Vindicator4021

Hi. You can call me "Vindicator" or just "V". Normally, on pages like this, I ask "how the heck did you find me", but you probably found me on the leaderboard thing because I edit this wiki a fair bit.

Discord notice: I don't use Discord. Privacy policy and all that rubs me the wrong way. If you need to get ahold of me, feel free to post on my discussion page. If it's relevant to a specific article I've edited or made, you can also @ me on the article in question's discussion page; every page I edit is on my watchlist, so it should notify me.

Statistics

Created Pages

Bumpgate

Notable Edited Pages

Nintendo 3DS - First edit! (otherwise minor lol)
Crash Team Racing [Nitro Fueled] - Various major edits (also, fun fact: the 1999 version was basically my first video game lol)
Nintendo - The Big House Online Tournament (2020)
Minecraft account migration - Introduction

Milestones

Account created & first edit - May 17th, 2025
Account confirmed - May 29th, 2025
Created first article - June 1st, 2025

Article Ideas (Public To-Do List)

DISCLAIMER: These are just ideas for topics potentially worth researching in the future for documented cases of consumer rights violations. In other words, I have not researched these topics (yet); they are based on anecdotes and hearsay (for now). I'm posting them on my page because I am just one person with limited time, and someone else may see this and go "oh, hey! That sounds like a good idea!" and then I don't have to do it. :P Do note, though, I may remove any of these ideas at any time if I think at some point that they're not worth mentioning on this Wiki or I find out there's already an article or a good enough mention of it, or I may move them to the discussion page of a relevant article. Also note that some of these topics may be already mentioned on the Wiki; I have not read every page. (I know, shocker lol)

Car Stuff

JATCO (Nissan) CVT transmissions - These transmissions have a bit of a reputation for being unreliable. Might be worth looking into.
Northstar Engine (General Motors) - Back in the early 2000's, there was a rather infamous engine used primarily in Buick vehicles that blew head gaskets like crazy. Basically, there were these bolts held the motor head down that had threads that were too wimpy to do their job- hence, blown head gaskets. Clearly a defect. Lots of those cars still have this issue, which makes me wonder how GM actually responded to it...
Hyundai/Kia engine issues - I've heard these things have certain engines that fail left-and-right- to the point that the companies recalled those motors. May just end up being a mostly positive incident, but I think we need more of those, too.

Gaming Stuff

Ideas for the Switch article (some may be moved to the article discussion later) -
- This was many years ago, and probably an isolated incident, but I will mention it: I recall that MrMario2011 had to send his launch Switch to Nintendo to get fixed at least three times. I'm thinking I should go back to these videos to see what happened and investigate if there were many others experiencing the same issues.
- Joy-Con Drift - There needs to be a dedicated article, because there's red links on the Switch article, and it was a major debacle. Basically, there was a major defect with the Joy-Cons' joysticks that made them very prone to stick drift that Nintendo staunchly refused to acknowledge or admit to for a long time. If nobody beats me to it, I'll write this one after Bumpgate's done.
Platform-exclusive games - I don't know if this is something that should be on the wiki, but I'm dropping it here. Personally, I find that it hurts consumer choice and even ownership because some platforms don't like it when you own things. May be good for a general topic article that connects to other issues.
Epic Games putting online-only DRM on singleplayer games - Lookin' at you, Kingdom Hearts series Epic Games version. I wanted to play overcomplicated w(h)acky key game on my Steam Deck while waiting in the car for my mom at the optometrist before the Steam version came out (which does not have this problem), but no~ooo, we had to be Mr. "no internet means no fun" for no reason. >:| The PC version of these games were exclusive to Epic from 2021-2024, hence why I thought of this when I thought of "platform-exclusives".
Oxenfree access revoked - I think there's something on the wiki about game licenses being revoked already, but I don't think this specific instance was mentioned. Last year, in 2024, the game Oxenfree was pulled from various storefronts- including DRM-free ones. Because Potatoes. But seriously- I don't think it was ever officially explained why (or at least, I didn't see anything when I tried looking into it last year). Folks guessed it was probably because Netflix bought out the developer (or might've been the publisher) and Netflix (presumably) doesn't want people owning stuff because "profit number not go up". This is very notable because the game was part of the Black Lives Matter bundle on itch.io back in 2020. Definitely worth looking into.

Tech Industry Stuff

YouTube - This is a goldmine (junk-mine?) of consumer rights violations. This is a topic Louis talks about frequently, so there's plenty of options to adapt videos to articles as well. I'd be VERY surprised if there wasn't already a dedicated page for it (or Google, where it could be mentioned). Maybe if any of those videos aren't adapted yet, I'll do one after Bumpgate's done before a bigger article as a "break". :P

Shopping Stuff

AliExpress - I've heard a lot about this one being really bad for consumers, but I was reminded of it when I watched a MattKC video last night. He tried to turn a Surface Studio into a really big, nice monitor, and he had a ridiculously horrible time with an AliExpress seller and the company itself. I know they aren't US-based (pretty sure they're Chinese?) but they of course do sell internationally, and I think folks should be aware of their practices- especially since their products are usually very cheap (and hence, enticing).

Yapping time

What do you do on the wiki?

I mostly edit existing wiki pages for grammar, spelling, formatting, and clarity. Might add onto a page or make one if I'm feeling particularly passionate about a topic. Despite how much I edit, I am not an admin, or a mod, or anything; I'm just some rando who likes editing pages. :P In fact, I'm pretty new to this. This is my first wiki editing account, and I don't think I've ever edited any other wikis anonymously in the past.

You also will notice that I may have one (usually minor) edit right after another sometimes. This is just because I almost always finish editing and then realize I forgot to do something minor on the page (i.e., put a period somewhere) and I'm a forgetful perfectionist who has to fix it immediately, lol. I know this does kind of bloat my edit count a bit, but it's not my intention to manipulate the leaderboard thing (I don't really care about being high up on it).

Why'd you decide to start editing the wiki?

Probably the same reason you likely visited or started editing: saw one of Louis Rossmann's videos where he mentioned it and wanted to help out. It wasn't until I kind of started editing in detail that I remembered that I sort of have skills and interests that would help a lot with this project.

What kind of "skills and interests" do you have that would help?

Almost ten years ago now, I edited articles and wrote a monthly editorial for my high school newspaper (that nobody read except the Boomer teachers at the school, lol). Nonetheless, I enjoyed it so much that I'd wanted to pursue journalism in college. There are many (mostly personal) details to why that fell through that I won't get into, but the significant thing that I will mention is that I had some concerns with the integrity of the field that made me hesitant to get into it. Once again, without too many details, though my personal beliefs have shifted much in (almost) ten years, I'm not convinced that my younger self's concerns were totally unfounded.

I don't think I'd go as far as to call editing wiki articles "journalism", but editing and making wiki articles for a project like this really isn't much different from writing an unbiased news article, so it kind of satisfies the same interest for me. You need to try to follow a lot of the same base standards to make a good article: present the facts and let people come to their own conclusions without leading them in one particular direction. Also, research. (So much research...)

How'd you come up with your username?

Technically, a username generator on a password manager. Probably about a year or two ago, I made a "throwaway" account on another website, and needed a username. I usually click until I find something that I'll remember, and for that website, it came up with... "Vindicate". I just changed it to "Vindicator".

What's funny is that I use this pseudonym on many websites- with random number combinations on the end ("4021" does not mean anything). That was actually my intention here as well, just to maintain a vague sense of anonymity, but then I accidentally ended up making myself known from editing a lot and ending up on the "Top Contributors" page. Whoops! :P

Why do you put so many links and comments on article discussions sometimes?

I treat the article discussion pages a little bit like notes that anybody can read. Though, I will admit- I can be a little prone to going overboard at times. Come to think of it, when I was in school, I was the one in the group project who put a bunch of links in the Google Doc for everyone to potentially reference, so I guess it's a bit of a habit. I don't think it's necessarily bad to do it, but I do worry it crowds out the discussion page a bit too much. Again, I'm pretty new to all this, so I'm still finding a happy medium for it.