Response to 2nd part of G&K's paper
First part of this response is here.
Response to specific accusations against me in 1st part of the paper is here.
Background on Wikipedia user Icewhiz who was banned for harassment is here.
The second portion of the Grabowski and Klein paper, roughly paragraphs 30-60 actually do attempt to blame specific editors for various Wikipedia disputes. The striking - and from point of view of scholarly ethics, shocking - aspect is that this portion of the paper appears to be entirely composed of Icewhiz’s grievances and complaints. Some parts of G&K are his statements almost verbatim and the authors repeat several of his false accusations, apparently not having bothered to fact check them. Even the non-Wikipedia sources that Grabowski and Klein cite are lifted straight from things Icewhiz wrote on Wikipedia four or five years earlier. Of course I cannot know for sure, but at first glance, to someone who is familiar with these disputes, it actually looks like Icewhiz was the one who wrote this part of the paper rather than the given authors, or maybe Grabowski and Klein just paraphrased text he provided to them.
This - failing to credit or even acknowledge a major contributor to a scholarly work - is of course another very serious breach of research ethics in this paper. And it also raises the question - why isn’t Icewhiz credited here, since the authors do try to portray him (in the last part of the paper) as a tragic “defender of historical accuracy” (sic), unfairly banned by Wikipedia? Perhaps the sordid history behind the Icewhiz account - the death threats, the rape threats against other Wikipedia editor’s children, the impersonation of real life people, the harassment - makes it too embarrassing to acknowledge him directly? Maybe it would compromise the credibility of the entire paper?
The following table illustrates just how much overlap there is between these paragraphs and Icewhiz earlier statements and posts on Wikipedia, which predated the Grabowski and Klein paper by a good four or five years. There are only two exceptions here (out of roughly 15 subtopics) - the controversy over Wojciech Muszynski’s biography on Wikipedia and Grabowski and Klein’s attacks on the historian, Robert Lukas. Both of these dispute occurred after Icewhiz was already banned from Wikipedia. Yet, even these happened because of edits he made with his sock puppets.
Table 1
The case page and the “evidence” used for column 4 is here.
The arbitration enforcement Wikipedia page is here. Click on the number from the table in the search box to find the relevant AE report archive.
There are several striking correlations in the table. First, every single complaint that the authors make involves an article extensively edited by Icewhiz before his ban (blue 6th column). Second, even most of the non-Wikipedia sources the authors use come from comments and posts he made while on Wikipedia - they actually just copied his sources rather than finding their own! They’re of course free to do that if they think these sources are sufficient but again, this is something which usually warrants attribution to the person who originally provided the sources.
The first two columns in blue (4 and 5) are a bit more esoteric as they concern Wikipedia-specific procedures. The fourth column shows that Icewhiz brought up almost all of these exact disputes when he made a request for a case to the Arbitration Committee in 2019 (see here). Putting aside Lukas, Muszynski and Glaukopis journal, this section is really nothing but literally Icewhiz’s 2019 report to the Committee and his evidence. Again, this is something that ethically an author(s) should acknowledge and credit.
It might be worth mentioning at this point that this very “evidence” - repeated by Grabowski and Klein - was reviewed by the committee (composed of a group of “non-Polish” individuals, in case someone has concerns) and the outcome of the case was that Icewhiz was topic ban and all of this evidence was dismissed. Indeed, the part of the rationale for Icewhiz’s ban was precisely willful misrepresentation and false accusations. Which are now being repeated by Grabowski and Klein.
'The fifth column concerns a Wikipedia administrator board known as “Arbitration Enforcement” (WP:AE). This is a place for editors to raise concerns about each other in particularly contentious areas. It’s basically the place to go if you think someone should get banned. Icewhiz still holds the record for most WP:AE reports ever filed per period of time by anyone ever active on Wikipedia. Over its 20+ years of existence. At peak he was filing one report per month in continuous and aggressive attempts to get anyone who disagreed with them sanctioned. Most of these reports - and almost all the ones given in the table - were dismissed (this is actually something that the G&K article, again echoing Icewhiz, complains about). There were a few exceptions since sometimes some editors do make bad edits and in a case or two Icewhiz successfully scored a “hit” by misrepresenting his opponents’ edits and administrators didn’t check closely enough, but for the most part he just succeeded in creating an extremely hostile and unpleasant environment.
Once again it may be worthwhile to pause and point out an unpleasant fact for the veracity of Grabowski and Klein’s account. They spent a lot of time on two writers, Ewa Kurek and “Mark Paul” (apparently a pseudonym) but completely fail to inform the reader that neither of these writers is actually used as a source on Wikipedia and haven’t been since 2018. When these authors were removed from Wikipedia none of the active Wikipedia editors attacked in Grabowski and Klein’s hit piece undid his revision or objected. Contrary to G&K, pretty much everyone, myself included, agreed that these authors are not reliable, with the worst comment being apparently that removing anything non-controversial could be done gradually. This is another instance of falsehood by omission.
The column mostly in red and orange (8) documents Icewhiz’s continued attempts to engage in these disputes with his sock puppets long after his ban. The number of accounts blocked as sock puppets of Icewhiz is easily more than a dozen, with roughly the same number blocked as “likely”. One of the complicating factors in this topic area is that after his ban, Icewhiz made some friends - fellow banned users. I detail that in another portion of this reponse (Icewhiz part 2). And some of them, who include some nasty characters, like the guy who hang out at the neo-Nazi website Stormfront, joined in with his socking. As a result in some instances it’s clear that somebody is engaging in disruptive sock puppetry but it may be hard to tell if it’s Icewhiz himself or one of his friends.
Klein released only selected interviews which she conducted for the paper. At least four other editors claimed to have been interviewed and at least one stated that they were informed by her that she also interviewed Icewhiz. Icewhiz very clearly, as the table documents, played a very significant role in this portion of the paper. Without the release of that interview I can only speculate as to whether he merely served as a “consultant” to Grabowski and Klein, or if he took an active role in authoring this portion of the paper. Either way, the authors fail to credit them. Probably because they know that collaborating with someone known for harassing, doxing and threatening others is not a good look, especially for “professional historians”.
The third part of this response will address the third part of the paper which is a bit more of a hodgepodge of accusations, misrepresentations, a few arguments with Icewhiz’s supporters on Wikipedia, and some frankly witless and inane conspiracy theories.