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[–]voregeois 2661 points2662 points  (37 children)

this is going to be one of those useless pieces of knowledge that I can't forget and bring up drunk at parties I know it

[–]b0b10b1aws1awb10g[S] 670 points671 points  (9 children)

It's been mine for years

[–]voregeois 422 points423 points  (6 children)

this is a disease and you've exposed us all

[–]b0b10b1aws1awb10g[S] 426 points427 points  (5 children)

Believe it or not, strangers at parties tend to lose interest after the first 20 min or so. I thought I would bring this to the one community that I knew wouldn't rest until we found answers

[–]Cityslicker100200 38 points39 points  (0 children)

You made it 20 minutes??

[–]SundaySermon 71 points72 points  (1 child)

20 minutes is all you need.

[–]musicaldigger 43 points44 points  (0 children)

i feel like it’s a story that can be told in one sentence honestly, still fun trivia though

[–]NoviceCaprica 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Thank you! This is bizarre and fascinating!

[–][deleted] 150 points151 points  (20 children)

Hey, you know Pac-Man's name actually comes from the japanese Paku-Paku which means jamming your mouth open and shut?

[–]voregeois 135 points136 points  (8 children)

koalas are so stupid that if you take leaves off the tree they wont eat them because they can't tell its food anymore

[–]Pure_Reason 290 points291 points  (5 children)

Koalapasta

Koalas are fucking horrible animals. They have one of the smallest brain to body ratios of any mammal, additionally - their brains are smooth. A brain is folded to increase the surface area for neurons. If you present a koala with leaves plucked from a branch, laid on a flat surface, the koala will not recognise it as food. They are too thick to adapt their feeding behaviour to cope with change. In a room full of potential food, they can literally starve to death. This is not the token of an animal that is winning at life. Speaking of stupidity and food, one of the likely reasons for their primitive brains is the fact that additionally to being poisonous, eucalyptus leaves (the only thing they eat) have almost no nutritional value. They can’t afford the extra energy to think, they sleep more than 80% of their fucking lives. When they are awake all they do is eat, shit and occasionally scream like fucking satan. Because eucalyptus leaves hold such little nutritional value, koalas have to ferment the leaves in their guts for days on end. Unlike their brains, they have the largest hind gut to body ratio of any mammal. Many herbivorous mammals have adaptations to cope with harsh plant life taking its toll on their teeth, rodents for instance have teeth that never stop growing, some animals only have teeth on their lower jaw, grinding plant matter on bony plates in the tops of their mouths, others have enlarged molars that distribute the wear and break down plant matter more efficiently... Koalas are no exception, when their teeth erode down to nothing, they resolve the situation by starving to death, because they’re fucking terrible animals. Being mammals, koalas raise their joeys on milk (admittedly, one of the lowest milk yields to body ratio... There’s a trend here). When the young joey needs to transition from rich, nourishing substances like milk, to eucalyptus (a plant that seems to be making it abundantly clear that it doesn’t want to be eaten), it finds it does not have the necessary gut flora to digest the leaves. To remedy this, the young joey begins nuzzling its mother’s anus until she leaks a little diarrhoea (actually fecal pap, slightly less digested), which he then proceeds to slurp on. This partially digested plant matter gives him just what he needs to start developing his digestive system. Of course, he may not even have needed to bother nuzzling his mother. She may have been suffering from incontinence. Why? Because koalas are riddled with chlamydia. In some areas the infection rate is 80% or higher. This statistic isn’t helped by the fact that one of the few other activities koalas will spend their precious energy on is rape. Despite being seasonal breeders, males seem to either not know or care, and will simply overpower a female regardless of whether she is ovulating. If she fights back, he may drag them both out of the tree, which brings us full circle back to the brain: Koalas have a higher than average quantity of cerebrospinal fluid in their brains. This is to protect their brains from injury... should they fall from a tree. An animal so thick it has its own little built in special ed helmet. I fucking hate them.

Tldr; Koalas are stupid, leaky, STI riddled sex offenders. But, hey. They look cute. If you ignore the terrifying snake eyes and terrifying feet.

[–]happysisyphos 72 points73 points  (0 children)

D E S G U S T Ä N G

[–]TrueCrimeandCoffee 41 points42 points  (0 children)

The resentment you feel is palpable yet wildly informative. Thank you, you incredible person. 😂🤘🏻

[–]CrimeGeek 81 points82 points  (0 children)

Did a koala kill your family?

[–]PM_ME_SEXY_MONSTERS 7 points8 points  (0 children)

TIL that there's an animal out there even more "cute yet useless" than pandas.

[–]Kwindecent_exposure 77 points78 points  (1 child)

To be fair, Koala’s are astonishingly useless and apathetic creatures. That said, they’re in serious threat of going extinct in the very near future due to town planning committees that are even more useless and apathetic. It’s a bit of a tragedy.

[–]Kwindecent_exposure 59 points60 points  (3 children)

Actually, it’s short for Programmed And Controlled Man.

[–]SightWithoutEyes 61 points62 points  (2 children)

You know what Pac stands for? P-A-C. Program and Control. He’s Program and Control Man. The whole thing’s a metaphor. All he can do is consume. He’s pursued by demons that are probably just in his own head. And even if he does manage to escape by slipping out one side of the maze, what happens? He comes right back in the other side. People think it’s a happy game. It’s not a happy game. It’s a fucking nightmare world. And the worst thing is? It’s real and we live in it.

[–]SundaySermon 34 points35 points  (2 children)

Yeah, they changed it because they thought Puck-Man would be too easy to vandalize, you know, like people could just scratch off the P and turn it into an F or whatever.

[–]RedditIsNeat0 10 points11 points  (0 children)

If video games influenced real life behavior then Gen Xers would be popping pills and running away from their problems.

[–]freeeeels 80 points81 points  (2 children)

There doesn't seem to be a Russian version of the page. Tempted to create one. If other people can pitch in with other languages, we can try to make this guy overtake Jesus.

[–]Ox_Baker 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Esperanto or GTFO.

[–][deleted] 6504 points6505 points 3 (300 children)

TLDR:

  • The Corbin Bleu Writer goes by the alias "Chace Watson" in the English Wikipedia, "Zimmer611" in the Arabic Wikipedia, and uses IP accounts for most other Wikipedias.

  • He has been banned from the English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons for vandalism and trying to evade bans by using alt accounts.

  • On the Arabic Wikipedia, the Arabic-language Corbin Bleu article that he wrote was judged to be of Featured Article quality, meaning it's one of the best articles in that language's Wikipedia.

  • Strangely, one of his English Wikipedia userpages claims that he is a "pro-cannabis" "advanced gamer" born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1987, and barely speaks Arabic. He was writing the Arabic-language Featured Article for Corbin Bleu at the same time that he rated himself a 1 out of 5 on Arabic.

  • The user's IP address is always from Saudi Arabia, never from Germany.

  • The user doesn't have a dedicated account he uses to edit the German Wikipedia's article on Corbin Bleu, despite this supposedly being his native language.

  • The user's original Arabic-language userpage claims he's a German named Mike James Thomas, who went to med school in the UK and learned Arabic from his father who worked in Dubai. He also lists the Arab countries he's visited. Nothing is ever said about Saudi Arabia, the country he's apparently been based in for the past decade.

  • His edit history on the English Wikipedia show that his written English was terrible (doubled quotation marks, "won't" but with the apostrophe after the "t") and his choice of vocabulary was super tween-ish (describes someone's clothing as "a sexy black dress" in a fucking Wikipedia article), which is again pretty odd for someone who claims to have gone to Belfast med school.

Let's look at a few WP articles for Corbin Bleu:

  • Cornish, a language every speaker of which speaks English better. Article made in 2014 by user whose IP address is 2.90.32.110. This IP address seems to be from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The article has not been edited by anyone else. It seems to say "Corbin Bleu Reivers is a celebrated American actor."

  • Old English, the medieval language Beowulf is written in. Article made in 2009 by user whose IP address is 78.93.162.64. This IP address is also from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In its original version the article said (in Old English) "Corbin Bleu Rivers is an American singer and actress known for her work with Disney."

  • Korean, one of the two languages I speak at a native level. Article made in 2009 by a user whose IP address is 77.64.10.40. This IP address is also from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Now I actually speak Korean, and I can tell you that the original version is pretty obviously Google Translated. There are obvious grammatical mistakes with every other word.

  • Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. The "article" has nothing but Corbin Bleu's name and his date of birth. Made in 2010 by 77.64.11.118, also Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

  • Arabic, the language of Saudi Arabia. Now, I have no idea how to read Arabic, but there's a little star next to it meaning that it's a Featured Article in the Arabic Wikipedia, one of the best articles in that language's version of Wikipedia. If you check it out, the article is pretty long, seems well-written (again, I don't speak Arabic), and has 96 references. Clearly somebody speaking Arabic took a lot of effort to write this. In the early history of the article, all the edits are from users using three different IP addresses. All three are from Saudi Arabia (two from Riyadh and one from Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia).

Up to this point I thought this was just a troll using VPNs from Saudi Arabia, but I actually think there's a dedicated fan of Corbin Bleu from Saudi Arabia who wanted to make sure there were Wikipedia articles for their idol in every language possible and also spent a few dozen hours working on the Arabic-language article.

E1: A few other languages:

E2: What I don't understand is why the person bothers to change IP addresses. Apparently IP addresses can change on their own.

E3: A study of the history of the Arabic-language version of the Corbin Bleu article, with the caveat that I don't speak Arabic:

  • This person created the article on August 23, 2009, using three IP addresses from Riyadh.

  • On August 27, this person switched to the IP address 78.93.229.228, from Turaif, Saudi Arabia, and made one minor edit. 78.93.229.228's only other contribution is having made a minor edit on the Arabic-language article for "video clip" on August 7, 2009.

  • On September 3, the person made a bunch of edits using another IP address from Riyadh.

  • On September 7, the person added a load of stuff using the IP address 78.93.223.205, also from Riyadh.

  • On September 8, one minor edit using the IP address 78.93.65.241, from Riyadh.

So basically this keeps going. The dude switches IP addresses every one or two days, but they're always from various cities in Saudi Arabia, almost always Riyadh. E: This is normal, I just didn't know a single thing about how computers work. This continues until March 2010.

In April 2010, User:Zimmer611 takes over and makes a bunch of edits, including cutting out a lot of what mysterious-IP-address-guy added. His userpage suggests that this guy is really enthusiastic about Wikipedia and palm trees.

User:Zimmer611's userpage lists the Corbin Bleu article as one of his works, but I don't think there's enough evidence to connect him to mysterious-IP-person. For one, both Zimmer611 and Mysterious Saudi Bleu Fan seem to still be active.

(FYI, Zimmer611 claims to be "an advanced gamer" from Leipzig, Germany.)

Edit: See below, Zimmer611 is very likely the same person as Mysterious Saudi Guy.

E4: The main contributor to the English-language Corbin Bleu article, User:Chace Watson, was banned in 2009 for 1) adding copyrighted material 2) adding fan-sites to the infobox 3) using sockpuppets (alt accounts) to go around bans. Coincidence?

E5: Major Discovery.

E7: While Zimmer610 was banned in the English Wikipedia, in the Arabic Wikipedia he actually has rollback privileges, which means that he can revert consecutive edits at once.

Some remaining questions:

  • Is Chace Watson/Zimmer610 actually from Saudi Arabia, or from Leipzig, Germany?

  • What's the point?

  • Why did he vandalize the English-language article for Cobin Bleu while working so hard on the Arabic one?

[–]paroles 3334 points3335 points  (58 children)

Everything else aside, can we just appreciate the fact that we live in a world where there is a Wikipedia article in Old English about High School Musical star Corbin Bleu? Like, just imagine trying to explain that concept to any speaker of Old English. Lmao

[–]b0b10b1aws1awb10g[S] 1617 points1618 points  (38 children)

Corbin Bleu, thee fammed starr of ye olde Haus Skøllen Musikyl*

Not actually Old English

[–][deleted] 548 points549 points  (32 children)

Corbin Blu, hēa scōl musikales hlīsful hād

[–]poor_decisions 324 points325 points  (31 children)

Whan that apreel with is shores sota, that Corbin Blu hath perced to the rota

[–]ialwaysforgetmename 102 points103 points  (26 children)

You had to memorize it too?

[–]poor_decisions 75 points76 points  (14 children)

YES

[–]Don_Bardo 50 points51 points  (9 children)

Username checks out.

[–]kx2w 75 points76 points  (8 children)

Hey! I'm a wildly successful English major.

*An English major

*I'm English

Ok, American

[–]dusmeyedin 141 points142 points  (7 children)

I did my Bachelor's in English Literature. Killed my love of fiction.

I did my Masters in Journalism. Killed my love of non fiction.

Then I did a Law degree which killed my love of everything.

[–]iamhim25 5 points6 points  (2 children)

Hahaha this is the only part I remember too. Then something about wine after that? Me and my highschool friends will still randomly say it to each other.

[–]rancid_oil 10 points11 points  (1 child)

"Bathed every vein in swich liquor" or something like that.

[–]Pb2Au 8 points9 points  (0 children)

"And bathed every vein in swich liquor // Of which vertue engendred is the flour"

That's as far as I can get.

[–]foreignfishes 35 points36 points  (1 child)

Wait other people had to do this too??

wan that aprill, with his shores sote, the draught of marche hath perced to the rote...

[–]Flocculencio 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Derk was the nyght as pich, or as a cole, And at the wyndow out she putte hir hole, And Absolon, hym fil no bet ne wers, But with his mouth he kiste hir naked ers

[–][deleted] 26 points27 points  (8 children)

Holy shit, I thought I was the only one. We had to memorize that at the International School of Bangkok in the friggin' 70s.

[–]monadyne 88 points89 points  (2 children)

I'm 70 years old. I had to memorize that shit when I was about 15 ... and I still remember it to this day! I forget things that happened last week, but remember Chaucer. Whatever...

[–]numquamsolus 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I had to memorize 400-odd lines of the Aeneid when I was 12 or so. I still remember the first 20 lines without prompting, but the rest need prompting to be resurrected from the soils of decriptitude.

[–]Destructor1701 18 points19 points  (4 children)

What is it? Beowulf? Jabberwocky?

[–]SquiffSquiff 22 points23 points  (3 children)

Chaucer

[–]sunbearimon 29 points30 points  (1 child)

And technically it’s Middle English, not Old English

[–]Destructor1701 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Ah, I get to link the only thing I know about Chaucer! And it's brilliant!

[–]Muskwatch 15 points16 points  (0 children)

middle English!

[–]wizardlydray 59 points60 points  (3 children)

Mynd you, moose bites Kan be pretti nasti...

[–]nawtykitty 37 points38 points  (0 children)

We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.

[–]MisterPenguin42 5 points6 points  (0 children)

There it is

[–]farahad 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Æ Müsîkÿl Øncę Bít My Sīštèr

[–]TheHYPO 164 points165 points  (8 children)

Why do we even have wikipedia versions for Old English?

[–]magnusarin 218 points219 points  (4 children)

I find the Pennsylvania Dutch one the funniest as a great deal of the people who speak it are Mennonites

[–]bagelwithclocks 28 points29 points  (1 child)

People without a familiarity with mennonites may not get the humor, but they, like the Amish, tend to use very little technology. (This varies by sect)

[–]BaconOfTroy 5 points6 points  (0 children)

One of my former professors during undergrad (and now friend) was an ex-Mennonite. Which, knowing him now, is really fucking awkward to think about.

[–]Coaxed_Into_A_Snafu 67 points68 points  (1 child)

For time travellers.

[–]BowjaDaNinja 36 points37 points  (0 children)

Plot convenience

ding

[–]reusablethrowaway- 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Probably because language nerds have fun with it.

[–]TinyGreenTurtles 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Lol the internet really is a fascinating thing.

[–]b0b10b1aws1awb10g[S] 192 points193 points  (0 children)

This is incredible. Great work

[–]voregeois 1100 points1101 points  (69 children)

I would kill to know what the person who did this weird shit is like

[–]napoleonpp 142 points143 points  (9 children)

Probably makes out with life size cardboard cutouts of him.

[–]voregeois 62 points63 points  (4 children)

i probably would have done that in middle school

[–]felixjawesome 15 points16 points  (3 children)

Protip: don't want your cardboard cut out to get all soggy/warped from kissing and licking it? Want to get a little more life out of your cut outs? Laminate them. Not only will this protect it from moisture, but it makes them easier to clean, prevents fading, and best of all, you can bathe with them.

Protip #2: Lamination too expensive? Put clear packing tape over "high traffic" areas for easy clean up.

[–]voregeois 7 points8 points  (2 children)

my friend has a Fabio cut out that he keeps in his front window and I will share this tip with him because he most certainly will bathe with Fabio if given the opportunity and ya know on the off chance it gets ruined at least it will stop terrifying the neighbourhood

[–]felixjawesome 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Full size? Or 3:5 ratio? I hate undersized cut outs...it defeats the purpose. Like, why bother making a 5 foot Fabio, you know? It's not true to life....it's just not the same experience unless you are standing on your tippy-toes for a kiss.

[–]voregeois 6 points7 points  (0 children)

hes full size he just stands in front of the window. scares the shit out of me when I catch it out of the corner of my eye sometimes 😶

[–]Pro-Tractor 52 points53 points  (2 children)

Is it any weirder than someone on reddit spending hours of their time to look up all of this information/ Wikipedia habits about that person?

[–][deleted] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I feel being invested in a bizarre case is a pretty natural human impulse, see people participating is ARGs. Going out of your way to create wiki articles in different languages about a teen pop star is much weirder.

[–]loulan 351 points352 points  (50 children)

Is it really that weird or surprising? Fans spend hours writing articles about their idols on Wikipedia, like this guy. What's so surprising about him spending some more time creating pages about his idol in other languages and bootstrapping them with a bit of Google Translate? Actually I'm pretty sure this happens all the time, and through this ranking we're just seeing the guy who did it best.

EDIT: grammar

[–]voregeois 449 points450 points  (40 children)

i find things like translating it to old english and that aztec language pretty strange

[–][deleted]  (22 children)

[deleted]

    [–]honkhonkbeepbeeep 142 points143 points  (20 children)

    Right, but it’s amusing/unusual that he chose this random minor celebrity to do this with. Not a topic you’d expect a polyglot to translate into a bunch of languages.

    [–]chaossabre 183 points184 points  (10 children)

    Practicing in a public-but-not-too-public place. Like a novice mime in a coffee shop.

    [–]wily_jack 43 points44 points  (8 children)

    like a what??

    [–]horizoner 102 points103 points  (5 children)

    ¯_(ツ)/¯ _/¯(ツ)/¯ (ツ)(ツ)(ツ) ┬─┬ノ(ಠ_ಠノ) ┬─┬ノ(ಠ_ಠノ)

    [–]triplesphere 33 points34 points  (1 child)

    A NOVICE MIME IN A COFFEE SHOP

    [–]raegunXD 10 points11 points  (0 children)

    Out of everything in this thread, this makes the most sense to me.

    [–]hamdinger125 39 points40 points  (3 children)

    Maybe he thought there was less chance that anyone would catch on if it was a minor celebrity that not many people look up.

    [–]plasticTron 24 points25 points  (2 children)

    Why would they be worried about people "catching on"?

    [–]hamdinger125 14 points15 points  (1 child)

    I think the poster in the comments said Wikipedia had banned him repeatedly.

    [–]BootlegMickeyMouse 8 points9 points  (0 children)

    That's for creating multiple accounts and vandalism. You can't get banned for bad translations.

    [–]textbasednonsense 11 points12 points  (0 children)

    Could also be paying people to translate it for him and email it back to him, using services like fiverr, then posting it himself.

    [–]Victreebel_Fucker 156 points157 points  (4 children)

    Those pages are pretty low effort. They just say his name, birthdate and that he’s an actor. It’s not the entire page you see in English translated or anything.

    [–]Hugo154 26 points27 points  (0 children)

    Actually I'm pretty sure this happens all the time, and through this ranking we're just seeing the guy who did it best.

    More likely that we're just noticing this one and there are way crazier things out there.

    [–]erythro 17 points18 points  (6 children)

    What's so surprising about him spending some more time creating pages about his idol in other languages and bootstrapping them with a bit of Google Translate?

    It's objectively unusual, he's the only person to do it. Literally everyone else who is a super fan of anyone else has done something else. I mean he's only been beaten by Jesus and Obama.

    [–]OldString 39 points40 points  (2 children)

    I don't use Instagram much but I follow a minor celebrity who has a reasonable following in Europe. In addition to his account, I used to follow a fan account run by someone who reposted his photos as well as photos of him found elsewhere. They were extremely dedicated and focused on this man and the vibe I got was that they were just..sad, really. They would leave cringey lovestruck comments with each post.

    I believe the fan in question is a woman obsessed with and crushing hard on the man. Possibly lives alone and uses the internet much more than the average person. The Saudi guy is probably similar.

    [–]Yelesa 64 points65 points  (1 child)

    This is the type of mystery I would like to see more around here.

    Now, to answer one of those questions. I have been in fandoms long enough to know that you shouldn’t even ask why fans do what they do. It’s not a good question to say “what’s the point?” They are fans and that’s it. That’s not a mystery. It’s just something you have to accept, some people really are that obssesed with one individual.

    [–]kadyrovtsy 245 points246 points  (16 children)

    Not to be mistaken with cordon bleu, which is a dish of meat wrapped around cheese.

    [–]pikpikcarrotmon[🍰] 103 points104 points  (9 children)

    Or Korben Dallas, Bruce Willis' character in The Fifth Element.

    [–]ryandiy 64 points65 points  (6 children)

    Or cord of blow, which is a very large amount of cocaine.

    [–]lint_goblin 48 points49 points  (3 children)

    Or Korean barbecue, a method of preparing and grilling meat

    [–]Mythril_Zombie 7 points8 points  (0 children)

    Multipass!

    [–]Bambi_One_Eye 5 points6 points  (0 children)

    Or Korben Dallas, Bruce Willis' character in The Fifth Element.

    aka, Meat Popsicle

    [–]icantfindadecentname 23 points24 points  (4 children)

    This was my first thought--people misspelling "Cordon Bleu"

    [–]laserkatze 117 points118 points  (19 children)

    That is some impressive piece of detective work.

    As to the „why“, I‘d rather ask why not. I can imagine there is some bored netizen who is either a big fan of Bleu or chose him randomly for his project to make someone the most-translated person on wikipedia.

    What’s strange is that I doubt that High School Musical is even legal in Saudi Arabia.

    [–]ErnestJoe 97 points98 points  (8 children)

    I actually stayed in Riyadh for a few months a couple of years back. Worked in my Chinese-Filipino uncle’s medical supply company. There are actually a fuckton of foreign workers in the country from all over the world, but especially Filipinos and even Westerners, if we’re talking white collar positions.

    Plenty of them bring family members along with them. Wouldn’t be that surprising if some tween daughter of a wealthy American or European businessman had nothing better to do all day in that godforsaken country than post about some boy she thought was cute.

    [–][deleted] 92 points93 points  (2 children)

    The dude claims to be a "Mike James Thomas" born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1987, who studied medicine in the UK.

    And just when you thought Corbin had exhausted all of his interests and many talents, [52]he reveals that if he weren't performing, he'd like to be a doctor! "I wanted to go to med school," Corbin says. "I've always had an interest in science. Either way, even though acting is my first love, [53]I am hoping to go to college at some point because it's important. Maybe I'll study psychology since all of my friends call me up for advice! I'm that guy," he laughs, but not like he minds at all.

    But from the looks of things, he wont' have to have a career Plan B for a very long time[54].

    Unfazed by the incredible pace of events in the past year Corbin says. [55]""I've been working so hard for such a long time that now I'm trying to take this all in and just try to remember every moment. I just love what I do and I'm not in it for the fame. [56]I just want to do my thing and send a positive message out there, especially to kids."

    This is not the type of written English I expect someone who graduated med school in the UK to use. "Wont'" with the apostrophe at the end? Doubled quotation marks? Exclamation marks in the middle of nowhere? This is twelve-year-old language.

    [–]hadapurpura 39 points40 points  (0 children)

    If this is the work of some lovestruck tween, I’d be more impressed than anything.

    [–]laserkatze 23 points24 points  (4 children)

    Thanks for that insight!

    Do daughters of wealthy businesspeople have a better life than the rest of the Saudi women?

    I mean as a parent I'd send them to a non-stone age country boarding school by the time they are starting to feel the blatant sex discrimination, with like 9-10 years latest.

    [–]swirleyswirls 24 points25 points  (0 children)

    And if you didn't do that, she'd literally be trapped at home all day so she might watch High School Musical on repeat while studying random languages.

    [–]ErnestJoe 12 points13 points  (2 children)

    Oh undoubtedly. There are sizable gated communities in several large cities over there for Westerners and their families to live in. Saudi law in regards to gender segregation and other religious matters basically goes out the window there. Women can drive and go without a veil, people can drink, non-Muslims can worship in public, etc. They even have their own elementary and middle schools and community centers, though I don’t know what the curricula are like. I’d imagine they’re free from Saudi interference as well, to an extent. From what I’ve heard, it is definitely uncommon for Westerners to have their children continue education there after middle school. Like you said, boarding schools and high schools back home are the norm.

    [–]EyMayn 19 points20 points  (4 children)

    No, it's pretty popular. They show it repeatedly on one of the kids channels.

    [–]ThankYouMrUppercut 34 points35 points  (2 children)

    I don't know if this helps support the theory or anything, but I used to be in a relationship with Corbin's publicist. I actually went to Corbin's wedding. Nice guy, fun wedding. Though he did promise to pleasure his wife in his vows, which is an odd thing to say in front of everyone's families.

    Now, my ex is really good at her job. She will ensure that Wikipedia pages are up to date and accurate. She will get inaccurate articles removed and have stalkers booted from various social media platforms. As thorough as she is, there is no way in hell that she spent the time translating Corbin's Wikipedia page into 193 languages. That's... pathological. It would be super LA of a publicist to do something like this, but not to such an insane degree.

    All this to say, I think you're right that there is a weirdly crazy Corbin fan in Saudi Arabia. Which is just hilarious.

    [–]loulan 169 points170 points  (37 children)

    The way you're saying the guy "switches IP addresses every one or two days" to various cities in Saudi Arabia makes it look like there is something mysterious when really there isn't. Your regular DSL connection switches between IPs every day or when you reconnect. And IP localization isn't very accurate, it's normal that it gives various cities in the same country, not always Riyadh. This is just a random guy from Riyadh using his home internet connection.

    As for the rest, there is nothing surprising either. The guy just bootstrapped pages in various languages for something he cares about. Pretty sure that's what half of the pages from the Aztec or Beowulf Wikipedia versions are. Some people just like languages and will create pages about things they care about in obscure languages.

    [–]Myrandall 83 points84 points  (4 children)

    from the Aztec or Beowulf Wikipedia versions are.

    I'm fluent in English, Genesis, Dutch, and the Iliad.

    [–]hiimsubclavian 21 points22 points  (1 child)

    I'm fluent in English and Reddit.

    [–]IUseExtraCommas 14 points15 points  (0 children)

    I'm fluent in American and Canadian. I have a working knowledge of conversational English and can understand some Australian. Scots is incomprehensible, in spite of being subbed to r/scottishpeopletwitter

    [–][deleted] 82 points83 points  (13 children)

    No, there is something weird.

    • He says he's from Leipzig. From 2009 to 2017, he's always been based in Riyadh.

    • His 2009 English Wikipedia userpage that I linked claims that he speaks little Arabic, at the same time that he was writing what would become a Featured Article in the language.

    • In his original Arabic-language userpage, he says the Arab countries he's visited are the UAE, Egypt, Lebanon, Bahrain, and Tunisia. Nothing about KSA. He's never used any IP addresses not from Saudi Arabia.

    [–]po8 49 points50 points  (1 child)

    I think you just outed a clandestine female Saudi Internet user to her husband and the Saudi government. Hope it turns out alright.

    [–][deleted]  (4 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]Mdk_251 10 points11 points  (0 children)

      He's probably lying.

      Either to appear more credible (I'm not a school kid from Saudi Arabia, I'm a doctor from Germany who travels the world), or to protect his real identity.

      If you assume all personal details he provides about himself, is just his alter ego - it all makes sense

      [–]tremens 11 points12 points  (0 children)

      Originating IP address doesn't necessarily indicate the origin of the user. He could just using a Saudi VPN provider. That would probably be a bit weird, as I imagine Saudi internet is more heavily monitored and usually the point of a VPN is to get to a country with less monitoring, but either way it doesn't necessarily mean the person is physically located in Saudi Arabia or has ever even been there.

      [–]Exepony 48 points49 points  (0 children)

      Beowulf Wikipedia

      lol

      [–]TheNewPoetLawyerette 54 points55 points  (4 children)

      Beowulf is not a language. It's a very old story written in Old English. Old English is very Germanic and uninfluenced by the French invasion and is not the same language as Modern English.

      [–]Bluest_waters 65 points66 points  (1 child)

      as a native Beowulfian speaker I can tell you that you need to fact check yourself

      [–]WafflelffaW 19 points20 points  (0 children)

      hwæt?!

      [–]KnowsTheLaw 26 points27 points  (3 children)

      TLDR - Up to this point I thought this was just a troll using VPNs from Saudi Arabia, but I actually think there's a dedicated fan of Corbin Bleu from Saudi Arabia who wanted to make sure there were Wikipedia articles for their idol in every language possible and also spent a few dozen hours working on the Arabic-language article.

      [–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (2 children)

      Well, and the dude claims to be a German named Mike James Thomas who went to med school in the UK yet can barely write a Wikipedia article in English. Good stuff.

      [–]paroles 21 points22 points  (3 children)

      What I don't understand is why the person bothers to change IP addresses.

      I don't know if it's due to the ISP or what, but IP addresses can change unintentionally, right? I don't know anything about the technical details, but I used to edit Wikipedia without being signed in, and I would get that "Welcome, new Wikipedia user!" message every couple of days when (I think) my IP address changed.

      [–]gogetenks123 20 points21 points  (0 children)

      Native Arabic speaker here. The Arabic article is sound but not Featured-quality like you’d expect an English Featured article to be. It could have been proofread by other users. It’s a fickle language; writing at this level at a presumably young age isn’t impossible but it’s not very likely either.

      [–]Mwakay 23 points24 points  (0 children)

      His lack of fluency in english (quite rare among younger germans) and obviously made-up, english-sounding name tend to indicate he's really from Arabia. Plus, if he was a german using an arabian IP, it wouldn't change like that.

      About the vandalism, I have two theories :

      a) he wants to be the only contributor about Corbin Bleu, or

      b) he thought he was improving the article, but his lack of fluency in english fooled him.

      [–]Long-Island-Iced-Tea 19 points20 points  (0 children)

      E2: What I don't understand is why the person bothers to change IP addresses.

      I am not sure if he even realizes this though.

      I am sorry if I am going to be Captain Obvious here, but isn't dynamic IP a thing? I perfectly remember fooling around (especially in the late 00s) on Windows XP in the command prompt with ipconfig /flushdns /release /renew to get a new IP address every now and then. It was just the way my ISP handled clients. I even remember getting a fix IP address was a premium service, it was not included in the default package.

      [–]Fatherhenk 16 points17 points  (1 child)

      The Sorani Kurdish article has been created by IP adresses (77.31.35.250 and 94.99.150.143) from Saudi Arabia: https://ckb.wikipedia.org/wiki/کۆربین_بلو

      I can read Sorani Kurdish and the single sentence written there is full of grammar errors. The spelling however is correct.

      [–]PrinceTyke 16 points17 points  (1 child)

      "Wikimedia Commons haes media relatit tae Corbin Bleu." (Scots)

      Scots seems interesting, because it really just reads like English in a super Scottish accent, and I kind of love that.

      [–]xtw430 6 points7 points  (0 children)

      Yeah depending who you ask it's either a dialect of English spoken in Scotland or a distinct (but very closely linked) Scottish language in its own right.

      [–]younggun92 17 points18 points  (1 child)

      Is nobody else confused why someone bothered to make a page in the Amish language?

      [–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

      Maybe because so little people would check it out that it wouldn't get deleted..?

      [–]viciarg 34 points35 points  (1 child)

      Native german here. Judging from their userpage at the german Wikipedia the person is most definitely not a native german speaker. Their article edits are either google-translated or copypasted from yellow-press news or Bleu's website.

      They also list the article as created by them on their latin Wikipedia userpage.

      Could their statement as either living or being born in Leipzig be interpreted as being a refugee in Germany? If he was born in Leipzig he would've had a german education, as there is compulsary education here.

      [–]genuineparts 11 points12 points  (0 children)

      I mean it might be a Google translate thing, but:

      The word "Zimmer" is a German word meaning "Arabic".

      Which it does not, Zimmer means "Room". Also Mike James Thomas is like the least German name I ever heard.

      [–]IAMA_Drunk_Armadillo 15 points16 points  (0 children)

      I don't know but I find this hilarious. Especially the obscure and dead language translations.

      [–]user753159 11 points12 points  (3 children)

      Just a small point, there is no Belfast Medical School, however there is a medical school at Queen's University Belfast.

      [–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (1 child)

      Yeah that’s where he says he went. I was running dangerously close to the character limit tho. :p

      [–]Sanctimonius 11 points12 points  (0 children)

      Can we assume the German guy and the Saudi guy are simply competing to prove who lives Corbin more? Perhaps that's why one was banned - he was sabotaging the other, while the Saudi guy already had admin privileges and just hasn't been brought to task. Another example of the 1% (of wikipedia editors) lording it over the rest of us.

      [–]molotok_c_518 11 points12 points  (2 children)

      Just to add to this, I checked the IP on the Russian language version of Corbin Bleu/Корбин Блю. 37.105.48.122, Saudi Arabia. That IP has only ever edited the Corbin Bleu page.

      [–]velvevore 10 points11 points  (1 child)

      Ditto the Welsh wikipedia: Cyberia ISP, Riyadh. The Welsh is basic, but not actually bad.

      [–]Dixiklo9000 26 points27 points  (3 children)

      Two things I have to add as a native German speaker:

      1. Unless Google mistranslated Zimmer611's page, it claims that "Zimmer" is German for "Arabic".
        That is false. "Zimmer" means "room". The word for "Arabic" is "arabisch".

      2. On the same page, Zimmer611 also claims that Arabic is the easiest language they know.
        That's obviously just an opinion, but for what my anecdotal knowledge is worth, I've never heard a native German claim any other language than English as being the easiest language they know.

      [–]kadyrovtsy 7 points8 points  (2 children)

      Hmm, so the last name Zimmerman translates to “roomman”?

      [–]Dixiklo9000 21 points22 points  (1 child)

      Translated literally, yes, but the word Zimmermann actually means carpenter.

      German is straightforward like that. The guy who does the thing with your room? Room man (Zimmermann - carpenter).
      The thing that you fly in? Fly stuff (Flugzeug - airplane).
      The tiny fragile creature that gracefully floats through the air? SMASHLING (Schmetterling - butterfly).

      [–]pryjar 9 points10 points  (0 children)

      Never see the tldr longer than the original post.

      [–]moonlitroses 9 points10 points  (0 children)

      Because their mom knew about incognito

      [–]fireattack 9 points10 points  (0 children)

      Why did he vandalize the English-language article

      I don't think he actually intended to do that.

      More likely his editing practice (with no malicious intend) violated some rules of English Wikipedia (for example, "WP:NOTFANSITE") and he tried to force it by either keep reverting or using alt accounts, then ended up being banned.

      [–]jpers36 6 points7 points  (1 child)

      E2: What I don't understand is why the person bothers to change IP addresses.

      Dynamic IP addresses are a pretty common thing.

      [–]HighFiveEm 8 points9 points  (0 children)

      This has probably been the most that the Cornish language has been used in years! (Am Cornish, no one speaks it)

      [–]SpaceDetective 5 points6 points  (2 children)

      It's probably not a lady so is this person in Saudi Arabia potentially at risk by being so public with their likely gay fandom?

      [–]hadapurpura 5 points6 points  (1 child)

      They can claim it’s a translation project. Hell, for all we know, the dude or dudette is actually a language geek who randomly chose Corbin Bleu to work with.

      [–]malektewaus 6 points7 points  (0 children)

      Hausa, another Nigerian language: Medina, Saudi Arabia

      I like to think he made this one while on the Hajj, perhaps even at the tomb of Muhammad or the Quba Mosque.

      [–]Ohnosedaisy2 300 points301 points  (4 children)

      No fucking way! This is gold.

      [–][deleted]  (3 children)

      [deleted]

        [–]earlongissor 58 points59 points  (1 child)

        it's because we all got our head in the game

        [–]buggiegirl 10 points11 points  (0 children)

        I hate how much this made me laugh.

        [–]spudoc 136 points137 points  (2 children)

        Plot Twist: OP is Corbin

        [–]soiledshortz 483 points484 points  (11 children)

        We should really get his page translated into the last 100 languages.

        [–]Ambermonkey0 226 points227 points  (0 children)

        "this guy has more wiki pages than Jesus"

        [–]Unibrow69 72 points73 points  (8 children)

        How do we check which languages is it not translated in?

        [–]Sighshell 50 points51 points  (5 children)

        Compare it against all of Wikipedia's foreign language options - however, the remaining ones are either rare, fictional, or literally dead.

        [–]Boomtown_Rat 28 points29 points  (0 children)

        Corbin Bleu DawI'pu' vISov jenwI' DuSaQ bom mIllogh qonwI' qoSta'

        [–]attacksyndrome 25 points26 points  (1 child)

        fictional? is fuckin Klingon an option or something? that's so interesting

        [–]Sighshell 14 points15 points  (0 children)

        Yes.

        [–]m4n3ctr1c 10 points11 points  (1 child)

        u/Sighshell probably has it. From the list of wikipedias, there seems to be 104 languages without pages on Corbin Bleu; I've listed them here.

        This includes several languages marked "closed"; I don't know if that means they may one day be reopened, but included them anyway. There are probably also a couple that do have pages, but the search doesn't always match the names of either the wikipedia or the language. I caught a couple of them, but there were probably more.

        [–]Unibrow69 11 points12 points  (0 children)

        I made one for Classical Chinese but it might get deleted

        [–]pokemaugn 37 points38 points  (0 children)

        Someone start a petition

        [–]MenkarFirstOfHisName 100 points101 points  (5 children)

        The fact that it even got translated in no less than 4 different french dialects (Occitan, Picard, Corse/Corsu, Breton/brezhoneg) is actually insane, I have so many questions...

        [–][deleted] 27 points28 points  (2 children)

        C'est pas un dialecte, le breton !

        (Ni l'occitan, ni le corse, ni le picard... mais surtout pas le breton, c'est une langue celtique comme l'irlandais.)

        [–]MenkarFirstOfHisName 23 points24 points  (0 children)

        Tu as raison, c'est une erreur de traduction de ma part, mon anglais est mauvais et j'ai voulu généraliser, merci d'avoir corrigé !

        [–]craftycatlady 9 points10 points  (0 children)

        It's also translated to both the Norwegian written languages! (But not Sami. Although I'm not sure that is an option in Wikipedia)

        [–]filthyoldsoomka 204 points205 points  (8 children)

        I love when totally bizarre and unexpected mysteries get posted to this sub. Good job.

        [–]buggiegirl 103 points104 points  (7 children)

        This and the glitter one are such a nice break from "who is this dead guy found rotting in that field?"

        [–][deleted]  (5 children)

        [deleted]

          [–]filthyoldsoomka 7 points8 points  (0 children)

          Absolutely. Still pondering the glitter one!

          [–][deleted] 199 points200 points  (3 children)

          Sandwiched between Barack Obama and Confucius. 😂😂😂😂😂

          [–]MoronToTheKore 500 points501 points  (7 children)

          This is what this sub is about.

          Mysteries, not just crimes.

          [–]lavahot 103 points104 points  (1 child)

          Oh, you didn't read the part about the dead body?

          [–]SundaySermon 119 points120 points  (0 children)

          Who could forget the Corbin Doe?

          [–]Milocheese 69 points70 points  (4 children)

          Years ago this sub was a lot more of this kind of stuff and not just unsolved crimes. I’m not complaining though as I love the crime mysteries also ! But just make a refreshing change to read about something like this

          [–]GrowAurora 32 points33 points  (3 children)

          I was just talking about how it used to mostly be stuff like numbers stations, tamum shud and lead mask case type deaths and such. I miss those days.

          [–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

          Same here, but only so much can be said about some of that stuff

          [–]CBH3403 56 points57 points  (1 child)

          So, as I understand it one man on this earth has made it his mission to translate Corbin Bleu's wikipedia info into every known language. Legendary

          [–]buggiegirl 16 points17 points  (0 children)

          Corbin is tight on Jesus' tail.

          [–]Kehndy12 98 points99 points  (1 child)

          This is really interesting. Here's a link to the Buzzfeed article.

          You already said this, but I want to paste the article's words:

          A random search of the Bleu Wikipedia page edit histories revealed no common names or IP addresses associated with page edits or creations. Nor were the pages all created at once; they appeared at what seemed to be a fairly random pace over the past 10 years, ever since the English page was created on Jan. 2, 2006, by a user named Damionbak.

          [–]b0b10b1aws1awb10g[S] 34 points35 points  (0 children)

          Thanks, I went ahead and added the quote to the post to make it more clear

          [–]paroles 93 points94 points  (0 children)

          I love this, what a cool Internet mystery!

          If I had to guess, this is the work of one person who's both a Corbin Bleu fan and a language enthusiast, and they enjoy creating a Corbin Bleu Wikipedia page in every language they study.

          I checked out a few random pages, and the ones in obscure languages only have very basic info like "Corbin Bleu is an American singer and actor born in 1989." For all the Corbin Bleus I looked at, the page had been created by a user who wasn't signed in and never made any other Wikipedia edits, so there's a bit of a pattern. The creators' IP addresses are different, but maybe this person uses a VPN?

          [–]literally12sofus 23 points24 points  (0 children)

          Looks like reddit was all in this together to solve this mystery

          [–]Chaiteoir 67 points68 points  (3 children)

          What is Wikipedia's process for translation? It's possible that his page was selected for translation practice, or to test out individual translators.

          I'm not sure if there's much unusual about the page itself, other than that it seems particularly lengthy and well-referenced for a relatively minor actor.

          [–]paroles 51 points52 points  (1 child)

          There isn't really a process. Wikipedia encourages individuals to contribute in any language they're fluent in, on any topic that interests them. Spam and trolling gets deleted, but there are no tests for contributors. Also, most of the Corbin page creators didn't go on to create any other content, which doesn't seem like it was a test or practice.

          I said this in another comment, but these aren't full translations of the English article - the ones in more "niche" languages like Xhosa or Breton are extremely basic pages with one sentence about Corbin's profession and date of birth, and a picture. I suspect it's all the work of one person, despite the fact that they've been devoted to this for years and that their IP address changes.

          [–]MoronToTheKore 21 points22 points  (0 children)

          This seems the most likely to me. Somebody testing some idea or process... or just somebody with an obsession with the guy.

          [–]MagicWeasel 10 points11 points  (0 children)

          What is Wikipedia's process for translation?

          Yeah there's no real "gatekeeping" - I speak intermediate French, and I was looking up a French breed of dog on English wikipedia. I noticed the French article had a lot more information on it, so I edited the English wikipedia page to include those details. I don't have a wikipedia account or anything, and those changes are still up.

          (actually, almost immediately a bot came and fixed some formatting, and then a few weeks later a generic wikipedian came and tweaked some of the stuff in the article).

          [–]Kalamazeus 19 points20 points  (0 children)

          This is only semi related but my best friend in high school had been to one concert in his life at the time. That one concert : Corbin Bleu 😂 maybe it is him

          [–]earlongissor 19 points20 points  (0 children)

          wow someone got their head in the game

          [–]Kehndy12 17 points18 points  (0 children)

          I don't know how Wikipedia works when it comes to editors. Is it possible to reach out to the numerous people who made the Wikipedia articles in other languages and ask them why they did it?

          [–][deleted]  (1 child)

          [deleted]

            [–]StoneColdStinkAustin 31 points32 points  (0 children)

            Yeah Issac Newton wasn't Jewish

            [–]Oxford89 7 points8 points  (0 children)

            This would make for a great Reply All episode.

            [–][deleted] 34 points35 points  (0 children)

            I don't know the answer to this. I've never even heard of this guy, but now I need to know the answer more than I need any other answer to anything.

            [–]qvickslvr 41 points42 points  (1 child)

            Do you think it's possible that its just a joke?

            For example people on 4chan picking a random celebrity and then loads of people translating it hence all the ips?

            I think that's plausible since similar things have been done in the past.

            [–]randys_creme_fraiche 7 points8 points  (0 children)

            I don’t know the answer to this mystery, but I peed next to Corbin Bleu once when I worked at Disney. So there’s that.

            [–]hamburger_queen 4 points5 points  (0 children)

            I love these kind of posts!

            [–]Blue_Three 7 points8 points  (1 child)

            I checked out the Japanese version of the article. It's a language I speak on a native level. Now the Japanese is natural enough, but there's one case of clear vocabulary error - something that wouldn't happen to a Native in that way. Other than that it's surprisingly proficient (if indeed written by this guy). I think even Google isn't that good usually.