I have assembled all the evidence about the TBP account here

http://www.wikipediareview.com/Directory:The_Wik...int_of_View/TBP

The evidence is overwhelming that they are operated by one and the same individual, and therefore that FT2's recent claim (see his talk page) that TBP was a co-editor is false, indeed a 'conscious falsehood', sometimes known as a 'lie'.

To those who say that I spend too much time on FT2 and I should drop it, I reply

1. I don't spend much time at all on FT2.

2. That is not an argument for or against TBP being a sock

3. I only spend time on FT2 when he is engaged on some egregious lie or deception, as this one clearly is. He spent a long time avoiding the question of whether he operated the TBP account. As it is now convenient for him to deny it (given his long and continuing lectures about the immorality of abusive socking regarding the Geogre case) he is denying it.

4. In addition, it is also convenient for him to deny it in order to justify my one-month block for complaining about this affair.

5. If FT2 apologises or if some other remedial action is taken - such as clarifying when socking is OK, whether there is a time limitation or not - then I will shut up again.

To those who say that this is quixotic and that the Wikipedia administration is corrupt enough to let it pass, I reply, let us see if the administration can act in a moral and upstanding way. Occasionally it can. I have discussed this with at least one arbitrator, and there is an indication that it is being taken seriously.

I cant imagine a better use for this site than to try to do something about FT2.

Well, if you expect me to jump up and write a song parody about him, you can jesfugiddabouddit.

Still dragging on

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=318228326

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=318256195

An admin has a sock and denies it till he's blue in the face despite conclusive evidence. ArbCom is reluctant to do anything about it.

That's news?

Thatcher: official sockpuppeting now OK, official lying ("perjury trap") now OK.

Mmph. If you ask me, Thatcher and Hochman are both twats.
Does one twat cancel out another twat? Seems so....

I disagree about Thatcher as I think he tries very hard to do the right thing and is often a voice of reason. Further he understands many of the issues that so many wkipedians remain blind to. Having him on the audit committee was goodness.

YMMV.

what do you think about the whole FT2 maybe running another account, and fibbing about it, Lar? - I've been a bit busy, but will probably reply at Thatcher's talk page next week sometime trying to explain why I think it's a good thing to look into properly, and resolve one way or the other.

If, on balance, the socking is likely I think it would be best for FT to stand down from being a 'functionary' (fwiw I think I felt at the time of the orange marlin broo ha ha that it would be best for FT to stand down from all positions, not just arbcom)

I vaguely recall having a chat with Thatcher about Essjay before the news hit the mainstream press, and vaguely recall Thatcher not seeing a problem with essjay's behaviour (was it thatcher who gave the 'if anything this has made you more cool' quote? - sincere apologies if this is an inaccurate recollection of a muddled mind - but it is what I remember!).

more later prolly........

Including "user"?

ah come on... there's better puns on 'positions' than that! (no-one is to mention 'doggie style' - that would be inappropriate.)

Remember that the Essjay business was revealed one piece of information at a time. When it was first revealed that he had pretended for years to be a northeastern theology professor, sending Daniel Brandt on a wild goose chase as detailed here, I thought it was a terrific piece of misdirection. But then it turned out he lied to the reporter, which is not so cool. Finally someone brought up a few incidents where Essjay had used his mock credentials to influence AfDs and even write a letter to someone in real life, which was unacceptable. Don't make the mistake of thinking that something I wrote early in stage 1 of the reveal reflects my final opinion when all was said and done.

You mean you thought that misdirecting Brandt was "terrific". No doubt by any means necessary, right?

But the probability that Essjay "pretended for years" to be a theology professor just to bamboozle Brandt is zero.

Not only that, but the real irony is that of all the people in the world, Brandt was the only one who cared enough to check into the offered credentials. The rest of you jokers were taken in, hook, line and 30 pounds of lead.

As they say, ignorance is bliss! Mainlined, right to the brain stem. Or something like that.

So your celebration of the "misdirection" makes me question your post hoc rationalizations here.

What is the word or saying in Italian for this ... it is not "one hand washes the other" it is something else.

I mean, where we all do something slightly dodgy, and we all allow everyone else to do something dodgy, because knowing that everyone else is doing something dodgy means that they cannot accuse us of being dodgy.

Elsewhere, we all witness the good and great defend David Shankbone's sockpuppetry saying it was acceptable, or not against the rules; whereas many of us here will have had some twat contrive an bogus accusation and some admin (or above) "punish" us yet again, like a méchant child, for not even socking (i.e. using multiple accounts at the same time) but just having started a new account.

It is like an ambiguity that is left open in order to used and exploited at a later point in time.

It is like any other cult setting the bar of "acceptable" behavior so high that everyone is a sinner and hence, exploitable by the leadership.


So what if FT2 has or has not and why should we care? It is a game!

Really we should just be giving points over how well and how stylishly it is played ... nor pretending to be linesmen or referees and expecting people to play by rules writ in sifting sands.

Do we have some dissonance in different people's understand and expectations of "the law" here, e.g. the difference between a prescriptive legal system (where you can only do what is specifically prescribed, like the German system) and other systems where you are perfectly entitled to do whatever you can get away with beyond what is specifically forbidden?

very briefly, 'cos this is 'mists of time' irrelevant in many ways - you (thatch) kind of seemed to me to feel that it was ok for essjay to lie to the newyorker about his credentials because you didn't feel he was actually using them ["to bolster Wikipedia's credibility"] - just lying about them (here ;-).... (can't seem to make that link work - it has a . at the end of it, and it keeps disappearing - you get the idea though :-)

I really must strongly emphasise that in my view you're an important part of wikipedia accountability (actually a ridiculously important part - which may be part of the problem!) - and sincere appreciation for that from this direction :-) - however I do feel that you have a mild inertia in matters which relate to the type of vested contributor who does a lot of work, prolly both good and bad (views on where FT fits into that spectrum likely differ) - I think a high standard of ethical behaviour across the board is really important for keeping a rather rickety ship afloat over at wikipedia, and resolution (ideally speedy!) of stuff like this would also be goodness :-)

In relation to the TBP thing, I have a question. Has FT2 ever explained why User:TBP took credit for his work, even though he is not a sockpuppet? Has he even attempted to explain what relationship he has to TBP at all?

It is my opinion that FT2 should be de-sysopped for his behavior in relation to other editors, the NLP and Zoophilia articles, and for his refusal to offer a clear, full explanation (minus the semantics) of what he has to do with User:TBP. He also should not have the permissions of a "functionary", which apparently still remain after one is no longer an ArbComm member.

It's not 2007.

Thatcher, could you help me with the logic you are using here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...d=320698827#Tip .

1. You seem to accept the sockpuppeting took place, but argue that it was trivial and too long ago to have mattered. This ignores the fact that FT2 was using the TBP account to disguise a potential conflict of interest (TBP admits to having trained in NLP with the 'masters', and to practising it).

2. You argue that because this took place before FT2 was elected to a position requiring great trust, this is OK. Can you run me through that one again? How would this apply in the case of someone being elected as, say, Church treasurer?

3. You argue that FT2 was 'trapped' into lying about the abusive account. Can you run me through that one also? Is it that, because the original offence was not serious, then lying about it is not serious? But then ask yourself why FT2 was lying about it. Presumably because others would take a different view from you, and would regard it as serious? Why should your view count?

Also - your "perjury trap" argument seems to presuppose that it is in fact not an offense.


And is it not possible that the people who "shrugged and forgot about" did so because they didn't believe it to be true because FT2 refused to admit it, rather than because they considered it not to have been a big deal if it was true?

The concept of the statute of limitations certainly has some influence on Wikipedia, witness the rehabilitation of Gwen Gale or Jack Merridew, for example. I personally do not think that 3-1/2 year old sockpuppetry is sufficient to take away someone's site privileges, absent some current offense. You may recall my comments in (I think) September 2006 (quoted in Piperdown's sig) to the effect that Mantanmoreland had been caught socking and stopped, so he should be left alone about it. That was correct as far as I knew at the time, and I stand behind that statement in its historical context. But also remember that I was the checkuser who answered the request to check Sammiharris, even though I knew it had been filed by Wordbomb, and I was the person who caught Bassetcat. The fact that I thought he should be left alone at a time when the best information available to me was that he was not engaged in current bad behaviors did not hinder me from taking appropriate action when additional information came my way that changed the picture. Likewise, without some evidence of current wrongdoing I don't personally believe that FT2 should be forced to step down over a 3-1/2 year old alleged offense, although I would certainly pursue current evidence if any exists.

Then the argument turns to, "he is lying now which is a current offense." As much as I would like every human being to be honest, truthful and righteous, we are all flawed. There are things in all of our pasts that have the capacity to embarrass us and to hurt us. I shoplifted a candy bar when I was 10 years old; I can admit to that because it was a long time ago, and it was something childish and foolish that I think everyone can have some sympathy for. Could I have admitted it when I was 13? Probably not.

So here we have a person who allegedly used a sockpuppet account. The account was active for 14 days spanning a 6 month period and made 188 edits, 0.5% of FT2's total 36000+ edits. Let's assume TBP was FT2, and not some other plausible explanation like a boyfriend or girlfriend, or professional colleague. If you've never even thought about using a sockpuppet to help out in a dispute over an article you felt strongly about, then you're a better person than I am. How many hundreds or thousands of editors act on that desire? Surely, abandoning the effort before you are suspected or caught is the right thing to do. When called to account isn't embarrassment and denial an understandable human response? Particularly on wikipedia where some people hold grudges for a really long time and where an editor's ability to recover from embarrassment depends more on which friends and enemies they've made rather than the nature of the offense. So, yes, I'm willing to forgive someone for a lack of candor about an embarrassing episode in their past, so long as they aren't continuing to engage in conduct that would be embarrassing if revealed. Others may differ, that's what RFC is for.

The ultimate answer here is to launch a formal RFC, lay out the evidence that FT2 had a sockpuppet, and make the argument that either because of the sockpuppet (an old offense), or because of the allegedly contra-factual denial (a current offense) that FT2 should step down as an oversighter, checkuser, and/or admin. Let the community review the evidence, draw its conclusions, and make recommendations, cast votes, or whatever.

If I am a "ridiculously important" part of Wikipedia accountability, it is because I choose my battles. I am largely responsible for desysopping 4 admins so far (I think, it might be 3 or 5). I have taken other steps behind the scenes that most people know nothing about. To the extent I am effective in seeking accountability, it is because I spend my credibility carefully. There are editors who shout "admin abuse" on AN/I every other day, even if they are right one time out of ten, they don't have the credibility to make anything useful happen. In this particular case I don't believe the facts, as far as I know them today, support a call to action, nor is such a call likely to be heeded. I could be wrong--the proposition has never been tested, outside of Peter Damian's rather childish use of sockpuppets to place sockpuppet tags on TBP's and FT2's user pages. You also have no idea what other issues, if any, I may be currently involved in, that make 3-1/2 year old sockpuppetry even less worth my limited time than it already is.

Finally, if I am a "ridiculously important" part of Wikipedia accountability, this is a role I never asked for or consciously sought, and I have no standards to live up to and no conscience to follow other than my own.

Is this why Jayjg's widely acknowledged abuse of the oversight tool has never been officially investigated?

Nah. It's due to his name beginning with "Jay" and his friendships with the cabalistas. Before there was Shankbone there was Jay. Except Jay never had the compulsion to open up his life, so that we could see the motive behind his nearly single purpose editing, and his COI. Which were and are basically the same and Shank's, as regards the middle east. He probably gets more perks than Shank does (well, maybe not the free Fire Island stays). We've wondered if he might even be on retainer.

I have already said that this issue is somewhat more serious. (1) The TBP account is an important piece of evidence linking FT2 to someone who practices NLP. FT2 has written widely promoting NLP on Wikipedia. That is a serious conflict of interest. (2) FT2 has used his influence in the past to secure the blocking and banning of users, some of them bona fide academics and researchers. TBP was part of that strategy. Do you not regard that as serious?




It depends how seriously you take conflict of interest and promotion of pseudoscientific views on Wikipedia.




(1) I've often been tempted, but never succumbed. (2) FT2 occupies a position of great trust on Wikipedia, unlike most other users and editors. Why do you not regard this as important.



When angered by apparent official endorsement of such behaviour as FT2's, the natural human response is angry and childish behaviour (such as placing a sockpuppet tag on FT2's page). If you can let FT2 off, can you not let Damian off?



When can I do this, please (magic word)?

I'm not interested in unbanning you just so that you can do something dramatic and attention-seeking in order to get blocked again at some future date.

All I do is complain, not particularly vocally, about conflict of interest, promotion of fake science and so on. This is the proper job of someone who is helping to create a comprehensive and reliable reference work.

The drama consists in the reaction to these complaints.

Ah, so all that "we are all flawed human beings" stuff has some special exceptions?.....

Methinks a little too carefully. What about that bogus sock accusation that was being pursued with demented zeal by Hersfold, Couriano and JzG, among others? There you have several senior users, including two senior admins, abusing a relatively new user and lying about checkuser data. Well, Thatch old salt, are you going to do something about them or not?

I don't see any lying about checkuser data. Hersfold says there was no point in checking, since the original SSS108 had not edited recently enough for comparison, which was true at the time he said it. (SSS108 only popped up after Sbs108 was blocked.)

What we have here is a follower of the guru opening an account and getting mistaken for another follower of the guru. That seems understandable to me. (Plus, the fact that the old account popped up so suddenly suggests the might be in communication, don't you think?)

Thatcher has again failed to answer my question. Thatcher, there is in many professions what is sometimes called a ‘Daily Mail’ test (or substitute your favourite mass circulation newspaper). The test is whether you would be comfortable defending your professional actions when interviewed by a possibly hostile reporter from the paper.

Daily Mail: why was this user banned?
Thatcher: He was being disruptive
Daily Mail: how was he being disruptive?
Thatcher: He was writing articles while banned.
Daily Mail: You mean, articles about 13th century philosophers and theologians. An area in which he appears to have some expertise.
Thatcher: Yes, but he was banned.
Daily Mail: But why was he banned?
Thatcher: He accused a senior member of Wikipedia of a conflict of interest, involving undisclosed accounts, and asked questions about the COI on the user’s talk page
Daily Mail: Why should he be banned for that?
Thatcher: It was harassment.
Daily Mail: Were the allegations true? You seemed to accept per this public statement http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...d=321330043#Tip that you accepted them.
Thatcher: Er, I can’t really comment
Daily Mail: Were they true?
Thatcher: We did not investigate. The accused user certainly denied the allegations
Daily Mail: Did no one check the accusation?
Thatcher: We did not regard it as a high priority.
Daily Mail: Why would possible conflict of interest involving a comprehensive reference work not be a priority?
Thatcher: Even if it were true, it would not be serious.
Daily Mail: The accused user denied the allegation. Wouldn’t lying about it be serious?
Thatcher: We all make mistakes.

And so on.

Would you, in fact, continue writing articles if you were unbanned?

I would say that you were blocked for persistently harassing another user rather than using the available dispute resolution mechanisms, such as the RFC I discussed above. Then, while blocked, you would create alternate accounts, write articles, and then jump up and down shouting, "I'm a banned user writing articles!" baiting other site administrators and forcing them to choose between blocking a productive account, and ignoring policies on banned users (thus creating a double-standard which could be very harmful in the case of other, less article-minded banned users). I would point out that I had suggested that admins should simply fail to take notice of your grandstanding, but that I obviously have less influence than you give me credit for.

I would further point out that you engage in intentionally provocative action rather than following the available dispute resolution mechanisms even when unblocked, so that several people, not just myself, who are generally sympathetic to you, are not quite willing to unblock you and give you another chance.

If pressed, I might also point out that I originally unblocked you, and that since then you have been occasionally hostile to me, when you aren't trying to be clever, and refer the reporter to the phrase "once bitten, twice shy."


I'm sure he would. The question is what else would he do, and in what manner?

There is no available dispute mechanism, other than email l-arbcom, and wait a long time. You still haven't answered the 'Daily Mail' question.




http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?limit=...&year=&month=-1

Am I to assume that link is to your contributions from before you are banned?

Daily Mail: You keep referring to these attempts to expose the conflict of interest as harassment. Why is this?
Thatcher: Wikipedia policy.

Peter Damian is indeed a good article writer, and in an area where they are few and far between. It is a loss to the project that he was blocked, but I really don't see what else could be done. WP:IAR means that the best contributors should get a bit of leeway since banning them or chasing them away would damage the project. However, you can only bend the rules so far before they break.

I am beginning to suspect you are not on the side of Wikipedia at all, but are doing a clever job of giving us straw men to burn.

Anyway, assuming good faith (1) why is it that the rules are ignored for senior Wikipedians who abuse the trust put in them, such as abuse of multiple accounts (which I have never done). (2) Have you ever looked at what I was blocked or banned for. Examples: twice blocked for raising AfD's because it was 'harassment', even though the 'deletes' which were almost unanimous. Blocked for defending an editor who had done a good job in restoring neutrality to pro-pedophile articles. For complaining about a 'delete' template put on an article only 15 minutes old, and which when finished was agreed to be an excellent article. For voting 'delete' in an RfA. Banned for putting a sockpuppet tag on a user page that Thatcher now agrees was a sockpuppet of senior Wikipedian. And so on.

That is your own doing. Other mechanisms were available but you failed to avail yourself of them. As others told you, at every available opportunity, but it was unfortunately to no avail. That's my eval, anyway.

I am very much on the side of building an encyclopedia for the benefit of those searching for knowledge. To some people here Wikipedia is all about writing articles. I say that's a means to an end, not the end itself, which is why to me the most important people are the readers, not the editors.

Having said that, it is of course important to write articles, and to do what is a necessary adjunct to that. Thus the best contributors are entitled to a certain amount of leeway. That's basically what WP:IAR means. You were given quite a lot of leeway; Thatcher unblocked you and at the time I applauded him. But alas you've used up all your leeway and more. Would that you hadn't.

Of course incomplete articles are often flagged with delete templates. It's happened to me more than once. You just have to adjust to it - it's a fact of life.



I must agree with Lar (as I do quite often).

What do you mean 'given quite a lot of leeway'? That implies I was doing anything wrong in the first place. Can you explain why being blocked for a successful AfD is being 'given quite a lot of leeway'?

Part of article writing means ensuring the neutral point of view is maintained. This involves more than just writing, as I explain here

http://www.wikipediareview.com/Directory:The_Wik...nd_Peter_Damian

Why are you saying that defending the neutrality of the project against pedophile activists requires 'being given leeway'? Here is what I actually said



Which Ryan Postlethwaite interpreted as meaning 'FT2 is a pedophile', which it clearly wasn't.