Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Mmbabies

Mmbabies
Shortcut: WP:LTA/MMB
Original name(s)	Mmbabies
Wikilifespan	January 29, 2007 - March 17, 2008; November 2009 - 2014; September 2018 - present
ISP	AT&T Yahoo! DSL/AT&T Internet Services
Known IPs	Usually on the Houston node of AT&T's network, 200+ IP's; also the Alief Independent School District and Harris County DoE networks
Physical location	Houston & Alief, Texas
Instructions	Revert and block on sight, non-administrators report to WP:AIV
Status	Unknown

Mmbabies (talk · contribs · block log · arb · SPI^confirmed_suspected) is a prolific vandal who frequently adds nonsense and outright fabrication to many articles. This behavior earned them an indefinite block on February 12, 2007. Following continued vandalism by way of dozens of anonymous IPs, they were banned by the community on March 30, 2007.

Since then, they continued the pattern of disruptive editing—sometimes on a daily and sometimes on a weekly basis. They edit primarily from AT&T's DSL network in the Houston, Texas area. As this is the largest DSL provider in Houston, at times the collateral damage from his blocked IPs leaves portions of that city unable to edit Wikipedia.

Due to their abusive edits, particularly their threats to the lives of celebrities (see below), numerous complaints were made to AT&T by both administrators and regular users. These complaints went unanswered. As a result, range blocks were put on almost 7,200 IP addresses within AT&T's Houston address space (dsl.hstntx.swbell.net), requiring all users in that range to create an account in order to edit Wikipedia. A semi-protect wall was set up on all pages relating to Houston television. However, he has since moved on to other stations across the country.

Since March 2008 they seemed to cool down, but tested the waters as of November 2009 on the article for Oxygen with the insertion of their usual 'dream lineup' of programming into that article, followed by a late June 2010 flareup with the usual MO on the Houston television articles. As of April 2015 however, their vandalism was very sporadic in the last three years, and it can be assumed that they've either become disinterested in the work it takes to round vandalism blocks, only popping up in the rare case they find a computer with full IP access, grown up and moved on (depending on their age), some other action has taken place to limit their computer use, made up a new persona to vandalize with, or found a new diversion rather than vandalizing here.

After a long hiatus, around the end of September 2018, they began to make an attempt to return, this time taking advantage of IPv6 addresses, still on AT&T and within metro Houston. The vandalism is much lighter and compared to the usual general vandalism seen now, is benign compared to their 2007 peak (and easier to revert with common tools unavailable a decade ago), but still within their usual haunts such as Gospel Bill and Oxygen.

Modus operandi

Mmbabies vandalizes articles by adding nonsense and random typing into articles. He makes it more difficult to enforce the community ban by using anonymous IPs to bounce around, making long-term blocks ineffective.

Articles

Their main focus has been on creating an alternate reality of their own doing involving the television and radio stations in the Houston area, such as claiming that Fox owned and operated station KRIV is actually owned by and carries the defunct WB network (note that the network never owned any of their affiliates), and that KHCW is a Trinity Broadcasting Network station, with TBN's KETH as the market's CW affil. KYAZ, the former KEWS-TV at the time of their worst sprees was not an independent station, but carried The WB, CBS, ABC, and Fox, and has the Gulf Coast Weather Authority branding used by KRIV, while Univision's KXLN carries MyNetworkTV, not KTXH. This edit of the Houston TV template shows their main imaginary Houston channel map.
- Some of these edits also involved stations not located in the Houston market -- Dallas / Fort Worth and Bakersfield in particular. In some of these edits, they also implemented the Gulf Coast Weather Authority slogan, even though the station being edited is located nowhere near the Gulf Coast. Also will occasionally use stations not in the state of Texas, as displayed here.
Insists there is a fictional program called Maniac Mansion Babies based on the game (and the inspiration for their original account's username) which aired on various networks since the early 80s (and that the game was created in 1981, not 1987). To bring this across, they inserted the now-deleted image Commodore 64 cover art for the game constantly into other articles such as Muppet Babies and Superbook.
Vandalizes articles about Christian television programs such as Gospel Bill and The Flying House with other images and fictional network/station affiliations.
Insists other network shows (such as Matt Houston) premiered and aired on religious broadcasters, some which did not exist at the time of its original ABC run.
Constant references to two specific public service announcements as television shows; the End Abuse campaign for the Family Violence Prevention Fund, and a late 80's recruitment commercial (RealVideo) for the Marines (referred by them as the one with the lady making the sword), utilizing the PSA's script constantly in edits and edit summaries.
Seems to have an odd fixation on using images of food to do incorrect "math" to assert their alternate Houston TV reality.
Is aggressive to other editors cleaning up their vandalism; a constant edit summary seems to be stupid (bleep)-hole from KETH TV-39 (which is actually channel 14), and calling Azumanga1 a f***ing lady when his edits were reverted by that editor. Other times though, they tries to come across as an innocent party asking if there's a channel 46 in Houston (there is not), and asked an editor how they knew about the PSA scripts mentioned above while mentioning fictitious Houston channels, although the editor asked lives in Wisconsin. (It should be known that some of the PSAs Mmbabies were referring to, especially the one involving the Marines, were seen on stations nationwide.)
Also suggested that all of the Houston television stations and many key celebrities "live" in one apartment complex, often with several living in a single apartment. ([1])
Has made death threats against Juan Gabriel, Enrique Iglesias‎, Nicole C. Mullen, Kellie Copeland-Kutz (daughter of Kenneth) ,Christina Aguilera, and in more recent edits, Lisa Bevere. They also displayed what could either be condoned as cannibalism or sex towards Beyoncé, who is from Houston. They also had a particularly vicious desire to see Kellie Copeland dead because of a "bad rendition" of a song on Gospel Bill. Has also targeted Kenneth in some edits and in some cases even included Gloria and John.
- In addition, put a death threat on the talk page of Ray Charles, who had already died three years ago at the time of the edit, and also Johnny Cash. As per this edit in this talk page, they are apparently well-aware of their deaths.
- In this death threat against Roberto Carlos, quoted from Who Framed Roger Rabbit and then the ticket pitch for The Price is Right, with Bob Barker/Drew Carey's name replaced by Kellie Copeland and the CBS Television City address with an address in Houston.
Some of the material used in vandalism, including brief descriptions of TPIR's pricing games and outcome references (such as "PAINFUL LOSS"), seemed to be lifted directly from golden-road.net, a fan site that includes daily rundowns of the show's episodes. Following Mmbabies' misappropriation of golden-road material, the author of the recaps began to insert a disclaimer, REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED WITHOUT AUTHOR PERMISSION. into his recaps. It is unknown if Mmbabies' actions motivated them to add the disclaimer.
Some bizarre edits include quotes from films, such as a quote from The Mask used in a death threat against the animated character Fievel Mousekewitz on the An American Tail talk page. They also frequently insert quotes from The Simpsons, generally those involving Montgomery Burns and his lackey, Waylon Smithers.
Occasionally has edits and summaries which suggest they are an evangelical Christian (for example, the lyrics for the opening of TBN's Praise the Lord).
Has also given out personal information about bus drivers in the Alief Independent School District on several pages; AISD subsequently lost IP-editing privileges to Wikipedia to protect the privacy of their employees.
Vandalizing the page of the late KTRK-TV reporter Marvin Zindler with an image of Pokemon's Tracey Sketchit.
Changes the birthdate of celebrities, usually by two years, and changes the list of births on the affected dates' pages.
Changed the content on Spectrum Sports (Florida), a now-defunct Tampa Bay area sports cable channel known in the past as "Catch 47", to that of the book Catch-22, and vice versa.
Actually revealed a password when they asked an admin to unblock them a few times.
As of October 2007, they also frequently used talk pages to make new articles of either ridiculous or non-notable subjects, including very minor people involved in Houston media. Since these talk pages have no article attached to them, they are generally nominated for speedy deletion, per Wikipedia policy.
- Through this behavior, they added content to talk pages for non-existent amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which were "added" up to 52, their fictional channel for Dallas' KDFI (in reality, the channel for KFWD). This was seen on this edit to the Gospel Bill talk page.
- During the 2007 Christmas season, they also added 25 ridiculous and, in some cases, unsavory, lyrics to The Twelve Days of Christmas, totaling 37. The rationale behind that number is unknown, though it's likely to be derived from adding KRIV (26) with KHOU (11).
A death threat by Mmbabies against singer/actress Jaci Velasquez was reported to Plano, Texas' police department by editor Yamla.
On occasion, they utilized the talk pages of other banned users. On March 17, 2008, they used the talk page of banned user Msm2007 to announce his latest death threat to Julio Iglesias. Msm's M.O. does not match that of Mmbabies, as Msm generally edits only to spread racial epithets.

Editing style

Adds random typing to articles
At times makes nonsensical unblock requests (such as "Screw you hippies")
Appears to like to "play cat-and-mouse" with admins. Such as [2]
May also make death threats against other editors, usually in edit summaries, though.

IP addresses

Although there were two IP's in the 202. range (both with the AISD), mainly the IP activities are in the sixties to seventies starting octets. See Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Mmbabies. Most of their IPs have been registered to AT&T in the Houston, Texas area, but he once used a Tor node.

WP:ABUSE

An abuse report was filed on April 10 and accepted for investigation on September 5. The investigation was completed September 6, and contact has been opened with the ISP as detailed at the bottom of the abuse report. AT&T's only response to date (21:20, 10 September 2007 (UTC)) was an automated reply stating the original complaint has been received and that they would likely not be responding further.

Another abuse report was filed by Rio de oro on February 2, 2008. It was investigated by GO-PCHS-NJROTC and the issue was reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Texas State Attorney General, the Texas Rangers (a law enforcement group in the state of Texas), the Alief Independent School District, and AT&T. An autoreply was received from AT&T stating that the complaint was recieved and they would only reply if they needed more information to take action. No further replies have occurred. A second report was filed by GO-PCHS-NJROTC on February 24, 2008. The Houston PD was contacted, along with the IC3 federal site.

Other notes

Several of the IP's used are registered to AT&T or SBC, the former name of AT&T
Mainly they proxies and IP addresses, but there has been only one account other than User:Mmbabies used: User:Noblestone
Mmbabies once reported themselves to the AIV.
Under an IP sock, Mmbabies edited this very LTA page with "corrections", twice. Due to this, semi-protection has since been placed on the page.
They also edited the LTA's talk page, adding and refactoring comments.
When this page was posted, they increased his vandalism to using two or more IP's per day.
Once when asked "Why do you keep doing this?", answered "Because it's wrong.", which is also a paraphrase of a quote used by the character Hollywood in Two Stupid Dogs.
Tried to leave a final warning message on an IP used by fellow sockpuppeter User:Dingbat2007.
IP address 68.90.232.123 was also used by another sock, Mariam83. However, it is belived that neither Mmbabies nor Mariam83 are related.

Recent sock puppets

Modus operandi

Articles

Editing style

IP addresses

WP:ABUSE

Other notes

Recent sock puppets

September 2018

April 2012

December 2010

November 2010

October 2010

September 2010

August 2010

July 2010

November 2009

March 2008

February 2008

January 2008

December 2007

November 2007

October 2007

September 2007