The case against Gwen Gale

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.

Heidi Wyss was born in 1975 in Geneva, and got her education in Great Britain. She describes herself as "a word witch and a lesbian separatist, third wave feminist". That "witchy" theme is very close to Heidi Wyss. In an interview she gave about her book Gormglaith (novel) she said that she wanted her readers to understand that "Witchy girls have more fun." "The Witch" was also a user name of one of the socks Wyss used to violate her topic ban, the ban that was described like this "Wyss is banned from making any edit related to a person's alleged homosexuality or bisexuality. The clauses "any edit" and "related to homosexuality or bisexuality" shall be interpreted broadly; this remedy is intended, for example, to prohibit correcting the spelling of "gay"."

A "witchy" girl Heidi Wyss became the Wikipedia's witch, when she became wikipedia administrator Gwen Gale.

Violating of Golden Rule and dishonesty

One of the biggest problems with Wyss is that she always has been treating herself differently than others, violating the Golden Rule: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself." Probably one of the most striking examples of such behavior is a story about Wyss writing two articles on wikipedia about herself:Heidi Wyss and Gormglaith (novel). One problem with that is that Wyss's notability is way below wikipedia's standards for inclusion (she wrote a single hard to read novel that is available absolutely free of charge on the NET.) Another problem is conflict of interest: for example a person writing about herself could be not neutral. As it is seen from her contributions Wyss was well aware about these policies. She was very active in voting on deletion requests of articles written by others,often claiming that a subject of an article is not notable: "*Delete. Ad, vanity, and doing off-colour versions of covers isn't notable." (the article was kept);*Delete not notable Wyss 18:08, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC) (the article was kept).

Then she herself nominated an article for deletion. She wrote:

“

Conflict of interest, subject of this biographical article is not of encyclopedic interest meyerj is an SPA who created this article to memorialize his father. The subject is not encyclopedic (a routine military career), not widely noted, the article amounts to original research and its creation raises many COI worries.

”

This article was kept. Two articles that Wyss wrote about herself were deleted. So here we go: the same person claims that Leo J. Meyer, who was one of only three hundred and three men who have been awarded three Combat Infantryman Badges out of more than the twenty-three million, "is not of encyclopedic interest", writes two articles about an absolutely not notable person - herself. The same person who writes two articles about not notable herself sees "many COI worries" with a user writing article about his notable father.

On October 4, 2008 Gwen Gale accused a user in being Stephanie Adams and in violating Wikipedia:Conflict of interest In particular Gwen wrote

“

We don't believe you. Please have a look at Wikipedia's conflict of interest policy. If you carry on disrupting the article, you may be blocked from editing. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:31, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

”

It was written by the very same Gwen Gale who wrote two articles about herself!

Interestingly enough a user who brought Wyss's articles about herself to the community's attention was blocked for 5 years! while Gwen Gale was allowed to go on with her abuse like nothing has happened. Of course a few wikipidiots did everything to protect their own.

Heidi Wyss's wikipedia story

Heidi Wyss's wikipedia story begun in 2004, when after making a few edits as IP (without making account) Wyss made an account, giving it her real life name "Wyss. User Wyss started a few articles, but in November of 2005 she became involved parties in the Wikipedia requests for arbitration named "Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Wilkes, Wyss and Onefortyone".

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Wilkes, Wyss and Onefortyone

Most evidences against Wyss presented at this page and at this page were removed either by herself, when she became an administrator, or by another administrators. For example one of the evidences was:

“

Wyss is still showing a lack of insight. On 16 December 2005, he/she says on his/her talk page: "Too many active Wikipedians are wankers, fiddlers, fools and trolls which includes several members of arbcomm who are more interested in publishing unsupported gay celebrity gossip than they are in writing an encyclopedia to academic standards." See [63]. Onefortyone 23:50, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

”

but if one is to click on the link with the number 63, one will get a page that states: "The relevant page of the wiki was "User:Wyss" and the requested data (for error checking purposes) was: (Diff: 31558060, 31560139)". Such deleting of the talk page history violates basic Wikipedia policies.

Wyss expresses her opinion on wikipedia and wikipedians

In this discussion Wyss said in particular:

“

Wikipedia generates the litter, lots of it. Think of Wikipedia as a drunken lout speeding down the "information superhighway" tossing all kinds of sundry codswallop out the car window for others to pick up after. Lots of its dodgy content gets picked up by scraper sites, the Google bots and others, hence multiplying the trash and by the bye, last I heard, littering was a crime in the states (sometimes a serious one). Meanwhile the well-meaning Wikipedia volunteers who try to clean up after Wikipedia's "dark side" generate even more traffic for the site, enhancing its popularity and contributing to Mr Wales' ability to raise millions of dollars for Wikipedia's commercial spin-off Wikia: Their time is utterly wasted in an editorial sense, since Wikipedia's systemic flaws are easily correctible, but nonetheless very helpful in helping Mr Wales with his wider goals (whatever they may be).

”

“

"Wikipedia's systemic flaws as an encyclopedia are widely documented. However, if one wishes to participate in an alphabetized meta-blog/online social community with a Byzantine bureaucracy which encourages sock puppets, trolls and endless references to pop culture beliefs which have naught to do with scholarship, yeah, then "pfft," I think, would be the appropriate response to any criticism that Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia. "

”

Wyss especially did not like members of Arbitration Committee:

“

"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.

”

“

"Anyway I disagree that I ever disrupted Wikipedia or ever had the personal potential or whim to do that. My contribution history speaks for itself. I've been slapped hard by arbcomm for expressing my opinion that among them lurk wankers, fiddlers, fools and trolls who coddle their own kind.

”

The Witch

On 18 December 2005 Wyss created a sock account, which she named "The Witch". As a matter of fact one of the arbitrators called this account "Vandal". The Witch contributions were short living, but some of them were personal attacks:

• "# Oppose, an apparent liar who pursues a strictly unencyclopedic agenda."
• "# Oppose, Intellectually unqualified and the worst of roleplaying."

All talk history of "The Witch" was deleted in the violation of wikipedia policies, and then a period was added to it. Every try to redirect the Witch user pages to the owner new account "Gwen Gale" were deleted, sometimes even by Gwen Gale herself.

Gwen Gale has never mentioned her The Witch account in her statement made in "Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Vote/Gwen Gale".

Gwen Gale did not mention her The Witch account in her first request for administration-ship. After she was asked specifically about The Witch account, she lied:

“

"For about 24 hours, two years ago, yes. I quickly decided User:The Witch was an unhelpful username so I went back to User:Wyss. You will please note the account wasn't used to evade the arbcom ruling. I don't consider this brief experiment relevant but I'll be happy to answer questions about it."

”

The account was used for a much longer period than 24 hours, and she did "evade the arbcom ruling". In this edit Wyss, editing as The Witch resigns her posts that she made while editing as IP 194.146.111.10. A simple look at the contributions of this IP proves the violation of her topic ban that was stated like this socks Wyss used to violate her topic ban, the ban that was described like this "Wyss is banned from making any edit related to a person's alleged homosexuality or bisexuality. The clauses "any edit" and "related to homosexuality or bisexuality" shall be interpreted broadly; this remedy is intended, for example, to prohibit correcting the spelling of "gay"." She evaded this ban with this edit, with this edit,with this edit and so on. She also added links to herself the article Lesbian science fiction here.

Wyss reaction on being blocked

Some reactions were lost with the deletion of the talk page histories, but a few still could be found.

Here is her reaction after 24 hours block for violating of her topic ban on editing articles referring to people's homosexuality: Your block was a misinterpretation of both the arbcomm ruling and its present status. You have been manipulated, at best. The wording of the block notice was equivalent to harassment. I was unable to edit my own talk pages or send emails to admins during the time my block was in force. This represents further negligence on your part and was a violation of Wikipedia policy. The block notice itself was ineptly formatted and represents further negligence. Finally, I find your user signature both disruptive and deceptive since it hides your true user name. In the future, please sign your posts in the normal way, with four tildes. If you wish to communicate with me further concerning these matters, please do so only via the email link on my user page. Thanks. Wyss 21:05, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Here is her reaction for 24 hours block for edit warring There are too many of them for me here, too many role-playing troll admins, too many troll sockpuppet editors. Bye then. Gwen Gale 06:29, 1 April ,2007.

In a year after this rant was written Heidi Wyss became one of wikipedia administrators under user name Gwen Gale.

Wikipedians about Gwen Gale

• By administrator Mike Halterman

“

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.

”

• By administrator David Shankbone

“

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."

”

• By administrator East718

“

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.

• user:Ludwigs2 was blocked on July 2, 2008. Lar requested review: "I suggest this block is excessive at best, and possibly completely unjustified. I'd suggest review by uninvolved admins. ++Lar: t/c 18:18, 2 July 2008 (UTC)". The block was lifted.

• user:Malleus Fatuorum was blocked on June 10, 2009. The user was unblocked in an hour after an admin and a few users complained about the block.

• User:Proofreader77

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.

• User NWA.Rep

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."

• User Super Badnik

1. was blocked indefinitely at 21:03, 9 August 2008. The block was overturned by another administrator.

• User Breathing Dead

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

• User Nextbook

1. was blocked at 20:56, 9 November 2011. Another admin questioned the block, saying in particular "I don't think BLP concerns are a carte blanche for disregarding AGF like this and especially not BITE since we can't expect newcomers to understand these complex policies within their first 10 edits. I would appreciate if you would be more polite and welcoming towards new editors in the future, and not be as quick with the block-hammer, if you feel you don't have the patience for giving adequate explanations to a newcomer feel free to contact me and I'll gladly take over", but Gwen failed to clarify her position.

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 thread is about yet another bad block imposed by Gwen Gale. She blocked this user while involved with him (edit warring on the same article). The user was blocked at 15:04, 28 June 2008 for so called "vandalism" at en:Fred Noonan. Gwen Gale edited this article a lot. Actually Gwen Gale wrote this article, when she still edited as Wyss, but let's see June 28,2008: Gwen Gale was edit warring with the very same editor she later blocked.

• Interestingly enough after blocking the user while so heavily involved, and being told and agreeing she should not have done it, Gwen Gale blocked him again just two days later on 22:38, 30 June 2008 in spite of being "not happy with having been the blocking admin".

• User Jayeba was blocked at 23:18, 26 August 2009 for "spamming right after the user reverted Gwen Gale at the article she was edit warring with this very user she later blocked.The user was unblocked with the summary "no spamming".

• This is the last edit mate 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.

Gwen Gale is dishonest and untruthful

• Gwen Gale mentioned her "Wyss" account in her statement, when she unsuccessfully tried to get elected to ArbCom, but if one was to click on it, he was directed to Gwen Gale page. Nowhere in her statement she ever mentioned she was blocked and topic banned while editing as Wyss.

• Gwen Gale failed to disclose "The Witch" account in her RfA. After she was specifically asked about this account, she made a untruthful statement:"For about 24 hours, two years ago, yes. I quickly decided User:The Witch was an unhelpful username so I went back to User:Wyss. You will please note the account wasn't used to evade the arbcom ruling. I don't consider this brief experiment relevant but I'll be happy to answer questions about it." Actually Gwen Gale did evade "the arbcom ruling" . There are hard on-wiki evidences she evaded her ban on a few occasions. I am not providing them here in order not to be accused in outting, but I will email the evidences to any interested authorized user. Also "The Witch" made her first (not deleted edit) on December 18, 2005, and her last (not deleted edit) on January 19,2006. So, no, Gwen, your "expirement" lasted mach longer than "about 24 hours". Later on Gwen Gale repeated her untruthful statement once again "I tried that name out for a day, three years ago."

• Gwen Gale failed to mention her "The Witch" account in her statement, when she unsuccessfully tried to get elected to ArbCom.

• Here's an example of Gwen Gale reverting a clearly good faith edit claiming it was "vandalism". In an apparent try to cover up she blocked the editor for edit warring with herself she also claimed "vandalism" in the edit summary for that block.

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."

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.

• "I got very worried and asked Mr Bauder to wipe out the talk pages, which he immediately did." By wiping talk page history "Mr Bauder" violated basic wikipedia policy and deleted most of the evidences used against Wyss in her arbitration case.

• "I do also recall Fred Bauder sending me a politely worded note at that time which said something like, "We're counting on you, don't let us down" or something with that meaning."

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"?

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.

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

• Brutal wikiwarrior of the week: Gwen Gale
• Tyranny of the Ignorant
• Gwen Gale -Tinpot Wikipedia Tyrant/Auteur
• The Heidi Chronicles
• Gwen Gale/Heidi Wyss's Gormglaith Review
• Gwen Gale failure to become an arbitrator
• Gwen Gale's Wikipedia moments (Tyranny of the Ignorant )
• Ding Dong the Wicked Witch is Dead