Sir Fozzie's investigation, a proper sockpuppet report Options

[WhispersOfWisdom]

^ This, of course, is the reason why KNOL and MSFT/Yahoo will eventually have the WP timeline and database of articles and search plains all drawn and quartered. Wikia is a bit late to the party and, in fact, probably could have had a shot at some of the designs that are now going to take hold. I said a long time ago that the players with deep pockets are going to win. The big money is going to be in the deal-making for the duration.

[Proabivouac]

From Alanyst and Cool Hand Luke:
"removing/rv/rev duplicative text/language/etc."

User:Mantanmoreland:

"removing duplicative text"
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=68617733
"rv duplicative language"
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=70308282

User:Samiharris:

"…removing duplicative italicized matter…"
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=181194364
"self-rev duplicative cite"
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=177221628

User:Tomstoner:

"removing duplicative comments and reply"
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=45852319
"removing comments -- duplicative of posting on talk page"
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=53771228

[Moulton]

I said a long time ago that the players with deep pockets are going to win.

It takes both deep pockets and deep ethics to win in the long run.
Google is far from perfect, but it takes the ethics challenge seriously.

[The Wales Hunter]

He's trying to use technicalities to get out of it!

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=191023475

[Kato]

According to Morven, Mantanmoreland has a good case to see the Rfc removed...

lack of an actual dispute is and has always been reason to decertify and delete an RFC.

Lack of an actual dispute? Did he just say "lack of an actual dispute"? I think he did? No, surely not... He did?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Adm...rd#Improper_RfC

[The Wales Hunter]

You're not the only one who is sitting here, stunned at the moment. Mantanmoreland is now claiming there is no dispute to be resolved...amazing.

[Kato]

My God. He did say "lack of a dispute". Morven actually wrote a whole paragraph along these lines on the rfc. Below, Morven discusses the most bitter and long running dispute in the history of Wikipedia, where details of gross malpractice by the named party have just been revealed only sentences earlier on the page..

Where's the dispute? RFCs are supposed to be a means of resolving an actual issue. I don't see an actual dispute being described here, and would suggest that the filers need to have an actual dispute with the users against whom they're filing to have standing.

Without such a current dispute, this is an unnecessary accusation against two established users whose current conduct is not apparently being called into question. Moreover, since Samiharris has indicated he has left the project, there appears to be no ongoing issue that will be remediable.

...completely out of his depth...

[Achromatic]

My God. He did say "lack of a dispute". Morven actually wrote a whole paragraph along these lines on the rfc. Below, Morven discusses the most bitter and long running dispute in the history of Wikipedia, where details of gross malpractice by the named party have just been revealed only sentences earlier on the page..

Where's the dispute? RFCs are supposed to be a means of resolving an actual issue. I don't see an actual dispute being described here, and would suggest that the filers need to have an actual dispute with the users against whom they're filing to have standing.

Without such a current dispute, this is an unnecessary accusation against two established users whose current conduct is not apparently being called into question. Moreover, since Samiharris has indicated he has left the project, there appears to be no ongoing issue that will be remediable.

...completely out of his depth...

Apropos of anything else, isn't standard procedure to get rid of both puppet and master, as a matter of principle?

[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.

[The Wales Hunter]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=191038401

It seems to me that if serious allegations are going to be made, they should be made in the right forum, which is obviously SSP. I'm a longtime editor and I don't think this is a terribly unreasonable point to raise. -- Mantanmoreland

[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

[The Wales Hunter]

MONGO has agreed with Morven's view

[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.

[Viridae]

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.

I asked a checkuser to check on that one - would either find another proxy to block or possibly (but highly unlikely) an address that matanmoreland has previously used. ~~~~

[Proabivouac]

MONGO has agreed with Morven's view

I guess that's the only way to defend his wikially at this point, since no remotely reasonable third party who's examined the situation would say that Mantanmoreland ≠ Samiharris.

Look, MONGO, I like Mantanmoreland too, and often agree with him in wikidebates. He stuck up for me a few times, and I appreciated it, and remembered it. On reflection, that's probably the reason I didn't take a closer look at this sooner.

But let's face it 1) this kind of activity is dishonest, corrupt and wrong 2) He's stone cold busted. There's no way out now. Even if Wikipedia were to let him off the hook at first, a la Essjay, it won't go away. Really, should it?

Morven's favoritism in this whole affair, involving many millions of dollars in real people's real money, and which significantly predates this RfC, is more than sufficient cause to seek (at least) his resignation. Morven helped fix Wikipedia to discredit Bagley- who, let's not forget, was telling the truth - and protect Weiss, who was lying through his teeth to protect his COI editing sockfarm, while bearing false witness against others by calling truthtellers liars and harassers.

Mantanmoreland abused the harassment meme to suck honest people, some of whom have actually been real-world harassed (and unjustly,) into protecting him from the consequences of his dishonesty.

And all the while Morven shilled for this game, while harassing (by Wikipedia's own definition) others and exposing them to defamation (by any standard) on the webpages he manages.

This post has been edited by Proabivouac: Wed 13th February 2008, 6:54am

[Kato]

Jimbo writes on Wikiback

Just to follow up.

I have my own opinions and beliefs, which I have expressed publicly and privately depending on where that might be appropriate. But me wondering about something enough to conduct a thorough investigation personally is not the same thing as "knowing".

To this date, I have seen no convincing proof that Mantanmoreland is Gary Weiss. I have seen a lot of bluster and nonsense from people I don't trust. I have followed a lot of blind alleys. But I have no proof.

You'd have to be an idiot not to conclude that Mantan is almost certainly Gary Weiss after sifting through the WP diffs (many edits to Overstock, N-Shorts, Gary Weiss bio, articles on obscure mafia history etc etc) and Gary Weiss's blog / career (which has been obsessed with the very same topics down to his writing a whole book on the history of The Mob). Not conclusive proof, I know. But if you're not prepared to take Overstock's word on any of this, then just look it up yourself and see what I mean.

I'm not following the later part of the Wikiback thread where Wales apparently admitted in private that Mantan was Weiss back in September 2007. A fact Wales alternatively describes as "nonsense conspiracy theories" whenever else he can. Could somebody expand on that, or find a link which discusses it?

* edited to fix a link - Nathan

[Kato]

Mantanmoreland abused the harassment meme to suck honest people, some of whom have actually been real-world harassed (and unjustly,) into protecting him from the consequences of his dishonesty.

Well yes. This has been the problem all along. Manipulative characters have maneuvered people like JzG, Herbert and MONGO to beat the drums and whip "the community" into a frenzy of hate against outsiders like Judd Bagley for their own gain. These clueless tubthumpers don't have the capacity to discern what is really going on here, while the community at large is made up of malleable nerds with absolutely no idea about the world at all. The result: gross public miscarriage of justice that drags Wikipedia further into the mire. We told them this long ago, but to quote Jonny Cache, "all we got for our troubles was a constant stream of spit in our faces".

Cool Hand Luke's post to Wikiback sums up the whole thing well:

This is outrageous. God damned outrageous. And the moment I read the date, I remembered noting Mantanmoreland's puzzling withdrawal from Overstock articles mid-September. See here.

Meanwhile, we banned a user (Piperdown) for merely suggesting what Jimbo thought was probable. Meanwhile, I've been busting my butt to show that they're sock puppets (believing it fruitless to convince anyone of the COI issue), when in fact it was a damn open secret.

Look, I've got school work to do, and I should have gone to bed hours ago, but this is the most outraged I've ever been at Wikipedia, and I've seen my share of absurdity and abuse during the four years since I signed up for an account. (Feb 7, 2004 anniversary. Didn't even notice.) You're telling me that black is white. That WordBomb was right the whole time, and everyone sort of suspected it.

I hope that community heads roll.

Goodnight.

[Proabivouac]

Just to follow up.
I have my own opinions and beliefs, which I have expressed publicly and privately depending on where that might be appropriate. But me wondering about something enough to conduct a thorough investigation personally is not the same thing as "knowing".

Talk about "wikilawyering."