The account of User:Rookwood is (or was) JoshuaZ and is not Jason Gastrich. Despite the claim made on the blocking template.

JoshuaZ admitted it during an arbitration interrogation over his sockpuppets, but it has never been altered from Gastrich to JoshuaZ. It still carries the innocent Gastrich's name.

Isn't that rather like saying that the Salem witches should have been found guilty of intercourse with Beelzebub rather than Lucifer?

More to the point (being raised elsewhere), note how JZ anticipated being killed off and made provisions for resurrecting himself with a backup identity.

Newyorkbrad has blanked the user page to remove the erroneous labelling.

Shouldn't the account be indef blocked and templated with a "This account is a sockpuppet of User:JoshuaZ"?

Given that the account made a grand total of two edits, more than three years ago, this is not necessary.

I believe there are numerous accounts concerning Awbrey and others (many erroneously) that fit that criteria. Would you please remove those templates?

I once offered to carefully review all the references on-wiki to Mr. Awbrey, and although I don't have it in front of me, I believe his response was a variation of "don't do me any favors."

I've long argued that the practice of tagging sockpuppet accounts is mainly used to create drama and has the effect of encouraging trolling. However, Wikipedia loves its drama, and so persists in the practice. Apparently putting such notes in a space where only admins could see them (as I strongly recommended) violates "transparency".

So JoshuaZ never gets the template he deserves. Awbrey only gets his numerous and erroneous ones removed only if begs some.

I strongly agree that these templates should only be used in situations where there is an ongoing problem and they will actually be useful to someone. Cf. my comments on the motions in the Geogre case.

For awhile, there was actually a rule on the "suspected sockpuppets" page and template that if a "suspected sock" template was posted on your userpage, you were forbidden to remove it for 10 days, while the "investigation" was underway. I had that changed by pointing out that it was ridiculous.

Linky-poo?

Many of Wikipedia's rules are ridiculous; why should this one be any different?

You realize, of course, that the real reason for that rule was to facilitate blocking undesirables: if you want to get rid of someone, tag them as a sockpuppet (using any half-assed excuse), then when they remove it (as they almost certainly will), you can block them for "removing a sockpuppet tag per policy". If they don't remove it, they're likely to bitch about it in the Usual Places, leading to drama, which is an equally good outcome as far as they're concerned.

I bet there's not a few people who hate you for your objection; you took away a perfectly good drama vector.

Haven't seen you on IRC for weeks; are you hiding from me again?

The whole Scarlet Letter ritual is one that any literate person ought to recognize as both ridiculous and unprofessional. Then again, I imagine not all that many adolescent admins are familiar with the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne and others like him (e.g. Victor Hugo) who have written extensively on the subject of overzealous policing.

And you were right. Speaking of drama, here is one of my favorite vignettes: Sunsplash (T-C-L-K-R-D) , a sock of SlimVirgin (T-C-L-K-R-D) , went on a spree, tagging other accounts as sock accounts. Here we see Sunsplash at work. And here we see how it has the effect of encouraging trolls (I like this one so much that I periodically use it as my signature here.)


Well, that's interesting. JoshuaZ and Will in a conspiracy to mutually sock. Shocking! And to think that these are the very two admins who together arrived at a consensus to "community ban" me.

Yes, there seems to be a strong tendency among the Wikipedia ruling class to ban others for crimes they themselves are all too familiar with.