Scibaby, Why so much fear and anguish about this account? Options

[Cla68]

I just happened upon this note on Raul654's talk page today which might indicate that Raul range blocked some innocent IPs. That led me to this page of investigation into meatpuppetry for an account called "Scibaby". I've noticed that there seems to be great concern among a small group of editors who mainly edit the Global Warming articles about this "Scibaby." What's going on here? Are their fears justified? Are they going overboard in protecting the 'pedia from this "Scibaby?"

[One]

Until recently (that is, until this ANI thread a couple weeks ago), there were about twice as many Scibaby rangeblocks as there are now. Raul654 has apparently not been happy about so many of them being removed. Over 1 million addresses were blocked, over 1/4000 of all available IP addresses.

To put this in perspective, there were more IPs hard blocked due to Scibaby than any other alleged person.* More than Grawp, more than Amorrow, and Scibaby is not even a vandal. Consider also the type of material Scibaby adds. His characteristic addition is about bovine emissions and their alleged contribution to CO2. Scibaby is generally dismissive of man-made global warming, and some of his alleged edits have been imitated by GoRight who is a skeptic himself. Raul654 claims that this is meat puppetry.

I tend to think that sharing the same POV as a banned user is not MEAT. But what say you, Cla68? After all, you're supposed to be a meat puppet of WordBomb, right?


*I say "alleged" person because some doubt that Scibaby--who geolocates to several regions in the US--could be a single person. For the sake of argument, I assume that there is one master villain Scibaby as opposed to several unrelated skeptics, but it doesn't seem to justify the amount of collateral damage caused.

This post has been edited by One:

[Kelly Martin]

I've always thought that Raul's obsession with Scibaby was overblown. He's never been terribly bright with Checkuser, but he has enough social wank for even pretty serious incompetence to be ignored. It can't hurt that he has been actively suppressing a point of view inconsistent with the Wikipedia house POV; Wikipedia clearly endorses anthropogenic global warming, and has a long history of suppressing dissent to this view.

Wikipedia apparently hasn't figured out that "NPOV" doesn't mean "the most popular point of view held by Wikipedia's administrators".

[Milton Roe]

I tend to think that sharing the same POV as a banned user is not MEAT. But what say you, Cla68? After all, you're supposed to be a meat puppet of WordBomb, right?

That just serves to remind me that somebody really should do something about WP:MEAT. IT's a vague policy that really doesn't know what it wants to be, or else doesn't dare say it. No attempt to clarify it has resulted (so far as I know) in anything other than gross ethincal problems being exposed in either the new policy or the proponent of same, or both. Vagueness is needed as a drape for basic unfairness.

I wish there was a WP template tag that you could slap on policy sections, and which said something like:

Is there anybody here really wants to formally stand up for this turkey of an idea? Speak up now, as this thing is PRODed..

But there isn't. If you did PROD or delete it with the summary "Stupid policy which nobody will defend," you'd be reverted as disruptive, and invited to argue it on the TALK page. If you do argue it on the TALK page, nobody will answer you. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hmmm.gif)

[dtobias]

They always need some bogeymen to get all hysterical over, and WordBomb and Brandt are too "old hat" these days.

[Cla68]

Until recently (that is, until this ANI thread a couple weeks ago), there were about twice as many Scibaby rangeblocks as there are now. Raul654 has apparently not been happy about so many of them being removed. Over 1 million addresses were blocked, over 1/4000 of all available IP addresses.

To put this in perspective, there were more IPs hard blocked due to Scibaby than any other alleged person.* More than Grawp, more than Amorrow, and Scibaby is not even a vandal. Consider also the type of material Scibaby adds. His characteristic addition is about bovine emissions and their alleged contribution to CO2. Scibaby is generally dismissive of man-made global warming, and some of his alleged edits have been imitated by GoRight who is a skeptic himself. Raul654 claims that this is meat puppetry.

I'll do the rest of my talking about this on-wiki.

No, check that. I just went through the archives of ArbCom decisions to find one related to this Scibaby situation and couldn't find one. How is it that such questionable use of checkuser and admin actions has been going on for so long without any kind of ArbCom ruling on it? How is that Scibaby and anyone who is believed to be him can be banned so easily?

I was going to find the applicable case then request a motion that ordered Raul654 to cease and desist with any further actions related to Scibaby, but couldn't find a related case. I'm posting a link here to the pertinent discussion for reference. Have there been any RfCs on Raul's actions regarding this issue?

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[Somey]

This part of the discussion is interesting, containing a link to this list of range blocks, as well as one or two other ways to get to the same basic information. I'm afraid curiosity got the better of me, and sure enough, there's still a rangeblock in there for good ol' Lir, 129.67.134.0/24, which hasn't appeared in WR's database for over 3 years.

Has Raul654 come down on one side or the other regarding the flagged revisions issue? He certainly hasn't been out front about it, and if he has any stated position at all, I don't quite remember what it is. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unsure.gif)

[Sarcasticidealist]

It can't hurt that he has been actively suppressing a point of view inconsistent with the Wikipedia house POV; Wikipedia clearly endorses anthropogenic global warming, and has a long history of suppressing dissent to this view.

Wikipedia apparently hasn't figured out that "NPOV" doesn't mean "the most popular point of view held by Wikipedia's administrators".

The view that evidence overwhelmingly supports the idea of human-driven global warming is somewhat more than a "Wikipedia house POV". NPOV, both as presently written and under any reasonable re-write, supports that articles on the subject of global warming should be written from that perspective.

Global warming deniers aren't quite as cockamamie as "intelligent design" advocates (those who claim to be arguing it from a scientific perspective, I mean - I have no problem at all with people who acknowledge that their support for ID rests entirely on faith), they're alike in that most members of both categories start from a conclusion that they find convenient and work backwards. On content issues, the assorted "pro-science cabals" are almost always in the right.

(Though I'm probably biased by the fact that I'm a prominent skeptical Wikipedia editor.)

[Somey]

Global warming deniers aren't quite as cockamamie as "intelligent design" advocates (those who claim to be arguing it from a scientific perspective, I mean - I have no problem at all with people who acknowledge that their support for ID rests entirely on faith), they're alike in that most members of both categories start from a conclusion that they find convenient and work backwards.

As much as I hate to come down on the side of GW/Climate-Change deniers, I'm not sure that's entirely fair - ID supporters always work backward from their conclusion, because there's really no other way to make their argument. But quite a few GW skeptics, such as the late Michael Chrichton, were actually reasonably respectful of the scientific method (even though he was really just a sci-fi author, not a climatologist).

There were some discoveries made just a few years ago (2002-2003, I think?) that were said to put the kibosh on a lot of the GW skeptics' most usable arguments, but that isn't really all that long ago... I also suspect a lot of people are still getting grief for statements and such they made back in the 80's and 90's, espousing positions they may have since abandoned.

That has little to do with User:Scibaby, though, whoever he is.

[Cla68]

Global warming deniers aren't quite as cockamamie as "intelligent design" advocates (those who claim to be arguing it from a scientific perspective, I mean - I have no problem at all with people who acknowledge that their support for ID rests entirely on faith), they're alike in that most members of both categories start from a conclusion that they find convenient and work backwards.

As much as I hate to come down on the side of GW/Climate-Change deniers, I'm not sure that's entirely fair - ID supporters always work backward from their conclusion, because there's really no other way to make their argument. But quite a few GW skeptics, such as the late Michael Chrichton, were actually reasonably respectful of the scientific method (even though he was really just a sci-fi author, not a climatologist).

There were some discoveries made just a few years ago (2002-2003, I think?) that were said to put the kibosh on a lot of the GW skeptics' most usable arguments, but that isn't really all that long ago... I also suspect a lot of people are still getting grief for statements and such they made back in the 80's and 90's, espousing positions they may have since abandoned.

That has little to do with User:Scibaby, though, whoever he is.

I might open another thread on the current situation with the Global Warming articles in Wikipedia at a later date if no one else does first. I just meant this thread to be about this Scibaby account and the reactions to it, which appear to be ridiculously over the top.

[tarantino]

Has Raul654 come down on one side or the other regarding the flagged revisions issue? He certainly hasn't been out front about it, and if he has any stated position at all, I don't quite remember what it is. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unsure.gif)

I pondered something similar last December in the "People who refuse to equally protect BLPs" thread -

These people don't even seem to consider that there are over 1700 articles that "not anyone can edit". There are millions of IPs that are prevented from editing any article while not logged in, and a large fraction of those can't create an account without emailing someone. Raul654 alone blocked over a million IPs last year for periods up to 5 years in continuation of his hunt for the great white whale Scibaby. If they can accept huge range blocks to prevent some easily revertible contrary opinions being put into global warming articles, why can't they accept semi-protection of biographies to lessen the amount of damage to real people?

[Shalom]

I just happened upon this note on Raul654's talk page today which might indicate that Raul range blocked some innocent IPs. That led me to this page of investigation into meatpuppetry for an account called "Scibaby". I've noticed that there seems to be great concern among a small group of editors who mainly edit the Global Warming articles about this "Scibaby." What's going on here? Are their fears justified? Are they going overboard in protecting the 'pedia from this "Scibaby?"

I have known the Scibaby situation since March 2008. Raul654 blocked an innocent user, CreepyCrawly, as a Scibaby sock. After literally about seven hours of research I succeeded in convincing him to unblock, but I did not managed to get the "Sorry, you are actually innocent" from Raul654 that he should have proffered. See endless discussion here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:CreepyCrawly There is additional material in my userspace, since deleted, which supports my conclusion that Scibaby and CreepyCrawly are two different people.

Based on several qualitative criteria, I can reasonably conclude that all the other Scibaby sockpuppets until March 2008 actually are from the same individual. Whether that has changed is not worth looking into.

Raul654 was sharply criticized in May 2008 for full-protecting about ten global warming articles against a concerted attack by Scibaby socks. It was discussed on the Administrators Noticeboard for Incidents, and the community resoundingly spoke out against what they considered an excessive use of force. I wrote on Raul654's talkpage to commend him for what I considered the right decision, but he did not respond. In the ANI discussion, Raul654 expressed frustration at spending hours hunting down Scibaby socks, only to see new ones continue to pop up, and he told everyone that he was done with fighting a worthless battle, and if they cared they could deal with it on their own. Of course, like many folks who are heavily invested in an ongoing effort, Raul654 did not stay away from the Scibaby fight for excessively long, and I understand he is still involved. I find it remarkable that Scibaby himself would still be active after such a long time.

[Kelly Martin]

That just serves to remind me that somebody really should do something about WP:MEAT. IT's a vague policy that really doesn't know what it wants to be, or else doesn't dare say it.

The "meatpuppet" policy is used whenever an administrator wants to ban someone for supporting an undesired point of view, but cannot find any legitimate reason within policy. All that has to be done is to show that undesired person A has, at some time, edited any article in any way that might be arguably similar to any other editor who has previously been banned. The proof does not need to have any legitimate basis and often involves a bogus analysis of "writing style" (e.g. the editor uses semicolons, or certain words that are declared to be "unusual", but which do not stand up to a serious statistical linguistic analysis, not that anyone at Wikipedia would know what that is anyway).

Has Raul654 come down on one side or the other regarding the flagged revisions issue? He certainly hasn't been out front about it, and if he has any stated position at all, I don't quite remember what it is. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unsure.gif)

Pellegrini is and always has been adamantly opposed to flagged revisions.

It can't hurt that he has been actively suppressing a point of view inconsistent with the Wikipedia house POV; Wikipedia clearly endorses anthropogenic global warming, and has a long history of suppressing dissent to this view.

The view that evidence overwhelmingly supports the idea of human-driven global warming is somewhat more than a "Wikipedia house POV". NPOV, both as presently written and under any reasonable re-write, supports that articles on the subject of global warming should be written from that perspective.

See, that's exactly not what Wikipedia's NPOV policy requires. NPOV (assuming one believes in it) requires that the article author acknowledge dissent from the "majority" position even when that dissent is unfounded in science, if the dissent is held by a substantial minority of those people having an opinion on the matter and if the form of that dissent can be reasonably elucidated. For the purpose of NPOV as defined by Wikipedia, it doesn't matter if the arguments against anthropogenic global warming are complete crap; all that matters is that they exist and can be expressed in some coherent form, and that some reasonably-sized fraction of the population believes in or espouses them. In the specific case of global warming, this means that an NPOV-compliant article must feature the anthropogenic theory most prominently, but must acknowledge the presence of dissent and give the dissenting theories attention proportionate to the degree they command belief and support in the population. It does not permit for the article to be written as if anthropogenic global warming is established, unchallengeable fact.

Please note that I am not arguing against anthropogenic global warming (of which I am quite reasonably convinced), nor am I arguing in favor of Wikipedia's NPOV policy (which fundamentally reflects a very juvenile and naive understanding of what knowledge is).

[Sarcasticidealist]

See, that's exactly not what Wikipedia's NPOV policy requires. NPOV (assuming one believes in it) requires that the article author acknowledge dissent from the "majority" position even when that dissent is unfounded in science, if the dissent is held by a substantial minority of those people having an opinion on the matter and if the form of that dissent can be reasonably elucidated. For the purpose of NPOV as defined by Wikipedia, it doesn't matter if the arguments against anthropogenic global warming are complete crap; all that matters is that they exist and can be expressed in some coherent form, and that some reasonably-sized fraction of the population believes in or espouses them.

I disagree. NPOV (the Wikipedia version) requires that articles reflect the views espoused by reliable sources. It allows for the possibility that not all reliable sources should be treated equally, and that some sources are weightier than others. If (as probably is not quite the case) all respectable scientific journals are reporting that anthropogenic global warming is extremely likely to be occurring, it is not required to give viewpoints equal treatment just because an equal number of Texan editorial writers are arguing the opposite.

In the specific case of global warming, this means that an NPOV-compliant article must feature the anthropogenic theory most prominently, but must acknowledge the presence of dissent and give the dissenting theories attention proportionate to the degree they command belief and support in the population.

I think the mistake you're making is in equating "population" with "reliable sources".

It does not permit for the article to be written as if anthropogenic global warming is established, unchallengeable fact.

Here I agree. But it does permit the article to be written as though the existence of AGW is a consensus view in the scientific community, even as not all of the American public is convinced. Because that's accurate.

(I'm not necessarily arguing in favour of Wikipedia's version of NPOV either, though I think it would function somewhat better if people didn't pretend NPOV was a binary, black and white phenomenon, as is often done on Wikipedia.)

[EricBarbour]

No, check that. I just went through the archives of ArbCom decisions to find one related to this Scibaby situation and couldn't find one. How is it that such questionable use of checkuser and admin actions has been going on for so long without any kind of ArbCom ruling on it? How is that Scibaby and anyone who is believed to be him can be banned so easily?
I was going to find the applicable case then request a motion that ordered Raul654 to cease and desist with any further actions related to Scibaby, but couldn't find a related case. I'm posting a link here to the pertinent discussion for reference. Have there been any RfCs on Raul's actions regarding this issue?

This was from last year.

You will never get a useful reply. Pellegrini is usually a good admin. But when he decides he doesn't like something or someone, nothing can change his little mind.

He is one of the most toxic, arrogant senior admins Wikipedia has, and he is popular enough to have backup in disputes like this. You will not find much serious discussion about this massive rangeblocking, except dismissive crap about Scibaby. Raul can be as smug of an asshole as he wishes, because another senior admin will step up and defend his bad decisions.......(well, IF it involves an aggressive on-wiki pest like Scibaby. If not, he just looks like an ass.)

Just more proof that Raul's aggressive opposition to flagged revs and/or global semi-protection is foolish, irrational and ultimately wasteful.

Thatcher and Connolley are the ones usually supporting Raul in this. Ask them.
Better yet, try asking Scibaby why he's doing this idiocy.......

And furthermore, one of those AN/I threads has a nice little example of Raul's ability to be a stupid asshole to anyone. Even people who later ended up on Arbcom. Behold:

For what it's worth, the changes appear to be misguided attempts to improve the encyclopedia, which is not vandalism. If this actually was vandalism, you wouldn't have to resort to checkuser to ban the accounts. This is a POV war being conducted by a determined banned sock puppeteer. That's why I supposed your involvement was relevant, but I see now that there was no ongoing content dispute. Cool Hand Luke 16:52, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure he appreciates your attempt to wikilawyer for him, but yes, getting yourself banned and then using sockpuppets to disruptively edit articles and push a POV is vandalism. Raul654 (talk) 18:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

And:

The block was procedurally incorrect because an involved admin made it (involved with GoRight, if not Global Warming). It should be lifted. Then a community ban discussion should proceed. Cool Hand Luke 07:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Coolhandluke is incorrect in all counts - first, Aitias has already lifted the block; I was not involved either with GoRight as the evidence supplied by Rootology above shows, or the GW articles in general except as an admin; and that no such requirement (that community sanction discussions take place while the user being discussed is unblocked) exists in policy. I'll also note that Coolhandluke himself has intervened in these articles in the past to support GoRight's misbehavior (claiming on GoRight's RFC that apart from his misguided push to edit an OpEd source on a BLP (William Connolley), his actions have been well-taken, and conscientious. - this was during a time where 34 out of GoRight's 36 edits were edit warring). I echo Thuran's comment below that GoRight has essentially mastered the trolling tactic if picking a fight with actives administrators to prevent action on disruptive editing. Raul654 (talk) 08:01, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Then don't fall for it. Get someone else to issue the block.
Anyhow, I agree with ThuranX insofar that this is an unhelpful diversion. Should close these sections and open a discussion for community ban because there's clearly a case. Cool Hand Luke 08:11, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is sick, okay? OKAY?......

[Somey]

Has Raul654 come down on one side or the other regarding the flagged revisions issue? He certainly hasn't been out front about it, and if he has any stated position at all, I don't quite remember what it is. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unsure.gif)

Pellegrini is and always has been adamantly opposed to flagged revisions.

Y'know, that's what I thought, but I couldn't find anything to link to. Thanks for that! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Of course, now that we've established that, I'd have to say that he really has no legitimate right to complain about Wikipedia's lack of adequate features for dealing with "long-term abuse" by any particular person.

[Kelly Martin]

I think the mistake you're making is in equating "population" with "reliable sources".

I accept this statement with the caveat that Wikipedia has no meaningful definition of "reliable" or any meaningful way to evaluate the "reliability" of sources, so this ends up being a proxy for popularity all the same. A theory for which there is no well-documented exposition (no source, reliable or not) will obviously garner little space. However, a theory which is widely believed, and thus well-documented in a wide array of sources, deserves at least some coverage even if the arguments for that theory are only published in supermarket tabloids, crank journals, and Bible study guides, if nonetheless forty percent of the population appears to ascribe to that theory.

The problem with the "reliable source" issue is that no source is "reliable" or "unreliable". Rather, a source is reliable (or not) for a specific claim. My blog is wholly unreliable as to claims about Russian domestic policy, but quite reliable as to claims about my personal beliefs. timecube.com is entirely unreliable for claims about physics, but is reliable (to the extent that it is comprehensible) as to what Time Cube Guy claims to believe in.

Wikipedia has often toyed with (and continues to toy with) rules declaring certain classes of sources categorically reliable (e.g. major newspapers, scientific journals) or unreliable (e.g. blogs, MySpace, Wikipedia Review); this is a labor in stupidity, but Wikipedia is inordinately fond of such activities.

Of course, now that we've established that, I'd have to say that he really has no legitimate right to complain about Wikipedia's lack of adequate features for dealing with "long-term abuse" by any particular person.

Here's a log from the Wikipedia admins channel from back in 2006 when Pellegrini was on a rampage against stable versions. At the time I shared this log with various others, I characterized Mark's objections as "I don't like it" and "It doesn't fit with how I want Wikipedia to be".

It's possible he's changed his tune in the past three years. Yeah, right.

[sbrown]

I tend to think that sharing the same POV as a banned user is not MEAT.

Of course it isnt but youll never get abusive admins to behave otherwise.

The "meatpuppet" policy is used whenever an administrator wants to ban someone for supporting an undesired point of view, but cannot find any legitimate reason within policy. All that has to be done is to show that undesired person A has, at some time, edited any article in any way that might be arguably similar to any other editor who has previously been banned. The proof need to have any legitimate basis and often involves a bogus analysis of "writing style" (e.g. the editor uses semicolons, or certain words that are declared to be "unusual", but which do not stand up to a serious statistical linguistic analysis, not that anyone at Wikipedia would know what that is anyway).

Yes thats what often passes for technical evidence. They should appoint a few statisticians as checkusers.

NPOV (the Wikipedia version) requires that articles reflect the views espoused by reliable sources. It allows for the possibility that not all reliable sources should be treated equally, and that some sources are weightier than others. If (as probably is not quite the case) all respectable scientific journals are reporting that anthropogenic global warming is extremely likely to be occurring, it is not required to give viewpoints equal treatment just because an equal number of Texan editorial writers are arguing the opposite.

That would require some knowledge of the subject which is verboten under WP rules. Youd have to produce a reliable source that some sources are better than others.

[One]

Here's a log from the Wikipedia admins channel from back in 2006 when Pellegrini was on a rampage against stable versions. At the time I shared this log with various others, I characterized Mark's objections as "I don't like it" and "It doesn't fit with how I want Wikipedia to be".

It's possible he's changed his tune in the past three years. Yeah, right.

That's weird to me. Most people opposed to flagged are open editing fundamentalists. Raul654 is clearly not one of those: he can lock down multiple IP ranges before breakfast. In this IRC he seems to dislike the concept... because stable articles share the same path and would encourage article ownership? This from the guy who once tried to full protect ten GW articles in their preferred untainted form?

I don't understand. Flagged seems like a good solution to Scibaby.

[No one of consequence]

Here's a log from the Wikipedia admins channel from back in 2006 when Pellegrini was on a rampage against stable versions. At the time I shared this log with various others, I characterized Mark's objections as "I don't like it" and "It doesn't fit with how I want Wikipedia to be".

It's possible he's changed his tune in the past three years. Yeah, right.

That's weird to me. Most people opposed to flagged are open editing fundamentalists. Raul654 is clearly not one of those: he can lock down multiple IP ranges before breakfast. In this IRC he seems to dislike the concept... because stable articles share the same path and would encourage article ownership? This from the guy who once tried to full protect ten GW articles in their preferred untainted form?

I don't understand. Flagged seems like a good solution to Scibaby.

Ah, well, flagged revisions would be a good way of preventing Scibaby from adding edits about cow farts. But it could also be tremendously abused, for example, if only AGW true believers had permission to approve revisions.

Thatcher and Connolley are the ones usually supporting Raul in this. Ask them.
Better yet, try asking Scibaby why he's doing this idiocy.......

If you this this link is me supporting Raul, you didn't read it right.