Topic on User talk:Jasper Deng

Thanks for putting the time into trying to train this kid. It must be frustrating.

Actually, his mother should be notified. If I'm honest, I was already working with wikis in his age but my mother tried to care about my activities. My sincere condolences and respect.

Yeah, being a sysop makes this a thousand times easier. I really hope that he doesn't have to be reblocked, so that he won't have to make an appeal when he's grown more mature. I'll trust his own judgement, but yes we should contact his parents if he's causing trouble for us.

The question is just: how to contact his parents? I hope he'll not cause trouble again.

If he causes sufficient disruption, I may block him again, and then require him to e-mail his parents' contact information to a WMF representative like Sumanah.

Otherwise, he wouldn't get unblocked. Might be an idea. I hope it'll not happen so.

...especially since he was unblocked only under condition of forced mentorship to me, where my "mentor" role is really an euphemism replacing "supervisor". This kind of thing normally would not be our business, and I'd only do it as a last resort.

Yes, that's not our way. Mentoring is better than blocking him: you are somehow running him.

Think of it as him being on a leash to me. I give him some leeway, but he's still required to obey me at all times.

Update: I've reblocked him, this time indefinitely.

Yeah, it sounds like he has the reading comprehension of a nine-year-old.  :-( Thanks for trying to get him to see reason, and thanks for reblocking him.

If he reaches out to you via some other channel, feel free to simply say no. He's a very young minor and I'd rather not try to get his contact info, or that of his parent/guardian, without talking to Wikimedia Foundation's legal department first.

Thanks for your work on this.

No problems. I've fully protected his talk page per the standard offer; any other sysop (including you) who disagrees with my decision should take action as appropriate and notify me.

Just thought I'd let you know he created an account at translatewiki and made this edit about "Template:Unblock"

Tell a sysop there to block him immediately, and cite his disruption here.

Wow. It's now apparent that this kid has engaged in massive cross-wiki sockpuppetry. I've blocked a few socks that were confirmed on other wikis.

Update: This particular account of his has now been placed under a global lock.

Hello,

I don't even know who I'm speaking with or if you are even reading this message. I hope this reaches you.

I'm the parent of the kid being talked about here. I just found this page and I feel like I need to reply explaining exactly what's happening, as I got very upset with the point in which things have arrived.

In fact, I have, in the past, already spoken with somebody about this. On a live chat, I believe. But I don't see my arguments being mentioned here, so I don't believe our conversation was passed foreward.

My son, Brandon, is, in fact, 8 years old. He has Asperger's Syndrome ( which falls in the autism spectrum), making him both EXTREMELY smart and very immature and social unawear at the same time.

One of the Asperger's symptoms is having obsessions on specific themes: dinossaurs, space, computers, etc.. When it becomes an obsession, their brains become "genius" on the said issue as it's all they care about.

My son, at the moment, is obsessed with the computer (as most of them eventually do), space and unfortunately, also obsessed with Wikipedia.

When he's "arguing" his cause, he doesn't realize that extent of what he's doing. He just wants to win his argument because he cannot imagine his life without Wikipedia.

You may wonder why his parents didn't know about this, but trust me when I say it's not lack of supervision. Simply put, my son knows more about computers than we do. We can't add filters, etc... because he knows how to undo whatever we do.

In the best of my ability, I try to explain to him what's acceptable and what isn't, but if I remove his computer from him, the damage would be much greater, as in his mind (due to the Asperger's), computer is his life.

On a positive side, he's extremely smart, learns fast (he's 100% self-taught) and I do believe that with the right guidance, he has a great future on the field.

I don't expect to break or not follow any rules you may have. I only ask you to either have patience or ignore him. He's a little boy with a big brain. His knowledge of computer and specially the Universe is incredible. He's just very emotionally immature and, at the same time, cannot understand why, at his age, he can't do the things he knows how, just because of his age.

If you have any questions or anything regarding him, don't hesitate to contact me at: AlexandraGamaLimagmail.com

I apologize on his behalf, for all the disturbance he may have caused. I'm sure that he regrets it at every now block or ban.

Thank you for your time,

Alexandra (his mother).

I apologize for the size of the text above. I didn't know where else to write. I made an account now to make it easier. Although, email is still the easiest way to contact me. Thank you.

Thanks for telling me. I too cannot imagine life without the Wikimedia Foundation.

In my opinion, those with this syndrome often have difficulties until their teens. I wholly agree that such people really hate it when their core interests are taken away, since they tend to love those more than people without this syndrome.

It's extremely good that he learns fast, and he seems to learn the actions of others very well. This is very important in an environment like this one, and I admire him for that. However, the key thing he lacks is taking the perspectives of others - which I believe is the reason why he could not see why he was causing trouble.

With that said, however, regardless of the syndrome, his age is the main factor in all these. As I said in this discussion, I feel that he will be a much better fit when he's in his mid-teens; keeping your real name and age secret are two basic things he must exercise to ensure his own safety on the Internet. It's also the age at which I believe he should stop watching Happy Tree Friends until - it's not recommended for those under 13 years of age.

Thank you, too, for starting this discussion. If you wish to e-mail me, use Special:EmailUser/Jasper Deng.