For those of you who weren't paying attention, a discussion from a month or so ago raised the idea of a society of cooperating editors, running Wikipedia accounts and quietly collaborating behind the scenes. I have been busy implementing (well, coordinating) the creation of this network, and wanted to drop by and give a brief update.

To refresh the idea, the society is composed of (currently) about 20 editors who communicate through a series of private, anonymous gmail-based mailing lists. Each member runs one or more accounts (we have decided not to use the term "sockpuppet"), and have agreed to come to the aid of other members when confronting cabal actions, WP:OWNership of articles, and similar mis-use of Wikipedia.

So far, we have limited each sub-mailing-list to five participants, as more editors than that showing up to an article would raise suspicions. We've also successfully traded accounts between members in a virtually zero-knowledge way, by handing off the login/password through a trusted intermediary.

We are currently discussing whether to start tag-teaming RFAs, supporting likely "good" admins (are there any?) and opposing bad ones, but we have not yet implemented this, other than small tests. We also are about to start entering policy pages, though there is not broad agreement on which pages to target.

Clearly I cannot list the pages here that we have successfully modified through this method, or we would court exposure, but we are in a good early phase, building the reputations of our members' accounts and preparing for the time when we can focus all of our resources on dethroning some of the worst members of the cabal. Consensus seems to be that Guy Chapman will be the easiest to remove, as we can divide into two teams: one to provoke him and another to stand by and hector him for his (inevitably overreaching) reactions.

One thing we don't have yet is an admin member, so I will say this -- if you are a Wikipedia admin and would like to join, please let me know. Otherwise, for the time being we are not accepting new members, but it is likely that we will form some entirely separate cells before too long.

Remember: don't communicate with me (or anyone!) from you main email. Create a throw-away account on gmail and use it exclusively for this purpose.

Happy hacking!
Bruce

Hello. The thing that made no damn sense about your original proposal was the account trading bit. That only ensures that when one of you is CU'd, which will happen, that they can trace the addresses through the whole network because you've traded one account to another.

I suggest you reconsider.

Also, it seems to me that 20 (if you really have 20) is more than you need. If one user disagrees with the position that the rest of you take on policy, they could blow the whole thing.

Oh, and when your purported network does crumble, which it probably will, you will only cast doubt over good users who agreed with you. Likely, there will be collateral damage blocks as with Poetlister--the hierarchy loaths to admit to a mistake.

You are mistaken. The checkuser records only persist for a certain length of time (6-8 weeks). If an account is left fallow for that period, then all record of the IPs of its edits is lost, except for the IP which first created the account. We also have a proxy solution, which I won't say more about.

Part of the critical function of the underlying database that runs this system is to ensure that an account doesn't get re-used too soon.

Admittedly, this means that account trading is a very slow process, but it does allow us to do so. The CU data horizon can be ignored during tame "reputation building" periods as well, as the likelihood of a CU during that period is small.

Also, you don't understand the system. The group of 20 editors is organized into cells (of about 5), with limited visibility of each other. This, plus the above, protects everyone.

So you'll play durty..., the end justifies the means sort of way.

You will succeed more getting the message accross if you fail, after some success of course. Your failure will show its existance, and show how the system allow such things.

But like One said, this will probably hurt the better editors who will support your guys. I am skeptical about all this, but more I view Wikipedia as a social disease more I think more aggressive stuff should be tried. But the press or other popular media's are the better alternative to expose the project. Having the wrongs in the press and working in sites about Wikipedia like this one will have more impact than what you're doing.

Um, won't an account that only edits every other 90 days look pretty suspicious?

Sounds like a honeypot

Now any attempt to have Guy desysopped will be met with the (apparently true) response that he is being maliciously trolled and baited by a group of people bent on his destruction.

Well done.

It wasn't already?

And now we apparently know that it's true.

I refrained from the "WR Attacks!" meme in my response to the RfC, because I don't subscribe to the "WR = root of all evil" mentality, and because I think there are sincere concerns with the way Guy was carrying on... but the line between "RfC because he needs to change" and "RfC because we want to kneecap Guy" was always blurry.

Well it was never the intention of the people putting together that RfC to be a giant attacks, but ammasing that amount of evidence may always look that way to some. The problems is that the evidence could be ammased with relative ease - obviously painting Guy in a very very bad light. However he does seem to have taken note of it - at least to some extent. Whether that change sticks is just a matter of wait and see - i'm hopeful, but not over optimistic. I still dislike him, he continually lies about people and situations he is in a dispute with, meaning half the time of the dispute is often correcting those. However as long as this improvement continues I don't see the need at this point to continue DR.

Perhaps the change has been brought about because of the realisation that 1. an arb called for him to be desyopped if that continued - that has to carry some weight, and 2. he probobly isnt silly enough to convince himself that he would leave an abrcom case in which that amount of evidence was presented with tools intact.

It might be worth pointing out to you that "Bruce Reynolds" != Wikipedia Review, a property that is commutative.

Wikipedia Review does not condone every -- indeed any -- scheme plotted on these pages. If Wikipedia's processes truly are open to manipulation in this way, you should be thanking the Review for pointing it out, rather than pillorying us.

Yes, and one might also be tempted to point out that the corollary JZG does not equal Wikipeida and that Jzg's banning would not have any effect on WP at all are probably both valid statements.

One might also be tempted to point out that articles about FCYTravis on ED and Wikitruth do not affect the judgements of intelligent people, in spite of how well documented they happen to appear to be.

How come nobody invited me to the party and how come they're not accepting new members?

That said, I subscribe to Groucho Marx's idea that one should never accept to be a member of a club that would accept same to be a member.

This falls into the category of "true, but not useful". JzG is a powerful and (it would seem) unrestrained admin on WP, the comparison with the average WR poster is not an equal one.
Untrue! Far fewer people would be told to "f*&K off" or be compared to various parts of the human anatomy.

I'm not pillorying WR. I'm pointing out that such talk makes it extremely difficult to separate legitimate complaints from targeted trolling, and makes it quite easy to dismiss the former as the latter.

All the more reason for a Truth and Reconciliation Process.

And this is a major flaw of Wikipedia. One can either accept the flaw or figure out how to correct it. This sort of thing has happened before Bruce Reynolds ever made a post to Wikipedia Review about it and will continue until Wikipedia scales.

Actually, I'd say Bruce's intentions as he states them are a bit pure compared to others doing the same sort of thing, as he seems to be just testing the system that has been created.