WQ Harassment of Crum375, The odd lack of moral fiber of Yehudi and PL Options

[Milton Roe]

SlimVirgin makes some points in her essay not discussed formally here.

It was noted that the sock creation account of a user:Crum375 on WQ was a clear form of harassment (albeit not incredibly bad), but bad enough that it wouldn't be tolerated on any other decently-moderated site. So what was wrong with WQ? But several people here could not seem to get that point. PL and Yehudi among them.

Now we know why. WQ had been infected. The Crum375 creation there was a harassing gesture much like PL's setting of the badwords filter against Greg here on WR, and done by the same person. But a little more nasty on WQ than the same thing here.

Okay, so can I see a show of hands of those who thought the real Crum375 had no case against what was looking like a weird policy of WQ-- something that was not like anything an even-handed site ought to be doing? Ermmm? Who defended Crum375 against WQ laxity of policy?

There's a lesson here for people who are tempted to let their ethical standards be too affected by who is getting screwed at the moment, and whether they like them or not. WR (not counting the Poetbeast socks on it, of course) should have been a little more fair on this one. Else there's not much to distinquish us from a lot of what happens on WP.

MR

[The Joy]

I think it's obvious who Crum375 is.

[Milton Roe]

I think it's obvious who Crum375 is.

Which one? The one on WP? People have claimed it's a Slim sock forever, but it's also been checkusered like no other account, and unless it's some really expensive "My computer controls somebody else's, over a landline" thing, they are different people. They probably know each other and are certainly of the same opinions and voting and whatever. Kabal-rabble. But Crum375 an actual SV sock? THAT would have been caught by now, unless it used unusual tech. Not everybody with checkuser and other powers on WP is a friend of Slim.

This post has been edited by Milton Roe:

[Obesity]

SlimVirgin makes some points in her essay not discussed formally here.

It was noted that the sock creation account of a user:Crum375 on WQ was a clear form of harassment (albeit not incredibly bad), but bad enough that it wouldn't be tolerated on any other decently-moderated site. So what was wrong with WQ? But several people here could not seem to get that point. PL and Yehudi among them.

Now we know why. WQ had been infected. The Crum375 creation there was a harassing gesture much like PL's setting of the badwords filter against Greg here on WR, and done by the same person. But a little more nasty on WQ than the same thing here.

Okay, so can I see a show of hands of those who thought the real Crum375 had no case against what was looking like a weird policy of WQ-- something that was not like anything an even-handed site ought to be doing? Ermmm? Who defended Crum375 against WQ laxity of policy?

There's a lesson here for people who are tempted to let their ethical standards be too affected by who is getting screwed at the moment, and whether they like them or not. WR (not counting the Poetbeast socks on it, of course) should have been a little more fair on this one. Else there's not much to distinquish us from a lot of what happens on WP.

MR

This is an excellent post, and I admire MR's principled read of the situation.

I, on the other hand, have readily confessed my schadenfreude seeing the real Crum375 squirm at his inability to reason with the hostile and arbitrary powers that rule the roost over at WQ; for it is human nature to take pleasure in watching tables turned on bullies and thugs, however limited (in this case) and ultimately unsatisfying that comeuppance might be.

I.e., it's hard to feel sorry for Crummy over WQ's glib refusal to help, when SV and the gang have made so many far more miserable with their own gaming and continual re-imagining of policy to facilitate their ridiculous POV-pushing and drive off their perceived enemies.

On the other hand, when it emerged that the brains behind this merry little prank was (IMO) a genuinely malevolent nutjob, the joke becomes a little less funny. But only a little.

This post has been edited by Obesity:

[Proabivouac]

I suspect that the real purpose of this incident was not to prevent Crum375 from unifying his accounts, but to draw him and his allies to WikiQuote to be checkusered by the Cato sockpuppet.

[Obesity]

I suspect that the real purpose of this incident was not to prevent Crum375 from unifying his accounts, but to draw him and his allies to WikiQuote to be checkusered by the Cato sockpuppet.

That's just dopey. What did he hope to find? That SV has a bunch of accounts? Maybe she does, but Crummy isn't one of them. I am 100% convinced that Crum375 is a discrete entity, with a not-so-discrete purpose.

He's boneheaded muscle, nothing more than a hired (or in this case, volunteer) thug for SlimVirgin.

She's got some sort of cyber charisma, not unlike a certain nubile statistician over whom so many otherwise sensible souls swooned. When you've got that, people do things for you.

[The Joy]

I think it's obvious who Crum375 is.

Which one? The one on WP? People have claimed it's a Slim sock forever, but it's also been checkusered like no other account, and unless it's some really expensive "My computer controls somebody else's, over a landline" thing, they are different people. They probably know each other and are certainly of the same opinions and voting and whatever. Kabal-rabble. But Crum375 an actual SV sock? THAT would have been caught by now, unless it used unusual tech. Not everybody with checkuser and other powers on WP is a friend of Slim.

It was Guy, now known as PoetGuy. He bragged about it a few times on the then-Sekrit forum.

I suppose there's no reason to keep it a secret now.

[Obesity]

I think it's obvious who Crum375 is.

Which one? The one on WP? People have claimed it's a Slim sock forever, but it's also been checkusered like no other account, and unless it's some really expensive "My computer controls somebody else's, over a landline" thing, they are different people. They probably know each other and are certainly of the same opinions and voting and whatever. Kabal-rabble. But Crum375 an actual SV sock? THAT would have been caught by now, unless it used unusual tech. Not everybody with checkuser and other powers on WP is a friend of Slim.

It was Guy, now known as PoetGuy. He bragged about it a few times on the then-Sekrit forum.

I suppose there's no reason to keep it a secret now.

that's sooooo not the point of this thread. MR established that he knows who set up the account, as does anyone familiar with the matter:

The Crum375 creation there was a harassing gesture much like PL's setting of the badwords filter against Greg here on WR, and done by the same person.

The point is that no one (myself included) seemed to mind that WQ leadership (essentially comprised of Poetguy) was complicit in a blatant form of harrassment--mostly because WP-Crum himself is equally corrupt and almost universally disliked. A truly ethical person would object to the way he was treated, regardless of whether we think he's a good guy.

This post has been edited by Obesity:

[Somey]

The point is that no one (myself included) seemed to mind that WQ leadership (essentially comprised of Poetguy) was complicit in a blatant form of harrassment--mostly because WP-Crum himself is equally corrupt and almost universally disliked. A truly ethical person would object to the way he was treated, regardless of whether we think he's a good guy.

I wouldn't say "no one" - I remember at the time, several of us, including myself, agreed that it was wrong for PL to unblock the account. As for creating the account... I guess it stands to reason that he did that too, and that's even worse. But "harassment" is an exaggeration - it was a dirty trick, nothing much more than that. I don't recall there being any threats made, or flaming poo on the doorstep.

So, can't a falsely ethical person object to that sort of treatment too? I mean, why limit ourselves?

[Giggy]

I think it's obvious who Crum375 is.

Which one? The one on WP? People have claimed it's a Slim sock forever, but it's also been checkusered like no other account, and unless it's some really expensive "My computer controls somebody else's, over a landline" thing, they are different people. They probably know each other and are certainly of the same opinions and voting and whatever. Kabal-rabble. But Crum375 an actual SV sock? THAT would have been caught by now, unless it used unusual tech. Not everybody with checkuser and other powers on WP is a friend of Slim.

It was Guy, now known as PoetGuy. He bragged about it a few times on the then-Sekrit forum.

I suppose there's no reason to keep it a secret now.

Not surprising, in retrospect. And proof that it was created as harassment (I've been suckered again; I was defending the account).

[Proabivouac]

It was Guy, now known as PoetGuy. He bragged about it a few times on the then-Sekrit forum.

I suppose there's no reason to keep it a secret now.

Thanks for letting us know this, The Joy. We were wondering if it were MB or a collaborator (e.g. among the mods.)

Did it cross no one's mind to ask, "wait, what was that PL was accused of doing again?"

Another question: did mods know that Cato was PL?


This post has been edited by Proabivouac:

[dogbiscuit]

It was Guy, now known as PoetGuy. He bragged about it a few times on the then-Sekrit forum.

I suppose there's no reason to keep it a secret now.

Thanks for letting us know this, The Joy. We were wondering if it were MB or a collaborator (e.g. among the mods.)

Did it cross no one's mind to ask, "wait, what was that PL was accused of doing again?"

Another question: did mods know that Cato was PL?

Until Pro came forward with the evidence, I don't think any mods "knew" anything, though generally I think everyone suspected something was not right - Pro pushed an open door, though there were a couple of things that made it difficult to deal with.

In certain respects, the fact that there was an unreasonably close relationship between the players was the discomfort. It was not relevant whether they were one or several, they acted too closely in concert, but between the PL flounce and the revelation, there was a fairly unanimous decision to ride the storm and simply defend. My view was that Taxwoman had returned when the group realised they had overplayed the hand and lost all their main players, and I think Taxwoman was looking to slowly ingratiate herself back in a position of power. (We did wonder why Taxwoman re-emerged on a new account having deleted the old posts, in retrospect, I think it might have been to allow Taxwoman to be repositioned to a new, more comfortable editing habitat. We might find out if Somey restored the posts, or checked the backup file).

I think also, it was certainly my concern, that discussions were muted because we were not entirely sure that there was not another sleeper in the house (though I had no thoughts as to who that might be). The discussions on Pro's evidence as well as Pro's evidence was probably enough to make us comfortable on that score.

A couple of posts I made in August nearly made the accusation (and was intended to be a warning):

You[Yehudi] and TaxWoman's proxying for Guy and PL in continuing the petty bickering over a storm in a very small teacup of ego does not further [constructive use of the forum].

"Poetlister seemed a nice and reasonable person, why was she so consumed by Wikipedia that she was so unreasonable and fixated about Greg and his, from my perspective, trite observations?"

I think JohnA's underlying observation is sound, Wikipedia's rules can get under your skin and there is an insidious change in perspective that happens to some people as they start applying WikiThink to the rest of the world. Whether this applies to Poetlister specifically or there is some other explanation, I do not know - but the responses to Greg's perceived discourtesies appear entirely disproportionate to the majority of the uninvolved here as far as I can tell.

Those posts never got a serious reaction from PoetGuy, which I made a mental note of. Neither did any of the mods rush to say I was speaking inappropriately.

[Lar]

SlimVirgin makes some points in her essay not discussed formally here.

It was noted that the sock creation account of a user:Crum375 on WQ was a clear form of harassment (albeit not incredibly bad), but bad enough that it wouldn't be tolerated on any other decently-moderated site. So what was wrong with WQ? But several people here could not seem to get that point. PL and Yehudi among them.

Now we know why. WQ had been infected. The Crum375 creation there was a harassing gesture much like PL's setting of the badwords filter against Greg here on WR, and done by the same person. But a little more nasty on WQ than the same thing here.

Okay, so can I see a show of hands of those who thought the real Crum375 had no case against what was looking like a weird policy of WQ-- something that was not like anything an even-handed site ought to be doing? Ermmm? Who defended Crum375 against WQ laxity of policy?

There's a lesson here for people who are tempted to let their ethical standards be too affected by who is getting screwed at the moment, and whether they like them or not. WR (not counting the Poetbeast socks on it, of course) should have been a little more fair on this one. Else there's not much to distinquish us from a lot of what happens on WP.

MR

This is an excellent post, and I admire MR's principled read of the situation.

I, on the other hand, have readily confessed my schadenfreude seeing the real Crum375 squirm at his inability to reason with the hostile and arbitrary powers that rule the roost over at WQ; for it is human nature to take pleasure in watching tables turned on bullies and thugs, however limited (in this case) and ultimately unsatisfying that comeuppance might be.

I.e., it's hard to feel sorry for Crummy over WQ's glib refusal to help, when SV and the gang have made so many far more miserable with their own gaming and continual re-imagining of policy to facilitate their ridiculous POV-pushing and drive off their perceived enemies.

On the other hand, when it emerged that the brains behind this merry little prank was (IMO) a genuinely malevolent nutjob, the joke becomes a little less funny. But only a little.

I find myself in agreement with both of you, and yet I think it might be important to point out that part of the reason this prank worked so well was that Crum375 himself was apparently more keen on using connections, than on following process. The exchange on his talk page (permanent link) s instructive, I think... there were several people there, including myself, trying to help but they were spurned.

You may deride following process, as Crum375 apparently did, but it's an important way to ensure traceability, repeatability, and fairness. (the alternative is to embrace back channel dealing and hidden actions) The request for a name change and usurpation could still be carried out, and I suspect at this point it would sail through. But Crum refused to follow process, choosing instead to stand on his backdoor connections, and then on the fact that he didn't care what other advice he was given, insisting that he should get his request regardless of how things actually were done. Had he made the request and had it been spurned, I would have been in there arguing that it needed to be done, as it was proper and as the other account clearly was intended to harass.

Regrettably, this part of the incident has been overlooked for the most part. I think it ought not to be.

[Kelly Martin]

You may deride following process, as Crum375 apparently did, but it's an important way to ensure traceability, repeatability, and fairness. (the alternative is to embrace back channel dealing and hidden actions) The request for a name change and usurpation could still be carried out, and I suspect at this point it would sail through. But Crum refused to follow process, choosing instead to stand on his backdoor connections, and then on the fact that he didn't care what other advice he was given, insisting that he should get his request regardless of how things actually were done. Had he made the request and had it been spurned, I would have been in there arguing that it needed to be done, as it was proper and as the other account clearly was intended to harass.

It's not just a matter of following process; a polite request made out of process would have generated less animosity as well ("I don't know what the proper way to deal with this is, so could you help me out here?"). However, Crum's approach was anything but polite, and the wanton thuggery combined with blatant influence peddling really revealed a lot about the characters of most of the players in the incident.

[The Joy]

I think it's obvious who Crum375 is.

Which one? The one on WP? People have claimed it's a Slim sock forever, but it's also been checkusered like no other account, and unless it's some really expensive "My computer controls somebody else's, over a landline" thing, they are different people. They probably know each other and are certainly of the same opinions and voting and whatever. Kabal-rabble. But Crum375 an actual SV sock? THAT would have been caught by now, unless it used unusual tech. Not everybody with checkuser and other powers on WP is a friend of Slim.

It was Guy, now known as PoetGuy. He bragged about it a few times on the then-Sekrit forum.

I suppose there's no reason to keep it a secret now.

Due to a lack of evidence and my own bad memory, I can no longer vouch for whether Guy was Crum or not. I remember a conversation about it, but the details are now fuzzy.

I apologize.

[One]

I suspect that the real purpose of this incident was not to prevent Crum375 from unifying his accounts, but to draw him and his allies to WikiQuote to be checkusered by the Cato sockpuppet.

That's just dopey. What did he hope to find? That SV has a bunch of accounts? Maybe she does, but Crummy isn't one of them. I am 100% convinced that Crum375 is a discrete entity, with a not-so-discrete purpose.

He's boneheaded muscle, nothing more than a hired (or in this case, volunteer) thug for SlimVirgin.

She's got some sort of cyber charisma, not unlike a certain nubile statistician over whom so many otherwise sensible souls swooned. When you've got that, people do things for you.

Yes, I've no doubt that Crum375 is a separate entity. Although it is possible there's some password sharing, there's no way the two can edit simultaneously like they do, and across hours like they do. To wit: Crum375 has a job, or some other reason to be awake during the daytime, and Slim sleeps like a college student trapped in a mineshaft.

But: I think Proabivouac's theory is correct. PoetGuy also had access to IP addresses here. Every cabalist to sign up is potentially a sleeper agent on WR. Knowing this would be fairly powerful information for the MMORPG.


Excellent post, Milton Roe.

[Cla68]

SlimVirgin makes some points in her essay not discussed formally here.

It was noted that the sock creation account of a user:Crum375 on WQ was a clear form of harassment (albeit not incredibly bad), but bad enough that it wouldn't be tolerated on any other decently-moderated site. So what was wrong with WQ? But several people here could not seem to get that point. PL and Yehudi among them.

Now we know why. WQ had been infected. The Crum375 creation there was a harassing gesture much like PL's setting of the badwords filter against Greg here on WR, and done by the same person. But a little more nasty on WQ than the same thing here.

Okay, so can I see a show of hands of those who thought the real Crum375 had no case against what was looking like a weird policy of WQ-- something that was not like anything an even-handed site ought to be doing? Ermmm? Who defended Crum375 against WQ laxity of policy?

There's a lesson here for people who are tempted to let their ethical standards be too affected by who is getting screwed at the moment, and whether they like them or not. WR (not counting the Poetbeast socks on it, of course) should have been a little more fair on this one. Else there's not much to distinquish us from a lot of what happens on WP.

MR

This is an excellent post, and I admire MR's principled read of the situation.

I, on the other hand, have readily confessed my schadenfreude seeing the real Crum375 squirm at his inability to reason with the hostile and arbitrary powers that rule the roost over at WQ; for it is human nature to take pleasure in watching tables turned on bullies and thugs, however limited (in this case) and ultimately unsatisfying that comeuppance might be.

I.e., it's hard to feel sorry for Crummy over WQ's glib refusal to help, when SV and the gang have made so many far more miserable with their own gaming and continual re-imagining of policy to facilitate their ridiculous POV-pushing and drive off their perceived enemies.

On the other hand, when it emerged that the brains behind this merry little prank was (IMO) a genuinely malevolent nutjob, the joke becomes a little less funny. But only a little.

I find myself in agreement with both of you, and yet I think it might be important to point out that part of the reason this prank worked so well was that Crum375 himself was apparently more keen on using connections, than on following process. The exchange on his talk page (permanent link) s instructive, I think... there were several people there, including myself, trying to help but they were spurned.

You may deride following process, as Crum375 apparently did, but it's an important way to ensure traceability, repeatability, and fairness. (the alternative is to embrace back channel dealing and hidden actions) The request for a name change and usurpation could still be carried out, and I suspect at this point it would sail through. But Crum refused to follow process, choosing instead to stand on his backdoor connections, and then on the fact that he didn't care what other advice he was given, insisting that he should get his request regardless of how things actually were done. Had he made the request and had it been spurned, I would have been in there arguing that it needed to be done, as it was proper and as the other account clearly was intended to harass.

Regrettably, this part of the incident has been overlooked for the most part. I think it ought not to be.

So, Crum still hasn't made a polite, formal request as instructed to fix that account on WQ?

[The Joy]

Aphaia has warned Jayjg to back off or else!

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User_talk:Aphaia#Crum375

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User_talk:Jay...anging_username

But I fear for Aphaia. With WQ being considered for deletion and the PoetGuy scandal, I fear she is not well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=237502471

I wonder if Stewards will swoop in and interfere with WQ? I don't think Jimbo has been too happy with WQ's response to PoetGuy and copyright laws.

[Cla68]

Aphaia has warned Jayjg to back off or else!

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User_talk:Aphaia#Crum375

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User_talk:Jay...anging_username

But I fear for Aphaia. With WQ being considered for deletion and the PoetGuy scandal, I fear she is not well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=237502471

I wonder if Stewards will swoop in and interfere with WQ? I don't think Jimbo has been too happy with WQ's response to PoetGuy and copyright laws.

I think they'll leave her alone. That exchange she had with Jayjg, however, was really bizarre. If I could read and speak Japanese better, I might try to open a dialogue with her in her first language. But, my Japanese is so lousy I would probably just royally screw up any attempt at conversation.

[The Joy]

I can't remember exactly, but long ago, an account impersonating Aphaia was on the English Wikipedia. Aphaia asked the Wikipedia community to stop him, but her request was denied. So, she's more than a little angry that they are telling her that she should do for Crum what Wikipedia refused to do for her. I don't blame her for her anger at Wikipedia hypocrisy in this case.