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"Cyberstalker"

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I'm very confused about your reversions of The Mysterious Caravan. It seems as though the anonymous IPs were simply adding a link to your site, where more information could be found on the book. There is nothing wrong with this. Could you please explain to me why you believe that it is the work of a "pathetic, obsessed cyberstalker"? Leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. jglc | t | c 16:17, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually they were REMOVING the link to my site, not adding it.
  • Hmm... I see. It's very possible that they were actually different people, removing what they felt to be a promotional link to your own site. Looking at how the edits came from different IP addresses, I am somewhat doubtful that they are personally targeting you. jglc | t | c 21:31, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • All right :) I'm guessing it's not so much someone obsessed with you as somebody playing a joke, or messing with you. But I see what's going on, now. jglc | t | c 21:31, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Vandal Vendetta

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Certain AOL (who else?) user(s) are on a vendetta against me and are removing external links to my sites from Radio Boys, Grosset & Dunlap, Supermystery, Mildred Benson, Roy Rockwood, Clues Brothers, Casefiles, The Dana Girls, Hardy Boys Digest, Undercover Brothers, Harriet Adams, Ted Scott Flying Stories, Nancy Drew, Franklin W. Dixon, Rover Boys, Stratemeyer Syndicate, Tom Swift, Jr., Tom Swift, X Bar X Boys, Edward Stratemeyer, Hardy Boys, Tom Swift IV, While the Clock Ticked, What Happened at Midnight, The Yellow Feather Mystery, The Witchmaster's Key, The Wailing Siren Mystery, The Viking Symbol Mystery, The Twisted Claw, The Tower Treasure, The Sting of the Scorpion, The Sinister Signpost, The Sign of the Crooked Arrow, The Short-Wave Mystery, The Shore Road Mystery, The Shattered Helmet, The Secret of the Old Mill, The Secret of the Lost Tunnel, The Secret of the Caves, The Secret of Wildcat Swamp, The Secret of Skull Mountain, The Secret of Pirate's Hill, The Secret Warning, The Secret Panel, The Secret Agent on Flight 101, The Phantom Freighter, The Mystery of the Whale Tattoo, The Mystery of the Spiral Bridge, The Mystery of the Flying Express, The Mystery of the Desert Giant, The Mystery of the Chinese Junk, The Mystery of the Aztec Warrior, The Mystery of Cabin Island, The Mystery at Devil's Paw, The Mysterious Caravan, The Missing Chums, The Melted Coins, The Masked Monkey, The Mark on the Door, The Jungle Pyramid, The House on the Cliff, The Hooded Hawk Mystery, The Hidden Harbor Mystery, The Haunted Fort, The Great Airport Mystery, The Ghost of Skeleton Rock, The Flickering Torch Mystery, The Firebird Rocket, The Disappearing Floor, The Crisscross Shadow, The Clue of the Screeching Owl, The Clue of the Hissing Serpent, The Clue of the Broken Blade, The Clue in the Embers, The Bombay Boomerang, The Arctic Patrol Mystery, Hunting for Hidden Gold, Footprints under the Window, Detective Handbook, Danger on Vampire Trail, A Figure in Hiding and others. This is doubly annoying as I was the originator of many of the Wikipages and my web pages provide additional in-depth information on these subjects. This has been going on for weeks. PLEASE HELP ME!--FWDixon 11:23, 12 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I got your message on my talk page. That definitely seems like vandalism, and I will be watching those articles now. I have already reverted them on "A Figure in Hiding" and will check some of the other articles now to see if the links are still removed. Academic Challenger 10:21, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have now reverted the removals on several dozen articles in the past few minutes. Academic Challenger 10:35, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is getting crazy now. I have been reverting dozens of articles, still finding them while reverting others many times. I have reverted Hunting for Hidden Gold at least 5 times in the past few minutes, and even blocked an IP for an hour. I am starting to wonder if these pages should be protected for a while. Academic Challenger 22:15, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The vandal struck again, and a couple other users helped to revert him. Unfortunately, we cannot block this person or I would have already done it. There are many other users who use AOL, and while much of what comes from the IP address is vandalism, blocking the IP addresses may also block the accounts of people who use AOL. This is so that AOL vandals cannot avoid a block by creating an account. So unfortunately the only option is page protection, because the person will always keep reverting a few hours after we revert him. Also I will be leaving in a few days to an area where I cannot be on the Internet for a week. If you ever want to add something to an article, let me know and I will unprotect that article. Also, I may not protect articles about series' such as the main Nancy Drew page and the main Hardy Boys page, since people will wawnt to make good edits to them more often, but I will continue to watch them. We cannot really predict what the vandal will do now, after I protect the pages. Unlike most vandals who target a specific user, this vandal does not seem to vandalize your user page and talk page, and it is particularly strange because he really has not written anything at all. However, I think page protection is the best option for now.


I did protect some of the pages last night. It is a very long process. I decided to stop in case the vandal might just maybe stop when he realized that we took this seriously enough to start locking pages. But apparently that has not happened; he has vandalized the remaining pages twice more, so about an hour ago I started protecting more pages, and will continue to protect more. There are so many of them that its hard to keep track of them all, so I might miss some, but I should be able to protect most of them now. Academic Challenger 20:07, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have left a note at User talk:Academic Challenger regarding this case. I think it's only fair to inform you. Rl 15:29, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Outside View

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I moved this from User talk:Academic Challenger. --PhilipO 00:09, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

but one from every book title, which doesn't initially link to detailed information about the book is link spamming But it does initially link to information on the title including release dates, author info, revision history, artist info, type of revision and a plot summary. Clicking on the title brings up another page with publishing history and cover art scans. How much more detailed can I get?--FWDixon 23:39, 23 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Granted - but it is information that could be included on the book page in Wikipedia itself. As mentioned previously there is also a prominent red "Buy It Now" link which is commercial. Each book specific article seems to have been created with the link present and there is very little information on each page. It seems that the articles were created specifically to link to your page, which I consider against the spirit of Wikipedia. Now if each page had a detailed plot summary, that would be different. I would be of the opinion that the list on the main Hardy Boys page is perfectly sufficient to describe the books - or single page like there is on your website - and the individual book pages should be removed. One link on the Hardy Boys page to your site is a good compromise (because there seems to be alot of information on your site). The vandal is way out of order, and that is why he had rightly brought the wrath of Wiki down on him, but there is case here for linkspamming IMHO. --PhilipO 00:09, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Reading all this information, I'm apt to agree withPhilipO. I think a link on the main Hardy Boys article would be sufficient rather than multiple links on each book page. maltmomma 02:15, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Stratemeyer Syndicate

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We're talking about you over in Talk:Stratemeyer Syndicate, and the other party in said conversation seems to have a problem with your external links. This may be a chance to meet your "stalker" face to face; care to join us? --Ardonik.talk()* 18:06, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry I haven't been around to revert and protect more pages in the past few days. I just moved and didn't have Internet access from Thursday until today, and I really thought that the vandal had given up before I left. I received the other messages on my talk page and I still think that your website belongs in the articles. Academic Challenger 03:43, 23 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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I think we need to sort this out - it is making my RC patrol painful ;-)

References: -

Above & [1] [2] [3] [4]

FWDixon - I believe that the links to your site at bobfinnan.com should be removed from individual Hardy Boys pages, for the following reasons: -

  • The Wiki pages lack any other substantial information.
  • They were created with the link in place.
  • You have removed info from the Wiki pages that might make the pages more valuable.[5]
  • The pages they are directed to contain a prominent, red "Buy It Now" link [6]. This is certainly commercial.
  • There have been meatpuppets [7] (at best) involved in this argument on your behalf. [8] [9]

I think one link from the main Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew page is probably valuable - there are two, why? While I totally disagree with the vandal's behaviour in relation to removing links constantly, there is a case here for link spam IMHO in relation to the individual pages.

  • There are 2 links for the "Everything Hardy Boys" site (The Bayport Gazette link and the Hardy-Boys.com link both resolve to the same site) Why pick on me for having a separate link to my webzine? Furthermore there is only 1 link to my Nancy Drew site, not 2 as you stated.--FWDixon 20:54, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Absolutely right. If these other links are commercial, they should go to IMHO. --PhilipO 21:27, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

There seems to be a consensus building around this. The following comments and users appear to support this line: -

[10], Maltmomma, [11] Rl [12], Joy Stovall [13], User:Dan_East [14] User:Sitearm [15]

I believe other users have been reverting the links (as I did) because they are being removed by a vandal (who should be sent to Wiki hell). However my opinion has changed when I looked into this in more depth, and I believe theirs would too. [16]

Thoughts? --PhilipO 16:57, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

  • I first came upon Wiki when someone emailed me that much of the Hardy Boys page had copied word for word entire passages from my site without credit. I added a link to my site and corrected some factual errors in other parts of the article. That's when a deranged lunatic kept removing the link to my site for no reason other than personal animus.
    • The links were removed because they represent linkspam (IMHO). I disagree with the method, but the point is correct. --PhilipO 21:27, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
      • You stated earlier you thought a link from the main Hardy Boys page was appropriate. Now you claim it is "link spam". So which is it?--FWDixon 21:42, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Apologies if I wasn't clear. The link from Hardy Boys is OK. I consider (along with everyone else here) the links from individual pages as link spam. --PhilipO 22:20, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
    • The Hardy Boys page used to have a "credit of authorship / copyright" type notice at the top of the page. Fwdixon added it originally, and it was refined and modified by another wikipedian. In the talk page I indicated that the notice was inappropriate, and it was promptly removed by Fwdixon himself. This is a good example of his willingness to refine these articles towards proper Wikipedia standards. As Fwdixon joined Wikipedia expressly to deal with these articles, it is quite understandable that he was not aware of proper etiquette. That, combined with an immediate reversion war, certainly gave him a rather bad impression of what Wikipedia is and how it is supposed to work. Another note in his "defense", if you will. The amount of people persuaded into actually purchasing a Hardy Boys book, after seeing the corresponding Wikipedia article and visiting his site, would have to be next to nothing. In other words, I'm sure he's aware there is nothing to loose, financially, with the removal of these links. I think Fwdixon is a reasonable individual, and is an asset Wikipedia. --Dan East 01:55, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
      • I agree - that is why I believe the link should remain in the main article (note the name of this Talk section) because there is worthy information there. I just believe it is a reasonable request to remove the links from the individual articles. --PhilipO 15:56, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
    • Thank you. Despite unfounded claims to the contrary, I didn't create those pages to sell anything. I truly thought they were an asset to Wiki. Apparently most posters here are predisposed to believe the worst about everyone.--FWDixon 11:28, 26 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Before I came along about 95% of the "title" pages didn't exist (along with pages on the other Hardy spin-off series) and those that did were poorly written and/or inaccurate. I even modified my web site so the links from those pages would bring the user directly to the title in question, where they could get more information.
    • I would argue that they probably shouldn' exist. --PhilipO 21:27, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, I have links for people to buy the books but to say my site is strictly commercial is an absurd distortion of the truth. Most readers of my site are collectors and are glad to find those links and they help to pay the hosting fees. Furthermore, there are thousands of external links on Wiki that link to purely commercial sites and I don't see everyone up in arms about that. And even those sites that are not purely commercial have Google "Adsense" and other banner ads on them. SO let's not be hypocritical here.
    • Anytime I come across links to commercial sites - and particularly linkspam - I remove them. Check my contributions. However, just because Wikipedia hasn't been purged of single commercial link yet has no bearing on the point I am trying to make. If you would like people to find your books, advertise with [www.google.com/adsense GoogleAdSense] --PhilipO 22:24, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
      • Clearly you need to examine articles more closely as I have no trouble finding links to commercial sites. For example: the Grosset & Dunlap page has a link to the G&D site - A COMMERCIAL SITE dedicated to getting people to buy their books. The Ford page links to FoMoCo's home page - a strictly commercial site, ditto for GM and Chrysler. Where's the outrage for this?--FWDixon 21:42, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Please don't be disingenuous. A link to Ford Motor Company's website is 100% relevant to an article about Ford Motor Company. The equivalent thing to your links would be a link from every Ford Model Page to my local car seller's website. Ditto for Grosset & Dunlap, a book company that is 100 years old. --PhilipO 22:20, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • Frankly I'm getting sick of this whole thing. I tried to do a good thing by adding many pages to Wiki and been subjected to abuse and libel by a deranged lunatic cyberstalker. If it was up to me, I'd delete every one of those fucking pages and let some other poor schmuck put up with all the abuse! But if those pages are going to have the copyrighted descriptions from my site, I think the link is not out of place.--FWDixon 20:46, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I believe the correct thing to do is to remove the copyright information. Do not link to your site as a response. Am I incorrect but didn't you write the "copyrighted" material? --PhilipO 21:27, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • If and when I remove the links (after a consensus has been reached) I will also remove the copyrighted material and indicate that we have a book stub. Would this be satisfactory? --PhilipO 22:20, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • Absolutely you should. --PhilipO 15:59, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

I think the crux of the issue is that the individual book pages contain no real information, and the links to Fwdixon's site contributes little more. In order for the articles to be justified in the first place they will have to contain more information. If the articles were more robust then they would not need to link to Fwdixon's site. So I believe the solution is to contribute more to the stubs so the external links are unnecessary. Now, a potential use for Fwdixon's external resources would be for the collection of images (book covers of the various editions, etc). I think it would be taking things a bit too far to incorporate that degree of information into Wikipedia. Since those external links would be properly justified in the first place, it wouldn't bother me as much if the destinations contained affiliate links. Taking things full-circle, the AOL individual that keeps removing links to Fwdixon's site has a personal vendetta against Fwdixon which has nothing to do with Wikipedia, or the existence of the affiliate links discussed (in great depth) here. So obviously the problem (that brought the microscope onto Fwdixon and this family of articles, resulting in this discussion) will not go away. One final note. The individual that keeps removing links has only recently begun to parrot this commercial / affiliate link issue once others brought it up. They never used that as justification (not that it would have been valid) during the bulk of their inappropriate editing. --Dan East 01:55, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Having stumbled across this multiple times on RC patrol, I wholly agree with PhillipO's comments.

This has been discussed in 5 or 6 different places and trying to interpret what is going on has been a great waste of time for all those who work hard trying to keep Wikipedia free of abuse.

I would like to commend Philip for making a huge effort to bring the issue to an amicable conclusion.

--GraemeL (talk) 17:15, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • The vandal's behavior was unwarranted, but aside from the housekeeping aspect, I don't really feel that the links contribute to the subpages. There are also lots of potential copyright pitfalls with the plot summaries, whether they originate from the linked page or from the printed text (making it doubly problematic). In any case, I support PhilipO's position in this matter and thank him for his efforts to resolve this. --Alan Au 18:00, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Observation... what's required to resolve...
    • The posting of the same external link on a score of pages is inappropriate
    • The behavior of the anonymous IP commenter is inappropriate
    • The situation remains unresolved:
      • The anonymous commenter has a point about link spamming. But the accusation of copyright violation has not been substantiated and the commenter has left the work to prove or disprove the allegation for someone else to do.
        • Wrong. The books copied from have been named. It would take very little to verify.
      • Adding the external link in question to selected pages, while probably ok with a majority of users including me, is unlikely to stop the war. The anonymous deleter has stated they will continue their behavior until they are satisfied.
    • Resolving the situation will require somebody to do some work:
      • Either disprove the allegations of copyright violation and ban the anonymous commenter if disruptive behavior continues.
      • Or substantiate the allegations and clean up the articles in question.
-- Sitearm | Talk 18:59, 2005 August 25 (UTC)
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Checking User:4.236.54.116 contributions shows that the Bob Finnan fan site link was added to a total of 72 Wikipedia article pages. The changes were made 2005 June 19 in a 3 hour time period. A reasonable assumption is that this was a deliberate act of link spamming. -- Sitearm | Talk 01:48, 2005 August 26 (UTC)

Another "reasonable" assumption would be that I actually thought I was making a contribution to Wiki. What a sad world you must inhabit if you are always believing the worst in everyone!--FWDixon 11:54, 26 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The majority of those articles were created at that time (as opposed to simply adding links to existing articles). They represent the individual books in the series. I do not find it unreasonable for that many articles to be created in that amount of time under those circumstances. However, the motive for the creation of the articles in the first place is open to interpretation. --Dan East 02:10, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • We cannot know the motivation. But we don't have to. If there is a consensus that the links should go, we can simply remove them regardless of their intention. I've removed external links on a large scale many times even though they had been added by people in good faith (i.e. before reading WP:EL). Rl 07:46, 26 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I believe there is now a consensus that the individual links should be removed but that the main link on Hardy Boys should stay. --PhilipO 15:58, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
    • I will amend my earlier position and support keeping a link on one (the main) Nancy Drew article. I am still waiting for comment from the anonymous IP commenter. -- Sitearm | Talk 17:16, 2005 August 26 (UTC)
  • You have violated the Three revert rule [17]
  • Vandalism threats [18]
  • Multiple accounts are known as sockpuppets and are easily spotted with contribution logs. It is next to impossible to fake a consensus.
  • An account shows respect for the people you communicate with. No need to hide yourself in Glens Falls, New York.--PhilipO 23:31, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
    • I stand by my comment above, that if the book articles are expanded, and there is still a legitimate need for external links (for images of each book throughout its revision history, for example), than the links would be fine (whether or not they contain affiliate links to Amazon, etc). Assuming the interim is short, I have no preference whether the links stay or go, because it should be a temporary situation. If the articles will stay in their current state for an extended amount of time then the links should be removed, simply because of the mere appearance of impropriety (articles with only superficial content but with external links). --Dan East 17:55, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

The anonymous AOL vandal

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I assume everyone who is so eager to see the links removed from the Hardy Boys titles pages are going to be equally eager to restore my links on the main page when the AOL vandal strikes again, right?--FWDixon 18:44, 26 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't you being a little ungracious about the effort expended by administrators and PhilipO to protect some pages and consolidate the dispute so it can be resolved? Have you read the Wikipedia policy about spamming and do you realize, now, the 72 links were inappropriate, even if you did not at the time you created them? The anonymous IP commenter upset all of us. -- Sitearm | Talk 20:45, 2005 August 26 (UTC)


  • 69.205.1.91 vandalism - now he's back removing links on Nancy Drew and Tom Swift. I removed my copyrighted material from one of the "title" pages and he put it back. This is harrassment plain and simple and proof that this person is nothing more than a deranged, vindictive vandal.--FWDixon 12:48, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
From now on all unsigned comments are going to be removed from this page. Mr. 69.205.1.91 doesn't like that and keeps reverting this page back to display his libelous and unfounded remarks. Further proof he is nothing more than a deranged cyberstalker.--FWDixon 13:47, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Now he's removing comments he that prove him to be a liar on the various "title" talk pages. This is proof that this person has no desire to be part of the Wiki community and is just a deranged, obsessed vandal.--FWDixon 14:46, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Can you provide a reference? This can be added to the Vandalism in Progress page. --PhilipO 17:37, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
FWDixon - may I ask why you are removing comments from this discussion? Perhaps you could simply instead attribute the comment to the IP address. I did check out the links provided by the previous comments [19] and they could useful in relation to this discussion. --PhilipO 14:42, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
I refuse to allow a coward a forum on my talk page. All he does is libel me and lie. As I stated earlier, all unsigned comments will be deleted from this page. Period.--FWDixon 14:46, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I would suggest you do something like this: -
More on the link spamming and commercial advertising. Example http://hardyboys.bobfinnan.com/hbpb.htm is just a list of titles that all have links to Amazon. All of the books summaries were copied from Amazon. Every HB Digest title, Casefiles title, Clues Brothers title, Supermysteries title, Ultra Thriller title and so on has a link to Amazon and all summaries were copied from Amazon. Does that tell anyone something? (Unsigned comment by 69.205.1.91)
this would make it easier for us to follow the thread and his contributions (and vandalism). --PhilipO 17:36, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

May we consolidate on what we've agreed so far?

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May we acknowledge progress has been made? An agreement to leave one link on Nancy Drew main article page and one link on Hardy Boys main article page? Links to be removed from Hardy Boys book article pages? We need to execute before discussing further issues. If you concur please respond below...

  • Anonymous IP Commenter: Thanks for leaving comments here per request. Thanks for not going back and reverting me on Nancy Drew after I left you the message. Yes, please register a user name and use it, with ~~~~ signatures, on next discussions to come.
  • Thanks for checking this out. Finnan's link spamming needs to be looked at overall and not just the HB. He still will have dozens of links to his site when there isn't even any real info on some of the pages to support it, just titles and format stuff he copied from books on these series. All of this is obviously advertising and overkill.
  • PhilipO: I notice Hardy Boys is protected again. Can we get that unprotected again (or maybe it will expire tomorrow) and I think the link will stay this time.
  • Dan East: Would you be willing to look at the Hardy Boy book plot articles and check the links are removed especially on the short stubs?
    • Sure. --Dan East 20:28, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
  • Fwdixon: Just hang in here for now.

There are more things to work out but may we consolidate on what we've agreed so far?

-- Sitearm | Talk 02:58, 2005 August 27 (UTC)

Re: An agreement to leave one link on Nancy Drew main article page and one link on Hardy Boys main article page?

The Hardy Boys page has two links to different pages of the same web site, the index page for The Unofficial Hardy Boys Web Page and The Bayport Times. The second link should be removed per the above agreement. The web site owner has complained that two other links, Hardy-Boys.com and The Bayport Gazette, resolve the same site. This is true. Only one link per site should be allowed.

The Unofficial Nancy Drew Web Page is just a title list set up for buy links to Amazon. If this link is going to be kept the description should at least be changed to: primarily a commercial site with limited information on the series. 69.205.1.91 17:48, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the pages should remain protected for now until this issue has settled down somewhat. There has been too much history of vandalism by 69.205.1.91. --PhilipO 19:25, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
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