Wikileaker's identity Options

[Shalom]

I've determined Wikileaker's identity on a "more probable than not" standard of confidence.

I assumed that the statements Wikileaker made about himself on Wikipedia Review are accurate, and I evaluated every arbitrator's history on Wikipedia against those statements.

Only one user seemed to match all the criteria.

Does anyone want to know?

Newyorkbrad? Do you want to know? You did ask before: http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&sh...ndpost&p=155190

[Wikileaker is NOT Newyorkbrad. I am pointing out that Newyorkbrad asked Wikileaker to identify himself.]

[Casliber]

You all assume too many things. What if I said I'd lost arbcom-L access as an act of misdirection, designed to throw suspicion on the people listed above? What if I'm not even an ex-arbitrator, but a friend of one who gets gossip forwarded to them? What if I'm some hacker type? (Although I suppose my knowledge of even the existence of the Google group makes that scenario unlikely.) What if I actually am who I've said I am, and this post is misdirection itself? I'm already a piece of shit for publicly posting information that was supposed to remain in confidence -- why would lying about my identity be below me?

Anyway, I woke up this morning and discovered a couple empty bottles of Evan Williams... then eventually figured out that I'd had a WikiRelapse during a moment (day?) of weakness. I apologize for being a tease, but I won't be posting any more mailing list threads or arbwiki stuff. MaliceAforethought seems to have that covered anyway.

Well, er - duh.

Okay then Wikileaker, I might have missed this (did you post this somewhere?), but what was your motivation? anger at perceived arrogance of the committee? a sense of injustice? or just teh lulz? Just asking, before you dissapear again off into the aether..

Cas

This post has been edited by Casliber: Thu 7th July 2011, 11:47pm

[Shalom]

You all assume too many things. What if I said I'd lost arbcom-L access as an act of misdirection, designed to throw suspicion on the people listed above? What if I'm not even an ex-arbitrator, but a friend of one who gets gossip forwarded to them? What if I'm some hacker type? (Although I suppose my knowledge of even the existence of the Google group makes that scenario unlikely.) What if I actually am who I've said I am, and this post is misdirection itself? I'm already a piece of shit for publicly posting information that was supposed to remain in confidence -- why would lying about my identity be below me?

Anyway, I woke up this morning and discovered a couple empty bottles of Evan Williams... then eventually figured out that I'd had a WikiRelapse during a moment (day?) of weakness. I apologize for being a tease, but I won't be posting any more mailing list threads or arbwiki stuff. MaliceAforethought seems to have that covered anyway.

Well, er - duh.

Okay then Wikileaker, I might have missed this (did you post this somewhere?), but what was your motivation? anger at perceived arrogance of the committee? a sense of injustice? or just teh lulz? Just asking, before you dissapear again off into the aether..

Cas

Cas, if you look carefully through Wikileaker's posting history, he wrote that he tried to reform Wikipedia's power structure from the inside, failed, and decided to take private matters public. I'm paraphrasing and interpreting. If you go to "Members" then type "Wikileaker" then click his name, then click the drop-down box on the upper right-hand corner to "Find member's posts" and go to the second page, you'll find it there. I'm too preoccupied to do it right now.

To Wikileaker, yes, I did make assumptions, and I believe those assumptions are reasonable. I started with a process of elimination to eliminate any Arbitrators who I thought could not be Wikileaker. I did not exclude anyone from the search, not even Newyorkbrad. I checked to see who was active recently. Most of anyone who's ever been an arbitrator, even in 2004 and 2005, has edited Wikipedia in 2011, and most of those have edited in July 2011.

A few former arbitrators didn't edit in 2011. This was consistent with Wikileaker's statement that he "hasn't touched Wikipedia in several years." Wikileaker posted this yesterday. I read the list of arbitrators, former arbitrators and incoming arbitrators as of December 2008 on an old version of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee. Again, you can trawl the page history for yourself. My process of elimination yielded several "UNLIKELY" and one "POSSIBLE". That "POSSIBLE" was Sam Korn.

I looked for positive evidence linking Sam Korn's Wikipedia activity with Wikileaker's posts on Wikipedia Review. I found some suggestive links. Wikileaker wrote about Aitias and Majorly on WR. Sam Korn was involved in their user conduct issues on Wikipedia in March or April of 2009. Wikileaker posted from an IP address some nasty citations about Majorly. It's hard to believe any active user would do this and expect not to get checkusered and busted, but who knows, maybe he was away from home and unlinkable to his usual wiki identity. Pretty much, the same guy who had access to the Arbcom-L list did post to Majorly's talk page while not logged in, and boasted about it at WR, and since that did happen, one must accept that whoever did it took the risk of getting caught. There's also two diffs on Jimbo's talk page in February 2009 where Sam Korn posts snarky one-line comments in a thread about Kelly Martin's leaks of Arbcom-L. One day later (or earlier?) Wikileaker boasted about having archives on Wikipedia Review.

Deskana's claim that he lost Arbcom-L access in March 2009, not January 2009, casts reasonable doubt on this situation. However, one can say like this: Wikileaker said in early February 2009 that he had the list through 2/16/09 which hadn't happened yet. Commenters suspected a typo, which should have read 1/16/09. It's possible that Wikileaker had not been removed from the list but only updated his list as of 1/16/09, or may have removed himself voluntarily while Deskana waited to get kicked out.

I don't know if fishing out links and diffs will convince anyone here. I find that people on Wikipedia Review either don't read what I write, or don't react to the substance of what I write. I do maintain a "more likely than not" confidence that Wikileaker is Sam Korn. Whoever wrote what Wikileaker wrote, when he wrote it, had to know certain things and project a certain attitude, that only Sam Korn is likely to have done. It could be some long-time inactive arb like Filiocht or Flcelloguy but it seems far more likely that the culprit is someone who was involved with dramatic affairs on a daily basis, as Sam Korn was for an extended time.

Clarification: Sam Korn's last edit to Wikipedia was in late 2009. He hasn't touched Wikipedia in almost two years.

[tarantino]

Clarification: Sam Korn's last edit to Wikipedia was in late 2009. He hasn't touched Wikipedia in almost two years.

killerinthesun is a theology student at Cambridge (or perhaps he's recently graduated). Surely he wouldn't engage in such egregious behavior.

[Encyclopedist]

I'll just say this; Malice Aforethought seems to think that I have attempted to "out" him, as indicated by the header to the now defunct thread about my de-sysopping; even as an Admin on WP, I was not privy to such information, and never had access to higher permissions. Never CU, or anything else, and it was a difficult task for me even to manage run of the mill vandalism while trying to add some content in the early months of this year. So that's just bollocks, and I've called him on it- he can email me with the details, if he likes.

Wikileaker, OTOH, I can have little confidence in, unless and until he/she produces something novel that hasn't already been covered by existing revelations. A bandwaggon-jumper, unless the novelty threshold is met- and given the existing, tedious, turgid and boring revelations thus far, I think we should at least expect surprise, as opposed to bluff. So, I'm calling him out.

As regards who *is* the leaker, I cannot think it's old Arbs; posting here of material about my own desysopping in the early months of this year suggests someone with access to the current mailing list. In particular, there is no reason whatever why retired Arbs should take any interest whatsoever in my own case, shameful though it was.


OTOH, who really should give a flying fuck about Wikipedia? It's a well-intentioned, but ultimately amateur attempt to create an online encyclopedia. It's worst feature is that "anyone can edit it"; that's an irrational optimism that has demonstrably failed in so many ways, from simple vandalism, to POV-pushers, to those who use it for commercial promotion. This is not the purpose of an encyclopedia.

I reject it, as it currently is.

Cheers

[Shalom]

As regards who *is* the leaker, I cannot think it's old Arbs; posting here of material about my own desysopping in the early months of this year suggests someone with access to the current mailing list. In particular, there is no reason whatever why retired Arbs should take any interest whatsoever in my own case, shameful though it was.

I'll have to double-check this, but I don't think Wikileaker posted anything from this year. It's all from 2008 and maybe earlier. If I'm incorrect, could you please point a link to the evidence which proves Wikileaker had more recent access?

To Tarantino: looking at that face on Twitter, I do find it hard to believe that Sam Korn would have done this. He seemed like a stand-up guy on Wikipedia. But I can't find anyone else who is more likely linked, and as I said there are some weak links between Sam Korn on Wikipedia and Wikileaker on WR. I'm tempted to put more time into this but life is too short and I think I will give up.

[nableezy]

I'll have to double-check this, but I don't think Wikileaker posted anything from this year. It's all from 2008 and maybe earlier. If I'm incorrect, could you please point a link to the evidence which proves Wikileaker had more recent access?

To Tarantino: looking at that face on Twitter, I do find it hard to believe that Sam Korn would have done this. He seemed like a stand-up guy on Wikipedia. But I can't find anyone else who is more likely linked, and as I said there are some weak links between Sam Korn on Wikipedia and Wikileaker on WR. I'm tempted to put more time into this but life is too short and I think I will give up.

Why should anybody here care? All that matters here, as far as I am concerned, is if the leaked material is authentic. Every indication is that it is. Who the leaker, both of them, is does not affect that at all. Let ArbCom spend the time determining who did what. If you want to volunteer your time doing so I wont stop you, but it seems like a useless exercise.

[Shalom]

I'll have to double-check this, but I don't think Wikileaker posted anything from this year. It's all from 2008 and maybe earlier. If I'm incorrect, could you please point a link to the evidence which proves Wikileaker had more recent access?

To Tarantino: looking at that face on Twitter, I do find it hard to believe that Sam Korn would have done this. He seemed like a stand-up guy on Wikipedia. But I can't find anyone else who is more likely linked, and as I said there are some weak links between Sam Korn on Wikipedia and Wikileaker on WR. I'm tempted to put more time into this but life is too short and I think I will give up.

Why should anybody here care? All that matters here, as far as I am concerned, is if the leaked material is authentic. Every indication is that it is. Who the leaker, both of them, is does not affect that at all. Let ArbCom spend the time determining who did what. If you want to volunteer your time doing so I wont stop you, but it seems like a useless exercise.

If one can identify the leaker, one can prevent them from having continuing access from now and forward, and one can hold them accountable on Wikipedia: in this case, desysop.

Given Arbcom's delinquence in failing to desysop Good Olfactory and Od Mishehu, I suspect they would not desysop Sam Korn even if I would present strong evidence that Sam leaked the Arbcom-L mailing list. Still, I considered compiling the evidence I have in as clear a format as I can -- which would also require me to check something which could point to his innocence -- and at that point I punt and say it's not my problem.

What is your motivation in criticizing Wikipedia in general, if you're not willing to challenge unethical behavior when you see it? That's a reason to "out" Wikileaker or Malice if possible. Leaking these materials is unethical. Some of what happened behind the scenes was also unethical.

I have every reason to believe Wikileaker and Malice both have accurate archives. I've already been quoted in two separate emails (Poetlister and CAMERA) and both are accurate represenations, word for word, of what I wrote, when I wrote it, and to whom I wrote it.

[EricBarbour]

Given Arbcom's delinquence in failing to desysop Good Olfactory and Od Mishehu, I suspect they would not desysop Sam Korn even if I would present strong evidence that Sam leaked the Arbcom-L mailing list. Still, I considered compiling the evidence I have in as clear a format as I can -- which would also require me to check something which could point to his innocence -- and at that point I punt and say it's not my problem.

What is your motivation in criticizing Wikipedia in general, if you're not willing to challenge unethical behavior when you see it? That's a reason to "out" Wikileaker or Malice if possible. Leaking these materials is unethical. Some of what happened behind the scenes was also unethical.

Yeah, right. And yet it's "not your problem".

Identifying the leaker will just help to keep the Same Old Assholes in charge at WP. Because they are vengeful, and will make an example of any leakers.

Do you really want to do that?