A few months ago, I discovered a way that some people are manipulating Wikipedia by banning people that they don't like.

It's very simple.

Ban someone. Then whenever you don't like someone, you can say the person is a "sock of a banned user". Even if the checkuser results don't pan out, there are ways that they can use this ploy. One of the most common, but not the only way, is to point out imaginary similarities.

Once you get a few banned people, you can expand it so that soon you can ban about 1/3 of anyone you like.

The checkusers will even participate in the conspiracy. Presented with a banned user who already has many "socks of the banned user" because the manipulative group has managed to label several people, the checkuser will naturally try to be accomodating and want to stop what they think is just adding a name to a long list of names of that "bad person". I have even seen a checkuser where one user is stale and the other is the newly proposed sock. The checkuser then pronounced them "confirmed" or guilty. Well, if it's state, then there is no IP match. The most they could honestly say is "inconclusive, go on behavior".

Even if the manipulative group present contradictory evidence it still works. For example, if one person is a sock of a banned user and other person is a sock of the same banned user but these two people cannot be the same person for a variety of reasons, ArbCom will turn the other way and ignore it.

It doesn't even matter if the newly banned person is a productive editor.

How can this problem be solved and the cycle broken? All it takes is one honest administrator but there are none. It's like in Cuba, none of the generals or politicians are willing to stand up against Castro, probably because they don't want to be executed.

Can you think of a way to solve this problem? Or is the answer just to give up on Wikipedia or to start vandalizing?

I have not mentioned any names so you can just consider the facts without being influenced by names.

Checkuser will lie to back up dodgy evidence. I have actually seen it happen, all I could was smile. You won't find honesty at Wikipedia, no matter what they try and tell you. It's a bit like corrupt police, -- if you have the will to challenge them they get quite nervous and either block (jail) you, or ban (execute) you. If one is a person of integrity, it becomes increasingly difficult to edit at WP.

And in other news, Sun continues to rise in the east!


There are many positions on this, as you will see if you look over our site here. One position is that one should have nothing to do with Wikipedia, as it is merely giving free labor to further and enlarge a failed and insidious device. Another is that one should edit non-controversially for a long period before taking on those with powerful ban-hammers. Perhaps the most plausible position is that you should secretly conspire with a sufficiently large group of other users, preferably including an admin, to tag-team in opposition to those you are opposing. However, recall the admonition: "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

There is no way to change this, directly. At least without breaking serious laws. That I won't even joke about online. Because ... well, just because....

I'm frankly surprised this is news to you, it's old hat to everyone here.

But congrats on figuring it out.

The problem of corruption is one of ten nigh-intractable problems in human systems.

Here is the complete list of all ten:

Conflict, Violence, Oppression, Injustice, Corruption, Poverty, Ignorance, Alienation, Suffering, and Terrorism.

The reason that these problems are so hard to solve is because the tactics which most people adopt to solve them tend to backfire — most people tend to adopt tactics which are ineffective at best and counter-productive at worst. That is, the tactics people typically adopt tend to exacerbate and replicate the problem in ever widening circles, like a cancer that metastasizes.

To my mind, the solution requires a paradigm shift in education.

You know, Moulton, I tried to not joke about several of those words, because this site already has a bad rap with the FBI, and quite unfairly.

Your post just did a lot to justify the definition of this site (wrongfully) as subversive and full of dangerous people. They think that, you know.

So if you want to keep this place having a bad reputation, then keep writing words like that.

Bravo.

I'm not kidding. I refrained from making careless jokes for just that reason. They are taken seriously.

And spare me the foolish lecture on paranoia. This is the world we live in.

I'm not the paranoid one. They are. And unfortunately, they get to decide what's what, at the moment.

I honestly don't know where you're coming from, DL.

That list of ten unsolved problems in human civilization is no joke. People have been thinking about how to solve them for thousands of years.

Sigh. Does everything have to be so clearly stated. Reread what I wrote.

I'm not saying your words weren't some part of some valid, known theory. (Not that I've heard of it, but I really don't wish to debate it in substantive terms).

Nor did I say that you had ill intention. And frankly, I think it is crap that I have to say this, and that's not against you, it's against the situation, because it implies a lack of free speech. Unfortunately, it also reflects reality. What I said is true, I'm sorry to say.

And as such, about 3-4 of those words label this site (and you personally) as someone, or something to be worried about. Not to me, but to the aforementioned.

Take it or leave it. Fair enough.

I suppose people have an unalienable right to their delusional beliefs.

What I object to is acting on those delusional beliefs in such a way that causes unwarranted harm to others.

Nice, succinct summary. I'm mainly a follower of the first method. Cut off the labor supply, the thing that made it great.

Regarding the other thing, I'm with Moulton. "Conflict, Violence, Oppression, Injustice, Corruption, Poverty, Ignorance, Alienation, Suffering, and Terrorism." Take that, FBI word trackers.

For what it's worth, I've been writing about those subjects for years.

Well, then you probably already have an FBI file, as do I, probably...

I guess they've given up on that Bin Laden guy and are going after that dangerous Plato person....

Shrug. What are they gonna charge me with? Insufferable pedantry? It's not like I'm forcing anyone to read my remarkably unpopular blog.


It has been alleged that Socrates and I frequent the agora in a similar way. Doubleplus, we are both redheads. But I regret to say, I've never actually met him. (Frankly, there's a few questions I'd like to ask him.)

That's actually about right.

Actually on a substantive basis, I don't think the word Terr... is correct, as for "centuries".

That's a fairly new phenomenon.

Subversion, sure. Treason, yes. Overthrow, you betcha. Etc. etc.

But the T word, not so old.

And where did you find that theory anyways. Or was it a pronouncement.

As for delusions. Gosh. I wish.

Except for that I'd delude myself onto a Carribean beach, if I had my druthers (i.e. what I'd rather imagine out of the clear blue sky).

But being clueless is a lot more fun. Have at it.

It's part of a growing "anti-Intelligentsia" trend that I'm seeing more and more, even in Europe. If you think, you're somehow "suspect". This is true everywhere, as far as I can see....

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the FBI going back to the 1970s, or the 1960s, and keeping a file on anyone they deemed subversive.

Like Martin Luther King.

They are doing that now, but now they have the internet to play like their own private Xbox.

And yes, I mean not only this chat board, but every chat board, your email, and your files online, and off.