The Wikipedia Post — Appendix C: Single-purpose Accounts
After the removal of the Five Horsemen of Wikibias, the GamerGate article gradually worsened, rather than improved. While a small number of established editors were still involved and pushing an anti-GamerGate bias, most notably Mark Bernstein who created the false narrative adopted in large part by the media, the biggest contributing factor was the emergence of a clique of editors whose accounts were created for the sole purpose of advancing an anti-GamerGate narrative. Several of these accounts would rise to be among the top ten contributors to the GamerGate article(See Part 8). Many would find ways to puff up their editing history, but their unrelenting focus on GamerGate would be apparent.
Strongjam was the first of the single-purpose accounts or SPAs to be created in October 18, 2014. The first edits were all related to GamerGate save one edit about the Canadian national anthem. While having 7655 edits, about 17% of Strongjam’s edits are either to the GamerGate page or its associated talk page making up about 32% of the edits to article spaces and article discussion spaces. At least 20% of Strongjam’s edits concern other topics with a clear GamerGate connection. This does not reflect a substantial number of edits made to pages where Strongjam followed other contributors to the GamerGate article to support or oppose them. Many of Strongjam’s remaining edits to articles and associated talk pages also concern topics originally frequented by Ryulong as was typical among his anti-GamerGate supporters who continued fighting his fights following his ban.
While a large number of edits made by Strongjam are not clearly related to GamerGate, many are also frivolous edits or vandalism removal aimed at padding the account to make it look more legitimate. Nearly 50% of all edits made by Strongjam were less than 20 bytes, indicating a very small change with about 17% explicitly marked as minor. Such editing is typically called “patrolling” or “gnoming” activity to refer to editing focused primarily on removing obviously poor edits and making small constructive changes respectively. A good indicator of this activity is the fact an overwhelming majority of user talk pages where Strongjam has left messages belong to IP users rather than registered users.
Parabolist was the second to show up on October 31st, 2014. Unlike the other anti-GamerGate SPAs, Parabolist was not willing to circumvent the 500/30 restriction nor already surpassing the limit having only 374 edits currently. With so few edits, Parabolist’s total edits to the GamerGate page and associated talk page come in at 14% of all edits made to Wikipedia and at least around 11% of all edits were to related pages. That together amounts to about half of edits to articles and their associated discussion pages apparently being GamerGate-related. Parabolist has also been a regular at Wikipedia criticism site Wikipediocracy, primarily discussing GamerGate and related topics.
One of the most prominent of the anti-GamerGate SPAs is PeterTheFourth. At just over 5,000 edits, he is one of the heaviest contributing of the SPAs. His edits to the GamerGate article and associated pages represent about 15% of his edits to Wikipedia or 20% of edits to articles and their associated talk pages. Articles related to GamerGate amount to almost 25%, at least, of all contributions to article pages and associated talk pages.
What makes Peter most notorious is a tendency to hound other editors. He has also showed up to support editors on his side of the debate. Peter’s first edit, suspiciously, was a message on a page for the ArbCom case about GamerGate and his first edit to an article was undoing one of my edits in his first instance of hounding. However, Peter may also have a history of hounding outside Wikipedia. On Wikia, an account by the same username showed up to vandalize a page about competitive first-person shooter game CounterStrike with a taunting remark and then insulted another user. That account was banned for harassment.
One of the most blatant single-purpose accounts is ForbiddenRocky created on January 5th, 2015. Primarily responsible for some of the most blatant slanting of the GamerGate article in recent years and gutting the article on The Fine Young Capitalists (See Part 11), ForbiddenRocky’s contributions to the GamerGate page and its associated talk page make up about 58% of ForbbidenRocky’s total edits or 70% of all edits to articles and their associated discussion pages. Articles with an apparent GamerGate connection make up roughly 10% of all the account’s contributions and 12% of the account’s edits to articles and associated discussion pages respectively.
ForbiddenRocky’s initial edits concerned the suicide of a transgender teen, however, the reasoning for this may have been to wait out or evade the protections in place on the GamerGate article at the time. Only “autoconfirmed” editors were allowed to edit the page, with it expiring January 25th, 2015. Unlike the more restrictive 500/30 limit imposed later, an editor can become autoconfirmed after a few edits and a few days of having an account. Whatever the case, ForbiddenRocky would take only a month to become involved in the GamerGate article and it would become the user’s overwhelming focus.
Dumuzid, by contrast, is as clear a case of a user circumventing the restrictions on the page possible. First created on January 9th, 2015, the Dumuzid account would keep editing unrelated articles until passing the requirements for getting “autoconfirmed” status. After the 500/30 restriction was imposed on the GamerGate article and its discussion page, Dumuzid initially moved gradually towards breaking the limit before making hundreds of edits within a few weeks. The moment Dumuzid met the requirements to get around the restriction Dumuzid went right back to editing the GamerGate page.
About 20% of Dumuzid’s edits have been to either the GamerGate article or its associated discussion page and account for about 27% of all edits to articles and their associated discussion pages. Edits to articles and attached discussion pages with a discernible connection to GamerGate cover 15% of all edits by Dumuzid and 20% of edits to articles and their associated discussion pages. These percentages are based on all edits by Dumuzid, including those used as a way to work around various protections in the article against users operating with a single purpose.
Not included in the above calculations is how many times these SPAs edited pages for Wikipedia-focused discussions or user-focused discussion related to GamerGate. Perusing through those sections of their histories will show the same large disparities, as most people they spoke to or about had some kind of involvement in the GamerGate dispute on Wikipedia. Several times, these users sought and even succeeded at getting opponents sanctioned. In addition to their involvement in editing and discussing GamerGate-related narratives, these single-purpose accounts gained decisive influence over the page by taking advantage of Wikipedia’s lax administration. In turn, they became effectively the gatekeepers and decision-makers on the article, despite no prior experience evidenced.
Return to Table of Contents
