2018 Boston Globe story:
      • People familiar with the investigation suggest that Bulger was murdered by more than one of his fellow inmates, and that Geas didn’t dispute his role in the killing.

Winter Hill Gang[edit]

  • 10:11, 20 July 2021 edit (all 76.120.37.128 edits)
    • This is not so much a joke edit as it is an edit that's acknowledged to be based on personal belief. I will distinguish that from personal knowledge. May really belong in a different category than "joke" but I'm not so sure.
    • User's contributions are a gold mine of arguably dubious reasons for making changes, or he could be brilliant at applying WP:BOLD. You be the judge!

Women in Refrigerators[edit]

Women in the World Wars[edit]

Revision as of 18:33, 25 November 2023: includes erroneous number of 50,000 Jewish women serving in the Canadian army during WWII. Per the source provided, the official estimate was 279.

suspected spam websites[edit]

These are just some sites I've noticed that seem to have been added merely as spam, along with affected articles. Ideally, for each site, note which articles had the spam site added, along with a "diff" showing the earliest revision which added it.

review list for suspected joke editors[edit]

This is intended as a list of users/IP ranges have apparently made joke edits and should continue to be monitored. Darryl Walton

shifting POV on Shia Islam in the United Arab Emirates[edit]

See these edits by ItsTimHortons, reverted by these edits by Ganbaruby.

This was discussed in theTeahouse, but these changes should be considered for reinstatement because there are sources providing support for the reverted changes. Fabrickator (talk) 06:05, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

based off / based on[edit]

Some people focused on copyedits decided that based off should always be replaced with based on. Aside from the "noise" of such edits, they were generally harmless because based off and based on are pretty much interchangeable. A telltale sign of having done such edits is the presence of the phrase based on of, in those cases where the original phrase was based off of.

You can check the contributions of editors who did this, and then marked up these edits indicating a spelling correction from based off to based on. Here are the known editors:

Fabrickator (talk) 05:33, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  1. ^ [OMI neighbors, Inner City Youth call for reopening 103 Broad St. (December 1, 2012)]
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