Introduction

"If I had a Wikipedia article and then I suddenly claimed to be a dog, or a cat, would they change it to reflect such a non-sense? Biologically he is a man and will die a man."

—Comment on the talk page of Chelsea Manning, deemed acceptable by Wikipedia's operators.

Despite its dubious reputation for tolerance and diversity, Wikipedia has been strongly criticized for transphobia among its editors and even in the upper echelons of its management. For example, on the Croatian Wikipedia, far-right administrators routinely banned transgendered editors from the site,  leading government officials - including Croatia's Minister of Education - to warn against using Wikipedia because of its "falsified" and extremist content.

While Croatia's sysops made no apologies for their behavior, en.Wikipedia implemented an unofficial policy against transgendered editors, as witnessed by the unexplained expulsion of User:Midnight68 by Arbcom in 2010. The precise reasons for the ban are unclear to this day, as no specific policy was violated. However, it is well-documented that Midnight was a self-identified transsexual and had donated a large body of transgendered artwork to Wikimedia Commons since April 30, 2009. At the time, Midnight had been involved in an ongoing dispute with a rampantly transphobic group of DeviantART users who had been trying to get him banned for over two years. Most of them had connections to Wikipedia, and were furious to find his artwork in use on Commons.

On 3 August 2010, a mass deletion request was filed on Commons by German user Niabot, claiming that Midnight's contributions were out of scope. Records show that Niabot, whose specialty seems to be naked futanari images (NSFW), posted the complaint after an unrelated user stated that Midnight's work was no worse than Niabot's own photoshopped efforts ("Niabot wurde rückgängig gemacht: Auch nicht schlechter gezeichnet als deine Bildchen").

In short, the MDR was (most likely) prompted by anger and petty jealousy, rather than any genuine concern for Wikipedia's reputation. Amongst other things, Niabot claimed that Midnight's images were either "faked" or somehow "illegal" (later retracted).

Whatever Niabot's motives, he successfully raised a personal army, resulting in a lynch mob storming ANU. The ensuing debate grew extremely confused, due to the contradictory nature of the MDR. Many of the participants believed that Midnight's contributions were copyright violations. Others wanted Midnight banned due to offsite activity (specifically; criticism of Wikipedia's policies & userbase). Numerous false accusations were made in direct violation of WP:Assume good faith. The personal attacks became increasingly vicious over the course of the next two days: (Commons Administrator Alison: "Can you speak up, please? I can't hear you over the noise of the over 9,000 fapping inclusionists here").

Evidence emerged of offsite vote-stacking, which included attempts to trace Midnight's personal information. References were made to an unrelated argument which took place on DeviantART, while an attack article on Encyclopedia Dramatica was offered as a reliable source of information - both of which were completely irrelevant to the MDR.

When Midnight agreed to submit proof that her pictures were not copyright violations, the deletionists abruptly changed strategy, stating that Midnight was either a troll or an online marketeer using Wikipedia as free publicity. Neither claim was true, and no attempt was made to explain why the artwork was considered out of scope, other than the thinly-veiled pretext of "I DON'T LIKE IT".

On 7 August 2010, Commons Sysop Tiptoety closed the discussion and removed all of Midnight's work from Commons, including those currently in use on Wikipedia's mainspace. Four of these were reinstated after it was pointed out that any image being used on any Wikipedia was automatically within scope, and therefore exempt from the deletion request. Tiptoety reluctantly agreed, though he made a point of voicing his contempt for the "artist" in no uncertain terms. By this time, Midnight had been globally banned by Arbcom due to a number of false allegations lodged by Commons Sysop Rlevse.

Looking back over the extant records, it becomes obvious that the entire fiasco was little more than a vendetta against an unpopular user. As mentioned above, the main source of this discord was a long-standing feud which had started on DeviantART two years before, spread to Encyclopedia Dramatica and eventually spilled over into Wikipedia (it is significant to note that Midnight's most outspoken critics were members of both DA and ED). The fact that the user identified as transgendered added fuel to the fire: while this matter was briefly alluded to in the main discussion, it was quoted offsite as another reason to "ban that mouth-breathing f----t".

This was - without question - one of the most hypocritical actions taken by the Wikipedia community, given its official stance on equity and tolerance. The conclusion is perhaps best summed up by two of the very few impartial participants in the debate:

I feel that the whole decision on Commons:Deletion requests/Files by User:Midnight68 was unreasonable premature (just 4 days for complex discussion, discussion was very active on the time of closure), ruled more by moral panic rather than the reason, but the Jimbo-style deletion of this file is the most strange for me. 

I found the entire DR confusing and a rush to judgment based on incomplete information and a rush to assume bad faith. I, too, had my doubts given the quality of some of the images involved, but it's clear now that Midnight68 really is the creator, and there is absolutely nothing in Commons policies to prohibit keeping amateur examples of notable art styles.