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User:Mathmitch7/2025-04-29 Complaint to Colorado OLWR

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I had the following email exchange with the Colorado Office of Legislative Workplace Relations, starting on 2025-04-29. This is per a discussion on the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard.

My original email, sent on 2025-04-29:

To Whom It May Concern,

My name is User:mathmitch7, and I am writing in my capacity as a Wikipedia editor and on behalf of my several family members who reside in Colorado.

There is presently a discussion on the English Wikipedia Conflict of Interest Noticeboard regarding the bad behavior of some anonymous users originating in the Colorado Legislature's offices (identified via IP). You can read the relevant discussions here (current discussion) and here (the original complaint from 2021). Simply put, some individuals are using Colorado government computers to vandalize Wikipedia for seemingly political purposes. These unconstructive edits are interfering with Wikipedia's mission, represent undisclosed conflicts of interest, and abuse Wikipedia's resources and reputation to launder potential misinformation.

I am filing this complaint under the Workplace Expectations of the General Assembly policy, though I suspect that this behavior also violates the Colorado Legislature's computer use policies. It also violates Wikipedia's policies and terms of use (see eg the vandalism policy, conflict of interest guideline, and Terms of Use). With regards to Colorado's rules, I believe this behavior violates the Workplace Expectations policy in the following ways:

1. Be professional, respectful, truthful, and courteous to all in the legislative workplace at all times;

Vandalization of Wikipedia is not respectful or courteous to the public, and many of the edits are either untruthful in substance or in failing to disclose a relevant conflict of interest.

2. Serve as a positive role model to others;

This behavior is not that of a positive role model.

3. Be responsive to member and coworker requests and needs;

When IP address editors have been warned in the past, the behavior has not stopped or even been acknowledged.

4. Accept responsibility for their own work, behavior, and actions;

Again, the computer users in question have not accepted responsibility, apologized, or ceased the problematic behavior.

5. Communicate in a professional and respectful manner;

The conflict involves unprofessional and untruthful communication in the case of the parties' editing behavior, and the lack of communication regarding resolving the conflict.

6. Resolve conflicts in an appropriate, respectful, timely, and courteous manner;

The problem has been ongoing for three years despite repeated complaints.

7. Treat everyone fairly and demonstrate respect for all people and their ideas; and

Both Wikipedia editors and the general public have been disrespected and disregarded in this process.

8. Adhere to all federal and state laws and General Assembly policies and legislative rules.

As is clear from this email, the parties in question have failed to adhere to the Workplace Expectation policy, and likely violated Legislature IT policy as well.

I am asking that the Office of Legislative Workplace Relations engages the IT department to determine the individuals who have behaved poorly and tell them to stop this behavior, and take whatever action may be necessary per your policies. I would also appreciate a memo sent to legislators and legislative staff clarifying that this behavior is unacceptable. If the behavior continues, it is possible that blocks of IP addresses from the Colorado government will be banned from anonymously editing Wikipedia, depending on Wikipedia administrator action.

The following IP addresses have been implicated, and the links below will demonstrate the times, IP, and content of their vandalism. Particularly problematic recently has been 165.127.14.3. It is possible that these are shared IP addresses and so responsible individuals cannot be identified.

If you have any questions or concerns, you are welcome to reply to this email with your thoughts. Additionally, anybody in the OLWR or representatives from the relevant IT departments are welcome to create a Wikipedia account and participate in the Conflict of Interest discussions I have linked above.

Thank you very much,

Wikipedia User:mathmitch7

On 2025-04-30, a representative from the OLWR replied:

Hi User:mathmitch7,

What is your relationship with the Colorado General Assembly?

The Workplace Expectations is largely an internal HR policy so I need to determine if you are covered by it.

If not, I am happy to forward your concerns to our IT Director.

Thank you!

On 2025-05-01, I replied:

Hi and thank you for your response!

I do not have much of a relationship with the CO legislature, other than the fact that I have voted for it in the past (I don't currently live in CO), and am presently interacting with individuals who appear to work for or at the Assembly with regards this issue at the English Wikipedia.

I sent this complaint to the OLWR mostly because I believed I was covered under the policy as a "member of the general public who [has] business at the State Capitol," and the involved individuals appear to either be legislators or employees of the legislature. Also, this was the only relevant policy and office I could find on the legislature's website.

If there's a more relevant party for resolving this issue, please feel free to forward this email to them.

Thank you so much for your help! I know this sort of thing may seem minor, but the scale of the bad behavior is pretty serious.

Best wishes,

User:mathmitch7

On 2025-05-01, the OLWR replied:

Thank you for the clarification! I will provide this information to IT leadership.

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