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Author here.

Author here. I just wanted to thank everyone who has shown interest in the article, whether they liked what they saw or otherwise. I began writing the article in direct response to the recent Project Chanology protests, but knew of Anonymous' prior existence. I do feel that it is a significant, yet poorly documented presence—if I did not feel it was worthy of inclusion into Wikipedia, I would not have started it.

I knew early on that writing Anonymous was going to be a challenge. Gathering non-news sources was particularly problematic (I hope that the article does not reference only journalistic material). I admit that my first effort was not perfectly written—that's where you all come in. Many of you know a lot more about Anonymous, even if you aren't privy to its underpinnings. You are the ones I expected to expand and improve the article. If not, then people like the ones who proposed this article's deletion will only help spread ignorance. Unlike the generations before us, events that matter to us don't wait for things like academic notability; they happen faster than even we are capable of realizing. — Nahum Reduta [talk|contribs] 09:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Redirect

While the current article text isn't properly sourced the amount of sources on Anonymous is staggering. If you want it deleted follow the procedures and knock off the delete by redirect. BJTalk 15:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

News sources

Here's a quote another article and it has news sources and stuff. Should be reused here. "January 31, 2008, KTTV Fox 11 News based in Los Angeles, California put out a report about organized cyber-bullying on sites like Stickam by people who call themselves "/b/rothas".[1] The site had previously put out report on July 26, 2007, about a subject that partly featured cyberbullying titled "hackers on steroids".[2]"

Also Project Chanology has tons of news sources. William Ortiz (talk) 17:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh and Hal Turner has sources and some bits about Hal Turner need mention here. William Ortiz (talk) 21:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Previous notability - PLEASE USE to improve article

Global news report on Forcand, mentioning Anonymous's involvement. youtube.com

Fox11 new report on Anonymous, the "internet hate machine" from 2007. youtube.com - also mentions Harry Potter raids and HabboHotel raids. 202.161.71.161 (talk) 11:00, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

This story also may be relevant, but I can't access it w/o paying. torontosun.com 202.161.71.161 (talk) 11:29, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

What happened to the article?

The article was much longer. What happened to all the content which was deleted without saying anything on the talk page? Titanium Dragon (talk) 06:46, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

If you check the History tab, you can see past edits, and notes an editor might leave to explain the change. Seems someone felt the information provided didn't deserve to stay for various reasons. I agree that large edits should be discussed, but everything that is done can be quickly undone, so there usually isn't a problem to jump the gun and make a change without discussion. It's all a question of context. This article is new enough that nothing editors slaved over for hours upon hours was lost, and it can all still be accessed if we need to retrieve it. For now, I want to focus on getting more sources and then adding information as we go. That way, there can be no argument against additions. (Also, to easily make a new topic, hit the + tab, next to History.)--Cast (talk) 06:52, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Hell, I just checked your user page. You seem to be more experienced than I was led to believe. This article has been receiving a lot of attention from new editors, so I jumped to conclusions.--Cast (talk) 06:59, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
I was more curious why User:Sceptre didn't say anything on the talk page about it. I don't mind that he removed a bunch of it, as a lot of it was poorly sourced (Wikichan is NOT a RS, nor is YouTube) but there's currently a deletion discussion going on and there was a lot of rescuable information. Its alright, probably a good way to get it sourced; I already found good sources for what Anonymous is and why they wore masks (though I'm currently looking for a site to source the V for Vendetta connection). Titanium Dragon (talk) 07:13, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Would it be acceptable to source an image? Because Anonymous used screen captures from the final scene of the V for Vendetta film in fliers advertising the 2-10-08 event. You could simply say Anonymous encouraged the connection by including the imagery in their advertisements.--Cast (talk) 07:54, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

What needs to be said about Anonymous?

This is a rather brief article currently, and I think there's more information about them out there beyond project chanology (such as the Fox report, though its reliability is probably more dubious than Wikichan's, sadly). What needs to be included in this article?

  • Imageboards traditionally taken to be a part of anonymous?
  • Past controversy? (The Fox thing, maybe, maybe some of the other stuff they've been involved with which has made newspapers?)
  • Culture?
  • Demographics?

Not sure what all we want/need. Titanium Dragon (talk) 03:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that list covers it just fine, though not in that order. One distinction is that the image boards are not "part of Anonymous". Anonymous was birthed by them, makes up the majority of their users, and the subculture has expanded thanks to them, but they now exist outside of them easily thanks to saturation of user content in Web 2.0. An example of the relationship is that Project Chanology came into existence on an imageboard, but was moved off it and is now handled on wikis, a forum, and youtube. From my posts it should be obvious I want to talk about culture, which is really two things: Anonymous subculture, and its Impact on internet culture. That's a distinction that needs to be made because Anonymous has always shunned exposure into the limelight before Project Chanology, and must now work to rehabilitate its image by explaining its members are ordinary people.
Rules 1 & 2; shifting blame to eBaumsWorld; telling others to xenophobically "LURKMOAR!" rather than explain things; the in-joke that projects the image of a cryptic and mysteries entity, rather than to explain the when-who-what-where-why-how's of the group; the end result of all this is that they have their own subculture within the internet that is easily misunderstood. Since Anonymous wouldn't speak for itself, outsiders would and we get descriptions of "hackers on steroids" or "cyber terrorists". Only now is Anonymous stepping forward to talk about itself on radio and television interviews.
We want to explain that, and those things you list, and could have had them already. The knowledge is documented, screen capped, and posted on their own wikis, some of which are more reliable than others. It's just a question of citation. We can't cite wikis, even the reliable ones. And the media is unreliable. An example of this convoluted problem would be cyber bullying. We've got the Fox11 report, but that was sensationalist. A better article would be one on internet bullying that references the Patriotic Nigras, a tiny group within Anonymous that struck out at Habbo. Any citation of that article would need to explain the connection, but there is no mention of it. You get better information from history essays on lurkmore.com and encyclopedia dramatica. At any rate, you can't get verification for it, so Anonymous can't be said to be involved even though we know it is. I'll give you another example: Chocolate Rain. When the artist of that song says he thinks 4chan is responsible for his success, we know that's because of Anonymous – but we can't say it because the media doesn't understand enough to report it. As you mention, this is why wikichan is more reliable than Fox11.
If we restrict ourselves to just "respectable" sources, we are left with either inaccurate articles; maybe less than 5 useful Anon interviews written post-Project Chanology; or articles about different subjects that talks about the repercussions of Anonymous without acknowledging the relationship to Anonymous. Wikipedia's rules, mainstream ignorance, and Anonymous's desire to be an incoherent hate machine conspire to shoot this article in the foot.--Cast (talk) 05:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

4chan is a cult like Scientology is. it has its own jargon and memes like scientology does. But at least it's FREE! 128.6.175.21 (talk) 06:27, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous is not a cult, fgt. The term cult implies all kinds of things, but I think we can all agree that a mass of people who all choose to act together voluntarily without the need of a leader of demogouge a cult. Also you missed the point entirely. This is an article about Anonymous not 4chan. If you were to ask the avereage veteran anon what he thinks about 4chan, you normally get a reply that raged from average disgust to full blown hatred.

It is thus my conclusion that you sir, are a moron. Cheers,
124.40.47.163 (talk) 06:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and cast, as a member of the PN, I can tell you that we have preciseley jack shit to do with Habbo. The group you're thinking of is poolsclosed.us... The PN are active in Second Life. Cheers,
124.40.47.163 (talk) 06:38, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, right, the boxes with the flags on them is from second life. Thanks for the correction.--Cast (talk) 06:57, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous is merely people who want free information, as it should be. Co$ and the Phelps clan in Topeka, now those are cults. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lordshadovar (talk • contribs) 08:45, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi all, I've never done anything on here before, but I had a thought. Anon is an collective that is very different from anything else that would be covered. Let me assure you, the only accurate sources of information that you will get will be from Wikichan on a lot of Anon's exploits. Encyclopedia Dramatica works to some extent as well, but Wikichan is better for pure information. These places are repositories of information put out by Anonymous itself. I would suggest a special section to the article dedicated to supposed exploits of Anonymous that cannot be truly confirmed under which Wikichan and maybe even ED would be allowable sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.87.161.222 (talk) 23:03, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid a section like that would go against wiki policy, though I wish they could make an exception for it here, since I'm in total agreement with you. We'll both just have to learn to live with disappointment.--Cast (talk) 04:26, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
I see. I apologize, I'm not really that familiar with the specifics of the policy. How about talking about Wikichan itself? The article already states that Anonymous has connections to the *chans, so what if there was a section that said something like, "The unusual nature of Anonymous and the secretivity and xenophobia of its members, it is extremely difficult to document the history of the organization through conventional methods. Wikichan [with a link] is a repository of information that generally has to do with Anonymous, although it does not conform to the same rules of conduct of Wikipedia, and therefore the information is questionable." Regardless of how questionable it is, however, the information on Wikichan is essentially Anonymous describing what Anonymous is, and it is very accurate even though it is not verifiable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ZenGOSM (talk • contribs) 21:30, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
If you review the history of the article, you'll see something like that was written in the earlier incarnations of the article, but this was removed because this statement could not be verified. You can't say "this place describes the article topic better than we can" without giving proof of that fact. Maybe you can get away with putting it in the External links section. Not sure about that. I'd have to review the policy on external links. (and read the talk header at the top of this page to learn how to do a few things on this talk page. this article is attracting a lot of new blood, so it'll help you and others)--Cast (talk) 01:28, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

V for Vendetta masks - source

Not sure if this should go in the Chanology wiki or here. source202.161.71.161 (talk) 10:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It's just fine for this article, but under the chanology sub-section. If there is eventually a source on the importance of the mask from an "Anon" perspective -- that is, one that talks about its status as a meme -- then you can add that to a section on Anon-culture.--Cast (talk) 04:23, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Some minor corrections

  • Firstly, the "v masks" are Guy Fawks masks.
  • Not all of Annon are hackers. If you wish to discuss the militant elements of Anonymous, they have a name the /i/nsurgency

A word of warning to any trigger happy Admins as well, don't drop the Banhammer on those of us who edit this article, because Anon and Wikipedians come from the exact same stock.

Tennekis(rant) 23:22, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: I personally keep Wikipedia inviolate, and am proud to take part but requests to hold off will probably be met with the phrase "Your resistance only makes my penis harder"

Tennekis(rant) 23:27, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

While the V masks are indeed Guy Fawkes masks, if you watch the overture compilation video, it is obvious that they are not only Guy Fawkes masks, but symbols of V. 202.161.71.161 (talk) 03:49, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Another possible source

SOURCE202.161.71.161 (talk) 06:28, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

We know that Patriotic Nigras (PN) are an /i/nvasion subgroup of Anonymous, but are there any secondary sources that confirm this? Their webpage links the two, but a WP:RS would be great.

This article has a couple of paragraphs on them. Also, you can list their website in the external links. And don't forget this site.--Cast (talk) 04:05, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The link that the OP posted is hideously outdated. patrioticnigras.org is our current site. Cheers, --219.101.199.54 (talk) 04:47, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

PN has nothing to do with the "Anonymous" documented in this article. - Carbon [Nyan?] 11:57, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, yes it does. PN came from 7's /i/ board and still is on Partyvan IRC. And this article is throwing rules 1 and 2 out the window really. We need a new scapegoat. Kakama (talk) 18:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
PN is a hierarchical structure with defined leaders, operations, a process to join, etc. Simply being from /i/ does not mean they are relevant to the article as it stands now. - Carbon [Nyan?] 04:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
It becomes important at times like this to note that Anonymous is more than just its own group. It is also a subculture. PN is a small organization within that subculture. It does not take on all of the aspects of Anonymous, but takes on their attitude of dark comedy. They may be briefly mentioned in a section (on Anonymous controversies or culture -- I'm leaning towards culture) as a sub/spin-off group that has gained some media attention. Really, it shouldn't require more than 1 or 2 sentences.--Cast (talk) 05:21, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Lead

The lead makes absolutely no sense at all. "The self-styled Anonymous (used as a mass noun) are the multitude of visitors to various imageboards." Huh? Isn't Anonymous the name of a hacker group? It reads like someone combined the definition of Anonymous with the group identity. I was trying to re-write it, but I don't even know where to start because I have no idea what the original authors where trying to say. It is in serious need of a rewrite. Arzel (talk) 16:37, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

It's probably for the best, since you don't know what Anonymous is. Reading this talk page, you'd get a better idea than reading the actual article. Anonymous is not a group of hackers. There are hackers within Anonymous, but though we don't have statistics, the fraction of them is mostly likely very, very small. I'd guess nowhere bigger than 1% or 2%. And yes, Anonymous was originated on imageboards, and this is where you still find them congregating in large numbers, and where the dynamics of imageboards give rise to all of their memes. And if you want to know what the original authors were shooting for, just look back in the history logs. The description has yet to be changed by anyone and has remained consistent.--Cast (talk) 18:05, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Point taken, but how is the average reader to understand? You are right, I don't know what Anonymous is, and after reading the article I still don't know. The average reader shouldn't have to read the talk archives to figure out what the article is supposed to be telling them. Arzel (talk) 18:15, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
This is a rather chaotic article. We can't cite some of the best "sources" on the subject, because they are not verifiable, and the majority of verifiable sources give information we know to be incorrect, but we can't put up counter information as it barely exists. What we need to find are sources that are accurate on the subject. We have a few now on this talk page, but we've yet to incorporate them into the article. I don't have the time now -- maybe soon. If you want to pitch in, check a few subtopics in the talk page, bring yourself up to speed, confirm any sources given, and get cracking.--Cast (talk) 18:31, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
It makes perfect sense if you don't have preconceptions about what Anonymous is before you read the article. In fact, it's a much better summary than I've seen elsewhere. - Carbon [Nyan?] 12:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
The article is a heck of a lot better than it was previously. Strong work editors! DigitalC (talk) 05:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Rename

I have no objections to completely deleting this article, but if it is kept, it should be renamed "Anonymous Internet posts". 199.125.109.87 (talk) 20:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Not a group

Anonymous is not a group or organization any more than punks or nerds are. It could more accurately be referred to as a cultural movement or as a symbolic concept. --206.116.115.120 (talk) 20:39, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

And yet how many symbolic concepts have members? How many Anons have a goal they agree their "cultural movement" is progressing towards? Don't get me wrong, I agree that Anonymous is at times more than just a group. It is also a subculture and a symbolic concept; and when Anonymous rarely decides to embark on a project, it also becomes a tactic and a (temporary) agenda driven movement. This article has to cover all of these facets of Anonymous.--Cast (talk) 18:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protected status

Why is the talk page on semi-protected status? I can understand the point of making the article semi-protected, but just because some users don't wish to register does not mean they should not have input to the formation of the page. For example, several good sources have been posted on the talk page which were posted by an unregistered user. DigitalC (talk) 02:24, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous is a highly controversial topic which has been and will be receiving all kinds of defacement, spam and unproductive insight. It is best to keep all these pages as locked down as possible while still allowing legitimate edits to be made. --HockeyInJune (talk) 04:00, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
However, I've only seen defacement take place on the actual article, whereas the talk page has been a constant source of anonymous contribution. I think we can safely wait for actual defacement to begin before we lock it down.--Cast (talk) 04:25, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I haven't seen any vandalism of the talk page, and pages are not supposed to be preemptively protected. DigitalC (talk) 09:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Talk page vandalism: [1], [2] (from yesterday). Page was rendered unnavigable. Ayla (talk) 12:53, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Reworking article - unwikipedian attempt

Anonymous has been reported as a group of “hackers" by the media, but is not a group or person at all. Anonymous is an idea — a concept. [a]. The concept is simple, in that any person can be Anonymous[b]. There is no member list, or application [citation needed] as this would result in a lack of anonymity. Anonymous claims that they are “everyone, and no one”.[c] Anonymous lacks hierarchical structure and leaders, instead relying on individuals to contribute to the group on their own.[2]

The origins of Anonymous are various [imageboards], such as 4chan.org, and 711chan.org and 420chan.org [b][d][e][f][g][h]. The messages on these boards cover a broad variety of topics, and are posted anonymously [a][i]. Anonymous are united by this namelessness [a], which gives them the power to do and say what they would not do in regular society [c]. As such, the messages may include sexism, racism, and pornographic content [i]. In the past, anonymous has conducted “raids” intended on harassing others, known as [griefing] in the online world[g]. Such “raids” include spoiling the ending to the latest [Harry Potter] book, as well as causing chaos in the online world [Habbo Hotel] [c][j].

The general public's introduction to the group began with Project Chanology, a protest against the Church of Scientology. The most visible element of the protest was mass protests of many Church sites worldwide on 10 February 2008.[1] Project Chanology marked a change in the tactics of Anonymous, as it was no longer done solely for laughs [c]

[a] http://www.collegiatetimes.com/stories/2008/02/15/column__scientology_angers_internet;_but_internet_strikes_back [b] http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-news/?p=2051 The Internet and IRL (In Real Life) — have the lines blurred? [c] CBC Search Engine, 7/02/2008. http://www.cbc.ca/searchengine/blog/2008/02/this_weeks_show_feb708_1.html#more [d] http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9869003-1.html [e] http://www.statenews.com/index.php/blog/entertainment/2008/02/internet_group [f] http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/01/anonymous-hacke.html [g] http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/01/anonymous-attac.html [h] http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/07/investigative-r.html [I] http://media.www.diamondbackonline.com/media/storage/paper873/news/2008/02/08/Opinion/Rhodes.Hacker.Anarchy-3196491.shtml [J] Fox11 news report —Preceding unsigned comment added by DigitalC (talk • contribs) 09:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

It's a decent attempt which could be developed to expand the lead. However, you need to be careful about the sources. In previous discussions, blogs and "opinion" columns have generally been avoided either on grounds of not being secondary (having been written by someone involved in Anonymous) or of not being reliable (their merits were only attested by the credibility of the author/blogger as an individual). There are cases where a blog may be demonstrated to have been well-researched and/or endorsed by an established news corporation, thus still eligible as reliable, but that's not the general case.
On a technical note: It would be helpful if you format the citations in advance using the {{cite web}} or {{cite news}} templates (instructions on their pages); however, only do this for sources which you are fairly confident can be used, so as not to have wasted time if they are rejected. Ayla (talk) 10:31, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Potential Supersource and memes

It appears that there is much arguing over what classifies as a valid source. I note that in many articles, however, the target site or subject itself is quoted or shown. While Encyclopedia Dramatica and even Wikichan are not considered legit sources, would the 4chanarchive be? That information is from the source. It can confirm several things that are noted in other articles such as cat macros, Tay Zonday's fame and relation to Anon, rickrolling, and more.

On another note, while some argue that Anonymous has evolved beyond message boards, I would like to point out that this is not usually the case beyond other non-Anonymous lifestyles lived on other forums. The Partyvan Wiki that is so often pointed to is just a subjunct of the imageboard, and is not for the most part used to argue or make any decisions. IRC makes up only a fragment of Anonymous. Forums are not related at all, and their use in Chanology is just a front to the public. Kakama (talk) 16:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Importance Scale Assessment (ISA) for Anonymous

The Importance Scale Assessment for Anonymous should be raised to the highest possible. Anonymous has been a crucial element in bringing the Intellectual Community together, on the Internet, to fight for what matters most. Hopefully, as time progresses, Anonymous' Projects will grow in size and significance, eventually enlightening the entire Internet Community of the true evils of our Society. Anonymous seems to be the most important thing on the Internet these days, and it should be the most important thing on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Internet_culture. HockeyInJune (talk) 21:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Potential source for slogan: "We are Legion, We do not forgive, We do not forget."

source. DigitalC (talk) 23:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Actually, on further reading, this looks like it could be a good source for the article in general. While it talks about project chanology, it also goes into the structure of anonymous. DigitalC (talk) 23:30, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:AnonymousDemotivator.jpg

Image:AnonymousDemotivator.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 18:49, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Someone needs to contact the author of the "Oh F---, the internet is here" photo and get it in here, possibly without the caption. http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/259/1202666100024xy5.jpg Z00r (talk) 10:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

There are already plenty of images with V masks freely available for use, if that's all you want.--Cast (talk) 10:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
No no, the "Oh F--,..." has looooongcat and the afroguy, which are much more representative of Anonymous the group as compared to generic photos of the chanology protests. EDIT, it's got sad panda meme as well. Z00r (talk) 10:31, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Well I suppose I can't argue with the unusually concentrated appearance of memes in that photo. I stand corrected.--Cast (talk) 11:13, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Please don't delete

Hey guys my username is Floridanon. I'm a noob here as far as editing and I just signed up to be a Wikipedia editor. I really don't know how to edit yet but this is important to me: Please do not delete this "Anonymous" article. I was involved in the Chanology Project's "Anonymous" Church of Scientolgy protests here in Clearwater, Florida. I saw some of the things that were written on the Wikipedia.org "Anonymous" site and they're just not all true. This group was concieved as a result of The Church forcing YouTube to delete the now-infamous internal CoS video where Tom Cruise said "only a $cientologist will help a car accident victim." When Co$ found out, they immediately threatened YouTube with legal action and YT removed it. At that point, what is known as the group "Anonymous" was concieved. We put out top-rated and viewed videos on YT calling for worldwide protests against Co$ and last Sunday, the 10th of February, they happened. All over the world. Nearly 10,000 of us strong. Some wearing Guy Fawkes masks, some wearing bandanas, some wearing smiles only. This is big. We're going out again on 3/15 again to protest the celebration of Church founder L. Ron Hubbard's birthday. I myself am in Clearwater, FL...not too far from Jimbo Wales in St. Pete. This is the "spiritual HQ" of The Church. Now there are plenty of "Anonymous" sites everywhere from YouTube to the Insurgent Wiki to Encyclopedia Dramatica. But this Wikipedia is the only place where one can get ubaised information. I've been using this for years, I just never tried to edit or anything and I'd rather be silent than screw anything up. But hear me out: we will not go away from our cause. We really belive that The Church is an evil cult and want to bring it down. Look at the facts: not one "Anonymous" was ticketed or arrested in the protests worldwide, from what I know. I have references and sources and all that but I don't know how to do this and I'm just so tired from fighting this cult. Can somebody help me please? OH SHIT now wikipedia wants to delete the Project Chanology page! I just opened another browser and saw it. I just get the sinking feeling that the Church of $cientology is behind all this. Well I've made my case. Sorry I rambled on but like I said I'm a newbie. Feel free to email me @ floridanon@live.com later. Right now I need to sleep. Thank you for your time. Floridanon (talk)

Reincerted above statement to allow understanding of below conversationCoffeepusher (talk) 20:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

As you said, WP is a source for unbiased information. As such, the best way you can help (IMHO) is to help find sources to back up claims of previous anonymous actions (Hal Turner raid, Stickman raid), etc. Any past media coverage. You erroneously stated that Anonymous was formed in response to the Co$, and that is not true, based on available sources that predate the conflict. In addition, as a member of Anonymous, it would help the articles and your cause to increase media awareness of 3/15 events.121.44.227.79 (talk) 23:24, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
This anon speaks true things. Find sources and contribute. And don't be afraid of messing up. Be bold, and if any editors get on you, just remind them not to bite. And yes, learning the history of Anon would be good. Anonymous, as a phenomenon, goes back to about '03, and picked up in '04. That's when the green cartoon characature was created, and the motto "Anonymous Does Not Forgive" was coined. Also, don't worry about the article actually being deleted. I'm not even bothering to weigh in, because the discussion is obviously in favor of keeping the article. The nomination for deletion wasn't even that serious to begin with.--Cast (talk) 23:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Floridanon - you clearly know NOTHING about Anonymous if you think it began as a protest against Scientology. Kindly GTFO and LURK MOAR —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.101.240 (talk) 11:09, 14 February 2008(UTC)

^He's right. Anon has been around for years...are you even vaguely familiar with the Hal, Habbo, 'V would never do it', or Second Life raids (plus tons of others)? 65.81.133.214 (talk) 05:41, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

and you guys know NOTHING about Wikipedia baced on these comments...so mabie you should kindly verce yourselves on wikipedia policies, not quote encyclopedia dramatica jargen, and pay attention rather than WP:BITE seeing as how you are both newcomers yourselves. No personal attacks, it dosn't help anything.

Floridanon, Welcome! its already been said, but go through the policys of wikipedia and start editing. The most important thing I can tell you is look for WP:VS for ALL your edits and you will save yourself a lot of trouble. Glad to have youCoffeepusher (talk) 06:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Hummmmm...you both seem to be vandals as well...go figureCoffeepusher (talk) 06:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Canadian medal of freedom

There should be a section about the canadian pedophile that got caught with the help of Anonymous [3] the toronto sun link is no longer accessible for free, there is only the incipit. too bad. You can see the entire article here: [4] It's a blog post that reports the entire article, I found it googling the first sentence of the Toronto Sun article ( [5] ) 130.251.167.59 (talk) 14:44, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

But does it make any reference to the group "Anonymous"? It only uses the term "cyber-vigilantes", which is far too generic. Ayla (talk) 11:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
No, the TV broadcast specifically state the group was Anonymous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kakama5 (talk • contribs) 18:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Which TV broadcast? The above post mentioned a Toronto Sun article. Ayla (talk) 19:01, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Once again, Encyclopedia Dramatica provides us with the information. Global News report by Gus Kim (work safe); Toronto Police Press Release (work safe); archive of Chris Forcand thread on /b/ (not worksafe)--Cast (talk) 19:00, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
The first source looks great (although the link probably shouldn't be included in the article if there is a potential copyright infringement by the uploader). For reference: the reporter's corporate biography is found here. Ayla (talk) 19:10, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Just provide the citation information.--Cast (talk) 19:17, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. Also used another legitimate source for the Toronto Star article [6]. Found no references to the "Canadian medal of freedom" though. Ayla (talk) 11:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that was a joke about the medal Tom Crouse got in the scientology video--Alastor85 (talk) 20:43, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Ayla, thankyou for impelmenting this information & source into the article. Good work. DigitalC (talk) 01:05, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Is this allowed? I thought the issue of merging was also settled in the AFD discussion closed today. I'm sorry, but this feels akin to a veiled premature renomination to me. Ayla (talk) 12:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Consensus was not to delete, and that's it. Will (talk) 12:42, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Considering that you are in favour of removing the "KTTV Fox 11 news report" section, and that the "Project Chanology" section is practically just a heavily condensed summary of the Project Chanology article, then there would be nothing to merge save two trivial sentences from the lead. The net effect would be identical to deletion, thus my earlier mention of a veiled premature renomination.
Note to other editors: The removal of the "KTTV Fox 11 news report" section is presently being discussed at WP:RS/N. Feel free to contribute. Ayla (talk) 13:42, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
This is an argument that frequently makes its rounds in the WP:EPISODE area - deletion, in terms of Wikipedia, is an administrative action that removes the page's history from view. Seeing as a merge does not do this, it isn't deletion. Will (talk) 15:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
The consensus expressed in the AFD was to retain the article, not to retain the article's page history. Participants could easily have !voted "merge" or "redirect" (as happens regularly in other AFDs) if they were solely interested in preserving the history. It is clear that the prevailing opinion at the AFD was against a merge as well. Ayla (talk) 16:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose merge, keep article. -- I agree with Ayla (talk · contribs), consensus from the AfD was to Keep the article, a merge discussion this soon afterwards is pointless and skirting disruption. Cirt (talk) 16:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • The AFD established that the subject is notable. However, it hasn't established that the subject is independently notable. I don't think we need 8KB page as a sub-article of a 40KB page when we can do exactly the same with 41KB page. Will (talk) 16:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Will: That is your interpretation. People were well-aware of the existence of the Project Chanology article during the Anonymous (group) AFD – in fact, the nomination itself stated: "The article was created in response to Project Chanology not having enough context to really understand who the group is." To proceed with the merge, you would have to gather enough consensus to overturn the AFD result – and that should only be attempted after "allow[ing] a reasonable amount of time to pass". Provided that no other editor objects, I am closing the merge proposal here, since proceeding with the !vote would be in violation of the deletion policy unless its scope can be demonstrated to be distinct from the AFD. Ayla (talk) 16:49, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose merge The Anonymous article was created as a seperate article because the editiors on Project Chanology felt that there was too much off topic stuff involved to create a sub section. I am currently confused about why to merge other than the fact that it can be done. This is the first time I have heard of a topic beeing notable but not independantly notable. "ok, ok, everyone agrees it is notable...but is it independantly notable?" Right now it does look like a sub-article, but the potential scope of this article goes way beyond Project Chanology. Merging will cause the project chanology page to become cluttered with off topic information.Coffeepusher (talk) 16:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
    There really isn't. Apart from the FOX report, whose suitability is question, there's only two sentences that deal with anything about Project Chanology. Will (talk) 16:59, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
there really isn't...what? mabie I am having a stupid moment, but could you clarify your last statement. I can't seem to make sence of what you are talking about.Coffeepusher (talk) 17:23, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
There really isn't enough off-topic content to justify an article. Also, I doubt that including the FOX report (which pertains directly to 4chan) is suitable for an article about Project Chanology - it'd be like calling Adventists and Seventh Day Adventists the same group. Will (talk) 17:30, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Whether an article is justified was discussed – and concluded – at the AFD. Please don't take it personally, but I've closed the merge proposal since I feel that its merits had already been addressed by the AFD consensus. If you feel that the consensus is being misinterpreted, feel free to open a case at WP:DELREV. Regards, Ayla (talk) 18:29, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Just read it had been closed, never mind. -- Vdub49 (talk) 19:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose Merge The suggestion to merge does not meet any of the "several good reasons to merge a page." Furthermore, User:Sceptre's involvement in this issue is becoming rather pointy. It should be apparent by now that there is a wide consensus that this group is worthy of an article. If we were to merge anything, it would be Project Chanology into this one, not vice-versa. I believe his reasoning behind his antipathy towards the article is the group's association with Encyclopedia Dramatica, a site which maintains a scathing article on him. Eleven Special (talk) 19:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Sources versus page size

While it is a noble attempt to get Anon as well known as possible through the use of legitamate means, the problem I'm seeing with the article is that there may be too many sources compared to the amount of content in the article. InsaneZeroG (talk) 02:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

That isn't really considered a problem on Wikipedia – in fact, it is the norm for controversial articles. The "Sources" section is located at the bottom of the page, and can always be ignored by the reader. Ayla (talk) 18:53, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Mentioning it here just so as to avoid starting a new thread. The YouTube video for the Today Tonight broadcast mentioned in the article can be found here. It should not be linked from the article itself due to potential copyright infringement (unless demonstrated otherwise). Ayla (talk) 19:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Ignore all rules

I invoke Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules. In order to improve the Anonymous page to a point where it is useful to the Internet Community, the "objective truth" must be incorporated.

See Not Really A Group--HockeyInJune (talk) 22:54, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
You don't invoke IAR. It's one of the sure-fire ways to lose an argument. Will (talk) 22:58, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
What rule exactly would you be ignoring? ≈ The Haunted Angel 23:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I presume WP:V (including WP:RS). I agree with Will on this one. After Chanology, there have been over 100 secondary sources cited in the various Anonymous-related articles on Wikipedia (68 in the Feb 10 template alone). Surely, with some dedicated effort, you can find one which gets the facts right? Just to give you an example, for the very last source (already cited in article) I happened to come across: "Anonymous as it exists today [...] is an international community that is bound together by a common goal: the reform of the Church of Scientology." Find the sources, and we'll make the addition. Ayla (talk) 23:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
These things about Project Chanology and Scientology are only half the story. That source you quoted "...international community that is bound together by a common goal: the reform of the Church of Scientology." is wrong. Anonymous has been around much longer than Project Chanology, and Anonymous is about much more than just the demise of Scientology. These type of things, like the metaphorical basis of Anonymous' existence, need to elaborated on. This can only be done through the "objective truth", and not the "verifiable truth". We are ignoring Wikipedia:No original research. --HockeyInJune (talk) 03:29, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
How about the lead now? Is it any better? Ayla (talk) 13:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
@Ayla - Great work on the intro and incorporating the parral source. @HockeyInJune - Normally IAR would be invoked in regards to a specific edit with specific justifications. I don't think it is used broadly over a whole article. For a related example where IAR was invoked successfully, see the discussion of the google Lisa McPherson image on the chanology talk page. Z00r (talk) 14:15, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Various websites and forums such as... eBaum's World

What's the source on this? ;) - Carbon [Nyan?] 01:32, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

eBaum's World is a bit of a pariah, I'd assume. Will (talk) 01:37, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Removed. Honestly people, eBaum's is a meme. BJTalk 01:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
The source is given two sentences down.
  • Jessica Parral and James Clark (2008-02-21). "Internet Group Takes Action Against Scientology". City on a Hill Press (student newspaper). University of California, Santa Cruz. Retrieved 2008-02-21.
If it's unclear, we could cite it against each sentence, but that would be superfluous. I don't understand what you mean by "meme". Even if the source is mistaken (which, being a "student newspaper of record", should not be too likely), there is still this court filing (from the case of Hal Turner vs. 4chan) which gives EBAUMSWORLD.COM as a defendant (along with 4CHAN.ORG, 7CHAN.ORG, etc.). Ayla (talk) 09:53, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
...and this court filing does not mention Anonymous in name, or at all. Just because a bunch of sites got sued doesn't lump them together in this regard. Would we consider Abjects part of Anonymous? Of course not. I think we can exercise editorial discretion here and being aware of both the dubious veracity of the source and the "blame eBaums" rule safely remove that mention. - Carbon [Nyan?] 11:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
The Hal Turner controversy (and court filing) is presently not mentioned in the article precisely because there is no reliable secondary source which associates it with the name "Anonymous"; however, the court filing proves that eBaum's has been involved in litigation in the past. As a temporary compromise, I have qualified the mention with "according to some sources", which should deflect responsibility for a meme/hoax from Wikipedia to the source. I performed a Google search for the "blame eBaum's" rule, and results were not convincing enough (see also [7] and [8]). Do you have any evidence of this meme? If it turns out to be true, then I feel it still deserves a mention to be acknowledged as a meme. Ayla (talk) 13:26, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I have reread a few other sources mentioning the composition of Anonymous, and none of them made any reference to eBaum's. Thus, it seems like you were right. I've removed the mention from the article. Ayla (talk) 22:27, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Please read this DigitalC (talk) 00:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, thanks for the pointer, I'm convinced now. I was sceptical in the beginning because I didn't think the campaign would be so successful as to get the site implicated in the Hal Turner lawsuit. Ayla (talk) 09:30, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Illegal activities?

Any sources showing the numerous illegal activities that people from this group seem to regularly engage in on a day-to-day basis? 85.17.231.67 (talk) 21:57, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I haven't seen any. Keep your eye out for some. DigitalC (talk) 22:04, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Are you referring to the KTTV Fox 11 news report? It's already in the article. Mentioning which, there was a follow-up video made by Fox when Anonymous "invaded" MySpace (YouTube video), if anyone comes across it on Fox's site, please link it here. Ayla (talk) 00:27, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Formation of Anonymous - 4chan, 7chan etc PLEASE USE THESE SOURCES

"Anonymous is less an organization than a loose confederation of Internet message board readers and IRC chat network users. Sites like 4chan.org (warning: content may not be work-safe) brought together thousands of Internet users with a variety of interests and vocations. Anonymous seldom meet physically in large numbers outside of their message boards and chat channels. The February 10 "raids" presented one of the first examples of major Anonymous movement outside of the Internet." cnet.com

"Anonymous – a loose coalition of Internet denizens and so-called “hackers” who tend to congregate at Web sites such as 4chan.org..." [statenews.com

"#4chan group “Anonymous” has published a definitive attack on what is known as the Church of Scientology." blog

"Immediately the IRC chat room hosted on 7chan.org (currently down) was filled with calls to stop using the program, and the 900 people in the chat room returned to their disorderly conversation about whether they should be flooding Digg with anti-Scientology links or making harassing phone calls to local Scientology branches." wired.com

"Anonymous congregates on the net at various hangouts such as 7chan.org (NSFW) and partyvan.info and sundry IRC channels. The group usually amuses itself by stealing passwords to downloading sites and finding ways to harass online communities that its members disdain. They were last seen on THREAT LEVEL when a Los Angeles Fox News affiliate ran a story that hilariously implied the group's arsenal included exploding vans." wired.com

Hopefully those can be used in the article. 202.161.71.161 (talk) 10:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Members of anonymous message boards known collectively as Anonymous have gathered together in an effort to thwart the Church of Scientology from carrying about their usual business. These message boards are typically dominated by pornographic images, gross-out pictures and inside jokes about computers or video games diamondbackonline.com202.161.71.161 (talk) 11:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Isn't the internet great? Anyway, this is an important point to note: that Anonymous culture is rife with dark humor. I've found a citation for this. Two (former?) anons dropped their dox and took part in a dual interview with CBC, and comment on the race bating, homophobia, shock humor, and also the past behavior of Anonymous in pranks, like Habbo Raids. It's the first time Anonymous has addressed these issues frankly with the media, to my knowledge. The audio is available here.--Cast (talk) 16:12, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm hoping you are reading this, the links provided can lead to problems from the CoS(Church Of Scientology) I do not care if they are posted in the ladder but they can try to take these sites over(by illegal "hacker" groups) and input scripts to log IP's or reroute the page to one of their sites and trace any one in this group. With this stated let me explain a bit more, this church has put out a payment for IP of internet critics before, and I have no single blacked thought in my head that they are planning this again. Show being that let me show you what they will do; 1. They hire a "hacker group". 2. The "Hackers" reroute the page to Scientology.org 3. Scientologists trace said IP's 4. They try to ruin the lifes of these people.

Remove the links, add them when the protests and all are over. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.127.16.150 (talk) 22:20, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Clarification

Anonymous is not a concrete group. It's a frame of mind, a collective name that many people use to refer to themselves. And the actions of one Anonymous do not affect or determine actions of other Anonymous.

Anonymous did not begin on 4chan, nor is it confined to there. Anonymous is present on almost every forum, imageboard, IRC network, and site. The Faildozer (as the Anonymous presence on 4chan, 7chan, 12chan, 420chan, 711chan, Raidchan, Partyvan, Lulznet, ED, the Internet, and real life is collectively referred to) is frequently used by people identifying with Anonymous, but the Dozer and Anonymous are separate entities. They have a large degree of intersection, however, anyone may call themselves Anonymous, and there are frequently disagreements within the group. Raids (invasions, DDoSing, trolling, flooding, and other hostilities toward external sites) are suggested by one person on a Dozer affiliate, and others may agree, disagree, or ignore the suggestion. If someone agrees with the raid, they carry it out, and if someone doesn't agree with the raid, they stand by.

You would be surprised if you saw what the Faildozer was like on the inside. To external observers, Anonymous may seem like a single, somewhat discrete entity, but it is really quite diverse. Users of 420chan in general look down on users of 7chan, who in turn look down on 4chan (which is considered by many experienced Anons to be an immature wasteland). Even with these distinctions between *chans, there may also be disagreements within a single imageboard, between the individual boards (for example, /i/ users consider /b/ users to be inexperienced). Looking further, individual posts can have conflicts. Within a single thread, several different viewpoints may be represented, and the personalities of each Anon can be vastly different. From this great variety in opinions and alliances, it may seem a wonder that the Faildozer can operate at all. This is not true.

When a particularly important, "epic", or popular raid is enacted, it is not because the forces of Anonymous cooperate or follow orders. It is simply because word of the raid is spread to every board, IRC channel, and forum of the Faildozer. For example, a raid that starts on 711chan may be posted on 4chan and 7chan as well, and this way many people learn about it. Many people agree with the raid. Inevitably, some people oppose it, and they don't participate. But the majority of the people agree with the raid, and this is why it is strong.

And thus, the Faildozer trudges on.

Ziggy Sawdust 17:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I've never heard it called the Faildozer. Proof? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.210.33.219 (talk) 16:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

March 15

It says that "a member" has chosen march 15, when in fact all the members gave agreed on march 15. do a google/ youtube search for "march 15 anonymous" and you will get countless hits. So it should be made plural. 24.90.116.17 (talk) 04:50, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Not Wikipedia Material

This article does not appear to be worthy of having its own page. There are large amounts of vandalism and the article seems to detail a group that does not want to be discussed. I think it should be removed from wikipedia and all references to it removed due to its irrelevance and general faggotry. Mc.7winkie (talk) 21:34, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The two main points you made are both moot. The level of vandalism will never be as much as say, George W. Bush, and it isn't a deciding factor on whether or not an article should stay. And whether they want to be discussed or not is again, irrelevant - they are encyclopedic, and previous AfD's have decided that. ≈ The Haunted Angel 21:45, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
They are of incredible minuscule importance and quite frankly the article itself is vague, uninformative, and incapable of being informative unless you plaster GO TO 4CHAN.ORG /B/ all over the page. This entry sucks and should be killed.


Hey, I'm going to go stand outside a building and upload some YouTUbe videos.

Will I get a Wikipedia article?

Please delete this shit. Anonymous is not Wikipedia worthy.

The mere idea that you, and anyone else, believe that Anonymous is not worth mention is the reason this article is here to begin with. Your attitude betrays that you don't have the maturity to grasp what Wikipedia stands for. — Nahum Reduta [talk|contribs] 22:19, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

/b/ tards

can all the b tards stop stop vandalizing this page all the content keeps getting deleted. All the links, eg http://www.asyd.org was gone and was a very informative site, I learnt a lot from it. Why is the only link 4chan? /b/ tards are constantly destorying this article Unclekev (talk) 22:31, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

You have no idea how unwise it is to make a request for restraint from a 'tard. You're irritation only brings them pleasure.--Cast (talk) 04:14, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
/b/tards ARE anonymous. all edits by them are evidence to the organization's disruptiveness. This article Should not be on wikipedia, it has exactly the same problems as the GNAA article, if not more. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.134.64.195 (talk) 21:39, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Anonymous does not approve of this article, copyright infridgement... the only wiki allowed to write about us is Encyclopedia Dramatica. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.198.129.172 (talk) 17:32, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not censor itself, at least not in any way due to displeasure expressed by a group or person about which an article is written. This article's potential for vandalism by the hivemind of Anon does not indicate the article's worthiness for inclusion on Wikipedia. scetoaux (talk) (My contributions.) 01:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


Internet forum vs. Imageboard

I'm not sure about changing it but Anonymous always applies to imageboard users. Comments? BJTalk 18:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Not only is it important to note that the "Anonymous" group congregates around imageboards, but that the very nature of this medium has contributed to the rise and development of internet culture, and within internet culture, what I would refer to as an anonymous centric subculture. The constant bombardment of users with images that convey a message as significant as the text, or more so, has created a grassroots viral advertising space. Anonymous is not just to be understood as a group. This group also has a host of esoteric taglines, cliches', injokes, rules and ethical codes of behavior, and a history which is venerated (i.e. Never 4get 7-12-2006!) by long time "anons". Being a combination of multiple mediums, the internet is the only medium that can virally spread these as rapidly. The subculture of Anonymous would not have come into existence if not for imageboards.
The proliferation of these cliches, or cultural viruses referred to as memes, has had an unseen hand in spurring on many of the internet phenomenon documented months later by mainstream media, and never attributed to Anonymous as the source of the "lulz". This will be the greatest problem for this article. I have no doubt that Anonymous deserves a high rating in importance, at the least, but due to a lack of verifiable sources it will never be recognized as anything beyond low (maybe mid, if project chanology goes further in destabilizing Scientology). This is not to say the history of Anonymous is not documented, but we can hardly use oral history and Encyclopedia Dramatica as respectable sources. Personally, I think there should be papers written by sociologists on this phenomenon. As a viral subculture almost exclusively removed from meatspace for the early years of its inception, Anonymous has had an unique development, and it's future will be utterly unpredictable.--Cast (talk) 23:34, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I made a new section to make note of the potential use of 4chanarchive as a source. Kakama (talk) 16:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, well, an imageboard is a more specific type of internet forum, and the anonymous feature is not limited to imageboards. It might be best to state that Anonymous' culture developed around imageboards, a type of internet forum that focuses on images more than text, dedicated to the topic "Random". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Can Not (talk • contribs) 04:57, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, those shouting "its not a forum" need to look up the definition of forum in a dictionary. Just because it's not phpbb doesn't mean it's not a forum. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.156.197.209 (talk) 16:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous in society

Should we not also add to this article that Anonymous has now grown to encompass more than just forums and Imageboards? That Anonymous has now come to grow into a grassroots activist group, where many of the participators of Project Chanology are not just members of the Anonymous subculture inside the chans; but instead are, for a large part, members of the public as well? Many of whom have made an effort to stay away from the chans. This sort of claim can be evidenced through the participation of the February 10th, 2008 protests at: Wikinews international report: "Anonymous" holds anti-Scientology protests worldwide.

I think it would be beneficial to add this to the article because the group does not seem to be losing interest, but in fact, is gaining. If we are to accurately maintain this article it should be noted that Anonymous now is more than just hackers and 'anonymous' posters on forums and Imageboards. - Joshua McNeil (talk) 04:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

  • It is also notable that much of partyvan.info can be used to reference members of the general public and their growing role in Anonymous. It is currently maintained by members of the Anonymous chan administrators, primarily of eBaums. Historically accurate and they have often times confessed to whatever negative facts may be associated with them: if the accusations are in fact true.
This is also the main site for organization and participation in Project Chanology. - Joshua McNeil (talk) 04:36, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
-Joshua McNeil (talk) 04:37, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
This thinking is wrong on several points. Anons who are taking part in Project Chanology are hardly making efforts to "stay away from chans". This can be understood on several levels. While perhaps they are not associating Project Chanology with any particular image board, and are often referring to Ebaumsworld as their center of gravity, in an attempt to shift blame from their beloved boards, this is not new behavior. This is standard operating procedure for raids. They've done this since their earliest Habbo raids. Anons, as individuals, are still associating with each other on boards.
Further, they are not avoiding "chan subculture". Many picket signs referenced memes, and a costumed individual dressed as Raptor Jesus made an appearance at the San Francisco protest. The constant use of EFG masks (yes, I know they are V masks, but the meme is tied to EFG) is yet another act of embracing *chan subculture even when in the public sphere. An outreach video calling for the 2-10-08 event did hand out "rules of engagement," amongst which was the insistence that memes not be used, as they would alienate the public. This, obviously, was ignored en masses. Anonymous is not disassociating form the *chans, and never will. The concept of Anon is intrinsic to the *chans. It is, however, true that Anon exists outside of this subculture now.
Further, do not make the mistake of buying into mass media representations of Anonymous. The group was never comprised solely, or by a majority of Hackers. Hackers have always comprised a minority, if not a vast minority. The tactic most often employed by Anonymous during online "Raids" is that of the DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack. This does not involve any hacking whatsoever. It is an act of overwhelming a webserver's bandwidth with massive packets of data. Media outlets simplified this as an act of "hacking."
No actual intrusion of the Scientology websites was executed by the majority of Anonymous. It is possible that a small minority of Anonymous did hack Scientology computers to acquire private documents, but it is highly unlikely this was achieved by hacking websites. I can't imagine why Scientology management would keep confidential documents on their websites. Scientology servers may have been hacked. As it is highly unlikely any Anon will ever step forward, we will never know.
I think this article can't just refer to Anonymous' interaction with society. It also has to address their subculture, explain how the concept of "anonymous" developed, and why. We'll eventually have to pull up the code of Anonymous, and explain each. The hard part of all this, as I noted above, will be finding verifiable sources. You note that partyvan.info can be used, but this is already known of and rejected. The problem is this is a wiki, and unacceptable as a source.--Cast (talk) 05:24, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
You seem to have missed my point. I wasn't solely referring to the Anonymous of the chans. I was referring to the general public and people who have simply adopted the pseudonym Anonymous as an umbrella name for a new activist group. You've also assumed that I'm unfamiliar with the chans and that I'm "buying into mass media". This is not the case. I know well that many of Anonymous, while 'channers', have little to no experience in "hacking". I suppose though that I was rather unclear as to what I meant. So my apologies, I've now clarified. Forgive me for suggesting partyvan.info be used. I hadn't realized. Summarily, I never said that this article refer to just Anonymous' interaction with society. But instead it should be noted that Anonymous has grown past the chans, even if the chans are still a fact hitherto synonymous with Anonymous. - Joshua McNeil (talk) 09:27, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Use of the Partyvan Wiki is to facilitate a perment source of knowledge, just as ED and Wikichan exist; it is just the /i/ part of that. Our general reactions and actions within society are not an action of growing past the chans at all. Anonymous is not an activist group or some sort of hacking clan, as the article notes well. Anonymous are imageboard users who upon occasion do things in real life or on other forums. Is not the eBaums World user who raids a website (like they so often do) still an eBaumber?

Found and uploaded this.

Forgot the source, never copyrighted, simple. Don't flame, I have little/no idea what I'm doing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Anons-business-card2.PNG

CompuHacker (talk) 05:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I should point you to this discussion and this discussion (check the "Image:AnonymousDemotivator.jpg" sections) to show the opposition being offered against such images. Can you demonstrate that the image was never copyrighted? Ayla (talk) 11:30, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Uploaded a free logo from Insurgency at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Anonymous_ring_logo.gif Anon031408 (talk) 19:01, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Again, can you demonstrate that it is free? (I'm not saying that it's not, but we need some evidence to show that it is, such as a statement by the creator.) Ayla (talk) 19:10, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

A better poster


You want it? ViperSnake151 14:31, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about this. The thing about Anonymous is that no single individual can represent it. The great thing about the cartoons – that of a green person and "no image available" or the invisible person wearing a business suit – is that they were more clearly symbolic of the concept of anonymity, and were so often used either as a logo (invisible male) or as a dark comedy character (the green no-face). A picture of a random guy wearing a Guy Fawkes mask just doesn't have the same effect. Also, that "expect us" line is still just a very new, and very Project Chanology related line. It was never used before Project Chanology, and so it betrays a certain degree of recentism. --Cast (talk) 01:26, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
look what I found -- Ned Scott 05:47, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
This also might be a good time to bring up an idea I once had.. a motivator template for Wikipedia. -- Ned Scott 05:48, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Restraining Order Petition

I assume this would be a RS & VS? (crossposted to talk page of Chanology) - injunction.pdf DigitalC (talk) 22:27, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

No, but the associated article would be. Eleven Special (talk) 14:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

List of False and Misleading Information

I just deleted some false information. Anyways, I think we should make a list of things that aren't true for future note.

  • "The Northern Light interviewee suggested that the Anonymous organising Project Chanology and the Anonymous "that became infamous" through the Fox report "are different groups"." - Everyone who is remotely familiar with the anonymous would know how clear it was that both organizations are the same. Also, why state that someone (non-notable, nor an expert) was suggesting this in an encyclopedia? This isn't a myspace shoutbox. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Can Not (talk • contribs) 05:15, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
  • But there's the problem, they're not really groups to start with. No doubt some of the same people are involved, but because there's no major organization, and because they're.. well.. anonymous, it's a different group every time something happens. Even within the Scientology stuff, the people involved in the first DOS attacks on the websites and prank phone calls are not exactly the same group as the people who went out to actually protest in person. They might involve some of the same people, but again, who's involved constantly changes, and along with that the ideas and motivations shift slightly as well. -- Ned Scott 05:53, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Of course "they're not really groups to start with", they are just one single group. I don't see how what you said makes since. If the same people did two different things under the same group name, what could possibly make them two different groups? Let me force your logic into the business world. Programmers, Hardware Technicians, and Janitors are not the same group, right? But all three belong to their own individual organizations called Nvidia. No, that is stupid. You are confusing the term group with roles. Many anons prank phone call, DDoS, IRL protest, or make up propaganda. This is called specialization. When different members of an organization do specific tasks and work together, efficiency is increased. Anonymous is one single group. Fox News and Project Chanology were talking about the same Anonymous.--Can Not (talk) 23:14, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Tons of people are doing things under the name Anonymous because anyone can make that claim. I can go out with ten people and poop on a car and say "Anonymous did this crazy zomg thing". You could describe them as a group (all of humanity can be seen as a group, after all), but what is being implied with reports from Fox News and other places isn't the same thing. This isn't an organization. -- Ned Scott 04:25, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Granted, the terminology and "identity" that is implied is pretty much the same. -- Ned Scott 04:29, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the way Ned Scott explained it. There are also another two ways to look at it:

  1. One could argue that they are a "different group" because their ideologies and tactics have changed drastically – even if the members remained the same. As an example, The Road to February 10, 2008 video (endorsed by the Insurgency Wiki) states that Anonymous "embraced" Mark Bunker's words: "His advice to protest peacefully would become the cornerstone of their plans as they moved forward", effectively halting activities of questionable legality such as the DDoS attacks.
  2. The Fox report has been widely dismissed or derided as biased, sensationalistic, inaccurate, or fallacious. According to this viewpoint (which is quite popular online), the portrayal of Anonymous as a bunch of "hackers on steroids" does not reflect the actual group, thus "different groups".

Regarding the non-notability of the individual: the criteria for inclusion within an article is citation against a reliable source, which is met for the case you mentioned. But the sentence probably can be paraphrased to make the intended meaning clearer. Ayla (talk) 14:13, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous, as it exists today, began a few months ago. Prior to this time other groups called Anonymous existed but, as far as Ottoson knows, the Anonymous that organized the Feb. 10 protests and the Anonymous that became infamous after a Fox News investigative piece exposed the group as a cyberterrorism outfit are different groups.[9]

Perhaps none of you understand. Look at the first bold item. This item is not a fact. Look at bold item number 2. The information that "Ottoson" knows is not only false, but the article itself states that he isn't 100% sure. I will now remove the false/misleading information.--Can Not (talk) 23:26, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
I actually agree with the paraphrasing idea. Anonymous isn't a centralised orgonization with a governing body or an oversight group that regulates its members or attests principals and ideas. Rather it is an label that has been applied to people who chose to communicate though set mediums and apply a loose set of principals to those interactions (note that the prinicpals that are set to gobvern those interactions only apply to third life, and have not spillover into real life). Anonymous as it exists today did in fact begin a few months ago prior to that point, it didn't make any political or social "raids" that where focused on long term goals, only "raids for Lulz". So they are "different orgonizations" if the term "orgonization" can be applyed at all. all of that beeing said, I think that paraphrasing it into somthing like "After the Project C (I can't spell it) raid the composition of anonymous drasticly changed from the origional group" or somthing like that (it was a off the cuff paraphrase that can get the conversation started).Coffeepusher (talk) 23:56, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry. Is Microsoft a different company now than it was 10 years ago because it made a long term investment into the console industry? I'm afraid not. Anonymous has done many raids in the past, some raids to destroy furries, faggotry, racists, pedofilic predators, etc. The only thing different about raiding scientology is that scientology is rich and just as morally grey as anonymous. IRL protests are nothing new to Anonymous, this is simply the biggest IRL protest they've ever done. They haven't changed, they aren't secretly three organizations, etc. Anonymous may have changed in the eyes of the news media or the public (or just became generally known, period), but they haven't made any significant cultural or practical changes. Nothing more than new jokes, same old style. There is also no evidence or reason to believe this drastic change has happened. Care to elaborate?--69.1.35.136 (talk) 04:38, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Microsoft is a corperation that has a ruling body and governing structure as well as rules and regulations for its members, Anonymous is a culture not an orgonization. It is more closely identified with a speech community, or a counterpublic, however it dosn't have either ideals or an agenda (except for "we do it for Lulz" which is cryptic at best) and its only cohesave element is the method of communication. in other words Anonymous isn't a single orgonization, it is a label that is slaped onto acts of vandalism, hackery, protest, electrical assualt, in such a way to make those events appear more sinister than they actually are. Mostly Anonymous is a group of people who crack jokes on web sites, and blank pages on wikipedia. So saying that the anonymous that crank called a woman on Fox News is a different structure from the anonymous that protested outside Hollywood scientology center is correct.Coffeepusher (talk) 04:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Anonymous is not unorganized at all. This shows a clear lack-of-knowing-what-you-are-talking-about on your part. Calling it a label on internet terrorism is also pretty stupid, considering that Anonymous is a consistant integrated network of websites and chatrooms that acknowledges that they are all one entity called anonymous (which is a running gag to refer to their ORGANIZED group efforts such as raids, photoshops, photobucket fishing, etc., as something done by "Anonymous", thus where the name came from). While it is true that there may be two events that involve two different groups called Anonymous, FOX News and Project Chanology both deal with the EXACT SAME group that refers to itself as Anonymous. That is a fact. Quit trying to talk about something you don't really know anything about. The statement does not belong in this article. End of story.--Can Not (talk) 01:30, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
The websites and chat rooms didn't protest scientology...people did. Being organized (by your definition I am assuming collective effort) Dosn't make an orgonization. Just by saying that I don't know what I am talking about dosn't make it true, it is actually a Ad Honimin falicy in logic (every time someone loses their temper on wikipedia I end up typing that word), which was explained in the intro section of "Welcome to Wikipedia." Right now you are arguing over semantics, the bottom line is that the actions that where discussed on the fox news report delt with a different segment of the population than the people who participated in the Scientology protests and raids. They used different methods, communicated using different boards, and had different goals, which for all intensive purposes can be seen as two different groups or "orgonizations". The statement is technicly correct, it comes from a WP:RS, and your only counterargument (which you have employed at length) is "Everyone who is remotely familiar with the anonymous would know how clear it was that both organizations are the same" with your "gut instinct" being the only source. So no matter what my or your opinion is, this source can be used in this article.Coffeepusher (talk) 02:54, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't simply saying you don't know what you were talking about, I was pointing out an obvious observation. Also, I am not using gut instinct, I am using first hand experience. Now on to the "debate" part of this. Fox News did a report on Anonymous as a whole (or simply how they perceived it, or what they thought th public needed to know), and mentioned a few things that Anonymous did. Now Anonymous has organized a raid (aka protest) against the "church" of Scientology. Saying that those two Anonymous' are not the same group is like saying that the Intel that released the Pentium 4 is a different Intel than the one that released the Core 2 Duo. It makes absolutely no since and it's not true.--Can Not (talk) 01:39, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
"obvious observations" and "first hand experience" arn't admisable to wikipeida without reliable sources. I do understand what you are saying, but please read the quote. "sudjesting...the Anonymous organising Project Chanology and the Anonymous that became infamous through the Fox report "are different groups". the fox news report was a less than thourough representation of anonymous, and in that representation it used different tactics and goals than the "Project chanology" group. thus Anonymous that became infamous in the public eye (because they phish paswords and put up gay pornography...crank calls...basic middle/high school stuff...videos of blowing up vans...) does not accuratly represent the group that Project chanology came from. now I do stand by the fact that anonymous is an ideology rather than a orgonization, but that is semantics. The point is this article isn't wrong, it just sees things differently than you are comfortable with. Coffeepusher (talk) 18:25, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
1. Anonymous did not become infamous through the FOXNEWS report. They have been infamous ever since their e-violent culture stabilized, which would be more than 2 years before the FOXNEWS report. 2. FOXNEWS's misrepresentations and/or "lies" does not infer that a second imaginary group exists. 3. No, no NO NO NO! It DOES accurately represent the group Project Chanology came from. Just because Anonymous has recruited half the public into it's own personal army against scientology does not mean Anonymous suddenly stopped executing its normal activities.--69.1.35.136 (talk) 00:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) and I agree with you on all but the first point. prior to the fox news report there was little in the public eye that pointed to Anonymous...effectivly they where infamous in their own circles, but I challenge you to find any reports about then identifing their actions with the group itself (please find them...we would like more sources). next I am confused on how you can say that anonymous created a personal army that acted in different ways from their normal activities, seperate the two in your third point...and have a problem with this quotation (the one we are discussing at the top of the page). it appears that you recognise that the activities are seperate, the individuals involved are seperate, and the ideology itself is seperate.Coffeepusher (talk) 00:43, 14 March 2008 (UTC) I don't think I properly understood Can Not before, but I think I got it now. Think of Anonymous as a concept, then we're saying that the Fox News and Scientology anonymous are the same concept. And while I don't think anon is a "group" in the way that some news reports have make it seem like, but yes, they can be considered a group, thus they would be considered the same group. -- Ned Scott 05:03, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh jesus christ. I'm an anonymous. The anonyomus in the fuckterded fox bullshit and the anonymous of the chanology protests are one and the same, kthxbai. --124.40.47.45 (talk) 10:55, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Logo replacement

The second deletion review for Image:AnonymousDemotivator.jpg has just closed as keep. A few days ago, an editor uploaded another version of the logo, Image:Anonymous ring logo.gif, which could be used to substitute the current one. However, considering that the current logo has undergone a heated debate spanning an IfD discussion, a former deletion review, an ANI discussion, its talk page discussions, and the second deletion review, I feel it would be unfair for such a decision to be taken by an individual editor. Thus, I am inviting community input on which version of the logo should be chosen, especially from editors who participated in the said debates. Keep in mind that, per WP:CSD#I5, the non-chosen logo would be deleted as an orphaned unfree image. Thanks. Ayla (talk) 16:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

ugh decisions! although I applaud the work of the editor who added the new logo, I feel that the origional one it more recognised and should be kept on the page. That and I feel that the first image has more history on this page (all that debate) and has less chance of beeing deleted because of WP:NOMINATINGUNTILLITGETSDELETED (someone please help me out, what is the correct wikilink?).Coffeepusher (talk) 17:50, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Got it, What I was saying was under frivolous WP:KEEPLISTINGTILITGETSDELETEDCoffeepusher (talk) 20:45, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I agree with your second point (and also with your first, except that the new logo appears to have become more popular recently). Image:Anonymous ring logo.gif will be deleted as orphaned fair use after Thursday, 20 March, so unless there is a consensus favouring it by then, I will let the deletion take its course. Ayla (talk) 19:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

We really need to stop thinking of it as a logo. It's a symbol attached to the anonymous concept/group, but it's not "official". There's tons of images anonymous uses to identify itself. -- Ned Scott 04:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

On a terminological basis, yes, but a logo is in effect the same as a "symbol attached to [a] concept/group". It's not official, but it is the most prevalent one. Ayla (talk) 17:24, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough :) -- Ned Scott 02:19, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
The fair use rationale is way better for the ring logo, and might actually stand up as a rationale. Will (talk) 17:30, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Except that it already has stood up as a rationale for the current image.--Cast (talk) 17:48, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
No, it hasn't. The poster's rationale is boilerplate. The logo's rationale actually gives a paragraph about its copyright. Will (talk) 18:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Really!!! we have been through this discussion on many many many pages, and are you really going to start that all over again on the talk page?!? The point is that there is A rational for the origional image that has held up through an extensive prossess and if we replace the image I am not at all convinced that someone will not game the system and pull the new image through the same prossess using other reasons for its deletion. Coffeepusher (talk) 18:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I give up. Will (talk) 19:05, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Terrorism accusations?

Scientology has accused Anonymous of planning terrorist activities or claiming they are a genuine terrorist organisation numerous times both unofficially and (I'm pretty sure) in some of the injunctions and claims they've tried to file against the group.

In fact in the "Clearwater Petition for Injunction For Protection Against Repeat Violence"* they even claimed Anonymous had stated: "A seperate personal attack on Heber Jentzsch will be launched on the 13th of March 2008 at an undisclosed time. His execution along with the deaths of other countless scientologists will strike fear into the hearts ofevery member"

Think it's worth giving it a mention somewhere in the article if only "for the lulz" as they say ;) --85.62.18.8 (talk) 03:34, 17 March 2008 (UTC) Injunction petition can be seen here: http://www.sptimes.com/2008/03/12/images/Scientologyinjunction.pdf

This probably is more related to Project Chanology. The injunctions have been discussed on the talk page there. DigitalC (talk) 03:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Anonymous has never been involved in any terrorist actions. Such claims are complete fabrications, as are the recent accusations of child pornography, that were most likely started and propagated by trolls or scientologists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.14.7.91 (talk) 00:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Right, there is never CP on the imageboards. DigitalC (talk) 03:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
This is the kind of problems chanology has given us... Look, fellow, do you know where Pedobear comes from? We're not joking. Also, see Jake Brahm if you want to talk about "terrorism." Finally, can I add that that one finish "natural selection" school shooter posted threats to an imageboard, and in his manifesto, reported that he was "doing it for the lulz?"Kakama (talk)


Just a note, it was overturned because they where trying to use laws that where in place to protect battered individuals. the judge said it was a ridiculous notion.
here is the link to the report, and a complete summery is found on the Project page.[10]Coffeepusher (talk) 04:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Cities Included

Protests also took place in the city of Pittsburgh —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.240.25.13 (talk) 18:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Wiki and other chans

I am changing the page to denote that the Partyvan Wiki and the IRC channels are based off the imageboards and simply an extension of them, and 711chan is just another one of the "larger of the smaller chans" where smaller chans means "Not 4chan." The imageboards are the core of Anonymous and it is not moving beyond that, into any sort of movement or culture, unless you count where it becomes obvious that one is a *chan user by their actions or when a raid is interpreted as a social movement because of misguided media. Kakama (talk) 02:27, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment removed

I will do it just well as long as people stop putting 711chan linked to on Wikipedia. This whole article is asking for deletion or a complete rewrite. 72.205.220.254 (talk) 02:59, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous' Focus

I would like to propose that a list of some sort is compiled to display the various goals of Anonymous over time. This could show how Anonymous has changed from an undefined objective, to attempting to revoke the CoS tax exempt status, to the new "Operation Reconnect" Additionally, it would demonstrate how quickly Anonymous has evolved and grown. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.158.199.153 (talk) 19:18, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

This article isn't just about the Anonymous project, "Operation Chanology." It's about Anonymous in general, and so we shouldn't just look at the work some Anons have been doing for the past three months. Anonymous has been around since 2003, with most of the mottos and the green face cartoon coming from 2004. For the majority of it's time, it hasn't been focused. I'd hardly call this a quick evolution. More like a temporary deviation.--Cast (talk) 19:39, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I would agree with the idea of a timeline for pre-Chanology Anonymous, but sourcing is too sparse. The only event I found decent media coverage of was Chris Forcand's arrest. Ayla (talk) 19:43, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, we've got information on the origin of 4chan, the first western imageboard Anonymous called home. Anonymous now has a website where it refers to itself as a "social phenomenon" and that it originated on the chans. Now that Chanology is spreading out to non-wiki websites, we can start citing those. Here is an essay on the Anonymous imageboards written back in 2004, when Anonymous as a subculture took off, explaining what the imageboard was and what were the perceived advantages to Anonimity. Note that an addendum was added in 2006, noting concerns with the Anonymous system stemming from 2005 and 2004. This can make for a bare but useful timeline. --Cast (talk) 22:57, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, I understand there is not really a good way to verify this, but- those websites and the other Chanology sites that call Anonymous generally anything along the lines of a "social movement" or a "force for good" are intentionally wrong, just to get people who believe it to do what we say (in this case, protest Cos). Kakama (talk) 13:56, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

To ten pound hammer

Here was my reply, before it got kept:

  • I will skip over your condescension formed into a argument against me and go to the sources: Fox 11, extremely exaggerated segment, making up some topics completely, right wing, using biased reviewers, etc. 4chan, biased towards themselves, refers to 'Anonymous' as only members of 4chan, and is not serious at all. Not to mention all the sources contradict each other in various ways. Bomblol (talk) 05:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I recommend you do a bit of research on your own on the subject, and then compare that to what you read in the sources cited. Bomblol is basically correct, although the article does surprisingly well given the problems with the sources. Z00r (talk) 14:14, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

One Sided?

I fear that this page showing a member of anonymous being a sicko is misleading and baseless how many sickos are in christianity or islam you canot spoil a group because of one person what is the purpouse of this give the sicko his own page of shame —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zaharous (talk • contribs) 15:25, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I want to see more showing of the darker, more common side of Anonymous, and you, Zaharous, are not Anonymous. The majority of the actions Anonymous has committed are "sick." Kakama (talk) 02:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
They do sick things? You mean like rape, child molestation, murder, holocausts, and evironmental desstruction? Oh, my bad, you meant internet harassment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.1.35.136 (talk) 00:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It soon will be more then that —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rockstand4-5 (talk • contribs) 01:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

So. What about the atrocities committed by the Church of Scientology? Locking women in rooms for days on end? Sounds like torture to me. Its wrong to make a conjecture which states that just because Anonymous uses the internet as a tool in spreading their words of protest (cyberterrorism? ha. right.) they're going to rape, murder, and molest. Its a slippery slope argument. (Which, ps, is a HUGE FALLACY) If you dont like what they're saying, get off the internet. They have just as much right to say what they want as you do to accuse them of atrocities that MOST religions commit. Including Scientology. Just saying.

Motto's

I removed the reference to Motto's in the lead. The statement made reference to several motto's being known about Anonymous, yet the reference listed made no note of this, futhermore no reference was included to mention any other motto at all. Maybe there are, mayber there are not, but it is OR to make a statement without any references to back it up and when the references included make no mention of this fact it appears to be a synthesis of material. This all tells me that it is not notable in the least, and certainly not notable for the lead. Additionally, the reference listed only stated that this was an onimous statement, not even noting that it was a motto. Also, since there appears to be no actual official organization, I find it hard to believe there is an official motto associated with them. Arzel (talk) 07:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Epilepsy raid removal

Even if all articles are sources from Wired, why has the entire section been removed? It's a documented and accurate reflection of the "other" side of Anonymous that does these things regularly. Other then the fact that the article was apparently written by a "convicted felon" (how does that even apply?), why remove that well-documented and detailed section? Kakama (talk) 17:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


Masks and chans

2 things, 1: there's 4Chan, 7Chan, 711Chan, 12Chan, 2Chan. The list goes on.

2: WHERE THE HELL CAN I GET ME A ANONYMOUS MASK IN CANADA? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.159.52.196 (talk) 06:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a perfect example of why we need better sources for this article, like 4chanarchive or something. Also, the C in 4chan and others is not capitalized. 68.101.12.47 (talk) 01:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Huge article

Lots of stuff in here: http://citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=15543 Z00r (talk) 10:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

This was just posted right above you. William Ortiz (talk) 10:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Not really a group

I'd just like to intercept the beginning of this discussion to remind everyone that Anonymous IS a group, otherwise they wouldn't have organized Project Chanology.--Can Not (talk) 01:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

"Anonymous" really isn't a group. Nothing is really organized, and often the "group" is just defined by who is interested at a certain time over a certain thing. I'd call it a concept more than a group. Certainly recent events with Scientology has made "Anonymous" seem more like a group, simply because it's the first time such a large number of us went in on the same thing, but over-all it's still mostly a concept. Ideas are thrown out, some catch on, some don't. Or maybe you could call it a demographic on the internet. Granted it's hard to define this without going into original research, but given that our published sources are often half-informed news reports, it kind of paints a false picture of what really happens. -- Ned Scott 05:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

This brings up one of the big (and probably unsolvable) problems with Wikipedia, which is the distinction between "objective truth", and "verifiable truth". When the "reliable" sources don't exist for a notable topic, or worse when they get it wrong, it is hard to justify adding the correct info to WP in light of the No Origional Research policy. One might invoke the Ignore All Rules policy, though with a controvertial article such as this it would be very difficult for that to reach concensus here. Z00r (talk) 08:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
This analogy might draw fire, but I'll risk it. I will compare Anonymous to the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). The ALF's membership is comprised entirely of those who voluntarily associate with it in secret. There are no member lists, no centralized organization. There are a few magazines that publish and encourage the behavior, but there certainly are no leaders. To be a member of ALF, you take part in an action ALF would approve of and state you did it in the group's name. After the action, you are no longer a member of ALF. Now all of that said, ALF is still an organization. I would say Anonymous strives even more so not to be an organization, but the generic term "group" still applies, because Anonymous admits that at any given time there is more than one Anonymous. Anonymous is legion. Legion implies a group. That all said, I agree that Anonymous is a concept; I just think this article can serve to explain all of the faces of Anonymous; that of the group, the culture, the tactic, and the idea.--Cast (talk) 10:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
A very good way to put it. -- Ned Scott 17:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
From what I've heard, Anonymous was really just a amorphous collection of Channers and Encyclopedia Dramatica users (I think many of them are now tied to E.D., as it provides info for Anonymous, but I'm not too sure). I know they've allegedly attacked the womensspace forum. The motives revolved around the moderator BitingBeaver after she wished she aborted her teenage son once witnessing him view and masturbate to pornography. This whole conflict is noted on E.D., so if you want more info, just key in either "BitingBeaver" or "TheBitingBeaver." Can't quite remember. 24.250.58.113 (talk) 14:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I guess by your logic, we can say that humans aren't a group.--Can Not (talk) 05:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
An organized group, not exactly. A group of living things, yeah. Context goes a long way. -- Ned Scott 05:55, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
It's a shame, but you're right. Wikipedia won't be able to adequately cover the concept of internet anonymity until the internet is significantly more mature (WP:CRYSTAL). Worse, encyclopedias are naturally weak at subjects without clear taxonomy. Loose, impossible to measure associations throw it off. I myself am fascinated by the cultural implications of anonymity. Wherever it's given, you see a upswell of groups fond of piracy, anarchism, and antisocial humor. It's collectivism, yet not at all idealistic. Whatever Project Chanology may indicate, the majority of the anonymous internet is at best lukewarm to the idea of society. You can call all the alarming qualities of the community (mocking diversity, finding child porn funny, hacking websites, laughing at the victims) ironic, black humor. I take it as a layered change in society's perception of itself: "This world is sick, amoral, and meaningless. There's nothing to do about it, so let's have some fun."
Wikichan probably has the best summary. Anyway, it will take years for academy to produce any reliable information, and news organizations are hopeless. --Estemi (talk) 06:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Well said :) -- Ned Scott 05:28, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

This Article seems to me to present "Anonymous" as a group of activists. I don't know, but isn't Anonymous basically the idea of using internet anonymity in whatever way one wants to? Consider this example, on some board, such as 4chan, I make a bomb threat and don't sign it. Isn't that "Anonymous". I'm not sure, but I don't think that you can call the bunches of people who protested Scientology members of this so-called group "Anonymous" You can probably say that the people involved, by and large, organized the protests through anonymous posts or posting as anonymous. Is the intent of this article is to discuss what the concept of internet anonymity means? Or is it to ascribe properties to "Anonymous"? Doesn't anonymous mean unnamed, unidentified, unqualified, unquantified, and uncharacterized?Jotorious (talk) 18:00, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Not quite. The Anonymous 'group' this article refers to, the one responsible for 'chanology', is that of a specific subculture primarily oriented around the *chan imageboards (hence chanology). The problem with this article is the transient nature of the content on these sites, coupled with the typical lack of competence in traditional news with respect to such phenomena. For instance, this article suggests (at time of writing) that the primary organisational links exist on YouTube and Slashdot, while in general most older anonymous (haha citation needed ...) would note that the former is normally more subject to manipulation and the latter has itself remarked on the idiocy of traditional media in categorising Anon [11]. Never mind that Wikipedia autocensors links to Encyclopædia Dramatica, one of the major associated sites. I agree that Wikichan is probably the best and most reliable source, although naturally Wikipedia would never stoop to linking directly to instances of the 'group' itself rather than poorly-researched but gosh-darned well funded news reports. --91.104.123.66 (talk) 00:32, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Good source - Radar Magazine

  • "Anonymous is the catchall term for an amorphous group of online activists-slash-hackers-slash-pranksters-slash-dadaists organized loosely around two online message boards, 4chan.org and 711chan.org. Anons, as they call themselves, are steeped in the anarchic and exceptionally juvenile culture of the Internet, and function as something like online yippies. The lolcats meme, for example—a series of inexplicably funny pictures of cats with comically misspelled captions like, "I can has cheezburger?"—first emerged on the 4chan boards, and its members have claimed responsibility for a long list of feats, including taking down white nationalist websites and stealing the passwords to 72,000 MySpace pages."
  • radaronline.com DigitalC (talk) 23:48, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Anonymous is formatted around alot of online forums, slashdot, digg, the *chans. and not all of the places agree on the actions of other anonymous of other forums. for example: ask anywhere on 7chan's freeforall board. (/b/) if they are for the protests on scientology, they will say "no, this isn't NIGGERTITS" (niggertits is a badword filter for 4chan.(type 4chan, it gets turned to niggertits in all caps.)) Kyleshome (talk) 22:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Formatted cite

Cook, John (March 17, 2008). "Scientology - Cult Friction: After an embarrassing string of high-profile defection and leaked videos, Scientology is under attack from a faceless cabal of online activists. Has America's most controversial religion finally met its match?". Radar Online. Radar Magazine. Retrieved 2008-03-20. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Same source as above, formatted w/ WP:CIT. Cirt (talk) 11:19, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Epilepsy Foundation hack?

Wired blames Anonymous for a forum hack to inflict seizures in epileptic users, and says they planned it on 7chan.org . The article doesn't disclose any sources though. Of course if anyone can be Anonymous, to say that Anonymous did or did not do something is pretty moot.--87.162.38.103 (talk) 00:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

The article states that circumstantial evidence suggests it was Anonymous. I don't know if that is a realiable enough claim to put into the article. DigitalC (talk) 05:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
If you don't know who is responsible, you need to lurk moar. The final boss is back. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Haiguyzzzz (talk • contribs) 11:20, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

A much better source than the wired article. [12]. This has gotten fair coverage in the media, so we may want to include a section on it. [13], [14], [15], [16], [17] DigitalC (talk) 22:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC) [3]

Anonymous is the Internet Hate Machiene. We saw this raid as an excellent oppertunity to milk the lulz cow. Any Anonymous who blames this on scifags or takes no responsibility is a newfag who does not understand the nature and purpose of Anonymous. Amirite? - Previous unsigned comment added by 204.191.235.63, 21:03, 3 April 2008

No, you're wrong. /i/ is not Anonymous any more then any other named board is Anonymous. 15:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC) [18]

No. Lurk MOAR. The reason the Church of Scientology was blamed was that they perpetrated the attack in collaboration with Ebaums. DigitalC (talk) 03:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

CP (Baltimore City Paper) brings light

Here is a news article about anonymous from CP, with lots of the stuff we have been looking for, including how some anons disaprove of project chanology, hal tuner, long cat, etc.--Alastor85 (talk) 03:06, 3 April 2008 (UTC) http://citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=15543

Finally, a reliable source that actually appears to know its subject, and now that it has appeared along with a few of its own references it is possible to start actually changing this article into something more accurate; it would not surprise to learn that most editors are already aware of the shortcomings of this article (or indeed most Wikipedia content on such ephemeral culture) but are tied by demands of verifiability. Judging from the number of unflagged memes in the news article it would seem the author has more than a passing familiarity with the subculture or has simply done unusually thorough research, which would explain the good balance between the positive and negative elements of Anonymous which is sorely lacking in most sources. (Note: Anonymous with an A not an a; that is, the subculture responsible for chanology &c. This is distinct from simple anonymity, which as correctly noted elsewhere is not strictly a group at all) --Nessunome (talk) 01:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Harrassment of women?

The name 'anonymous' is given in this news report. Looks like a reliable source. Thoughts?--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 19:19, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

If you're going to incorporate it into the article, I might suggest that you read about the BitingBeaver story first: [19]. Ayla (talk) 01:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that was indeed the said same group as responsible for 'Chanology'. It is simple enough to visit the *chans and ask around, but brace for culture shock. Backgrounds may be replaced with photographs of atrocities and torture 'for giggles' on some of the more extreme sections. Although actual links make for instant bans, I find that a good (mind, off color) overview complete with screenshots can be found at Encyclopedia Dramatica (google it) and searching for the aformentioned 'Biting Beaver'. --91.104.123.66 (talk) 00:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Serious Business

Feature Story, really good source, lots of info, discussion of Anonymous, origins, etc. Cirt (talk) 05:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

This needs moving to the head of the page. This is both reputable enough for Wikipedia and actually well researched and referenced, and covers both the positive and negative aspects of Anonymous. For those arguing that anonymity is not necessarily association, you are missing the point. Chanology is the product of Anonymous with an A not an a, and whilst there are no sign-ins mandated by it it is distinct as a subculture from arbitrary anonymity on the internet. --91.104.123.66 (talk) 00:57, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

hal turner

i dont want to make an account to edit someone should put in something about the hal turner raids back in the winter of 06/07 those were fun times theyre mentioned on hals wiki aarticle i think 24.201.60.86 (talk) 15:30, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

There is an excelent german article translated on the dramatica anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.136.128.7 (talk) 21:51, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean Dramatica Anon? Once you push past the normal poorly-researched trash inherent in conventional reporting on topics such as the internet Dramatica appears to be more of an observational group. Further, the divide within the discussions between those purporting to be the 'Anonymous' of this article appears to be between those who believe the primary function of the group is this chanology protest and that it is done with altruistic goals, and those who claim that Anonymous is an altogether less moral culture for whom chanology is only one of several instances of interaction with external groups. Cursory analysis of website stat tracking services such as Alexa makes it clear that sites such as 4chan predate the chanology project by many years and (although this takes some searching to locate) a thread archival service for 4chan carries mirrors of threads in which the idea of railing against scientology is put forward well in advance of the first actions taken. While the group exhibits minimal organisational coherence on investigation it seems most likely that the supposed division between the more morally ambiguous Anonymous and the anonymous claiming to be doing this as "what's right" is more a division between the original subculture and some very public hangers-on who have attached themselves to the name for the sake of a cause, with some disputes opening as the less pleasant aspects of the subculture become known to them.
More on topic, I thought the Hal Turner events had been mentioned in the article briefly? Perhaps with the unusually well-researched Baltimore City news article available to editors (linked elsewhere in this discussion) some more balance can be brought into this article now. --Nessunome (talk) 08:51, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Having investigated some other articles under WikiProject Internet Culture it seems that the information and events people are arguing for inclusion here is already present in well-referenced form on pages such as 4chan. This, coupled with the Baltimore City article, should be more than sufficient to expand and refine this article. Given the present sensitivity of this article (vandalism and the like) I'll leave this to editors with more established reputations, lest this degenerate into a mess of people crying sockpuppet. For sake of reference, some articles which may be useful resources in extending the scope of this article are
I hope this is of some service. Perhaps the forest of info boxes cluttering the head of this discussion can be cut back in the near future. --Nessunome (talk) 09:54, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

SciFag Raids

Fix the scifag raids section, inserting /b/reaks after each date is concluded. Makes the page look better, amirite? —Preceding unsigned comment added by CotyXD (talk • contribs) 15:55, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't use the word fag. Its just as bad taste as saying nigger, cracker, honkie, kike, dyke, chink or any other such words 128.255.187.32 (talk) 15:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Then avoid researching Anonymous too closely. As I have learned, it's standard parlance. --91.104.123.66 (talk) 00:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Notability of epleptic attacks?

The eplieptic attacks may have been carried out by the Church of Scientology or Anonymous, but it seems to me that this is not actually notable enough for the article to begin with; both groups have done numerous similar things, and these things simply don't appear on their pages. Are we to write on the Church of Scientology page about this attack, because they've been accused of being responsible? Are we to write on the Church of Scientology page that they mailed fake anthrax letters to themselves? Unless something is fairly massive, I don't think it should make a blip on either page; this low level of activity is pretty common for both groups and we'd have pages three miles long if we included every single accusation made against either. Titanium Dragon (talk) 18:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The public's perception of Anonymous is defined through such Internet activities (Hal Turner raids, Chris Forcand arrest, and so on); removing them would reduce the article to just the Project Chanology section, something which has already been !voted against in the original AfD. Whilst acknowledging that "notability guidelines do not directly limit article content", WP:N states: "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable" – something which is clearly met in the case of the epilepsy attacks. You shouldn't use the same criterion for inclusion on both this and the Church of Scientology pages for the simple reason that the CoS's activities are (perceived to be) much wider in scope than Anonymous's, and listing them all would result in an article too long to read. Ayla (talk) 06:06, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Alignment/Politics

Anonymous, on the whole, claims to be Chaotic Neutral (emph: actions and decisions dictated mostly by their ability to provide entertainment), but that the anti-CoS protesters are more like Chaotic Good (emph: bring about a reduction in order, but with perceived or self-declarative benefit for other-than-self). There is arguments that Anonymous is Chaotic Evil, enjoying the suffering of other-than-self, and there are arguments for Lawful aspects of Anonymous (listening to Wise Beard Man with regard to adhering to laws set forth by others/Organised andor co-ordinated attacks on websites, organiataions etc; adhering to laws set forth by oneself). What I'm really trying to get at here is, "To what political pattern does Anonymous most closely adhere?".

A source further up the page describes Anonymous as dadaist, there is the obvious anarchic links, and I beleive the CoS has claimed Anonymous to adhere to Communist and/or National-Socialist ideals (to which one anon counter-claimed to be a jew and a capitalist), but I can see where the communist claim is coming from, what with all the peopel setting up websites, wikis etc at personal cost for the embetterment of the collective, the cake/food-and-drink outhanding anons etc. I do not know enough about theoretical or practical anarchy (almost all of my information thereof comes from the V for Vendetta graphic novel) to comment on that. I hereby lay a request for political experts to help a decision/conclusion come about. Tar7arus (talk) 21:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I think you probably answered your own question. In pursuing apparently altruistic goals in the scientology case yet having long-standing jokes relating to gore, suffering and various social ills they exhibit a collective neutral mentality not constrained to be always good or always bad (rather than the erroneous assumption that moral neutrality implies always indifferent). Further, when engaged in activities that may be classed as good or bad they may be pursuing them with apparently contradictory motivations: attacking the racist radio host not out of a sense of moral obligation but because it gets some entertaining rants out of them. As for relative lawfulness, the complicity with "Wise Beard Man"s request for good behavior need not imply lawfulness; it could easily have been a simple matter of whimsy: the initial DDoS attacks were certainly illegal, and until the interactions with scientology are either brought to a close or change tack again it cannot be said whether this will persist. Indeed, if the epilepsy attacks were in fact partly perpetrated by Anonymous (quite possible, but as already noted unprovable either way) then it could already be said that Anonymous is decidedly chaotic, capriciously following a lawful mode of behavior only as it becomes advantageous or amusing. --Nessunome (talk) 10:15, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Public

"The general public's introduction to the group began with Project Chanology, a protest against the Church of Scientology."

Can we not argue that the first actual widespread public introduction was via the infamous FOX report? Exploding vans, corruption of lulz and so on? tyx (talk) 00:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Did the GENERAL public really watch that though, or only fox viewers? There has been a major amount of media attention to project chanology. DigitalC (talk) 05:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that the corporate media consistently refuses to report accurately on what anonymous is. They are trying to define anonymous in pre-internet terminology, and they are not succeeding. Anonymous is a new phenomenon, only made possible because of the internet. The public is therefore given a bad impression of anonymous right from the start, without ever truly knowing what it is. Rekov (talk) 15:19, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Henry Jenkins

It seems to be a blog, but at the same time he is a notable academic. Confessions of an Aca/Fan: the following post is [about Anonymous] 59.167.66.130 (talk) 01:13, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Internet vigilantism

In the section about Chris Forcand, it should be noted that Global News's assertion that this is the first instance of Internet vigilantism having a hand in the capture of an attempt at child molestation is erroneous. In fact, the very article on Internet vigilantism itself—which is linked to, no less—dispels this. I'd change it myself, but it's been protected. Fuckers. —The preceding comment was definitely signed by 129.15.131.246 (talk) on 2008 April 9 at 01:14 —Preceding comment was added at 01:14, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Uses

I've clarified the intro (and may do some work on the article) since it seems the term actually has two uses which have not been clearly distinguished:

  1. Anonymous as an internet meme.
  2. Anonymous as a group (or groups, or loose coalition of net users) responsible for specific protest actions well-reported as such in reliable sources.

FT2 (Talk | email) 10:03, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't the term "subculture" combine both uses? I disagree with your use of Uncyclopedia as a source. This is an article which has seen more than its fair share of heated disputes, and allowing citations against collaborative wikis would only destabilise it. I appreciate your clarification to the article (which had been long due; see discussions above). However, it would be much better if it were reliably sourced. Ayla (talk) 10:36, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
It's sourced to a permanent version, not a variable one - I don't know if you noticed. That was very deliberate. The cited parts of the text also seem static, stable, and representative of usage as a meme on the net. I agree it's not ideal (many things in net culture articles aren't) but it seems by far the most widespread usage of the group term, and best described in its own words. By attributing it (accurately) as "satirical website X says Y", with a permanent version, and by not interpreting but letting its own words speak for itself, at a minimum readers can assess the source and probably check and form their own views on it.
Update - I've also added a second source too, covering much the same ground, to back it up. Baltimore City Paper, 2008.
I did look at the word "subculture" in the article, but it just doesn't seem to meet the purpose. "Anonymous" is more a meme or concept, and also, a series of specific protests under (or associated with) that name. Those who write on such matters would probably deny the term "subculture", judging by their words. Meme/concept sounds more appropriate. This seems rather more accurate, or at any rate, much clearer. There is 1/ a meme or concept around the "mythology" of "Anonymous"... and also 2/ specific mass protests organized by a number of net users. FT2 (Talk | email) 11:16, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
What I meant by destabilisation is that POV-pushers could introduce any claim into the article, and justify it through an in-text attribution against a permanent page from another collaborative wiki (such as Uncyclopedia) which they would have just edited, quoting your insertion as a precedent. I find the Baltimore City Paper article more reliable. Still, we could just leave both citations in for now and see what happens. Ayla (talk) 11:57, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Ironically it's about the only meme for which I'd possibly consider ED. But that would open far more doors and issues. I felt this was a compromize. The ED page goes back to 2006 and shows a long history of the meme in culture, in this form. I've tried to lean up some ambiguities and usage issues; hopefully it's mostly clear now, but as you say, the possibility's there, and this article will always be a target for some kinds of people unfortunately. See how it goes. FT2 (Talk | email) 13:34, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I think thats about done. It at least describes and cites the meme use, and such, in a way that is useful to readers, and sticks to what is verifiable and encyclopedic - an important consideration in such topics. FT2 (Talk | email) 11:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't cite Uncy ever again, read my essay about why you shouldn't.--Otterathome (talk) 14:33, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Blinking news at 11!

Anonymous is being accused of a seizure-inducing flash-strobe webattack on an epyleptic support net forum last weekend. Find details on the "wired.com" magazine site.

Many think this was actually an impersonation attack from the scientologist cult to paint the anarchists as criminals. Remember, the wife of scientology cult leader ex-scifi writer L. Ron Hubbard spent years in US federal prison after she tried to dupe the FBI into arresting an innocent anti-hubbardist journalist. The scis are banned by law from France and Germany for subversive behaviour and their secret services monitor them. 82.131.210.162 (talk) 11:12, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

no, it was actually us. we did it for the lulz, i think most people that joined anon since the scientology raid dont even know wtf we do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.248.89.177 (talk) 13:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Listen to this man. 80.135.112.245 (talk) 16:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Convicted felon Kevin Poulsen is the creator of the "Wired Magazine" online article accusing the same organization anonymous of the attack on the epilepsy support website. The second media source given for the inclusion of this article mentions that hackers attacked a website, but, there is NO MENTION OF ANONYMOUS at all until the COMMENTS section (which is disallowed), making it effectively a non-reference for the purposes of wiki (blogs are not allowed as reliable references). Basically, this piece of the article is being kept in due to a reference that cites a greedy former hacker, a convicted felon who has served hard time. Sure, he paid his debt to society in prison and ought to be offered a chance to live an honest life now that he's back out, but there's no way in hell anybody ought to take his word, published or otherwise, as a reference about the character of another human being or group. Especially not a group of people organized against an organization like Scientology, with its well-established history of using criminal tactics to suppress its former members and critics. I am again removing the section on epilepsy, and discourage strongly its re-inclusion until a valid, trustworthy reference can be found. Zaphraud (talk) 15:07, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
There were three sources this time. The wired source, and two others. The first was as above; mentions the attack, then mentions a claim from Wired (Kevin) of its source. The second source opens with "This story was picked up from wired...", disqualifying itself as a source in its opening paragraph. Zaphraud (talk) 15:13, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The creator being a convicted felon or greedy former hacker doesn't mean that his article shouldn't be used. The fact that Scientology is making the attacks to suppress opponents (they had a name for this) should be mentioned in the article. Leaving the section out leaves people reading Wikipedia ignorant of the truth. Anon031408 (talk) 17:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The usage of the {{disputed-section}} tag is technically incorrect. It is factually accurate that Wired's report said circumstantial evidence suggested the attack was perpetrated by members of Anonymous, and it is factually accurate that administrators of 7chan.org have posted an open letter claiming the attacks had been carried out by the Church of Scientology. What is factually inaccurate (or, at least, contested) is the claim made by the sources. Is there a template for identifying that the factual accuracy of the sources mentioned in a section is disputed, rather than the section itself? If not, do you think we should create one? Ayla (talk) 13:09, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

other than a post on the reliable message board, I don't think there is anything elce to do. Usually in this situation 2 or more reliable sources contridict each other, so both sides are mentioned in the article itself to provide ballance. Since only a single reliable source has picked up on this angle of the incedent that can't help. arn't there any other sources to back up either side...
and the felon thing...so he is a felon..."if a felon sees a hacker attack and talks about it...does the attack exist afterwards?" interesting philisopical discussion on the nature of reality.Coffeepusher (talk) 16:33, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The News.com.au source does mention the other side of the story (Fair Game allegations against the Church of Scientology by 7chan.org administrators), so the balance is maintained. Ayla (talk) 17:02, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I was refuring to this page when I said "article"...that may not change your responce, or it may...I just thought I would clarify. but I havn't seen any reliable sources that mentioned a contridictory viewpoint.Coffeepusher (talk) 18:07, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not understanding. Do you consider the Anonymous (group)#Assault on epilepsy support forum paragraph balanced or not? Ayla (talk) 18:23, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I think it is an accurate portrail of the sourcing avalible. I am not shure if my post helped at all, or just confused the matter (except the felon part). I tweeked the statement internet hate machine in a way to show it was the name applyed to the group responcible rather than a discription of anonymous as an internet hate machine.Coffeepusher (talk) 18:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
on a side note, I think it was interesting that the group chose the name "internet hate machine" which alludes to many referances that scientology have used to discribe Anonymous, yet dosn't follow the former message board practice when naming raids. it also will be bad PR for anonymous because now people will read "internet hate machine" and "Anonymous" in the same sentence on various media outlets. Personaly I think that Anonymous is beeing hacked Ideologicaly by Scientology and that there is a faction that is now just following instructions from the church itself...but that is just an opinion.Coffeepusher (talk) 20:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Your edit to the article made an important clarification which I had missed (from source: "The IHM too are Anonymous, but not the same as those who are fighting the CoS."). If the media were to distinguish between the IHM and anti-CoS factions of Anonymous, it would help greatly in reducing the confusion. Ayla (talk) 21:07, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The name internet hate machine comes from the Fox News report (you know, the one with exploding vans). For more information, I suggest you check TOW - That Other Wiki. DigitalC (talk) 03:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I see that Wikipedia censors linking to TOW. DigitalC (talk) 03:24, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it's mentioned under the KTTV Fox 11 news report section of the article. What I meant is that, until now, media used to treat the IHM and Anonymous as synonymous (although several derided the factuality of the Fox report). After the epilepsy attacks, the IHM is being considered as merely a faction of Anonymous, not as an (inaccurate or otherwise) portrayal of the whole group. Ayla (talk) 10:08, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Coffeepusher: How did you manage to save this page with the link intact? Ayla (talk) 10:08, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)virgin sacrifice...that was how...

Honastly the spam filter didn't catch it for some reason, and I was unaware of our blacklist policys. the bot just nabed me for trying to fix it again, and its off to guatanimo for me...

I am going to remove the fact tag, because I think that both sides of the argument that are in the sources are beeing desplayed. if someone thinks it should stay, then just post the reasons why (the felon argument is a falicy in logic...plain and simple).Coffeepusher (talk) 03:58, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

IUHIPUHIHFROIEHRF I think someone needs to point out that 7chan is just a site that anyone can post on, and is the complete opposite of a "stronghold". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.216.94.31 (talk) 06:32, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous blog image

I don't think Image:'Anonymous' posting on a blog.png is relevant to this article at all, nor does it meet the criteria at WP:NFCC. Comments? --- RockMFR 17:18, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree. This is borderline uninformative and certainly inconsistent with our ambition to minimise the use of non-free content. Neither does it present anything that could not be illustrated effectively using text. Skomorokh 05:32, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Group?

Anonymous is not a group. Lurk moar. Groups have leaders and define membership. Anonymous does not. Groups have people who identify themselves as being part of that group, and are also recognised unanimously in the group to have membership. This is not the case with anonymous. You may be part of Anonymous without even knowing it. If you claim to be a part of anonymous, you are not truly anonymous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.2.55.229 (talk) 11:33, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this sentiment fully. ALL groups have leadership and hierarchy. Just the other day, I went to the grocery store and saw a group of apples Sieg Heil a Golden Delicious. (By the way, even if Anonymous were to be described an organization, not all organized groups have official membership or leadership either. Group is still the best term to use.)--Cast (talk) 15:37, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Look, in order to have the article we have to call Anonymous something. Group is as good a word as any. Unless you can think of a more acurate word, then stop complaining already. 86.70.151.70 (talk) 14:51, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

collective? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.2.55.229 (talk) 01:59, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

If consensus can be established, I would be in favour of renaming. I know this has been discussed previously, but the recent attacks to the epilepsy forum have resurfaced the problem. What Anonymous lacks (which other groups don't) is a definition of its (collective) identity beyond the meaning of its root word, anonymous. As a weak analogy, compare it with the "group" of homosexual people. One doesn't call them gays (group); one refers to them as the gay culture. What makes the case of Anonymous even more inaccurate is that individuals identifying themselves with Anonymous have widely differing interpretations of what their Anonymous is. There is an article on GlossLip, Fact From Fiction: Not All Members Of Anonymous Are Created Equal, which discusses this problem elaborately, pointing out three distinct groupings of Anonymous: “Anti-Scientology” Anonymous, “In It For the Lulz” Anonymous, and the “bad” Anonymous. Members of the first grouping generally would strongly deny that they are affiliated with members of the last grouping, and vice versa, destroying the notion of a "group" in the traditional sense.

I would like to hear your opinions and recommendations. How about "cultural phenomenon"? Ayla (talk) 11:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

How about no. Even those 3 groups in the GlossLip article are not truly seperate; the lines are blurred and many people have been involved in all 3 "groups" the article lists. Anonymous has it's own definition of what it is; most of this article is flagrantly ignoring them, but the group does have definitions. 68.101.12.47 (talk) 01:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. "Your" Anonymous might have its own definition of what it is, but there is no globally accepted definition, and no authority to impose one. The reason you say that the article is "flagrantly ignoring" the definition is because, due to the verifiability policy, Wikipedia articles are constrained to cite only reliable sources, which often give a definition different from the one held by the original members of the subculture. And I find it hard to accept that (using the GlossLip article's groupings) the “Anti-Scientology” Anonymous is not distinct from the “bad” Anonymous, for obvious reasons. Ayla (talk) 06:13, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

ITT: Newfags and non-anons argue about who/what is Anonymous. We are what we are, and we have no division. There are no separate groups within Anonymous, only Anonymous. --81.99.58.0 (talk) 13:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Meme creation and other features

Section created for 'lolcats' 'o rly owl' 'tay zonday' and 'rickroll' would be nice.

also, need a section on yellow v&... and loli... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Haiguyzzzz (talk • contribs) 21:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I also think that it would be nice for it to at least mention that stuff like caturday and rickrolls were started by Anonymous. 165.155.192.65 (talk) 12:43, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
stuff like that is already mentioned in detail at "the site that shall not be named" which has different rules for inclusion and is better equipted to deal with obscure unsourced phenomina. wikipedia's inclusion guidelines require a secondary source, so if you have a WP:RS by all means include it inside the article.Coffeepusher (talk) 15:10, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

it are a fact, that whoever wrote this article knows almost absolutely nothing about anonymous.24.150.235.28 (talk)

Olympic Torch Relay

Anonymous is trying to put out the olympic torch on its run across the world. I can cite sources and all but every time I edit this page it gets reverted by someone who thinks anonymous is a joke and doesn't deserve an accurate article. So some admin with "pull" should look into it. Anon was behind the paris attacks with fire extinguishers. But don't listen to me, do some research and find out for yourself before mindlessly declaring someone else to be wrong.Dragonnas (talk) 16:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I am really confused about your claim that you keep getting reverted. unless you have been editing the page from an IP, you havn't touched this page at all. and none of the IP edits have had anything to do with the olimpic torch relay.Coffeepusher (talk) 16:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Put the links to the sources here. If you can't get it onto the page, someone else will. I have seen no evidence to suggest Anonymous was involved in the Olympic Torch protests. DigitalC (talk) 23:03, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

that's just a threat. It isn't an actual event.75.6.134.164 (talk) 10:20, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous isn't trying to do anything. Anon is not a discrete group of people with a single goal in mind. A few people on a couple boards are talking about putting out the torch. Big deal. Things like that happen all the time, usually nothing comes of them. Stop crystal-balling. Ziggy Sawdust —Preceding comment was added at 18:33, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I know that but people here take the group to be a serious threat75.6.152.84 (talk) 13:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous "Slogan"

The Anonymous Slogan is "We are anonymous, We do not forgive, we do not forget, we are legion"
As to after the chanology project started the last part was dropped for moral reason, being as anonymous has no "morals" and does it for the lulz I have changed it. If you wish to know that this is the truth please post a thread on 711chan.org(where the only oldfags on the internet are left) they will know what I am speaking about.Butthax (talk) 23:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Source needed. FT2 (Talk | email) 02:41, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Replace this with a copy of the Wikichan page

This page: [20] Is much more established and supported by many anonymous, and should replace this current page, which if I may add, is full of FAIL and AIDS —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.252.16.220 (talk) 20:56, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I support this -Anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.229.28.56 (talk • contribs) 17:01, April 12, 2008

I support this too :3 -Anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.52.254.147 (talk • contribs) 20:16, April 12, 2008

I approve as well -Anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.35.245.106 (talk) 21:06, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I approve. --Anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.175.74.215 (talk • contribs) 17:07, April 12, 2008

Fking signed! -Anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.226.71.254 (talk) 20:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

As Wikichan is edited by anonymous who don't care to frequent Wiki (and that's probably a lot, this is a better fix. I approve -Anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.12.87.30 (talk) 23:54, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

hummm...according to the page you guys referanced;

"IT ARE FACT: Anyone claiming to be part of anonymous is not part of anonymous. Anyone claiming they are anonymous, they are not anonymous. Anyone claiming that anonymous is a group, they know nothing about anonymous. Anyone who calls themselves anon/anonymous or uses anon/anonymous usernames (ie: anon553 ) is not part of anonymous. And most likely, YOU are not part of anonymous, so stop saying you are. Anonymous is anonymous and that is all."

So you guys must be poser scifags who are full of anti-lulz.Coffeepusher (talk) 17:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
The replace will never happen. This place has different standards from Wikichan. Might be better, might be worse. Anon031408 (talk) 11:34, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

4chan.org - No mention?

Anonymous today may be a collective of people indiscriminately brought together from various websites, but the group firmly originated on 4chan's /b/ board before later spreading out to other 4chan offshoots and alternatives, and finally encompassing sites without any 4chan affiliations. I feel that a section on the group's origins may be appropriate, but I lack the citations to support writing a section on it. Just throwing it out there as something that this article needs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.9.69.196 (talk) 15:18, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


I completely agree. Anon is def. 4chan in origin. To mention slashdot, youtube, and facebook is a slap in the face to the original anonymous. slashdot, youtube, and facebook are the sorts of things that WE WOULD RAID before all of this chanology nonsense. - David —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.175.177.114 (talk) 00:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

inb4 r.1+2 The website in question is no longer the hub of Anonymous, but much rather a hellhole slum decayed from a once glorious city.--Samwu22128 (talk) 07:17, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Said the "newfags the lot of you" guy. 4chan is still the hub of anonymous. Sid (talk) 09:44, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


4chan is anonymous is 4chan. anonymous= user of 4chan. The fact 4chan is not mentioned makes this article a bit pointless.

The people who frequented *chan boards called themselves "Anonymous" for YEARS only as an inside joke. (i.e. Anonymous is really only 3 people with A.D.D.) Outside of the *chan boards they were more likely to call them selves /b/tards or a 4chaner or an /i/nsurgent depending on the situation because noone really considered themselves part of a group as much as as someone who was partaking in an event or using a website. The name Anonymous changed from a joke to a semi official name only with the Scientology protests because it sounded like serious business. Anonymous was born and raised on 4chan. I agree this article is pointless without the mention of 4chan. (Even though i moved to 7chan on /b/day.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.226.71.254 (talk) 21:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Reliable source...anyone...Again I mention that these rules are what keeps critics from posting that Anonymous is a bunch of pediphile terrorists nazi commies (actuall information that was placed inside the article and cut because of WP:RS regulations) so please understand that if you don't have what wikipedia considers a reliable source, the information can't be placed inside the article, no matter how true it appears to be to you. if you want to work with wikipedia, then you have to work within the regulations just like everyone elce (the scientologists complain about their article about as much as the chaners complain about theirs).Coffeepusher (talk) 01:36, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Symbols & Motifs

Shouldn't there be a section on this? Just a brief mention of the empty suit and the adoption of V's Guy Fawkes mask?

And while I'm here, does anyone else think that Anonymous should link to Odysseus? When he blinded Poseidons son, the cyclopes Polyphemus, he was asked his name and replied "Metis", meaning "No-one". That's pretty hardcore for a griefer. 80.7.26.80 (talk) 17:41, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus to support move. JPG-GR (talk) 22:09, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

The idea of "Anonymous" as an individual or organization is a joke popular on various imageboards, particularly 4chan. It would be much more correct to describe both the "Anonymous" concept and the activities listed in the article as being part of imageboard culture.

Attributing activities to "Anonymous," as the article does now, is at best meaningless and at worst defamatory. Those in the know realize Anonymous is a joke, while among those poor souls who take it seriously, there is no consensus whatsoever about which group of people are the "true Anonymous." In contrast, there is no such dispute over what an imageboard is.

While it is true that Project Chanology has expanded beyond the *chans, this article as it stands is about various things that have been planned on imageboards, not about Project Chanology exclusively. Furthermore, it is quite common for memes originating on the imageboards to spread to the Internet at large. That said, I would estimate that the majority of Chanology participants are still 4chan users.

The news reporters and Scientology lawyers who discuss "Anonymous" as if it were serious business have been trolled, and they are now the laughingstock of the Internet. Don't let it happen to Wikipedia. Jim E. Black (talk) 19:17, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


ok, the perpose of wikipedia is to make an on-line encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. Since "peer review by experts in the field" is impossable for an open encyclopedia (which is how newspapers, encyclopedias, journals, perioticals, established publishers choose what to print and what not to print), we have rules that establish varafiablity in order to prevent total chaos and keep "endurance trolling" from becoming established inclusion tecquneqes. when it comes to current events or popular culture, news agencys are one of the best sources. this article is under dispute by "members of Anonymous" who see a different side of the orgonization (much like the Scientology article is under dispute by members of that orgonization...Alcoholics Anonymous...Mormonism...Jewish...feminism..etc.) but this article does accuratly portray how Anonymous is percieved by the culture at large baced on what is disiminated to the public and on how Anonymous has functioned in the public eye. If the media didn't latch on to a particular "raid" or report a spacific "aspect" of anonymous then those things are probably only important to a small group, rather than the population at large. additionaly the ambiguitous nature of Anonymous makes it FREAKING IMPOSSABLE for everyone to come to agreement on any aspect of the orgonization. The only truly accurate page would say "Anonymous is an internet handel used whenever someone or a group of people want to be seen as working from a larger collective" other than that everything elce is in despute. so to sum up, the perpose of this article isn't to report on every single nuaunce of an internet culture, it isn't to portray anyones agenda or personal observations, it is to show how Anonymous is portrayed in public culture (or the Public sphere if you will). we don't care about what people individualy or collectivly do in private. I don't care about your donky kong score, your wow caricter, or your various posts to internet image boards. "those things don't consern me" (tylor durden, Fight Club) what does consern me is what Anonymous is doing to affect the public at large, and how that public perseves Anonymous. If they didn't see it...well it didn't really happen, it was just an occurance in an isolated community with little or no affect in general. If you don't like this article, bring reliable sources that will change it. I am really sick of people crying their little eyes out about inclusion rules. those same rules keep scientologists from posting that Anonymous is made up of a bunch of criminals who exchange child pornography (read the talk page and archives) so don't get all uppity about how those rules shouldn't apply.Coffeepusher (talk) 20:29, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I lost my point in the rant. in short if you want to make an article about image board culture, go ahead, however this article isn't supposed to adress image board culture, but rather the public image of the "internet group Anonymous".Coffeepusher (talk) 20:35, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


We have good sources that explain why "Anonymous (group)" and "imageboard culture" are the same topic. For example, the City Paper article says that "Anonymous became the name for the users of the site [4chan] as a whole--a sort of hive mind of popular opinion." I'm just pushing for a title that is (a) neutral and (b) not a joke. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jim E. Black (talk • contribs) 01:53, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
yes, but the media and all the sources are reporting on "Anonymous" (in what they percieve as actions that are occuring both IRL and in cyberspace by a "group" of that name) not "imageboard culture" as a whole. your statement "Attributing activities to "Anonymous," as the article does now, is at best meaningless and at worst defamatory" is interesting, because all the sources are atributing those activities to Anonymous because the people doing them are identifying themselves as Anonymous, not people from imageboards. If "Anonymous" dosn't want to be labled in the media as "Anonymous" or they are sick of people using the Joke "Anonymous" and taking it seriously then they should stop using the title "Anonymous" when doing raids IRL. We don't have an article for "the longcat is looooong" because it is an inside joke with no relivance to real life...the same goes for "The cake is a lie"..."Habebit"..."Wild rose song (non-internet inside joke)"..."Red ass (again)"..."ax handel" but "anonymous" not only has been taken out of the realm of imageboard culture as an inside joke, and now has been reapropriated to acctivities that are seperate from that culture. It is no wonder that the imageboards want the name back, but it is seperate now, and has a cultural significance that is unrelated to its origional form.Coffeepusher (talk) 02:57, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
You write "all the sources are atributing those activities to Anonymous because the people doing them are identifying themselves as Anonymous," but this is not correct; the epilepsy raiders identified themselves as being from Ebaumsworld. It was attributed to Anonymous because posts planning the raid were found on 7chan, an imageboard.
Also, this is hilarious, 50,000 offensive emails: http://anonymous-exposed.org/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.240.241.3 (talk) 17:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Memes such as Longcat, etc., are just as much activities of Anonymous as raiding is, and should be mentioned briefly in the article for a balanced perspective. There is at least one source that mentions these things -- "Das Trollparadies" in the German magazine "c't." If this article is to exist at all, it should be about the group of people who call themselves "Anonymous" (i.e. users of certain imageboards) and not just about things that got large amounts of media coverage. If we apply the latter standard, this article should not exist at all, but should redirect to Project Chanology. Jim E. Black (talk) 05:36, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
The reason we created this page was because people wanted to put the other media stuff referancing anonymous into the project chanology page...and it was getting messy. waaaaayyyyy to much disconjoined information. so this page was created. if you have a WP:RS for memes, by all means put them in. the people on those image boards identified themselves as anonymous...so I fail to see your point about ebamsCoffeepusher (talk) 09:52, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose exactly how is SLASHDOT an imageboard? Considering that anonymous is used in webboards that are _not_ imageboards means that the request is fundametally flawed. 70.55.85.225 (talk) 04:52, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

the sources

I din't look through all of them but they seem to be just news content written in a tabloid style and blogs. Not denying this is notable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.116.8.4 (talk) 05:26, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Interesting source

Pickard, Anna (2008-04-27). "ROFLCon final session: Cult leaders: The man ultimately responsible for the rick roll meets his audience". Guardian Unlimited: Technology. Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 2008-04-27.

Possible source to use in this article. Cirt (talk) 17:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Why do you keep reverting when I try to remove this? Any random blog can be used as a source? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deadliner1 (talk • contribs) 08:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
It's a talk page for discussion. It's not in the main article. Anybody can post messages here as long as they are related to the article. You cannot simply remove somebody else's message. Dekisugi (talk) 08:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
It also isn't a "random blog". It is published by the guardian. DigitalC (talk) 04:35, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
It criticizes the notion that Anonymous is an actual group with a serious ambition.75.6.170.118 (talk) 05:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous Leader Random Person Who Is Not Anon's Leader Now Well Known

Useful info for this article. Cirt (talk) 16:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The article later realized that they were wrong. He didn't lead anonymous, he simply applied for a local protest license or something like that.--Can Not (talk) 03:28, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

National Nine News - good source

Good source, to be used in the article. Cirt (talk) 05:58, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
This article discusses the role of a certain website as related to the group Anonymous. Cirt (talk) 06:01, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Appears to be part of a series of articles on the group and movement. Cirt (talk) 06:04, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Article shouldn't exist

It's POV forking at best and recentism at worst. The meme belongs at the project chanology and 4chan articles. It's also pinning them on the chans(unnotable outside of 4chan) when the raids were largely done by ebaumsworld. If the article deserves to be here there's needs to be a section on the criticism of the protester by the people responsible for the internet attacks.YVNP (talk) 17:54, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, you go find a reliable source of criticism of the protesters by the "people responsible for the internet attacks".DigitalC (talk) 05:25, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

would 4chanarchive count? It is pretty evident. Also there is a meme referred to as the cancer that is killing /b/. It is very prevalent and I can show plenty of archive threads in which it is used. And that only if this can be proven to anything more than a recentist synthesis taking a non serious event to seriously. Also I've notice no one can tell me why this should not reduced to a mention in the 4chan artcile. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.6.128.182 (talk) 04:51, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

No, 4chanarchive is not a reliable source, nor is it a secondary source. Anonymous is more than 4chan, and that is why it should not be reduced to a mention in the 4chan article. DigitalC (talk) 23:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
"Anonymous is more than 4chan" - No it isn't. Clearly, you are new to the concept.--81.23.56.80 (talk) 01:29, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Are you claiming that 7chan and 420chan, and say, 315chan aren`t Anonymous? If so, do you have any reliable sources to back up that claim?DigitalC (talk) 05:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
How are sites like 7chan and 420chan notable? These are the only other sites that played a role. Only ebaumsworld and 4chan played huge roles. Moot(the moderator) of 4chan has criticized the internet attacks as it is clear 4chan played a role. That would be criticism. There is a meme known as "THE CANCER KILLING /B/". It refers tocriticisms of the raid. In short your right anonymous is more than 4chan but it's still mostly just 4chan and ebaumsworld. These two sites have a relationship with each other. Even then the chanology article is more than worthy of a merge with this
What's /B/? "The cancer killing /b/" does not refer exclusively to the the protests, but refers to a much wider range of people and actions which are beleived to be "causing" the deterioration of the Random board. Although many see the protestors ("moralfags") to be a cause, they are far from the single cause (gaia, new people who have not lurked, trolls, people posting copypasta etc.). 7chan and 420, though anonymous, are not anywhere near as large or fast moving as 4chan or ebaumsworld. moot criticises everything anonymous does. Chanology is not the entirety of Anonymous.
Anonymous has not been more than a 4chan meme for at least 3 years until a few months ago and the 4chan archive can prove that. How is it not a reliable source? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.195.195.7 (talk) 14:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Ebaums world has little place in the raids other than it's a chan meme to blame all raids on ebaums world. Its a joke, just blame ebaums world during raids. This whole article shoudln't exist as it's written by people who have no clue about the english imageboard culture. 76.127.159.195 (talk) 21:56, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Australian Anonymous

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=459214

There's a video that explains what Anon does and has a more Australian POV, but this has the essentials, should we add this? 211.28.214.83 (talk) 06:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The Australian POV only relates to Project Chanology, and mostly just rehashes old information. What is perhaps most useful in this dual video and article would be the information on Anonymous subculture and memes. Ignoring the one note in the article referring to eBaums World as a home of Anonymous, this is useful for pointing out how many internet jokes are originated from or heavily circulated by Anonymous. It can be useful for that aspect of this article. I encourage you to add it.--Cast (talk) 07:27, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Anon is just one group guys, its not an alliance

More recently in 2008, specific actions were undertaken by specific group, groups, or organizations, also self-named as "Anonymous", and often associated with websites and chat systems on the internet.

Since there is only one single group called anonymous (4chan and it's extensions), wouldn't it be better to state that Anonymous is a group, and not a group of groups. Personally, I think the best way to describe Anonymous would be with the term hive mind —Preceding unsigned comment added by Can Not (talk • contribs) 01:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous is not a group, it is in fact a group of groups. It is a combination of a variety of different users and posters on a variety of boards, the most common being the *chans. Anonymous however is not limited to the *chans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.97.227.219 (talk) 23:07, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Weird Inconsistency

I cant change this so can someone else please? Not sure if it's sledgehammer wit or a joke on behalf Anon or Wiki but it's bad form. From the creed;

- Anonymous is devoid of humanity, morality, pity, and mercy... - Anonymous is a moral being.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.7.141.168 (talk) 03:06, 14 May 2008

It's very purposeful. 17:58, 17 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.188.131.228 (talk)

Arrest of Chris Forcand

The two Anonymouses are UNRELATED. That section should be edited to include that, if not entirely left out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.188.131.228 (talk) 18:00, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Except they aren't unrelated. DigitalC (talk) 03:53, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous stronghold

It must be noted that anonymous's stronghold is not considered to be 7chan. Anonymous main activities are both 7chan and 4chan, 4chan being the 'stronger' one in terms of member saturation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.129.199.99 (talk) 01:20, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


Hihi

The fact that this page even exists and without being edit-raped, is great success. DJLarZ (talk) 20:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Moral being?

Ok, why is the moarl being phrase still there? Anonymous never claimed to be moral —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.136.167.31 (talk) 21:12, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I was surprised by that, too. Anonymous is not moral and never claims to be. 207.190.244.74 (talk) 12:27, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Even when being nice or doing nice things anonymous never claims to be moral, someone write that off. Anonymous is the embodyment of the concept of amorality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.136.165.124 (talk) 12:20, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Youtube

Is it true that a member of anonymous attacked a kid on youtube for being blatant annoying, by finding out his address from his videos and using google maps. After he found it he added free trials of "stuff" off of the internet? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.39.71.106 (talk • contribs) 08:18, May 29, 2008

talk pages exist for the purpose of discussing how to improve articles; they are not mere general discussion pages about the subject of the article. If you have a reliable source that discusses what you mentioned above, then we might be able to work that into the article. DigitalC (talk) 00:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Where did you read about it? I couldn't find whatever you're talking about through some google searches.

By the way DigitalC, give us a break. As I said, this article is just original research and besides, it's completely biased. From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources : "Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market, such as the The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press. However, great care must be taken to distinguish news reporting from opinion pieces. Opinion pieces are only reliable for statements as to the opinion of their authors, not for statements of fact." Many sources here violate this rule. I'll give just an example from the second source (the first source is a blog): "In all likelihood, Anonymous is the face of the future." blah. Also, some links are broken. And all blogs should be considered spam and deleted.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/webscout/2008/02/protesters-asse.html

http://www.statenews.com/index.php/blog/entertainment/2008/02/internet_group_

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/01/anonymous-attac.html

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/07/investigative-r.html

http://www.cbc.ca/searchengine/blog/2008/02/this_weeks_show_feb708_1.html

Bedides, they're so biased and badly written you can't possibly define them as reliable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.116.8.149 (talk) 05:30, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, blogs with editorial oversight, such as from wired or LA times, are considered just as reliable as print articles. If the article is being used to establish opinion, and not fact, attribution to the source can be used. However, if you feel that I am wrong about this, I suggest posting to the Reliable Sources Noticeboard to get some outside input (WP:RSN). Cheers, DigitalC (talk) 06:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I got the information from one of my friends who is affiliated with anonymous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.40.221.178 (talk) 20:18, 30

May 2008 (UTC)

That's not a good source —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.136.165.124 (talk • contribs)

nothing but original research

blah —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.116.9.121 (talk) 18:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

original research is a misnomer: if it were original it would be called search, not re-. amirite? Hypatea (talk) 13:45, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous - Origin

First of all, why the hell have Anonymous and The Internet Hate Machine been separated? Also why is there no mention of the fact Anonymous IS the Internet Hate Machine and the Co$ protests are a splinter group of Anonymous . . . NOT the majority and certainly NOT the true face of Anonymous. Requesting a cleanup on this because it makes it sound like Anonymous is the Co$ group . . . whereas Anonymous IS the Internet Hate Machine, the Co$ protests are just a side project and in reality other than the mask and the sites where the protests originated, have nothing to do with Anonymous at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.18.209.10 (talk) 15:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia has guidelines in place to prevent editors from inserting false information. In this case, it actually protects this article from trolls from The Big Bad and it's henchman, The Dragon. The side-effect, however, is that we can't insert information we know to be true until verifiable sources put it forward. So until all of the information you just stated shows up in a third party article or documentary, we can't insert that information. Don't worry about it for now. This article is going to be around for a while, and some news source will probably get to these kinds of details eventually.--Cast (talk) 23:18, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
How sad. Do not critize those you hate without seeing the world through their eyes. Scientology is actually a cult, sometime the wrong people are right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.50.143.20 (talk) 07:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Besides, the origin stories are fallacies. There is no origin of Anonymous, only periodic changes in what it decides calls itself. (Fritzel The Aussie (talk) 23:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC))

Ashley Tisdale Prank

AnonVvV (talk) I can't edit the page but Anonymous' latest action as of the week starting Monday 2nd June was contacting news sources across the globe as well as posting on the 'stronghold' sites and videos on youtube and multiple comments on websites and videos related to her, that Ashely Tisdale (of High School Musical fame) contracted HIV causing multiple news outlets across the globe (particularly in Norway) to report the rumor resulting in an official release on her website stating she doesn't.

Sources: Anon Vid; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJCgqDm3nqY Article covering the story; http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20205145,00.html Fansite, first non-imageboard/youtube to officially publish that Anon is responsible: www.MissTisdale.net —Preceding unsigned comment added by AnonVvV (talk • contribs) 16:19, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

We need to use reliable and verifiable sources in the article, and the article must mention that Anonymous was behind it, for it to be included in the article. DigitalC (talk) 02:15, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
But something we CAN do is add something in about this mild controversy, and Anonymous's claim to be the perpetrator. Esper  rant 05:38, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely, once we have verifiable sources that descrie this "mild controversy". DigitalC (talk) 00:10, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Paulf Fetch

He's considered by some to be the leader of anonymous. Think somehow it should be mentioned in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.118.183.7 (talk) 14:21, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

People can consider whomever they wish to be the leader of Anonymous, but it does not make them so. Unless there's evidence to support your claim, then it's just heresay, and is not informative. -128.118.113.134 (talk) 00:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Origins as an Activist Movement

I feel that it is nessicary to say, as one of many in Anon's voice, that the Scientology protests are primarily against the Sea Org. which is, for those of you who don't know, an extremist-like faction of Scientology, and which is known to have blatent mistreatment of it's members (including, but not limited to, unfit living quarters, censorship of mail, and lack of proper medical conditions [due to the scientologist belief that, if you are sick, it is because you choose to be].), who were mostly children of scientologists and were pressured into joining the group.

Having made that clear, I and many other anon's believe scientology to be a false religion and a cult. However, as long as it has religion status, people have the right to believe in it, due to constitutional freedom of religion, no matter how lulzy the concept is.

Anonymous is not a hate group, just as not everyone who is anonymous is a member of Anonymous. Anonymous is simply, as it says in the article, a collective internet superconcious made up of anonymous people working for the same goals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.62.228.213 (talk) 07:23, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous NEVER had anything to do with scientology. WE ARE NOT CAREBEARS. Moot himself said that the protesters are the cancer killing /b/. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.170.234.133 (talk) 18:21, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The 'cancer killing /b/' is still part of /b/, and is still Anonymous. DigitalC (talk) 00:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

The people behind Chanology-Anonymous

Marblecake is the name of a secretive cabal working behind the scenes to guide the actions of Chanology-Anonymous. Marblecake has recently been revealed to the general membership of the internet group, as announced on www.Enturbulation.org:
http://forums.enturbulation.org/7-general-discussion/what-dicks-marblecake-what-do-they-do-19749/

Additionaly several IRC logs, that expose how Chanology-Anonymous over the months has been controlled by Marblecake have been leaked: http://isthisbattletoads.net/marblecake/

excerpt:

[14:06] <&srsbsns> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Anonymous_(group)

[14:06] <&srsbsns> this is so full of lol

[14:15] <&alter> Anonymous has no leader or controlling party, and relies on the collective power of its individual members acting in such a way that the net effect benefits the group.[7]

[14:15] <&alter> lol

[14:15] <&alter> link to marblecake dox

[14:15] <&alter> kidding

[14:15] <&srsbsns> kekekekekeke

—Preceding unsigned comment added by TomNewtonFetch (talk • contribs) 01:51, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm underwhelmed. Think tanks within Anonymous are nothing new. If Project Chanology is the social activist equivalent of a forced meme, this does not make Anonymous a hierarchical organization. There still are no leaders. Besides, do you have a reliable source that isn't compromised by internet drama? No.--Cast (talk) 07:14, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with with all points raised by Cast. Also, this is proof of nothing since Anonymous can just ignore what this group says, and this group has no way to force Anonymous to do their bidding (a must-have for a hierachical organization). Even the linked forum explains that they weren't successful on their efforts until they found an idea that Anonymous happened to like, which an example of how little real power they actually have. It looks more like Anonymous decide to follow this group because it delivers good lulz, and will abandon them when they get boring. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:09, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Deletion or seperation of the alleged epilepsy attack from this page.

The section of this page dealing with an alleged epilepsy attack makes no strong case for its inclusion in the anonymous page. More than that, it fails to mention that the FBI has commented that the group anonymous 'is in now way linked' to it as evidenced by this CNN interview where a church of scientology spokesperson tries to pin the crime on anti scientology protesters and anonymous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSS178Q-4eo

In allowing this content to remain nested within the page after the connection has been disproved, wikipedia is allowing scientology to continue its well documented campaign of Dead Agenting of critics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_agenting#.22Dead_agenting.22

While the incident is indeed worthy of documentation, keeping it in this page implies guilt where it had been disproved. I would also request of any page split off from this to deal with said incident, that the link showing the FBI's rejection of the accusations against anonymous protesters be included. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikinevic (talk • contribs) 10:16, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I added the video here. The scientologist responds that the matter is in hands of local law enforcement and that there are ongoing investigations (of course, he could be lying thru his nose).
Also, having that section here is not an implication of guilt. Can you suggest a better location for it? --Enric Naval (talk) 01:10, 27 June 2008 (UTC)



Firstly, thank you for adding the video.

I would argue that having it nested in the page is an implication of guilt. I argue this on two points.


FIRST POINT

I say this because the piece, if you seriously question it is utterly flawed. Lets look at the case it builds. It lists numerous media sites to attempt to add validity to the claim that anonymous was responsible. Lets dissect those.

First - Wired.com

This is pretty key to this tissue paper conviction. http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2008/03/epilepsy

The sum of justification in this article for connecting anonymous over any other group is this paragraph. Circumstantial evidence which the article does not bother to list, unless of course the author considers that one group claiming responsibility implicates the other. Even though this paragraph is the core of the articles argument it presents no single link to proof or sources.

'Circumstantial evidence suggests the attack was the work of members of Anonymous, an informal collective of griefers best known for their recent war on the Church of Scientology. The first flurry of posts on the epilepsy forum referenced the site EBaumsWorld, which is much hated by Anonymous. And forum members claim they found a message board thread -- since deleted -- planning the attack at 7chan.org, a group stronghold.'

And it is off the back of that, that one paragraph, with no evidence, that anonymous is held up as being the culprit in EVERY SINGLE REFERENCE that follows for citation in the wiki piece.

Realtech news. 'Wired seems to think it was the group Anonymous, which has been waging a cyberwar against Church of Scientology, but I see no reason why they would attack the EFA and NSE.' http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/5548

News.com.au The news.com.au reference also takes as its direct source the wired.com article. “Several users experienced seizures or migraines after falling victim to the attack on the Epilepsy Foundation online forum before it was closed to remove the malicious content and boost security, Wired reported.” http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23460969-5014239,00.html

So every article listed takes its reasoning on singling out anonymous from a wired report which present no evidence in any way shape or form to justify its singling one possible suspect over another.


To that end

SECOND POINT

Since there is no actual proof that any one of these suspect groups, and there is in fact a video of the FBI denying 'anonymous is implicated, why is it that it is only the 'anonymous' wiki page which references this incident? Why is the page on e-baums world free of any reference? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebaums_world#Controversy

Scientology was accused, why is there no reference to this on their page? Why is the accusation not laid at the doors of these two groups wiki articles. By hosting this incident to the anonymous page, and no other page representative of any of the other groups speculated on in the incident reports, guilt is certainly implied. So either be willing to lay accusations of blame in both these groups wiki pages or none at all, because right now i see equally non existent evidence in each case.

To summarise. The facts of the matter are this. This was a new type of cyber-crime. There is no evidence of who carried it out, but plenty of accusations, with speculation ranging from anonymous, to ebaums world and even the church of scientology. Hilariously no one seems to suggest that it was just a small group of malicious jerks with no affiliation or even a single individual. The FBI is investigating the case which will probably result in the first prosecution under the anti cyber terrorism provision of the 1996 national information infrastructure protection act. http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/1030analysis.html

As to where to put it should it be removed,i would suggest a page be made for the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act since one currently does not exist. In the meantime, a version which either lists every possible culprit equally without bias and which lists wired's claims as unverified could be added to the cyber terrorism page, or simply a version which lists it as a cyber-crime, perpetrators unknown, which is currently being investigated by the FBI. Until such time as the FBI delivers their result and determines the identity of those responsible, speculation can not be used as a means to allow a dead agenting campaign to be carried out by the church of scientology against those protesting it.

That is my argument. The situation deserves to be reported, without bias, on its own page, and certainly not singly reported on the page of one of the myriad of groups accused of it and no other, where no evidence exists and while an investigation is ongoing.

Wikinevic (talk) 14:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous: "group"?

The title of this article is Anonymous(group), but the contents of this article alternate between calling it a concept/meme and a group. Anonymous probably isn't well-described as a group because any group of people can claim to be anonymous, and as noted by many people here all ready, many of the actions focused on (E.G. Project Chanology and the Epilepsy forum raids) are done by completely different groups. Therefore I suggest that the title be changed to something like "Anonymous(meme)" or "Anonymous(movement)" and have the sections' wording changed to reflect the fact that Anonymous is in fact not a single group. I think this would help ease a lot of the 4chan vs. Chanology tension.Pyromania152 00:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I read some of the sources, and all of them described Anonymoys as "a group" and also describe its collaboration with "other groups". I didn't see any source referring to it as a "concept", maybe some of them contained descriptions of it being a "movement". You should check the sources to find those mentions, or find other sources describing Anonymous as a movement.
The article can deal with the details of Anonymous being composed by several groups, if there are reliable sources for that. Project Chanology is composed of several groups, one of them being Anonymous. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:59, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
The reason for the alternation is because Anonymous is both meme and group. As a meme, Anonymous is the "final boss of the internets" and an "internet hate machine." As a group, individuals adopt the persona of "Anonymous" and congregate – sometimes with embarrassing results, hence why the core of Anonymous desires to disassociate from the free hugs and agenda driven morality of Project Chanology. Before Chanology, they only met on the internet, where it was easy to project the pretense of hedonism and cynicism required for the role. It wasn't until the first live protests were performed against Hal Turner that this changed. Of course, there a few photos of individuals cosplaying as Anonymous at anime conventions – so tied is 4chan and Anonymous to japanophiles. But with the Hal Turner protests, which never brought together more than a dozen Anons, Anonymous had to figure out how it wanted to portray itself publicly. Being a "hacker on steroids" doesn't work so well when you're trying to convince people you're the good guy. Anonymous cannot be properly described as a "movement" as that carries a connotation of progressing towards a desired end condition. Anonymous has to collectively want something before it can have a movement. I think we can agree Anonymous wants nothing but its own amusement, and so besides Chanology, it will never thrive off of its cyberspace home. (Victory against the COS is possible, but thriving into an offline subculture is not.) Anonymous as meme only deserves a small section on this article, but has tragically been only touched on in a few articles. The vast majority of the media identifies Anonymous with its most visible (and morally corrupted) aspect.--Cast (talk) 15:58, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Sites

The article says that Anon uses sites like Facebook and Youtube. This is untrue. These sites are regular enemies of Anonymous and users of them are shunned. Another thing is that the Chanology protests are becoming independent of Anonymous. Although it is unfair to say that the early raids were not Anonymous. The same people who did the early protests are the SAME Anonymous that raided the Epilepsy forums. I should know, I participated in the Epilepsy raids. The announcement on 7chan that Scientology did it, is in fact a troll, something the 7chan staff does regularly. Back to that Chanology thing. Many Anonymous are becoming dissatisfied with the recent events in Project Chanology. It is said that the more recent protesters are doing it in the name of righteousness, rather than lulz, the only thing Anonymous cares about. Another fact is that Chanology is becoming polluted with the participation of "Gaiafags" (users of the forum, Gaia, a notable enemy of Anonymous that is currently being raided) and other sorts of unwanted types. The epilepsy raids were a show of power. To show the world that Anonymous is not the internet vigilante that the media wants to romticize it as. It is a cruel "internet hate machine". But the internet hate machine is not a group, it is just another name for Anonymous.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.197.16.225 (talk • contribs) 00:54, 7 April 2008

True, and it bothers me as well, but there's not much we can do about it unless the folks over at enturbulation.org stop referring to themselves as anonymous. But at this point in time, there's no way to persuade them to stop. Llxwarbirdxll (talk) 02:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Yeah...sorry 'bout that. You guys will get your Anonymous label back when Chanology is satisfied Scientology is no longer a threat to society. Don't know when that will be, as the end game could be an FBI raid, massive media attention or a more prolonged slow bleeding empty of the organization. In the meanwhile, we need to protect ourselves against harrassment, so we need to stick with the Anonymous label. Also, this particular fight needs Anonymous to be on the moral high ground, so we'll carry on being the moralfags that we are at the moment. We appreciate your patience though.
You can remain anonymous without calling yourselves Anonymous. Just don't use names, it's not that hard; use IRC/forum handles, creating a new one for the project, and consider rotating those around every now and then. You're not anonymous on Enturb, you're not anonymous on IRC, and you don't use imageboards. It's like protesting gays and calling yourself NAMBLA..... Kakama (talk) 14:31, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I was on that Epilepsy thread on 7chan. Someone posted the thread to 4chan telling users to post 7chan's name on it which is probably why 7chan was found out. I didn't realise this would make any news. This should really be a lesson to the webmasters out there, this attack was only possible due to poor software, and it is naive to expect that broken software won't be exploited on the Internet. If you leave the door to your house open when you go out, someone is probably going to rob you. And, yes, blaming Scientology was an obvious troll but presumably those not used to Internet forums are very poor at recognising trolls. — Chrisdone (talk) 15:25, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


Paul Fetch?

Should there be a section about Paul Fetch? --Particleman24 (talk) 12:59, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

No, because he is an attention whore and a troll. Just ignore him and he will go away. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.18.166.225 (talk • contribs) 00:32, 30 June 2008

Hip Hop Raid

Let's throw this in, I think it's a nice reflection of the non-protesty-huggy side of Anonymous. Some hip-hop sites were hacked by Anonymous and replaced with hilarious racist imagery and data. Now I know you guys love your sources, so here:

Good enough for WP:V? VH1 and MTV are the bigger ones in there if you want to strip it down. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kakama5 (talk • contribs) 14:31, 30 June 2008

Good research. Thanks for all the effort, but not all of this is useful as most of it reprints information from other websites, or are opinion piece blogs, and the MTV and VH1 sites both just include the same article (note that both stations and websites are owned by the same company, and are merely targeting different demographics.) The MTV, UniHacker and XXLmag sites are perhaps the most useful, with the SOHH site itself including a response essay and a call for cooperation with authorities (whatever happened to "don't snitch"?) We can place it at the bottom of the section on internet activities, as the most recent part of a chronological order. If I don't get to work on it soon, feel free to jump on it yourself. Does anyone know anything about that Lvlselect podcast/website? Is it a verifiable source? It seems to be an accurate newscast.--Cast (talk) 22:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Minor - Spelling Mistake

If someone with better editing rights than me gets the opportunity, the line "On an interview with on CNN, scientologist Tommy Davis accused Anonymous of hacking into the Epilepsy Foundation website to make it display imaginery intended to cause epileptic seizures.", should have the word "imagery" instead of "imaginery". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dolorous Bob (talk • contribs) 06:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)  Done--Kip Kip 09:49, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Typo

"and that it also has "no reason to believe that these charges will be levelled against this group". [47] "

"levelled" should be "leveled" :) 68.185.167.117 (talk) 01:59, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it seems that both spellings are valid [21]. I normally wouldn't change the spelling on a case like this because of respecting the english version used by the original contributor to avoid edit wars between british and american spellings, but in this case I am the one who wrote that part so I'll just go ahead and change it :) --Enric Naval (talk) 02:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Minor Typo

Under the section entitled "Assault on epilepsy support forum", second line of the fourth paragraph, there is a minor syntactical typo as follows:

"On an interview with on CNN"

Perhaps it should read "During an interview with CNN"?

Countersine (talk) 18:01, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

 Done Yeah, it should say that. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The anonymous page lists in the related articles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_name_is_Legion

This addition plays to the church of scientology black pr that the motto line 'we are legion' is a reference to biblical demons. On what evidence is this connection made. The only other place i have in fact see this connection made is on the scientology dead agenting leaflets being handed out.

Why is it that it references this and not one of the myriad of other definitions of legion http://www.thefreedictionary.com/legion

The most obvious definitions that apply, and in keeping with anonymous messages such as 'if one falls ten more will take his place' as seen in the original message to scientology video 

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCbKv9yiLiQ

and the anonymous protest cry in mimic of the movie 300 'anonymous, what is your profession – AROO AROO AROO' as seen 5 minutes into this protest video. http://youtube.com/watch?v=K46PiPfJ82M&feature=related

is either

2. A large military unit trained for combat; an army. 3.A large number; a multitude.

Neither case however is watertight or points to a single appropriate definition, but show me one piece of literature, especially video from anonymous that justifies such a negative connotation as demonic bible references.

In summary if no definitive connection can be made to any single meaning based off videos of anonymous protesters and there is certainly zero evidence for it to point to biblical demons, then let the link point to the dis ambiguous link for legion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_%28disambiguation%29

Wikinevic (talk) 14:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

The motto "we are legion" is directly referencing the biblical demon, but is not intended to carry any negative connotations. Old guard anons from 2003 and 2004 will remember the motto for what it was. We've placed it in the "see also" section because it is tangentially related to this article as another example of cultural referencing (in the Legion article you'll see a number of other references that have been made. Anonymous is not alone in this.) This is entirely different from the 300 war chant or the praise "ten more will take our place." The war chant is not widely referenced – it isn't even a meme – and the praise is only ever spoken in the "Message to Scientology" video. The "we are Legion" motto is a staple for Anonymous, has been for years, and will likely continue to be in the future. Wikipedia can't be held responsible if the COS tries to take it out of context and scare the elderly into fearing Anonymous will eat their babies and kick their puppies. Besides, it doesn't make the COS look better when they accuse their critics – who are well behaved and informed – of being the swarming demons of the nether world made manifest to the tune of "Never Gonna Give You Up." Don't worry about it too much.--Cast (talk) 18:24, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

old guard anon? what are you smoking... ive been using /b/ for atleast 4 years now and ive never heard that word before. you seem to have that same arrogant tone like most newf*gs pretending that they know everything.

STFU AND GB2GAIA

You're a moron. I never said that "old guard" was a term used for people who've been in Anonymous for a long time. The term used there is "oldfags." And this is not a forum. We're discussing the use of "legion" here, which is justified. Take your whining back to /b/.--Cast (talk) 18:48, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Alow me to clear this up.

Chanology is a operation of Anonymous, created by Anonymous and manipulated by Anonymous to get something done that Anonymous wants done. It is countless boxes in boxes, Anonymous made it, it made the protests. It's like the Illuminati. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.77.226.5 (talk) 09:05, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Complete BS. What do you see when you visit the original Anonymous websites (the chans)? - Anyone who posts Anything relating to protests or Scientology is instantly banned, with the exception of 315chan.
Chanology is no longer an operation of Anonymous. It's operated, organized, and maintained by the staff at Enturbulation.org. --Blackfish711 (talk) 15:06, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Chanology was started by Anonymous, but it was abandoned after realizing that the news reports brought countless morons aboard the chans. Then Enturbulation.org started trying to keep the raid alive and encouraged people to flood various chan websites with chanology information, resulting in anything related to chanology to be an instant ban, ergo, Chanology might be a good footnote to mention in this article, but it's hardly being handled by Anonymous and any new information should not be placed here. I also noticed information pertaining Habbo Hotel and Hal Turner was removed. That was practically the BIRTH of Anon along with the raid against Subeta. You people clearly don't know your internet history. 4chan's also really a minor footnote here, since 4chan outlawed talking about and organizing raids years ago. --LordZimmer (talk) 01:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
As an inactive member of Anonymous, I can say that the Chans do NOT represent Anonymous. They're the immature, 'z0mg 1337 haxx0r5' who hang around Enturbulation and OCCASIONALLY do something against Co$. Visit the site, we have them locked in their own section, called the Thunderdome. Anytime they post anything bad outside of it they get warned/banned. --Joseph Leito (talk)
Anonymous predates Enturbulation.org. Enturbulation protestfigs do not represent Anonymous either. DigitalC (talk) 07:31, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
I think you have very wrong idea about who Anon is. --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 09:28, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you have just been trolled... even in wikipedia the chans are easy to troll. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.136.165.124 (talk) 12:25, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality

This article seems very Scientologist-viewed biased. This article makes the Anonymous seem extremely cruel and psychotic, which we're not. As per policy, I won't edit, but I would like someone to put a bit of pro-anonymous stuff here. --Joseph Leito (talk)

This article covers the use of the term by the numerous individuals, groups, campaigns etc and in the media, some of which are involved in criminal activities, well at least according to FOX news, which unfortunately is considered a reliable sources. It reflects the sources available. --neon white talk 21:56, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Speaking as someone who has been lurking on the chans since the very beginning, you have no idea what you're talking about. The whole point is to be as cruel, hilarious, and psychotic as possible. Enturbulation.org basically went around trying to use the chans as their personal army against Scientology after we began Operation Chanology, originally an internet harassment campaign in response to the pulling of the Tom Cruise internet video on YouTube. Seeing the history of the internet and its crusades against Scientology, Enturbulation.org decided to hijack the operation by a mass campaign to break rules 1 and 2 and encourage people who were not affiliated with the chans to don the signature Guy Fawkes mask (as ironically and hilariously inspired by the meme character Epic Fail Guy) and protest the activities of Scientology. This resulted in a massive influx of users who had no business being there and who contributed to the downward spiral of what quality content was left. When we saw what was happening, we immediately canceled the operation and decided to move on to something else, but that was when Enturbulation.org encouraged its users to flood various chans, wikis, and other chan-related websites with chanology information in an attempt to try and force us to keep the operation going. That was when we engaged in a campaign against Enturb and released their personal information to Scientology in an attempt to get them to go away. They didn't. So, before you attempt to rewrite internet history, please get your facts correct. Thank you.

(PS: the whole Anonymous thing is a self-depreciating joke based on the Fox 11 news report. Don't take it seriously. Jeez.) -- LordZimmer (talk) 17:43, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually Enrturbulation.org started as a forum to congregate different people who wanted to get involved in the protests and started being more relevant to said protests when the insurgent wiki went down. Also, rules 1 and 2 do not exist, they are a joke started by gaia online and their utterance usually marks one as a desperate newfag needing to fit in. Enturbulation.org's existence is a consequence of the campaign. Also, enturbulation.org never encouraged its users to flood the chans and the campaign they started was not to "talk about /b/", but to make the MSM talk about the church of scientology by any means necessary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.136.165.124 (talk) 12:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

The Anonymous joke (because whole meme is a joke <- that's for uninformed wiki/protestfags) predates the HACKERS ON STEROIDS report for few years actually (when I was a newfag in the early 2005 it was fuctioning already). So, listen up everybody: Anonymous is any chan user who is not using a nickname. May be or may be NOT raiding other websites/harrasing people (like in the case of the early CoS irl raids) and/or exploding vans and messing with football for lulz. And Chanology is now an old and a forced meme AND was hijacked by a bunch of moral crusaders who also stole the name of Anonymous, which is annoying. It all got stupid in a unfunny sense really fast. Why are you even still using the name of "Chanology"? --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 18:53, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, Lord Zimmer has just outed himself as someone who doesn't really know what Anonymous is about. Anonymous isn't attempting to hijack the Fox 11 report. Anonymous, as a meme referring to the way people degenerate into monsters when anonymous on the internet, goes back to 2003, and really took hold in 2004. The Fox 11 report is notable as the first time a major outlet took notice of what where then, and still are now, pranksters with a flair for the dramatic, but it was utterly unimportant and unreliable, so Anonymous took it and its one liners as jokes. We already include a counter point on this page in the same Fox 11 report subsection. And I'll repeat the defense of this page I've stated before: it is not the fault of this article that it provides easy fuel for Scientology to light fires with. But it hardly matters anyway, because each time Scientology has tried to accuse the protesters of being cyber terrorists like Fox11 did, they are rejected. The Scientology claims are as laughable as the Fox11 report was. Its over the top and sensationalist, so don't worry so much about it. Now lets end this. Wikipedia isn't a forum.--Cast (talk) 00:01, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, let's. If you'd actually bother to read my comment instead of trying to sound like you actually know what you're talking about, you'd see that I was referring to the Anonymous moniker becoming popular as a result of the Fox 11 report. Before then, Anonymous was a meme character, the mysterious green-skinned poster who posts all of the content on various imageboards. It wasn't used as an actual identity (that was ebaumsworld for the longest time) until after the Fox 11 report. You also misunderstand my purpose. I don't care about Scientology in the least, I just don't think Chanology updates should be put on here because Chanology is no longer being handled by the boards (and is, in fact, a bannable offense on all of them.) If you want to update it, put it on the Chanology article. --LordZimmer (talk) 18:47, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
The chanology related media is updated on the Project Chanology article. The subsection on this article only summarizes it, its' connection to Anonymous, and leaves it at that. And we can't update that subsection on the rifts within Anonymous and the break from Chanology until it gets reported in the media.--Cast (talk) 19:30, 20 July 2008 (UTC)


The enturbulation staff never encouraged the flooding of chans with protest information, weeks after the first protest word was that the chans were no longer the place to come to distribute information or recruit for the protests and people trying to do so or even worried about that turn of events were frowned upon in that specific forum, the only real effort to get the chan user base to the protests was in the fourth protest and was related to prank calls and fair game in a failed attempt to get the ones who thought the protests were too serious back on the bandwagon. Neither does the enturbulation staff run the protests, for they are mostly organized trough the local forums. The flooding of the chans with information and recruiting messages for the protests has been largely done by trolls who know that to be the best course of action to get an enraged reaction from the chans user base. They are usually successful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.136.165.124 (talk) 12:17, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

SOHH and AllHipHop

I've added the section on this now, but it could be better. Were there any developments on this story?--Cast (talk) 01:17, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Nice work, here's a few screenshots of the actual defacement (found on ED's discussion page)
Swastica Sieg Heil Nigguh Mudkips Eating Chicken --Blackfish711 (talk) 15:21, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Well, these might be fine, but they were captured before most of the headlines were edited, so only the first was, "Tupac is still alive!", appears We can use a later one, and also edit out the banner ads and the rest of the site that wasn't edited. I'll put one up now. Tell me what you think.--Cast (talk) 22:29, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Looks good, here's the rest I got from irc - vp1 vp3 vp4 vp5 (resized 700x180) --Blackfish711 (talk) 08:59, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
I'd actually like to use one that didn't have a swastica or a mutilated body on it, because I'm worried about someone getting upset and kicking up an edit war about removing the image. I think the Mudkips/math is hard/Fresh Prince banner would be best, but the one you present still doesn't have all of its headlines defaced. I'll do some more looking, but thank you for all of your effort, and the effort of the IRC users. --Cast (talk) 18:01, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
Actually, on second thought, an edit war wouldn't be that bad, and we could edit all of these images into a single compilation of screenshots, if we wanted to show them all. Just so long as it doesn't cause the image to look confusing when in thumbnail form. I'll work it out. I don't want to trouble you with this if it goes nowhere.--Cast (talk) 18:11, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
It's no trouble, whatever you want to do is fine. --Blackfish711 (talk) 13:21, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

what

"News.com.au reported that the administrators of anonymous websites had posted an open letter"

"Anonymous websites"? Like unnamed websites, or the Chanology websites? --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 20:10, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Reading the source, it seems to be saying that the website which issued the disclaimer was 7chan, which would mean a website associated with Anonymous.--Cast (talk) 20:28, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

fix'd nao

/r/ Habbo stuff. --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 20:14, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Aside from the stuff immediately written above, this article mentions the Patriotic Nigras as deriving their afro, suit wearing characters from the Habbo raids. (The PNs also get minor reference in the Second Life article.) /b/tards also get a mention in the second page, but there is nothing to tie them in with Anonymous, which is a shame.--Cast (talk) 20:28, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

How about the section "Mary Alice Altorfer racism controversy" or whatever? --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 20:46, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I thought about that before I realized that news sources were tying the origin of the "Pool's Closed" slogan to the Habbo raids, so now the Altorfer situation can be a subsection tacked onto the end of the Habbo raids. It isn't a huge controversy really, so alone, both would be fairly small and clutter up the list. On the other hand, if we wanted to present the list of events as chronologically accurate as possible, we'd separate them. I'm in favor of condensing them, myself.--Cast (talk) 21:10, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

/b/tards are not in whole anonymous, though while looking at it with the flood of newfags since the summer of 2006 most /b/tards call their selfs anonymous with out really knowing where is came from or what it is. Void of caring and bored, this group just messes with people in a very unorganized, organized way. If you want the only real "members" of anonymous look to /i/ and the insurgents. Butthax (talk) 03:23, 21 July 2008 (UTC)Butthax

This is precisely why I can't trust any post that says Chanology isn't operated by Anonymous. Every now and again, we get someone who wants to claim that only one group of Anonymous – usually their own preferred sect – is the only true Anonymous. As if they have some omnipresent point of view from which to judge what the essential elements comprise Anonymous, and who best represents that ideal. No, the simplest and best path through this madness is to simply acknowledge anyone who self-identifies as Anonymous as being so. There are certainly some specific elements to look for, such as not revealing your identity and undertaking actions as equals in a group. By and large, Chanology protestors, /b/tards, /i/nsurgents, /co/mrades, and others, all qualify as Anonymous so long as they remain unnamed. So long as we have sources on this we can trust, the article will continue to reflect that.
Also, did you intend on creating a different topic? This has no relevance to the Habbo raids.--Cast (talk) 04:02, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

You are mostly correct, people in one aspect of Anonymous will usually frown the others. There is little overlap between some of the different sects but they are all anonymous, even if they don't like to be associated with the others. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.136.165.124 (talk) 12:32, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

  1. ^ "FOX 11 Investigates: Cyber Bullies". Fox Television Stations, Inc. Retrieved 2008-02-05.
  2. ^ "FOX 11 Investigates: 'Anonymous'". Fox Television Stations, Inc. Retrieved 2007-08-11.
  3. ^ Steve Ragan (2008-03-31). "Targeted physical attack takes aim at Epilepsy". The Tech Herald. Retrieved 2008-04-02.
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