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#Proposer is apparently unaware that we already have checks and balances in place for checkusers in the form of [[WP:AUSC]]. These are users who are ''not'' using checkuser or oversight permissions whose job it is to look at actions taken by those who do use them and insure they are using the tools properly. What they can't do is reveal any of the highly personal information they see in the course of doing their job, just like all other holders of these advanced permissions. We can't go posting personal, private material on-wiki just because there was a surprising result, as in this case. Just because you guys aren't the ones doing the double checking doesn't mean it isn't being done. [[User:Beeblebrox|Beeblebrox]] ([[User talk:Beeblebrox|talk]]) 02:21, 3 March 2012 (UTC) |
#Proposer is apparently unaware that we already have checks and balances in place for checkusers in the form of [[WP:AUSC]]. These are users who are ''not'' using checkuser or oversight permissions whose job it is to look at actions taken by those who do use them and insure they are using the tools properly. What they can't do is reveal any of the highly personal information they see in the course of doing their job, just like all other holders of these advanced permissions. We can't go posting personal, private material on-wiki just because there was a surprising result, as in this case. Just because you guys aren't the ones doing the double checking doesn't mean it isn't being done. [[User:Beeblebrox|Beeblebrox]] ([[User talk:Beeblebrox|talk]]) 02:21, 3 March 2012 (UTC) |
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::* Elen already pointed out the extent of the information above. The Checkuser info is pretty much useless, because if taken to be useful, that means we should block all editors from that ISP (out of the 6 million) who also edit New York related articles. And the behavioral issue is based on two or three instances of using either rply or -- in the course of several years. That's not very compelling evidence in the slightest. <font color="silver">[[User:Silver seren|Silver]]</font><font color="blue">[[User talk:Silver seren|seren]]</font><sup>[[Special:Contributions/Silver seren|C]]</sup> 02:36, 3 March 2012 (UTC) |
::* Elen already pointed out the extent of the information above. The Checkuser info is pretty much useless, because if taken to be useful, that means we should block all editors from that ISP (out of the 6 million) who also edit New York related articles. And the behavioral issue is based on two or three instances of using either rply or -- in the course of several years. That's not very compelling evidence in the slightest. <font color="silver">[[User:Silver seren|Silver]]</font><font color="blue">[[User talk:Silver seren|seren]]</font><sup>[[Special:Contributions/Silver seren|C]]</sup> 02:36, 3 March 2012 (UTC) |
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==Proposal by PaoloNapolitano== |
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===Proposal (1)=== |
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Sockpuppets should only be blocked from editing if they have been found to be abusing editing privileges. Wikipedia will always need productive contributors, and "rehabilitated" sockpuppets should NOT be excluded from editing. [[User:PaoloNapolitano|<font color="red">Paolo</font>]][[User talk:PaoloNapolitano|<font color="blue">Napolitano</font>]] 10:13, 3 March 2012 (UTC) |
Revision as of 10:13, 3 March 2012
Summary
This RfC is to discuss current and, potentially, past incidents involving the Arbitration Committee, where actions were taken against users, usually blocks, that involved a lack of information and transparency and often oblique, extremely generalized statements to both the accused and to other community members.
The specific incident that this RfC is in response to is the recent block of User:ScottyBerg as a sockpuppet of User:Mantanmoreland.
A number of users were and are concerned about the block, as ScottyBerg has been a positive contibutor to the community and the encyclopedia. Concerns were raised on the talk page about a number of inconsistencies in regards to the block, the perceived reason for it, and the response from Arbitration Committee members.
With User:Reyk's permission, following is a numbered summary made by Reyk of some of those concerns:
- Secret trials based on secret evidence are abhorrent to nearly everyone.
- ArbCom are sure enough of guilt that we should unquestioningly accept their assertion that it was a slam-dunk decision, but not sure enough to actually allow the accused access to the evidence against them. This is not fair play.
- ArbCom have now made it clear there is a way back for the accused if they're guilty but no possibility of return if they're innocent. Also not fair play.
- Ditching due process to go after the "bad guy" seems unnecessary since nobody has claimed ScottyBerg was disrupting anything.
- We feel we have not got satisfactory answers to our questions.
- In the event that we are accused of something, we feel we're less likely to get a fair hearing than we did before this whole ScottyBerg mess.
- This business of hanging on to CU info for a long time doesn't sit well with a lot of people.
In addition to these points, another point raised by User:Ken Arromdee was that the block seemed to have precipitated from the comments of a blocked sockpuppetteer on Wikipedia Review, a discussion that ScottyBerg's blocking admin, User:Alison, was involved in.
These concerns, and possibly more, have serverely marred a number of users' views on how the Arbitration Committee conducts itself and has raised fears that this process of "secret trials" could be conducted on any user without the possibility of rebuttal. This RfC is meant to raise, discuss, and express these concerns with the Arbitration Committee and to bring about some sort of change in how these processes are done.
Users certifying the basis for this RfC
- SilverserenC 23:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
- Reyk YO! 00:15, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:22, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Jack Sebastian (talk) 07:21, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Statements
Statement by Silver seren
I am an individual who was heavily involved in the discussions on ScottyBerg's talk page. I was also in email contact with him throughout, in an attempt to help rectify the situation. Unfortunately, he has been extremely disillusioned with Wikipedia over this incident and has stated he will never be involved in Wikipedia again, even if proven to be innocent. Furthermore, he gave me his side of the emails he sent to ArbCom. Actually, he gave me all sides, but considering there was only ever one response from Arbcom, the one initially sent to him saying that they were looking at his case, it's really just one side.
He sent around ten further emails after that initial response, with info and questions, but received no further replies whatsoever.
As stated above in the summary, what very likely started this mess was those comments on Wikipedia Review. It has also been stated that Scotty's edits on Gary Weiss are one factor, but as thoroughly explained by him and others on his talk page and in emails to Arbcom, all of those were routine Huggle edits or the reversion of undue weight material to the article.
Furthermore, it was originally unclear where the CU information came from. The last Mantanmoreland sock blocked was a significant time ago, enough for it to have been already stale when Scotty was brought to an SPI back in September, where it was thrown out for plain ridiculousness. Arbitrator AGK then said to me that certain CU infor is kept on the CU Wiki for a temporary period of time, but I don't believe a year and a half fits into anything that could be considered temporary.
Are Arbitrators and Checkuser's essentially keeping CU info indefinitely on their Wiki? There are ethical issues for such a thing and, in my opinion, leaves the possibility for such info to be abused.
But what this all boils down to is that Arbcom is doing the same thing it has been doing before and pledged to stop, being obscure with their information, having a complete lack of transparency, and serving as judge, jury, and executioner without even allowing the defendant to present their case.
Something needs to change. SilverserenC 23:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Discussion
Comment from the WMF about the Checkuser wiki
The Wikimedia Foundation provides a wiki to users with the checkuser privilege for the express purpose of storing data on long-term abusers (of which Mantanmoreland was certainly one). This raises no ethical or legal questions, contrary to the statement above: this process was approved by the General Counsel, and is covered in the Retention of Private Data policy. The specific sections are:
It is the policy of Wikimedia that personally identifiable data collected in the server logs, or through records in the database via the CheckUser feature, or through other non-publicly-available methods, may be released by Wikimedia volunteers or staff, in any of the following situations:
- Where the user has been vandalizing articles or persistently behaving in a disruptive way, data may be released to a service provider, carrier, or other third-party entity to assist in the targeting of IP blocks, or to assist in the formulation of a complaint to relevant Internet Service Providers,
- Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of the Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public.
So, without prejudice to the rest of this discussion, I did want to be very clear that there are no ethical or legal issues in this one object. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 01:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Discussion
@Silver seren, you say: I find it hard to believe that there are no legal ramifications for hoarding personal information on people, but I give up the point. There's no need to give up the point. If you think there's a legal issue, why don't you write up what it is (referring specifically to the types of data that are stored on Checkuser wiki) and I'll pass it on to the General Counsel. I think your use of the word "hoarding" is extremely leading here, regardless. If you truly do concede that point, may I recommend that you strike through or otherwise modify your statement to impress upon people that you no longer believe that to be an issue? Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 06:07, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- I removed the legal bit, but added to the sentence my concern regarding the possibility of abuse of it. SilverserenC 18:27, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- So you're um...saying that you accept what Phillipe says but you don't believe it? --Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:34, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Regarding the hoarding of personal info: I think Silver Seren should be much more afraid of Google, Facebook, Apple, the FBI, the DHS, etc. etc. etc. than of Wikipedia. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 06:31, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by SirFozzie
Silver seren has created a tempest in a teapot. He objects to every bit of the recent block of ScottyBerg as a reincarnation of a community banned user.
First: The way to come back from a community ban is not to create a new account in violation of the ban, and then to go on merrily editing, now matter how productive a user you intend on purportedly being.
Second: For some reason he intends to teach long term banned users on how to better evade CheckUser scruitiny, in defiance of the community's saying "no, the person behind this account is not welcome, Tracking behavioral evidence and similarities (as well as IP ranges) between accounts is somehow "secret witch trials".Instead, he demands we hand over evidence on how a user was caught sockpuppetting so they can better avoid being blocked next time.
Third: Alison contacted the Committee to alert us she was on the verge of blocking the user, and carefully and congently explained why she was about to do so. We told her that we had no problem with the initial block, but would carefully consider any appeal from ScottyBerg. When that appeal was made, Nearly a dozen checkusers and arbitrators carefully scruitinized the evidence linking the two accounts. A couple of this number provided background information only, but recused from any formal decision as they were involved in the original case that ended up sanctioning the user that ScottyBerg was linked with. However, every arbitrator and check user who reviewed this case concurred with the finding linking the two accounts.
Fourth: Going back to the second point, Silver complains that we have left a path back for ScottyBerg if he IS the community banned user but not one if he isn't. This point is now moot as the determination has been made (again unanimously) that yes, ScottyBerg IS a reincarnation of a community banned user.
Fifth: Silverseren demands we show evidence that ScottyBerg was disruptive. Again, his opinion is that an editor who the Community has told "You are not welcome here" is allowed to edit, as long as he is superficially not causing issues. This again, is not the case. Editors who are community banned have a way to get back in to editing, this was not the way. Also, ScottyBerg violated an Arbitration Committee violated the remedy from the original Arbitration Committee case that stated he is not to edit articles related to those brought up in that case.
Sixth: Silverseren, brings up, as a side show to this issue, that checkusers keep details on persistently sockpuppeting editor in an effort to better recognize and neutralize further attempts to disrupt Wikipedia in concurrence with their mandate from the rights granted through the Committee (and the WMF). This is not the place to discuss such things. There is already a place to bring complaints about use of advanced permissions, the Audit Subcommittee, and failing that, the WMF itself. However, he knows he will get short shrift from either, because he is again wrong on the facts and the issues. (Note: When I wrote this up, I had not yet seen Phillippe's statement. However, the point still stands, and is confirmed by the office's post. )
In short, Silver seren is either mistaken or deliberately wrong in all major facts of this issue, and this RFC is not a legitimate attempt to solve a dispute, but instead an attempt to cause drama and trouble. This is not the first time that Silver seren has attempted to stir up action against the Committee, In his past attempt (involving a user who was blocked and their administrator tools removed for misues (including suicide threats), he was again proven wrong on all points, but that has not stopped him from charging in, Don Quixote style, tilting at windmills yet again. If he has concerns about the way the Arbitration Committee runs within its mandate and rules, he can always run for a seat on the Committee at the end of the year.
Note for the record: Silver seren violated WP:CANVASS by attempting to "stack the deck" in commenting to all the people who spoke in the decision on ScottyBerg's talk page, but not the purported targets of this RFC. SirFozzie (talk) 01:58, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Discussion
@SirFozzie: The personal attacks aren't needed here and you should realize that the list of points and other information was taken from other people, like Reyk, and isn't just me. So your continued use of negative terms (complains, demands, ect.) and my name is both rude and wrong. Anyways, your points in order:
- A number of us disagree that Scotty is Mantanmoreland. The point we're trying to make is that if Scotty is innocent, you've given him no steps to take to come back. He would have to falsely say he's guilty and use the standard offer, as that's the only option for him, even if he's not Mantanmoreland.
- I have never once stated that Arbcom should give up specialized behavioral information that influenced their decision. What I have said is that it is entirely possible for a generalized explanation to be made that explains why the block was made, such as "Due to the editing made on such and such articles and through CU data, we have determined that so and so is a sock of so and so". Something like that doesn't give anything away, but explains where the decision came from.
- The issue that a number of us have is that it appears what instigated Alison to this is a comment by a blocked sockpuppeteer on Wikipedia Review.
- This, this is exactly the type of mindset that has upset so many people. You absolutely refuse to even acknowledge the possibility of being wrong and, likely because of this, have offered no alternatives for the accused if you are wrong.
- See #1.
- I have read Philippe's response. I find it hard to believe that there are no legal ramifications for hoarding personal information on people, but I give up the point. The CU issue is minor compared to other stuff.
And it's funny that all you guys have to bring up is always Rodhullandemu. That's the only thing you ever have and the issue there was the same issue as here, lack of any information given to the community whatsoever. At least in that case you replied to his emails, unlike what you've given to Scotty here.
And I discussed this on Scotty's talk page beforehand and other people were in support of me making this RfC. That's why I did it, your insults aside. SilverserenC 02:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- @Your note: I hadn't even been done in getting it set up yet or added to any RfC places. You can't blame me for not notifying you when I hadn't even officially started the RfC yet. I notified all of those people to have them come certify this if they were interested, then I would have opened it and gone and notified you guys. This RfC is still not even listed anywhere, as I wasn't ready to do that before. SilverserenC 02:06, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- You had multiple hours between contacting Reyk, Mongo, etcetera so I find your comments less then accurate. Also: You may disagree, but you are not in possession of the IP and behavioral evidence that Checkusers are qualified to handle per the privacy policy. It's not that you disagree with it, it's that you can't see it, and you are acting like a gossip monger, demanding to know things only because you have a burning need to be "in the know". If you want to have access to private info, then put your name forward for advanced permissions, although I would have to state for the record that I, for at least one would not trust you with sensitive, private information, based on your past history.
- It seems you are unaware of the history, in fact the issue that started the whole Mantanmoreland issue is that a checkuser requested by someone who ALSO turned out to be a sockpuppet of a banned user. However, what that checkuser found (that Mantanmoreland and Samiharris could not be authoratively linked, because one account (Samiharris) exclusively edited using open proxies. Despite this fact, the only hue and cry to sweep the CU results under the rug were amongst Mantanmoreland's greatest defenders, and as it turns out, they as well were proven wrong.
- And to respond to your repeated talking pointthat "You've given ScottyBerg no way back if he is truly innocent.. again, he is not innocent. A dozen arbitrators and check users have signed off on this, that the two accounts are the same. In short, your reply to my response is no more credible then your original statement. SirFozzie (talk) 02:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- First off, can you please stop the insults? They're not making your argument stronger or you look better with your argument. In regards to the notifying, I was doing all of that at work. I notified them around three hours ago, in between setting this up, and then got off work and went to have dinner. And, again, this RfC isn't even technically open yet.
- Anyways, I don't want to see the evidence, because that's not the issue here. The issue is how Arbcom acted throughout all of this. Scotty being innocent or not isn't important at this point.
- The main problem isn't even just about this single case. It's with the fact that you, and presumably Arbcom, refuse to acknowledge the possibility of being wrong. If this is a mindset that all of you use for every case, therein lies the problem, because there's no way for you to be right 100% of the time. You have to allow the possibility of being wrong or you aren't the right person for the responsibilities handed to you. This is why I always felt that having just Arbcom is a problem. In a sense of a court case, since Arbcom is always compared to being a court, when you appeal a decision, you don't appeal it to the same judge and jury that made the decision, because having people review their own decisions is pointless. Who's really going to willingly change their own judgement without outside influence?
- Not to mention that your last paragraph is a complete circular argument. "You shouldn't believe we made a mistake because we didn't make a mistake". It doesn't matter how many people in the group you had review it, not allowing the idea of having been mistaken or having overlooked something is a major problem. This is not a mindset that Arbcom should have, because they cannot properly represent the community with it. SilverserenC 03:06, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- No, the cogent part of the argument is "CheckUsers and Arbitrators are qualified and authorized to handle private data per the authorization of the WMF. As for categorizing my comments refuting your "statement" insults does not make them any less true. The last time you went tilting at windmaills, against the Committee, it was demanding to see the contents of oversighted edits so you could determine for yourself whether the Committee had made the right decision to block the user". Oversighters, and even those who saw the edit before it was oversighted tried to assure you that the edits were indeed oversightable and the reason who got blocked. You refused, and only when the mass of the community told you to stop beating the dead horse and drop it, did you begrudgingly do so.
- While we ARE fallible, one of the reasons why so many people reviewed the evidence for ScottyBerg's appeal is to make sure that we WEREN'T making a mistake. To suggest all these people were simultaneously wrong stretches the odds to a point that only "I really have a need to see for myself" can explain it. And considering one of your major points of your creating this RFC was that you thought Scotty had a secret trial and was innocent, to now claim that "Scotty being innocent or not isn't important at this point" proves my point, that you don't really have a case to be answered here in this RFC, you are just upset that you aren't "in the know" and want to force the release of private information to satisfy your own curiosity. SirFozzie (talk) 03:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- The private data has little to nothing to do with this. It's about whether there's the possibility that the conclusion this data and those that read it is faulty. No matter how many people you had review the data, there is entirely the possibility that the conclusion it represented was incorrect. And this isn't about this case specifically, but any case. There needs to be a way for those accused to represent themselves and prove their innocence. At the very least, they deserve replies from Arbcom, rather than continual silence.
- And, again, I don't want to see the data. What it says is irrelevant to this RfC. The issue is how this and many other blocks/bans are conducted by the Arbitration Committee, and these other blocks/bans are continually pointed out by users to be obtuse in how they are presented to the community. That is the point of this case, to have Arbcom actually follow the pledge of transparency that they made at one point in time. SilverserenC 03:55, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- OK, now I don't understand. You don't want to see the data, but you think everyone who has seen it is interpreting it wrongly. You don't believe Arbcom has communicated with ScottyBerg, even though it says that it has. I presume you don't want to see those emails, you just don't believe that they exist. So what do you want? What is the outcome you want from this process? Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:54, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Are you implying that there are further replies from Arbcom beyond the one that states "The Arbitration Committee (or its Ban Appeals Subcommittee) will consider your appeal and inform you of our decision by e-mail or on your Wikipedia talk page. In the interim, I (personally) would encourage you to remain professional in any posts to your talk page - if indeed you find it necessary to make any at all."
- OK, now I don't understand. You don't want to see the data, but you think everyone who has seen it is interpreting it wrongly. You don't believe Arbcom has communicated with ScottyBerg, even though it says that it has. I presume you don't want to see those emails, you just don't believe that they exist. So what do you want? What is the outcome you want from this process? Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:54, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- And, again, I don't want to see the data. What it says is irrelevant to this RfC. The issue is how this and many other blocks/bans are conducted by the Arbitration Committee, and these other blocks/bans are continually pointed out by users to be obtuse in how they are presented to the community. That is the point of this case, to have Arbcom actually follow the pledge of transparency that they made at one point in time. SilverserenC 03:55, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- You did "inform him on his talk page", I suppose, but just to say that it was denied. There were no replies to his other emails to the committee with evidence of his innocence, not even a little "We have received your email and will add the information to our consideration" or something like that. SilverserenC 19:03, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- And you know there's evidence of his innocence because...? I take your point that it's hard to prove a negative, but other people accused of socking have managed it often enough. Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:19, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- You already know the emails he sent to Arbcom, including what he said in them. And i'm not saying it proves his innocence, i'm saying that he deserved at least some sort of response to his statements and questions. Also, was semi-protection ever applied to his talk page as he asked, because of that disruptive IP? SilverserenC 21:19, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Alison semiprotected his talkpage for 24hrs on the 15th, and Newyorkbrad then semiprotected it until the 23rd. That's in the public page logs, so you can look that up for yourself. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:56, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- You already know the emails he sent to Arbcom, including what he said in them. And i'm not saying it proves his innocence, i'm saying that he deserved at least some sort of response to his statements and questions. Also, was semi-protection ever applied to his talk page as he asked, because of that disruptive IP? SilverserenC 21:19, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- And you know there's evidence of his innocence because...? I take your point that it's hard to prove a negative, but other people accused of socking have managed it often enough. Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:19, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- You did "inform him on his talk page", I suppose, but just to say that it was denied. There were no replies to his other emails to the committee with evidence of his innocence, not even a little "We have received your email and will add the information to our consideration" or something like that. SilverserenC 19:03, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Jack Sebastian
As I've pointed out elsewhere, I don't actually like ScottyBerg; my few interactions with the user made me less likely to interact with him. So, it was with a bit of schadenfreude that I read about his being blocked. Unfortunately, I began to wonder if the basis of the block was a good one. There are too many crap users who become for all intents and purposes 'block-proof' (or at least extremely block resistant) because others inflated a charge at one point or another which never stuck, and I didn't want to see that happen here. I state this so as to make it clear I am not one of SB's defenders.
I haven't seen the evidence against SB that substantiates the claim that he is Mantanmoreland. There is no public checkuser that connects the two. I am extremely disturbed that the sole reason for failing to present this evidence seems predicated upon WP:BEANS - specifically, that making the proof known would compromise Wikipedia security (this from User: Mongo).
It seems to me that such an excuse is so ripe for abuse that some users have jumped on the bandwagon, sure that just such an abuse has taken place here as well as at previous times. ARBCOM's response to these concerns hasn't done much to calm people's fears, though AGK and another took the time to try and explain the matter, though I think they failed to appreciate the
depth of these concerns.
I think that the idea of a secret deliberation about someone's block is anathema to the core ideas of Wikipedia,a nd certainly contrary to where ARBCOM has sought to protray themselves as desiring more transparency.
Clearly, this isn't happening. I understand (at least some of) the difficulties with aiming for complete transparency, and can clearly see the apparent problem here. I am not advocating we tear down ARBCOM and tar and feather the arbs before running them out of town on a rail; that is counter-productive. Also, I am guessing they wouldn't vote to do that to themselves.
That said, I think a little more than lip service needs to be paid to the idea of transparency; they do answer to the community, after all - or am I wrong about this. If so, then the problem is ever so much larger: who watches the watchers? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 07:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Discussion
To be honest Jack, checking the user's IP address only really confirmed that he was located in the right part of the world. The reluctance to discuss is because all but the best poker players don't realise what their 'tells' are. Hence there is always a general reluctance by the checkusers to openly catalogue 'tells', because they feel it gives them an edge in identifying serial sockers. However, most of the rest of the evidence is on Wikipedia if you want to go ferret it out yourself - you can read all the discussions about Mantanmoreland and his socks, look at the editing patterns of all the socks, run whatever wikistalk/editor compare tools you like, and see if you agree with the dozen and more checkusers and experienced admins who are/were familiar with his editing. Silver seren can do the same. Any editor can do the same. What they don't have a right to, as it goes at the moment, is to have all the evidence laid out in simple sentences, because in this case they aren't the jury. If the community wants to insist that socks cannot be blocked unless there is a community discussion, then that needs to be proposed in the usual way.Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:52, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- I understand what you are saying, Elen, and I am not advocating a dulling of the perceived edge that CU's feel they have. By the same token, it is unreasonable to ask us to trust that checkusers are using the Force or whatever to do their job, and we should just trust that they are doing their job.
- Before the aforementioned comment gets taken largely out of context, I will point out that questioning authority is not the same thing as damning it. I have no reason to believe that cu's are abusing their community-entrusted authority. Then again, I have no proof that ScottyBerg is Mantanmoreland, either. There is an issue of trust which ARBCOM isn't engendering by its perceived actions, and it is pretty much the source of the problem here here. I typically don't believe in large-style government cover-ups, but with the details of Echelon and Watergate, there exists good reason to scout for abuse by those in authority.
- I don't believe that treating the rest of the users as if you have to "dumb down" the evidence for the community (suggested by the "have all the evidence laid out in simple sentences" statement) is fair. Likewise, suggesting that we can wade through the - if not mountain, than certainly a large-type hill of - evidence or IP search tools is not beneficial to the community's view of ARBCOM's openness. You are effectively asking us to listen for one harmony in the cacophony that is Wikipedia. Bluntly, if you've done the work, share it with us, and save us the time. If MM has been outed, then the privacy issue isn't on point. If ScottyBerg is indeed MM, then - being connected - he also has no expectation of privacy - especially since you are all unanimously convinced that they are connected. There has to be a better middle ground than what currently is in place. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 17:30, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, you should trust that they are doing their job. If you do not trust that this was an appropriate block, there are dispute resolution processes in place: the Audit Subcommittee includes community representation, and the WMF Ombudsman Commission is an arms-length body that has absolutely no connection to English Wikipedia. Every arbitrator is elected by the community, and every checkuser appointed since 2009 has been vetted both by the Arbitration Committee and by community consultation; all of them must meet the WMF requirements for handling of private information. Thousands of blocks a year are made by checkusers using private information and the collective wisdom accumulated with respect to serial abusers of the project. That this one happens to involve a longterm contributor meant that there was lots of review prior to and following the block to reassess the opinion of the blocking checkuser; this has possibly been the most thoroughly vetted checkuser block in the past three years, and there has been no dissent at all about the link. Risker (talk) 17:56, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Jack, apologies. I didn't mean 'dumbed down' - I was thinking about the way evidence is laid out for a jury. If the community was being asked to make a decision, then the evidence ought to be laid out in a way that the community can follow. But, there is not currently a mechanism by which the community makes decisions on whether someone is a sock or not, so there is not currently a requirement to lay out the evidence. Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:51, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- No worries, Elen; I am glad that I took your comment the wrong way, and that you took the time to point out the correct interpretation. You also point out the same problem that I do; namely, that there is no mechanism by which to verify that arbs are making the right decisions. I know that might ruffle some arb feathers - 'who says we need anyone to verify our work? We're arbs, after all' - but the bitter pill here is that the community is not meant to trust you implicitly.
- We create this culture wherein we call on others to prove that which they wish to add to articles. We insist that matters in discussion pages and community areas be cited with relevant rules and/or guidelines. Proof is part of the wiki 'DNA'. Those who can't or won't get this eventually weed themselves out or get weeded out by others. The assumption of good faith does not extend into matters as serious as this.
- So, asking us to simply trust you (and I'm also addressing Risker's comments here) is contrary to what we do as wiki editors and counter-productive as a request. I am saying that if you are wrong about ScottyBerg being Mantanmoreland (and if you are not willing to risk both your adminship and arbiter status to do so, then you cannot say it with certainty), you are giving the community no opportunity to discover that error. And I think that not allowing that is a grave mistake that only further isolates ARBCOM from the community and further hobbles with process.
- Risker, you seem like a smart guy, and I've never known you to make a mistake, but then, my Pops would say that makes you ripe for one. If you were aware of the ScottyBerg page - and I find it very hard to believe that no one commenting here wasn't watching that page - you might have suggested "the appropriate dispute resolution process" then, instead of waiting until Silver seren took the time to file this RfC. That seems a little bit less than helpful. I am commenting here so that we can try to address a problem without having to move further up the pipeline. You don't have to take my comments seriously, but I intend them as such. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 06:27, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Jack says:
- "There is no public checkuser that connects the two." - I thought checkuser info was never public.
- "I think that the idea of a secret deliberation about someone's block is anathema to the core ideas of Wikipedia" - well no, if it was really like that, there would be no such thing as checkuser, and no private arbcom deliberations.
Transparent processes have their advantages which is why we use them when we can; they also have limitations, especially in a setting as privacy-protective as Wikipedia. We try to resolve most disputes at the community level that is open to everyone, supposedly with transparency. When that doesn't work, plan B is to swap out some of the trust created by (supposed) transparency, for trust that's been vested in specific users (i.e. arbcom and CU) through community processes such as elections, thus making it possible to use private data and deliberations after open processes have failed. Per KWW, this is an encyclopedia after all, not an experiment in governance or judicial machinery.
In reality the "community" processes of course aren't so transparent either, because of the amount of sockpuppets, undisclosed COI, etc. present among the community participants. While it's not inconceivable that such issues could affect arbcom/CU, the arb/CU members have at least gone through some scrutiny and (in the past) open election discussions. Now we have secret-ballot of elections, which I'd have considered a loss of transparency, Of course lots of good editors supported that (I personally didn't), but it's disturbing when someone associated with socking does it.[1] 67.119.12.141 (talk) 05:57, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by MONGO
I want to bring attention to a few issues here that need to be clarified...
- Checkusers are generally regarded as being highly trusted members of the community. They are expected to ensure that when they are dealing with possible ban evaders that they take certain steps to seek out other highly trusted members of the community (such as the arbitration committee) if they have evidence that may lead to a re-ban of a ban evader. In the case in question, checkuser Alison did this.
- The arbitration committee is generally regarded as being highly trusted members of the community...upon reviewing Alisons data, they apparently reached the same conclusion, namely that ScottyBerg = Mantanmoreland, who was banned from editing Wikipedia.
- Checkusers and members of the arbitration committee are expected to maintain the rights of privacy of all, including ban evaders, yet also provide feedback as to the basics as to why a returning editor has been rebanned...in this case, this has been provided.
- There are certain techniques, pieces of data, ques and other things I may not be aware of that allow for investigations of ban evaders to be possible...in other words, there is a lot more to such matters than just IP correlation. Some of this information must remain somewhat confidential so that the editor who is blocked as a ban evader, or those wishing to evade a ban or vote stack or similar isn't as easily able to dodge his/her ban. In previous comments on this matter, I alluded that reveiling some particulars of what is involved here could "compromise" Wikipedia...to clarify, I should have used the term "compromising"...but even with this adjustment, all I mean is that we don't want to aide and abet anyone using undisclosed sockpuppets...there are numerous reasons for this.
- The arbitration committee generally enforces previous bans but does allow (after some time has elapsed) the opportunity for all but the most egregious of editors the chance to return to normal editing...in this case, the committee has explained what this avenue is and it seems from my perspective to be a fair one for the most part.
- I believe that Alison and the arbitration committee here have acted in the best interests of Wikipedia in that the rules apply to all equally and a ban evader has no entitlement to editing this project unless they have sought out a modification of their ban via the arbitration committee....in such circumstances, the arbitration committee generally also seeks out comments by those who may have been involved in prior actions which led to a ban as well as community comments.
- Those sanctioned under arbitration are expected to follow certain procedural steps to regain the right to openly edit here.
However, I have other points here that should be noted...
- ScottyBerg amassed over 12,000 edits...aside from what a few have labelled as "promotional" to a certain bio, I can see no malice in any of ScottyBerg's contributions. Of course, I haven't reviewed every single edit made by ScottyBerg and may not be nuanced enough to know if he did or did not edit some articles in a completely neutral manner, but I know of almost no Wikipedian that doesn't have some bias...there are numerous editors on this website that edit purely from a biased position...their contributions surely appear far more detrimental to the project than ScottyBergs edits to a certain bio.
- Aside from some edits to a certain bio, ScottyBerg appears to have stayed completely away from editing areas that were edited by Mantanmoreland...
- ScottyBerg and I have had zero email communication that I can remember...he posted a few times to my talkpage and I remember giving him a barnstar for his positive contributions to a 9/11 related article and discussions there. Mantanmoreland and I did have email correspondance long ago...he never provided, nor did I inquire about his real life identity. My knowledge of ScottyBerg is solely based on his contributions to some of the same articles I have worked on. I never had any knowledge of or any reason to suspect that ScottyBerg may be a ban evader.
- The discussion which led to this matter of ScottyBerg being ban evader Mantanmoreland appears to have commenced at the website Wikipedia Review. I have generally held an antagonistic viewpoint of this website, the motives of some of the contributers there as well as their welcoming of not only banned editors (note that I don't believe Mantanmoreland contributed there as he would not be welcome I don't believe...the mods there may be able to check that), but some former editors of Wikipedia that have been involved in real life stalking and real life harassment....and their at least previous active efforts to try and identify the real life identities of some of our contributors. There is concern on my part that an off-wiki website, of a somewhat (from my perspective) dubious standing, may be misused as a coordinating point for on wiki harassment...[2]
- I do not think that the contributions made by ScottyBerg are in any way detrimental to this website...if indeed he is Mantanmoreland, I believe that his contributions as ScottyBerg already demonstrate that he has "reformed".
- I question the zeal that appears to have been shown here...I do not see any evidence that ScottyBerg was a threat to the content of this website. There may have been a better way to deal with this situation.--MONGO 17:58, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
In closing, I want to reemphasize that I believe that checkuser Alison and the arbitration committee have done the right thing here. It saddens me that an editor that has made apparently 12,000 plus contributions, virtually every single one of them positive, has been found to be a ban evader, but I AGF that all involved in this matter have enforced the letter of the law so to speak...for if we don't enforce the rules, all we are left with is anarchy.--MONGO 18:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Discussion
There are two different components here, and it might be as well to separate them, as otherwise I think it might become confused. The first is the question of whether the ScottyBerg account is operated by the same person who operated the Mantanmoreland account. The second is - if the first is true, should action have been taken. There's probably more discussion to be had about the second component, and as I said above to Jack, an argument that there should be community discussion in some cases might well receive support, because the community might not advocate continuing to block the individual if their sock has operated peaceably for years. Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:45, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- I believe that the evidence that Alison and the arbitration committee examined is conclusive that they are the same editor. I also believe that ScottyBerg has a 99 percent positive contributions history, but I am willing to modify that if provided evidence aside from a few to a certain bio that demonstrate malice or COI.--MONGO 19:06, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- I do think that this, and Quest's statement below, are worth further discussion. Even among the reviewers, while everyone thought he is Mantanmoreland, some people did question whether it was worth blocking him. The question is - what do you do if you decide he can stay? Do you say he's a blocked user but you've decided to keep him on. Do you fudge it - say there's not enough evidence that he is? How do you respond to the argument that it encourages socking? And what do you do when WR keeps up the pressure? --Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- I'll be blunt here and say that Wikipedia Review can go to hell....so any "pressure" they apply to our website itself should be ignored. Now as far as pressure on ScottyBerg himself, that is a dfifferent matter and perhaps even if he avowed to never touch Mantanmorelands areas, the malicious editors there may have made his editing experiences here (by socking and attacking here) untenable. I don't support the return of an arbcom banned editor unless he/she goes through the proper channels and abides by set conditions...am I incorrect in my assumption that this was initiated at Wikipedia Review...and the checkuser was performed based on evidence or suspicions cast there? Where is the official request for checkuser on ScottyBerg? Was it requested by a neutral third party? Why is User:Vee8Njinn/SB still up?...this is an obvious bad party sock page. I suppose the subsequent edits to the certain bio is the reason that a previously dismissed Rfcu became more in focus. Its these sorts of things that makes a few of those commenting here come across as frustrated.--MONGO 19:53, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Is that really all the behavioral evidence there is? Wikistalk is pretty much useless, as there are a number of people that would have more of a match with Mantanmoreland and not be him. The other evidence is what..."rply" and "--"? The -- is useless, as two edits out of 12,000 doesn't mean anything. I'm sure i've used -- before myself. As for rply, i'm not seeing any comparison to Scotty listed there. SilverserenC 20:11, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- I'm under the impression that the information posted at the closed RFCu and at User:Vee8Njinn/SB constitutes the bulk of the behavioral evidence...subsequent "promotional" edits to Gary Weiss and closely correlating checkuser (IP) evidence is enough to determine that this is the same editor. I'm in a personal quagmire as to how to fully address this matter...anything that had it's birth at Wikipedia Review leaves a bad impression.--MONGO 20:22, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Second that sentiment. There is (to my mind) no reason why there couldn't be a proper community discussion as to an unblock that could cover off all these points. At least then it has been properly aired. Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:41, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Well, I'm better at asking the questions than figuring out the solutions. This is a relatively unique situation...a ban evader returns under a new username without arbcom agreement, makes almost universally good contributions, is found to be evading a ban and gets rebanned. The vast bulk of those banned return using short lived socks which are quickly found and blocked...who knows, we probably have other new accounts of previously banned/blocked editors that moved on to new horizons and have remained undetected.--MONGO 20:58, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Just musing here and not really in support of such a thing overall, but I wonder if some sort of statute of limitations might be in order...in that an old arbcom case is best amended (though never nullified) so that an otherwise trustworthy editor can return in peace under set conditions....we know what those conditions would be in this case.--MONGO 21:03, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Interesting thought. As you say, most socks just repeat the previous behaviour, get caught and blocked. I'm sure there are users out there editing under a new name that no-one has picked up - or someone has noticed but kept mum because the new incarnation appears harmless. I don't have answers either, but it's an interesting thought to put into a discussion. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:13, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- User:Rootology is an interesting case...banned in the MONGO arbcom case, subsequently socked as User:XP and with other accounts...ventured to Wikipedia Commons where he was later made an admin...petitioned arbcom for his ban to be lifted on en.wiki...arbcom asked me and I said grudgingly okay after he promised to avoid me (lol)..and even became an admin here under his original username. The main difference here is that Rootology went through the proper channels for such an amendment...and conditions were established which allowed him to edit again, and as I mentioned, even be given admin tools. Sorry no links as I'm just reciting the events as I recollect them...--MONGO 21:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Yeah, Rootology followed the prescribed route, which is fairly tortuous. At the other end of the scale, we have Count Iblis below, who seems to be suggesting that socks not be blocked at all while they are editing productively, which I would think it could be argued...rather invalidates the point of blocks. Yes, you're blocked, but we won't block your socks until they are unproductive. Or should we consider that? Some socks do edit productively for a while before running off the rails, which seems to be a strategy of some sockfarmers to cause more confusion and disruption. Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:12, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- User:Rootology is an interesting case...banned in the MONGO arbcom case, subsequently socked as User:XP and with other accounts...ventured to Wikipedia Commons where he was later made an admin...petitioned arbcom for his ban to be lifted on en.wiki...arbcom asked me and I said grudgingly okay after he promised to avoid me (lol)..and even became an admin here under his original username. The main difference here is that Rootology went through the proper channels for such an amendment...and conditions were established which allowed him to edit again, and as I mentioned, even be given admin tools. Sorry no links as I'm just reciting the events as I recollect them...--MONGO 21:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Interesting thought. As you say, most socks just repeat the previous behaviour, get caught and blocked. I'm sure there are users out there editing under a new name that no-one has picked up - or someone has noticed but kept mum because the new incarnation appears harmless. I don't have answers either, but it's an interesting thought to put into a discussion. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:13, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Second that sentiment. There is (to my mind) no reason why there couldn't be a proper community discussion as to an unblock that could cover off all these points. At least then it has been properly aired. Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:41, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- I'm under the impression that the information posted at the closed RFCu and at User:Vee8Njinn/SB constitutes the bulk of the behavioral evidence...subsequent "promotional" edits to Gary Weiss and closely correlating checkuser (IP) evidence is enough to determine that this is the same editor. I'm in a personal quagmire as to how to fully address this matter...anything that had it's birth at Wikipedia Review leaves a bad impression.--MONGO 20:22, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Is that really all the behavioral evidence there is? Wikistalk is pretty much useless, as there are a number of people that would have more of a match with Mantanmoreland and not be him. The other evidence is what..."rply" and "--"? The -- is useless, as two edits out of 12,000 doesn't mean anything. I'm sure i've used -- before myself. As for rply, i'm not seeing any comparison to Scotty listed there. SilverserenC 20:11, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- I'll be blunt here and say that Wikipedia Review can go to hell....so any "pressure" they apply to our website itself should be ignored. Now as far as pressure on ScottyBerg himself, that is a dfifferent matter and perhaps even if he avowed to never touch Mantanmorelands areas, the malicious editors there may have made his editing experiences here (by socking and attacking here) untenable. I don't support the return of an arbcom banned editor unless he/she goes through the proper channels and abides by set conditions...am I incorrect in my assumption that this was initiated at Wikipedia Review...and the checkuser was performed based on evidence or suspicions cast there? Where is the official request for checkuser on ScottyBerg? Was it requested by a neutral third party? Why is User:Vee8Njinn/SB still up?...this is an obvious bad party sock page. I suppose the subsequent edits to the certain bio is the reason that a previously dismissed Rfcu became more in focus. Its these sorts of things that makes a few of those commenting here come across as frustrated.--MONGO 19:53, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- I do think that this, and Quest's statement below, are worth further discussion. Even among the reviewers, while everyone thought he is Mantanmoreland, some people did question whether it was worth blocking him. The question is - what do you do if you decide he can stay? Do you say he's a blocked user but you've decided to keep him on. Do you fudge it - say there's not enough evidence that he is? How do you respond to the argument that it encourages socking? And what do you do when WR keeps up the pressure? --Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- There is (or was) in fact something of a tradition that if a banned user returned quietly and edited productively, depending on the circumstances of the ban, other editors who noticed this would often choose to not say anything. This was always a collective IAR on the part of the editors who noticed (and it obviously had to be unanimous), rather than anything that the banned user was entitled to by any stretch of the imagination. For example, the brouhaha over User:Law was (if I remember correctly) because Law became an administrator while other users/admins knew that Law was a new account of a banned user. If Law hadn't run for admin, then the eventual disclosure probably wouldn't have caused noticable blowback towards other people who had kept their knowledge quiet. As it was, it caused multiple resignations of admins and arbcom members. I can think of a few other examples I won't go into. So maybe the arbs/checkusers who discovered SB=MM could have just monitored the situation quietly or contacted SB privately, instead of blocking and announcing. But I'd imagine that the "transparency" aficionados would have been even more bent out of shape if something like that later became known.
Anyway, by another tradition, banned users normally can't get unbanned unless they themselves ask to be unbanned. If ScottyBerg wants an unban, the obvious thing for him to do is contact BASC or ask someone to open an AN thread where the request could be discussed in the usual way. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 02:11, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I've just spent a few minutes looking over ScottyBerg's contribs. His mainspace editing is mostly reasonable, concentrating on New York City-related articles (geography, transit, etc). Of 12182 total edits he's made 4527 Huggle or Twinkle edits, mostly vandal reversions scattered all over mainspace (with some concentrations in specific articles he probably has watchlisted), suggesting he's been doing some RC patrol. Those are of course useful contributions per se, but at least in the old days, doing a lot of vandal reverting plus some uncontroversial mainspace editing was a standard route for returning editors to gain adminship without close scrutiny at RFA. So (forgive my cynicism), that pattern at least lifted my eyebrows about his possible intentions. I also notice some involvement of his in DR related to climate change and other areas inhabited by certain dramaboard/WR regulars, that I don't get a good vibe from. He says he has never heard of Mantanmorland.[3] He participated in several other SPI's, most extensively in WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Nelsondenis248/Archive (where he did good work), showing interest and knowledge in this area. He removed mention of WR from an essay section discussing disgruntled former Wikipedians.[4] Early edit history (bunch of transit-related edits, then shows up on Jimbo's talk page about climate change, etc.) also looks a bit "constructed" through the lens of the known history we're discussing. Plus there are the Gary Weiss edits and a few other issues I'll skip. Overall not much "smoking guns" but my heart is still nonetheless not exactly filled with AGF. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 04:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Well, ScottyBerg doesn't have the kind of contributions such as new pages or major article enhancement, but his edits still appear to be overwhelmingly constructive nevertheless and that is generally all we ask of any editor. We have a history of being overly tolerant of well known POV pushers, SPA's and similar contributors that are, in my opinion, more detrimental than ScottyBerg has ever been while editing under that username.--MONGO 05:17, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- True. I do wonder how many other socks he might be running. One thing that really bugs me is when tendentious editors and sock operators start trying to influence site policies in ways that can weaken the encyclopedia's integrity. That's an area where SB causes me some concern, though I'll agree that it certainly could be a lot worse. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 05:48, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- I haven't seen any evidence as of yet that ScottyBerg had any sock accounts, only they he is a sock account of Mantanmoreland...I assume that User:Alison would have uncovered and also blocked any other socks during the checkuser investigation. Alison also protected the Gary Weiss article due to BLP enforcement.--MONGO 05:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- I presume you mean other sock accounts and you've forgotten Bassettcat,[5] plus the total insanity of the MM arb case itself. I haven't looked into the past WP and WR discussions enough to know how the SB-MM connection was uncovered in the first place. I'd superficially guess that it was not easy to discern. So I don't necessarily expect that other ones (if they exist) were likely to have been discovered. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 06:20, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- No, I didn't "forget" Bassettcat since I posted that same AN/I archived link here earlier[6]...I meant that ScottyBerg isn't a sockmaster account...while we're here chatting about socks, how about you start editing here with your regular username...not to be rude, but why the coverup since you seem otherwise to be contributing without malice and quite neutrally and you're not a newbie.--MONGO 06:56, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- I don't use a username. I think I edit more neutrally without one. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 07:48, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Hmm. Have you edited under a named account before, anon67? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 08:01, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- I don't use a username. I think I edit more neutrally without one. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 07:48, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- No, I didn't "forget" Bassettcat since I posted that same AN/I archived link here earlier[6]...I meant that ScottyBerg isn't a sockmaster account...while we're here chatting about socks, how about you start editing here with your regular username...not to be rude, but why the coverup since you seem otherwise to be contributing without malice and quite neutrally and you're not a newbie.--MONGO 06:56, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- I presume you mean other sock accounts and you've forgotten Bassettcat,[5] plus the total insanity of the MM arb case itself. I haven't looked into the past WP and WR discussions enough to know how the SB-MM connection was uncovered in the first place. I'd superficially guess that it was not easy to discern. So I don't necessarily expect that other ones (if they exist) were likely to have been discovered. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 06:20, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- I haven't seen any evidence as of yet that ScottyBerg had any sock accounts, only they he is a sock account of Mantanmoreland...I assume that User:Alison would have uncovered and also blocked any other socks during the checkuser investigation. Alison also protected the Gary Weiss article due to BLP enforcement.--MONGO 05:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- True. I do wonder how many other socks he might be running. One thing that really bugs me is when tendentious editors and sock operators start trying to influence site policies in ways that can weaken the encyclopedia's integrity. That's an area where SB causes me some concern, though I'll agree that it certainly could be a lot worse. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 05:48, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by A Quest for Knowledge
The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia. Everything else is secondary. ScottyBerg is a productive editor with 2 year's experience and 12,000 edits, and a clean record. Even if he is Mantanmoreland, whatever conduct issues they might have had in the past have obviously been corrected. Productive editors who aren't causing any problems should not be blocked. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Count Iblis
I agree with A Quest for Knowledge. For me, the issue isn't ScottyBerg being Mantanmoreland or not. User:Tisane was also blocked by ArbCom for a similar reason, despite that user being very productive here. Count Iblis (talk) 00:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Discussion
I'm not sure how relevant that example is. Tisane only edited for five days. Even User:Pickbothmanlol can manage five days before going off at the deep end sometimes.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:07, 30 January 2012 (UTC) My bad. For some reason earliest contribs came up for me with 6 August 2010. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:47, 30 January 2012 (UTC)- I see a lot more editing time than that here. Count Iblis (talk) 01:40, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Tisane may have been "productive", but his editing was biased at best and alarming at worst. Fences&Windows 21:48, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- My best ABF theory towards ScottyBerg's editing pattern is that he was after a sysop bit. Whether that strategy still works and he wanted to do with the bit once he got it, I don't know, but it can't have been good. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 21:41, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Kww
This is covered by one of the missing pieces of WP:NOT: Wikipedia is not an experiment seeking a perfect online social justice system. It has a rough-and-ready system that is good enough for the task. A lot of people with checkuser privileges looked at the data and came to a conclusion. It may be the right one. If it is, they did the right thing, as socking is intolerable, no matter the productivity of the sock. They may have made a mistake, in which case .0000000000015% of the human race is unjustly blocked from editing a website. That's a problem of no consequence, and not worth any more effort than has already been put into the case.—Kww(talk) 03:20, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Discussion
- I don't like the absolutism of "X is intolerable no matter what" per WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY among other things, but I agree with the general sentiment about WP dispute resolution and its imperfections. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 06:51, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by The Devil's Advocate
I will just copy-paste the comment I left on the user talk page for Jimmy Wales:
“ | User:Cookiehead, who appears to frequent the site of Wikipedia Review where many active and banned editors have been discussing User:ScottyBerg as a sock of Mantan, makes the following edit to the Gary Weiss article: [7]. What is rather telling is that the edit summary has a comical feel to it and the use of quotations around the phrase "weight-loss surgery" as well suggests this was never meant as a serious edit. Sure enough, as soon as Scotty reverts the edit Cookie goes to WR to announce his success: [8]. It appears this was the inciting incident that led to the block, all apparently prompted by the discussion on WR.
However, the most unsettling thing is what happens next. Following several acts of vandalism the article was put under protection. At that point User:Cla68 leaves a post on the WR thread suggesting ways to "smoke out" Mantan socks in the future: [9]. Providing advice about how to use edits to a BLP as a way to provoke someone into an action that will lead to a block is a clear-cut case of disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. Should an editor be making positive contributions to the site and only fail to do so as a consequence of baiting by a group of individuals editing in bad faith, I believe the latter should be the subject of greater concern than the former. |
” |
Off-wiki coordination to use edits to a BLP article as a means to prove a point about a specific editor is problematic. Given that the admin who issued the block apparently frequents WR it raises serious questions about this case. I don't think disruptive editing should be overlooked even if it is supposedly done with good intentions.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 04:17, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Discussion
The Devils Advocate...there has been little doubt in my mind that the suspicion that ScottyBerg is Mantanmoreland was commenced at Wikipedia Review. The chief antagonist of Mantanmoreland is Wordbomb...supposedly, both their real life identities are known and they have real life disagreements that in the past spilled over into Wikipedia. For the record, Wikipedia Review has been more empathetic to WordBomb than to Mantanmoreland, but in terms of disruption of this website, my assessment is that WordBomb was far worse.--MONGO 04:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Remember, when WordBomb tried to bring it to WP's administration's attention that the person behind the Mantanmoreland account was attempting to use Wikipedia to promote Gary Weiss and Naked Short Selling, he was banned. WordBomb was then forced to publicize what was going on, including the administrative corruption supporting it, on WR, among other places. As you know, Mantanmoreland was eventually community banned, vindicating WordBomb and exposing a rotten core of corruption in Wikipedia's administration, which included the use of mailing lists to coordinate content editing and controlling of WP's administrative processes, such as AfDs and RfAs. Many of WP's newer editors appear to be unaware of the history behind the Mantanmoreland accounts and thus are understandably confused by what has happened recently. Cla68 (talk) 04:56, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Much of what you have descibed falls into the realm of conspiracy theories. I was an admin during part of that period and even though I was one of those supposedly misled by Mantanmoreland, I never once got a single email from another admin suggesting I participate in some campaign to control article content at any of Mantanmoreland's haunts...or to participate in a single Rfa or Afd. If anything, this sort of stuff is coordinated at WR, not the opposite.--MONGO 05:04, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- One thing to note is that one of the first instances where these accusations were prominently made on Wikipedia involved User:Verbal IED, who was apparently a sock of User:Editor XXV. The username was an admitted homage to WordBomb. What is particularly off is how Cla68 reacts to blatant harassment by those socks.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:35, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Please don't assume that the Wikipedia Review thread (or related actions) was the significant factor in this action; it certainly would not have had any effect on the opinions of the majority of those who reviewed the blocking decision. Risker (talk) 05:41, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- From what I can tell, it has only been alleged that WR was the source of the inquiry, not that it played a decisive role in it. However, from what I recall it was said by an admin (possibly the blocking admin) that the CU evidence was an ISP (Internet Service Provider) match with behavioral evidence being the crux of the case. Did the behaviorial evidence examined go well beyond what has been generated by WR?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:17, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- It did. If the sum of the evidence had been correcting vandalism at the Weiss article and living in an area with a substantial population, we wouldn't be here now. Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:31, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm pretty unimpressed with the WR crowd but I don't think the "weight loss" edit The Devil's Advocate takes issue with was especially egregious or disruptive. According to the citation, Weiss is very happy with the surgery and gives talks about how great it was as part of his public speaking career. Weight-loss surgery is (I think) not a formal medical term, but it's the term Weiss himself uses, so putting it in quotes seems like a reasonable attempt at dealing with that tension. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 06:27, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Screw "problematic", DA; if Cla68 did indeed recommend such a disruption, then a block is clearly in order, and a substantial one at that. This is behavior we absolutely need to apply a rolled up newspaper to the snout of. It is not only disruptive and pointy, its an utterly cynical use of Wikipedia to injure another. I find Cla68's behavior completely unacceptable. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 07:43, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- It looks like there was some on-wiki conflict between ScottyBerg and Cla68, so Cla68 played the banned-user card. I've looked at enough diffs by now to see that ScottyBerg's editing was quite good most of the time. Instead of socking, he should have contacted arbcom and asked for an unblock/clean start and agreed to stay away from certain topics where he had problems. He can still do that and I hope he does. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 09:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- From what I understand the WR crowd like to mock the whole idea of Gary Weiss having weight-loss surgery and the edit I noted, with the edit summary, definitely has a tinge of mockery underlying it.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:09, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- The edit is also something I would revert, for both because it seems completely irrelevant in the context it is presented in and because it is sourced to an, essentially, primary source. And Cookiehead is definitely a WR editor who is not here to improve things. You just have to read his user page to see that. SilverserenC 20:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- I had got my diffs confused--
it looks like ScottyBerg reverted that edit,[10] butearlier he had made another edit that kept the info in the article, re-wording it and moving it from one section to another,[11] implying he didn't have a problem with it. I didn't examine the surrounding edit history that closely, but I see Drmies later removed the info from the speaking section as self-promotion.[12] I think maybe your real beef is with the WR participants who forced the sock issue onto arbcom (which otherwise could perfectly well have been exercising discretion and deciding not to intervene), so maybe you should be addressing that side of things more. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 02:58, 31 January 2012 (UTC)- Wait, it looks like Cookiehead was actually edit warring over that thing (example). Not good. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 03:25, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Which editor do you think may be the sockmaster of Cookiehead? I can give you a clue....[13]--MONGO 03:32, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- I had been thinking Cookiehead's editing reminded me of someone. You may be onto something but I don't have a scorecard handy and have lost track of the specifics. I liked this though :). 67.119.12.141 (talk) 03:40, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Cough (edit summary) 67.119.12.141 (talk) 03:48, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Wait, it looks like Cookiehead was actually edit warring over that thing (example). Not good. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 03:25, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- I had got my diffs confused--
- The edit is also something I would revert, for both because it seems completely irrelevant in the context it is presented in and because it is sourced to an, essentially, primary source. And Cookiehead is definitely a WR editor who is not here to improve things. You just have to read his user page to see that. SilverserenC 20:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Tora Bora Mora
People need to realise that on Wikipedia they are living in a world where the likes of User:Elen of the Roads will protect and enable users like User:Mo ainm to hide their previous account history in flagrant breach of WP:CLEANSTART, ironically on the say so of the infrequent visitor User:Alison. In a single post that she never bothered to substantiate or defend, Alison 'confirmed' that Mo ainm's past account cannot be revealed due to WP:OUTING concerns. Yet it's a matter of public record that he came up with this OUTING justification well after the event, having clearly misunderstood what CLEANSTART allowed, seizing on the fact he had simply included his very common first name in his original account name. This is not personally identifying information protected by WP:OUTING, yet this deception of the community still stands to this day. If it's true that Scotty has a clean record and is a constructive editor now, then whether he is MM or not, his enforced exile in this manner is morally inexcusable when compared to what the likes of serial gamers like Mo ainm have got away with, with the help of some of the exact same people. Tora Bora Mora (talk) 15:30, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- And whose sock are you.....? --Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:29, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Another sock at User:ScottyBerg'sNextS0ck. I find it highly unlikely that either of these are Scotty, so someone else is trolling him. Probably someone from WR. SilverserenC 02:04, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Bongwarrior nailed that one's head to a coffee table. The first one I think is more likely one of the editors on the British side blocked over The Troubles.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:06, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Who'd have thought. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 11:02, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- Bongwarrior nailed that one's head to a coffee table. The first one I think is more likely one of the editors on the British side blocked over The Troubles.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:06, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Another sock at User:ScottyBerg'sNextS0ck. I find it highly unlikely that either of these are Scotty, so someone else is trolling him. Probably someone from WR. SilverserenC 02:04, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
One quick comment from HJ
I think most people will agree that I'm far from the biggest fan of the Arbitration Committee. However even I feel compelled to point out that its members are highly respected editors. I very much doubt that blocking an established contributor based on non-public evidence is something they do lightly and I'm certain that they are not conspiring to keep some hidden agenda from the community. If the evidence is private, it's private for a damn good reason—ie because somebody else's privacy is at stake, or because to reveal the evidence would reveal sensitive information on how to evade site security. That the community is not privy to the evidence does not mean that it is invalid or that it does not exist. Folks questioning ArbCom's judgement on matters like these should cast their minds back a few months. I'm sure several of you have read the leaked material regarding Sophie (talk · contribs) and Rodhullandemu (talk · contribs)—and that's just the stuff that's common knowledge. As painful as it may be, sometimes we have to trust ArbCom—after all, what do they gain from any of this? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:15, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- I agree with HJ here--Guerillero | My Talk 00:15, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think a bigger worry is confirmation bias and groupthink. especially in matters which need a lot of human judgment. This doesn't take malice and even highly respected editors may fall victim to it. Ken Arromdee (talk) 00:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
- Anyone who thinks ArbCom can fall to groupthink has no idea how painfully divergent our opinions tend to be on most things and how heated debate can get. I can tell you from three years' experience that any decision from ArbCom that ends up being unanimous (or nearly so) needed an extraordinarily compelling rationale. — Coren (talk) 04:31, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Again, that isn't the point, Coren. ArbCom is asking us to trust its decisions based upon whaqt they call behavioral evidence and (what has since been determined to be severely outdated) checkuser info. There has to be more than that. This cannot be that Sydney Harris cartoon where the formula can only be solved by plugging in "then a miracle occurs". Secret meeting are just plain wrong. If there is no way around them, we need a parallel layer to oversight ArbCom's decisions. Of course ArbCom wouldn't like that - it harshes their buzz, effectively introducing the possibility of second-guessing their hashed-out decisions. Guess what? That's Wikipedia, my friends. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 04:58, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Anyone who thinks ArbCom can fall to groupthink has no idea how painfully divergent our opinions tend to be on most things and how heated debate can get. I can tell you from three years' experience that any decision from ArbCom that ends up being unanimous (or nearly so) needed an extraordinarily compelling rationale. — Coren (talk) 04:31, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think a bigger worry is confirmation bias and groupthink. especially in matters which need a lot of human judgment. This doesn't take malice and even highly respected editors may fall victim to it. Ken Arromdee (talk) 00:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Newyorkbrad
As a sitting arbitrator, though not one who was heavily involved in the ScottyBerg block review, I have carefully considered all the input on this page. My opinion is that the Arbitration Committee's activity in this matter was proper. Of course, that opinion may be discounted as self-interested by those who are so inclined.
I was going to contribute a much longer statement here, which I have now written, but it wound up veering far off-topic and I fear it will become a distraction if I post it here, so I'm going to post it on my talkpage instead. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:09, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Beetstra
I'm not well known with this specific case, but I was looking through this page, and I again get the same negative impression as I get over and over when looking at ArbCom decisions. I think it is known that I am not a fan of the Modus Operandi of the Arbitration Committee, at all. I feel, that part of the reason we are here is that the Arbitration Committee often completely fails in bringing up their collective reasoning, their collective interpretation of the evidence. And that is a recurring theme throughout their cases.
I agree with HJ Mitchell above that the members are highly respected members of the Wikipedia community, and that there is / may be information which can not be made public but which nonetheless is of significant severity as to allow for a ban - but communication of the basis of the evidence, and thoughts on how the individual members of the committee feel about that, and how they see that piece of evidence in a greater perspective, and how that influences the final decision is completely lacking.
I'll assume good faith, and assume that the decisions the ArbCom has made in the past are correct, but it worries me greatly. You're right, HJ Mitchell, sometimes we have to trust ArbCom - they do not have anything .. or a lot to gain from this. However, the community sometimes loses a lot from their decisions.
The lack of communication and lack of showing perspective allows questions of propriety - was the evidence evaluated in the total perspective, does that evidence support the remedies chosen, and was all that evaluated objectively. That that feeling exists is detrimental to the operation of the Arbitration Committee. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:13, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Discussion
Questions and Discussion
- As an overall comment, i don't think any of us would be opposed to a permanent topic ban on Scotty from the known Mantanmoreland-related articles. Scotty himself even indicated on his talk page his full willingness to be under such a topic ban. Though again, this doesn't matter all that much, since I don't think he's going to come back regardless. SilverserenC 19:56, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- As I said above, I see no reason why there shouldn't be a community unblock discussion, with those kinds of terms being considered, if it's what folks want. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- We received many e-mails from ScottyBerg, in all of which he claimed he was not Mantanmoreland. I would give serious consideration to a ban appeal that gave an accurate account of his past accounts, but the community would not allow us to unban MM if he did not admit he was ScottyBerg, so to offer an unblock with topic-ban is a non-starter. We were put in a difficult position by the lack of such an admission, and I do not see what else we could have done (nor, therefore, what this discussion hopes to achieve as it relates to our handling of the specific case at hand). AGK [•] 21:56, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Which does rather make Silver's point that if he isn't Mantanmoreland, he's caught in a catch-22. By maintaining his innocence, he confirms his guilt. I do understand Silver's concern here, and it is an issue in many judicial systems, where prisoners cannot be considered for parole until they address their crime - a reasonable position, but one which leaves the genuine victim of a miscarriage of justice with two equally unpalatable options, stay in jail, or confess to a crime they did not commit. There genuinely isn't an easy way out of this. Everyone who looks at the evidence thinks they are the same person, and one could not countenance an unblock unless a genuine sock 'fessed up, but there is still an uneasiness in straight out saying "confess to being Mantanmore or stay blocked.' Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:43, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Some jurisdictions use a device called an Alford plea in situations like this. Roger Davies talk 23:52, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Interestingly, since we're talking jurisprudence, the majority view in English law is that plea-bargaining is an invidious process, and although there are situations where a convicted criminal may receive a lesser sentence if he pleads guilty, they are always looked on by a section of the interested with great suspicion. However, in the lesser court of Wikipedia, plea bargaining seems to be used quite a lot. Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:00, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- This is probably due to our nature, which overall is benevolent.--MONGO 04:11, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Interestingly, since we're talking jurisprudence, the majority view in English law is that plea-bargaining is an invidious process, and although there are situations where a convicted criminal may receive a lesser sentence if he pleads guilty, they are always looked on by a section of the interested with great suspicion. However, in the lesser court of Wikipedia, plea bargaining seems to be used quite a lot. Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:00, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Some jurisdictions use a device called an Alford plea in situations like this. Roger Davies talk 23:52, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- Which does rather make Silver's point that if he isn't Mantanmoreland, he's caught in a catch-22. By maintaining his innocence, he confirms his guilt. I do understand Silver's concern here, and it is an issue in many judicial systems, where prisoners cannot be considered for parole until they address their crime - a reasonable position, but one which leaves the genuine victim of a miscarriage of justice with two equally unpalatable options, stay in jail, or confess to a crime they did not commit. There genuinely isn't an easy way out of this. Everyone who looks at the evidence thinks they are the same person, and one could not countenance an unblock unless a genuine sock 'fessed up, but there is still an uneasiness in straight out saying "confess to being Mantanmore or stay blocked.' Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:43, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- We received many e-mails from ScottyBerg, in all of which he claimed he was not Mantanmoreland. I would give serious consideration to a ban appeal that gave an accurate account of his past accounts, but the community would not allow us to unban MM if he did not admit he was ScottyBerg, so to offer an unblock with topic-ban is a non-starter. We were put in a difficult position by the lack of such an admission, and I do not see what else we could have done (nor, therefore, what this discussion hopes to achieve as it relates to our handling of the specific case at hand). AGK [•] 21:56, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
- As I said above, I see no reason why there shouldn't be a community unblock discussion, with those kinds of terms being considered, if it's what folks want. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that this block was thought through to its logical conclusion. If Scotty really is a sock, then all he has to do is create another account. He knows what got him caught last time, so he can more easily evade detection the next time. IOW, blocking him accomplished absolutely nothing. But if Scotty isn't a sock, then the block only hurts Wikipedia. This block was a complete lose-lose move. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:22, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- The trouble is, if one takes that argument to its logical extreme, one simply hands the keys of the pedia over to Grawp, Bambifan101, Pickbothmanlol and so forth. It's never worth blocking them if one's intention is to stop them coming back the next time. Because they never do.Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:45, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- But in this case, we're talking about a productive editor. Can anyone point to anything positive that this accomplished? I'm at a loss to think of something. Enforcing rules for the sake of enforcing rules seems a bit WP:LAME to me. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:03, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Well, it's between a rock and a hard place. If we *failed* to take action, and six months from now someone else figured it out, we'd be condemned for not acting immediately, and having ignored the return of a community-banned user. Risker (talk) 23:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Well, I can certainly understand that. How often does a situation like this one happen? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:49, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Usually a couple of times a year we're blamed for not acting on something or other, or alternately blamed for acting too precipitously or harshly on something or other. As I write this, we're being blamed for both harshness and ignoring things at the same time. Kind of goes with the territory, unfortunately. Risker (talk) 23:56, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- I wonder if it would be beneficial to modify policy to handle situations like this, to give you guys an out. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:54, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- I don't think this is a policy issue. I think it is a behavioural issue on the part of certain segments within the community. There is this ongoing expectation that arbitrators are supposed to render perfect decisions (for various definitions of perfect), always be available, always respond appropriately and in a timely manner, meet all deadlines without fail, and write a few featured articles in our spare time. The one thing I can say Arbcom does very consistently is fail to meet the expectations of all segments of the community all of the time. :-) Risker (talk) 03:19, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Pretty crappy deal huh? All work and no play....and worse of all, NO PAY. Thank goodness there are a few like yourself willing to stick your necks out...--MONGO 03:25, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- I don't think this is a policy issue. I think it is a behavioural issue on the part of certain segments within the community. There is this ongoing expectation that arbitrators are supposed to render perfect decisions (for various definitions of perfect), always be available, always respond appropriately and in a timely manner, meet all deadlines without fail, and write a few featured articles in our spare time. The one thing I can say Arbcom does very consistently is fail to meet the expectations of all segments of the community all of the time. :-) Risker (talk) 03:19, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- I wonder if it would be beneficial to modify policy to handle situations like this, to give you guys an out. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:54, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Usually a couple of times a year we're blamed for not acting on something or other, or alternately blamed for acting too precipitously or harshly on something or other. As I write this, we're being blamed for both harshness and ignoring things at the same time. Kind of goes with the territory, unfortunately. Risker (talk) 23:56, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Well, I can certainly understand that. How often does a situation like this one happen? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:49, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Well, it's between a rock and a hard place. If we *failed* to take action, and six months from now someone else figured it out, we'd be condemned for not acting immediately, and having ignored the return of a community-banned user. Risker (talk) 23:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- But in this case, we're talking about a productive editor. Can anyone point to anything positive that this accomplished? I'm at a loss to think of something. Enforcing rules for the sake of enforcing rules seems a bit WP:LAME to me. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:03, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- If we're required to do any particular thing in response to a banned user's activities, that means the banned user controls our editing rather than the other way around. That obviously isn't good. Regarding KWW's "revert everything" theory: I don't think an out-of-process deletion or AfD of History of logic (written by socks of a different banned user, see FAC discussion) would go over very well, and undoing ScottyBerg's 4500+ vandalism reversions doesn't seem like a great idea either. As with anything else on WP, clear thinking and good judgment addressing a particular situation (especially an unusual one) is preferable to knee-jerk, "one size fits all" responses. Do what's best for the project, which per our principles involves adaptability. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 00:45, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Something I'd like to see (or at least have a discussion about it) is a change in policy that gives ArbCom the option (as opposed to a requirement) to block an sock in situations like this one. IOW, let ArbCom use their best judgement. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:19, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- I would object strongly. Banned is banned. If a banned editor comes in through the front door (i.e., the Ban Appeal Subcommittee), that's one thing. Simply socking until you are caught is another. As for the problem of proclaimed innocence, that's a problem in real life where there are real consequences. Ever heard of anyone being released on parole without showing repentance? That's extremely rare, and for anyone to show repentance they have to admit guilt, even if they are actually innocent. Don't hold a website to a higher standard than every other justice system in the world.—Kww(talk) 23:31, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- The real world doesn't have the same rules as Wikipedia. If it did, you could murder someone and not sent to prison if you promised not to do it again. My concern is of practicality. Can you point to one positive thing that this block accomplished? I asked the question yesterday[14] and no one could come up with anything. Maybe you missed that part of the discussion. Can you please read through it? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:37, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- It prevented a banned editor from contributing through an illicit account. That's a benefit in and of itself. Whether you believe that or not, acknowledge that many of us do. I read that section, and even replied to it. It doesn't matter whether ScottyBerg was constructive. He was sockpuppeting.—Kww(talk) 23:46, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- But if Scott really is MM, then he's just going to create another account. The same situation that existed before the block exists after the block: a banned editor is still contributing through an illicit account. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:49, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- It prevented a banned editor from contributing through an illicit account. That's a benefit in and of itself. Whether you believe that or not, acknowledge that many of us do. I read that section, and even replied to it. It doesn't matter whether ScottyBerg was constructive. He was sockpuppeting.—Kww(talk) 23:46, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- The real world doesn't have the same rules as Wikipedia. If it did, you could murder someone and not sent to prison if you promised not to do it again. My concern is of practicality. Can you point to one positive thing that this block accomplished? I asked the question yesterday[14] and no one could come up with anything. Maybe you missed that part of the discussion. Can you please read through it? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:37, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- And that account will be blocked, hopefully faster this time. This can go on for a while. See Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Brexx, for example. If someone actually manages to go completely undetected, that will come under WP:FRESHSTART, but that's really just an acknowledgment that some never get caught.—Kww(talk) 01:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- OK, let's say that you're right. They productively edit Wikipedia using an illicit account and in less than 2 year's time, they are blocked. So, they use another illicit account to productively edit Wikipedia. Rinse, rather, repeat. So what has been accomplished if the situation remains unchanged? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:35, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- You are missing the stage where, instead of yelling at arbcom for blocking the sock, people go through the edits and remove them. That's what I do with any sock that I block: go through their entire contribution history and remove everything that doesn't result in restoring vandalism or copyright violations. The only reason I'm not doing it here is that I can foresee several editors crying out "But they were productive edits!" and undoing what would be a lot of hard work. The only way to discourage a sockpuppeteer is to eradicate the results of their work. Do that for a while, and all but the pathologically ill ones go away.—Kww(talk) 12:39, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'm not talking about all socks. I'm talking about those rare occassions such as this one. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:28, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- You are missing the stage where, instead of yelling at arbcom for blocking the sock, people go through the edits and remove them. That's what I do with any sock that I block: go through their entire contribution history and remove everything that doesn't result in restoring vandalism or copyright violations. The only reason I'm not doing it here is that I can foresee several editors crying out "But they were productive edits!" and undoing what would be a lot of hard work. The only way to discourage a sockpuppeteer is to eradicate the results of their work. Do that for a while, and all but the pathologically ill ones go away.—Kww(talk) 12:39, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- OK, let's say that you're right. They productively edit Wikipedia using an illicit account and in less than 2 year's time, they are blocked. So, they use another illicit account to productively edit Wikipedia. Rinse, rather, repeat. So what has been accomplished if the situation remains unchanged? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:35, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- And that account will be blocked, hopefully faster this time. This can go on for a while. See Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Brexx, for example. If someone actually manages to go completely undetected, that will come under WP:FRESHSTART, but that's really just an acknowledgment that some never get caught.—Kww(talk) 01:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- And based on Elen's comments, I am becoming ever more doubtful that Scotty is MM. SilverserenC 00:11, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- Not following this closely, but Kww is right about how to handle banned users. They aren't banned unless they make good edits, they're just banned. There aren't special categories, where some users are really and truly banned, but basically decent guys who make good edits are merely pro forma banned, but really it's okay if they edit. It's a fact of life that there won't be consensus to undo all their work and delete the revisions, and that consensus must be respected, but that is what should happen - nothing the banned user does should stick; nothing they say should get any response, except for explicitly allowed communication with the mailing lists, arbcom, or the foundation. Tom Harrison Talk 15:49, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- And in a case where the ban is incorrect, but some users have jumped on the "revert everything the person did" train? So, if the user is then unbanned later because it was incorrectly applied, they now found that a lot of their edits, and probably a lot of the articles they made, have been deleted. Do you not see the issue with this? SilverserenC 17:37, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- Not following this closely, but Kww is right about how to handle banned users. They aren't banned unless they make good edits, they're just banned. There aren't special categories, where some users are really and truly banned, but basically decent guys who make good edits are merely pro forma banned, but really it's okay if they edit. It's a fact of life that there won't be consensus to undo all their work and delete the revisions, and that consensus must be respected, but that is what should happen - nothing the banned user does should stick; nothing they say should get any response, except for explicitly allowed communication with the mailing lists, arbcom, or the foundation. Tom Harrison Talk 15:49, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
@Tom: Kww is correct for about 99% of socks. However, this is one of those rare cases where the situation is different. Scotty was a productive editor with 2 years of experience and 13,000 edits, and managed to do this with a clean record. Now if ArbCom is correct and Scotty is a mastermind sockpuppeting genius, then they've already created another account and are happily editing on some corner of Wikipedia. In fact, if he's such a mastermind, he already has dozens of sleeper accounts ready and waiting. IOW, the block accomplished nothing. But if ArbCom is wrong, then an innocent person has been blocked. Either way, it is a lose-lose situation.
But it gets even worse. ArbCom could have reasonably expected that the block was going to be controversial. The block disrupted Wikipedia and sparked a 3 week's (and counting) discussion beginning at ANI, then Jimbo's talk page and now this RfC. Dozens of editors have weighed in on the discussion and who knows when it's going to end. This is time and effort that could have been spent improving the encyclopedia. All of this could have been avoided. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:05, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
- It certainly could have been. You could have accepted the block, not participated in this struggle, and edited the encyclopedia instead.—Kww(talk) 00:34, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
Tom and Kww, "Wikipedia does not have firm rules" is one of WP's five pillars[1] and as such, the only possible answer to any pontification like "we must handle every incident of type X by doing Y no matter what" is "sorry, you're wrong". That's obvious from both a WP:ENC point of view (we're here to write an encyclopedia, and all the interaction policies and for that matter the community's very existence are to serve that goal), and from the nature of conflict. If the other guy can adapt his tactics to yours but you can't adapt yours to his, he's going to beat you. Most incidents fit the same pattern and there's well-developed procedures for them, but it's perfectly fine to make tactical exceptions when something doesn't fit the pattern.
AQFK: If ScottyBerg has dozens more socks and we get 13,000 more good edits from each one before blocking them, we're doing great. The last thing we want to do is block them too quickly (assuming we detect them early). We get much more pwnage against them doing what we did here, even if it wasn't intentional this time. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 01:05, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
- Just going to comment on the "revert everything" idea, I think editors should only revert an edit if it is somehow contentious, not just because the editor who made the edit did some naughty things elsewhere.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 19:56, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
- Long standing practice and policy says otherwise: see WP:BAN#Edits by and on behalf of banned editors.—Kww(talk) 23:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
- Right, it says "ambiguous" rather than "contentious". But most of the edits we're discussing don't raise concern at the level of "ambiguous" as far as I've seen. Some of the Gary Weiss-related ones probably do, and reverting those seems fine if anything is left of them by now. Anyway, WP:NOTSTATUTE. Situational adaptation is good. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 00:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think you are reading the policy nearly precisely backwards. It encourages us to revert all edits by banned editors, unless they are vandalism reversion or similar edits. If it's ambiguous (i.e., we aren't sure whether the effect of reversion would be to reintroduce problematic material), it recommends reversion. The only fuzz it contains is to make it clear that it doesn't mandate the removal of beneficial edits, it only recommends that we do so.—Kww(talk) 01:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
- I don't disagree with you or Tom Harrison on this matter, but who is going to sort through the edits and decide which ones need reverting and which don't. If we have some stand and others fall, then the "sock" sees that not all his/her efforts were futile. I am assuming that the wording of the recommendation was when we're dealing with a sock that made substantially fewer edits than this one did. I would think the ongoing Rlevse situation is far more troubling due to his history of copyviolations.--MONGO 01:14, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think you are reading the policy nearly precisely backwards. It encourages us to revert all edits by banned editors, unless they are vandalism reversion or similar edits. If it's ambiguous (i.e., we aren't sure whether the effect of reversion would be to reintroduce problematic material), it recommends reversion. The only fuzz it contains is to make it clear that it doesn't mandate the removal of beneficial edits, it only recommends that we do so.—Kww(talk) 01:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
- Right, it says "ambiguous" rather than "contentious". But most of the edits we're discussing don't raise concern at the level of "ambiguous" as far as I've seen. Some of the Gary Weiss-related ones probably do, and reverting those seems fine if anything is left of them by now. Anyway, WP:NOTSTATUTE. Situational adaptation is good. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 00:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
- Long standing practice and policy says otherwise: see WP:BAN#Edits by and on behalf of banned editors.—Kww(talk) 23:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
- Just going to comment on the "revert everything" idea, I think editors should only revert an edit if it is somehow contentious, not just because the editor who made the edit did some naughty things elsewhere.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 19:56, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
- Kww, I'm reading what that section you linked says: "free to", "may", "presumption in ambiguous cases", etc. I don't see "recommends" or "encouraged" anywhere in there. This is not "robopedia" and we are supposed to actually use our brains, seek consensus, etc. Anyway, if there's a discrepancy between a policy page and observed practice, the policy page should be updated to reflect the practice, not the other way around.
Mongo: the Rlevse copyright thing (the parts I saw) looked pretty overhyped. He paraphrased some sentences from sources that he cited including the page number, and in some cases with Google Books search urls that brought up page scans with the relevant passage highlighted in yellow. I always find it droll when there's drama on WP over purely speculative copyright problems, while nobody raises an eyebrow about the Google Books link even though Google Books is an actual subject of a real-world bazillion dollar copyright lawsuit, that's going on even as we speak (article). 67.119.12.141 (talk) 01:35, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
- The copyvio issue is actually under-hyped...--MONGO 07:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
- I don't know if it was under-hyped, but it definitely wasn't over-hyped. Rlevse was found to have just used huge chunks of information from sources. And when people checked other articles he has written, they found much of the same. If i'm remembering properly, every article of his that was actually checked was found to have copyvios in it. And not just one sentence or something, but extensive paragraph long copyvios.
- Kww, I'm reading what that section you linked says: "free to", "may", "presumption in ambiguous cases", etc. I don't see "recommends" or "encouraged" anywhere in there. This is not "robopedia" and we are supposed to actually use our brains, seek consensus, etc. Anyway, if there's a discrepancy between a policy page and observed practice, the policy page should be updated to reflect the practice, not the other way around.
Can we do one step back (I'm not sure where this leads): 'indefinite' or 'indefinite like' bans on a user. Combine this with the concern that legal systems do make mistakes. I am worried, that if a productive, good editor gets into trouble, and is judged to have made serious mistakes, and an indefinite(-like) ban is put on such an editor, that there is basically never any way to escape that ban, really, ever - there is no form of WP:CLEANSTART possible:
- either the editor confirms guilt (of something they did not do) to the BASC, and it is announced that <editor> has successfully asked to be unbanned - if that editor starts under a new, undisclosed, account that is not a cleanstart, editors will on a next (maybe even unrelated) mistake claim recidivism (after all, it may still be disregard of some policy, even if it is a different one).
- or the editor does not confirm guilt of something they did not do - hence BASC does not unban.
- even if this is accepted and the editor is unbanned, it will be announced that <editor> successfully asked to be unbanned - which is still no cleanstart.
- or the editor does not ask for an unban, either to community or BASC and really starts clean - which means that the editor is socking, and can be blocked without discussion, even if there is not a single spot on the new account after years of editing.
- or BASC grants unban (with or without confirmation of guilt), but does not publish this - so the community ban or ArbCom ban is still public the only thing - and public evidence may then show that the editor is socking, which is a blockable offense.
- or the editor stays away, which is a loss of a good editor to the Wikipedia.
Maybe the community should seriously consider the basis of 'indefinite' bans. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:58, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Desired outcomes
There's usually a section in an RfC/U with what the filing party would like to see as an outcome (listed party uses better sources, less swear words or whatever). While discussing feelings is good, I think it might be helpful to pull out what people would like to see as more definite outcomes eg. should there be a community unblock discussion, should there be a change in policy about long term unproblem2atic socks, should there be a discussion about checkuser data retention outside of the legal requirements. Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:06, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- The first two, I think, both should be done. The third is really dependent on if other people share my concerns. If members of the community don't, then there wouldn't really be a point in that discussion. SilverserenC 00:57, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- The question becomes, how does one define an "unproblematic" sock? We must remember how Mantanmoreland operated: he slowly and insidiously altered articles to his preferred POV, he made strong friends amongst Wikipedians, he leveraged those friendships and working relationships to drive off anyone who tried to edit his articles (harming the reputations of other Wikipedians in the process), and to this day editors with expertise in the field avoid working on articles that he worked on. The damage he caused has not been completely repaired even years after the fact. We have similar problems with other longterm, apparently unproblematic socks: their social engineering practices inflict wounds that never really heal, and that is why they're removed from the community permanently. They harm our faith in our ability to provide neutral information, and they harm our faith in treating each other respectfully and without malice. Perhaps you should spend some time reading over the archives of WP:VANISH and WP:CLEANSTART to get some sense of what the community's feelings are on this subject. As to the checkuser data, it's not going away, and the checkuser wiki (where checkusers are encouraged to retain any relevant information) discourages "personal files" kept by individual checkusers, while permitting routine review to remove information that no longer appears germane. As increasing numbers of problematic editors show up on multiple projects, the need to share information in a secure manner has only increased. Every year, thousands upon thousands of socks are blocked by checkusers using this information and these tools; only a handful of these blocks are questioned by the community. It is precisely for that reason that the work of checkusers is monitored carefully, and why there is a process for addressing situations where a checkuser block is likely to be more controversial. Last month, we blocked an administrator who was socking, *and* desysopped him, but the situation was first identified by a checkuser. Risker (talk) 01:27, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Would indefinitely topic-banning him from Mantanmoreland's known issue areas not fix the problem? Then it is on his own head if he violates the topic ban. That would be an obvious way to deal with suspected (or, I suppose you would say confirmed in this case) sockpuppets of old problem users, that have, as far as can be seen, been contributing productively to Wikipedia. Just topic ban them from the problem areas and let them contribute productively elsewhere, as they have been doing with the accounts anyways. SilverserenC 01:35, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- That might be worthy of discussion in this particular case, but not in all cases. Consider if someone's on-wiki editing was generally good, but they were blocked under something like NLT. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 02:36, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Also, this is a Community site ban and Committee topic ban. I would suggest that if we want to remove the community ban (which I don't recommend, but meh, we can leave it up to the community, where I would have a say, but so would everyone else.. This runs into the problem you see that "what if he's innocent".. If he's not, the topic ban never comes into play really, the person behind Scotty's account is not to edit all without getting the community to release the community ban. But since the identification is made, we'd actually be flouting the community's stated wishes by turning a blind eye and letting him edit. SirFozzie (talk) 03:19, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- That might be worthy of discussion in this particular case, but not in all cases. Consider if someone's on-wiki editing was generally good, but they were blocked under something like NLT. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 02:36, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Would indefinitely topic-banning him from Mantanmoreland's known issue areas not fix the problem? Then it is on his own head if he violates the topic ban. That would be an obvious way to deal with suspected (or, I suppose you would say confirmed in this case) sockpuppets of old problem users, that have, as far as can be seen, been contributing productively to Wikipedia. Just topic ban them from the problem areas and let them contribute productively elsewhere, as they have been doing with the accounts anyways. SilverserenC 01:35, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- The question becomes, how does one define an "unproblematic" sock? We must remember how Mantanmoreland operated: he slowly and insidiously altered articles to his preferred POV, he made strong friends amongst Wikipedians, he leveraged those friendships and working relationships to drive off anyone who tried to edit his articles (harming the reputations of other Wikipedians in the process), and to this day editors with expertise in the field avoid working on articles that he worked on. The damage he caused has not been completely repaired even years after the fact. We have similar problems with other longterm, apparently unproblematic socks: their social engineering practices inflict wounds that never really heal, and that is why they're removed from the community permanently. They harm our faith in our ability to provide neutral information, and they harm our faith in treating each other respectfully and without malice. Perhaps you should spend some time reading over the archives of WP:VANISH and WP:CLEANSTART to get some sense of what the community's feelings are on this subject. As to the checkuser data, it's not going away, and the checkuser wiki (where checkusers are encouraged to retain any relevant information) discourages "personal files" kept by individual checkusers, while permitting routine review to remove information that no longer appears germane. As increasing numbers of problematic editors show up on multiple projects, the need to share information in a secure manner has only increased. Every year, thousands upon thousands of socks are blocked by checkusers using this information and these tools; only a handful of these blocks are questioned by the community. It is precisely for that reason that the work of checkusers is monitored carefully, and why there is a process for addressing situations where a checkuser block is likely to be more controversial. Last month, we blocked an administrator who was socking, *and* desysopped him, but the situation was first identified by a checkuser. Risker (talk) 01:27, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I got into this through a mention on Jimbo's page and my views on this may not be as extreme as some of those expressed here, but I still think there are things which smell wrong about this.
Jimbo pointed out that he once offered to go on Skype with this person to prove he isn't Mantanmoreland. Someone in the original discussion suggested he could send a copy of his driver's license. That may be too easy to forge, but I'm sure there's something that could be used. I would suggest as a starting point that Arbcom should accept such things as evidence. He refused to provide such evidence to Jimbo, and so he probably won't do so here either in which case, fine, it's over, but all of the rest of us who are wondering "what would I do if this happened to me?" can rest a little easier.
I'd also suggest asking "if it wasn't for Wikipedia Review, we would have initiated this process?" We may be in a situation where someone disrupted Wikipedia and generally did bad things in order to point out a sock. What is the right thing to do in that situation? It's not immediately obvious that the right thing to do is to kick out the sock and thus encourage the troublemaker. Ken Arromdee (talk) 02:09, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- I missed the beginning of this, but I'd have thought that if someone wanted to point out a sock without causing disruption, the obvious way is to email checkuser-l. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 02:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Now able to refresh my fossilized memory banks on this matter, Mantanmoreland, as SirFozzie noted above, was topic banned by arbcom and then after another sock was identified, was banned indefinitely by the community two months later...here...as I have noted above, ScottyBerg appears to be a reformed editor. I might welcome sectioning off below and asking for wider community discussion on this matter. I'll leave this up to those who know where to post requests for more feedback from the community as they see fit.--MONGO 04:30, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- It should be noted that ScottyBerg has posted at his talkpage that he has no plans on contributing again [15].--MONGO 04:57, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- As we should know well by now, that doesn't necessarily mean he's really gone. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 06:41, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Actually, it means that he is hoping that this uproar will subside so he can get his new account(s) going with a minimum of scrutiny. Cla68 (talk) 04:46, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- A rude and unfounded statement. In a sense, Cla, you're also under scrutiny here. SilverserenC 05:02, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Definitely under scrutiny. One outcome I'd like to see is Cla68 never, ever pulling the disruptive baiting crap at WR that has been documented. I still think that it deserves a block until the cows come home. Hello pot, meet kettle - Jack Sebastian (talk) 06:59, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- If ScottyBerg is indeed a sock, then he's probably already created a new account and is happily editing some corner of Wikipedia. In fact, if he was smart, he has already created a number of sleeper accounts a long time ago. Nothing was accomplished with this block. Nothing. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- I've been watching this debate since the start and only commented once in a small way. But the question I keep coming back to is: If Scotty is a puppet of a prolific sockmaster then why expend so much energy trying to get that sock unblocked? The ScottyBerg account didn't have any special userrights and interactions with it were a mixed blessing - switching to another account would probably have had advantages for the master. I'm also reminded of a case over a decade ago on USENET, we had some (behavioural) evidence that a certain poster who was making significant threats was a particular Californian Businessperson (They also ran for Congress in the 90's). With a bit of work we got I.P's for both the Real person and the Usenet account and could compare them and they also matched. However later when everything came out, it was two different people close enough to share an I.P. - since then I've always been wary about checkuser data and how it's used. In the public it is open to challenge either by the individual or by the community but in private it can be checked by no-one except the arbiters - at WP:SPI we have had several cases where reasonable challenges have been made to checkuser data but here the individual is not aware of that checkuser data to challenge it. I understand the worry that in some cases revealing the evidence could make the person a better sock, but in what court would you exclude the accused from a hearing on the basis that hearing about fingerprint evidence will make them more likely to wear gloves the next time they commit a crime? I also wonder if perhaps you still wish to retain secrecy in cases like this ArbCom should have one of it's members act as a council to the accused; testing the evidence thoroughly, acting as a liason to the accused and counterpointing the editors brining the evidence to ArbCom. Stuart.Jamieson (talk)
- Agreed, that kind of thing has happened sometimes. That's what we have the audit subcommittee for. In this case, the IP data doesn't match any previous sock, just demonstrates that the guy lives in the same - large - area and uses the same ISP. It's not the smoking gun - behaviour is the smoking gun. Indeed, from my experience, its when there's no behavioural match only a technical match that mis-identification is moree likely. Which again is what the audit subcommittee is for. They go through technical data, but this was virtually all editing patterns, which are available to any editor if they want to go look. Interesting observation on the protestations - there are some sockmasters who make a huge point of protesting the innocence of their socks, because this takes up everyone's time and increases the drama and disruption. In MM's case though, probably not so much. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:52, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- In other words, an evaluation of the evidence would not break any privacy rules and since the behavioral evidence is public it would not really be an issue of telling him how to avoid suspicion in the future.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 18:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- One of the things that has been bothering me about this is how Arbcom has been inconsistency invoking privacy rules. If the evidence really cannot be shown because it violates Mantanmoreland's privacy, and you really believe that Scotty is Mantanmoreland, then you should be okay with showing the evidence to him. You can't violate his own privacy by giving him information about himself. In practice, the answer has been that you're sure he is Mantanmoreland when that is to his disadvantage, but when being Mantanmoreland would help his case (allow him to see the "private" information) suddenly you're not that sure after all. Ken Arromdee (talk) 18:50, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Bothers me too because in this case, there is no private evidence. All the checkuser did was in ScottyBerg's case is confirmed that the guy is in the right part of the right continent - an exclusion test. All the rest of the evidence, as people have pointed out in various places here, is all over the wiki. What the checkusers and admins who have been around for a while have is a collective memory that identifies editing patterns etc. Me, because I've not been here for so long, and I haven't primarily worked in SPI, there's not so many I can spot. There is a theory that he's Weiss, there is a theory that you can track his interests based on Weiss's blog, the later socks frequently edited articles on such as the NY Subway, some parts of NY, other stuff. Someone has pointed to it above. ScottyBerg did launch a considerable defence - I don't know if he's told people that he hadn't. He argued that he only came to edit the Weiss article by accident, that his other interests were coincidental or arose from picking up articles after recent change patrol. And it is hard to prove a negative. But we wouldn't, for example, block an editor who everyone swore blind was a sock of Mark Nutley, because at that time there just wasn't sufficient evidence. And you should hear the way Mattisse's socks continually petition to be unblocked as mistaken identities, including having the sockmaster contact us and say that this isn't her sock. So it isn't easy. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:35, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- This has its own problems: it seems like people don't even agree on whether there was any secret evidence. Just imagine how it would feel if this happened to you. You're being kicked off and not only do you not know what the evidence is, you don't even know if the evidence is being described accurately, even in very basic terms, because nobody seems to even know what the evidence is like. It seems to be whatever is convenient at the moment. I suppose I'd have to add to "desired outcomes" "state categorically whether the evidence was secret". Ken Arromdee (talk) 22:57, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Bothers me too because in this case, there is no private evidence. All the checkuser did was in ScottyBerg's case is confirmed that the guy is in the right part of the right continent - an exclusion test. All the rest of the evidence, as people have pointed out in various places here, is all over the wiki. What the checkusers and admins who have been around for a while have is a collective memory that identifies editing patterns etc. Me, because I've not been here for so long, and I haven't primarily worked in SPI, there's not so many I can spot. There is a theory that he's Weiss, there is a theory that you can track his interests based on Weiss's blog, the later socks frequently edited articles on such as the NY Subway, some parts of NY, other stuff. Someone has pointed to it above. ScottyBerg did launch a considerable defence - I don't know if he's told people that he hadn't. He argued that he only came to edit the Weiss article by accident, that his other interests were coincidental or arose from picking up articles after recent change patrol. And it is hard to prove a negative. But we wouldn't, for example, block an editor who everyone swore blind was a sock of Mark Nutley, because at that time there just wasn't sufficient evidence. And you should hear the way Mattisse's socks continually petition to be unblocked as mistaken identities, including having the sockmaster contact us and say that this isn't her sock. So it isn't easy. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:35, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- One of the things that has been bothering me about this is how Arbcom has been inconsistency invoking privacy rules. If the evidence really cannot be shown because it violates Mantanmoreland's privacy, and you really believe that Scotty is Mantanmoreland, then you should be okay with showing the evidence to him. You can't violate his own privacy by giving him information about himself. In practice, the answer has been that you're sure he is Mantanmoreland when that is to his disadvantage, but when being Mantanmoreland would help his case (allow him to see the "private" information) suddenly you're not that sure after all. Ken Arromdee (talk) 18:50, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- In other words, an evaluation of the evidence would not break any privacy rules and since the behavioral evidence is public it would not really be an issue of telling him how to avoid suspicion in the future.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 18:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Agreed, that kind of thing has happened sometimes. That's what we have the audit subcommittee for. In this case, the IP data doesn't match any previous sock, just demonstrates that the guy lives in the same - large - area and uses the same ISP. It's not the smoking gun - behaviour is the smoking gun. Indeed, from my experience, its when there's no behavioural match only a technical match that mis-identification is moree likely. Which again is what the audit subcommittee is for. They go through technical data, but this was virtually all editing patterns, which are available to any editor if they want to go look. Interesting observation on the protestations - there are some sockmasters who make a huge point of protesting the innocence of their socks, because this takes up everyone's time and increases the drama and disruption. In MM's case though, probably not so much. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:52, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- I've been watching this debate since the start and only commented once in a small way. But the question I keep coming back to is: If Scotty is a puppet of a prolific sockmaster then why expend so much energy trying to get that sock unblocked? The ScottyBerg account didn't have any special userrights and interactions with it were a mixed blessing - switching to another account would probably have had advantages for the master. I'm also reminded of a case over a decade ago on USENET, we had some (behavioural) evidence that a certain poster who was making significant threats was a particular Californian Businessperson (They also ran for Congress in the 90's). With a bit of work we got I.P's for both the Real person and the Usenet account and could compare them and they also matched. However later when everything came out, it was two different people close enough to share an I.P. - since then I've always been wary about checkuser data and how it's used. In the public it is open to challenge either by the individual or by the community but in private it can be checked by no-one except the arbiters - at WP:SPI we have had several cases where reasonable challenges have been made to checkuser data but here the individual is not aware of that checkuser data to challenge it. I understand the worry that in some cases revealing the evidence could make the person a better sock, but in what court would you exclude the accused from a hearing on the basis that hearing about fingerprint evidence will make them more likely to wear gloves the next time they commit a crime? I also wonder if perhaps you still wish to retain secrecy in cases like this ArbCom should have one of it's members act as a council to the accused; testing the evidence thoroughly, acting as a liason to the accused and counterpointing the editors brining the evidence to ArbCom. Stuart.Jamieson (talk)
- If ScottyBerg is indeed a sock, then he's probably already created a new account and is happily editing some corner of Wikipedia. In fact, if he was smart, he has already created a number of sleeper accounts a long time ago. Nothing was accomplished with this block. Nothing. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Definitely under scrutiny. One outcome I'd like to see is Cla68 never, ever pulling the disruptive baiting crap at WR that has been documented. I still think that it deserves a block until the cows come home. Hello pot, meet kettle - Jack Sebastian (talk) 06:59, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- A rude and unfounded statement. In a sense, Cla, you're also under scrutiny here. SilverserenC 05:02, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Actually, it means that he is hoping that this uproar will subside so he can get his new account(s) going with a minimum of scrutiny. Cla68 (talk) 04:46, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- As we should know well by now, that doesn't necessarily mean he's really gone. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 06:41, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- There's no way to get rid of this problem until we get rid of the whole notion that editing an encyclopedia has some kind of privacy implications. —Kww(talk) 23:11, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- If a Mantanmoreland sock is discovered again in the future and blocked, it will be interesting to review this "RfC" in hindsight. Cla68 (talk) 06:30, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- I don't know about that. I'm not asking that he be reinstated. I'm asking that there be a way to get reinstated if he is legitimate. The answer to this should be an offer to do something that a legitimate user can do and a sock cannot. If he's a sock, this would not lead to his reinstatement, so if he is discovered again in the future it would not reflect badly on this idea. Ken Arromdee (talk) 15:59, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- If a Mantanmoreland sock is discovered again in the future and blocked, it will be interesting to review this "RfC" in hindsight. Cla68 (talk) 06:30, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- There's no way to get rid of this problem until we get rid of the whole notion that editing an encyclopedia has some kind of privacy implications. —Kww(talk) 23:11, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
'* Silver serin, in the context of the whole thread beginning with A Quest For Knowledge's comment at 21:22, 30 January 2012 (UTC) ("I don't think that this block was thought through..."), please explain precisely why the objectives of this RFC are valid. AGK [•] 14:24, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- There weren't any objectives originally - just Silver had a sense that something was wrong. That's why we're trying to pick 'em out here. I don't think there's anything wrong with holding this discussion, it's turned up a few things worthy of larger consideration. Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:58, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)For myself, I think the desired outcome would be fourfold:
- A lessening of - if not complete removal of - these secret 'trials', then a clearly-defined standard for when these sorts of matters are to be handled privately. Secret trials (and despite the informal nature of the back and forth private list, these are indeed essentially trials) are anathema to both an open society and an open wiki. This is not how Wikipedia is supposed to be. Period.
- The accused must be able to see the evidence arrayed against them. Stuart Jamieson's recent and concise post underscores the absurdity of the privacy/secrecy claims of the Checkusers and arbiters trying in effect to prevent a WP:BEANS situation from unfolding.
- Blackstone's formulation is on point here; Stuart Jamieson also makes the excellent suggestion that, since these sorts of deliberations bear a great many earmarks of a trial, that one of the arbs should stand for the accused. As no one outside of ARBCOM has any idea what actually occurred in the discussion, we have no way of kowing if everyone walking into that discussion didn't do so predisposed as to SB's guilt. It would be nice to know that the accused has someone without that presumption.
- A clear addressing of how a user can clear a ban if they are indeed innocent. Currently, the only way for SB to return is to admit he's MM and undergo the arduous process of return. If they are not guilty, they are not as likely to try and return. If they are innocent (check that; if I were in this situation), they would want that avenue clearly highlighted so the could get reinstated without admitting a falsehood (i.e. that they are someone they are not).
Maybe that's too much to ask, especially for arbs who think their time is better spent than on providing niceties for someone they are convinced is a sock. I suggest that it is precisely because of that belief that these outcomes are necessary. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 18:04, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- I'd also add that Arbcom should do something to make sure this doesn't send the message "Hey, disruption is fun and works great! Look, we did it and got one of our enemies kicked out of Wikipedia!" And no, I don't know the best way to do this myself. I'm not really familiar with WR anyway. Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:04, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, now that is a concern. Open to suggestions on that one, because once someone has let the genie out of the bottle, it's difficult. You can't pretend that you don't know, but you can't avoid that the source is not one you like. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:38, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Elen, it certainly would have been fine with me if arbcom had chosen to sit on the info quietly while monitoring ScottyBerg's editing after checking out the initial report. Sooner or later IMHO he would have done something that unquestionably called for a block, and gotten one. I hate the "legal" analogies this page is full of, but it's certainly the case if a member of the public reports suspected criminal activity to law enforcement, LE thanks the person for the tip and then doesn't (at least immediately) give any further info. Until (and unless) actual arrests happen, the tipster never learns whether an investigation was opened, whether it was found to be conclusive in either direction, whether they decided that there really were crimes being committed but were waiting for the case to get juicier before pulling the plug, whether they decided something was up but they had more urgent cases to pursue, etc.
I also by now agree with Devil's Advocate that Cookiehead's experiment was deserving of a block. If nothing else, it pretty much discredited WR as sanctimonious guardians of BLP's, and Mongo mentioned some socking suspicions about Cookiehead. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 02:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- Elen, it certainly would have been fine with me if arbcom had chosen to sit on the info quietly while monitoring ScottyBerg's editing after checking out the initial report. Sooner or later IMHO he would have done something that unquestionably called for a block, and gotten one. I hate the "legal" analogies this page is full of, but it's certainly the case if a member of the public reports suspected criminal activity to law enforcement, LE thanks the person for the tip and then doesn't (at least immediately) give any further info. Until (and unless) actual arrests happen, the tipster never learns whether an investigation was opened, whether it was found to be conclusive in either direction, whether they decided that there really were crimes being committed but were waiting for the case to get juicier before pulling the plug, whether they decided something was up but they had more urgent cases to pursue, etc.
- Yes, now that is a concern. Open to suggestions on that one, because once someone has let the genie out of the bottle, it's difficult. You can't pretend that you don't know, but you can't avoid that the source is not one you like. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:38, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
ScottyBerg has posted the emails he sent to arbcom over at his talkpage, just for the record. I've been reading through all this on the Rfc (three times now) and at ScottyBerg's page as well have done another examination of ScottyBerg's editing...if he is Mantanmoreland, he did a pretty good job covering it up...one thing that keeps popping up is the IP issue...right place and right ISP I suppose...so a basic match (it's New York City...8 million people...it's not North Platte, Nebraska for instance) Anyway, this section is about what outcome should happen here...and against my usual intolerance for any ban evasion and my general dislike of liars...I am going to say now that I have a doubt. I have a doubt that SB=MM...it's not a strong doubt, but sufficient enough to justify saying that I think ScottyBerg should be unblocked. If this were a murder case or even a shoplifting case...I'd want the pieces to fit together better than this before I convicted or even tried to prosecute this guy for life much less death. Look, this editor wants to edit and his contributions have shown nothing in the way of malice...he's not going around calling people nasty names, he's not using socks to vote stack...he's not POV pushing...he's not a SPA. No, he doesn't have a long list of new pages or good/featured article work under his belt...or major efforts to right wrongs on some policy pages or similar, but he seems a good egg overall...a wikignome primarily. I was the editor that brought forth the extensive sock investigation of User:SevenofDiamonds being banned editor User:NuclearUmph...it was the first arbcom case of that type, so I know how to spot a sock...and unless arbcom has many more pieces to this puzzle than what I can spot, then this is insufficient evidence to convict....I might be wrong and I surely must be I suppose, but I do have a doubt.--MONGO 03:04, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- I suppose my above sentiments mirror the same ones I had at arbcom SevenofDiamonds...[16]--MONGO 03:13, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- Mongo, if this was a murder or shoplifting case, the court would be weighing whether to order the defendant to be physically killed (in the murder example), or anyway given a criminal record (making him near-unemployable for the rest of his life) in the shoplifting example. Here we're talking about booting an anonymous user from a privately operated web site, which when you get down to it is not much different than throwing someone out of a restaurant. You simply don't get a criminal trial in such a situation. And per Ken Arromdee, if Scotty isn't socking, he can apparently fix things up by talking to Jimbo on Skype (or presumably the phone), but he refuses to do that, preferring martyrdom. So I think you guys are asking a bit much.
And no, if you're playing poker with someone in order to beat them, you don't explain their tell (poker) to them even though it's "public" in the sense that it's in plain sight and could as well be noticed by other observers besides yourself. You use it against them to your best advantage and hope that they never figure it out. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 07:30, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- Jimbo's offer was made before this case. As far as I know, Arbcom has not offered him any way to clear himself, not even appearing on Skype. Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:03, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- As far as I know, he could still talk to Jimbo on Skype if it would clear things up. I know Jim has his moments, but if he came to Arbcom and said he had spoke to the guy on the phone and he's a subway engineer, lives in whatever place he edits the article on etc, then that would be serious evidence that he isn't MM and this is mistaken identity. There may be an element of sock fatigue in the responses - with socks of certain editors you just do not want to engage in conversation with them - which might cause an innocent editor to feel they had no way to 'clear their name'. Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:18, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks Elen, that's good to know. I could imagine some situations where an editor (e.g. one of Jimbo's various on-wiki opponents) might have plausible grounds to refuse the Skype chat, but ScottyBerg is playing the innocuous contributor uninterested in controversy, so in his shoes I'd have accepted Jimbo's invitation and tried to bypass all the drama. It's something like the Hans Reiser murder trial, where (I don't remember the actual details but it was along these lines) Reiser was arrested 100's of miles from his home and claimed he was travelling on innocuous business and had no idea anything was amiss, but the prosecutor argued that Reiser was running from the cops after having disposed of the victim's body. During the arrest, the cops had seized Reiser's cell phone and found that Reiser had removed the battery and was carrying it separately from the phone. Removing the battery from your cell phone is not illegal or incriminating in its own right, but fitting it into the surrounding story, the jury apparently accepted that Reiser took out the battery to avoid being tracked by the cellular network. That corroborated the "running from cops" theory, and was instrumental in convicting Reiser. Similarly, while there's no WP policy requiring anyone to talk to Jimbo, ScottyBerg's refusal to do so IMHO sounds sort of like Reiser's battery-less phone. It paints, shall we say, a certain picture. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 07:08, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- Jimbo has not actually asked Scotty if he's willing to Skype with him. Jimbo apparently asked him a few years ago in regards to a different incident, but currently, Jimbo only mentioned it on his own talk page. I let Scotty know about it and he said that since he had no interest in continuing to edit Wikipedia, he felt there was no point in giving up his privacy. I can see that Jack is trying to convince Scotty otherwise on Scotty's talk page. SilverserenC 07:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- Ah, ok, it had sounded like we were discussing something more recent. It will be interesting to find out if Scotty actually talks to Jimbo. Of course there may still be a problem after that, but for now we can't say that all options have been pursued. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 08:07, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- Jimbo has not actually asked Scotty if he's willing to Skype with him. Jimbo apparently asked him a few years ago in regards to a different incident, but currently, Jimbo only mentioned it on his own talk page. I let Scotty know about it and he said that since he had no interest in continuing to edit Wikipedia, he felt there was no point in giving up his privacy. I can see that Jack is trying to convince Scotty otherwise on Scotty's talk page. SilverserenC 07:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks Elen, that's good to know. I could imagine some situations where an editor (e.g. one of Jimbo's various on-wiki opponents) might have plausible grounds to refuse the Skype chat, but ScottyBerg is playing the innocuous contributor uninterested in controversy, so in his shoes I'd have accepted Jimbo's invitation and tried to bypass all the drama. It's something like the Hans Reiser murder trial, where (I don't remember the actual details but it was along these lines) Reiser was arrested 100's of miles from his home and claimed he was travelling on innocuous business and had no idea anything was amiss, but the prosecutor argued that Reiser was running from the cops after having disposed of the victim's body. During the arrest, the cops had seized Reiser's cell phone and found that Reiser had removed the battery and was carrying it separately from the phone. Removing the battery from your cell phone is not illegal or incriminating in its own right, but fitting it into the surrounding story, the jury apparently accepted that Reiser took out the battery to avoid being tracked by the cellular network. That corroborated the "running from cops" theory, and was instrumental in convicting Reiser. Similarly, while there's no WP policy requiring anyone to talk to Jimbo, ScottyBerg's refusal to do so IMHO sounds sort of like Reiser's battery-less phone. It paints, shall we say, a certain picture. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 07:08, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- As far as I know, he could still talk to Jimbo on Skype if it would clear things up. I know Jim has his moments, but if he came to Arbcom and said he had spoke to the guy on the phone and he's a subway engineer, lives in whatever place he edits the article on etc, then that would be serious evidence that he isn't MM and this is mistaken identity. There may be an element of sock fatigue in the responses - with socks of certain editors you just do not want to engage in conversation with them - which might cause an innocent editor to feel they had no way to 'clear their name'. Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:18, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- Jimbo's offer was made before this case. As far as I know, Arbcom has not offered him any way to clear himself, not even appearing on Skype. Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:03, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- Most people cannot hide their tells even when told, but yes, it's best that they are not aware of them. Most of the sockpuppeteers that I spend my time with have one or two habits that reveal their identity, and it's quite apparent that they don't know what they are.—Kww(talk) 11:24, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- I assume Alison and arbcom are correct...I'm not going to nor desire to use this Rfc as a place to pick on these folks...I respect that they have unforgiving "jobs". But take the edits to NY subway articles...if you're a New Yorker, its a part of life for almost all there to spend an hour at least everyday riding or waiting for a train...I'm not surprised this would therefore be in the editing realm of ScottyBerg...just as it was with Mantanmoreland. In the SevenofDiamonds case there were a few "gotchas"...he edited several very obscure articles and templates that had extremely low editing histories...I'm either missing or overlooking the "gotchas" in this case.MONGO 12:28, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- Judging from the letters sent to ArbCom that SB posted as to his page, I am seeing less and less of a connection, too. Can an arb confirm that these were in fact the letters sent to ARBCOM? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 15:15, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- I assume Alison and arbcom are correct...I'm not going to nor desire to use this Rfc as a place to pick on these folks...I respect that they have unforgiving "jobs". But take the edits to NY subway articles...if you're a New Yorker, its a part of life for almost all there to spend an hour at least everyday riding or waiting for a train...I'm not surprised this would therefore be in the editing realm of ScottyBerg...just as it was with Mantanmoreland. In the SevenofDiamonds case there were a few "gotchas"...he edited several very obscure articles and templates that had extremely low editing histories...I'm either missing or overlooking the "gotchas" in this case.MONGO 12:28, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps ArbCom should give a rough order of magnitude estimate of the probability that ScottyBerg is not Mantanmoreland given the similarities in editing behavior. This will force ArbCom to take into account all sorts of pre-selection effects, and if this probability is still extremely low, then it will make the identification of ScottyBerg as Mantanmoreland more credible. Count Iblis (talk) 16:00, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- I've been trying to figure out this "tell" that so convinced arbcom and company that Scotty is the sock master. Editing articles about NY can't be it. They already know the man lives in NY! Having the same ISP as this sock master is a possibly sad coincidence. How many ISP's are there in NY? Putting these two together can't be it in my mind. The only thing that I can figure is that Scotty uses the same pass word in addition to the other two rather weak coincidences. I admit that at first glance that's a pretty damning coincidence. Let's think about it a bit more though, maybe the password is "newyork" or "subway" or "timesquare". Since the ScottyBerg account hasn't been accused of doing anything wrong, is it really fair to ban someone in this situation? Because they use the same ISP and same password as a banned sock master? My opinion doesn't really matter though. It is apparently unanimous for those opinions that matter, it is enough to ban a productive contributor. Bill Huffman (talk) 19:00, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- Hum...interesting......see, now that is an aspect of sock hunting I wouldn't have thought of nor had the ability to track anyway...the issue of the Wikipedia login password. I suppose checkusers can do this? I suppose they could...of course if the password is unique and SB and MM used the same unique one, then that would be all the evidence that would be needed...since such a parameter is surely a sworn to secrecy issue, I'll not ask them to clarify this matter since they can't and won't anyway.--MONGO 03:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- Mediawiki encrypts all passwords with an MD5 Hash and doesn't store the plaintext. If checkusers could see the (encrypted) password then they might be able to tell if they are the same but certainly wouldn't be able to tell if it was unique - password similarity shouldn't have any weight as a tell because it could be something as ubiquitous as "Password".Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 08:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- Stuart..thank you for that information. I suppose what I did mean about unique would be just that...a unique set of letters and symbols. But since this can't be checked anyway, it doesn't matter...MONGO 15:57, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- To be a little more precise, good security practice these days is to at least salt and not just hash the passwords. That makes it difficult or infeasible to tell if two passwords are the same by looking at the hashes, so this password-checking theory is IMO unlikely. In MediaWiki, the salt is implemented in format "B" at lines 3832 and 3860 here plus some related places. Some unsalted formats are also supported (presumably for legacy reasons), but by the time ScottyBerg's account was created, I'm reasonably confident that all new passwords were being salted. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 19:42, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- Mediawiki encrypts all passwords with an MD5 Hash and doesn't store the plaintext. If checkusers could see the (encrypted) password then they might be able to tell if they are the same but certainly wouldn't be able to tell if it was unique - password similarity shouldn't have any weight as a tell because it could be something as ubiquitous as "Password".Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 08:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- Hum...interesting......see, now that is an aspect of sock hunting I wouldn't have thought of nor had the ability to track anyway...the issue of the Wikipedia login password. I suppose checkusers can do this? I suppose they could...of course if the password is unique and SB and MM used the same unique one, then that would be all the evidence that would be needed...since such a parameter is surely a sworn to secrecy issue, I'll not ask them to clarify this matter since they can't and won't anyway.--MONGO 03:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Someone please explain THIS
Collapsed list of edit counts that seem to reflect confusion
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I hope I’m wrong about this, but I don’t think so. Yesterday Scotty B gave everyone a big “tell” when he posted his “Third e-mail to Arb Com” on his talk page. This e-mail lists a long series of edits performed by the Mantanmoreland IP. I copy/pasted this list…it appears below this statement, so you can see for yourself. This list includes the usual: 114 edits by Mantanmoreland in Naked Short Selling, 27 edits in Patrick M. Byrne, 5 edits in Overstock.com. But then I noticed a number of edits for NYC subway lines, and remembered that Scotty B’s talk page had said “I’m a trolley buff and a New York City subway buff.” So I looked into the subway articles on this list:
None of these articles contained a single Mantanmoreland edit. But ALL of them contain Scotty B edits, with PRECISELY the number of edits listed above. The above nine articles contain 192 Scotty B edits and zero Mantanmoreland edits. So Scotty B made 192 edits from the Mantanmoreland IP – just counting the nine subway articles. If we look at other articles, we may find hundreds of more edits – in which case Scotty B was editing from the Mantanmoreland IP, just about every day. 192 edits, right out there in broad daylight. Maybe I’m missing something here – but this looks pretty clear, and pretty bad. Magnificent Amberson (talk) 21:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
My third: I cannot find the Wikistalk took, only Soxred's "top edited pages" tool. Here are the results for Mantanmoreland: • 114 - Naked short selling * 85 - Martin Luther * 73 - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad * 44 - On the Jews and their Lies * 39 - John M. Oesterreicher * 37 - Louis Farrakhan * 28 - World Trade Center (film) * 27 - Patrick M. Byrne * 26 - Gary Weiss * 23 - On the Waterfront * 23 - Paul Burke (actor) * 23 - Henry Ford * 22 - National Crime Syndicate * 20 - Dave Karnes * 19 - John M. Corridan * 17 - Jews for Jesus * 17 - Fordham University * 17 - Cornelius Willemse * 16 - John McLoughlin (9/11 survivor) * 15 - Ernest Borgnine * 14 - Shepherd Mead * 14 - Will Jimeno * 13 - Malcolm Johnson (journalist) * 13 - Pump and dump * 12 - Ethan Bronner * 12 - Thom Calandra * 11 - Joe Queenan * 10 - Eddie Egan * 10 - Burton Turkus * 10 - On the Jews and Their Lies * 10 - Microcap stock fraud * 10 - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel * 10 - Richard Price (writer) * 9 - Big Love * 9 - New antisemitism * 9 - Short and distort * 9 - 2004 Madrid train bombings * 9 - Arthur Waskow * 8 - The Quiet Man * 8 - The Friends of Eddie Coyle (novel) * 8 - List of Fordham University people * 8 - Jordan Belfort * 7 - Detour (novel) * 7 - Herb Greenberg * 7 - Church of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village * 7 - Jack Garfein * 7 - CounterPunch * 7 - Mark Cuban * 6 - Grand Concourse (Bronx) * 6 - Charles Lane (actor) * 6 - Dutch Schultz * 6 - Rose Thering * 6 - Carroll Baker * 6 - Louis Buchalter * 6 - Michael V. Gazzo * 6 - Love with the Proper Stranger * 6 - Jason Thomas * 6 - Kossar's Bialys * 6 - James Cagney * 5 - The Wanderers (1979 film) * 5 - David Strathairn * 5 - Hedge fund * 5 - Antonio Demo * 5 - James Dale Davidson * 5 - Yonah Shimmel's Knish Bakery * 5 - The Nation * 5 - Overstock.com * 5 - Pat Reid * 5 - Avery Corman * 5 - Lee Harvey Oswald * 5 - Murder, Inc. * 4 - Harry Connick, Sr. * 4 - Spencer Tracy * 4 - Russ Tamblyn * 4 - Market Wizards * 4 - Meyer Lansky * 4 - Ryan's Daughter * 4 - Barry Foster (actor) * 4 - The Sleeping City * 4 - Roger Lowenstein * 4 - Arthur Levitt * 4 - Boys Town (organization) * 4 - Chop stock * 3 - The Seventh Cross * 3 - Stratton Oakmont * 3 - Joseph A. O'Hare * 3 - Cong, County Mayo * 3 - The River (1951 film) * 3 - Havana Conference * 3 - Mickey Spillane (mobster) * 3 - Donald Henry Gaskins * 3 - Alex Nicol * 3 - Augustin Cardinal Bea * 3 - Richard Conte * 3 - Mission San Xavier del Bac * 3 - The Lost Weekend (novel) * 3 - Jack Ruby * 3 - Fordham, Bronx * 3 - Woody Strode * 3 - Katrina vanden Heuvel Here are the results for me: * 89 - Nelson Antonio Denis * 87 - Doyers Street (Manhattan) * 85 - Steve Brodie (bridge jumper) * 76 - Juano Hernández * 74 - East Harlem * 71 - Raymond Márquez * 70 - Zahi Hawass * 68 - IRT Third Avenue Line * 60 - Chasing Mummies * 57 - Bowery * 53 - Sixth Avenue (Manhattan) * 48 - South Bronx * 46 - Seventh Avenue (Manhattan) * 45 - World Wide Tours bus crash * 43 - Chinatown, Manhattan * 38 - Allen Street (Manhattan) * 36 - Time travel urban legends * 34 - Tenth Avenue (Manhattan) * 32 - TriBeCa * 32 - Occupy Wall Street * 30 - Harlem * 27 - Chinatown bus lines * 25 - New York City Subway * 25 - Spread tow fabric * 24 - Singer Building * 23 - Italian Harlem * 23 - R32 (New York City Subway car) * 22 - ServiceMagic * 22 - Edgar Allan Poe Cottage * 22 - Commissioners' Plan of 1811 * 21 - Herberts Cukurs * 20 - Gary Weiss * 20 - IRT Sixth Avenue Line * 19 - Chuck Yeager * 19 - 2011 Egyptian revolution * 19 - Koreatown, Manhattan * 19 - Bowery (disambiguation) * 19 - Climatic Research Unit email controversy * 18 - List of Puerto Ricans of African descent * 17 - List of Puerto Ricans * 16 - C (New York City Subway service) * 15 - Closings and cancellations following the September... * 15 - Manhattan * 15 - IRT Ninth Avenue Line * 14 - IRT Second Avenue Line * 14 - The Bronx * 13 - Houston Street (Manhattan) * 12 - Harlem Riot of 1964 * 12 - South Street (Manhattan) * 12 - The Circus (film) * 11 - Adam Clayton Powell IV (politician) * 11 - Donald A Wilson Secondary School * 11 - Richard “Skip” Bronson * 11 - Longwood, Bronx * 10 - New York City * 10 - Shakaiba Sanga Amaj * 10 - Angie's List * 10 - Brownsville, Brooklyn * 10 - Stacy Horn * 9 - Steve Brodie (actor) * 9 - Josh Franceschi * 9 - Stonewall riots * 9 - Arthur Avenue * 9 - Rick Sanchez * 9 - Siege of Richmond * 9 - Pleasant Avenue * 9 - La Marqueta (East Harlem) * 8 - Hashomer Hatzair * 8 - Ferdinand Waldo Demara * 8 - Jerome Tiger * 8 - Alvin C. York * 8 - Division Street, Manhattan * 8 - Eddie Chapman * 7 - RMS Titanic Lifeboat No. 6 * 7 - Grand Concourse (Bronx) * 7 - Robert Moses Playground * 7 - Berenice Abbott * 7 - Association of Naval Service Officers * 7 - Radio Row * 7 - St Andrew's College, Cleethorpes * 7 - List of Clark University people * 6 - Orwell High School * 6 - Mottephobia * 6 - List of Puerto Rican boxing world champions * 6 - Irwin Corey * 6 - Longwood Historic District (Bronx) * 6 - 18th Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line) * 6 - Stormfront (website) * 6 - David M. Gonzales * 6 - Young Man with a Horn (film) * 6 - Vesey Street (Manhattan) * 6 - Gotobus * 5 - David Guetta discography * 5 - You Me at Six * 5 - Space Cats * 5 - Michael Sorrentino * 5 - Malbone Street Wreck * 5 - Zuccotti Park * 5 - Battery Place (IRT Ninth Avenue Line) * 5 - Nolita I'm not seeing any intersections except for Gary Weiss, which I have already discussed. I have shown no interest in any of the major subject areas of that editor, finance and theology.
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- I collapsed the above per Jack Sebastian's request, and because I couldn't make any sense of it even after looking at it for a while. It's either misdirection, or somebody is pretty confused, as the collapsed discussion indicates. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 22:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- So, this presents us with a fairly point-blank question that would help us understand at least one facet of the ArbCom decision to ban: are they able to see the passwords we use to sign in (never mind the fact that this seems a helluva lot more disturbing than socking)? If so, are they seeing a match? Even though it isn't decisive, it would be a notable coincidence.
- And yes, I am stymied by the fact that ScottyBerg isn't rising to the challenge of clearing his name. I've pointed out on his talkpage that Skyping with Jimbo (or anyone else familiar with the MM stuff) would be a leap in the right direction towards clearing his name. At the very least, it could help address possible flaws in the detection system that render false positives on (other?) innocent users. Understand that this is a hassle for me; I personally consider SB something of a selfish, self-centered douchebag. Seeing him bemoan his his situation without doing anything about it is not surprising, but a lot dumber than I would have expected from him. I can still intensely dislike the guy and still defend his rights as a Wikipedian. Others who are less douche-y might run into the same problem, and the snags - if there are such - need to be addressed before that happens again.
- Thirdly, I am aghast that we are acting off of WR innuendo and half-baked accusations and attacks. Cookiehead needs a very long break from the project; there is a CoI problem at best, and a disruptive and pointy issue at worst - and they are fully aware of such, believing that their edits a sufficient armor against recrimination or administrative action. As such, he is a net detriment. The same goes for Cla6 for many of the same reasons: Wikipedia is not a battlefield, and them using WR to coordinate an attack on a user - any user - constitutes a clear and ominous disruption of our processes. As per WP:CABAL, this behavior needs to be uprooted and the ground burnt and salted.
- Lastly, could someone please show/hide the "Someone please explain THIS" subsection? It's clearly a gaslighting from some WR jagoff seeking to keep us on the topic that they want. It is distracting and inaccurate in the extreme. We aren't marionettes, dancing at their bidding. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 16:03, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- That's 5 at least throwaway accounts created by one or more WR trolls. In the above section, Stuart Jamieson exdplained that checkusers cannot check log in passwords...I assume his information is accurate.MONGO 16:23, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- Jack, I wouldn't worry about the password-snooping theory (it was an interesting thought but unlikely in my opinion). I added a little more technical explanation after Stuart's post. Leaving plaintext passwords in a database is considered poor security practice.[17] It's a standard newbie error, but the WP developers are pretty clueful and they know better than to do stuff like that by now. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 19:54, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
- I should note that the Scotty account only noted correlations with Mantan and not the various confirmed socks. Here are the results against User:JohnnyB256: [18]. Against User:Tomstoner: [19]. Against User:Stetsonharry: [20]. Against User:MajorStovall: [21]. The others didn't have significant correlations, but the correlations above are certainly of note. I should further note that the MajorStovall correlation is particularly telling in the way the account focused on military topics. The Scotty account's focus on Harlem and New York transportation articles appears to recreate this tactic. I noted on Scotty's talk page that the edits to Italian Harlem were especially notable given the real-life connection between that subject and Weiss, it was apparently the subject of his "first journalistic effort" to quote his blog. Also, one of the articles included in the above list (Grand Concourse (Bronx)) demonstrates that the interest in notable New York thoroughfares was not peculiar to Scotty.
- None of that dulls the concerns raised in this RfC, in my opinion, and there are definitely legitimate concerns about the off-wiki activity regarding the case. In fact, that this kind of behavioral evidence was easy as shit to find and provide here makes the apparent failure of anyone at ArbCom to provide that evidence a legitimate inquiry.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 01:41, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
- Let's not call it a failure, DA; as Elen noted previously, ArbCom has no protocol for this sort of thing. The reason why I am here is that there needs to be something, because it is just as easy as an innocent user to get banned as it is a sock. I have no idea what ScottyBerg is anymore (despite a selfish douchebag, imo). For me, its never really been about him; its about making Wikipedia better than it is. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 03:34, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
- "Just as easy"?? No I don't think so. "Scientifically possible": sure. "Not proven to beyond reasonable doubt" (as if this were a murder trial): ok maybe. Was there a preponderance of evidence (the standard for a civil trial, a much closer analogy to an arb case even though arbcom is not a courtroom procedure at all)? I tend to think so; the arbs/CU's are not fools.
I agree with Jack and TDA about the WR-related issues and would like arbcom to have handled it somewhat differently. It's ironic that arbcom's options were (formally or de facto) limited by past actions of "freedom fighters" concerned about arbcom becoming too powerful and working to reduce its discretionary authority. It doesn't sound (from Elen) that the arbs were exactly eager to do this block. I don't think there should be a "protocol", but rather, more should simply be left up to situational judgment. Maybe they should also talk to some of WP's longer-serving editors about how this type of problem was handled before the current, wikilawyer-dominated era. 67.119.12.141 (talk) 06:50, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
- "Just as easy"?? No I don't think so. "Scientifically possible": sure. "Not proven to beyond reasonable doubt" (as if this were a murder trial): ok maybe. Was there a preponderance of evidence (the standard for a civil trial, a much closer analogy to an arb case even though arbcom is not a courtroom procedure at all)? I tend to think so; the arbs/CU's are not fools.
- Let's not call it a failure, DA; as Elen noted previously, ArbCom has no protocol for this sort of thing. The reason why I am here is that there needs to be something, because it is just as easy as an innocent user to get banned as it is a sock. I have no idea what ScottyBerg is anymore (despite a selfish douchebag, imo). For me, its never really been about him; its about making Wikipedia better than it is. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 03:34, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
What will all this resolve?
I am hoping that something good comes out of this, as opposed to ArbCom simply sitting back and waiting for the hullaballoo to die down. I get that they are probably seeing some people as inflamed, or armed with an agenda, or a collection of creeps from WR here to grind an ax, but I hope that they see that there is a problem here. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 16:48, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
- It doesn't really seem like it. Elen seems to be the only one that understands the problem. SilverserenC 17:12, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
- Arbcom is in complete agreement as to the situation, so no reason for each arbitrator to comment as they do currently have a lot on their plate. None of them are going to overturn this ban unless ScottyBerg proves to them that he is not Mantanmoreland.--MONGO 18:05, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
- As hasw been mentioned ad nauseum previously, this isn't just about SB and whether or not they are a sock of one user or another. As the current situation with Rlevse proves beyond a shadow of doubt, ArbCom (and arbs) make mistakes. A lot of mistakes. The chance that an innocent person can be treated as SB has been is likely a LOT higher than is being let on. I am saying - and I thought that this whole RfC was about putting some controls on how these secret little discussions are governed. While ArbCom does a great deal of good, it hasn't been seen to be able to police itself all that well (any one of a number of situations distinctly bear that out). There must be something in place to prevent these secret discussions from potentially ruining a perfectly good user. We cannot trust ArbCom on their simple say so that they haven't made any mistakes. It's stupid to do so. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 18:29, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
- Again, you won't be able to make progress on that goal unless we drop this notion that editing an encyclopedia is some sort of private activity that won't bear public inspection. Unless checkuser data is made publicly available (something which I wholeheartedly endorse, by the way: I think the identity of all editors should be public information and IP address should be exposed for all edits), you won't be able to publish the evidence that these secret trials are run on. Anonymity and privacy are the enemies of openness, and you can't have them without keeping secrets.—Kww(talk) 22:39, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
- Public inspection is fine, but measures should only be taken if it some finding implies that the edits made by an editor are compromized. SB being Mantanmoreland or not is, as far as SB's contributions to Wikipedia is concerned, an entirely academic question. Count Iblis (talk) 00:36, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
- I would be vehemently opposed to not providing privacy rights to the editors here. There are all sorts of reasons to maintain the rights to privacy...I mean, editors have been run off this website after stalkers have identified their real names, addresses, phone numbers and employers...all just because they left one too many crumbs that led to the discovery by some wacko. I could never support denying the rights of our editors to edit with anonymity...in fact, I always suggest our editors do so. But as far as the secret trials...I don't see that here...THEY believe the evidence supports either unambiguously or at the very least with overwhelmingly that SB=MM...I personally have a doubt, but I haven't seen the evidence, only did a modest survey on my own...I have to concur with HJMitchell's comments above. In light of the fact that some things are going to be "secret" for a reason, this is probably as good as it's going to get.--MONGO 02:48, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
- There are several types of "privacy" here. You can make a good case for not revealing the identity of the other editors, but "privacy" in this case has often been invoked to mean that it would violate Mantanmoreland's privacy. I think that if you really believe Scotty is MM, there should be no "privacy" concerns over giving him information about himself.
- Of course, one issue here is also that Arbcom doesn't say much. Are there, in fact privacy concerns? You say yes, but other people have disagreed above and as far as I know there's nobody to speak authoritatively on the subject. Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
- No, publishing everyone's identity and ip address is not reasonable. Wasn't some kind of community group set up a few years ago to independently monitor checkuser and oversight? Tom Harrison Talk 12:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
- Again, you won't be able to make progress on that goal unless we drop this notion that editing an encyclopedia is some sort of private activity that won't bear public inspection. Unless checkuser data is made publicly available (something which I wholeheartedly endorse, by the way: I think the identity of all editors should be public information and IP address should be exposed for all edits), you won't be able to publish the evidence that these secret trials are run on. Anonymity and privacy are the enemies of openness, and you can't have them without keeping secrets.—Kww(talk) 22:39, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
- As hasw been mentioned ad nauseum previously, this isn't just about SB and whether or not they are a sock of one user or another. As the current situation with Rlevse proves beyond a shadow of doubt, ArbCom (and arbs) make mistakes. A lot of mistakes. The chance that an innocent person can be treated as SB has been is likely a LOT higher than is being let on. I am saying - and I thought that this whole RfC was about putting some controls on how these secret little discussions are governed. While ArbCom does a great deal of good, it hasn't been seen to be able to police itself all that well (any one of a number of situations distinctly bear that out). There must be something in place to prevent these secret discussions from potentially ruining a perfectly good user. We cannot trust ArbCom on their simple say so that they haven't made any mistakes. It's stupid to do so. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 18:29, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Risker said that ArbCom was between a rock and a hard place. So what would like to see is a change in the rules to give ArbCom an out if they so choose to use it. If a banned editor's new account meets the following conditions:
- Is productively editing Wikipedia.
- Has a long history of such contributions (In this case, Scotty had 2 years and 13,000 edits. 99% of socks will never reach this level).
- Has a clean record.
- Blocking the account would be disruptive.
Issuing or not issuing a block is at ArbCom's descretion. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:01, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
- That's what the BASC is for. I strongly oppose granting amnesty to people that sockpuppet, regardless of their motivation or apparent productivity. Arbcom should not have that level of discretion.—Kww(talk) 15:08, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
- As things are now, no one is ever required to block an account, right? Tom Harrison Talk 18:16, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
- In this situation, Arbcom pretty much was. Past precedent of desysopping admins that were allowing known socks to become admins would be hard not to apply in this case. It's pretty hard to argue that someone that passes RFA isn't an overall constructive editor.—Kww(talk) 19:05, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Suggested actions
Let's see if we can get something actionable proposed here. From what I can tell the main proposals advocated here are:
- Clearly providing a procedure to allow an editor engaged in sockpuppetry who has demonstrated productive editing activities on Wikipedia to be given a means to return to editing. Basically if someone is only socking to make constructive edits this should be taken into account.
- Administrative action should be taken against users mentioned in this case who have apparently been engaging in off-wiki coordination aimed at using contentious edits to the BLP on Gary Weiss to bait Mantan socks that would otherwise go unnoticed given generally productive editing in non-contentious areas.
- Greater transparency should be introduced to ArbCom proceedings and sockpuppet appeals in particular. Lack of transparency has created a trust gap between ArbCom and regular editors that needs to be addressed through reform.
On the first point I happen to be aware of a case where someone indeffed for sockpuppetry was able to come back under certain conditions. Essentially the editor agreed to regular checks on the condition that any future instances of sockpuppetry would lead to the indef being reinstated without talk page access. Perhaps something along those lines could be put forward in this case and adopted broadly as a model for sockmasters to come out from the cold. One thought I have on the second point is that there should be some wording set forth to lay out how "baiting" might apply to edits on articles, as the policy currently does not mention that as a possible form of baiting. If anyone has any ideas on the appropriate way to address the above issues or other issues they want to see addressed please provide them.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Your first condition requires an admission of sockpuppetry. There are paths back for people that admit to socking. There are none, and should be none, for those that do not.—Kww(talk) 01:56, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- I completely disagree. It is not on to demand someone admit guilt when they're actually innocent, so unless and until we have some guarantee that ArbCom is infallible a return to editing should not require admitting anything. The trouble is that checkuser is limited and unreliable (particularly when you're using CU info too stale for a regular editor to use at SPI), and behavioural evidence is always tainted with data cherry-picked to support a pre-ordained guilty verdict. I bet that many, many blocked "sockpuppets" are actually innocent. IMO, the only thing that should be necessary after the six months is a plausible commitment in the future to edit constructively and under one account. Reyk YO! 03:02, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- So you are saying the ScottyBerg should promise to go away for 6 months and then be allowed back? What happens if Arbcom reaches a unanimous conclusion that he was socking during the 6 months and he still denies it? I think you are just pushing the problem down the line.—Kww(talk) 12:36, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Considering that Scotty was editing completely productively, I don't even see what the "problem" is at this point. That's also the hole in your statement, Reyk. What's the point of them making a commitment to edit constructively when they were already doing that and hadn't done anything wrong and then they were blocked. SilverserenC 15:15, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Evading a block is doing something wrong, Silver seren, and everyone that has examined the evidence agrees that ScottyBerg was evading a block.—Kww(talk) 15:33, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- However, there are significant doubts, especially based on what Elen revealed about the "evidence", that he is a sockpuppet at all. The technical evidence seems to have been, "He had an ISP the same as Mantanmoreland, the ISP that hosts 8 million New Yorkers". Based on this, a lot of the behavioral evidence of "editing New York based articles" seems to be pointless. And as for the behavioral evidence based on edit summaries, from what i've seen, it's less than compelling. SilverserenC 16:08, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- So you are saying the ScottyBerg should promise to go away for 6 months and then be allowed back? What happens if Arbcom reaches a unanimous conclusion that he was socking during the 6 months and he still denies it? I think you are just pushing the problem down the line.—Kww(talk) 12:36, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- I completely disagree. It is not on to demand someone admit guilt when they're actually innocent, so unless and until we have some guarantee that ArbCom is infallible a return to editing should not require admitting anything. The trouble is that checkuser is limited and unreliable (particularly when you're using CU info too stale for a regular editor to use at SPI), and behavioural evidence is always tainted with data cherry-picked to support a pre-ordained guilty verdict. I bet that many, many blocked "sockpuppets" are actually innocent. IMO, the only thing that should be necessary after the six months is a plausible commitment in the future to edit constructively and under one account. Reyk YO! 03:02, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- The problem, as I see it, is twofold. The first is (as noted previously) that of trials conducted away from the membership without even the accused having the right to know the evidence against them. We have only the word of a few arbs that ScottyBerg is guilty of anything. I'm sorry, but the trust gap alluded to in DA's previous post continues to widen as ArbCom continues to stall and refrain from taking action - any action - to fix the problem. They seem quite content to sit around and wait for our frustration and indignation at secret trials to run out of steam. Either that, or some cowboy new admin will be nudged into closing the RfC. That belief isn't inspired by conspiracy, but instead by precedent.
- The second problem is that if we presume ScottyBerg's innocence, he has no way to return to the Project unless he lies and says he is a sock of MM. Presupposing the aforementioned trust gap as well as the absolute - yet independently unconfirmed - proof that ArbCom says it has against a supposed sock - we have no way of knowing if this has not happened before.
- If we cannot trust each other, if we cannot trust those with whom we place our highest level of access, it all falls apart. With this matter as well as multiple other issues affecting the credibility of ArbCom (and I am referencing the matter with Rlevse, among others), ArbCom needs to cowboy up and address these concerns both signly and jointly. They need to adapt. The closed-door policies of us-versus-them needs to stop, and stop now. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 18:47, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Precisely what do you expect them to do to convince you that doesn't involve violating the privacy policy? I encourage you to "vote the rascals out" (hell, I ran against them in the last election), but there has to be a final court that deals with this kind of thing, and there isn't much of a choice but to listen to them when they are serving their terms.—Kww(talk) 18:56, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- There has been no definitive statement from Arbcom as to whether not releasing the information has anything to do with the privacy policy. Any statements to that effect are just inferences or unofficial statements that can be, and have been, disclaimed when convenient. The first thing I would like to see Arbcom do in relation to releasing private information is to say--in a way that isn't subject to later denial--whether the privacy policy is relevant at all.
- After that, they should offer to release the information to Scotty (redacting the names of other people if needed). If they really believe he is MM, releasing information to him won't violate his privacy. He can then release it to others as he wishes. I'm tired of the idea that Arbcom is certain he is MM, but when being MM would help his case, suddenly they're not certain after all. Ken Arromdee (talk) 20:12, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Precisely what do you expect them to do to convince you that doesn't involve violating the privacy policy? I encourage you to "vote the rascals out" (hell, I ran against them in the last election), but there has to be a final court that deals with this kind of thing, and there isn't much of a choice but to listen to them when they are serving their terms.—Kww(talk) 18:56, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
As has been noted previously, Kww, the issue surrounding the release of the information that supposedly proves ScottyBerg is MM is NOT one of privacy at all, but one of apparent 'trade secrets'. ArbCom has stated that they do not wish to "teach" the apparent sockmaster how to avoid being detected. I find the 'trust us, we're arbcom and we're sure' expectation somewhat appalling. Beyond that is the galling impression that ArbCom feels offended that we'd even bother asking. Come on, ArbCom. This is not going to go away. You think people aren't reading these threads? You think this won't spread beyond the confines of this talk page or this website? Wake up. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 08:43, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- I certainly think it should go away. I never tell a sockpuppeteer how I know it's him. Never will. It's unreasonable to expect. What is reasonable to expect is that Arbcom will perform its functions. If you don't like the way it does it, propose a better solution that doesn't have worse side effects than the problem it is solving, or elect people you trust to Arbcom. So far, all that has been proposed is that Arbcom release the information it used to make the decision, which will either violate privacy policies or educate a sockpuppeteer. There's no path in that direction that actually leads somewhere.—Kww(talk) 00:41, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- That makes no sense, Kww. There is no privacy to violate, if ArbCom is so all-fired sure they have the right man; MM's identity is clearly known, and has been alluded to by several of the less subtle of our editors. Either SB is MM, and no privacy is warranted, or he isn't, and privacy would be in order.
- Secondly, we only have ArbCom's word that their "evidence" would educate a socker. We have no proof whatsoever that this proof in fact exists, is based in measurably accurate information or was obtained without delving into - at best - gray areas of the legally obtainable info. Due to the aforementioned trust gap, I think more information (or at least, outside confirmation of that information by someone like Jimbo or whatever) is needed. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 04:25, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- One of the bizarre aspects of this case is that Arbcom (or people who seem to be speaking for it) can't even get their story straight on whether there are any privacy concerns or not. How are we supposed to meaningfully comment when we have no idea what Arbcom even claims to be doing?
- I would still say that if there are privacy concerns, most of them could be alleviated by giving the information to Scotty and allowing him to release it as he chooses. If you believe he is MM, you're not violating his privacy by giving him information about himself. (And if he's not MM, falsely accusing him was a much bigger mistake than violating anyone's privacy in the process.) Ken Arromdee (talk) 00:45, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Here we go round the mulberry bush
Why are you guys still going on about secret evidence? The only evidence you haven't been given is Scotty Berg's IP address, and I've said repeatedly that IP evidence wasn't a smoking gun, it just didn't rule him out. Everything else - as I have said ad nauseam - is onwiki. You can see all the edit histories, all the socks are recorded, you can compare Scotty to Mantanmoreland and his socks yourself, you can compare Scotty's edits with Weiss's blog if you believe Mantanmoreland is Weiss, or edits according to what's in Weiss's blog for some other reason. There's nothing else. If you think the decision is bad, just say that you think it was a bad call.
Also, for those of you advancing the 'editing productively' argument, you should note that Arbcom is in another place being ferociously castigated for not instantly blocking Rlevse's PumpkinSky account, even though some would argue that edited productively. And of course we couldn't have blocked it instantly because believe it or not, we don't actually check every account daily to see if it's a sock.
So, joining up several discussions it seems-
- Editors want full disclosure of all information - unless it's their information, when they want it kept private
- Socks that manage to edit productively should be kept - unless they are Rlevse
- Review by Audit Subcommittee and a dozen Checkusers doesn't count as a review - only review by (insert your name here) counts.
- Pointing people at the evidence onwiki doesn't count as disclosure - only including public onwiki information in a private email and then posting the email onwiki counts as disclosure
I think the only thing you guys have picked out as a significant are -
- When an investigation is carried out into a non-vandal editor without a Sockpuppet investigation, the blocking admin should post a summary of the evidence onwiki (as for example in the PMA/JCS block, where the summary evidence is on my talkpage). You might even want to suggest that they must create an SPI and post to that, so there is a record somewhere findable.
- A non-vandal editor accused of socking should be given a reasonable chance to clear their name - for example by accepting technical evidence, or confidential disclosure of identity.
- There should be a community discussion about "rehabilitation of offenders" to find out what if any community consensus there is on allowing the return of a sockmaster.
- Anything formulated must not interfere with the ongoing prevention of disruption from the likes of Grawp, Jonny the Vandal et al. Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:00, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- From what I heard, Rlevse was continuing his copyvios through PumpkinSky, was he not? If so, then I wouldn't really consider that editing productively. SilverserenC 17:11, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- There is that. "Trying to edit productively" is probably a better way of putting it. But there was WWIII over Law/Undertow as well, although that was before my time. I'm just frustrated because it feels like this is always happening - the community seems to be always campaigning for two opposing outcomes at the same time. I think there are things to take forward here, I'm just still not sure what outcome people are looking for. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:59, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)Elen, I can sense your growing exasperation with the discussion, and trust me when I say that I share it, but for somewhat different reasons. I think that the Rlevse issue is only tangentially related to this (ie. a sockblocking), but the differences far outweigh the similarities - enough so that comparing the two only muddies the waters and prevents a clear discussion. Don't misunderstand me; I'm upset as hell that the former arb has gone off reservation and is apparently smoking the Happy Grass and doing whatever the hell he wants, but we're talking apples and pomegranates here. Let's stay on target here.
- Elen, though meant as a tongue-in-cheek assessment, you are correct in stating that the information being both obvious and onwiki does not count as dull disclosure. The term onwiki covers a massive amount of information. If ArbCom has already sifted through that (which, unless I am mistaken, they are contending to have done), why not share it with the community? If the damning evidence is onwiki and out there for anyone to see, then it is - by definition - not private. No security is being compromised.
- While the initial comment appears to have been overlooked, one of the two reasons for the sockblock (as per User:AGK, an Arb) was that checkuser data was part of the evidence and couldn't discussed. We get that (or at least, I do). Checkuser info should remain private. That said, I think its been clearly established that CU data isn't incontrovertible; if it were, it wouldn't have been "part" of the evidence but the entirety of it. If that is set aside (or kept private), then all that remains is the supposedly damning behavioral evidence present onwiki and out in the open. I say to this: "habeas corpus''. Arbcom says they compiled it; now show it. There's no decoder ring or cabal to hide. It's really that simple. Put up or shut up.
- I do not think that socks that edit productively should be given a free pass. If someone is editing like a sock, then they cannot remain. I firmly believe in the one-man, one vote principle: Wikipedia cannot be said to be an encyclopedia that everyone can edit if someone is manipulating viewpoint by pretending to represent their viewpoint as more prolific than it might otherwise be.
- That said, if a sock (or a user incorrectly accused of being a sock - there is a difference) genuinely wishes to return to edit productively, there should be avenues to do so. Not amnesty for a sock that edits productively, which doesn't work (imo), nor given credit for a sock that edits productively (they are still socking, right?). So long as reasonable restrictions are applied and cheap shots aren't continually taken at the user's expense, I don't think its a reasonable proposal.
Your final four assessments as to what are significant as spot on. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 18:18, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks both of you for bearing with my dodgy humour. Does example block explanation work. It doesn't happen often that I have to block someone I consider a serious editor for something as stupid as socking - there was a lot of evidence sent privately by email, but it's not private evidence (other than the CU data) it's a massive analysis of edits. I felt when I did it that there ought to be somewhere to record why, what evidence linked them, because people would be bound to ask, and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask.Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:34, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- Your contributions here are much appreciated...thanks for taking the time to address these issues.--MONGO 23:51, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps there should be a discussion of a more appropriate forum to discuss the three issues I mention at the top of this section. The second I think can easily be dealt with at an RfC regarding Wikipedia Review in general with community-imposed sanctions. Has there been such an RfC before this? As to the first and third issues I raised, I am not sure exactly how to approach them. Both might be handled through more clear proposals here or maybe they need to be dealt with in some other procedure. I'm not sure.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 09:44, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- I don't want to presume the worst, but I fear that some Arbs might not be taking this seriously for two reasons. The first is that every time they make a decision, someone complains about it. Vociferously. Therefore, when a legitimate concern pops up, the thick skin they tend to develop may miss the legitimacy of that concern. Secondly, they may not want to expend energy on something that either makes their job list longer or doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of being implemented.
- I do think that to address both issues, we have to address the problem of venue. Without putting our concerns in the right place where they stand a chance of being taken seriously and eventually finding implementation, we are giving the arbs more than enough reason to marginalize our concerns. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 15:59, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- I don;t want to be a PITA, but I'm a bit concerned about the accuracy of "tells". I know they're supposed to be unique traits, but I can't blind myself to the possibility that people with similar interests, coming from the same geographical area, and possibly having gone to the same school or even being in the same workplace, could perfectly reasonably and innocently have similar styles in the minutest of things. Heck, my own school even had a recognisable "accent", for those who had been there. Minutely, minutely different from the other local(ish) accents, but it was something which we shared. With things like edit summaries, for instance, it's possible that two people went to the same college, or whatever, and the college "style" was to use a particular type of "shorthand". This becomes all the more likely when two people are living in the same city. Just how unique are the "tells"? We don't need to know exactly what they were, but would it be reasonable to consider that more than one person, coming from the same area (and possibly school, college, workplace, club) might have the same apparently-unique "tells"? I'm not saying that this is a miscarriage of justice, but the possibility that it might be, and that others might fall foul of the same "these are unique 'tells'", worries me for future cases.
- P.S. How very interesting! I've just looked at the example block explanation, and by the mightiest of coincidences, I use semicolons in edit summaries, too! How weird is that?! Pesky (talk) 09:36, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Proposals
I am going to try and list a few ideas of where I think these issues should be taken to get a more clear discussion about it. Anyone else with proposals can feel free to leave them below.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Proposal #1
Create a discussion at the policy Village Pump about modifying policy on sockpuppetry, specifically regarding WP:CLEANSTART, to provide a clear path for editors to return to editing after long-term sockpuppetry.
- Editors who support this proposal
- Proposing this because I think that might be an appropriate avenue for discussing a change in policy relating to sockpuppetry. Several recent cases have demonstrated split behavior on the question of editors operating multiple accounts. A clearer description might make it easier for such decisions to be made without controversy rather than the current ad-hoc process that appears to be in use.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- All things considered, that seems reasonable. It could even provide a way for the innocent to return, too. Pesky (talk) 13:12, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Support - this is the very least that should take place. There must be a process. Opening it to the wider membership will likely increase the noise/sound ratio, but that will certainly be better than arbs sitting around here waiting for us to lose interest in something that they clearly don't see as broken. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 18:44, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Yeah, because at this point people just keep getting pointed to the standard offer, but things are often not as clear-cut as that. SilverserenC 19:14, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Certainly worth discussing. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:23, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Definitely worth hearing the community's view on this. Reyk YO! 01:13, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- Editors who don't
- Don't Support...procedures already in place...silly motion...just more drama.MONGO 19:10, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- If they were, we wouldn't be here talking about this. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 20:57, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Procedures are already in place. The standard offer plus BASC gives a path back to anyone that will admit they have been sockpuppeting.—Kww(talk) 03:08, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- And yet completely fails where the user is in fact innocent. I'm sorry, but I am not convinced of ArbCom's infallibility. I've seen nothing here that convinces me that ScottyBerg is anything more than a self-involved douchebag. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 06:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- All systems have a final arbiter, and no method to deal with that final arbiter getting it wrong. All you can do is move that problem, you can't fix it.—Kww(talk) 11:45, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- Using that logic, slavery would still exist in the civilized world. Bringing matters out into the light of day helps prevent an arbiter from getting it wrong. The process is too closed, and there is no way to know when they make mistakes. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 17:20, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- All systems have a final arbiter, and no method to deal with that final arbiter getting it wrong. All you can do is move that problem, you can't fix it.—Kww(talk) 11:45, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- And yet completely fails where the user is in fact innocent. I'm sorry, but I am not convinced of ArbCom's infallibility. I've seen nothing here that convinces me that ScottyBerg is anything more than a self-involved douchebag. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 06:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- All this is saying "I don't trust checkusers/arbcom" and the comparison to slavery above is as close to a non-Nazi Godwin that you'll ever see. Moral Panics do not replace measured discussion. SirFozzie (talk) 15:13, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- And a discussion on the Village Pump about this wouldn't be measured discussion? SilverserenC 17:32, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Wow, I've never been accused of invoking Godwin's Law before. Just...wow. Allow me to restate the problem with the idea that the problem is 'unfixable'. If we elect arbiters to fix problems, and they consider some problems unfixable, then ipso facto, they need assistance in accomplishing their tasks. The procedures "already in place" aren't working. Period. The arbs must see that the rest of us don't feel that they are working. Maybe they are all defensive, thinking that we are considering them dishonest. I personally don't think this. Fallible? Yes. Employing an 'us-versus-them' mentality? Demonstably true. Misguided? Yep. Corrupt? No. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 03:45, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- And a discussion on the Village Pump about this wouldn't be measured discussion? SilverserenC 17:32, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Per failure to demonstrate how this would actually improve the encyclopedia (as opposed to creating more drama). Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:20, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- We have checkusers for a reason. We have arbitrators for a reason. We have WP:BASC for a reason. We have WP:AUSC for a reason. For that matter we have WP:BAN and {{bannedmeansbanned}} for a reason. We already have what we need to deal with ban evading sockpupeteers, which is what Scotty was. We should not encourage banned users to edit in defiance of their ban, quite the opposite. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- And if, if, he was not? --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:46, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Proposal #2
Initiate an RfC regarding Wikipedia Review focusing on off-wiki coordination by active editors.
- Editors who support this proposal
- Seems this has not been attempted, even though editors who frequent the site have been a repeated source of contention within the community. The ongoing RfC regarding Fae is one indicator of where WR's activities have been the subject of controversy beyond just the mantan case. One desired outcome I think would be for certain editors to cease editing articles relating to Gary Weiss.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 06:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- If you contribute at WR, you need to admit such, so your edits and actions are transparent. Users like Cla68 deserve God's Own Beating (or at the very least a hefty block) for disrupting Wikipedia to chase after a suspected sockpuppet. It was part of a WR-coordinated attack on Wikipedia, and that shit needs to cease pronto. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 18:48, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Off-wiki coordination is definitely something that we combat. For one example, that's what the whole CAMERA issue was (among other things). We can't regulate what people say or do off-wiki, but we can certainly factor it in in regards to their on-wiki actions. SilverserenC 19:14, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Editors who don't
- Don't support...we cannot regulate what people do off wiki...MONGO 19:10, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- See my support comment up above. Also note that we do actually use off-wiki attacks on users as admissible evidence on-wiki, per policy. SilverserenC 19:16, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well...good luck with that...you have to prove contributions made off wiki belong to a wiki contributor...not always easy to do, unless there is a real give away such as a confession or poorly covered up evidence.MONGO 20:02, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well, you are able to detect sock-puppets apparently using the Force, so I think that argument about proving contributions to WR by editors here is a fairly disingenuous one. And, as a point of clarification, we are talking about editors who organize themselves into cabals to screw with Wikipedia are not only deserving of protection, they are deserving of any punishment we can possibly devise. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 21:02, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- There may be a half dozen editors that endured equal or greater offsite coordinated attacks brought onto this website...WR used to have a section devoted to MONGO...there's an article on Encyclopedia Dramatica about MONGO...the GNAA also came after MONGO...MONGO 21:48, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Again, we aren't talking about people going after Mongo (because "Mongo only pawn in game of life"). We are talking about those muppets over at WR disrupting Wikipedia for their own little pointy reasons, none of which have to do with creating an encyclopedia. Calling someone a douchebag isn't very friendly, but it doesn't directly interfere with the operation of the encyclopedia. Creating stupid edits to elicit a reaction does. The distinction isn't all that fine, really. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 22:33, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Those "muppets" over at WR? WR has plenty of banned editors and also some current wiki arbcom members that contribute there...the founder of WR was just recently allowed back into this website after a 5.5 year ban...so what on earth are you planning on doing?--MONGO 04:28, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- Again, if you are an editor who contributes to WR and can keep your editing life and WR views separate, great. If you edit transparently, again great. If you dislike a particular WP policy and voice such in WR, still acceptable. If, however, you - along with other WR contributors - work to undermine the efficiency of the encyclopedia via disruptive edits and mindgames, you need to be shown the door for a time. In fact, I think people who coldly calculate this sort of disruption are worse than the manchild who loses his temper and has an emotional outburst. Wikipedia is not the venue for mindfuck games. Full stop. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 04:48, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Those "muppets" over at WR? WR has plenty of banned editors and also some current wiki arbcom members that contribute there...the founder of WR was just recently allowed back into this website after a 5.5 year ban...so what on earth are you planning on doing?--MONGO 04:28, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- Again, we aren't talking about people going after Mongo (because "Mongo only pawn in game of life"). We are talking about those muppets over at WR disrupting Wikipedia for their own little pointy reasons, none of which have to do with creating an encyclopedia. Calling someone a douchebag isn't very friendly, but it doesn't directly interfere with the operation of the encyclopedia. Creating stupid edits to elicit a reaction does. The distinction isn't all that fine, really. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 22:33, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- There may be a half dozen editors that endured equal or greater offsite coordinated attacks brought onto this website...WR used to have a section devoted to MONGO...there's an article on Encyclopedia Dramatica about MONGO...the GNAA also came after MONGO...MONGO 21:48, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well, you are able to detect sock-puppets apparently using the Force, so I think that argument about proving contributions to WR by editors here is a fairly disingenuous one. And, as a point of clarification, we are talking about editors who organize themselves into cabals to screw with Wikipedia are not only deserving of protection, they are deserving of any punishment we can possibly devise. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 21:02, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well...good luck with that...you have to prove contributions made off wiki belong to a wiki contributor...not always easy to do, unless there is a real give away such as a confession or poorly covered up evidence.MONGO 20:02, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- See my support comment up above. Also note that we do actually use off-wiki attacks on users as admissible evidence on-wiki, per policy. SilverserenC 19:16, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose. Organizing witch-hunts of what editors may say and do off-site is quite outside the scope of an encyclopedia project. In response to the CAMERA analogy, I was one of the primary targets of the CAMERA case back then. CAMERA was taken down because we had clear and undeniable proof that members were conversing off-wiki about how to circumvent Wikipedia policy and to target specific editors for deception and harassment. That's not even remotely in the ballpark of "they said mean things about me at WR!" Tarc (talk) 20:07, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- And we aren't talking about people saying "mean things" at WR; we are talking about people planning out and then executing the disruption of Wikipedia in pointy little ways. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 21:02, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm considered a supporter but I think these proposals are overkill. I'm concerned mainly with one issue: suppose this happened to me; what could I do to prove my innocence and/or to return after failing to prove my innocence? I want a policy that prevents the answer from this from being "nothing". Ken Arromdee (talk) 21:27, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well, a discussion at the village pump could address that question of how one proves innocence as well. The second point was exactly what I mentioned.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 22:55, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- It wouldn't happen to you Ken unless your a sockmaster...or a previously banned editor.--MONGO 04:28, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- Or, as the case may be, simply accused of being such. Since no compelling evidence has been presented confirming SB's guilt, and they are being rather creepily silent on the subject, I am not really convinced by any arguemtn asking us to trust them. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 04:43, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Proposal #3
Create a discussion about modifying policy on sockpuppetry, to provide a clear process for editors to challenge evidence against them and prove their innocence. Additionally a discussion about route back for those maintain their innocence (hence can't use the standard offer).
- Editors who support this proposal
- Support per Ken Arromdee above - I want to know that if this happened to me there would be a process beyond Jimmy Wales offer of a Skype Chat. (Which only worked on the basis that the Sock Master had been Outed). Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 21:44, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- May be a good plan. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:23, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Seems like a process of challenging evidence should already exist. Otherwise, it's not so much a normal court system as it is a military tribunal. SilverserenC 17:33, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- In any judicial or quasi-judicial process, there absolutely must be some way for the truly innocent to "come back". No such process is perpetually infallible, even if it has been infallible "up to now". I still want to know just how fallible, for instance, those "tells" are — particularly bearing in mind that, although apparently almost nobody uses semi-colons in edit summaries, I do! And no, I'm not a sock of anyone else who does, no matter how "distinctive" such a tell might be. There must be a just, fair and reasoned way for people who've been "victims of false positives" to be allowed back without having to tell lies, pretending they were guilty. This is a matter of pure principle. Pesky (talk) 18:00, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Definitely. After this whole ScottyBerg mess and the way Arbcom have dealt with it, I feel much less likely to get a fair hearing from ArbCom if I were ever accused of something. Reyk YO! 01:18, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- Clearly support this as well. It's a process clearly in need of adjustment. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 03:34, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- Editors who don't
- This proposal is conflating two different issues. Why are they grouped into 1 proposal? Is the 2nd sentence different from proposal #1? Kaldari (talk) 07:13, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- Both issues in this proposal are based on the accused (for want of a better word) being innocent and it's a two part process there should be a community means to verify your identity (Jimmy already offers this in the Skype offer above - but it only works if the RL identity of the master is known) and a means to get back in when you can't take up the standard offer (because you never had access to the sockmaster account in the first place) - Proposal #1 in it's current wording appears to relate to editors who are guilty but reformed/productive coming back into the fold without being forced to take the standard offer. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 19:13, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- If you can prove your innocence, you don't need a route back, you just get unblocked by an admin. I would support the 1st sentence, but not the 2nd. Too bad they aren't presented separately. Kaldari (talk) 05:12, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- As I say to Starblind below: we already have an unblock process for those who admit their guilt in the original account. The second part only acts as a failsafe for those who actually are innocent but have been unable to prove it (for instance if the real life identity of the sock master is unknown) and it may be something as simple as wait 6months with no sockpuppeting, log in to the suspected account, leave a request for unblocking and get it (essentially the standard offer moved away from the sock master account) but how to implement it and whether the terms should be different from the standard offer would be part of the discussion. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 08:18, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- If you can prove your innocence, you don't need a route back, you just get unblocked by an admin. I would support the 1st sentence, but not the 2nd. Too bad they aren't presented separately. Kaldari (talk) 05:12, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- Both issues in this proposal are based on the accused (for want of a better word) being innocent and it's a two part process there should be a community means to verify your identity (Jimmy already offers this in the Skype offer above - but it only works if the RL identity of the master is known) and a means to get back in when you can't take up the standard offer (because you never had access to the sockmaster account in the first place) - Proposal #1 in it's current wording appears to relate to editors who are guilty but reformed/productive coming back into the fold without being forced to take the standard offer. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 19:13, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is a website, not a country, and has no need for due process, courts of law, and the like. The fact that some of our processes do use terminology (like "case" etc.) associated with real-world legal systems apparently confuses some people into believing WP does or should have a full judicial system. I would challenge those people to come up with examples of other websites that DO have a full judicial system, as without concrete examples of how such a thing could possibly work in an online, volunteer-oriented and largely anonymous community, the very suggestion is ridiculous. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:40, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- Just so we're clear if you did act as a sockmaster there is a way back into Wikipedia - wait 6 months post an apology in the original account. If you are found guilty of being a sockmaster but it's a genuine mistake - you can't return to that original account so you can never get back in. Whether or not we have need for due process we do have a need for a way back in for those wrongly banned since we already have a way for those rightly banned. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 19:13, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Proposal #4
Open a discussion whether bans should ever be 'indefinite' or 'indefinite'-like (some ArbCom bans read 'you are banned for the period of at least <timeframe>'), especially in perspective of WP:CLEANSTART, innocence, and double jeopardy.
- Editors who support this proposal
- As proposer. Do note that this does not need to exclude an option of 'auto-reban after one year' for the really malicious - We do not block school IPs indefinitely. We do block school IPs whose first edit(s) after a one-year block are (all) vandalism, often again for a lengthy period. Also, we do not block if there are good edits coming after the 1-year block, but if that is followed by a spree of vandalism, they may get a (lengthy) block again, without discussion. If there are hundreds of good edits coming from that school over a long stretch of time after the one year block, and then (even if it is for a couple of days) only vandalism, a new block of 1 year is difficult to defend. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:23, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Two additional notes:
- The cleanstart account, created after the end of a definite ban, of a user who for sockpuppetry should not be regarded a sockpuppet (as long as old accounts were not used again, and not multiple accounts were used after the ban, etc. etc.)
- There may be another way out, indefinite(-like) bans are automatically evaluated after one year - without discussion with the editor. Although this is a dangerous one, all editors obviously need a say in this, and if the editor is convicted, but innocent, that may not be appropriately weighed in such a discussion. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:39, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Editors who don't
- Ridiculous. The ban that has the proposer worked up is a community ban, the best way to open that is to open a formal community un-ban (which can happen at any time already) and in each and every case where the Committee has issued an indefinite ban there is a good reason. Forcing the re-fighting of issues over people who were banned for really good reasons is a non-starter. SirFozzie (talk) 15:11, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- There needs to be no 're-fighting', and whatever the good reason is, there is always a chance of mistake, and there is at this moment no way around that, nor a really fair chance to cleanstart. It is equally ridiculous to consider that ArbCom decisions are infallable. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:17, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- There has to be a last stop in Dispute Resolution, and ArbCom is it. You're just opening the door to endlessly fight over things. SirFozzie (talk) 17:31, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, and ArbCom is effectively closing the door so there can not be discussion, even if they would make a completely wrong decision at some point. "You're convicted to the electric chair, and in case we did make a mistake in our decision, remember: shit happens". --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:33, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- That's why the community has the power to change things every year when candidates run for the committee. Again, there needs to be a "last call" on dispute resolution otherwise nothing will ever get settled. SirFozzie (talk) 18:55, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Which is exactly why these things need to be transparent. How can the community judge whether the individual committee members are worthy of their office if all we ever see of the decision making process is pronouncements handed down from above like the Ten Commandments? "We can't tell you what we're thinking because BEANS" is a flimsy excuse. ArbCom is answerable to the community 24/7, not just around election time. Reyk YO! 01:27, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- That's why the community has the power to change things every year when candidates run for the committee. Again, there needs to be a "last call" on dispute resolution otherwise nothing will ever get settled. SirFozzie (talk) 18:55, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- It must be a great comfort for the innocent on death row to see that their judge gets fired next year (if they live to see that happen). No, SirFozzie, that is certainly not a solution to the innocent people you did ban (and note: I'm not saying that you did). --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:26, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- First off, not being able to edit Wikipedia is not like being on death row. Secondly, never mind that caveat you threw in, you ARE accusing me of that, so don't try to hide it. I suggest that your view in this case is lacking perspective. SirFozzie (talk) 21:17, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- First point, that is true, nonetheless, the risk exists that an innocent person is being accused, and 'punished', without any possibility of parole - second point, I apologise for the choice of words, I thought that the caveat would cover it properly. My apologies for implying something different. All I meant to do, and all I can do, is to question decisions, if there would be definite proof, we would not be here. My perspective is that the possibility exists that ArbCom does make a mistake, your perspective is that even if that would be possible, that that does not matter, someone has to make a final decision. I hence don't think that my view is lacking perspective. I suggested here a point of discussion, a thought experiment maybe. If the final decision process of a system can make mistakes, and we can come up with a system or idea to solve such problems, then that should be done, it is all too easy to say that if I make mistakes, vote me off and let the next person solve the problem. --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Not to pester you, but do we have any examples where it was clearly shown that what was thought to be the sockpuppet of a banned editor was blocked and then subsequently shown to not be a sockpuppet? I only ask as I do not know.--MONGO 04:03, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- I don't know if it is easy to search, but I do see SPI cases being closed as 'unlikely' and 'likely' - it happens very often that the cases are borderline. I presume (I've never played with the tool) that it is something like 'the IPs come from the same area, but their timings don't exactly match up', or 'the service providers are from the same area, but they do not use the same service provider'. Not all cases are 'this account uses this IP, and that account uses the same IP, and there are no other editors using that IP and no edits from the IP iitself, so those two editors are the same'. The other extreme that I could imagine is a student house where all students use the same IP, and having only two students interested in editing Wikipedia, and both studying law in the same school. They obviously interact, so they may edit with the same ideas, though different personalities. Such cases may be false positives on checkuser, while the worst thing they do is unintended meatpuppetry (if they are so careless). CheckUser is not something God-like which gives absolute answers, CheckUser does not switch on the webcam and takes a picture of the editor and compares it with it's database, and I do suspect that this is a 99.9% case, or maybe even a 99.99% case, because I am afraid that they can't defend 100% cases (unless one of the accounts outs themselves). Whether it is 90 or 95 or 99.99% - I haven't seen that the ArbCom said that the editor outed himself and therefore it is a 100% match, all they seem to have is a very, very, very likely match (it is a user compare, they don't want to reveal the methods, hence the secrecy). --Dirk Beetstra T C 04:37, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- I honestly do have no dog in this particular fight; I'm only here on a matter of pure principle. Every judicial process has its flaws, every such process occasionally convicts and punishes the innocent. And though not being allowed to edit can't be compared to a death sentence, being wrongfully found guilty of something of which one is wholly innocent is emotionally traumatising. It causes a lot of distress, and only those who have never been there wouldn't appreciate just the sheer amount of damage it does. In Real Life, in the UK, we have the Criminal Cases Review Commission which (though far from perfect) offers an independent review process; we also have the Independent Police Complaints Commission (which is even less perfect, but the thought is there). Any system where your only route of review or appeal is to the same set of people that convicted you in the first place causes problems, sooner or later. My concern here is with the truly innocent, the false positives. What can they do? At present, it seems there is nothing they can do apart from crawl away with totally lost faith, and lick their wounds. There is no way for them to clear their name, and they have the added hurt that their reputation is permanently damaged among those who had become friends here. If "The System" (whichever system it is) blackens your character wrongly and loses you both your hobby and your friends, it damages you. I think we need to ensure that we do everything possible to reduce the number of wrongly-damaged people we leave behind us to as close to zero as can be achieved. I think that without any independent review available, we are, in however few cases, actually causing emotional harm to real, live people, and that is something absolutely to be avoided in any humane community. Pesky (talk) 07:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- To this, I completely agree. ArbCom decisions are affecting real, live people. Legal systems are supposed to be independent, objective, and have for the serious crimes several saveguards in place. It is not some local judge who is placing a death sentence on a person, and then there are still several safeguards in place after that moment, and possibilities to appeal - and that system makes mistakes (see Miscarriage of justice)! Here, it is a group of co-editors that is making the decisions, of who we have to trust they are objective in their decision, fair, and that they don't make mistakes. The former two we assume, the latter we know that they inevitably make, they are not infallable. The only 100% proof (and even then!) is if a person says 'I am a sock of that account', all other cases are less than 100%, and hence, it can be a mistake. And even if that person is a sock, but has truly changed their way, then still there is no escape from the previous account - You HAVE to ask for an unban, you HAVE to do a false confession, and that has to be published on-wiki, and for those, there is no WP:CLEANSTART - because that past that the ArbCom are putting on people, inevitably ([22], [23]), follows you around. Forever. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:57, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- I honestly do have no dog in this particular fight; I'm only here on a matter of pure principle. Every judicial process has its flaws, every such process occasionally convicts and punishes the innocent. And though not being allowed to edit can't be compared to a death sentence, being wrongfully found guilty of something of which one is wholly innocent is emotionally traumatising. It causes a lot of distress, and only those who have never been there wouldn't appreciate just the sheer amount of damage it does. In Real Life, in the UK, we have the Criminal Cases Review Commission which (though far from perfect) offers an independent review process; we also have the Independent Police Complaints Commission (which is even less perfect, but the thought is there). Any system where your only route of review or appeal is to the same set of people that convicted you in the first place causes problems, sooner or later. My concern here is with the truly innocent, the false positives. What can they do? At present, it seems there is nothing they can do apart from crawl away with totally lost faith, and lick their wounds. There is no way for them to clear their name, and they have the added hurt that their reputation is permanently damaged among those who had become friends here. If "The System" (whichever system it is) blackens your character wrongly and loses you both your hobby and your friends, it damages you. I think we need to ensure that we do everything possible to reduce the number of wrongly-damaged people we leave behind us to as close to zero as can be achieved. I think that without any independent review available, we are, in however few cases, actually causing emotional harm to real, live people, and that is something absolutely to be avoided in any humane community. Pesky (talk) 07:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- I don't know if it is easy to search, but I do see SPI cases being closed as 'unlikely' and 'likely' - it happens very often that the cases are borderline. I presume (I've never played with the tool) that it is something like 'the IPs come from the same area, but their timings don't exactly match up', or 'the service providers are from the same area, but they do not use the same service provider'. Not all cases are 'this account uses this IP, and that account uses the same IP, and there are no other editors using that IP and no edits from the IP iitself, so those two editors are the same'. The other extreme that I could imagine is a student house where all students use the same IP, and having only two students interested in editing Wikipedia, and both studying law in the same school. They obviously interact, so they may edit with the same ideas, though different personalities. Such cases may be false positives on checkuser, while the worst thing they do is unintended meatpuppetry (if they are so careless). CheckUser is not something God-like which gives absolute answers, CheckUser does not switch on the webcam and takes a picture of the editor and compares it with it's database, and I do suspect that this is a 99.9% case, or maybe even a 99.99% case, because I am afraid that they can't defend 100% cases (unless one of the accounts outs themselves). Whether it is 90 or 95 or 99.99% - I haven't seen that the ArbCom said that the editor outed himself and therefore it is a 100% match, all they seem to have is a very, very, very likely match (it is a user compare, they don't want to reveal the methods, hence the secrecy). --Dirk Beetstra T C 04:37, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- Not to pester you, but do we have any examples where it was clearly shown that what was thought to be the sockpuppet of a banned editor was blocked and then subsequently shown to not be a sockpuppet? I only ask as I do not know.--MONGO 04:03, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- First point, that is true, nonetheless, the risk exists that an innocent person is being accused, and 'punished', without any possibility of parole - second point, I apologise for the choice of words, I thought that the caveat would cover it properly. My apologies for implying something different. All I meant to do, and all I can do, is to question decisions, if there would be definite proof, we would not be here. My perspective is that the possibility exists that ArbCom does make a mistake, your perspective is that even if that would be possible, that that does not matter, someone has to make a final decision. I hence don't think that my view is lacking perspective. I suggested here a point of discussion, a thought experiment maybe. If the final decision process of a system can make mistakes, and we can come up with a system or idea to solve such problems, then that should be done, it is all too easy to say that if I make mistakes, vote me off and let the next person solve the problem. --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- First off, not being able to edit Wikipedia is not like being on death row. Secondly, never mind that caveat you threw in, you ARE accusing me of that, so don't try to hide it. I suggest that your view in this case is lacking perspective. SirFozzie (talk) 21:17, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, and ArbCom is effectively closing the door so there can not be discussion, even if they would make a completely wrong decision at some point. "You're convicted to the electric chair, and in case we did make a mistake in our decision, remember: shit happens". --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:33, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- There has to be a last stop in Dispute Resolution, and ArbCom is it. You're just opening the door to endlessly fight over things. SirFozzie (talk) 17:31, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Me being me, I'm also looking at this from what one might call "the criminal's point of view". It would be all too easy for someone with malice aforethought to drive an opponent off Wikipedia altogether, if they knew (or could work out) who that person was IRL. It wouldn't be hard to pretend to be a sock of another user, by using the same school, college, local library, or workplace net-connection, and even real-life stalking them home, sitting in their road with a laptop, and piggy-backing on their home broadband connection. Combine that concerted effort with wikistalking their obvious interests, and making a darned nuisance of yourself, and Bingo! You've labelled your opponent comprehensively as a sock, and got rid of them forever. The only way for the innocent to get around that would be (possibly) to provide alibi evidence (such as dated and timed shop receipts, or holiday bookings, or whatever) to prove that they simply could not physically have been using that connection at that time / date. I'm sure there must be ill-intentioned Wikipedians who are just as capable as I am of coming up with that as a way to get rid of someone. Pesky (talk) 11:33, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- There needs to be no 're-fighting', and whatever the good reason is, there is always a chance of mistake, and there is at this moment no way around that, nor a really fair chance to cleanstart. It is equally ridiculous to consider that ArbCom decisions are infallable. --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:17, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Ridiculous. It's already pretty tough to actually get banned at WP (unlike blocking, banning is rare and always the result of serious infractions), and for the few users who are disruptive enough to actually get banned, enough is enough. Both the banned user and the community need to move on. Regarding due process and the like, see above. Wikipedia is not a court of law or a judicial system, nor should it be. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:51, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- It is pretty tough to actually get banned, yes, sure, and rightly so. But this system at the moment does not allow for any independent, objective review, and if it makes a mistake, you're forever doomed. We are talking about real people here. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- Terrible idea that needs a dose of reality thrown at it. Some people are completely unable to work in this environment and will never be able to be productive members of it. Those of us that are adults and deal with the public in our real life jobs know that sometimes a person needs to be banned for life from an establishment due to the disruption they have caused. That's just life. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:31, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- Absolutely true, but doesn't address the problem of the innocent-falsely-accused. Pesky (talk) 08:48, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- Neither does this proposal, it just seeks to do away with indef bans, which is not something the community is going to support, as evidenced by how often they do in fact indef block or ban disruptive users. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:12, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- I am not doing away with indef blocks, and I would not do away with lengthy bans either (though some maximum length should be defined). In the current system, there is no way of true WP:CLEANSTART after an indef ban - the system is broken, some form of discussion about this is needed. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- Neither does this proposal, it just seeks to do away with indef bans, which is not something the community is going to support, as evidenced by how often they do in fact indef block or ban disruptive users. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:12, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- Absolutely true, but doesn't address the problem of the innocent-falsely-accused. Pesky (talk) 08:48, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Proposal #5
Open a discussion (probably on Village Punp: Policy) that deals with what to do when a user firmly states their innocence and doubts are raised about how the block/ban was enacted, because of problems with the evidence or other reasons. At the moment, there is currently no process to deal with a Checkuser that comes up with an inaccurate, or too broad, result and results in the ban of an innocent user. It is not possible for an innocent person to follow the sockpuppet return rules, as they would not have access to the sockmaster account.
- Editors who support this proposal
- As proposer. SilverserenC 00:43, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- We need to have something which addresses the problem of the genuinely-innocent. An awful lot of people fall into the one-sided argument of "Guilty people always say they're innocent"; that is often the case, but it fails to address the fact that innocent people tend to do that as well. One must always ask oneself the question, when thinking / saying "Guilty people always [whatever]" – "Okay, so what do innocent people do which is different?" Otherwise you have a situation where "protestations of innocence equals guilt." I think it's possible that there are some folks in this world who will just never accept that people can get falsely accused and wrongly sanctioned. And there will be some folks who mutter to themselves "Okay, then, I sincerely hope that it happens to you; maybe that might make you understand the problem." I try not to do that unless I'm having a really bad day. Pesky (talk) 08:36, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- This system needs to change - a discussion on how to change it is the least we can do, see where we get in an objective way. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:44, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- Editors who don't
- When DOESN'T a user firmly state their innocence? Again this would just perpetuate arguments forever. And the rest of the proposal is no better, because the only way the public would know if a CheckUser comes up with an "inaccurate/Too broad result" is if the WMF privacy policy was breached. So in other words, the proposer doesn't trust checkusers to get it right. SirFozzie (talk) 03:42, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- No, I don't believe Checkusers are infallible. Because unless they are God (or gods of some other religion), they are still people and are fallible. There have been too many errors in the past and, in my opinion, in this current situation to just blindly trust that Checkusers are correct. To build a better system, you don't blindly follow the current one. You question it, you doubt it. Because the only way to make something better is to see what it's doing wrong. SilverserenC 05:44, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- Per SirFozzie. Virtually all sockpuppets maintain their innocence. If you're going to force the evidence to be public, why do we have a private system to begin with? Either we need to modify our privacy policy and open up checkuser to more people, or we need to trust the people using it to make the right decision. Any other proposal is a waste of time. Kaldari (talk) 05:20, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- Considering that the checkuser in Scotty's case has already been revealed by Elen to be the general ISP of New York, having 6 million people on its network, would you not consider that to be too broad to actually count for anything whatsoever? If you read the rest of the RfC above, you'd see that SirFozzie refuses to even consider that a Checkuser can be wrong, even though it has happened in the past and has already been shown in the current situation to be inapplicable. SilverserenC 05:41, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- Recipe for quagmire, and changes a system that has a resolution point to one that never does.—Kww(talk) 11:22, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- Exactly. Besides, people are amazingly adept at trying to avoid responsibility for things they've done. Even if the exact IP can be proved beyond any doubt, they'll say "maybe one of the neighbours is hacking my wi-fi" or "it must be my flatmate using my PC when I'm asleep" or similar. Again, the community's need to move on and get back to building an encyclopedia trumps the need for even more beaurocracy and endless appeals. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:57, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- Which works fine and dandy until you're the one out on your ass, innocent without chance of appeal. I refuse to allow anyone, much less a collection of (by their own admission) extremely fallible arbs to play kino or fortune teller with our rights. This proposal may not be the best one put forth, but suggesting that its stupid for us to even question their decisions is itself stupid beyond measure. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 17:10, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- Proposer is apparently unaware that we already have checks and balances in place for checkusers in the form of WP:AUSC. These are users who are not using checkuser or oversight permissions whose job it is to look at actions taken by those who do use them and insure they are using the tools properly. What they can't do is reveal any of the highly personal information they see in the course of doing their job, just like all other holders of these advanced permissions. We can't go posting personal, private material on-wiki just because there was a surprising result, as in this case. Just because you guys aren't the ones doing the double checking doesn't mean it isn't being done. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:21, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- Elen already pointed out the extent of the information above. The Checkuser info is pretty much useless, because if taken to be useful, that means we should block all editors from that ISP (out of the 6 million) who also edit New York related articles. And the behavioral issue is based on two or three instances of using either rply or -- in the course of several years. That's not very compelling evidence in the slightest. SilverserenC 02:36, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Proposal by PaoloNapolitano
Proposal (1)
Sockpuppets should only be blocked from editing if they have been found to be abusing editing privileges. Wikipedia will always need productive contributors, and "rehabilitated" sockpuppets should NOT be excluded from editing. PaoloNapolitano 10:13, 3 March 2012 (UTC)