Tnxman307, Checkuser, Protecting the Wiki against Sock Blizzard Options

[Abd]

My little experiment, documented at a wikiversity user space page, with my edits in chronological order, showing responses under each edit, is revealing some fascinating details about Wikipedia admin operations, fascinating to me, anway, I don't know about anyone else.

At 13:39, 7 May 2011, I'd made a self-reverted edit to correct an archiving error. It had been quickly noticed, as documented on the log page, but still wasn't reverted back for some time. A new account appeared, Panichappy1 (T-C-L-K-R-D) , who made a single edit, reverting the correction back, correct except the editor signed it. I deleted that signature, and then Enric Naval finished up the correction by adding closing templates.

Panichappy was blocked by Tnxman307. No good deed should go unpunished. This revealed something:

# 13:56, 8 May 2011 Tnxman307 blocked Panichappy1 (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Abusing multiple accounts)
# 13:56, 8 May 2011 Tnxman307 blocked Armedview1 (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Abusing multiple accounts)
# 13:56, 8 May 2011 Tnxman307 blocked Intoours111 (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Abusing multiple accounts)

Armedview1 (T-C-L-K-R-D)
Intoours111 (T-C-L-K-R-D)

Looking at the combined edits of these accounts, I see some weird stuff.

* 00:28, 8 May 2011 (diff) Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley ‎ (request never deleted, but archived) [Panichappy1]
* 00:45, 8 May 2011 (diff) Fusion rocket ‎(removed edits by banned editor Abd) [Armedview1]
* 01:22, 8 May 2011 (diff) N User:218-25O-143-151 ‎ (scuttled) [Intoours111] (account with no apparent contributions, but blocked by Tnxman307 at 16:43, 7 May 2011 User page was not deleted, but stands, now with indef template. at the same exact time, Tnxman307 blocked Wong Kam (T-C-L-K-R-D) , another account with no contributions showing.
* 01:17, 8 May 2011 (diff) N User:Tasksstocklol ‎ (scuttled) (top) [Intoours111] created user page, still stands with his "scuttled" template.

I never edited Fusion rocket. Yet the material removed that was allegedly from me now stands as removed, because, well, look at the history.... and Fresh Cat (T-C-L-K-R-D) is now blocked by Risker. Courcelles didn't get it. That's an old trick: make an edit with one sock, then remove a lot of stuff with a second, and some helpful editor reverts the vandalism, and then the first edit stands. I'm not exercised enough to correct this!

I came here because I noticed that Tnxman307 blocked three accounts in the same minute. I'd think the only way the editor connected these accounts would be checkuser.

[b]Okay, why were the accounts checkusered? My guess is to see if it was me, based on that first edit.[b] Might as well take advantage of the opportunity, this gives me some valuable information that I'm not disclosing.

Of course, the puppet master here didn't care about detection, these were throwaways, my guess, probably didn't bother with shifting IP, or maybe the user was detected through unusual agents, etc.

However, Risker is involved in this sequence. I've a distaste for arbitrators getting into enforcement, absent emergency, but she has long done this. It strikes me that blocking editors who have made no edits is not an emergency, but perhaps there were deleted edits.

Looking at the deletion log, my God! Deletions were running for May 7, part of when I looked for them, at over 4000 pages per day. No wonder they feel overwhelmed....

Does anyone have any information on any of these accounts, any idea who it might be? Is there an SPI report anywhere? Whatever, that first edit was actually helpful. Thanks, Panichappy1, if you are reading this. Your edit made someone else sit up and take notice, so the archiving got fixed sooner. The rest, well, you are having your fun, I assume. The administrative community at Wikipedia richly deserves what it creates.

This post has been edited by Abd:

[Abd]

Tnxman blocks with the reason "abusing multiple accounts," but seems to consider multiple accounts abusive, per se. There was no showing of "abuse." The block escalated to indef without warning.

The first block was for a week, issued without, again, warning regarding the behavior, which was possibly more abusive socking, i.e., there were socks editing the same articles. Tnxman escalates to indef without warning and without a showing of actual abuse, and I haven't seen article overlap yet.

The problem with mixing the investigative/judicial and executive functions is that executives may have bias, and making investigation and judgment independent tends to reduce the impact of that. Tnxman acts as investigator, prosecutor, judge, and executioner.

It's not that he's necessarily wrong in each case, but that he may choose his cases. Will he checkuser and block users who edit in ways that he likes? Discriminatory enforcement is a well-known problem in law, I've seen its pernicious effects in real life, where it happens in spite of safeguards. Wikipedia has practically no safeguards.

In any case, it's likely that enforcement here will simply create more socking, thus requiring more enforcement, more need for checkusers, more wasted time. No effort is made to negotiate with Gravitoweak. After all, we own the wiki and he doesn't. Right?