Last modified: 2005-04-29 16:44:32 UTC
Dear MediaZilla, I added Chester Himes to the list of Mystery Writers. I used the Wiki link at the end of the African American Writers' List. My new Dell Inspiron 1000 generated a strange bug. I am brand new to Wikipedia and I forgot to preview my change to the Mystery Writers list. When I pressed Save Page and looked at the list, to my terror many of the names were changed, in particular names beginning with the letter J. The site needs to be fixed right away; I don't know the names of the writers involved. I was quite scared and wrote a note on the discussion page. The bug concerned happens to me on my home computer often. I type in my name and the word mcgdm appears. I am new to computers and I am gradually finding out how to correct this problem. In my note I wrote that 'I promise not to participate in any Wiki work until this problem is solved.' Well, because I have a sense of this bug I broke my own promise and continued without incident. I added material to the discussion pages at Japanese Cinema and Edible Salt successfully. I began editing the discussion page at Citibank and was informed that my IP 152.163.100.203 was blocked. I had written the commonly known fact that Walter Wriston was the leader of the bank during the evolution of the modern consumer banking culture and during the introduction of the Automatic Telling Machine. The administrator who had blocked the IP Number was brian0918, I believe. I was using the IP number because I have cookie acceptance issues at this computer and had registered as McDogm and was told that an account had been set up. This I did this evening. In reporting the Mystery Writers List problem that spontaneously generated an hour ago my McDogm user name and password were not recognized. I created a MediaZilla account for myself using my hanzomon05@aol.com account and my real name, mcgd mcgdogm O'Toole. I realize this bug sounds a little bit like mcgdogm King. I hope I am not barred from editing at Wikipedia. I have a lot to offer in the way of Asia and popular culture. Please let me know if there is any problem.
As I review my letter, I see the letter transposition bug is present. My computer functions well in all other regards with the exception of the cookies issue. I am eager to continue participating in Wikipedia but if it is too difficult I will continue at some point in the future when the letter transposition bug is not present. Thanks for reading.
INVALID, take block complaints somewhere else, like to the WikiEN mailing list, see http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
If you really are having a problem with submitted text being changed, you may have a problem with malware / spyware / virus / etc. Try the appropriate virus checking and spyware removal tools (sorry I can't give a recommendation as these are generally Windows-specific problems).
(In reply to comment #3) > If you really are having a problem with submitted text being changed, you may have a problem with > malware / spyware / virus / etc. Try the appropriate virus checking and spyware removal tools (sorry I > can't give a recommendation as these are generally Windows-specific problems). For the record: "Ad-Aware" (from http://www.lavasoft.de/) and "Spybot Search&Destroy" (from http://www.safer-networking.org/) are generally recommended on the spyware/adware/etc front. You may have been given an anti-virus tool with your PC; if not, I'm afraid I don't know of any good free tools to recommend - a boxed copy of Norton or something from your local store may be worth the investment.
