Mantanmoreland goes socking? (Again?), LOL Options

[Piperdown]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sus.../Mantanmoreland

a big birdie tells me he's gotten caught again on off-WP sites sockpuppeting with new names, lol. Looks like this "bassett" guy on WP is up to the samiharris-mantanmoreland legacy.

At this point, anyone without a non-SPA history of some length on WP should be Checkusered if they edit the Patrick Byrne-Overstock-Naked Shorting trifecta of "let's fuck Byrne!" that's been going on, on-WP for years.


And who's the last person who should be doing a checkuser on Gary Weiss's socks or potential socks? (um, after Slimmy that is)?

Thatcher.

LOL. Thatcher, you've already been proven a wikifraud on the Gary Saga. Turn over the bullshit story to someone else. No one believes you any more on this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req.../Mantanmoreland

Nevard is not Weiss, that's not news. Bassett's activity smells of Team Gary.

Tor proxies by any chance? Maybe Gary's gotten smart enough to get one of his associates to take up his man-love torch for Byrne.

This post has been edited by Piperdown: Wed 14th May 2008, 12:14am

[Moulton]

You need a Truth and Reconciliation Process.

[WordBomb]

You need a Truth and Reconciliation Process.

I would refer you to my post dated February 11 of this year, in which I said:

What WordBomb wants is a truth and reconciliation effort to take place, in which everybody (myself included) takes ownership of their part in this madness.

And that's still what WordBomb wants.

Hey, Shalom...please stop and take note of this, and tell me what you make of it:

Look at both sides of this issue (me versus SV, Jayjg, JzG, Gerard, Sidaway, Wales, Weiss, etc, etc) and try to identify which of the two is clamoring...begging for an opportunity to put everything on the table, and which side is doing everything possible to keep that from happening.

I may not be completely objective on this topic, but I think the distinction is pretty clear.

Does that tell you anything at all?

[Shalom]

Hey, Shalom...please stop and take note of this, and tell me what you make of it:

Look at both sides of this issue (me versus SV, Jayjg, JzG, Gerard, Sidaway, Wales, Weiss, etc, etc) and try to identify which of the two is clamoring...begging for an opportunity to put everything on the table, and which side is doing everything possible to keep that from happening.

I may not be completely objective on this topic, but I think the distinction is pretty clear.

Does that tell you anything at all?

Yes. It tells me that some Wikipedia administrators treated you unfairly. It tells me that Jimbo himself was wrong. It tells me that the dispute resolution process failed to resolve this dispute.

You don't need to convince me that the Wikipedia governance system is not well-equipped to handle difficult cases. I work on the inside, and I know how hard it is to judge some of these cases fairly. I do the best job I can. Sometimes, my best effort is not good enough. But I'll keep trying because somebody needs to answer those requests at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets.

I think you're falling into the same trap as Moulton. Believe me, if Moulton really wanted to edit Wikipedia, I would strongly support letting him. We let bored teenagers edit articles about TV shows because "anyone can edit." Yet we don't let Moulton edit because he knows too much? I haven't reviewed the Moulton case fully, nor have I spoken publicly about it until now. My understanding is that, in order to accept reinstatement, Moulton wants the Arbitration Committee to issue a formal statement that the banning of Moulton was unfair to begin with. Moulton knows, as does everyone, that the Arbitration Committee will not issue such a statement. Instead of actually returning to edit the encyclopedia, Moulton wants to prove a point. I would say to Moulton: you don't need to convince me. Of course Moulton should not have been indef-blocked. A topic ban could have been tried first. A two-week block could have been tried first. Article probation and mentorship could have been tried first. We try these things for other editors, but the problem is that the folks who banned Moulton are in the group of administrators who don't believe in such subtleties as topic bans or temporary blocks or article probation or mentorship. That's why Wikipedia appears to have no due process: the degree of due process depends on which administrators happen to be involved in a particular case. You will receive more due process from me (I'm not an administrator, but for this context it's close enough) than you will from some other people. Moulton had the misfortune of arguing with people who have less patience than I do. That's life. It is what it is. There's not much I can do about it at this point in time.

The best contrast to Moulton is Poetlister. She never asked the Arbitration Committee for a statement that they didn't follow due process. Now I don't think she needs to convince anyone that they didn't follow due process by their own standards. Recall that Poetlister was blocked with ten other user accounts on May 30, 2007. Just one week earlier, on May 23, 2007, ArbCom closed one of its simplest cases ever: Henrygb. This case set the interesting precedent that an administrator with almost three years experience can be banned for refusing to respond to an inquiry from ArbCom. Aside from that, it was an open-and-shut case: Henrygb got stone-cold busted for using two sockpuppets. He was blocked on April 1, 2007, with a log summary "Please contact ArbCom." He was given seven weeks to do so. Instead of making a reasonable response, he started using another sockpuppet, which was blocked during the case. I reviewed the editing history of Henrygb and his two sockpuppets from early 2005 through April 2007 using the same "offdays analysis" that I used to compare the Runcorn/Poetlister group of accounts. The evidence linking Henrygb to Audiovideo was much stronger than the evidence linking Runcorn to Poetlister. Yet ArbCom gave Henrygb seven weeks to respond to these allegations, whereas in the Runcorn/Poetlister case, they decided to shoot first and ask questions later, and refused to open an ArbCom case when Firsfron asked for a formal review in August 2007. So Poetlister darn well knows that "due process" was not followed in her case. She also knows that it's not worthwhile to complain about it. She wanted to edit Wikipedia, and I did whatever I could to help her return to editing Wikipedia. She did not want a formal statement that "due process was not followed," and she did not get that. We know what really happened, and we'll leave it at that.

So which path will WordBomb choose: the Moulton path or the Poetlister path? You have two choices with Wikipedia: prove that it doesn't work, or try to make it work. There is no third option. Moulton has chosen to prove that Wikipedia doesn't work, but the result is simply that it doesn't work for Moulton. Poetlister has decided to make it work, so the result is that it does work for Poetlister. WordBomb, you seem to prefer Moulton's approach. You can complain about not receiving due process, but that's not going to reform the process into becoming fairer. The way to make the process fairer is to promote more good administrators, remove the bad administrators, enforce a reasonable balance between BLP and COI, and give more latitude to editors who appear not to understand the nuances of these two somewhat contradictory policies. It may make you feel better to initiate some kind of "cage match" with Jimbo Wales, but it won't actually reform the dysfunctional community that he no longer controls.

By the way, I believe you when you say that a certain subset of alleged sockpuppets of WordBomb are not actually yours.

[Poetlister]

The best contrast to Moulton is Poetlister. She never asked the Arbitration Committee for a statement that they didn't follow due process.

No, I knew that there wouldn't be much point.

Poetlister has decided to make it work, so the result is that it does work for Poetlister.

Well, half works. I'll believe it does work when a few more people are unblocked.

So please be kind enough to educate me on this obscure point, Shalom: What is the Hebrew word for justice?

That's a bit disingenuous of you, Moulton.

[Shalom]

Moulton: you don't have to ask me what the Hebrew translation of "justice" is. There's an easy trick to find out, and I use it when I have need to find the translation to a particular word. It helps when I'm translating articles from Hebrew Wikipedia into English, as I frequently do, or vice versa. You see, there's this website called "Wikipedia" you may have heard of. On many pages of Wikipedia, there are interwiki links to other languages of Wikipedia. These interwiki links function as a kind of translator's dictionary. Indeed, I am not aware of a free translator's repository that covers as many languages as Wikipedia does. I've been reading Wikipedia for so long that I've found these amazingly arcane ways to milk information from it in places you could not expect to find anything interesting.

If you don't feel like going to the "justice" article and clicking the עברית interwiki link, I'll spoil the fun for you and link to the Hebrew Wikipedia article about צדק (tzedek).

I just listened to the NTWW episode where you reiterated your stubborn position that you refuse to be unblocked unless there is a Truth and Reconciliation process. You're spending hours on this campaign, and for what? I think you're wasting your time. (Then again, for me to tell other people they're wasting time belongs in the "pot/kettle/black" thread.) You could accept being unblocked as prima facie evidence of justice being done. (Thanks to Kurt Weber for making that phrase common among Wikipedia literati.)

I guess I would make the following comparison: someone steals $100 from you. You manage to apprehend the guy and he agrees to return the $100 to you, but he refuses to admit any wrongdoing. You say, "Fine, if you refuse to admit that you stole the money, I don't want it back from you." You make a valid point, but in practice, you've lost yourself a hundred bucks, and you have nobody to blame for that but yourself. I'm not suggesting editing Wikipedia is worth so much as 100 Zimbabwean dollars, let alone American dollars, but if it's worth anything to you, take what is being offered to you. Analogous cases of out-of-court settlements where the offending party does not accept responsibility or apologize for wrongdoing but pays anyway are commonplace.

Poetlister: yes, you make valid points. I agree with you.

This post has been edited by Shalom: Fri 30th May 2008, 2:40pm

[Moulton]

I'll spoil the fun for you and link to the Hebrew Wikipedia article about צדק (tzedek).

Oh. I understood that word to mean Righteousness.

I just listened to the NTWW episode where you reiterated your stubborn position that you refuse to be unblocked unless there is a Truth and Reconciliation process. You're spending hours on this campaign, and for what? I think you're wasting your time. ... You could accept being unblocked as prima facie evidence of justice being done.

I didn't say I refused to be unblocked. I said I wasn't asking to be unblocked, because I wasn't planning to edit any mainspace articles under the prevailing culture of the site. My objectives do no require me to edit on Wikipedia.

We are very very far from Justice being done, Shalom. Very very far.

I guess I would make the following comparison: someone steals $100 from you. You manage to apprehend the guy and he agrees to return the $100 to you, but he refuses to admit any wrongdoing. You say, "Fine, if you refuse to admit that you stole the money, I don't want it back from you." You make a valid point, but in practice, you've lost yourself a hundred bucks, and you have nobody to blame for that but yourself. I'm not suggesting editing Wikipedia is worth so much as 100 Zimbabwean dollars, let alone American dollars, but if it's worth anything to you, take what is being offered to you. Analogous cases of out-of-court settlements where the offending party does not accept responsibility or apologize for wrongdoing but pays anyway are commonplace.

What they took away from me, Shalom, is my good name. That's what I want back. I'm not interested in an MMPONWMG masquerading as an encyclopedia. I just want my good name back.

[guy]

What they took away from me, Shalom, is my good name. That's what I want back.

Careful, Moulton. Look what happened to Poetlister when she said that here.

[Moulton]

What they took away from me, Shalom, is my good name. That's what I want back.

Careful, Moulton. Look what happened to Poetlister when she said that here.

Can you tell me where to look to find that?