Sir Fozzie's investigation, a proper sockpuppet report Options

[Proabivouac]

G-dett and Cool hand Luke's sections draw attention to idiosyncratic "phraseologies" shared by both Mantanmoreland and Samiharris accounts, with Alanyst providing edit time analysis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SirFozzi...igation/Sandbox

This looks promising, to say the least. What is needed is more of the same. Such evidence, in combination with a plausible motivation scenario, was enough to convict Oldwindybear straightaway, and, after much strife, convince ArbCom in the SevenOfDiamonds case:

I bear no ill will towards Mantanmoreland/Samiharris. The few interactions I've had with him were entirely positive, and several of his friends I would call mine as well.

But as the evidence approaches the overwhelming - as I sadly imagine it will - the deception that has been foisted upon the project, up to the very highest levels of authority, and the questions of corruption which inevitably follow from its recognition…well, this is serious stuff, folks. There's a lot of money and more than one real-life reputation riding on these issues. A serious shake-up is in order - blocking one retired sock isn't remotely sufficient. Anyone who might reasonably be expected to have known about this should be very closely examined.

This post has been edited by Proabivouac: Sun 10th February 2008, 2:19am

[Somey]

My God. He did say "lack of a dispute". Morven actually wrote a whole paragraph along these lines on the rfc.

It makes sense for Gary/MM though, seen in perspective. The dispute is between Overstock.com and Weiss - as long as User:Mantanmoreland and his various other accounts maintain the fiction that they're not Weiss, then he has to claim that the dispute has nothing to do with User:Mantanmoreland and his various other accounts, farcical though it may appear to everyone else.

Morven, though... that's a pretty stupid move on his part. This is probably not the time to be taking over the steering wheel in Gary's little bumper-car ride.

As for the rest, I hate to sound like Devil's Advocate, but I still doubt that Weiss has done anything illegal, or even legally actionable in a realistic sense. People like Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass, and other journos who have filed false news stories, were clearly in violation of their terms of employment, which are usually signed contracts and have provisions for recovery of damages by the employer, etc. I doubt that Gary would have had to sign anything for Forbes.com or Portfolio Trade Publishing stating that he wouldn't promote himself by using multiple accounts on Wikipedia and then lying about it. I wonder if they would even care, to be honest.

I'd still have to say the big loser here is Wikipedia. Particularly if it's true that we're about to see over a thousand e-mails purporting to be from Gary in which he mentions (brags about, perhaps?) his WP editing activities, published by even a semi-reputable source. If I were SlimVirgin, JzG, Dave Gerard, or Jimbo, I'd be absolutely livid over that - they put their WP reputations (or notoriety, if you prefer) totally on the line for this guy, supporting him to an almost ludicrous extent, and he repays them by chattering about it via e-mail with people he doesn't even know personally? Hell, if I were doing what he's being accused of, I wouldn't tell a living soul, unless I had a psychiatrist, which I don't. (Yet... )

I suspect we'll hear a lot of the predictable "but e-mails can be easily forged" sort of talk from these folks in the very near future.

[Proabivouac]

Morven, though... that's a pretty stupid move on his part. This is probably not the time to be taking over the steering wheel in Gary's little bumper-car ride.

This can't be the same Morven who hunted me down for having a new username without having previously grovelled before the Committee? Who, after 10k edits, a clean block log, a perfectly respectable reputation, multiple nominations for adminship and no active disputes (unless he, too, was adminpuppeting for Elonka?) made up non-existent policies to justify his RWI trolling? And here he is making up more nonsense to defend an long-term pattern of blatantly abusive socking.

Morven reasons:

"Moreover, since Samiharris has indicated he has left the project, there appears to be no ongoing issue that will be remediable."
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=191027809

Um, no, nice try…User:Samiharris is still editing the project as User:Mantanmoreland.

This post has been edited by Proabivouac: Wed 13th February 2008, 1:58am

[LamontStormstar]

Um, no, nice try…User:Samiharris is still editing the project as User:Mantanmoreland.

They said one of them used proxies and then they said they blocked all the proxies so whoever was using proxies likely had to stop editing as their proxies were all getting blocked.

[The Wales Hunter]

Um, no, nice try…User:Samiharris is still editing the project as User:Mantanmoreland.

They said one of them used proxies and then they said they blocked all the proxies so whoever was using proxies likely had to stop editing as their proxies were all getting blocked.

Although they did manage to "retire" from Wikipedia. So unless somebody turned a blind eye, they must still have access to proxies.

[Achromatic]

Although they did manage to "retire" from Wikipedia. So unless somebody turned a blind eye, they must still have access to proxies.

Or they didn't use a proxy. And would have left behind a CU'able IP address. (Well, no, most likely, he went down to Starbucks). Cause otherwise, that'd be awkward.