Mantanmoreland goes socking? (Again?), LOL Options

[Random832]

I would personally be supportive of the community having a discussion to approve him to edit as long as he stops with the sockpuppeting and just edits under his real name.

Unfortunately, if he did that, he would have to accept the COI policy and probably a topic ban. Sockpuppeting lets him get around both.

[cookiehead]

Just noticed another sockpuppet that got sockblocked as being Weissmoreland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Copyedeye

The block protests in 2010 when it was first temp blocked are full of win. Then it got permablocked with Berg recently.

"I remembered that this was a nuisance lawsuit by Robertson, who was attempting thereby to stifle a journalist...many people felt the same way, and wrote similar comments "

Many people who turned out to be Copyedeye too.

This author is the most entertaining personality in the history of Wikipedia Editors. Is there a Dick of Distinction category for this hall of famer? He's a perennial #1 gamer of wikipedia.

It's like watching Roadrunner cartoons with Wyle E Coyote. Thank you, Weiss!

I doubt the admins, arbs, Jimbos, and sockhunters who have wasted thousands of hours on this person feel the same way.

[TungstenCarbide]

Just noticed another sockpuppet that got sockblocked as being Weissmoreland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Copyedeye

The block protests in 2010 when it was first temp blocked are full of win. Then it got permablocked with Berg recently.

"I remembered that this was a nuisance lawsuit by Robertson, who was attempting thereby to stifle a journalist...many people felt the same way, and wrote similar comments "

Many people who turned out to be Copyedeye too.

This author is the most entertaining personality in the history of Wikipedia Editors. Is there a Dick of Distinction category for this hall of famer? He's a perennial #1 gamer of wikipedia.

It's like watching Roadrunner cartoons with Wyle E Coyote. Thank you, Weiss!

I doubt the admins, arbs, Jimbos, and sockhunters who have wasted thousands of hours on this person feel the same way.

Copyedeye's unblocked

[cookiehead]

This says otherwise

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Copyedeye

[cookiehead]

Check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=314655308

This is the IP that is connected with User:Copyedeye and why it was blocked as sock of Moreland. And the usual "creating consensus" with puppets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Soc...pyedeye/Archive

So that account is technically unblocked but Weiss can't use it or it will be too obvious.

I'd say the habit of creating socks for consensus fraud is the biggest sin, not keeping major lawsuit coverage out of one's bio, if you're a WP purist. This could be why his non-sock consensus creating friends are crying the loudest. You can go from pariah to martyr quickly when the flashmob is, dare I say it, a Baloney Brigade?

This post has been edited by cookiehead: Thu 26th January 2012, 6:48pm

[Abd]

This says otherwise

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Copyedeye

That's blatantly incorrect. The editor was unblocked in 2010. Obviously nobody, including the editor, thought to fix the user page.

Look at this insane revert warring.. Last restoration of the incorrect notice by our very own Baseball Bugs. Let's hear it for BB, knocking the "idiotic revert" ball clear out of the park.

It's hard for me to believe that I really tried to improve Wikipedia and Wikipedia process for so many years. What was I thinking?

(Well, I thought it might be possible, and that I wouldn't know unless I tried.)

It was frosting on a cowpie.

Anyway, I found [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ASockpuppet_investigations%2FStetsonharry&action=historysubmit&diff=336098693&oldid=336089877#Conclusions the checkuser comment about Copyedeye]. Alison concluded that identity with Mantanmoreland was likely. However, the editor is not blocked, courtesy of Bwilkins, who gave an argument on the user's talk page that would seem reasonable, except that the very same argument is generally ignored. Lots of blocks have no ongoing purpose, they could be replaced with lesser sanctions or cautions or precautions. Bwilkins jumped in to a situation that was already being handled, bypassing the discussion.

As with much else, this is no way to run a community project, it is insanely inefficient, not to mention arbitrary, unpredictable, and frequently unfair. In all directions, it burns everyone out except the most insane.

This post has been edited by Abd: Thu 26th January 2012, 11:36pm

[Fusion]

Look at this insane revert warring.. Last restoration of the incorrect notice by our very own Baseball Bugs. Let's hear it for BB, knocking the "idiotic revert" ball clear out of the park.

I point out, without wanting to defend Baseball Bugs, that he was the third editor to revert. It did not occur to him that ScottSteiner and Lerdthenerd had not checked the block log. Thus he assumed good faith on their part, backing two people against an IP. I would have checked, but would everyone?

[Abd]

Look at this insane revert warring.. Last restoration of the incorrect notice by our very own Baseball Bugs. Let's hear it for BB, knocking the "idiotic revert" ball clear out of the park.

I point out, without wanting to defend Baseball Bugs, that he was the third editor to revert. It did not occur to him that ScottSteiner and Lerdthenerd had not checked the block log. Thus he assumed good faith on their part, backing two people against an IP. I would have checked, but would everyone?

That's a radical misapplication of AGF. People can make errors in good faith, and people can take correct actions even in bad faith.

AGF *also* applies to IP editors.

Given how simple and easy it would be to check, this demonstrates editorial incompetence. Now, he could restore his integrity by simply acknowledging the error. Will he? Has he? I'm not checking. Not worth the effort.

When you restore content, you are taking responsibility for the restored content. That's a basic wiki principle, and when it's ignored, damage accumulates.

[Abd]

Damn! I also looked at the IP's block log. More opportunity to waste time, I should learn to stay away. Having done it, the IP was blocked as the result of attempting to make the user page correction.

The discussion on User talk:81.164.209.246 is a great example of the Kafkaesque Wikipedia community. Face-palm material.

Note that the users involved failed to notice the distinction between a supported accusation of sock puppetry and a statement that the user was blocked. Copyedeye is not blocked, and therefore is not banned. The IP may or may not have understood the issue thoroughly. If this is actually Mantanmoreland, i.e., Weiss, I have little personal sympathy, but what was demonstrated was community, i.e., collective, incompetence.

There is an undocmented exception to WP:CIVIL. If an editor is Bad, you can freely insult them, as Baseball Bugs did on that Talk page. This was brilliant:

You've been proven to be a sock of Editor XXV, and I've reported you to ANI again. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:15, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

And I see that they already took action. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:17, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

So, I get banned for removing mistakes. Ha! -81.

You're the mistake, Mr. XXV, and you've now been removed. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:24, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Now, is the IP "Editor XXV"? Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Editor XXV/Archive (The archive of sock investigations). The IP isn't mentioned there. I did a search for all pages with that IP mentioned. I found a discussion on User talk:Alison. No sock confirmation there, rather skepticism on Alison's part.

It appears that the IP may have started an account, BlackDalek, who notified Baseball Bugs of the account creation. See User talk:Baseball Bugs/Archive012, the archive for User talk:Baseball Bugs, search for "81.164," the section name is duplicated so a normal section link doesn't work.

BlackDalek promptly blocked by MuZemike. No Talk page notification, MuZemike claimed BlackDalek as sock of Editor XXV. Searching for BlackDalek, I see that this account is listed on the Editor XXV SSP page. Confirmed as a sock of several other editors by TNXMan. I don't see anything in the report that actually confirms that the editor is a sock of Editor XXV. Rather, there was a claim of editing similar projects. BlackDalek was not in the report, but was picked up by the checkuser.

The strength of these identifications is unknown to non-checkusers, often.

Note that the identification of BlackDalek as the IP is apparently based only on an edit by BlackDalek. The IP was not included in the checkuser report. That could have been a straw puppet. Basically, it's unclear, and the problem I see is statements made with certainty, with incivility and indef blocks, without clear and unmistakeable evidence. In this case, the IP had civilly demonstrated Baseball Bugs' incompetence. He got back.

[Fusion]

The final block was for a period of six months. That was farcical. The IP resolves to Telenet Operaties N.V. Belgium. My Belgian colleagues use them and the IPs are dynamic. They change about once a week. Anyone could have had that IP a month later, and that user would have had a different one.

Don't people know about dynamic IPs?

[Vigilant]

Berg/Mantanmoreland's block appeal has been dismissed. Start watching for Mantanmorland's new account if you haven't already.

There's a huge conversation about how poor, poor scottyberg is doing great work, etc, etc, can't he please have just one more chance, it's sooooo unfair.

Given this comment, I'd have to say what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Where is Mongo when poor Selina is requesting a second chance?

No fat, white knight to the rescue?

The Onion writers could never write stuff about wikipedia, because the truth is so much stranger than parody there.

[tarantino]

lol at Silverseren.

And MONGO asks the anonymous gadfly 67.119.12.141

while we're here chatting about socks, how about you start editing here with your regular username...not to be rude, but why the coverup since you seem otherwise to be contributing without malice and quite neutrally and you're not a newbie.-

No doubt that the IP is the "wp community-banned" LossIsNotMore/Nrcprm2026/James Salsman. Which just goes to show, no one is really banned if they choose not to be.

[TungstenCarbide]

Which just goes to show, no one is really banned if they choose not to be.

Ha ha. I would have lost interest in Wikipedia long ago except they keep banning me. Good free entertainment.

[Abd]

lol at Silverseren.

And MONGO asks the anonymous gadfly 67.119.12.141

while we're here chatting about socks, how about you start editing here with your regular username...not to be rude, but why the coverup since you seem otherwise to be contributing without malice and quite neutrally and you're not a newbie.-

No doubt that the IP is the "wp community-banned" LossIsNotMore/Nrcprm2026/James Salsman. Which just goes to show, no one is really banned if they choose not to be.

Wikipedia has tossed away enormous resources by the "ban is a ban" mentality. I first encountered Salsman as an adverse editor, socking and working with the head of a political advocacy organization to own an article, and Salsman tried to get me blocked, and I managed to arrange it so that instead the ownership of the article was blown up, with about everyone in sight being blocked, including me, but I was quickly unblocked when the admin recognized what had been happening. However, Salsman went through a number of socks, and it was, in fact, possible to cooperate with him. Later, it turned out, he was involved with cold fusion, he ended up being an ally. Salsman had strong views, that's all. Wikipedia bans people with strong views, instead of engaging them in structure to find genuine consensus. The excuse, the belief, is that people with strong views cannot participate in consensus.

It's nonsense, it is, in fact, dangerous nonsense. In the real world, this is what maintains conflicts, the belief that the "other side" will obviously be unreasonable. You don't have real consensus unless the people with strong views have been *included.* And that normally takes facilitation. Diplomacy in the real world. A special skill, with its own technology. Missing from the Wikipedia structure. There is some lip service to it in dispute resolution procedures, but no clear recognition of what it takes. Among other things, consensus process typically takes *lots* of discussion, deep discussion, but Wikipedia, because of its roots, is averse to deep discussion.

As a result, instead of deep discussion, it gets massive messes with lots of sound-bite comments that never get to the root of things, except occasionally, almost by accident. Deep discussion will typically take place in small groups of interested people, facilitated if necessary. I was good at it, in fact, ArbComm did not examine my history before passing the MYOB ban that essentially made it impossible, any attempt to intervene in a dispute where I was neutral was, ipso facto, a ban violation. That was brilliant! And I was watched closely by a set of editors looking for anything that could be alleged, even if it was, itself, obviously and totally harmless at worst.

Wikipedia. It is what it is.