Catherine Sanderson is not a sockpuppet of me!, Another episode of sockpuppet paranoia by Sciencewatcher and JFW Options

[Angela Kennedy]

Someone called Catherine Sanderson has been accused and kangaroo judged to be a sockpuppet of me (or meatpuppet). This is at least the second time accusations like this have been flung at me and other people by 'Sciencemaster'.

But the paranoia is buzzing there now on the Simon Wessely talkpage and on this user's page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Catherine_Sanderson

If anyone is able to show I'm not her I'd be grateful.

I try and keep away from Wikipedia except to see how certain editors and admins are misrepresenting certain things.

Having this level of paranoia and accusation flung at you when you're not even part of Wikipedia is actually creepier the longer I'm away from it.

In other news - Guy Chapman was recently slagging me off AGAIN with a couple of anons on the Bad Science forum for the work I'm doing (nothing to do with Wikipedia). I just can't get that dude out of my life!

But- it should be noted - this also does come at a time when I am officially and publicly expressing concern about an article in the Lancet in terms of patient safety, and calling for a retraction of that paper.

It feels like I've travelled back in time to 2008!

[Abd]

Following the discussion at User talk:Catherine Sanderson

The account was established 17:24, 11 May 2011. It appears that Catherine lost her password, because assistance is requested in edits from Special:Contributions/86.154.117.80. We may reasonably, from this, assume that the IP is that of Catherine Sanderson. In this edit, the IP appears to admit to being a banned editor. JamesBWatson points out that there are other possible interpretations, but given the simple one, I'd say that the account of Catherine Sanderson is toast, given either (1) it's Angela Kennedy or (2) it's a friend or close acquaintance, acting to pursue the same agenda or (3) it's terminally stupid.

And, Angela, why are you causing us to waste time looking at this here? You may well have been wronged, originally, I have utterly no opinion about that other than to confirm that It Happens, but ... this is not the way to fix it.

My sock EnergyNeutral was just checkusered, with no apparent request, by an arbitrator, and I'm not making a fuss about whatever might be improper about that, I'm just documenting the response, which reveals certain things, as will be shown in later analysis. No big surprises, to be sure.

This case is boring, sock was identified because sock had self-connected with the IP through obvious behavior and sock had, as IP, admitted being banned. The case reveals nothing but the practice of blocking accounts which are admitted socks of blocked or banned users. Q.E.D.

I should be explicit about one possibility. Catherine Sanderson is not Angela Kennedy -- i.e., Angela is telling the truth above, but is someone else pretending to be her -- or is another banned editor. I don't see any seriously negative comment about Angela Kennedy in the discussion on Catherine Sanderson's talk page. "Angela Kennedy" is really a red herring here, there is no specific evidence that this is Angela Kennedy, to my knowledge. The only way that this would be relevant to Angela Kennedy is if the latter tries to return to Wikipedia and is accused of socking as Catherine Sanderson. (That might also relate to other possible socks mentioned.)

This post has been edited by Abd: Sun 5th June 2011, 10:01pm

[Suzy Chapman]

Following the discussion at User talk:Catherine Sanderson

The account was established 17:24, 11 May 2011. It appears that Catherine lost her password, because assistance is requested in edits from Special:Contributions/86.154.117.80. We may reasonably, from this, assume that the IP is that of Catherine Sanderson. In this edit, the IP appears to admit to being a banned editor. JamesBWatson points out that there are other possible interpretations, but given the simple one, I'd say that the account of Catherine Sanderson is toast, given either (1) it's Angela Kennedy or (2) it's a friend or close acquaintance, acting to pursue the same agenda or (3) it's terminally stupid.

I'd like to clear up any possible confusion here.

"Catherine Sanderson" is unknown to me.

In November 2009, in a publicly viewable thread on Phoenix Rising Forum, I authored a post about my experience of being banned by Jimbo Wales in October 2007, shortly after Angela was banned. I was banned partly because of my association with Angela. Wales wrote to me "...I do not know what degree of responsibility you have in all of this, nor do I care. I just want you all to go away and leave us alone..."

"Catherine Sanderson" had quoted an extract from my post on Phoenix Rising. She had not authored that post, herself.

The statement: "I was banned from editing any pages of Wikipedia by Jimbo Wales, in October 2007, following a kangaroo court on the Admin Discussion pages (I keep Mr Wales' email framed in the downstairs cloakroom). My crimes were "Wiki lawyering" and using my own discussion page for alleged "Soapboxing". Even the suitability of my User name was discussed by some Admins, as it matched a website of the same name."

is mine. I am the owner of several WordPress sites, one of which is called ME agenda.

The pseudonymous WP Admin, "JamesBWatson" got himself in a tangle, here, over whether "Catherine Sanderson" was claiming to have been banned, herself, or whether she was quoting a post which she had found on a forum (Phoenix Rising).

I've been aware of this issue since May, but took no action until yesterday. Last night I emailed WP Admin Jacob de Wolff and Guy Chapman (JzG) and clarified the following:

That "Catherine Sanderson" is unknown to me.
That "Catherine Sanderson" had been quoting an extract from my post on Phoenix Rising, from November 2009.

That the IP "Catherine Sanderson" is said to have been using is an IP within the BT range 86.148.0.0 - 86.159.255.255.

That BT is a very common internet provider in the UK.

That we have never used BT, ourselves.

That since late 2007, we have had a static IP through Zen Internet.

And I requested that "JamesBWatson" be advised that if he considers I am in any way connected with the now banned editor, "Catherine Sanderson", that he is mistaken.


Neither Dr Wolff nor Guy Chapman has responded. However, I note this morning that the content of the User page and Discussion page of "Catherine Sanderson" were deleted late last night, the deletion logged after I had contacted these two gentlemen with my concerns, and presumably in response to my concerns.

The deletion is logged in the History as having been carried out by JzG.

History: User_talk:Catherine_Sanderson

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&action=history

I have written to both, today, noting that the pages containing "JamesBWatson's" "deductions" have now been wiped by JzG and requested that "Watson" is advised of my concerns for the assertions he had made in his comments.

(Since "JamesBWatson" is a pseudonym and since he appears to provide no means of contact other than via his Discussion page, which, as a banned editor, I have no access to, there is no means by which I can contact him, myself.)

So, to recap.

"Catherine Sanderson" is not me and is not known to me.
The IP quoted for her/him appears to be a BT IP.
I am not and never have been a user of a static or dynamic BT IP though many UK residents do use BT as their service provider.

Yes, these WP sockpuppet/meat puppet allegations are tedious.

But there is a crucial difference between Watson, and Angela and myself. Angela and I work under our own names. We are accountable for any assertions we make on the internet. We both work on the basis of having documentary evidence to support what we write. We have no means of responding to any unsubstantiated claims that may be made about us on Wikipedia.

Watson is pseudonymous.

If he were operating under his own name, perhaps he would be a little more careful about any claims he makes and references to alleged "evidence". I hope in future he will take care to ensure that he can back any claims he makes.

Anyway, "Watson's" comments and "Catherine Sanderson" User pages have now been excised from WP (other than the History) by JzG, but I have a copy of "Watson's" comments on file.

Let's hope "Watson" sticks with his Maths and doesn't aspire to a career as a detective.

Suzy Chapman

This post has been edited by Suzy Chapman: Sat 9th July 2011, 1:27pm

[Angela Kennedy]

They've still got the accusations on the Simon Wessely talk page

One thing that has occurred to me is that when I was defamed by Guy Chapman and banned in 2007 it was? I had virgin as my ISP, not BT.

[Suzy Chapman]

They've still got the accusations on the Simon Wessely talk page

One thing that has occurred to me is that when I was defamed by Guy Chapman and banned in 2007 it was? I had virgin as my ISP, not BT.

I was informed by Wales on 22 October 2007, that he had banned me.

So you would have been banned around the 21 October 2007. According to emails from the time, you were still using Virgin as your ISP provider at that point - not BT.

I've checked our correspondence and on 27 June 2008, you EMd that you had been having problems with Virgin and had had to switch to BT.

[Angela Kennedy]

They've still got the accusations on the Simon Wessely talk page

One thing that has occurred to me is that when I was defamed by Guy Chapman and banned in 2007 it was? I had virgin as my ISP, not BT.

I was informed by Wales on 22 October 2007, that he had banned me.

So you would have been banned around the 21 October 2007. According to emails from the time, you were still using Virgin as your ISP provider at that point - not BT.

I've checked our correspondence and on 27 June 2008, you EMd that you had been having problems with Virgin and had had to switch to BT.

Thanks Suzy. It's interesting because whoever has been investigating Sanderson here in 2011 would somehow have had to find a way of checking me as well - long after I was banned from Wikipedia.

I was accused falsely by Sciencewatcher of having a sock a year or two ago also. Alison kindly checked that out and corrected those false allegations then.

People should be aware that there has also been a flurry of accusations against the ME/CFS community from Simon Wessely and others in the medical/science press recently, with some pretty ludicrous comments made. ME/CFS sufferers and their supporters have been implied as akin to Iraqui and Afghanistan terrorists, dangerously outraged Muslims or gays (so he managed to insult those two groups as well) - called suphorous etc. To the reasonable observer, these comments have somewhat jumped the shark, but to the less critical observer, they function well as derailing ad hominem, sadly.

And obviously I have not even been part of One Click for over 5 years now, FWIW.

This post has been edited by Angela Kennedy: Sat 9th July 2011, 4:05pm

[Suzy Chapman]

A further point. In his comments left on the now deleted User and Discussion pages of "Catherine Sanderson", the pseudonymous JamesBWatson had written (my bolding):

"
[...]

In this edit someone at the same IP address says "I was banned from editing any pages of Wikipedia by Jimbo Wales, in October 2007, following a kangaroo court on the Admin Discussion pages (I keep Mr Wales' email framed in the downstairs cloakroom). My crimes were "Wiki lawyering" and using my own discussion page for alleged "Soapboxing". Even the suitability of my User name was discussed by some Admins, as it matched a website of the same name." So we have an editor editing in the same area as you and editing from the same IP address (and therefore from the same computer or another one on the same local network) stating that they have been banned. The month in which they were banned was the same one in which Angel [sic] Kennedy was banned. Angel [sic] Kennedy ban followed communications in which Jimbo Wales took a part. MEagenda was banned at the same time, and the username was questioned as being related to the name of a relevant website. Both of those two accounts had been involved in similar editing in connection to the same article as has recently been the case with the IP address. Without bothering to go into further details it is perfectly clear that the person who made that post from that IP address had previously used one or both of those two accounts. "


Well no "Watson", it isn't "perfectly clear" and it's interesting that "Watson" chose not to "go into further details".

"Catherine" had not said she had been banned, herself.
"Catherine's" IP is reported as being a BT IP (within a BT dynamic range) therefore cannot safely be "matched" to any other IP in that range and certainly not with a Zen static IP.
"Catherine" presumably had edited or attempted to edit the Wessely Discussion page.

But neither Angela nor myself had edited the article page, itself, in 2007. Our editing had been confined to the Wessely Discussion page, so "Watson" has failed to properly inform himself about what had taken place in late 2007 but assumes we had edited, or had attempted to edit the Wessely article page. Not so, we were banned without having edited article pages.

Not what you'd expect from a Maths graduate. Let's hope "Watson" does not aspire to a career where a logical approach is required.

This post has been edited by Suzy Chapman: Sat 9th July 2011, 8:49pm