Diskusija:Deivids Vudards

Spam

Hello, @Baisulis and others

Please take a look at en:User:Grnrchst/David Woodard report and consider if this article should be deleted.

As you can see on meta: Steward_requests/Miscellaneous#Cross-wiki_self-promotion_campaign and meta:Talk:Wikiproject:Antispam#Cross-wiki_self-promotion_campaign_(David_Woodard) 235 of the spam pages were deleted from smaller wikis by global stewards in one day, and many of the sockpuppets have been globally blocked. Of the remaining 99 articles from larger Wiki editions, 53 have been deleted this week, and "only" 46 remains.

I think it is safe to say that Woordard's future reputation will not be as a composer and conductor, but as the man that used a decade of his life trying to scam Wikipedia for vanity reasons. Bw Orland (diskusija) 2025. gada 10. jūlijs, plkst. 08.45 (EEST)

I read that long and pointless article, but I still didn't find any basis for starting a discussion. It only tries to prove that the person described is diligently writing about himself - and that's completely unimportant. It's not recommended, but it's not essential, and it's not cheating. At least on our Wikipedia, no one is obliged to introduce themselves. What matters is whether the artist has encyclopedic significance and whether the articles about him are sufficiently objective, but the efforts of some users to play detectives are their personal games. -- Egilus (diskusija) 2025. gada 10. jūlijs, plkst. 21.56 (EEST)

Nebūs, kā toreiz ar to alžīriešu kosmologu? --ScAvenger (diskusija) 2025. gada 10. jūlijs, plkst. 22.30 (EEST)

Par viņu es uzreiz atcerējos. Bet viņš tika nokauts lielā mērā par sliktu raksta valodu, nevis par savu personību, te nav tik traģiski. -- Egilus (diskusija) 2025. gada 10. jūlijs, plkst. 22.43 (EEST)

In addition to the main investigation, there is another investigation too. At en:Talk:David_Woodard#Issues_beyond_notability someone has looked into what the listed sources actually says about Woodard, concluding that in the Wikipedia version of his biography "the current wording masks the nature of his actions". Bw Orland (diskusija) 2025. gada 15. jūlijs, plkst. 07.14 (EEST)

Such scandal increases his notability anyway. -- Egilus (diskusija) 2025. gada 15. jūlijs, plkst. 19.07 (EEST)

Well, if you say so. At least then we agree that this current text is misleading. Thus, it should either be completely rewritten, or deleted as false. Bw Orland (diskusija) 2025. gada 16. jūlijs, plkst. 08.47 (EEST)

Hello again, @Egilus. A few days ago, I read the sources to one of the statements in the article, and removed the text as false and misguiding. How can we be sure about anything in this biografphy if Woodard (or his helpers) are lying about his work? ? Bw Orland (diskusija) 2025. gada 24. jūlijs, plkst. 01.19 (EEST)

With the same motivation, we should ask this of Donald Trump and Joseph Stalin. -- Egilus (diskusija) 2025. gada 24. jūlijs, plkst. 06.08 (EEST)

Yes, @Egilus, I know that there are people in this world who are lying.

This is about something else: this is most likely a Wikipedia text who is lying about the content of it's sources. It is hard to understand why you seem take so lightly upon inaccurate articles. Bw Orland (diskusija) 2025. gada 24. jūlijs, plkst. 08.44 (EEST)

Recent updates

• This article and the spamming investigation is covered in the recent edition of The Signpost: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2025-08-09/Disinformation report.
• German edition article is deleted. (See de:Wikipedia:Löschkandidaten/2._Juli_2025)
• English edition article is downedited, and sources are investigated and discussed at en:Talk:David_Woodard#Source_list
• Number of languages with article about Woodard has been reduced from 99 to 20 during the last month.

With greetings, Orland (diskusija) 2025. gada 11. augusts, plkst. 15.57 (EEST)

Tehnoloģiju ziņās arī trāpīja: https://arstechnica.com/culture/2025/08/why-was-the-most-translated-wikipedia-article-in-the-world-about-a-lover-of-aryan-culture/ Papuass (diskusija) 2025. gada 15. augusts, plkst. 09.44 (EEST)

It seems you have anything personal in this war. -- Egilus (diskusija) 2025. gada 15. augusts, plkst. 10.36 (EEST)

Hello, @Egilus. I've seen different speculations about my own motivation earlier. You'll find a collection at en:User:Orland. Your "you have anything personal in this war" is very bleak compared to accusations from the first anti-spamming campaign i worked with in 2007; when someone wrote to me I sense that you just partcularly dislike this person or the Turks and that blinds you from the facts..

I can just say that fighting such spamming cases is one of my modus operandi within the Wikipedia community, besides beeing an admin for more that 15 years and writing 149 FA/GL features. Bw Orland (diskusija) 2025. gada 15. augusts, plkst. 12.18 (EEST)

Spamming is your modus operandi. The active members on the Latvian Wikipedia seem to have reached the conclusion that the article deserves to remain since it contains all necessary sources. Still you try to proselytize them in the manner of a religious fanatic to delete an article in a language which you yourself don't understand.

Wikipedia would not exist today if the 'hight standard' of you and your friends was the norm in the early 2000s. The point of Wikipedia was to give ordinary non-academic people the opportunity to create an encyclopedia and fill it with their own specific topics of interests for free, incluiding trivial things such as vexillology, which would have taken traditional academics decades to accomplish even if they got payed for it. The result was a rapid and unprecedented Big Bang of information, some of which has been redacted in retrospect by more educated people.

Your only mission is to destroy a multilingual Wikipedia under the pretext of 'protecting' languages which you don't understand, and David Woodard (who admittedly seems to be a dubious character) has become the main battle for the survival of a multilingual Wikipedia. Therefore I encourage the active members of the Latvian Wikipedia to let this article remain – as well as remembering the quote First They Came since if they have an article like David Woodard erased without your consent, they will just continue until nothing remains of the Wikipedia in Latvian or any other minor language. If the article contains too many trivial and unfounded anecdotes – such as the 'dying pelican on the beach' or the 'Kurt Cobain bought a Dreamachine' story – just remove those parts. However, to completely erase this article because some foreign person does not like the topic would be disastrous for the future of Latvian Wikipedia.

Ekhouvanafrikaans2 (diskusija) 2025. gada 18. augusts, plkst. 12.45 (EEST)

As a reply to your suggestion that my mission is to destroy a multilingual Wikipedia; I'll let you know that I was the project manager for the first Wikimedia initiativ in 2010 to bring more text and editors into the minority language North Saami edition of Wikipedia. Bw Orland (diskusija) 2025. gada 18. augusts, plkst. 13.55 (EEST)

The North Saami edition of Wikipedia is a Stalinist hellhole and not a rolemodel for how a free and vibrant encyclopedia should function. https://se.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erling_Haaland

Ekhouvanafrikaans2 (diskusija) 2025. gada 18. augusts, plkst. 14.38 (EEST)

Chatgpt. Bw Orland (diskusija) 2025. gada 18. augusts, plkst. 16.16 (EEST)

Unlike you, I understand both the Dutch the West-Flemish language. Maybe you also would if you bothered to use Chat-GPT. Egilus has also contributed to the Zeelandic edition. Because he wants to improve Wikipedia, unlike you whose only goal it is to destroy Wikipedia. Your counter-argument about the North Saami edition is also highly questionable since Norway's most famous active football player has no page in one of Norway's official languages. That is because because the editors that you have recruited have actively discouraged people from writing in that language. And that may as well have political motives since the Saami language is the same threat to the governments in the Scandinavian countries as Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian was in the Soviet Union.

So, it is very important that the page about David Woodard, or Deivids Vudards as he is known here, remains in place. Because if the global stewards are allowed to delete articles in languages which they don't understand, then the freedom of information is under serious threat and might as well result in some Chinese 'global steward' deciding to delete information about Dalai Lama. I know the comparison sounds ridiculous if you are an unprincipled person without the capacity of abstract thinking, but the principle is indeed very important.

And also, the pretense that the Global Stewards are 'protecting minor languages' is abolutely ludicrous if you look at the article about Nelson Mandela in what was his own mother tongue. Of course the Global Stewards are not going to question why a section of that article is written in English instead of isiXhosa and why the whole page looks like garbage. Because their only mission is to destroy Wikipedia. They are only using the David Woodard article as a trial balloon to see how far they can go without being noticed. Don't let them win.

Ekhouvanafrikaans2 (diskusija) 2025. gada 18. augusts, plkst. 18.01 (EEST)

Given that Ekhouvanafrikaans2 (diskusija · devums) is now globally blocked, there is no use in replying to their rants and errors. Let me just say that he/they were wrong about the political situation for Saami languages. (I, for one is running a government sponsored programme promoting Saami language books.) Since he mentioned baltic languages, allow me also to mention that in 2009, when we had a Norwegian-Estonian month of mutual Wikipedia cooperation, I wrote the biographies of the receiever of the Estonian Kultuurkapitali kirjanduspreemia.

And back to Woodard. This article here in lv:wp is part of a deliberately biased image of Woodard, created to omit unpleasant parts of his biography. (Like ignoring a source, an interview from San Francisco Chronicle 2005, where Woodard speaks about his fascination for the "pure Aryan".) Unless you are prepared to do your own investigation and rewrite the article completely, it might be easier to just delete it. Given this whole story. Bw Orland (diskusija) 2025. gada 23. augusts, plkst. 17.30 (EEST)

Regarding articles, it is desirable to supplement them, not delete them. By the way, I would advise not to think that someone's political views will be considered here as a pretext for his deletion - Latvian Wikipedia is not based on the principle "only politically correct people are important". Rather, the existence of any views and action on their behalf increases his importance.

I was unable to find information about the reasons for blocking your opponent, so I assume that this is your personal war, which should not affect the activities of Latvian Wikipedia in any way. -- Egilus (diskusija) 2025. gada 23. augusts, plkst. 21.33 (EEST)

@Egilus. You are overestimating my influence, and underestimating my intgegrity. Not much I can do about that.

As for political views, I've never suggested that as a reason for deletion. I'm just saying that those who contributed his biography to Wikipedia, downplayed his potentionally controversial interest for ārisma, and masked it as an veģetārisma/feminisma utopiju. I notice that you have discovered this now and edited that. Are there really any sources indicating that Woodard sought for a vegetarian utopia?

You 'll find the blocking here. Bw Orland (diskusija) 2025. gada 24. augusts, plkst. 18.09 (EEST)

Thanks for link of blocking. Ridicully, of course, and non-professional work - they should start with articles for tied themes and after only write about Woodard as one from casual article about theme. But I'm an old propagandist (outside and before of Wikipedia's existing) and know how it should be, they are not :)

I simply found the SFG link in discussions and added for more full picture. I don't dispute claims that I have no counterarguments against. Specially as the vegetarianism is regarded as hitlerism for part of Latvians, and in another way round :) Generally, you don't feel something in the opinions in Latvian language (we have another history and another attitude to some things), and they can be more different from Western neoliberals than Japanese. Machine translations don't help in such nuances.

Unfortunately, the ideas about deleting came from you, and that's why my attitude towards you immediately became unfriendly, like towards a vandal. Clarifying or supplementing the article - yes, deleting an important and interesting, albeit not quite adequate person and info - no. Egilus (diskusija) 2025. gada 24. augusts, plkst. 20.28 (EEST)