| Wikilifespan | Since November 2014 |
|---|---|
| Known IPs | See list |
| Physical location | Cambridge, Ontario |
| Status | Active |
Please report all ongoing incidents of abuse to AIV or ANI.
The Cambridge Canada vandal is a person using IP addresses from the area of Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, who has made thousands of edits since 2014. This person adds unreferenced trivia, genres and analysis to film and music articles. They have often left hidden comments, especially "DO NOT REMOVE" and "DO NOT CHANGE".[1][2] They have insisted on certain films being labeled as box office bombs,[3][4] so much so that they have been called the "box office bomb vandal". A particular interest of this person is music by the bands Gob and Sum 41.
The first instance of "box office bomb" was in December 2014 with this edit to Reign Over Me. The vandal would revisit the Reign Over Me article many times, such that a noticeboard discussion was raised at "Box-office bomb guy, block evasion from Cambridge, Ontario, Canada" in July 2015, and the article was protected.
The hidden "do not remove" comments started in December 2014 with a polite "thank you",[5] growing shorter, more strident, soon shifting to all-caps shouting.[6][7][8] A named account, CoolRaceDude, was registered in February 2015 to continue this behavior.[9]
Many of this person's contributions are violations of WP:No original research – personal analysis, comparisons and trivia.[10][11][12][13]
It's possible this person was active as early as 2008, with a nearby IP interested in the band Gob,[14] showing childish behavior, and getting blocked three times.