Global ban for Abd?, Gotta stop that POV-pushing Options

[Abd]

JzG at AN, the usual

Some of the usual usual, but I'd noticed before that T. Canens knew the difference between a block and a ban, and he points it out. JzG will try to get a ban declared, that's his history. Not that it matters.

JzG, however, has been the long-term POV-pusher here, that's clear. EnergyNeutral was, indeed, my sock. Demonstrating how I'd edit if not for the ban. Middle-of-the-road, actually. JzG archived and collapsed a discussion that was started by others, in which I'd merely commented, as if it were mine. EnergyNeutral was cooperating with Brian Josephson, a Nobel laureate in physics. By comparison, JzG has a friend who is a scientist. And he's 100% convinced that he's right. (I.e., that what his friend told him years ago is The Truth, which it might even have been, but you have to have some background to understand the issues.) He thinks he's talking about me.

(EnergyNeutral was created for just what I wrote on the EN user page, because of what I saw happening at EnergyCatalyzer, which is either the biggest fraud ever to hit the field of cold fusion, or it's the real thing, and .... the real experts are saying, "Damn! We can't tell, this is either a huge fraud, or Rossi Has Done It." Lying was not involved.) EN "pushed" for reporting what is in reliable sources, only, and added highly skeptical material. Brian Josephson had been active there, that's how he became involved. Off-wiki, he's known as a supporter of cold fusion research, and so have at least two other Nobel laureates in physics....

Hut 8.5 points to the Wikiversity documentation. Why, thanks, Hut! I tried to point to that on-wiki and it was Revision Deleted. Leading to some, ah, consideration of the boundaries of revision deletion.... The last edit documented there was May 13, and very little has anything to do with ban evasion, but it's all block evasion. EnergyNeutral was ban evasion, almost totally editing in cold fusion.

How was EnergyNeutral identified? Topic interest. Any new editor who isn't pseudoskeptical in the cold fusion area arouses claims of ban evasion, since the road is littered with knowledgeable banned editors. Has Wikipedia ever considered that it's banning scientists and experts? (Most experts simply stay away, to be sure.)

If Wikipedia were sane, the "ban evasion" and "block evasion" would be considered as to the effect. But WP isn't sane. The early block evasion consisted entirely of self-reverted edits, so there was no necessity for further enforcement. But we all know that they don't think that way. It was when they turned to revision deletion and larger range blocks, making it less convenient to IP sock, that I turned to socking. I wonder. With some socks, I've not been so careful, with some, I very much doubt they could find them. EnergyNeutral was very obvious as a suspect, and I didn't take any care about OS and browser details, so Coren did not have to work hard.

Rdfox 76 suggests a global ban, based on alleged "POV-pushing." That's interesting. WTF is Rdfox 76 (T-C-L-K-R-D) ? From the user page, I get the distinct feeling that this guy isn't, er, collaborative. Guns.

Not only can someone be banned on Wikipedia for coming to positive conclusions about cold fusion (which is now a substantial minority position among scientists, possibly a majority opinion among subject matter experts, like the peer reviewers in journals), but we will attempt to make sure that it isn't even studied, as at Wikiversity.

My, my. JzG edits BLP on Brian Josephson. That had been discussed on Talk, and the removal had been suggested by Stanistani, I decided that it was poorly sourced, took it out, and 2over0, normally an editor who'd as soon see me vanished, agreed and praised the removal.

From my supposed POV-pushing, I'd have wanted it mentioned that Brian Josephson is friendly with cold fusion researchers, and, of course, I know it to be a fact, because I know the field and am in close contact with the scientists, including face-to-face contact with some, and, I expect, more coming. I'm having fun, except when I get tempted to look back at Wikipedia.... Someone may notice JzG's restoration of improperly sourced BLP material....

This post has been edited by Abd:

[thekohser]

I would call what Poetlister did "wrongful impersonation". The fact that he chose one of his female co-workers to impersonate... especially creepy.

[Abd]

I would call what Poetlister did "wrongful impersonation". The fact that he chose one of his female co-workers to impersonate... especially creepy.

There is a whole habit of polemic where an opponent is impeached by associating the opponent with some rejected category.

"Identity theft" is a fairly common real-world crime. So if we can assert that someone is guilty of identity theft, we can bring to bear a host of already-existing judgments of how Bad this is. Yet what the fellow actually did wasn't identity theft. (Leave out the claimed use of a real name, that's not widely known, if true. And may have simply been Poetlister flopping around, as people do, sometimes, when confronted with an error. It's reprehensible to lie when confronted, but it's also very, very human. The real issue would be a maintained and harmful lie. A quickly abandoned one, piffle! It adds little in import to the original offense.

"Wrongful impersonation" is also a well-known tort. To get an idea, see this New Jersey statute. Basically, wrongful impersonation is identity theft.

It hinges on the use of personally identifying information, falsely representing oneself as someone else (specifically someone, not just some anonymous "other person,"), in order to gain pecuniary benefit or to injure or defraud.

Again, we may consider what the fellow did as "slimy," but I really wonder how the sliminess of this compares to trashing the entire reputation and work of a person based on false testimony, as happens routinely on Wikipedia. Not to mention the problems with BLPs.

As far as I can tell, he did not impersonate someone to injure her in any way. His real offense was sock puppetry, which is not a real-world offense at all, he was creating an alternate persona, and he used an image he obtained to do so. My guess is that he did not expect this to be noticed at all, and connected with the person who had been photographed. He claims, I understand, that someone at Wikipedia stirred this up by notifying the person and/or her boyfriend or whoever he is.

And when did he do this?

Bottom line, for me: he's active at Wikiversity, and, while I don't agree with all the positions he takes, they are well within what is legitimate, and he's doing real work on creating learning resources. How long should he be kept in wiki-purgatory, O Lords of Requital for Past Errors?

Greg is a completely different case. Greg is a serious critic of Wikipedia, and is personally demonstrating flaws in the system, as well as pointing them out. The move to get rid of him is understandable in a completely different way, and itself demonstrates certain flaws in the system. I'm far more like Greg, myself, I'm "unrepentant," that is, I don't regret that I stood up against a "faction of editors" who have seriously damaged the neutrality of the project, and I refused to shut up when ordered to do so. Eventually, that is, I exhausted, to the end, due process, demonstrating, to my own satisfaction, the corruption of the system, and I'm continuing to do that, in a small but persistent way.

Wikipedia has made certain implicit promises to the world, and when it breaks those promises, the rest of us have the right to hold it to account, to show those breakages and expose the causes. It's an extension of what was supposed to be Wikipedia Rule Number One.

The fiction that Wikipedia holds dearly is that "the community" cannot make a mistake. Any sane community will provide for the possibility, will provide mechanisms for finding error and fixing it. The "community" isn't sane, it's either asleep -- most of it -- or dreaming, lost in a fantasy, or, for a few, actively working for private agendas that are in major conflict with the fundamental goals of Wikipedia.