If I hadn't seen it, I would not have believed it., One half hearted effort is all they could muster Options

[TabulaRasa]

I am speechless. Literally, I'm hardly able to comprehend what just happened.

I created an account yesterday to bring this issue with SlimVirgin and WordBomb's email up on WP:AN/I. I knew nothing is going to actually happen to her, but the community needs to know who they can trust and who not.

So I post this little beauty:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Adm...se_of_authority

And as I expected, SlimVirgin has no excuse because there is no excuse for what she did. Instead she musters the usual suspects to pipe in with a whole range of diversionary comments, the central theme being: "All editors are equal, though some more equal than others."

I respond by asking them to address the issue, which none managed to do.

FloNight, who I sincerely pity for being stuck doing SV's dirty work so often, responds by indefbanning the account ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SecondMostLikely ).

What do they do to shut up their consciences when faced with this kind of hypocrisy? What could possibly be motivating it? I find that when otherwise normal people act in ways that defy explanation, one of two things is behind it: addiction or greed. This is the sort of circumstance that can only be explained by one or the other.

I would recommend everybody with an account they can risk losing keep this discussion alive and involve others. They can't ban everybody.

Also, someone please request a checkuser on SecondMostLikely...comparing me with everybody SlimVirgin claims I might be. If banned as a sockpuppet, let's force them to match me up (trust me, they won't actually do it because I guarantee they already have and the result was negatory).

If you are concerned about losing your account, consider what I'll be doing, and that's emailing reasonable editors and pointing them to either the AN/I version, which I suspect will be gone soon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Adm...se_of_authority

...Or the version posted to Jimbo's talk page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jim...to_read_this.29

Finally, please be civil in your approach. As I understand it, this is all being very closely documented and it would be best if, when everything is compiled and presented, that it's very clear who were the good guys and who were not.

[Somey]

I respond by asking them to address the issue, which none managed to do.

At the risk of seeming to play Devil's Advocate, I think they did address the issue, from their perspective. Since SlimVirgin "likes" Mantanmoreland and doesn't like WordBomb and IPFrehley (who she assumes are the same person), she and her pals were willing to let Mantanmoreland off with a warning, and didn't think he should be "pilloried" for making "one mistake." This is just how they operate. And they certainly don't care about things like "honor" and "trust" - they just do whatever they want, they always have. If WordBomb proves that a confidential e-mail was forwarded to the other party in a dispute, so what? Is SlimVirgin suddenly expected to somehow respect the confidentiality of people who aren't fellow admins now? Was she ever?

But at the root of it all, everyone just has to remember that any attempt to post the real name of any user SlimVirgin likes is going to send her through the roof, and being associated with a user who does that, even if it's just a friendly comment on a talk page, will put you under suspicion. To some extent, these users are all caught in the huge net that they cast (ultra-widely) because of the Daniel Brandt situation. But apparently they'd rather have this sort of thing going on than simply remove the problem by deleting Brandt's bio article. (The hard-liners say that deleting the article will just embolden others to do the same thing, but let's just say that's the sort of thing you can't know until you actually try it.)

What's especially amusing is that SlimVirgin probably wouldn't have reacted so harshly if Mantanmoreland had been someone completely different, so most people are just going to assume that WordBomb had the right guy.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Double standards in the application of Wikipedia policy are the rule, not the exception. And then, when these people attempt to justify their actions, you see what wretches they really are.

[everyking]

I guess I've been involved with these people too long, because not only is it believable, but I would have found it unbelievable that it could have gone any other way. The only way there could have been any hope would have been do put the issue forward as a "respected" and established contributor (someone who is widely known and inoffensive enough that they would be unwilling to block the person outright; the obvious danger is that doing this discredits/endangers you long-term and gives you less capital to work with in future issues--as I know from my own example--therefore making most people unwilling to take a stand on anything like this). But this approach really just sets up a game of whack-a-mole for them: sock, troll, move along nothing to see here.

[JohnA]

It's very clear that SlimVirgin is not going to be stopped and there is a coterie of sycophants who will justify any action.

[WordBomb]

If WordBomb proves that a confidential e-mail was forwarded to the other party in a dispute, so what? Is SlimVirgin suddenly expected to somehow respect the confidentiality of people who aren't fellow admins now? Was she ever?

I tend to agree with you, Somey. I warned TabulaRasa that this is what would happen, but he seems to be (and I say this with respect) an idealist hippie who was not exactly prepared for the darkness we've seen over there.

He was upset about how it turned out but I consider it a profound victory. The last time we made an effort like this, SlimVirgin kept her distance and that sent the plan off course a little. This time, she was right there as expected, save sending her courtier FloNight to pull the trigger, which is also what we expected. Not only that, you'll see Slim didn't have any edits for most of the day yesterday, which was terribly uncharacteristic but gives us a huge opportunity to look at other edit patterns and see what else was different (meaning, getting closer to identifing any socks she's using).

For about a week we've had a SQL coder working with the query API to automate the process of recovering all edits and identifing patterns which has been a real eye openner. Take Mantanmoreland, for example. This predictable chump is spawning socks constantly, mostly letting them sit and slowly acquire edits. Then, when he needs some help, he calls one of them up and they tag team. We've gotten pretty good at spotting these patterns and requesting checkusers, which are always batted back, but the socks then go silent as a confirmation that we got it right.

He's been a good little case study, but in the end is nobody, whether he's Gary Weiss or not. Our target is SlimVirgin, and as I said, anything that causes disruption in her patters allows us to test and re-frame and continue ruling out potential sockmates, so yesterday was gold by my standards.

Another thing we learned from yesterday is that Slim still defers to Jimbo. TabulaRasa posted the complaint on Jimbo's talk page and Slim didn't revert or delete it, though I would have bet the farm she would have, which actually supports my theory that there remains some distance between the two of them and he has no idea what's really taking place with his little project.

Bottom line is: TabulaRasa is mad (disillusioned, really) but I'm quite pleased with how everything came together consistent with what I predicted (the absolute best parts: that fool of a commenter who said that he'd care more if the accuser were "more interesting(!)" and then FloNight who said TR's complaint would have been less disruptive if it had come from someone else!).

This post has been edited by WordBomb: Thu 10th August 2006, 4:34pm

[LamontStormstar]

It's still good considering wikipedia. Usually if you post there criticizing and admin, they will remove what you said and ban you forever.