Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Projects
| Original name(s) | User:Projects |
|---|---|
| Wikilifespan | 2005–present |
| ISP | Chicago Public Library; Comcast; AT&T; T-Mobile; numerous others |
| Known IPs | 64.107.0.0/22; 154.68.5.0/24; 107.77.206.0/23; 107.77.208.0/23; 2607:fb91:2200::/40; 2601:241:8800::/40; 73.246.28.0/21; many open proxies; since 2019, a VPN or IP-hiding service allowing him to pick a country for the IP. |
| Physical location | Chicago, Illinois |
| Status | Active |
This editor is most frequently known as the "George Reeves Person" (GRP), though he has never had an account by that name. "Projects" was his earliest known account, and "BoxingWear" was his longest-lived sockpuppet.
Interests center on boxing, martial arts, speculative fights, chess, mysterious, unexplained deaths of famous people, massacres – and harassing editors of WMF projects. Some specific topics include George Reeves, Rocky Marciano, Bob Baker, Muhammad Ali, chess, the Armenian genocide, Jean Harlow, Joseph Stalin, Katyn massacre (and a related film), the Beatles reunion and Buddhism. He is not a native English speaker; originally from the Balkans (probably from former Yugoslavia) he speaks some Polish and Serbian. He writes long-winded rants, often in all-caps and ungrammatical, with links to other rants off-wiki. If pasting the off-wiki link fails, archive links are pasted instead.
He is banned by the Wikimedia Foundation and may not edit any Wikimedia project or otherwise engage with the Wikimedia community online or in-person. All accounts should be globally locked on sight. IPs should be blocked on sight. If needed, try contacting stewards through IRC for a quick request to globally block IPs.
Responding to this editor may open you up to long-term harassment and threats. Harassment by email is common, so you may wish to disable emails from new users and avoid publishing your email address. If this editor sends you any email via the EmailUser feature, do not reply. Instead, report the account to stewards via m:Special:Contact/stewards or IRC. Report to SRG only if it is an account, as the user often switches IPs in rapid succession. Disable emails globally from new users. If you only disable it from a certain project, he will go to another WMF project and harass you from there. He may make multiple attempts to log in to your Wikimedia account, although these are likely only done to give a notification to you. If you have a strong password, you will be fine and 2FA is also helpful.
Threats
This editor often makes threats, which can be disturbing to vandalism patrollers. Take them seriously. He has a long criminal history including jail time for harassment, stalking, and making threats of violence, and not only online. He is well known to the Chicago Police Department and legal system. While we will not give his real name here, it is known to those who routinely remove his edits. If you feel threatened, inform Wikimedia Trust and Safety, as well as Wikimedia Legal (see list of email contacts there). In 2024 they worked to get this situation to end permanently without success. Feel free to nudge them.
If he makes threats of violence from an IP address that geolocates to Chicago, feel free to report it to the provider (Comcast, AT&T, T-Mobile) as well as Wikimedia Legal or the Chicago Police Department, for those can be traced more easily to him.
Recommendations
- Block sock IPs on sight; always check if they are open proxies (typically they are unless they geolocate to Chicago).
- Report sockpuppets to #wikimedia-stewards connect for global locking, since he rarely restricts his activities to the English Wikipedia.
- Blocking the large IP ranges listed in the infobox and creating an edit filter may be recommended for smaller WMF projects.
- Disable emails from new users if you're targeted. Do it globally, and not just on one or two WMF projects.
- Do not give him vandal warnings. It is a gateway for you to become one of his targets.
- Do not constantly revert his edits. Instead, report him to the local administration team, or to the global sysops at Meta if no one is available. Edit warring floods recent changes on smaller wikis and article histories. It also violates WP:DENY and encourages further reverts from him.
- Do not respond to him on-wiki such as in the edit summary. This is another way to become his target and may drive him more.