Long story short.

Someone made an account called "Will M. McWhiney".

This account made five edits. Two to post the following message (now oversighted, good thing I saved it!)


on WT:BLP, and Will Beback's talk page.

One was to create a short userpage. One was to create its talk page, with the words "Ban me Cabalites, I'm a vile stalker". One, this one after being blocked, was to add a "sock of someone the Cabal dislikes" tag to its talk page.

Now, the account, and all trace of it, is gone, oversighted, except for this edit summary by Atama. (EDIT: Damn, oversighted again)

Hm.

Yep - I just did that. First oversight response I've done in months, as it happens. Dem's the rules, as you largely pointed out in one of your edit summaries I also blocked the open proxy you used. Had you not used RL names, the edits would likely have stuck around. But you know all this already ....

Of course I know all this already. If I hadn't been curious how long the edits would last before they went down the memory hole, I wouldn't have included Will Beback's RL name.

Now lets see if the account is immediately branded as a confirmed sock of Hersch.

So far, nothing.

If you wanna criticize Will, don't do it there. Do it here.

(Or better yet, write an article about this kind of abuse. Send it to me.)

I think this is a mistake. Will is under unprecedented scrutiny right now, and even though the ArbCom is likely to punt and say, "no one told us what this case is really about," I think there is a good chance that Will will be otherwise reigned in by the "community."

Let's consider his options. He lacks the pseudo-humility required to employ the "Be certain with Cirts" defense, which goes like this: "Gosh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend anyone with my brazen POV-pushing. Now I've reformed. Oops, I did it again!"

He is leaning in the direction of a defense which argues "shitting on BLPs is an inalienable right of all Wikipedians, and policy must never be interpreted otherwise." This approach would seem like a losing strategy at first blush, but surprisingly, there is support for it in the "community," as demonstrated by the "evidence" of Count Iblis.

Will is more likely to rely upon a favorite tactic, which is, "never mind that I'm violating all the policies. My accusers possess an incorrect POV!" He has already set this one in motion, with the aid of Jehochman. But to Will's consternation, ResidentAnthropologist is taking aim at this tactic.

In the final analysis, Will's best shot at exoneration will be "I have spent ungodly numbers of hours performing drone work and butt-snorkeling to claw my way up into the hierarchy, and my accusers are simply ungrateful trolls who begrudge me the privileges that come with all this status. Don't punish success!" This defense is likely to resonate with many established WPers, so I think that conducting "experiments" of the sort described in this thread is highly counterproductive.