Observer
Mon 13th March 2006, 3:14am
Has anyone ever thought of the idea of admins selling their accounts on Ebay? I wonder what those would go for. I mean, there are also various online games where accounts or in-game "property" are sold for real money. Maybe some people could professionally build up accounts to adminship just to sell them...
Olivier Besancenot
Mon 13th March 2006, 4:03am
QUOTE(Observer @ Sun 12th March 2006, 10:14pm)

Has anyone ever thought of the idea of admins selling their accounts on Ebay? I wonder what those would go for. I mean, there are also various online games where accounts or in-game "property" are sold for real money. Maybe some people could professionally build up accounts to adminship just to sell them...
I have been doing this. I have an account, on an IP range other than my normal one, where I am working towards admin. For me the whole key is to do this in as little time and effort as possible. Once this account becomes an admin, I will switch to another IP range and start working for an adminship there. When I am halfway to all the way there with the second account, I will start using my first admin account to correct the right-leaning bias of Wikipedia.
One thing we can discuss is how to become an admin as soon as possible. I tried doing this a year ago and it was hard, but find it is easier nowadays. A lot of the tools are there now that didn't used to be, from reverting vandalism, to things tagged with cleanup tags, to whatever. The key to me is, how many edits can I make in an hour where people say what I'm doing is a useful edit? Of course, if you're adding a few paragraphs to an article, make sure to do it in more than one edit, that's common sense. I just work to get to that 1000 edit threshold.
Obviously, I don't get into the kind of fights I do with my real account which I use from my normal IP range. I do everything I can to avoid fights, at all costs.
Also remember people like to see people in different spaces. So aside from article space I do AFDs, leave notes in user talk and talk, and other places as well.
While I'm getting good at doing a lot of quick edits fast, I also feel I should have some gravitas as well. So right now I am focusing on an area or two I want filled out on Wikipedia, which are pretty sparse anyhow, so I won't be raising too much conflict. A lot of the data is just facts, names etc. I just want to seem like I do more than just wiki-fairy stuff. When people ask what I edit, I'll talk about what I'm interested in, but it's the other stuff that will get me up to over 1000 edits.
Just read what people say in RFA, that's a good guide. You know - working in different areas of Wikipedia so it's obvious you're familiar with the rules, leaving edit summaries, that type of thing. Some people want to see a conflict mediated. Luckily, that's not always necessary. If it is, tread lightly, it is important not to get into fights.
Any advice from others on becoming an admin, quickly, with minimal effort? I'm gunning not for one, but several admin accounts. Perhaps we can collaborate, meaning maybe we can have two or three people working on an account 24/7 on the road to adminship. Once we have a few, we can go to work on what we want to do. If we have a lot of these admin-road accounts, we can even hold off on one or two of them, letting them go deep undercover - maybe they can even get on ArbCom or something. We'd have to have some kind of IRC ass-kissing bot for that though.
blissyu2
Mon 13th March 2006, 8:23am
Very good tips. I agree and I think that there is a strategy towards becoming an admin. Two key points are to participate in Articles for Deletion and Request for Adminship fairly regularly. When you do this, you should err on the side of deletion and support votes respectively, but generally go with what others say. What you say in these 2 environments will do much more towards you becoming an admin than any other single thing that you might do.
You should generally try to steer clear of too much dialogue. Edit summaries are good, and writing to someone on their talk page to say thank yous and positive things are good. But if you get to deeply discussing policies on talk pages or policy pages or user talk pages, then your chances of becoming admin quickly are getting shorter, because some people will perceive such things as "conflict". Its still possible to become admin when doing this, but its a lot harder. You then either have to vigorously tow the party line, i.e. just become an automaton with everything by the book, or else you have to get support from people in power. Of course, you can go the long way around and keep going with it, and you will eventually get there.
I would have been interested if I'd accepted the nomination for adminship back in November last year. I would have guessed that I would have got about 50/50 in votes, or maybe slightly over - i.e. not enough to get in. But had I wanted to become admin, I wouldn't have made all of those "controversial" sub pages, nor would I have gone out of my way to help people out. Such things get people to think that you aren't worthy. Whilst the majority will think that you're good enough, it displays too much independent thought.
So the key overall is to act like a robot, like one of the crowd, just doing what everyone else is doing. Make initiatives, or at least pretend to, but always just do them in the expected directions.
You could probably almost write a computer program, a bot, to get towards adminship.
For a real human being to do it, well, psychologically it'd be difficult.
Selina
Mon 13th March 2006, 8:57am
tinker tailor actress spy
ownage
Wed 15th March 2006, 9:17am
Selina
Wed 15th March 2006, 10:02am
Note they don't dare actually make a link for fear of being banned.. lol
blissyu2
Wed 15th March 2006, 12:06pm
I added a link for them.
Want to bet someone will delete the link as "vandalism" or perhaps "spam". LOL.
thebainer
Wed 15th March 2006, 12:29pm
It's really very easy to desysop someone. A bureaucrat or steward just goes to a special page and turns off the sysop flag for the user. Any accounts that are being sold or traded anywhere will simply be desysopped.
Selina
Wed 15th March 2006, 1:27pm
Solution: Do it secretively
blissyu2
Wed 15th March 2006, 3:02pm
How would you know?
Selina
Thu 16th March 2006, 9:38am

It's obvious, if they don't know it's been sold, they can't "terminate" it.
blissyu2
Thu 16th March 2006, 10:08am
I would be surprised if they could "know". Sure, IP addresses might give it away, but you could just say that you changed ISPs, or moved. Put simply, it would be equally as difficult as trying to figure out if someone was editing Wikipedia for money. In other words, sometimes with stupid people it'd be blatantly obvious, other times we could guess, but ultimately with those that know what they are doing, they'd never know.
Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters, a blatantly obvious person editing for money, is yet to be banned. So what makes them think that they could catch someone with a traded admin account? LOL.
Hell, why not see if we can get our own admin accounts ourselves? If and when I get sick and tired of this ISP, I might do it. I bet I could become admin real easy. But why would I want to be an admin? Reality is that I wouldn't want to. So I could sell it. But why sell it somewhere as obvious as E-bay? You'd do it somewhat more secretly. Would people pay? You bet your arse they would.
Blu Aardvark
Fri 17th March 2006, 6:18am
Aw....
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=44094094What is she so concerned about? That a search engine might follow the link, and toss Wikipedia Review up to, say, page 35 on a search for "Wikipedia" instead of, say, page 36? I'd personally think that she'd be more bothered by requiring a person to copy+paste the link in their browser, and hence have this horrible, libelous, defamatory webforum stored in their autocomplete.
blissyu2
Fri 17th March 2006, 7:57am
QUOTE(Blu Aardvark @ Fri 17th March 2006, 3:48pm)

Aw....
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=44094094What is she so concerned about? That a search engine might follow the link, and toss Wikipedia Review up to, say, page 35 on a search for "Wikipedia" instead of, say, page 36? I'd personally think that she'd be more bothered by requiring a person to copy+paste the link in their browser, and hence have this horrible, libelous, defamatory webforum stored in their autocomplete.
Well, at least this time she just nowikied it. She could have gone full on with the censoring, and deleted it, then deleted it from history, all with a (m) for minor edit. That's the ultimate way to censor...
thebainer
Sat 18th March 2006, 9:47am
Actually, how much would someone here be prepared to pay for an admin account? Making and selling admin accounts could be quite a good little earner.
blissyu2
Sat 18th March 2006, 12:52pm
Hmm. I don't know. I would think at least US $50, but it might be upwards of that. Perhaps US $250? I mean, it'd take a while to make one, and then you'd have to do it in such a way that it was going to avoid getting found out by Wikipedia admins etc. I mean, who would buy one if you were just going to be de-adminned the next day? So yeah, US $250 I would think would be a fair price.
Lir
Sat 18th March 2006, 6:11pm
I bought a dozen.
ownage
Sun 19th March 2006, 12:48am
I bet the US congressman would pay high price($500) for a few premium admin accounts.
blissyu2
Sun 19th March 2006, 2:56am
Yes, and they could afford it too.
And what about a cabal membership? Ooh, that'd be priceless.
I bet you that Slim Virgin could sell hers for a couple of thousand. Maybe sell it to President George W. Bush himself. I bet you he'd love to have the power to change history, especially if he's an admin, and one who is "above reproach". And with Slim Virgin being so mysterious anyway, there's no guarantee that anyone would know.
Actually, let's even go beyond that. NSA would have the power to hack her account, or force it to go to him, wouldn't they? They could force Jimbo to let it go. I'm not sure of the technicalities, but there's a good chance they could.
Anyone want some history rewritten to make you look like the good guy?
Golbez
Thu 23rd March 2006, 2:06am
Admins that "go rogue" are usually noticed. Note Aevar's rampage of deleting his own images that got him de-opped and he has yet to regain adminship.
So if an admin's behavior suddenly changes, combined with a CheckUser and such, it could be easily concluded that either the admin is no longer the person he used to be, or in the very least, has gone insane.
blissyu2
Thu 23rd March 2006, 6:45am
No, no, what I am saying is admins who already are "rogue", but are given permission to do it.
For example, if say Sjakelle sold his account and started acting like a tool. We'd notice this. But someone who is already abusive, like for example Slim Virgin, you wouldn't notice. Because the behaviour wouldn't change. If you like, you could just say "Hey, this is how I behave, just copy this". And there you go.
So you could have, for example, George W. Bush using Slim Virgin's account running around trying to make himself look perfect, and so forth. And Slim Virgin - whoever she really is - can go home with a cool quarter million - or whatever she charged for it.
I would think that the most valuable accounts are those which are already used for corruption, but we know can get away with it.
Kelly Martin, Snowspinner, Raul654 - all of these would be invaluable. Heck, even David Gerard would be pretty handy, since he's highish level and gets to act like a total idiot all the time. Easy to play that role.
Indeed, we could probably go through and put prices on different people's accounts.
Also, people who are too high up couldn't really sell their accounts. Angela Beesley for example couldn't since she has face-to-face contact, and phone calls etc with others on the board, so would be detected. It'd be utterly useless.
But even if you sold a newbie admin's account, it'd still give you a bit of time to abuse things before you'd get caught out. A lot of admins, as soon as they get promoted, start acting strangely. Its almost normal, and wouldn't raise too many eyebrows. People would just assume that its a higher level of responsibility and things change. Perfect time to sell your account. And also a lot of people wouldn't have met them before they became admin.
Golbez
Thu 23rd March 2006, 3:03pm
That's a good idea.
$250,000 or best offer. C'mon, I got bills to pay. You think I'm kidding? I'm kinda corrupt! I block people on first offense! I protect talk pages! This is a golden opportunity!
thebainer
Thu 23rd March 2006, 3:28pm
QUOTE(Hushthis @ Thu 23rd March 2006, 12:28pm)

It would only take a little time with the right privilages to download large logs detailing the IP history of otherwise discrete users. Access to click-through logs might also be a valuable commodity.
Actually it would take a hell of a lot of time, since the logs are many gigabytes in size. And logs for click throughs, page views etc haven't been kept for years because machines would actually hang while waiting to write to the logs, they were so large.
QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Thu 23rd March 2006, 5:45pm)

Indeed, we could probably go through and put prices on different people's accounts.
So how much would my account be worth?
QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Thu 23rd March 2006, 5:45pm)

Also, people who are too high up couldn't really sell their accounts. Angela Beesley for example couldn't since she has face-to-face contact, and phone calls etc with others on the board, so would be detected. It'd be utterly useless.
Even a mid-level user has an email address, IRC nick etc associated with their WP account. You'd have to buy those too.
guy
Thu 23rd March 2006, 3:47pm
QUOTE(thebainer @ Thu 23rd March 2006, 3:28pm)

Even a mid-level user has an email address, IRC nick etc associated with their WP account. You'd have to buy those too.
Surely it's easy enough to change the e-mail associated with an account. I know users who have done it when they got Gmail accounts (show-offs).
Golbez
Thu 23rd March 2006, 5:33pm
$100,000! One-time deal!
Lir
Fri 24th March 2006, 7:58am
An admin account requires ~1'000 edits, and if you figure each edit takes about one minute -- then, you are looking at 16 hours of work, so I would expect $100 to be the bottom rate for the lowest quality admin account. And, of course, there is the fact that someone could sell you the account, and then immediately tell the cabal, and keep the money; that said, I'm a known troll, and thus wouldn't tell the cabal anything -- so, for $150, I'll sell anyone who wants one, an admin account -- please note that there is a 6 month delay between placing an order, and receipt of the finished product.
Just imagine, for $3000, you could purchase yourself 20 admins, and go to town on VfD and other polls.
Golbez
Fri 24th March 2006, 8:24am
Dudes, seriously. I need cash. $50 grand, this is a once in a lifetime deal.
You think I'm joking.
ownage
Fri 24th March 2006, 8:31am
martin.meehan@mail.house.gov
I'm sure you two can negotiate a good price.
blissyu2
Fri 24th March 2006, 9:02am
Well, I would think that the best ones are the ones that are corrupt but get away with it.
Number 1: Slim Virgin - because she is so secretive, hence making it so easy to change over with no questions asked.
Number 2: Snowspinner - because he gets away with just so much. Unfortunately, to play the part you'd have to start acting like him, and it could be tough to do.
Number 3: David Gerard - because he is batfink insane, and it would be easy as pie to pretend to be him. He doesn't have as much power as the other two above, but he still has enough, and has done enough corrupt acts without anything being done to be worth something.
Now, as for the price, it'd depend on who was paying. The average person on the street would pay maybe $500 tops. But of course the US President or secret service agents would pay a lot more. So if you advertised to the secret service - CIA, FBI, whoever - then that's where the big bucks would come from. The US President himself would be unlikely to do it. He wouldn't be smart enough to get away with it for one thing, but secondly he'd want a fall guy in case they get caught out.
As for others, well, Kelly Martin and Ambi are just too public so it'd be next to impossible to impersonate them.
So the next ones to go for would be newbie admins. People who just got voted in on their Request for Adminship. Because in those situations people don't know them very well.
So you pass the RfA, then you give the account over and when people ask for your e-mail address etc, then the person who has your account now just gives those ones. Simple to do. And if you've followed the normal path to adminship - i.e. you haven't done anything much - then nobody knows you anyway, hence there is no personality to impersonate.
As for Golbez and Thebainer - I don't think you could sell yours now, since you're too well established and it'd be impossible to impersonate. You also aren't members of the cabal so it'd be pretty useless in that respect.
Golbez
Fri 24th March 2006, 3:46pm
QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Fri 24th March 2006, 4:02am)

As for Golbez and Thebainer - I don't think you could sell yours now, since you're too well established and it'd be impossible to impersonate. You also aren't members of the cabal so it'd be pretty useless in that respect.
I can be! I'll go corrupt!
How does one join the cabal, anyway? I feel so left out.
blissyu2
Fri 24th March 2006, 3:51pm
Well, I don't know how you join it. Become friends with people already in it I suppose. But we only know that you're in it when you do a lot of Snowspinner-esque moves and get away with it in true Snowspinner style. i.e. act like a corrupt bastard and other admins praise you for it.
Selina
Fri 24th March 2006, 7:37pm
You've attracted attention on the Wiki-en mailing list...
http://www.nabble.com/Few-questions...-t1270775.html (easier-to-read-version with all the posts on subject on one page of
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien...rch/041742.html )
See also, WikiEN-I Archives:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/
Lir
Fri 24th March 2006, 9:11pm
QUOTE(Selina @ Fri 24th March 2006, 1:37pm)

http://www.nabble.com/Few-questions...-t1270775.html (easier-to-read-version with all the posts on subject on one page
Thats funny, that page looks kinda like a message board; I wonder why they are so stubborn, and refuse to just create an actual functional board.
Selina
Fri 24th March 2006, 10:03pm
http://nabble.com/English-Wikipedia-f14021.htmlYeah, it does.. ~Shrug~ I think it's just an automatic archive though. It's in a much better format than the mailing list.
I think it's pretty clear though, Wikimedia/Wikipedia don't want to make it too easy to read their decision-making without a lot of clicking
Lir
Fri 24th March 2006, 10:24pm
QUOTE(Selina @ Fri 24th March 2006, 4:03pm)

I think it's pretty clear though, Wikimedia/Wikipedia don't want to make it too easy to read their decision-making without a lot of clicking

Indeed, Arbcom discussions aren't held in secret, in order to protect privacy -- they are done that way, to make it difficult to defend against phantom allegations, and to make it impossible to appeal a case, by arguing that that the arbcom's decision was based on a fundamentally flawed premise. They know that the less information they provide to the public, the harder it is to 'prove' that the cabal is incompetent and destructive towards Wikipedia.
blissyu2
Sat 25th March 2006, 4:21am
Looking at what they actually wrote, they had about 3 replies talking about it briefly, then got distracted and talked about something totally different.
gerard
Sat 25th March 2006, 9:02am
What a loser NSLE is. Wasting time in spreading this thread to the maillist. I say we ban him for his stupid behaviour.
ownage
Sat 25th March 2006, 10:00am
NSLE is another 17 year old wikipedia admin
blissyu2
Sat 25th March 2006, 10:30am
I think that we should try this out. Maybe a Wikipedia loyalist could too. See if they can do it. Whether we succeed or not (or they succeed and then shout "ha ha got you") its an exercise, both in exposing the holes and also in helping Wikipedia to improve the way that they do things.
How often have we seen admins who seem like good users then suddenly, as soon as they get to adminship, become abusive bastards? Seems to happen more often than not.
Yet it is quite rare for someone who is abusive to get to adminship in the first place. Sure, Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters and Antaeus Feldspar, who are firmly entrenched in the cabal, would make it. But what about Malber or Grace Note? Neither of them would have any chance of getting in to adminship.
This suggests that this idea would work.
Lir
Sat 25th March 2006, 5:14pm
QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 25th March 2006, 4:19am)

Maybe a religion?
Its an 'intellectual cult' -- kinda like what formed up around Freud.
QUOTE(Hushthis @ Sat 25th March 2006, 4:19am)

"The good guys have Jimbo, The Board, The developers and >500 admins"???
20 dedicated troll admins might not destroy the site, but it'd sure give them a headache; especially if the troll admins' first action, was to speedy create another 20 troll admins.
blissyu2
Sun 26th March 2006, 1:59am
Given a choice between a handful of vandals (who could be stopped easily with code if they wanted to) and abusive admins or stupid rules, which is more likely to destroy the site?
To be quite frank, regular level users can't destroy the site. Short of law suits and major hacking which takes over the site, they can't do a thing. Wikipedia is big enough now that major hacking isn't going to really do much damage, and if law suits come in to it, then it's because Wikipedia hasn't done their homework.
So the biggest threat to Wikipedia is itself. Stupid rules and bad admins in there. That's the danger. And that's what they should be worrying about. People like Snowspinner and Slim Virgin are a much greater threat to Wikipedia than someone like say Willy on Wheels.
Sgrayban
Tue 30th May 2006, 6:14pm
QUOTE(blissyu2 @ Wed 15th March 2006, 5:06am)

I added a link for them.
Want to bet someone will delete the link as "vandalism" or perhaps "spam". LOL.
Quick check shows its still there
Deskana
Wed 31st May 2006, 7:39pm
Practically all admin actions can be undone. How exactly do you plan on keeping a low profile while trying to destroy Wikipedia? Sounds like an awful plan to me. Aside from the morality of it, that is.
Deskana
Thu 1st June 2006, 10:40pm
QUOTE(Lir @ Sat 25th March 2006, 6:14pm)

20 dedicated troll admins might not destroy the site, but it'd sure give them a headache; especially if the troll admins' first action, was to speedy create another 20 troll admins.
Surely you're not proposing these accounts you're planning on making could get promoted to bcrat status? That'd just never happen. I think you might have a bit too much faith in a dodgy plan.
Donny
Fri 2nd June 2006, 1:59am
QUOTE(Deskana @ Thu 1st June 2006, 4:39am)

Practically all admin actions can be undone. How exactly do you plan on keeping a low profile while trying to destroy Wikipedia? Sounds like an awful plan to me. Aside from the morality of it, that is.
Maybe he'll copy the actions of someone like SlimVirgin and try and drive other contributors off. After all that was the tactic of Jaygg and SlimVirgin; quote rules and regulations and insult contributors until they get more and more pissed off and then go on to actually break rules, then block them. That's one of Antaeus Feldspar's tactics too.
A truly fiendish person with an admin account might do a kamikaze attack, such as using a script to rapidly block and keep blocked all 900 other admins, then go on an image deletion spree, for example. I expect a destruction spree could be maintained for thirty minutes if one chose a time of day when the Wikipedia servers weren't actively staffed. I understand that image deletion is irreversible, no? Other possibilities for serious disruption include uploading huge numbers of gibberish files, etc.
I don't have any opinion on the morality of it, as it happens. Wikipedia admins regularly destroy contributions and insult contributors. How would the above be any different?
Deskana
Fri 2nd June 2006, 10:40am
I'm not going to bother arguing. I've found that people that want to hate Wikipedia and everything about it can't be made to reconsider.
Donny
Fri 2nd June 2006, 12:28pm
QUOTE(Deskana @ Fri 2nd June 2006, 7:40pm)

I'm not going to bother arguing. I've found that people that want to hate Wikipedia and everything about it can't be made to reconsider.
That you've found that out after only seven posts tends to make me think you'd decided that before you came here.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please
click here.