Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Tran Van Ba

message: I don't know where to put this, but it doesn't seem to belong in the main RFC article. It is a rather strange story which, if true, would not only be grounds for permanently blocking "Tran Van Ba", "Celindgren", and 198.26.120.13, but also might conceivably involve Wikipedia in a legal dispute involving identity theft - which is why I'm now posting it here after much hesitation.
Background: Last month several other editors and I had to revert a lot of vandalism by User:Celindgren - POV edits and linkspamming in virtually every Vietnam-related article. Anonymous user 198.26.120.13 was making similar edits at the same time. Celindgren's user page identified him as Dr. C. E. Magnus Lindgren, a history professor at American Military University ().
In response to my comments on Celindgren's talk page, I got a private E-mail on August 16 (clarification: it was sent via the Wikipedia "E-mail this user" feature), with Dr. Lindgren's return E-mail address and signed "Dr. C. E. Magnus Lindgren". It was a defense of the edits in question, but very hard to understand and written in oddly poor English for an American Ph.D.; in fact the writing style strongly resembled that of "Tran Van Ba" and 198.26.120.13. I replied on Celindgren's talk page, asking him to spell out his responses there rather than in private E-mail. The talk page was immediately deleted. There were no further edits by Celindgren, and User:Tran Van Ba began his editing career shortly thereafter.
At the time, noting that both Dr. Lindgren and Tran Van Ba are apparently associated with the Vietnamese Constitutional Monarchist League, I guessed that perhaps Dr. Lindgren had been letting Mr. Tran use his computer while still logged into Wikipedia under his own name. In fact there had been an early edit by Celindgren (a comment on Wikipedia:Help desk) that looked like a legitimate message from a scholar, before all the vandalism started.
New allegations: Today, as I was puzzled and frustrated by "Tran Van Ba"'s behavior and thought it might just be a sign that he does not understand what Wikipedia is for, I wrote a private E-mail to Dr. Lindgren. I said that if he currently had any professional association with Mr. Tran, he might want to talk to him about this behavior which tends not to put the V.C.M.L. in a good light; I suggested that he might be unaware of some of the edits that were being made from his computer. I cc'd this message to the E-mail given by "Tran Van Ba" on the V.C.M.L. website.
I just received a response from Dr. Lindgren; I'm waiting for his permission to post it in full. In summary, he states that "Tran Van Ba" is really a different person (whom he names), an employee of the V.C.M.L. who has been impersonating both Dr. Lindgren and the real Tran Van Ba for several months on various websites. Dr Lindgren states that this has caused harm to his reputation and forced him to resign his official position with the V.C.M.L., and that he may be pursuing legal action against this person. ←Hob 07:29, 2004 Sep 13 (UTC)
===Assistance to table (Tran Van Ba)===
I was contact by Tran Van Ba concerning the Biographies I had sent to him.
He told me that the articles were not being acceptable because of non-neutral.
He had thought that Asian was not wanted and felt that it was not fair, and I can see that the reasons was that he was just not aware of what non-neutral means and the truth is two different aspects.
I have been reading the feedback and I agree that there was a language barrier and I will assist in fixing the biographies pertaining to his additions to Wikipedia. Jimmyvanthach  Jimmyvanthach
:Well, since he has now posted his own name here, I guess I can go ahead and say that Van Thach is the person Dr. Lindgren has accused (by name) of impersonating him and Tran Van Ba. If that is true, Van Thach is not only using multiple false identities on Wikipedia, but has sent me an E-mail falsely claiming to be Dr. Lindgren as described above. Obviously, this is an entirely different issue than the neutrality/language question Van Thach is responding to here. I would appreciate some outside comment on this matter as soon as possible. ←Hob 17:31, 2004 Sep 13 (UTC)
:Also, I know I've risked personalizing this dispute by involving myself in a side E-mail discussion, but I'd like to make it clear that at no point did I claim to speak for Wikipedia in any official capacity. In fact, my last E-mail to Lindgren and Tran began with the words "I'm writing to you as a volunteer editor on Wikipedia, not speaking in any official capacity, simply in hopes of clearing up some difficulties." Van Thach is now going around on talk pages and E-mail describing me as a "Wikipedia representative", which is not appropriate. ←Hob 17:34, 2004 Sep 13 (UTC)
===I have been asked to help===
Tran Van Ba had sent me a email concerning the biographies I sent him were not neutral.
I had written them since he asked me, and sent them to his email.
He wrote me a email today requesting that I sign on to fix the question of them not being neutral since of the language barrier.
I have also sent a copy of this email to User:Hob and I can post it here if requested.
I will fix Tran Van Ba's biography and also I have read the neutral terms and am aware why the articles that I sent to Tran Van Ba and he posted was not acceptable by the guidelines.
Jimmyvanthach  Jimmyvanthach
:If I understand correctly, Jimmyvanthach is saying that he is the author of the problematic text posted by Tran Van Ba - either all of it, or a significant part of it. That is an odd statement to make, because (a) it implies that Tran Van Ba had no understanding of Wikipedia and was simply pasting in text while ignoring repeated complaints from other editors, which is hardly a good defense of his behavior; (b) as is documented in the Evidence section of this complaint, many of the disputed biographies were copied verbatim from other websites, clearly not written by Jimmyvanthach. In any case, I don't know why Tran Van Ba can't speak for himself in this forum, unless he (like "Celindgren") is going to stop editing now. And if he does not speak English well enough to understand Wikipedia guidelines (despite the verbose and sometimes abusive comments he has posted to others), then he probably should stop editing until this changes. ←Hob 23:39, 2004 Sep 13 (UTC)
:Also, I should point out that it is trivially easy for a sysop to determine whether "Tran Van Ba", "Jimmyvanthach", and "Celindgren" are all operating from the same IP address. If Jimmyvanthach was really E-mailing text to Tran Van Ba for him to post, then obviously they would not have the same IP address.
:I also don't know why Van Thach finds it necessary to send me multiple private E-mails, since I am clearly present on this discussion page. I have asked him to stop. ←Hob 23:43, 2004 Sep 13 (UTC)
===email sent to all parties===
I had recieve email from user with intials E.B and I replied to him, he was concerned of the postings was me, which I admitted, in the return email to him and I C.C. to Dr. Lindgren and also to Van Thach, that is what I did in reply to him, for his answer. Tran Van Ba 00:09, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Much more serious allegations about "Tran Van Ba"

message: I had recieve email from user with intials E.B and I replied to him, he was concerned of the postings was me, which I admitted, in the return email to him and I C.C. to Dr. Lindgren and also to Van Thach, that is what I did in reply to him, for his answer. Tran Van Ba 00:09, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: email sent to all parties

message: I was not asked quesitions of one person but of many of my posting I post and it was not in a light that I felt was fair. It was the fact I was unaware of the guidlines and mis-understood the process, of which I am aware, I have read and understand the mediator part was not a trial to convict but mediator. I feel that what user said before people need to cool down is correct and I jump to conclusion, I am aware of it now. Tran Van Ba 00:15, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Felt of NON-Fairness

message: What IPs are User:Tran Van Ba and User:Jimmyvanthach editing from? I think they're the same, they both appear to write in similar styles and are never around at the same time.  Dunc_Harris|☺ 11:27, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Seemed pretty obvious to me when vanthach showed up out of nowhere to defend everything Tran had done. -- Cyrius|✎ 04:41, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sockpuppets 

message: User:216.183.37.82 user talk:216.183.37.82 special:contributions/216.183.37.82 has just come in with some edits and he thinks this is all wrong. Dunc_Harris|☺ 10:43, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:216.183.37.82]]