An FT2 Sockpuppet?, It quacks like a duck Options

[tarantino]

Between 17 October 2005 and 16 May 2006 the sockpuppet TBP made 185 edits, all in relation to animals, sex, animal sex or Neuro-linguistic programming. There is perhaps only one other editor on enwiki with similar tastes.

TBP's career highlights -
Started the article on Kenneth Pinyan, AKA Mr Hands, a man notable for dying in an unusual way.

Started the article on Hani Miletski, a pioneer in the study of beastiality.

Started the article on Emotion in animals.

Edited the article Edgeplay. Later, FT2 consulted current persona non grata Taxwoman on the subject.

Edit warred on Neuro-linguistic programming and sparred with HeadleyDown on Talk:Neuro-linguistic_programming.

HeadleyDown. I trained in NLP under John Seymour and Joseph O'Connor, the first two major UK trainers, in NLP, in 1990. I worked on NLP training courses 1991 - 1997. I trained for what is called the "Master Practitioner" under Robert Dilts and Judith Delozier in 1998, in Stanta Cruz, where NLP all began. And I had to look up what an engram was, because despite nearly 10 years training under several world-class NLP trainers, I had never heard the term or seen that viewpoint. Core NLP is not concerned with the biological mechanism of memory, but how it subjectively, functionally, works and can be worked with. This conflicts disturbingly with the above comment as to what is "core NLP". TBP 11:24, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

This eventually lead to FT2 filing Requests_for_arbitration/Neuro-linguistic_programming. FT2 actually brings up and dismisses the sock's involvement.

One editor, User:TBP, was explicitly self-identified as a sock puppet on his talk page before becoming involved in this article Oct 17 DIFF. He played no part in the vote or its discussion, and only a minor role in the talk page debate, mostly between Oct 27-29.

TBP quits editing 31 days before FT2's failed self-nomination for adminship. For his second, successful candidacy, he was nominated by jossi.

[tarantino]

There is apparently more that's been scrubbed from FT2's history than the 2 oversighted edits that Peter brought to our attention. Wikidashboard (Providing social transparency to Wikipedia), provides a link to 212 edits that are no longer available to mere editors. The links don't provide the page title, only the edit number, so I'm unable to tell if they were from XFDs, admin deletions or oversights. There's plenty of provocative edit summaries though. Here's a small sample -

2006/06/04 02:55:25 /* Cartoon and other representations */
2006/06/04 02:50:25 /* Animal pornography not including humans $stub$ */
2006/06/04 02:47:00 /* Animal pornography and culture */

Are there any admins here who can confirm the method of deletion for these edits? PM me if you don't feel like attaching an answer to your WR account name.

I've archived a copy of the list here modifying the links to point directly to WP, instead of going through wikidashboard.

[Peter Damian]

There is apparently more that's been scrubbed from FT2's history than the 2 oversighted edits that Peter brought to our attention. Wikidashboard (Providing social transparency to Wikipedia), provides a link to 212 edits that are no longer available to mere editors. The links don't provide the page title, only the edit number, so I'm unable to tell if they were from XFDs, admin deletions or oversights. There's plenty of provocative edit summaries though. Here's a small sample -

2006/06/04 02:55:25 /* Cartoon and other representations */
2006/06/04 02:50:25 /* Animal pornography not including humans $stub$ */
2006/06/04 02:47:00 /* Animal pornography and culture */

Are there any admins here who can confirm the method of deletion for these edits? PM me if you don't feel like attaching an answer to your WR account name.

I've archived a copy of the list here modifying the links to point directly to WP, instead of going through wikidashboard.

What? None of these are on my list of FT2's edits at all. Can you confirm whether the date that appears is the date of the oversight, or the date of the edit itself? I assume the latter.

[edit] OK mystery solved. These are not oversighted edits. They are from a subpage in FT2's user space, which he has deleted. Thus the record of the edit summaries remains, but because Wikipedia remembers versions of a page (rather than diffs, which it constructs from the 'diff' between versions), and because the whole page has disappeared, there is no record in the database.

The page must have been from his own user space, because it was deleted before he had oversight or admin privileges (it seems to have been deleted in Jan 2007, when he first ran for admin, yes?).

The edits are all to do with animal pornography, which he seems to have a comprehensive knowledge of, and which was no doubt acquired for research purposes.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Sat 10th May 2008, 7:16am

[tarantino]

What? None of these are on my list of FT2's edits at all. Can you confirm whether the date that appears is the date of the oversight, or the date of the edit itself? I assume the latter.

[edit] OK mystery solved. These are not oversighted edits. They are from a subpage in FT2's user space, which he has deleted. Thus the record of the edit summaries remains, but because Wikipedia remembers versions of a page (rather than diffs, which it constructs from the 'diff' between versions), and because the whole page has disappeared, there is no record in the database.

The page must have been from his own user space, because it was deleted before he had oversight or admin privileges (it seems to have been deleted in Jan 2007, when he first ran for admin, yes?).

They are not necessarily from a user subpage. The dates are when the edits were made. When you look through his history you can see the holes. Examining them a little more closely, the text inside /* */ is the title of the page section edited, and the text after is a manually added summary which he rarely did at the time. Wikiscanner results are similarly constructed. I'll have to search for the section titles to see if any remain.

The numbers after oldid and prev in WP urls are page versions, and every single edit on WP can be referenced by just using the oldid field. The page title in the url is not even needed and seems to be ignored. With a manually constructed url, you can compare any two diffs in the database and insert any title you want. The comedy potential in doing this is large, and perhaps should be the subject of a WR contest. For example http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=211451045 .

FT2 first ran for admin in June 2006.

[Peter Damian]

They are not necessarily from a user subpage. The dates are when the edits were made. When you look through his history you can see the holes. Examining them a little more closely, the text inside /* */ is the title of the page section edited, and the text after is a manually added summary which he rarely did at the time. Wikiscanner results are similarly constructed. I'll have to search for the section titles to see if any remain.

Are you sure?

http://wikidashboard.parc.com/dashboard/de...0101&l=20080516

This URL has a page number (5205068), just as do all the other pages he edited shown here

http://wikidashboard.parc.com/w/index.php?title=User:FT2#

So my logic is as follows:

1. The missing edits are all from one page
2. For all the versions to be missing, the page must have been deleted.
3. Only pages in user space can be deleted if you aren't admin (which he wasn't until 2007)

------------------------------------------
[edit] Interesting that the contents of /* */ are section headings. Sorting these alphabetically, it looks like an article (in preparation, if I am correct) with the following sections:

Abuse
Abusive films
Add "activism" section
Animal pornography and culture
Animal pornography not including humans
Animal sexuality
Background on sexual aspects
Cartoon and other representations
Erotic stories
Faked activity
Features of animal pornography
History of animal pornography
Human-animal sexual activity
Images
Legal issues
Legality of sale, transportation and ownership
List of relevant laws
Major producers of animal pornography
Modern times
Notable aspects in animal pornography
OLD ZOO POSTS
Pre-modern times
Production and distribution
References
See also
Textual representations

I'm guessing 'See also' and 'references' came at the end. Wonder what the order would be.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Sat 10th May 2008, 3:22pm