This month of June I am going to write in detail about a controversial admin of the English Wikipedia, nicknamed Doug Weller and his group. His full name is Douglas Weller and was born in Miami (USA) 75 years ago. He lives as a retired person in Derbyshire (Great Britain) with his wife Helen and some dogs (no irony about his name "doug" being similar to "dog", of course). I am not going to write about his sexual orientation, because I respect everybody; but he has been harshly attacked by some persons like Matthew Hopkins (read details in
http://matthewhopkinsnews.com/?p=1736 ).
Hopkins wrote on his article titled "Paedophiles of Wikipedia" that admin Doug Weller -who is an 'Arbitration Committee member' of Wikipedia- "...should resign or be dismissed from ArbCom immediately. As for Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, he needs to immediately and permanently Block Doug Weller...." One of my friends (Vito G.) thinks that
Doug Weller is a "bully who believes the rules don't apply to him and he is always right" (a problem with many admins and arbs in general on Wikipedia).
Additionally Marinka van Dam wrote that "......
Doug Weller self-identifies on his user page only to the extent that he is an academic. His field would appear to be "Archaeology," though attempts to identify him from Google searches are inconclusive. A reasonable view would be that his claim to be an academic is authentic only to the extent that he holds a degree...Doug Weller has been outed by Examiner.com (archived) as falsely representing his expertise. He was defended in a blog by Jose Colavito. The matter was aired in a Wikipediocracy thread, eventually locked by a moderator. We don't believe Doug Weller significantly misrepresents his expertise, though as noted above his claim to be an academic appears to be a bit of a stretch. There is, however, a very hostile page about him at RationalWiki.....We believe the Wikipedia accounts Randy from Boise and Xanthomelanoussprog, both of which have trolled our editors, are socks of Doug Weller. We believe the moniker "Xanthomelanoussprog" is a jocular reference to Doug's sandy hair and florid complexion, as can be seen in the image he provides for his Academia.edu account." (read more, with his photo at http://marinkavandam.com/doug-weller.html )....."
Of course I have to admit that Doug Weller has been defending serious archaeology from many attacks (sometimes ridiculous), since the early 2000s at least: he has done a nice list of links at
http://www.ramtops.co.uk/ , even if a bit incomplete.
Anyway sometimes he falls in the ridiculous (for an academic from Yale, as he proudly states of himself: but he did only some courses!) like here in
http://www.atlantisquest.com/Sifrala.html#back1 : ..."Doug Weller, an editor on the Wikipedia staff, has made the totally unsupported statement that Mr. David Hatcher Childress (a proponent of ancient aircraft )
invented the Safr'ala, which would be quite an accomplishment, as Mr. Hatcher was born in 1957! He couldn't have been more than two years old when Dr. Ibn A'haron's translation of the Sifr'ala first appeared in print...."
In a few words Douglas Weller has also been defined as "....an
old, creaky, unrepentant Wikipedia administrator/crapmonkey from the UK. He's mainly interested in archaeology and anthropology.... He's been trolling
Usenet on the subject for more than 20 years, and left a trail of ruined careers and furious "actual experts" in his wake. (He claims he "dropped out of Yale" as if we were supposed to give him extra credit for failing.) On his user page, Doug tells us "he's number #190 in the list of most active wikipedians". Doug's flaws don't stop there - he's also a bitter old Lefty. Doug doesn't particularly like his own country or culture, and he uses wikipedia to express that attitude......" And -sincerely- this anti-American behavior could be defined as "Treason" by a US patriot!
Of course, Weller's authority at debunking "fringe archaeology" and other topics arises from his position as administrator and arbitrator at Wikipedia, where he has the power to wipe out whatever he disbelieves. And this aggressive "cancellation" is what happened to me when I wrote something about the possibility that the ancient Romans could have reached the Caribbean islands.
First of all I want to repeat and pinpoint in detail what has happened to me (nicknamed initially "Brunodam" since 2005) in Wikipedia when I was banned forever in 2007 in a shameful way:
".....Two relatives/friends from Italy came to spend a summer in 2007 at Brunodam's house in south Florida. They spent some months posting with him on Salerno topics on the Italian Wikipedia from his home (using his same modem, of course). An Italian wiki admin did not believe that they were 3 different persons and blocked them: they offered to send copies of their passports & identifications and to talk by phone to show that they were not the same persons, but he kept blocking them. Brunodam then got enraged and "hinted" (and it is noteworthy to pinpoint that he only HINTED the possibility) that he was thinking of getting help from an attorney in order to defend himself from these offensive accusations.......and suddenly he got BANNED FOREVER! No possibility of defending himself, and the same happened for his 2 relatives who got astonished by all this excessive punishment! Brunodam quickly wrote to the "bad & angry" Italian admin Trixt (decorated with the "evil" barnstar!
https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Utente:Trixt&diff=12537949&oldid=12410290 ), who banned him forever (
https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussioni_utente:Trixt&diff=next&oldid=7606637 ). He explained that he only hinted a selfdefense and did not want to menace a legal suit against the Italian wikipedia, and some time later he also wrote to Jimbo - the wiki founder (
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Brunodam&oldid=503819408 ) - when he was banned even in the English wikipedia for the same reason. But he got always blocked and blocked and blocked and blocked every tentative of communication and possible solution....Since then Brunodam -enraged by this complete lack of justice with him- started to write more and more on many wikipedias, as a reaction....."
Indeed I have written more than 130000 user contributions using many nicknames, but I have never "sabotaged" Wikipedia: all my writings were done in order to improve Wikipedia, mainly with articles related to Italy and to the fathers of the Italians, the old Romans. Last but not least it is noteworthy to pinpoint that I am graduated 'summa cum laude' from the Genova university (in northern Italy) and I have a MBA from a Los Angeles university (in California, USA): this fact means that I have plenty of knowledge about how to write articles with professionality (indeed I also published some works, edited by the Genova university).
Now let me explain all the astonishing mess around a few paragraphs I have added with my nicknames to an article called "Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories" (before reappeared steward Vituzzu, a Mafioso I have already denounced last February 2017
http://mynewbestarticles.blogspot.com/2017/02/many-critics-to-steward-vituzzu.html and in urgent need of psychiatric therapy according to a professor of the 'University Cattaneo'
http://mynewbestarticles.blogspot.com/2017/02/vito-cricca.html ):
All started because I added on may 25, 2017 this small excerpt quickly deleted by "Iamalwaysright" Doug Weller.
"....Furthermore, in a
Pompeii mural is seen a
pineapple (an american fruit) and even in the mosaic of the "Palazzo Massimo alle Terme" of Rome, a pineapple is visible
[89] These mosaics are considered proof of transatlantic commerce by some experts, like pomologist Domenico Casella
[90] Critics complain that the Pompeii "pineapple" is likely to be a pine
cone, but the shape seems to confirm to be an american fruit.....
Additionally other "pineapples" have been found, like the one in a Swiss museum [89]......"
And this is the photo -taken in a swiss museum- of a small statue of a roman boy with an ananas in his left hand: Doug Weller (and his group) seems to "hate" it because it is another proof that Ancient Romans had pineapples, an American fruit that was believed to have been brought to Europe from America only after Columbus discovery:
Now I want to make a few considerations about this image:
1) Romans were very realistic while pragmatically making their statues. So, they used to represent only something really important: why the statue should show a simple and very common pine cone? Nobody in Rome would appreciate this pine cone, of course! But an exotic fruit from distant shores would be proudly shown by a roman boy in a roman statue, don't you agree?
2) The roman boy in his right hand has something that looks like a dish (or a cover of a dish). May be he was a young servant bringing the pineapple to be eaten?
3) The pineapple looks very similar to a Puerto Rican pineapple called "Red Spanish". See image at the bottom of the article. To the reader the final judgement!
Finally, I want to add something I wrote in the discussion page of the wiki Noteboard and partially erased by Doug Weller (because evidently he cannot accept that he is wrong sometimes):
A)...."....Sincerely I only added some information about "another pineapple". I don't want to promote any "fringe theory"! I think that Elio Cadelo is a famous journalist in Italy (of the RAI, the official Italian Radio-TV institution: he is "Scrittore, Caporedattore giornale radio Rai per la scienza e l'ambiente") who is well accepted & judged in historian circles of Italy. So, for me he is a "Reliable source for claims of other pineapples: Elio Cadelo has won the Premio ENEA 1999 (please read
https://www.ibs.it/libri/autori/Elio%20Cadelo", as I wrote). Here it is a video where Cadelo comments his book about the Romans in America in the "Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici e Geografici":
[13]. It is in Italian, but I can give a translation if requested. Anyway, I just wanted to add this information...and nothing else....(but allow me to add that the pineapple shown in the hands of the roman kid inside the Geneva museum (see
http://www.lsdmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/resizephp.jpg and that was quickly made disappear by Doug Weller) has no round "grapes" near his hand like the wine-grape fruit, but "rectangular pieces" that looks astonishingly similar to this photo of an
ananas:
https://avatanplus.com/files/resources/mid/573ecbf4cac11154cd4cb45e.png 
). And we know that ananas is a fruit that can survive many weeks of travel, with only the loss of the green leaves....So, I think this Wikipedia article must add evidences like these pineapples and not only evidences about "Claims involving California canoes" & "Claims involving chickens". Regards to all of you...."
B)...."...So, in your opinion what is in the hands of the roman kid? At this point I like to leave all this mess. All this attacks -that is what I feel, sincerely- are on a simple refusal to allow that something roman can have reached America, but if it is Phoenician or Chinese or Polynesian....well that's acceptable. This reminds me the discussion (on academic circles, of course) about the latin word "perdomita", related to the fact that Britain -according to Tacitus who wrote "Britannia perdomita, sed olim missa est" (Britain was totally conquered but quickly was lost)- was fully conquered by the roman Agricola. As you probably know the british circles of historians linked to the "glory" of the British empire cannot accept that the word perdomita is made in latin from the words "PERfecta DOMInaTA" (meaning 'completely dominated' in classical latin) and so they deny the total conquest of Britain by Agricola. So, as written before, I like to leave all this mess & these attacks: I semi-retire from Wikipedia...."
C)...."...So some users and admin Doug Weller have obtained to impose what they wanted. Congratulations....But at the end nobody has answered my question: in your opinion what is in the hands of the roman kid in the Geneva museum?......obviously it can be ONLY an ananas from America! My last four cents with the same words of Galileo to the abuses of the Inquisition: EPPUR SI MUOVE....and at the end all of us admit that he was right!. So, in a similar way I am sure soon or later the truth about these pineapples in roman hands will come out.."
D)...."... I am totally sure it is an ananas, because of the pineapple rectangular pieces near the kid hand that cannot be dimples grapes but only pieces of leaves in the first stages of decomposition (probably this fruit was many weeks old). Here it is an image that shows the leaves falling: the first line of leaves covers the top of the ananas "dimples" (
[17]). I also remember the ananas of the Geneva museum was very similar to those imported from Puerto Rico: it is a species of pineapple imported in Switzerland.
As we know Christopher Columbus introduced pineapples to Europe when he brought one as a gift to Spain's Queen Isabella from the island of Guadeloupe in 1493. The Spanish, who were greatly intrigued by the exotic appearance of pineapples, first named it “Pine of the Indies” because of its resemblance to a pine cone. The "ananas comosus" is the scientific name of this tropical fruit, and the most famous species in Europe is the one imported from the Caribbean: the "Red Spanish" (like the one shown at the bottom of this article, and that is very similar to the one in the Swiss Musem). But admin Doug Weller may also deny all these facts, who knows?
Another thing that strikes me it is that this 'Iamalwaysright' Doug Weller works in the article called "Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories" in complete symbiosis with a group of wikipedians (like the "human rat" nicknamed User:MjolnirPants and others like
User:Agricolae,
User:Gamall Wednesday Ida and partially even
User:Slatersteven) . Of course, we all know that this in Wikipedia is called MEAT PUPPETRY! Indeed the Wikipedia rules are that "
additional users who engage in the same behavior as an user in the same context, and who appear to be editing a Wikipedia article solely for the purpose of promoting the cause of this user, are doing something ILLEGAL that has the name "Meat puppetry" (and they can also be accused of doing "Canvassing") ". But Doug Weller seems enraged only if somebody like me- forced to use many nicknames since 2007, because of the lack of justice that I have shown above- does the so called sock puppetry.
Evidently the wiki rules apply for others (who do sock puppetry as the only way to defend themselves inside wikipedia) but not for him (who does meat puppetry in a shamelessly way).....Honestly, this is a strange kind of interpretation of the justice, typical of some wiki admins with their abuses!!!
Semi-protected for a period of 2 days, after which the page will be automatically unprotected. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 15:21, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
![[17]](https://images.hayneedle.com/mgen/imagebywidth.ms?img=master:LB096.jpg&w=1000&minh=600&maxh=1200){kind=link}