Tenofalltrades bans POV, Who needs checkuser? Options

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Tenofalltrades was an admin whom I so identified with William M. Connolley that I asked him to intervene to prevent WMC from losing his bit. Well, that didn't work.... too bad, WMC could have kept his adminship if a friend had given him some clue. Point is that TOAT is an ally of WMC, it's been recognizable for a long time. In the RfAr that ensued, Tenofalltrades was listed in my evidence as a "cabal" editor. Specific references showing Tenofalltrades participation in the RfCs, RfArs, and the like that were the basis for my cabal conclusions are at my evidence subpage.

One of the early signs of damage from WMC's activities was the creation of the Scibaby puppet farm. Scibaby was effectively banned by WMC and Raul654. There was no community discussion, and such isolated actions were later rejected by the community, but Scibaby has created, what, maybe 600 sock puppets? Raul654 at one point had range-blocked a huge chunk of the internet in order to try to stop Scibaby from editing. The edits themselves, all that I've seen, were relatively harmless, though usually rather inept.

A new editor appeared, ClimateOracle (T-C-L-K-R-D) . Within several edits, Hipocrite was openly claiming he was a sock. Stephen Shultz, another cabal administrator who should very much not be pretending to be neutral, filed a sock investigation. ClimateOracle was not notified, but it seems he noticed it anyway. Now, Tenofalltrades has blocked ClimateOracle for (Abusing multiple accounts: Fails WP:DUCK). No block notice on the user talk page.

Perhaps they know something I don't, and it's possible that Scibaby has modfied his behavior, but the edits don't look like Scibaby edits I've seen. It's obvious, from the immediate tagging, that it's the POV that is banned. WMC's backups in the climate change cabal are stepping up to the plate.

Articles under the Climate Change probation have a special device I've not seen before. It appears that someone can accuse an editor of being a sock puppet and it becomes immediately legitimate to automatically revert anything the editor puts up.

A request for evidence was made, and it was said, no, we can't give evidence because that would teach the puppet master how to avoid detection. In other words, we have secret evidence, which boils down to, then, "I know one when I see one." The editors who have "confirmed" this are ones whose names are familiar to me from prior climate change flaps. Naturally. Who else would be familiar with Scibaby? There is practically an entire industry devoted to finding and banning Scibaby socks. He has clearly figured out how to have enormous fun, and they happily oblige.

I certainly can't say that ClimateOracle is not Scibaby. What I see, though, is that the tar and feathers are broken out and applied based on nothing more than an impression by a highly biased administrator. Scibaby will know that, sooner or later, they will tar and feather an innocent editor, who will be able to prove it. He wins if they do that, he wins big. He's playing whack-a-mole, having discovered that the hammer can't actually hurt him, but he can waste more time than it takes him to provoke.

The argument by Wordsmith is brilliant. He's claiming that we can block even though we don't know who the puppet master is. Since this actually rules out the use of personal behavioral evidence, all that's left is POV. People with "that POV" are obviously to be excluded. This "sock" was tagged based on the simple fact that he made an obvious edit to the article on William Connolley.
Wordsmith revision-deleted Hipocrite's evidence. WP admins here might be interested in seeing that.
And this desire to exclude POVs is quite how the cabal believed and operated. So I looked at Wordsmith's user page. Bingo. Rouge admin userbox. That was one of WMC's favorite running jokes, and I once looked at who had the category. High percentage of cabal admins. I see that the category was just recently deleted....

So ... you can look at the user talk page for ClimateOracle and you won't find the sockpuppet investigation. So, SPI/Scibaby. It's clerk approved for checkuser. Why? (The user wants it, but that hasn't been mentioned and I've tried to get checkuser when I had far stronger evidence, and been turned down. No evidence at all was presented except DUCK. Apparently it depends on who you are.) In this case, though, it's probably a good thing, though I'd seen one checkuser, forget who it was, who was apparently carrying on the anti-Scibaby crusade on his own initiative, replacing Raul654, who probably gave up his checkuser privilege over this, I know the office people were not thrilled.

Scibaby cannot lose. He's trolling, successfully, he gets a payoff every time he shoves them through the process, and he gets a huge payoff when they block an innocent editor; since that's an editor who has apparently expressed a skeptical position on global warming, and there is now someone else who has personally experienced how Wikipedia is censoring the topic. Perfect.

ShortBrigadeHarvesterBoris, when he sees a disaster coming, becomes terse and vague. His comment in the SPI is pure Boris. He often seems to realize that his team is afflicted with idiots.

Pass the popcorn.

Atren questions ClimateOracle. CO seems to think that Atren is aligned with those who want to block him. That's a sign that this may well not be Scibaby. CO gives a quite good explanation of how he appeared familiar with Wikipedia. I never saw anything this skillful from Scibaby. I'd suspect GoRight, frankly, if anyone, but I absolutely don't think he'd risk it at this point.

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permanent link to today's episode

Cool Hand Luke did, apparently, run CU on June 1, but wasn't certain of the results. He wrote he was waiting for a more experienced checkuser to look. But he labeled ClimateOracle and WavePart as "tentatively inconclusive." On the other hand, he confirmed Billmarrsx as Scibaby. This is low yield for a Scibaby page. Weakopedia is still open.

Look at BillMarrsx (T-C-L-K-R-D) , the contributions seem fairly typical for Scibaby. I.e., mostly innocuous! That one was added by Prolog, who claimed, after CHL tagged him, I've not been wrong yet." Got me to thinking. Who's been right and who has been wrong? That was an ID based on just two edits, one changing one word from "claimed" to "asserted." I kinda prefer asserted, myself, so did Scibaby.

Process here sucks. Clerk endorses, then Prolog adds new sock. Is that an approved investigation? All I see looking in the archives is "the usual." No specific evidence, not a reference to a set of standard characteristics, so what this boils down to is special trust in the editors filing the reports. But they are editors, many of them, known to have a huge axe to grind.

NuclearWinter sticks his foot in his mouth. CHL is suggesting that ClimateOracle should be unblocked, per AGF, like WavePart was already. NW -- who blocked WavePart, it was TOAT who blocked ClimateGuru -- objects.

Anyway, it occurs to me to look at who's been confirmed and who has not. I'll come back with that. Scibaby pops up regularly. Stephen Schulz says there have been "39 cases this year (so far), 17 cases last year." That's "cases." Each case may cover many socks.

And the purpose of all this is?

There is a place on the page for the accused to comment. Those are usually empty because it seems that it's SOP not to notify suspected Scibaby socks. After all, he may be checking that page, right? Why notify him? Well, if I have to answer that one for you, I'd recommend the cherry kool-aid.

ClimateOracle (T-C-L-K-R-D) doesn't seem to know yet about the SPI case, just commented on his Talk a short time ago. Wasn't notified. Now that he's been reasonably cleared (maybe another more experienced CU can come up with something clearer), you think somebody would tell him. He's still blocked for "abusing multiple accounts." With no identified account. There is no policy, there is just a bunch of kids (some old enough that they should know better) playing "in charge."

This post has been edited by Abd:

[NuclearWarfare]

NuclearWinter sticks his foot in his mouth. CHL is suggesting that ClimateOracle should be unblocked, per AGF, like WavePart was already. NW -- who blocked WavePart, it was TOAT who blocked ClimateGuru -- objects.

ClimateOracle (T-C-L-K-R-D) doesn't seem to know yet about the SPI case, just commented on his Talk a short time ago. Wasn't notified. Now that he's been reasonably cleared (maybe another more experienced CU can come up with something clearer), you think somebody would tell him. He's still blocked for "abusing multiple accounts." With no identified account. There is no policy, there is just a bunch of kids (some old enough that they should know better) playing "in charge."

A number of things:

1) NuclearWarfare (T-C-L-K-R-D) , not NuclearWinter
2) It was The Wordsmith (T-C-L-K-R-D) and not myself who blocked WavePart
3) You're telling me that someone who starts out on Wikipedia editing William Connolley (T-H-L-K-D), with perfect working knowledge of Wikipedia policy, syntax, editing style, etc. is not a sockpuppet? Sure...

This post has been edited by NuclearWarfare:

[Abd]

A number of things:

1) NuclearWarfare (T-C-L-K-R-D) , not NuclearWinter

One follows the other.

2) It was The Wordsmith (T-C-L-K-R-D) and not myself who blocked WavePart

My apologies. I've been looking at the archives, seeing how many false IDs there. I don't expect to find that many, Scibaby is often easy to spot. Except that now "Scibaby" sock identification is being used to go after anyone who seems to have climate change skeptic POV.

3) You're telling me that someone who starts out on Wikipedia editing William Connolley (T-H-L-K-D), with perfect working knowledge of Wikipedia policy, syntax, editing style, etc. is not a sockpuppet? Sure...

Well, sure. There are alternate explanations. I've known experienced editors, on the one hand, who decided to disappear an account *legitimately* and who then came back, obviously experienced. And then, of course, blocked and banned editors come back. It's even encouraged in policy, if they don't go back to the same areas they were blocked for.

It is not a blockable offense to have a new account that is able to edit with some skill.

I suggest you read Talk:ClimateOracle, and see if his story seems impossible. I do know that quite a few people are being attracted by media attention to the Wikipedia climate change flap. If CO read up on the history, reading talk pages and reviewing what others had done, it's quite plausible that he'd come up with what he'd come up with. The use of that kind of string of policy abbreviations I've seen from cabal editors.

And under all this is the insane amount of labor wasted over sock identification. It's necessary to deal with the edits anyway. What's being gained by all this "sock" mishegas?

It took me an amazing amount of time to just copy the names of accused socks out of the reports from January of this year, with the names of those who reported them, and note which ones were not confirmed. (Most, so far, have been confirmed. From what I've seen, this latest report was an almost total dud, would have been completely so if Prolog hadn't popped in with quite an amazing catch, an actual Scibaby sock based on two small edits. Lucky? Maybe. He claims no failures so far, and that's part of what I'm checking.

This post has been edited by Abd:

[NuclearWarfare]

I've known experienced editors, on the one hand, who decided to disappear an account *legitimately* and who then came back, obviously experienced. And then, of course, blocked and banned editors come back. It's even encouraged in policy, if they don't go back to the same areas they were blocked for.

It is not a blockable offense to have a new account that is able to edit with some skill.

If someone is returning only to make proactive edits in a controversial area, that would count as disruptive in my book.

I suggest you read Talk:ClimateOracle, and see if his story seems impossible. I do know that quite a few people are being attracted by media attention to the Wikipedia climate change flap. If CO read up on the history, reading talk pages and reviewing what others had done, it's quite plausible that he'd come up with what he'd come up with. The use of that kind of string of policy abbreviations I've seen from cabal editors.

I'm not buying it. The level of familiarity with the website is simply too high for such a new account. It's not merely the matter of being able to cite policy, but to do so as easily and quickly as CO does would be impossible for a new contributor. And indeed, the fact that they jumped immediately into disrupting one of the most wiki-political articles on the encyclopedia is enough to tip the circumstantial evidence to the "disruptive sockpuppet" stage.

This post has been edited by NuclearWarfare:

[Abd]

If someone is returning only to make proactive edits in a controversial area, that would count as disruptive in my book.

Let me get this straight, NW. An "established editor" who has been disruptive for years in that controversial area is fine. Allies of that editor who are disruptive with about every edit they make are just fine. But someone who goes away and comes back isn't okay?

Who owns the articles?

ClimateOracle has apparently been informed of the SPI case now, and intends to email ArbComm.

I'm not buying it. The level of familiarity with the website is simply too high for such a new account. It's not merely the matter of being able to cite policy, but to do so as easily and quickly as CO does would be impossible for a new contributor. And indeed, the fact that they jumped immediately into disrupting one of the most wiki-political articles on the encyclopedia is enough to tip the circumstantial evidence to the "disruptive sockpuppet" stage.

Funny, this is just a handful of edits. Now, if the article William M. Connolley is "one of the most wiki-political articles on the encyclopedia," and this flap is covered in media, and it is, you think it's suspicious that someone arrives and tries to edit it? As he wrote, "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit." That's the encyclopedia he was trying to edit. Seems you work for a different project.

You're welcome to it. You deserve what's coming to you.

Tenofalltrades has laid down the law:

Whether you are or are not a sockpuppet of Scibaby is irrelevant — as the blocking administrator, I can affirm that you were not blocked on that basis. Clearly, you are an experienced editor who created a new account in order to conceal your previous identity and edit the BLP of an individual who has been subject to extensive harrassment, and whose article is further covered by the climate change probation. You were given three choices: a) to acknowledge your previous account(s); b) to not edit in highly-controversial areas covered by general probations; or c) to be blocked. You chose c). If you believe that your block was based on a misidentification as Scibaby, you are wholly mistaken. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:46, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Tenofalltrades now believes that he has the right and ability to lay down the law with respect to the climate change articles. I would not consider him a neutral administrator, based on his clear affiliations in the past. It's just what's being said here. Your right to edit Wikipedia depends on your POV.

Blatant disruption, repeated day after day, week after week, month after month. Fine. A suspiciously knowledgeable editor? Off with his head!

[NuclearWarfare]

I'm not buying it. The level of familiarity with the website is simply too high for such a new account. It's not merely the matter of being able to cite policy, but to do so as easily and quickly as CO does would be impossible for a new contributor. And indeed, the fact that they jumped immediately into disrupting one of the most wiki-political articles on the encyclopedia is enough to tip the circumstantial evidence to the "disruptive sockpuppet" stage.

Funny, this is just a handful of edits. Now, if the article William M. Connolley is "one of the most wiki-political articles on the encyclopedia," and this flap is covered in media, and it is, you think it's suspicious that someone arrives and tries to edit it? As he wrote, "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit." That's the encyclopedia he was trying to edit. Seems you work for a different project.

A new account coming to the article on WMC would be fine. A new editor exhibiting all the characteristics of at best a returning editor or at worst a sockpuppeteer whose sole purpose is to disrupt the article? Somehow, I don't think that person needs to be editing the article.

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Because there are a number of admins involved here, I've lost track, sometimes, of who did what. NuclearWarfare did not block ClimateOracle, but is justifying the action of Tenofalltrades. Same principles apply.

A new account coming to the article on WMC would be fine. A new editor exhibiting all the characteristics of at best a returning editor or at worst a sockpuppeteer whose sole purpose is to disrupt the article? Somehow, I don't think that person needs to be editing the article.

NW, basic problem: you are full of shit, basic misunderstanding of neutrality and what it means to be neutral.

You imagine you can mind-read the editor. "Sole purpose is to disrupt the article?" If the edits I saw showed that purpose, then you must have some idea of what a stable article should look like, and anything that disturbs this, even slightly, is "disruption." That's called a POV, NW.

Now, let me posit that what I think I've just shown isn't the case. Suppose you are neutral. Your position that the editor should not be editing the article is then acceptable. But why would it be enforced with an indef block when routine enforcement of sanctions there starts with warnings and then short blocks if the warning is ignored? Even arbitration enforcement isn't like what you did. Only bans of identified sock masters are treated like that.

Hence the lack of identification of a sock master is fatal to your justifications of the block, and could have at most justified a short block.

Excessive sanctions are a common sign of unrecognized involvement. People who are very much not neutral often think of themselves as neutral. But excess is a sign that this isn't true.

Based on this sequence, you should not be touching the articles or involved editors with admin tools. I think someone is likely to make that point before ArbComm. Do consider that. Your actions are more inflammatory and disruptive than the behavior you are trying to prevent.


Tenofalltrades' latest action is to shut down ClimateOracle's talk page access. He should definitely not have done that; it's chilling, and such a decision should always be made independently, because without this, the blocking admin also becomes the appeals judge, and the censor to boot. A complaint should be made about TOAT at the probation enforcement page. He clearly shouldn't be touching this.

My sense is that the cabal administrators are getting desperate. They are losing control.

And now WavePart has filed an RfAr naming, among others, NuclearWarfare, Tenofalltrades, Hipocrite, and The Wordsmith as parties. If nothing else, this may increase the fire under ArbComm to address the situation, it has been a long time coming. And the treatment of sock enforcement as a code word for banning POVs may be tossed in the trash.

Tenofalltrades, on his Talk page, is proving as obtuse as expected from my prior interaction with him. He's named in the RfAr. That was added by Polargeo, whose standing in my estimation has just skyrocketed. Clever trick, Polargeo, it worked.

Seriously, I make no fixed judgments of anyone. It's never too late to fix past errors -- if even they were errors. My problem with the overall administrative cabal is the tendency to circle the wagons and defend administrative actions that cause problems, when simply recognizing them as problems and self-policing would then make the situation better for everyone. Including abusive administrators. When unrestrained, they eventually become more extreme and burn out. Not fun.

This post has been edited by Abd:

[Moulton]

You imagine you can mind-read the editor.

I tripped over this sentence not because it's necessarily false (how would I know what another person imagines about yet another person's frame of mind), but because it commits the very offense that it condemns.

It's a subtle point, but one that I feel needs to be considered.

How can we deprecate the unbecoming practice of haphazardly hypothesizing another person's frame of mind without engaging in that very practice?

I imagine you might have some thoughts on the question, Abd. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

[Abd]

You imagine you can mind-read the editor.

I tripped over this sentence not because it's necessarily false (how would I know what another person imagines about yet another person's frame of mind), but because it commits the very offense that it condemns.

It's a subtle point, but one that I feel needs to be considered.

How can we deprecate the unbecoming practice of haphazardly hypothesizing another person's frame of mind without engaging in that very practice?

I imagine you might have some thoughts on the question, Abd. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. How about that thought?

I'm not an administrator, blocking people or encouraging blocking based on mind-reading. I infer the mental process of others and this is, in fact, a necessary part of most communication, it's impossible without some degree of mind-reading. But NuclearWinter is quite free to deny that he thinks that way, and explain, hopefully, with some understanding of why I might think he does.

The problem is not mind-reading as such, Moulton, it is assuming the accuracy of this and then basing or justifying sanctions on it, and especially extreme sanctions.