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?"

[Abd]

In all this, nobody seems to have looked at the origin of the Scibaby mess. When Raul654 threatened to block me for meat puppetry because I reverted a reversion of his of a new editor on User talk:GoRight, basically a huge flap over nothing, I decided to look. It's a little tricky. I wrote on my Talk page what I found. Proxying_for_banned_users I find it entirely unclear. Reasonable assumption but not proven -- no checkuser -- that Scibaby equals Obedium, but there is another possibility, a shared account that later split. Scibaby was blocked by WMC for sock puppetry, I think in September, 2007, but the alleged sock, Obedium, wasn't blocked until months later. Obedium was blocked for edit warring, but kept on chugging for a while. Deep into December, it looks like Obedium, assuming we trust checkuser, set up a series of socks. It's a natural thing to do when face with tag teaming. But Obdeium had been blocked by Raul654 before the socking was found. At the time, both Raul654 and WMC were clearly involved with Global warming.

The big problem is that a good block by an involved administrator is a bad block, because it is going to be perceived as biased and unfair. A certain percentage of blocked editors are then going to get even. It's become a game, and they learn how to play it, Wikipedia becomes a battlefield, and the involved administrators are just as much treating it that way as the banned editor. (But was Scibaby ever banned? Not per WP:BAN, except under that "nobody is unwilling to unblock theory" which is ban by default." Regardless, the long-term struggle is the result of the ready use of raw power in place of a welcoming consensus and a community that uses blocks and bans as a truly last resort. My guess is that the article wouldn't be *much* different than it is if we actually went for maximized consensus instead of the view of NPOV and UNDUE of the Majority POV-pushers. The majority is a majority for a reason, usually. (Sometimes the majority is wrong, but that's not the norm.) However, it would be far easier to maintain.

[Moulton]

This is not about bovine flatulence.

The big problem is that a good block by an involved administrator is a bad block, because it is going to be perceived as biased and unfair. A certain percentage of blocked editors are then going to get even. It's become a game, and they learn how to play it, Wikipedia becomes a battlefield, and the involved administrators are just as much treating it that way as the banned editor.

Whether one is playing Parcheesi or Chess, part of the strategy is to block the opponent. Chess is often characterized as a war game, and political battles are often characterized as chess games. What's important about Wikipedia is that the gaming doesn't obey uniform rules. Nor are the so-called rules of the Wikipedia Game applied consistently and systematically by a conscientious and neutral referee who is not also a player in the game.

So Wikipedia is not only a game, it's a profoundly corrupt game in which a primary by-product is systemic injustice.

Injustice gives rise to anger and a rich array of other emotional responses ranging from disillusionment and dismay to disappointment and disgust on the mild end of the response specture. On the not-so-mild end, the responses range toward zany and bizarre dramas that turn WikiCulture into a lunatic opera.