Martial law declared at Wikipedia, Thuge roaming streets swinging heavy agendas Options

[TabulaRasa]

I just found this little gem which risks going un-noticed thanks to the fast action of the Wikicapos.
Start here to see how Home Computer reveals the worst kept secret in town: that Gary Weiss as Mantanmoreland abuses WP to hock his books.

Notice how early on, an editor asks for proof that Gary Weiss = Mantanmoreland, and Home Computer refuses, recognizing the catch 22 at hand: revealing an editor's identity is a capital offense these days.

Mantanmoreland freaks as usual, and then tries to divert the issue, as usual, making it about Home Computer's user name.

Then the topic goes dark for a few hours, until faithful FloNight shows up to officially change the topic to: Home Computer!

Now, that's all pretty standard. But look at what follows to really appreciate how all pretense of order has faded.

First, just before FloNight did her thing, Will Beback announced another Wordbomb sighting, this time in the form of Wordywiseman. What makes Wordywiseman unique? It's the fact that his first act was apparently to ban himself as a Wordbomb sock!

Odd...I didn't realize new users had that ability.

Regardless, the story ends as expected, when Jayjg bans Home Computer as a "confirmed by checkuser" Wordbomb sock.

I happen to know that Wordbomb provides much information about Gary Weiss to other interested editors, but he is not editing as Home Computer, which confirms Jayjg is lying about having confirmed anything via checkuser.

Any theories on why they work so hard to protect this guy? Look at Mantanmoreland's edit history. Get past today and you see that all he does is drop in to revert edits to his book references, see his shadow, and then slither back into his hole.

[Jonny Cache]

I think that it's probably time to end all this partial-self-mystification about Checkuser, Geolocation, and Whois Whoey. All I know about the subject is what I've learned from reading Wikipedia -- which makes me more rank as a "generally uninformed reader-user" (GURU) than the average 4-year old chimp on a computer -- but my guess from even that minimum of degraded data is this:

The Wikipolice are really doing just two things:

• Any username whose user appears to concur with the user of a previously deprecated username is automatically labeled an impersonator or a sockpuppet, whether anybody used a real tool or not.
• Wikipedia sysoperatives are most likely doing what every other website does these days, placing cookies on your machine to identify it to them. Please don't anybody read me any Wikipedia privacy policies -- I will just have to file them in the customary receptacle for all the other defecated Wikipedia policies.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 18th October 2006, 6:08pm

[Somey]

FWIW, I noticed in Weiss's still-rather-puff-piecey bio that the newly-described link to the NY Post article cited to support Weiss's position on naked short selling no longer works, as the article has been either archived or deleted:

http://www.nypost.com/business/64172.htm

They should update that at some point, surely?

And it looks like the holder of the "Wordywiseman" account just put the code from the "blockedsockpuppet" template on his user page, probably because he got bored or something. He isn't blocked, not just yet anyway.

[EuroSceptic]

What will be the effect if someone can proof that Gary Weiss is Mantanmoreland? On wikipedia and especially outside?

This post has been edited by EuroSceptic: Wed 18th October 2006, 6:57pm

[LamontStormstar]

Wikimedia can't track you with cookies as long as you log out. It's not like eBay, which does do this. If you log in and then somehow click the account creation thingie again while logged in, it will say this account made that account, but that's the only time. Else it will have no logs. It might have an IP sure, but it won't store HTTP headers, which will tell the real IP behind a transparent proxy.

This post has been edited by LamontStormstar: Wed 18th October 2006, 7:12pm

[IronDuke]

Wikimedia can't track you with cookies as long as you log out. It's not like eBay, which does do this. If you log in and then somehow click the account creation thingie again while logged in, it will say this account made that account, but that's the only time. Else it will have no logs. It might have an IP sure, but it won't store HTTP headers, which will tell the real IP behind a transparent proxy.

Are you certain about this? I've seen SlimVirgin say "sockpuppet confirmed by technical means" without saying "checkuser". This may be bluster on her part, but it would seem that Jayjg has means beyond simple IP comparison. Of course, this could mean "one tuple in the IP address is the same, therefore guilty".

[Herschelkrustofsky]

I've seen SlimVirgin say "sockpuppet confirmed by technical means" without saying "checkuser". This may be bluster on her part, but it would seem that Jayjg has means beyond simple IP comparison. Of course, this could mean "one tuple in the IP address is the same, therefore guilty".

I mentioned elsewhere that I received correspondence from a user who was banned for being my sock. He was using an AOL account in Boise, Idaho, and I was using an AOL account in Los Angeles. Jayjg, at SV's request, said the two accounts were operating from "the same IP ranges."

[JohnA]

I've seen SlimVirgin say "sockpuppet confirmed by technical means" without saying "checkuser". This may be bluster on her part, but it would seem that Jayjg has means beyond simple IP comparison. Of course, this could mean "one tuple in the IP address is the same, therefore guilty".

I mentioned elsewhere that I received correspondence from a user who was banned for being my sock. He was using an AOL account in Boise, Idaho, and I was using an AOL account in Los Angeles. Jayjg, at SV's request, said the two accounts were operating from "the same IP ranges."

If you make the range wide enough, then everyone is operating from "the same IP ranges"

[guy]

SlimVirgin has said before now that she can spot socks by sophisticated linguistic analysis.

[TabulaRasa]

First, just before FloNight did her thing, Will Beback announced another Wordbomb sighting, this time in the form of Wordywiseman. What makes Wordywiseman unique? It's the fact that his first act was apparently to ban himself as a Wordbomb sock!

UPDATE: Wordywiseman is no longer a confirmed Wordbomb sock. He's now a confirmed Karmafist sock. I suspect that tomorrow, once Karmafist is done using the title, he might be willing to lend it out for the weekend.

Though it's tempting to get angry at this capriciousness, I think it's oddly fitting, given the truth according to Wikipedia can also change moment by moment, and not insignificantly according to the mood and whims of a few well-placed (and likely well-paid) tyrants.

[jorge]

Does this edit not suggest that TomStoner is a sockpuppet of Mantanmoreland?

[EuroSceptic]

Yes.

[TabulaRasa]

Does this edit not suggest that TomStoner is a sockpuppet of Mantanmoreland?

And then there's this one, suggesting an unusual relationship between Mantanmoreland and LastExit. For that he was administered a stern "No no!" by Fred Bauder.

Mantanmoreland's prolific sockwork has been pretty well documented, most recently here .

[Somey]

Indeed, that kind of sloppiness just won't do if he wants to join the ranks of Wikipedia's Master Sockpuppeteers.

I mean, I can see using the same IP address by accident every once in a while, but the wrong logged-in account? That's just embarrassing!