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

[Somey]

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.

You mean someone else is pretending to be Angela Kennedy using the name "Catherine Sanderson," as in the classic double-bind sock-proxy maneuver? Isn't it vastly more likely that there's a real, separate person named Catherine Sanderson who just happens to also not be so fond of this Simon Wessely dude? And is living in England in a similar way?

For the record, the closest thing we have here on WR, poster-wise, to 86.154.117.80 is Giano. Second-closest is an account named "lolwut," whom we had to suspend for making highly inappropriate comments about... well, let's not go into that right now. Ms. Kennedy's IPs aren't totally far-off, but I suspect that's because she's in the UK and it's a common range there.

I'm not saying it's impossible or even all that unlikely, but having the first of the four numbers match occasionally is far from conclusive evidence of multiple-account abuse.

So it looks like a "bad block" to me, but that's true of most of their blocks, I suppose.

[Angela Kennedy]

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.

You mean someone else is pretending to be Angela Kennedy using the name "Catherine Sanderson," as in the classic double-bind sock-proxy maneuver? Isn't it vastly more likely that there's a real, separate person named Catherine Sanderson who just happens to also not be so fond of this Simon Wessely dude? And is living in England in a similar way?

For the record, the closest thing we have here on WR, poster-wise, to 86.154.117.80 is Giano. Second-closest is an account named "lolwut," whom we had to suspend for making highly inappropriate comments about... well, let's not go into that right now. Ms. Kennedy's IPs aren't totally far-off, but I suspect that's because she's in the UK and it's a common range there.

I'm not saying it's impossible or even all that unlikely, but having the first of the four numbers match occasionally is far from conclusive evidence of multiple-account abuse.

So it looks like a "bad block" to me, but that's true of most of their blocks, I suppose.

Thanks Somey. So it's a case of 'living in a similar way' i.e. somewhere in/near London? Well- there is only two of us living somewhere in/near London, and the other person runs a fan club dedicated to Simon Wessely- no wait- he IS Simon Wessely! (That's a joke, by the way- you can't be too careful nowadays )