http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reward_board









What should go up but would get you banned to put up:

Checkusering of Mantanmoreland and Samiharris for socking.

Banning of all Gary Weiss Socks

Removal of powers from certain administrators (e.g. you know who)

Banning of certain administrators (e.g. you know who)

In the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas the picture of the road sign "Welcome to Arkansas, home of Bill Clinton .... In accordance with Megan's Law the above is known as a sex offender" must remain featured largely in that article for over a month.

In Wikipedianish, "related to Wikipedia" means "related to Wikipedia AND we approve of your purpose AND we haven't decided that you're evil". So yeah, this wouldn't work.

It'd be funny, if someone's willing to try.

The writing of a new essay in project space, titled WP:FUCKOFF, in which notable Wikipedians who have told other editors to fuck off are quoted (JzG, David Gerard, etc.) and people who have fucked off are featured. People who should fuck off (but have not yet fucked off) could also be mentioned.

heh, I don't care much about the content, the most important thing is the shortcut (WP:FUCKOFF) and the first sentence needs to be something like:

Some editors on Wikipedia just need to fuck off.

The reward for this essay is a stylish and hip Wikia t-shirt that will let your friends know how much you support free culture. It is available in no legal threats lime, POV pusher pink, or no personal attacks purple.

Oh it's so tempting lolooloololol- not for the reward- though someone could put them on cafepress again- but just for the 'challenge'.

True story: the Reward Board spawned the Wikipedia article about Jimbo's failed Openserving project.

Since the publicity associated with that utter failure was embarrassing to Jimbo and friends, the article was quietly deleted after a number of months.

This is the Wikipedia way.

Greg

Its nice to know that history can be deleted like that. Very reassuring.

Interesting re-definition of reliable sources. A newspaper article is not a reliable source if it is based on a press notice.

One thing I have noted on Wikipedia is a complete failure to understand how the press works. The refusal to qualify the press as reliable sources in Verifiability fails to recognise that:

* There is often a single common source for numerous versions of press stories, be it press release or agency source, therefore multiple versions may not indicate any scrutiny. (Agencies may release stories that may not be edited by the subscribing newspaper for example).

* Newspapers will have an agenda, and therefore are likely to ignore stories that do not suit that agenda, or bias stories to suit that agenda.


* Newspapers do not have specialist knowledge and therefore the "many eyes of verification" may not be qualified to have an opinion. A further example would be the use of specialist terms without understanding the underlying implications of the term in the subject area.

* Newspapers often use a summary style which can make quoting them unhelpful. Extrapolation of detail from a summary is often a failing of Wikipedians looking to assert that their viewpoint is supported in the outside world.

* Modern publishing means that press stories may be more accessible on the Internet than the underlying credible sources. The Googlisation of "research" means that these sources outweigh higher quality articles, which may not be publicly available but may be the source on which the article relies.

* Newspapers have a range of content, including opinion pieces and magazine chatter, which are clearly not suitable reliable sources, nor would the paper itself claim they were.

* Press reporting may be very close to some notable event and report the situation before the details are properly understood, though the quality of the reporting would be considered reasonable considering the circumstances. Later, when the facts become known, the story is not notable and the corrections do not make the mainstream press. Googlisation of researching will bias towards the initial reporting.

There is an easy solution, put a qualification in Verifiability to explain the care that needs to be taken, neither ruling in nor ruling out newspapers as sources. At the moment, they are given the same blanket credibility as the main scientific journals. Why is there resistance to this obvious and important qualification?

You'd have to ask the people who wrote WP:RS and WP:V.

I think the answer was "How dare you change my policy page? That policy has served us well for many years without change. How am I supposed to keep up with policy if people keep changing it. Go away troll."

Yes, that would be it.

I think it's the other way round. There have recently been major changes in WP:RS.

No, what happened was that the change to qualify newspapers was reverted (with a comment along the lines of "The NYT is reliable for the purposes of Wikipedia"), and then Marskell was inspired to do a major rewrite because all that stuff in RS was in a guideline and it should have been in policy. Obviously Marskell is in the "They Know Best" group and can be trusted to make major changes without being challenged unlike the poor souls who point out all the pitfalls of th NOR pag and even though they debate changes for months and get agreement, get reverted with a "Discuss changes first".

Didn't someone add a lot of stuff about primary and secondary sources recently?

WP:NOR has been being updated under the watchful eye of Slum recently but it appears to be all deck chairs on the Titanic. There has been some rewording of the Primary sources section, it is still the unhelpful section which embodies the dangerous principle of perspective which Slum likes to use to discredit sources as "primary" by asserting that if an unhelpful source is referenced, it is the source itself that is being used, and therefore it is primary.

The dreadful wording of the synthesis example is still there which Slum holds is the embodiment of perfection of policy, impossible to improve upon.

Well I'll be damned Lamont, somebody took you up on it. So how much are you going to donate to the WMF lol.


Which one though? Just to be safe someone should remind both of them about the policy about on open proxies.

Haha! Well we're making progress. I still can't believe someone actually ran a checkuser though.

Oh and inconclusive due to open proxies...very interesting.

It's a good thing he isn't hated by Jayjg. If he were, whichever account uses open proxies would be hounded off Wikipedia.

Remember: the evidence against some of those banned with PL was that they'd used open proxies.

Merely using an open proxy isn't, by policy, a reason to be banned. Disruptive edits are. It's important to point that out when merely using open proxies is advanced as the sole block reason.

I do thank wordbomb for the inspiration as he already proved they use the same IPs. However, this diff http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=160230353 should have been proof enough without checkuser.

I am going to wait and if they don't delete the page, I will be donating.



Lar said in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req...Case/Samiharris ... "In fact, I carried out my own check in this matter, prior to Alison or Thatcher doing so, and found some things I didn't quite understand, so I asked Alison to take a look as well as asking Dmcdevit for input."

Well it looks like it's been done before, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=189495057
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=189495346

Palabrazo, the Brave Editor that Could who made the checkuser request was blocked by Slimvirgin minion Crum375 as a "Wordbomb sock" and unblocked by a saner admin a few hours later.

Alison has blocked all the open proxy IPs Weiss was using, so we can soon tell which account was using them by which one falls suddenly silent.

Alas, Neil was undone 4 hours later by Jpgordon supposedly after a checkuser that "proved" he was a Wordbomb sock.

Oh and well done on the tags Krimpet, Bravo!

Yeah, if Jpgordon is good at anything, it's getting checkusers done quickly. Here's a good example:
Greenstick Break posts one of the only comments challenging the madness of the BADSITES RfA at 5:07am (GMT).
Less than four minutes later, Jpgordon blocks. Soon afterward, he claims the block was checkuser confirmed.

It was me, alright. However I was using the network of a hotel in San Francisco at the time. Jpgordon lied when he said checkuser confirmed anything.

To prove my theory, I quickly created a new account using the same network, same cookies, etc, but used this one to post a comment in support of the BADSITES RfA.

That account remained untouched until I publicly claimed it on ASM two weeks later.

Jpgordon is corrupt and needs to have checkuser removed, because he doesn't use it when he should, and lies about using it when he doesn't.

The only problem with that argument is that they will nevah evah listen to a banned user.

Even one with a perfectly valid point.

I can also confirm that hotel IPs are found to "confirm" check-user sockpuppetry. If you press the issue, the blocking admin will backpedal and say, "Well if it wasn't the same IP range, then it was your contentious editing. Unblock denied."

Wikipedia is a joke.

Greg

Greg (or WordBomb), have you tried contacting a member of the Ombudsman Committee about your concerns over Jpgordon's misuse of checkuser and lying about his findings? (Relevant link - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_committee)

I have no idea if it would actually work or not, but I'd be interested in what their response was, if any.

Those personal matters didn't delay Guy from stepping in.

Why is it even people who agree with WordBomb have to insult him?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=189551692

Krimpet says "that nutter WordBomb"


http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=189536772

"If the devil tells you your [[Open fly|fly]] is opened, don't you zip up anyway?"

Excuse me? Not only am I a banned user, my ideas are also bannable for any user who utters them on Wikipedia. How would I even begin to contact the Ombudsman Committee about misuses of checkuser? I think I'll save my time for more productive things like banging my head against walls to test their durability, and growing my extensive dust bunny collection.

Appreciate your sense of justice, Error59, but honestly, if they ban an account of mine that's actually me, but lie about a CheckUser on the account when it would just be more truthful to say "espousing forbidden memes", I'm not going to open a court case about it. When they get me, they get me. I move on, and I leave behind a blocked IP address for future hotel guests to scratch their heads over.

Greg

My point exactly. The sockpuppet case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sus...puppets/Newport said

There is no checkuser evidence to link them to Newport. However, because they used open proxies, they must be sockpuppets of Newport. (Good logic, no?) And because they supported Newport they were disruptive sockpuppets. On the other hand, people who opposed Newport (even though they were undoubtedly sockpuppets) were OK.

Incidentally, after reading that I ran Tor from two different computers and there were 30 different proxies on one, 22 on the other and - gasp - exactly half a dozen in common.

Hello. I was banned merely for using Tor.

And currently Samiharris who over and over again on Wikipedia admins are stating he solely used proxies is currently not blocked.

Tor's likelihood of choosing an available exit node
from a list of choices is roughly proportional to
that exit nodes advertised bandwidth capacity.

In other words, high-bandwidth exit nodes are
likely to be used by a lot of people.

Also, since Tor chooses exit nodes randomly, it
doesn't mean much to say that two people used
the same one.

Send me the details and I'll look into it, if you like. Or not, as you wish. But without details there isn't much I can do.

I'd have PMed you but, of course, your PM is turned off or full.


Why is that?

Thanks, but no, on the grounds that I should not have
to appeal my bans (there are two - I was banned a
second time without the first ban ever being lifted)
just to get WP to oversight personal information
about me that has already been used to threaten me
with physical violence.

Really, stating that I am banned does not mean I
have a desire to be unbanned. I was merely pointing
out that I know from personal experience that the
statement you made is not true.



Because I'm depressed.

I would want to see more than just your assertion that editing from a proxy was the ONLY reason you were banned, though. If you don't want to share the details I may choose not to take your word for it. Which is fine, totally your prerogative, I'm just saying. Nor can I help get the information oversighted, if it still needs oversighting, without the details. (I don't myself have oversight on en:wp but I can make the case)

It was the only reason for the first of my two bans.
And I never actually edited, aside from a bit on my
talk page, between that and the second ban.

Basically, I had been editing via proxies my entire
time at WP, specifically though Tor only for months.
Then someone hardblocked pretty much all the
Tor nodes. So it was basically impossible to edit
via Tor, unless you had a permission called
ipblock-exempt. However, ipblock-exempt was
only available with adminship. So I wrote a very
simply patch to make it available separately. The
developers refused. So, in spite of the fact that I
am actually rather phobic about the idea of having
power, I ran an RfA. That was rejected, clearly
indicating that WP did not want me. All my appeals
having been rejected, I was essentially banned at
that point.

{{{AB}}}

{{{One}}}

Lar, can you check the CheckUser logs and see if jpgordon actually did run a CheckUser on User:Greenstick_Break ? If he didn't, and banned the user based on a false claim of CheckUser evidence then there's a problem. You might also want to look at jpgordon's block log, make a list of the users he banned on "Checkuser evidence" and see if there are more cases of jpgordon lying.

If he is banning people on hunches and claiming non-existent runs of CheckUser as justificatin then we have a case of systemic abuse of admin tools as well as a serious breach of trust based on his status as a CheckUser.

Actually someone raised this issue in #wikipedia-en-admins a couple weeks ago, and a couple CUs checked it out. Jpgordon did in fact run a checkuser, which didn't connect Greenstick Break to WordBomb, but rather established him as a reincarnation of [[User:Born at night but not last night]] who had also been blocked for edits to the RfAR. Neither Jpgordon nor anyone else claimed the two accounts were CU-connected to WordBomb, just that they were found to be sockpuppeting at RfAR (see e.g. the talk page); I don't think there was any intent to mislead here.