Wikipedia's Oberranks Incident

> "After being blacklisted, XXXXX came to believe that a historian named XXXXXX, who had been heavily involved with the NARA-Wikipedia Military Database Project, was personally responsible. Between 2012 and 2019, the story becomes somewhat confusing. By that point, the account believed to be "OberRanks" was no longer being operated by a single individual. Instead, it had become a shared National Archives account used by at least three different staff members over a period of years: the original XXXXXX, research room chief XXXXXX, and military records specialist XXXXXX. The account's primary purpose was to support the NARA-Wikipedia Military Database Project, which was responsible for creating and expanding much of Wikipedia's coverage of U.S. military awards, decorations, badges, and i nsignia. In 2018, however, XXXXXX was promoted to another federal agency and left the National Archives and the project was discontinued shortly afterwards."

> "The year 2019 is when most of the things you asked about happened. By that point, the German editor XXXXX had created several Wikipedia posts and pages intended to discredit XXXXXX, alleging plagiarism, falsified research, and copyright violations. I did not independently investigate every allegation, but some of it, particularly those involving copyright compliance and shoddy or loose reference sourcing, absolutely had merit. However, the overall effort appeared to become increasingly exaggerated and personal, extending well beyond ordinary editorial disputes on Wikipedia. Ultimately, this campaign contributed to XXXXXX being banned from Wikipedia. By that time, however, the OberRanks account was no longer active, as most of the National Archives staff who had operated it had either been promoted or left the agency. Besides his work on military awards and insignia, XXXXXX was also a well-respected Holocaust historian and had written dozens of Wikipedia articles covering Nazi Germany, the SS, and related subjects. The initial effort by XXXXX to discredit XXXXXX appears to have focused primarily on his World War II and Holocaust-related Wikipedia articles. There was also a brief effort outside Wikipedia to discredit books and papers written by XXXXXX, apparently assisted by a librarian from Canada named XXXXX, who was well known on Wikipedia for challenging articles about Nazi Germany. Around this same time, several of XXXXXX's published books had begun appearing as references on Wikipedia, but XXXXX immediately challenged them, claiming they were self-published and therefore unreliable."

> "Some of this dispute appears to have stemmed from disagreements over Holocaust history, while some of it may simply have reflected professional jealousy after XXXXXX's own books began appearing as cited sources on Wikipedia. In any event, the effort to discredit XXXXXX's publications backfired when the Canadian librarian XXXXX contacted several libraries, all of which rejected her cl aims. Later, the German editor XXXXX shifted his attention to the military awards and insignia articles but was quickly challenged by other Wikipedia editors, who recognized that those articles were part of a legitimate National Archives project. During the COVID-19 pandemic, around 2021-2022, the largest incident occurred when the German editor XXXXXX range-blocked every National Archives IP address on the east coast. This apparently was after a military history group asked questions regarding several articles and images that XXXXX had worked on years earlier as part of a project to upload captured German U-boat records to Wikipedia. XXXXX then accused the "OberRanks" account of being part of this history group and proceeded with the range block. By this point, XXXXXX was also being assisted by a man from the United Kingdom named XXXXXXX, who had joined Wikipedia after the OberRanks ban but had developed a strong animosity toward the National Archives staff whom he believed had operated that account. "

> "He was also one of the individuals XXXXX would later investigate on the Wikipedia Sucks website. Meanwhile, the National Archives IP range block attracted considerable attention, and both National Archives staff and government IT contractors contacted the Wikimedia Foundation about what had happened. The German editor XXXXX, assisted by XXXXX, responded with several lengthy posts on Wikipedia's noticeboards arguing that XXXXXXX, whom they believed was still operating the OberRanks account, was behind everything. Ironically, as I mentioned earlier, XXXXX had not been employed by the National Archives for several years by then. The range block was eventually lifted, but not before XXXXXX and XXXXXX had posted personal doxing information about XXXXXX on Wikipedia, which was later removed by the Wikipedia "Arbitration Committee", a volunteer group on Wikipedia (separate from the Wikipedia Foundation) in charge of serious issues on the various articles and forums."

> "During this same period, the British editor, XXXXXX, made statements about contacting National Archives leadership and suggested that he intended to travel to the United States to confront the person he believed to be OberRanks. These statements were immediately condemned by many Wikipedia editors, and XXXXXX was warned that he himself could face a site ban if he followed through with these plans. By the time I was contacted about all of this, there had been one further attempt on the Wikipedia Sucks website to revive the OberRanks dispute, primarily by posting the names and addresses of XXXXXX and his family. Since XXXXX had by then become a senior federal employee, the matter drew the attention of law enforcement on both sides of the Atlantic. The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division examined the Wikipedia Sucks website, while XXXXXX, a British citizen, was investigated by the United Kingdom's National Crime Agency under the Protection from Harassment Act. I believe this effectively brought the dispute to an end, since ever since then, there has been little further activity concerning the matter, either on Wikipedia or elsewhere on the Internet. "

> "Also, XXXXXX is now reportedly a senior case officer at the XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX, making any further harassment of him a far more serious matter than it might once have been. There is also an entirely separate aspect to this story involving an account named "Husnock," which appears to have existed for nearly twenty years before any of the OberRanks business took place. That account first appeared sometime between 2004 and 2006 and primarily edited Star Trek articles. I am fairly certain this original account was operated by an entirely different individual because the writing style, interests, editing patterns, and interactions were markedly different from those of the later OberRanks account. The Husnock account was later used as a template to start up the OberRanks account sometime in 2007. There was also a fifth individ ual, a private Navy history researcher named XXXXXX, who obtained the password to the OberRanks account when he was performing studies at the National Archives. This happened shortly before the account was banned around 2018. I was never able to learn much more about this last person because he passed away soon afterward. However, his family appears to have contacted Wikipedia with a ceaseand-desist letter around 2021, after several abusive messages were left on the OberRanks account's talk page. "

> "The Wikimedia Foundation later removed all of those messages through their redaction feature. To sum it all up, what began as an ordinary disagreement over Wikipedia content evolved into years of personal accusations, off-site harassment, doxing, law enforcement inquiries, and institutional involvement on both sides of the Atlantic. It remains one of the more unusual Internet disputes I have encountered in my work as a private investigator. A full case report is available through the normal channels, although no one has yet contacted me with a serious offer to purchase it.

> Keep up the good fight. -XXXX"