Are there any of you Wikipedians out there who have met the most secretive of the current arbs, Sam?

It's probable that he's using a pseudonym. Though he used to sign his emails "Sam Blacketer London E15", all the phone books and people directories I checked show no instances of that name anywhere in the UK. Additionally he is the only one out the 13 who does not have either the CU or oversight tools and has not verified his identity with the WMF. I thought there was a requirement that you must be at least 18 to be an arb. How has he proven this?

No, it seems that verification was not formalized before. FT2 brought this up in October, and the requirement was added in:
I guess Sam was just grandfathered in.

Incidentally, is this really important? I don't think there was a reason to out NYB, for example. On the other hand, I guess Sam is different because even the Foundation doesn't know. With his non-privileges he might be able to...learn something private on the Arb list, maybe.

I dunno. I'm just tired of outing.

FWIW, English phone books aren't a reliable source for proving the existence/nonexistence of people; under UK law anyone can opt out of the public versions of both the phone directory and the electoral roll (you have Geri Halliwell, of all people, to thank for setting the legal precedent for this), and between 30-50% of people take advantage of this; in addition, mobile phone and 3G web access costs are so cheap (comparatively) that a lot of people don't have a landline at all.

How is this outing? He signed his emails to the public wikien-l "Sam Blacketer London E15". E15 is the postcode district for Stratford.

I suspect most people assume it's his real name. If it's a pseudonym, as he sort of alludes to here, it should be made clear.


Don't you find it slightly intriguing that he shows up in Dec 2006, makes over a thousand edits in his first ten days, and a year later he's an elite member?

He has access to confidential information on the arbcom wiki and mailng list. He should be verified.

I don't think that http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Identification_noticeboard is an exhaustive list of people who've identified to the WMF. Take for example this user who it would seem has identified but is not listed on the ID noticeboard. Perhaps someone should ask Sam on his talkpage to clarify whether he has identified given that this is now a requirement for ArbCom candidates?

If he were some random steward, I would agree. But I don't think it's coincidence that he's the only one night identified and the only one without tools. FT2 was clearly talking about someone. I think tarantino has made a good conclusion here.

But, I guess someone can ask.

Tarantino: I don't assume people use their real names. "Blacketer" is a fairly uncommon name, and I think it is a pseudonym.

It does seem a little strange that in December 2006 he was completely new, and less than a year later he was an Arbitrator. I may have expected such a thing in 2003, but not 2007. Seems he pushed all the right buttons.

It is interesting how checkuser/oversight rights are handed out to Arbitrators. For example, Charles Matthews and Sam are the only ones without CheckUser, and FayssalF and Sam are the only ones without Oversight (I think). Surely if one has access to CheckUser, one should have access to oversight as well? Especially as an Arbitrator. Makes no sense.

And Sam Blacketer almost certainly is a pseudonym.

As mentioned in this thread here. the pseudonymous Sam Blacketer attacked Greg by name on wikien-l. Only Alex rightly called him on it.


So we have a UK Wikipedian, with what can be construed as a misleading identity, that is well-versed in the MMORPG and exhibits antipathy towards Greg. Why does this sound familiar?

There's no way to know if it's important until after it's done. If Newyorkbrad had turned out to be, say, a twenty-two year old fantasist in Nebraska who was falsely claiming to be a Manhattan litigation attorney, then it would have been important. I'd say that learning that he is exactly who he said he was was also important, in that it built confidence.

Likewise with Sam Blacketer. Suppose he turns out to be an agent of the British government? Or a international currency manipulator? Etc. Has anyone scrutinized his edits for a possible conflict of interest, and without knowing who he is, would we even know what to look for?

A failure to proactively vet candidates is what allows "Essjays" and "Poetlisters" to slip by. Assuming that there isn't a problem without having checked is bad management. Before we say, "How could we have let this happen again?" let's be clear: we are very actively letting it happen again when we attempt to pressure people like Tarantino out of investigating.

Truth is not the enemy.

Even if he identified himself to the Foundation, what good would that be? Remember, they certified Essjay - do you think they're going to tell us about whatever problems they find?

Cary Bass also certified MB's "Cato" sockpuppet:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/?diff=924059&diffonly=yes

I asked him about it, but Arbitrator FT2 blanked my question, to which Mr. Bass never responded.

The record suggests that trusting the Foundation to exercise due diligence is a mistake. Any credible vetting will have to come from us.

The record is unmistakably clear. Cary and Jimbo can be counted on to behave atrociously and to protect their admins who similarly behave atrociously. Woe to anyone who calls them on their appalling lack of ethics.

I revisited this a few days ago, and I've figured out who Sam is. If Jimmy and the voters had known what his older account was, he probably wouldn't be an arb today.

You played a great round of Wikipedia this time, Sam.

Care to reveal who you figured him to be?

The real Paul Sinclair? David Gerard? Some guy in London named Baxter?

Should we call a spade a spade?

Or am I way off base?

Good guesses all, but no.

I'll give Sam a chance to respond here or there. He seems to be mostly harmless now.

I'm tired of people using tax-deductible dollar funded website resources to say things like "I hope Greg Kohs is sick as a parrot", without themselves being identified publicly.

"Sick as a parrot" is a lighthearted sports cliche meaning pissed off, or disappointed. "I can't believe Ronaldo missed the goal with that shot, he must be sick as a parrot about it" etc. It might be lost in translation and I wouldn't take that phrase too seriously.

I'd be more annoyed that a prominent supporter of Wikipedia, where ethics are so low it has seen innocent people detained at airports, has described Wikipedia Review as having "no ethics".

You hit that one out of the park.

(for the non USians among us That's a sports cliche from US baseball and it means "extremely well done" or "remarkably apt")

I agree.

Heh. Of course due to aggressive cultural imperialism, complimented by a certain cultural insularity, corporate-enforced and general, the idiom ignorance tends to be uni-directional.

His name is one thing - people are always going to disagree on that here - but I think that if he previously had a different username notorious enough for someone to reasonably make a statement like "If Jimmy and the voters had known what his older account was, he probably wouldn't be an arb today.", it's worth knowing that.



We don't actually know he didn't identify himself as MB - none of the other ones were ever certified identified, so Cary wouldn't have necessarily been reasonably expected to see a problem.

Tarantino: It must have taken you at least an hour of research to track down Sam Blacketer's old userid.

What's the point of going to all that trouble if you won't spill the beans and start a massive drama? I'm curious as hell.

He's now identified. Not that that means much though.

it's kinda funny looking at that page. What kind of job is it to follow Cary Bass around and fix his edits? How long will it take before Cary Bass realizes how to add people and edit the page correctly?

Well I guess it's a small miracle that Cary Bass at least manages to put them in alphabetical order.

Anybody who's on Arbcom who hasn't publicly id'ed themselves is probably hiding something. Does anybody doubt that people are editing WP to push the POVs of outside entities?

That one or more these types has gotten elected to arbcom should be no surprise, especially when pseudos are the norm.

The solutions? Simple: requiring people in positions of trust to disclose identities and conflicts of interest. This isn't rocket science, folks.

I'll be very surprised if only one of the non-ided arbs has a hidden agenda....



If the WMF foundation thinks that saying "we know who this is" is going to solve this problem, they're hopelessly naïve...

Nearly impossible given that the data the guy keeps adding is a diff link that's only generated after Cary adds the name.

Er, you lost me. Thirteen? There are 16 current Arbs....

Uh...check the date

Oh, bah. Is it really so hard to start a new topic? When these things span months and have long gaps, I always get confused. Thanks for the clarification.

I've complained about the inability to generate this sort of link at edit time before.

I know, which is why I said add and edit.... but still the guy has his little helpers following him around. Teach a guy to fish and all that....



There are some things a wiki is not suited for and this may be one of them.

You can add "interested in Wikiquote" to this list if the old account as what I think.

Resignation

So I was right:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User:Fys

Probably called David, likely works for Westminster City Council went to St Catharine's College, Cambridge in the early 90's.

Wonder if anyone is concerned that Sam, er... Dave, er... Soul Man is an admin despite being previously desysopped by arbcom in August 2006.

Is this Sam?

Seems to be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=73364587

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=73019657

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...age=User%3ADbiv

Edit:corrected duplicated url

Entries like this become confusing when a user is renamed. The subject of the above sentence is stored as a number (his user id 55217) but the direct object is stored as text (log_title == "Dbiv" && log_namespace == "2"). This is the name of the target page/user at the time the action was taken.

One part of the data reflects the name change, as viewing the log looks up the new name based on the user_id number which remains the same, but old data is used for second part.

In effect it becomes less obvious that he unblocked himself, which is usually considered the highest form of admin abuse. This is inherently more serious than whatever was done to warrant the block, whether it was justified or not.

Okay, so... Someone, possibly Mr. Boothroyd himself, created the article on him as an AnonIP, and two weeks later, User:Fys - i.e., Boothroyd - tried to have it deleted, and the attempt failed. The original talk page for the article was deleted in April 2007, presumably because it compromised either Fys (T-C-L-K-R-D) or David Boothroyd (T-C-L-K-R-D) ... or both.

There's almost no way this guy should be "notable" enough for an article, even by Wikipedia's ridiculously low standards. I think we can assume that he'll start a new WP user account and try again as an editor/admin/whatever, for whatever purpose(s), but... do we know if he still wants the BLP article deleted? Has he said anything recently, one way or another?

Good work, tarantino.

There's an Indian saying along the lines of "You'll recognize the truth because it's unpleasent".

This affair shows how skilled and motivated people can and do manipulate and game Wikipedia's systems of checks and balances. If I ever have a year to waste, I think I'll go for Arbcom membership myself. It'd be like playing World of Warcraft, only better, because my success would have real-world consequences.

After a two year hiatus, the answer is: Yes

Speedy deleted by Jehochman, yet it didn't meet the speedy criteria. Now I wonder why it got this special treatment?

Archived

Is that first link a typo, or has the revision been vanished?

The page was deleted, so a diff based link like that will no longer work. I don't know what you mean by "vanished", but I don't think that would qualify as vanishing.

The article has just been deleted.

Yes lucky old David Boothroyd AKA as Wikipedia User Sam Blacketer, User Fys, User Dbiv and User David Boothroyd, was having his privacy protected by his chums.

Now if only other marginal BLP's could be so well cared for.

Yep, it was just a link to the DB account editing the DB article and referring to itself as the subject in the edit summary.

They sort of are: BLPs can be deleted if the subjects ask for the dramatic force of the site on them. The problem is that they have to raise their profile to do this. It would be better if these were routine. We'll be lucky if no one DRVs this biography.