Printable Version of Topic
Click here to view this topic in its original format
_ Editors _ Falsely accused of being a puppet
Posted by: Likipenia
Hi, I found your site while Googling for anti-Wikipedia stuff to read, as you can obviously understand. I was unjustly banned. Indefinitely. For being a "sock puppet."
This will be long, boring and convoluted, but I'll outline the events for you. I hope you'll read because my blood is still boiling and I need a hug. :-)
Full disclosure of account history: I made my account "CreepyCrawly" in November 2006. I used it once, to make a babbling comment on a talk page, then didn't log in again until yesterday. I did edit in the interim, as whatever IP I happened to have, mostly just random little fixes here and there, to whatever article I happened to be reading. I remember none of them, but it is irrelevant. I'm not a "Wikipedian," in other words. But the other day, March 9th, I did make another account, "Razor6." I was listening to "Metal Health" by Quiet Riot while reading an article, and when I heard the lyric "I'm like a laser, six-string razor," I thought Razor6 would be a cool username so I figured I'd snag it, just in case I ever did decide to become a Wikipedian (not bloody likely now). I made a couple edits and logged out. (I don't ever remember registering at Wikipedia before CreepyCrawly, but I have been using the site and making sporadic edits for several years. This is why I'm reasonably familiar with the policies, which apparently qualifies as "evidence" that I am some malicious multi-personality.)
So, yesterday I wanted to edit Global Warming, but it is semi-protected. When I tried to log in with Razor6, I realized I must have mistyped my intended password when I signed up, and I hadn't entered an email. Oh well, cool username lost, whatever. So I log in with CreepyCrawly and commence. I tried rewording something that was rather subjective and weaselly, but it didn't show up when I was done, so I reverted myself because I was afraid I'd broken something. (I later realized that I had deleted it from the citation rather than the body.) As I looked at the history, I noticed a user named "Spamsham" had made a weasel word edit, and that it had been reverted because "the intro is a carefully balanced (and highly discussed) item. Please take to talk before changing." I became incensed at this; editors are NOT required to beg for permission in talk pages before making good-faith edits that they believe will improve an article. I feel this was the case with Spamsham's edit. Yet here was this other person waltzing in and declaring otherwise. So I went to bat for Spamsham and reverted it back. I can now see that this is where my trouble started, because Raul654 later opened a discussion on his talk page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Raul654#Halbut_returb), which has since been deleted or archived or otherwise hidden (big surprise), trying to figure out if I WAS Spamsham, as well as some other names. Let me state for the record here that I am not ANY of those other people. Although, "Raymond arritt" did call me "Obedium" as well, on my user page, so maybe they were thinking I was Obedium first, for whatever reason, and chatting about me behind the scenes somewhere, like a coffee clutch gossiping about the new single guy down the street. Anyway, I made a couple more changes, which were all instantly reverted by the article "ownership," along with discussion in the talk page and on user pages. Feel free to peruse them if you're bored; I am admittedly bold in asserting my equal editing privileges in the face of Wikibullys, but I'm not a troublemaker/flamer/vandal/etc. You'll find none of that from me. Note that user "Nonexistant User" in Global Warming history was named "Veritas" when he went to bat for me there. I'm not sure what the deal is with his name change; I visited his userpage a couple times and it kept changing, then he seems to have vanished. Very strange. Anyway, I do not know who Veritas is or was, other than a seemingly objective editor. He was later reverted as well, by another pompous asshat who explained himself by simply stating, "this is better." So at the end of it all, they kept "their" article "balanced" (i.e., stagnant and under iron-fisted lockdown).
At any rate, they seem to believe they're wrapped up their "case," and here I am permabanned. I am now accused of being a cabal of sock puppets, when I've never used a sock puppet in my life because I've never even been a regularly logged in editor! Raul654 even admits on his talk page, "There's no IP evidence linking them," but since he believes that "Scibaby" is a proxy user, and since his amazing gut feeling tells him that I am apparently this Scibaby as well as all his other phantom tormentors, the banhammer was dropped! I even went to Spamsham's page and asked him to tell them I am not him, which he quickly did (they didn't seem to notice or care that we were apparently logged in at the same time, which would seem to me to be an obvious mark against their "case"). From Scibaby's page, I checked the guy who banned him and he appears obsessed with Global Warming. I get the feeling this really is all about keeping the hooks into that article by quickly "determining" that any member of the proletariat who dare touch it is clearly a sock puppet of some past insurrectionist whom they've squashed.
I've read plenty of talk page squabbles over the years, but never got involved. I just laughed at how petty it all seemed. But I never thought I'd get caught up in it. Now I understand why emotions flare so easily at that place, because of jackasses like Raul654 who indefinitely ban people based on random "hunches," and who have no problem inflicting collateral damage in their inane witch hunts. Or, worse, who intentionally couch a banning under the guise of collateral damage, when their real motivation is that some "newbie" had the temerity to edit a page that he and his cronies "own." I don't know if my case comes down to administrative collusion or just idiocy, or both, but the end result is the same: I've been wronged. I've appealed my ban on my talk page and emailed Raul654, and even Jimmy Wales (hey, you never know!) and unblock-en-l@lists.wikimedia.org (twice), but I get the feeling that they just want people like me, who are bold and will not tolerate bullying, to go away. And I'm sure they refresh sites like this all day, so I'll probably never get unbanned now that I've offended the gods by daring to speak with devils. Heh. What's funny is that all they've accomplished by banning me is to make me want to circumvent it and actually start causing trouble. I won't bother though; the encyclopedic quality is fairly atrocious so I'd just as soon stop visiting it altogether.
Anyway, thanks for indulging me. :-)
Posted by: dogbiscuit
Welcome, and indulging you and your kindred spirits is in part what we are here for. As you correctly deduce, Raul is one of those who is under the delusion that only his perspective is correct and anyone else must be a troll (a word I detest, in part because it is a WP code word for All That is Wrong With the World, the WP equivalent of being called a Communist in 50s America).
We live in hope that recording incidents like this will take the scales of people's eyes.
If you want to be unbanned, then there are a few good admins here who might review, assuming you haven't been too unwise in the aftermath of false accusations. I have to say the talk page of yours is an absolute hoot of DUCK tests. Perhaps you should ask georgewilliamherbert to take a look. He is the world's foremost expert on how to make false accusations using it, so perhaps we should set a thief to catch a thief?
Posted by: Likipenia
Thanks for the kind words.
I got this response from the Wiki email: unblock-en-l is not equipped to deal with a request of this specific nature. Please contact someone from ArbCom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ARBCOM
Is georgewilliamherbert on that list?
I can't check for myself, because I now get a connection timeout when I try to visit Wikipedia. Take a look at my talk page, I posted my IP just a few minutes ago and now this. I of course can't prove it's not coincidental. 
Posted by: dogbiscuit
Thanks for the kind words.
I got this response from the Wiki email: unblock-en-l is not equipped to deal with a request of this specific nature. Please contact someone from ArbCom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ARBCOM
Is georgewilliamherbert on that list?
I can't check for myself, because I now get a connection timeout when I try to visit Wikipedia. Take a look at my talk page, I posted my IP just a few minutes ago and now this. I of course can't prove it's not coincidental.
I think Wikipedia is down at the moment, so just a coincidence.
gwh would probably not be a good idea. That was a somewhat sarcastic suggestion as there has just been a month-long debate on a known sockpuppeteer who the likes of Raul will not allow to be sanctioned for lack of evidence. gwh has argued long and hard that there is not enough evidence, yet he would willingly block you as you have clearly "outed yourself" by your foolish and obvious sockpuppetry-like actions. Unfortunately he decided to do this to another admin with friends.
Lar or Alison are sound and may be prepared to put things right, and will probably be passing by. I don't think you have done anything that would embarrass them from intervening.
Posted by: Likipenia
I think Wikipedia is down at the moment, so just a coincidence.
Oh OK. I guess it's easy to become paranoid at a time like this.
Looking back at this whole thing, I guess I can see how they might think I was a puppet, since I edited the same article, for similar reasons and at similar times. But they seem to have forgotten that Wikipedia has a squillion editors. And they can't seem to understand that if so many people think the GW article has weasel words, then it might be true.
Part of me does empathize with Raul; he's probably just paranoid, too.
Posted by: dogbiscuit
Part of me does empathize with Raul; he's probably just paranoid, too.
The sympathy tends to run out when you know that they have been told a gazillion times that they are just being paranoid and mean. I am sure they all believe they are right for the right reasons, but they are impervious to reasoned debate as to why they might need to re-evaluate their position once in a while.
The most telling thing is the self-reinforcement - probably a lot of discussion happening off wiki. Someone says, I didn't like that edit. If I didn't like it, the other person must be on the other side. The people on the other side are nasty, unethical people, so that is probably a sock. Ah, there is something fishy, this is a sock. And from then on it is all down hill, and in true paranoid fashion, if you complain about being falsely accused, then you probably are a sock, because a sock would protest their innocence, avoiding checkuser, well any good socker knows how to workaround that. Then it comes down to having come to a similar view, we call it the "living in Europe in a similar way" syndrome.
Posted by: D.A.F.
Your above long comment make it sound as if you know more about Wikipedia than an occasional editor. And I disagree with your rational, at least your justification for the deletions. is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations from the IPCC.
As you will note, it is not presented as a fact... but that it is very likelly (from their conclusion). So now you have removed the source claiming that it does not include neither overwhelming neither majority. OK, that's true, but were you really editing in good faith when you could have corrected the misattributed citation? I mean, up already in the title of the article you'll read the word ''concensus.'' Note that the IPCC conclusion is that it is very likelly, would be a weasel word had it been presented directly without attribution, but the fact that most do think it is very likelly is not.
As to the sockpuppetry issue, I have doubts on the good faith of your actions, but there is no sufficient evidence you are the sockuppet of that user. I was involved in a case where arbitrations claimed non demonstration of sockpuppetry for a user who justified all his edits in the articles he knew his actions will be considerated controversial even with edit summaries coupled with bunch of specific things from a particular user. (Including geographic location) So do use the impossible standard of sockuppet demonstrability and ask someone from here who is not banned to fill an arbitration case. But given that it is Raul who performed the block, and given that who believe who you are is important on Wikipedia. They may just as well reject.
Posted by: Likipenia
You sound like them! I know as much about Wikipedia policy as anyone with half a brain who has read the help pages, and who has seen policy cited on a thousand talk pages and who bothered to click and read them.
I don't want to rehash my arguments for my edit here; my rationale is on the talk page. You can disagree if you like, but that is irrelevant to the issue at hand: that I was falsely banned as a sock puppet. None of my edits are relevant, nor is the subsequent discussion on my talk page. Even if I were to post there in an obscenity-laced fit of anger right now (which I've had to force myself not to do), it wouldn't make the initial accusation true.
I was ostensibly banned for sock puppetry, not for my edits (although I suspect that may be what this is really all about). Either way, the ban is unjust, as I hope you will agree.
Posted by: D.A.F.
It's not the policies I'm talking about, but your knowledge of the way things are or supposed to be on Wikipedia. I am not saying that you are that sock, just that you may have been another editor or may have been that sock.
My criticism on your edit was merely based on your doubtful removal under the pretext that those words were not contained there, when a more stronger word was as soon in the article as it's title. If you could have searched the non-presence of the word in the article, you could have read it's title to realise that it contained ''concensus'' which is even more stronger. So, like it or not, your edit was dishonest, you could not have ignored by removing that word by being technical, that that was what the article was basically saying. Had you acted in good faith you would have rather corrected the misattributed quotation rather than fighting on that making it as if that was not what the article was saying. (when that was what it was saying) Then, you played on both front, you were aware that that was what it was saying, because only then not only was the article not supporting the word (testified from your removal) but it was even not as good as a source to be included. (this was actually the only sound argument you have provided, as it is true that better sources should have been provided, considering that plenty of better source exist)
And no, not anyone half brained do that, in fact most real new editors don't know the fraction of what you have learned on Wikipedia under that account persona. Just reminding you that this was the edit summary of your second ever post under that account: Smells weaselly (see WP:AWW). "Majority" by itself would imply too few; "large majority" implies more than a simple majority, without overstating it.
Are you seriously thinking that for your second ever edit on Wikipedia you have read those policies? Then this: WP is not a democracy; there is no policy requiring prior consensus or collective permission before making an edit. Be bold!
Also this: Weasel words in source do not justify weasel words in article. Something is needed to denote more than a simple majority, but current source provides no alternative. (execellent knowledge, of what should I answer?)
Then THIS: I gave my reason for why the source is poor. Please respect it as legitimate and in line with policy. I realize I'm being baited into 3rr; hoping rv of self does not count. (you see, that is not only about the policy itself, but the actual fact of what you think is done..., a second level of knowledge about Wikipedia in general)
I will stop there.
You sound like them! I know as much about Wikipedia policy as anyone with half a brain who has read the help pages, and who has seen policy cited on a thousand talk pages and who bothered to click and read them.
I don't want to rehash my arguments for my edit here; my rationale is on the talk page. You can disagree if you like, but that is irrelevant to the issue at hand: that I was falsely banned as a sock puppet. None of my edits are relevant, nor is the subsequent discussion on my talk page. Even if I were to post there in an obscenity-laced fit of anger right now (which I've had to force myself not to do), it wouldn't make the initial accusation true.
Posted by: Likipenia
You make the same mistake as Raul and the rest, in assuming that those were my only edits. As I said in my top post, I've been around for years, just not under usernames. It doesn't take long to catch on to how that place works. I know full well that "owners" travel in packs and do one revert each, to force someone like me into breaking 3RR. I learned as much by reading edit summaries, as anyone with half a brain could.
Again: you sound just like them, with their armchair Freudian analysis of my behavior. It evidences precisely nothing.
I'll ignore everything about the GW article specifically, as it is wholly irrelevant to whether or not I am a sock puppet.
Posted by: D.A.F.
You make the same mistake as Raul and the rest, in assuming that those were my only edits. As I said in my top post, I've been around for years, just not under usernames. It doesn't take long to catch on to how that place works. I know full well that "owners" travel in packs and do one revert each, to force someone like me into breaking 3RR. I learned as much by reading edit summaries, as anyone with half a brain could.
Again: you sound just like them, with their armchair Freudian analysis of my behavior. It evidences precisely nothing.
I'll ignore everything about the GW article specifically, as it is wholly irrelevant to whether or not I am a sock puppet.
OK, if you edited prior but not with usernames, then it explains things. In any case, they don't have enough evidence to block you. Ask someone to request Arbcom and make them taste their own medecine.
Posted by: Likipenia
OK, if you edited prior but not with usernames, then it explains things. In any case, they don't have enough evidence to block you. Ask someone to request Arbcom and make them taste their own medecine.
I have a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:CreepyCrawly#Outside_opinion_from_Shalom now! (Thanks to this place!)
Posted by: Derktar
Moderator's note: Moved to the Editors forum.
Posted by: Ben
Seems like there's plenty of fail to go around, including on your part. Mainly theirs though.
The global warming article is shit.
Anyone who talks about "consensus" is a politician looking to create an argument from authority so they can use it in propaganda. Consensus has absolutely nothing to do with science. This is a simple fact.
So why do they use propaganda instead of science? No, it's not because the science is full of fail, it is because they are. They can't understand it, or they can't explain it simply enough. So they resort to propaganda instead.
They think everyone is a moron and should be treated like 6 year olds. This is because they are arrogant assholes, to make up for their intellectual inferiority demonstrated by the fact that they are incapable of either communicating or understanding the science.
They think this is a good idea--a sort of white lie--when actually the idea sucks because it breeds people like you.
You, not understanding the science either, for the most part correctly identify the propaganda -- fear mongering etc. This makes you only slightly smarter than they are, but you don't understand the science. They probably have a leg up on you there. Instead of getting into the science, though, you just attempt to counter them using their techniques: more propaganda and more rhetorical manouvreing, just like they do. The propaganda, yours and theirs, doesn't cancel out of course: it doubles. It's a giant mess of rhetoric, the science drowned in the swamp of agendas.
Yep, plenty of fail to go around as usual. You reject propaganda, but also science. They accept science, but also propaganda. The whole issue of climate change is half-drowned in this agenda-driven crap, and not just on Wikipedia. Blogs, news, Fox, etc.
There's no winners here, but it's not like writing fair and scientific encyclopedia articles is something that is easy. Journalists get controversial stuff wrong and misrepresent it all the time and they went to school for years to learn the art of communication.
What is easy though, when it comes to Wikipedia, is patrolling articles. Anyone can do that.
Posted by: guy
What is easy though, when it comes to Wikipedia, is patrolling articles. Anyone can do that.
Yes, anyone can. But will they be able to recognise what is or is not a duff alteration? If it's crude vandalism, easy enough, but what if it's subtle vandalism or a well-meaning but ignorant "improvement"?
Posted by: Likipenia
Seems like there's plenty of fail to go around, including on your part. Mainly theirs though.
The global warming article is shit.
Anyone who talks about "consensus" is a politician looking to create an argument from authority so they can use it in propaganda. Consensus has absolutely nothing to do with science. This is a simple fact.
So why do they use propaganda instead of science? No, it's not because the science is full of fail, it is because they are. They can't understand it, or they can't explain it simply enough. So they resort to propaganda instead.
They think everyone is a moron and should be treated like 6 year olds. This is because they are arrogant assholes, to make up for their intellectual inferiority demonstrated by the fact that they are incapable of either communicating or understanding the science.
They think this is a good idea--a sort of white lie--when actually the idea sucks because it breeds people like you.
You, not understanding the science either, for the most part correctly identify the propaganda -- fear mongering etc. This makes you only slightly smarter than they are, but you don't understand the science. They probably have a leg up on you there. Instead of getting into the science, though, you just attempt to counter them using their techniques: more propaganda and more rhetorical manouvreing, just like they do. The propaganda, yours and theirs, doesn't cancel out of course: it doubles. It's a giant mess of rhetoric, the science drowned in the swamp of agendas.
Yep, plenty of fail to go around as usual. You reject propaganda, but also science. They accept science, but also propaganda. The whole issue of climate change is half-drowned in this agenda-driven crap, and not just on Wikipedia. Blogs, news, Fox, etc.
There's no winners here, but it's not like writing fair and scientific encyclopedia articles is something that is easy. Journalists get controversial stuff wrong and misrepresent it all the time and they went to school for years to learn the art of communication.
What is easy though, when it comes to Wikipedia, is patrolling articles. Anyone can do that.
Which is all wholly irrelevant as to whether or not I am a sock puppet.
Posted by: Jonny Cache
Which is all wholly irrelevant as to whether or not I am a sock puppet.
Probably because no one here really cares.
As far as WP:SOCK goes, a sock is whatever they say it is.
Kinda like WP:CONSENSUS, WP:CONFLICTOFINTEREST, WP:NEUTRALPOINTOFVIEW, and all those other strings of bytes that have no meaning whatsoever in the Real World.
Jonny
Posted by: Likipenia
Which is all wholly irrelevant as to whether or not I am a sock puppet.
Probably because no one here really cares.
Fair enough, I was just saying.
Posted by: The Joy
Which is all wholly irrelevant as to whether or not I am a sock puppet.
Probably because no one here really cares.
Fair enough, I was just saying.
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/29219552
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/28398445
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/27041852
Posted by: Likipenia
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/29219552
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/28398445
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/27041852
I'm not a sock puppet.If anyone is interested (I know Jonny said none of you are, but I'll mention it anyway), Shalom is very generously making a case for me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ANI#Please_unblock_User:CreepyCrawly. Raymond arrit seems determined to fight tooth and nail to see my ban kept, since he made the http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:CreepyCrawly&diff=prev&oldid=198327352 against me, and no doubt wants to avoid getting egg on his face.
Posted by: Jonny Cache
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/29219552
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/28398445
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/27041852
I'm not a sock puppet."One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore …
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Arthur A. Levine Books, 1998, p. 214.
Posted by: Likipenia
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/29219552
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/28398445
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/27041852
I'm not a sock puppet."One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore …
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Arthur A. Levine Books, 1998, p. 214.
I'm not a sock puppet.
Posted by: Jonny Cache
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/29219552
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/28398445
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/27041852
I'm not a sock puppet."One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore …
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Arthur A. Levine Books, 1998, p. 214.
I'm not a sock puppet.
In God's Eyes We're All Sockpuppets …
Jonny
Posted by: Likipenia
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/29219552
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/28398445
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/27041852
I'm not a sock puppet."One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore …
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Arthur A. Levine Books, 1998, p. 214.
I'm not a sock puppet.
In God's Eyes We're All Sockpuppets …
Jonny
I'm not sure what to make of you; I can't tell if you believe me or not. 
Posted by: Jonny Cache
I'm not sure what to make of you; I can't tell if you believe me or not. Like I said, you and I may care what the reality is, but Wikipediots do not.
WP:SOCK is a term like Boogey-Person. It means whatever the child of a certain age says it means. There is just no way for people who are not believers in Boogey-Populations to argue them out of their usage. You just have to wait for them to grow up.
Just don't hold your breath
Jonny
Posted by: The Joy
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/29219552
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/28398445
http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/post/27041852
I'm not a sock puppet.If anyone is interested (I know Jonny said none of you are, but I'll mention it anyway), Shalom is very generously making a case for me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ANI#Please_unblock_User:CreepyCrawly. Raymond arrit seems determined to fight tooth and nail to see my ban kept, since he made the http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:CreepyCrawly&diff=prev&oldid=198327352 against me, and no doubt wants to avoid getting egg on his face.
'Twas a light-hearted joke.
The thing is this sort of thing happens all the time. There's really no way of defending yourself. I'm not even sure you're allowed to ask for a CheckUser to verify whether you are a sock or not. Someone else has to make that request on your behalf, I believe.
I guess your only hope is to e-mail the Arbitration Committee, but there is little hope there. I haven't seen your contributions or compared them to whoever they're accusing you of, but all an Administrator has to do is say "quack quack" (see WP:DUCK) and you're a certified sock in their eyes.
Raymond Arrit is a certified Defender of the Wiki who will stop at nothing to "defend" WP. He'll pull out all the stops to prevent your unbanning.
In short, you're screwed on WP.
But welcome to the Wikipedia Review!
Posted by: Jonny Cache
For the Emusement of people who like to read about Witch Hunts, here's an update on one of the more Egregious cases that I happen to know about —
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Slrubenstein&oldid=198259443#.22RfD.22_Semiotic_Triangle
The original article was deleted long ago, so you won't be able find anything more than a few relics of it in the mess that remains. I did not create the article, I don't think I ever edited it, maybe a typo or adding a ref, I don't recall, but I don't think even that. All I know is that a very nice person who created a very nice little article has been abused and screwed royal, all because Yer Runt Of Duh Mill WikiPisant Admin/yuns are so Φreekin Ignorant of the World Of Scholarship and the World In General that they cannot conceive the possibility that there might be two people in the world who are interested in these well-known and widely-discussed subjects they never heard of.
Jonny
Posted by: dogbiscuit
I'm not a sock puppet.If anyone is interested (I know Jonny said none of you are, but I'll mention it anyway), Shalom is very generously making a case for me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ANI#Please_unblock_User:CreepyCrawly. Raymond arrit seems determined to fight tooth and nail to see my ban kept, since he made the http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:CreepyCrawly&diff=prev&oldid=198327352 against me, and no doubt wants to avoid getting egg on his face.
It appears you have failed the We Don't Like You test. There have been sensible comments in your favour, but when Guy says, looks like a sock to me, then you can see that the Cabal have woken up and have made their decision. Common sense does not come into it. Still, it is useful to WR to allow us to prove that it is one standard for friends of the Cabal, and another for the innocents.
Posted by: Jonny Cache
I'm not a sock puppet.If anyone is interested (I know Jonny said none of you are, but I'll mention it anyway), Shalom is very generously making a case for me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ANI#Please_unblock_User:CreepyCrawly. Raymond arrit seems determined to fight tooth and nail to see my ban kept, since he made the http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:CreepyCrawly&diff=prev&oldid=198327352 against me, and no doubt wants to avoid getting egg on his face.
It appears you have failed the We Don't Like You test. There have been sensible comments in your favour, but when Guy says, looks like a sock to me, then you can see that the Cabal have woken up and have made their decision. Common sense does not come into it. Still, it is useful to WR to allow us to prove that it is one standard for friends of the Cabal, and another for the innocents.
Neither Reality Nor Truth Nor Hint Of Verifiability shall stay these Self-Anointed Hounds from their WikiPogrom (WP:DAHUNT). You must understand that being declared a Sock In Their Eyes (SITE) has the same sort of meaning that being declared a Witch had in former ages. It's a move of convenience in a video game that has nothing to do with anything outside the WikiPlasticSphere of these Bubble Children. When everyone outside that sphere comes to recognize that fact then we'll all be safe again. Reality and Truth are simply not the Domain of Wikipediots and it's a waste of your energy, your life, and your time trying to play their game on their board. If you really have stuff that you want to do on the Web, then there are lots of other places where sensible people are still in charge and where you can achieve something productive with the quanta the Cosmos granted unto you.
Jonny
Posted by: Likipenia
You guys are hilarious. I had never seen Wikipedia described as a "video game" until I read it on this forum, but it's the perfect analogy -- WP is an MMORPG, with all the elements required for inclusion in that genre.
P.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:CreepyCrawly#Shalom_again.21!
Posted by: Moulton
I dunno who was the first person to point out the similarity between Wikipedia and other MMPORGs, but I wrote a http://aggieblue.blogspot.com/2007/10/blogs-and-multi-player-online-role.html about it last October.
Posted by: Amarkov
It's amazing how simple it is to make absurd accusations believable, when you and your friends get to write all the rules and define all the words. Evidence showing that Likipenia is a sockpuppet? Why that looks like some good evidence! Evidence showing that Samiharris is a sockpuppet? That looks like an Ad Hoc Statistical Analysis of Questionable Veracity™!
Posted by: The Joy
This was originally on the Meta Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_an_MMORPG
Ironically, the Wikipedians came up with the MMORPG analogy first!
Posted by: Milton Roe
It's amazing how simple it is to make absurd accusations believable, when you and your friends get to write all the rules and define all the words. Evidence showing that Likipenia is a sockpuppet? Why that looks like some good evidence! Evidence showing that Samiharris is a sockpuppet? That looks like an Ad Hoc Statistical Analysis of Questionable Veracity™!
My favorite was the gumble from Case that if he wasn't a sock, maybe he should be banned for being a meat.
LOL. THAT would have been a helpful suggestion in the cases of Samiharris and Crum375. Alas, it's not yet official policy. If it was, half the admins would be gone overnight. 
Maybe more.
Posted by: Random832
This was originally on the Meta Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_an_MMORPG
Ironically, the Wikipedians came up with the MMORPG analogy first!
Of course, if you look at the pipe links, it tries to build the metaphor out of article space.
Posted by: Moulton
So that insight and observation has been around for about 4 years, at the very least.
But why is the page classified as Humor?
Posted by: Likipenia
The first similarities that came to my mind were less about the social aspects, which are true enough, but more about the individual stuff.
I'm no WP insider, but after poking through random user histories over the years I've noted a pattern of "grinding" that takes place in the beginning for many users, like leveling up a character. But instead of mining or fishing or chopping wood, you might spend a few months fixing punctuation, spelling, etc. In the former your goal is to acquire weapons/armor/strength to enable you to face more powerful monsters; in the latter you're trying to build a reputation to see you through the Talk Page Wars when you decide to tackle the meatier edits.
And of course the ultimate goal would be either a flying "mount," or admin status, depending.
Posted by: Jonny Cache
And of course the ultimate goal would be either a flying "mount", or admin status, depending.
The Ultimate Fate Is Always, Always, Sooner Or Later —
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Q*bert
Jonny
Posted by: Milton Roe
And of course the ultimate goal would be either a flying "mount," or admin status, depending.
I want a a flying head of Karl Marx and some running nubile females to net.
Else what's a Heaven for?-- Zardoz
