A few months ago, I was arguing here with Slim about how, back in the old days, she and others were targeting just about anyone as being a LaRouchie, and I described the chaos that witchhunt had caused. I especially noted an incident when herself and long time user (and another anti-LaRouche figure) 172 (T-C-L-K-R-D) discussed banning a totally innocent guy as a "New LaRouche editor" back in 2007.

Here is my post, Slim simply batted this incident off by not addressing it specifically - claiming that people weren't banned as LaRouchies without good reason.



Well here comes the most ridiculous development yet. Having spent years orchestrating witch-hunts with Slim and Will against LaRouchies, former admin User:172 has himself been indefinitely banned by some lunatic administrator - on the declaration that he is the pro-LaRouche renegade Cognition (T-C-L-K-R-D) based on "checkuser evidence".

So either User:172 was the most brilliant stooge account ever (going back to 2002), or WP's checkuser facitilities are so incompetent, it has convicted the Witchfinder General of being a witch!

And to cap it off. Slim was right in the mix during these latest banning discussions which nailed 172!

Who is this LaRouche character, and why should I care?

I didn't know who he was either until I started paying attention to Wikipedia way back and noticed all manner of uncontroversial accounts and views being silenced due to allegations that the perpetrators were "LaRouchies". When they clearly weren't.

This has gone full circle, when one of the accusers, 172 (T-C-L-K-R-D) - a former admin dating back to 2002 - has just been indefinately (and falsely) banned as a LaRouchie himself, demonstrating the kind of bald poetic justice and lunatic irony only Wikipedia can provide.

Almost certainly the latter. I was told confidentially that checkuser is (as it has always been) almost useless for any but the simplest forms of sockpuppetry. Many of these POV sock declarations derive from offline conversations among checkusers and other editors who keep files of old IP addresses for their nemeses, to use for later comparison. Never mind the half-life of a particular IP address, if the editor with the suspect POV edits from the same city, the same ISP, the same geographic area, or uses the same browser, computer, or operating system, from several years earlier then they feel that is enough for a "sock confirmed by checkuser" finding, effectively insulating it from question.

In a way, this is the most negative legacy of Poetlister. Wikipidiots were so aghast at having been led round the rosemary bush by PoetGuy, they have a hair-trigger now, and the gun cabinet isn't locked.

Of course, this isn't entirely new, either. Before he was defrocked, Jayjg (T-C-L-K-R-D) was fond of banning editors who hadn't edited in over a year, claiming "sock confirmed by checkuser". He just didn't care what people thought, and I'll bet they don't care much more now. They ban whomever they please, all the rest is window-dressing.

Actually, it doesn't look like there's any interleaving editing (a trait shared by Mantanmoreland/SamiHarris and PoetGang).

I don't get it either. But consider: what better way to exaggerate the Larouche peril than make your own evil sock master?

You shouldn't -- no one on this side of the Atlantic cares.

It clearly isn't the same guy. 172 has been editing intermittently for a while but when he reappeared recently, Slim was the first to welcome him back.

172 was a major WP editor for years. The idea that he has been banned for being a sock of one of his many arch-nemeses is too funny even for WP's standards. It's a bit like JzG getting banned indefinitely for being a sock of Jon Awbrey, or Jimmy Wales being shown to be a sock of TheKohser.

There's simply too much satisfaction to be had from him getting wrongfully banned in this manner. Given that he did it so often to other people, and that Slim steadfastly batted away any such notions herself that such a mistake could happen, refusing to acknowledge an example which featured 172 himself as the accuser two years ago.

Yes and no. But that is what appears to have happened here. A number of accounts share a single IP, and their edits overlap in such a way that reassignment from one editor or group to another editor or group is not possible. It appears to be a residential IP. In some quantum alternate universe, perhaps, by an amazing coincidence, Cognition moved in next door to 172 and has been poaching his wi-fi.

Get serious please. 172 was a liberal historian who wrote several highly accomplished featured articles in the early days of WP. He was an administrator, and held a high standard of what he considered scholarship.

Cognition was a LaRouchie who believed the World Wildlife Fund were behind a genocidal scheme to oppress the third world.

OK, and now they're sharing a single residential IP address. SlimVirgin thinks 172's account is compromised; if so, it happened before any of the edits currently in the checkuser database. If the account is compromised, a block is also in order until 172 can verify himself to a developer to get the password reset, in which case the account can also be unblocked.

172 was desysoped for his aggressive edit warring and POV pushing...twice! Is it really so inconceivable that he would create a ridiculous sock to be his nemesis and engender sympathy?

The only other credible explaination is that Cognition cracked his password after three years (and after 172 made only two edits over a 14 month period or so).

Listen, this is 172

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Privatiz...lain_accusation


Do you seriously think nobody ran an IP check on Cognition back in the day?

People slip up.

Do you have another theory that involves Cognition using 172's current residential IP?

I'm interested on HK's thoughts about Cognition.

Indeed.

I guess, on reflection and reviewing Cognitions's edits, that he could have been a construct devised by 172 to shame and smear the LaRouchies and add to the atmosphere of battle. It certainly worked if it was, as the "LaRouchies under the bed" meme engulfed Wikipedia.

I'm surprised WillBeback hasn't caused more of a stink about 172 being linked to Cognition given that he was a close ally. Recall that famous revelation from JoshuaZ, who admitted to creating an account with WillBeback to discredit enemy Jason Gastrich:



JoshuaZ resurfaces in the new discussion of the banning of Cognition. It's like old times.

I don't suppose anybody has brought up the possibility that the IP-contributor info in the database just got f**ked up somehow? That kind of subterfuge seems awfully elaborate, even for an early-adopting WP ex-admin.

Much of 172's contribs seem to indicate a general effort to remove the historical context from articles on communism, socialism, and totalitarianism - IMO, it looks like he wants to destigmatize both terms, and try and bring the relevant articles more into the realm of political philosophy, rather than history. He completely gutted the article on Totalitarianism, for example, removing all mention of the Nazis, and suggesting that the Soviet Union essentially abandoned totalitarianism after Stalin's death.

However, looking over his contribs, I don't see anything overtly pro-Larouchian... Admittedly, I didn't look at all of them.

Very curious indeed!

I remember 172 vaguely, and surveying his work refreshes my recollection. Kato is right that there's no damn way he's pro-Larouchian.

Possibilities suggested so far: 1) Cognition created to demonize Larouchians, 2) 172 account compromised, 3) massive IP table failure.

Don't forget the one where 172 and Cognition are using the same Wi-Fi network...

OK, looking over Cognition's contribs, I'd say it's more likely that Cognition's account is the one that's been compromised, so maybe I'd tend to lean toward Option 1 after all - utterly insane though it may be. It's just not like a die-hard Larouche supporter to behave like this - like he's desperate to get the account unblocked and willing to say almost anything to make it happen.

There's something very weird going on here, but I must say, it's fairly entertaining at least!

172 was one of the most over-the-top, delirious POV pushers I have ever encountered at WP.
Enjoy this additional irony where 172 threatens to block Cognition for participating in an Adam Carr RfC.



I believe Cognition to be young and female. I was unable to collaborate well with her, because she was famously hotheaded. But I liked her feistiness.


Here is an entertaining brawl between 172 and myself. Good times.

I'm starting to think you guys are right, and Cognition was a phony account created to discredit LaRouchies. Which, if true, starts to explain many things from Wikipedia history. Also, if true, Slim knew nothing about it either and was out of the loop. But I doubt 172 worked alone.

I mean, Cognition really went out of his way to appear to be a pro-LaRouche crackpot.

The fourth option is the Somey one, where the new Cognition is the account which has been compromised.

Apparently doesn't fit the available data the way the first three options do.

CU data, and the CU who interprets it, lacks infallability. It helps to have multiple eyes but even then it's possible to be wrong. Nevertheless that option seems less likely... even less likely than a massive IP table error.

Sometimes the simpler explanation is better.

Here the simpler technical explanation points to a much more complicated social explanation though... that 172 ran a con for a long time is rather a complex (social) explanation.

Admittedly, that would be a major coincidence. 172 actually had a run-in with Cognition in 2006 according to diffs and the chances of the same two people now sharing a Wi-Fi network is minimal.

No. The most likely explanation (amazing as it sounds) is that Cognition was a "black ops" account created to demonize Hersch and add fuel to the theory that LaRouchies were attacking WP. 172 seemed to work in a small tight group which included Adam Carr and Will Beback, and these guys were adamant that WP had fallen into the hands of conspiracy theorists. They clearly co-ordinated their exploits, and saw their anti LaRouche activities as a war. This was in the old days, when there really was a cabal. Fred Bauder and even Jimbo Wales were on the periphery, overseeing the anti-LaRouche campaign. And it is on record that Will Beback plotted "black ops" accounts against enemies. Slim was influential, but was almost certainly not party to this, if true.

Here's Cognition editing the article of Michael Danby, Adam Carr's real life boss.

On his user page, Cognition states that his "areas of expertise" include Bretton Woods system (T-H-L-K-D). 172 actually wrote that article back in 2004.

Here, Cognition sarcastically gives Slim a barnstar. Is this a spoof or is this genuine? It seems hysterical even for a LaRouchie.

As I said, if this is true, then it explains a lot about the history of Wikipedia - and the McCarthyite atmosphere that prevailed. It may turn out that even the pro-LaRouche behavior was in part a fake. This is important, not because it concerns LaRouche, but because it had repercussions on governance throughout the site which still resonate today.

The reaction of Wikipedia to the LaRouche contingent has always been ridiculously over-the-top. That one of the anti-LaRouche people has been attacking Wikipedia to egg on the assuming-good-faithful administration at Wikipedia isn't so much of a surprise when one considers Mantanmoreland, Essjay, and the like.

Ha ha!

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=311922201

You see? It's all a Cognition issue, not that Mr. BeBack and the rest of the screeching fanatics were conned ... for years. Cognitive dissonance at it's finest! Will Wikipedia's logo soon decorate the definition of "terminally credulous"?

That's not credible, because the Cognition who was editing back before I was banned had a detailed knowledge of LaRouchismo that would be nearly impossible to fake.




And here, SV adds "ignorance" to Cognition's "areas of expertise."

Slim reckons the black ops / stalking horse theory "was already discredited".

I'm not so sure.

It still looks more credible than Slim's belief in the outrageous coincidence that 172 and his nemesis were both editing from the same terminal.

Cognition's behaviour looks typical LaRouche and fakeable. Unless there is something in his profile that is simply too LaRouchesque for an imposter like 172 to fake, then surely the "black-ops" theory is the most likely? Hersch?

Is it possible that there is a huge technical glitch in the checkuser system?

Actually, it would have to be a "following each other around from terminal to terminal" theory, which pushes it beyond even unreasonable doubt--something like saying Cognition used the same home address and internet cafe. As Thatcher explains at the bottom of this section, the residential IP is considered a direct hit, but they also shared a more public access point.

It's a compromised account or Cognition really was a bad hand (or other increasingly unlikely events like IP table failure, etc.)

I think it would be quite hard to fake this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req....7BCognition.7D

"Chip Berlet is a 5 cent thug in a long-range Aristotelian network, an evil, Venetian-based clique which has found its most demonic individuals in men such as Bertrand Russell, the advocate of nuclear genocide; Adolf Hitler, a perverted figure of anti-christ calibre who was installed into power by British bankers; and the Beatles, generals of a literal "British Invasion," doped-up zombie devils whose atrocious personal lives matched the Satanic musical presentation of their pop songs."

I don't know anything about the current players in this particular incident, but I would tend to agree that multiple moving CU hits tends to establish a connection better than most other methods. If PoetGuy, RickK, Lightmouse, Mantanmoreland, et. al. have taught us anything, it is apparently very easy to maintain multiple accounts over a very long period of time without detection. If anything, I suspect CUs are on the cautious side and rarely check synchronicities they see (like similar editing times, similar topics, etc) unless there is an outside request, just because they tend to be swamped with other requests and their own editing.

Of course the other issue to look at is that 172 has not denied being Cognition or even asked for unblock. I often wonder why people insist on defending/appealing on the behalf of persons who can't even be bothered to deny the accusation. Aren't there enough people actively asking for unblock (via CAT:UNB, unblock-l, #-unblock, BASC, etc.) to fill the admin's workload? I do think so.

First of all, the WP database definitely is f**cked up, to the point where I should probably stop using asterisks in that word. Look at those dates, WP'ers - does that look right to you folks? I don't think even WR has ever had anything like that happen, and we've definitely had our share of problems in that area.


Nearly impossible for whom, though? I'd tend to disagree with this - someone like Adam Carr or Will Beback, or even King & Berlet, probably got at least some of their information by reading uncritical commentaries and essays written by Larouche supporters. At some point they might easily have reached the point where they could imitate it.

Also, the fact that he was mainly active only during that few weeks in Summer '05 actually makes it more likely to me that the account was a "stalking horse" sock puppet, not less. Remember to always look at the first article edit - in this case, changing the photo for the article on Immanuel Kant. I'll admit it's not out of the realm of possibility, but is that normal for an inexperienced first-time editor? I don't think it is, and the anti-Larouche people on WP must not have thought so either at the time, because they quickly assumed he was a sock puppet of either HK or someone named "C Colden." (Also, the account might have been active longer if it hadn't been banned, obviously.)

The thing about User:Cognition, based on a closer look at his contribs, is that s/he always got reverted, in most cases very quickly:

Chip Berlet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=17992862

The Beatles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=17880311

Australian Larouche Youth Movement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=18529862

Moreover, Cognition was clearly Australian - his hours of activity were the same as Carr's, often responding to Carr's talk page entries within five minutes, whereas he sometimes took several hours to respond to SlimVirgin, who presumably was/is in Canada. Cognition's spelling is British (favored by Aussies), not American - s/he "apologises," and doesn't "apologize," for example.

Incidentally, this actually got me confused about HK, too, back in 2006 - because of Carr, the number of Larouche-related conflicts involving Australia was so much greater than one would have expected, I guessed (wrongly) that HK was also Australian. (I was a little less experienced at the time, of course.)

User:172 is clearly British, however - he generally seems to have avoided anything Aussie-related. So, my working crackpot theory would be that Cognition was Carr's brainchild, but that they shared the account among several WP'ers (including User:172) in need of a convenient stalking horse. Or else, when Carr got bored with WP he simply turned the account over to 172. Either way, 172 tried to revive the account, possibly for the same purpose it was used for before, but got caught. It sounds crazy, and it definitely is, but not many other explanations can account for all the facts here - even given that the database has been corrupted.


On the contrary - the more over-the-top it is, the more likely it is to have been faked in order to make the Larouchies look like nutcases. (I'm not saying they're not nutcases, but let's try to be serious about this.)

Try to find a diff on WP where Herschelkrustofsky, whom we know to be genuine, says anything close to that - I don't believe you can.

Right. Impossible to fake an over the top rant using stilted language and references to every embarrassing crank idea that his supposed leader ever uttered? I don't pay much attention to internal Wikipedian edit wars and such but you have convinced me that this is an account created to discredit the views of an opponent by providing a vehicle to put his worst foot forward at every opportunity. I don't know what makes you look worse being duped by this ploy or being in on it. Don't you think that it time to just to leave and get something of value out of what is left to your life?

No, 172 is (was) in Miami. I can't find it now, but it was on his user page. He was a liberal scholar in economics and history.


That's what I'm thinking as well.

The original LaRouche controversy is well before my time on Wikipedia, and I think we've established that by my own admission I'm not an authority on technical aspects of checkuser or sockpuppetry investigations, so no direct comment from me on this block. So instead I'll comment on this WR thread itself.

Whatever disagreements exist between the checkuser team on Wikipedia and the longtime members of Wikipedia Review, I think there has been a trend recently for Wikipedians to recognize that valid comments and criticism sometimes appear on this site (amongst other posts that I won't characterize), and for Wikipedia Reviewers to recognize that many people on Wikipedia are trying to do their best. And this situation is an example. It may not be clear just what the relationship is among the accounts that were blocked, but several Persons Generally Recognized As Clueful have explained that the action that was taken was not arbitrary.

So it just seems to me that it might have been better for this topic to have been opened by observing that a potentially unjustified and mistaken block had been made and required an explanation, if that was the poster's view. I don't quite see how starting out with an accusation that an idiotic action was taken by a lunatic advances the cause of healthy and convincing Wikipedia criticism.

Of course, that's probably just my usual mamby-pambyism flaring up again, so feel free to ignore.

I just meant that he seemed like a British (or I should probably say "English") person, regardless of where he was editing from - based on the sorts of articles he was interested in early on. (Though I have to wonder what someone in Miami would be doing editing WP at all, given all the beaches and nightclubs and late-night parties with women in bikinis. I know fr damn sure I'd be doing something other than edit-warring over Larouche propaganda if I lived in a place like that! )

No, he was a Jewish-American and about as British as Groucho Marx.


I will ignore. Convincing Wikipedia criticism is not possible without using terms like "lunatic" and "idiotic". Don't blame the critics, blame Wikipedia.

But that's exactly what did happen, isn't it? To me, it looks like Kato's initial post treated the "stalking horse account" idea as rather far-fetched.

IMO it was actually One, aka arbitrator CHL, who got the ball rolling by stating, "I don't get it either... But consider: what better way to exaggerate the Larouche peril than make your own evil sock master?" Not that I'm blaming him, of course - I think he may have been right.

It looks to me like it would be quite easy to fake that.

For more background, there's this thread, which User:172 obviously read at some point or other.

I guess I can accept the idea that he's actually from Miami, but his contribs indicate practically zero interest in local Florida/Miami issues, other than perhaps an edit like this one, which I'd missed earlier because it was posted under an IP address before 172 registered an account. It's a side issue, in any event - sorry I brought it up!

The plot thickens.

Someone has corrected me on the Cognition talk page. I misremembered. 172 wasn't in Miami, he was in St Petersburg.

This is interesting because Cognition wrote in 2005 of his willingness to attend the Wikipedia:Meetup/St. Petersburg2.

It's also interesting because, as we know, St Petersburg was the home of Wikipedia. Where's Danny Wool when you need him. Danny?

Apparently, Cognition claims to have made it to the event (or so it says in the current version of the Meetup page). And there's even a group photo, with Jimbo, Angela, and Danny Wool - and also Phil Sandifer, who was one of the more vociferous of those trying to get Cognition banned.

Here's another one, with Raul654 pictured more clearly (I believe his face is obscured in the first one).

I would disagree strongly there. No criticism that uses terms like "lunatic" and "idiotic" is likely to be convincing (of anybody other than the "choir" who already agrees with your side). I admit that there is a cathartic venting aspect to criticism that is more satisfying the stronger the language that is used, and I sometimes feel like using such terms to describe whoever I'm against at the moment, but it's not a particularly useful tactic.

I see your point, but something more erudite-sounding, like "highly indicative of serious mental disturbance and/or intellectual deficiency"... that's just too wordy, isn't it?

You know, maybe it is an outrageous coincidence. And both Cognition and 172 ended up editing from the same internet point in the St Petersburg area? That would be hilarious, if true.


Well I'll criticise in my way, you in yours Dan. We could perhaps hold a vote to see whose criticism at this site has actually had more impact over the years?

Is there anyway for the CheckUsers to look at data from months ago and see if 172 and Cognition were editing from the same place?

There's another way in which CU results can give a surprising and apparently impossible result -- namely, when they are simply fabricated. This has certainly happened in the past, and seems an economical explanation here too.

From my perspective, the most ludicrous aspect of the whole situation is that 172 was blocked indefinitely. Even if we assume he is guilty of this sockpuppet scheme that's being alleged, this is a case where the user should have been notified by e-mail that the deception had been detected and that it would be publicized if he persisted. That way, 172 could have been retained as an editor and wouldn't have even had to lose face, while the sockpuppeting problem would have been solved. But most Wikipedia admins simply don't care if the project loses a hard-working contributor, if X number of articles go unwritten for X amount of time because of that person's absence. They think of themselves as enforcers, not problem-solvers.

Okay, but... by whom, to what end, and why User:172? As long as you're going to do that, why not go after a higher-value target, like SlimVirgin or Will Beback, or even Phil Sandifer?

Or are you thinking that someone happened to remember that 172 was posting edits from the St. Petersburg area too, and figured a match to those other users would be implausible?

IMO it doesn't make any sense that they'd resort to skullduggery to do something like this - 172 is one of theirs, not one of "ours." If anything, it's surprising Hersfold (T-C-L-K-R-D) didn't ignore the CU data and assume a mistake had been made, rather than indefinitely block him right away. Like Everyking says, that would be a overreaction even if 172 had been a pro-Larouche editor, and no matter what the explanation is, this makes Wikipedia look bad, bad, bad.

Eh? That would be akin to deciding which film has had the most effect on the history of motion pictures by ranking ticket sales.

Whose criticism has most impact is surely only measurable by its effect, and it should be noted that the majority of Dan's criticism (and much of Dan's input cannot be called that) has been directed toward Wikipedia Review and then you have to compare the structures of the two targets; on Wikipedia there are some major players who read Wikipedia Review on the basis that WP can be improved and are tended to look carefully at reasoned (if sometimes a bit sweary) argument. On WR there is a tendency to believe only negative criticism of WP is valid (and there are a couple of contributors who bemoan anyone who does anything other than deprecate WP) and that criticism of WR is therefore ignorable.

Of course, I am assuming such a poll will be held at WR.

As I mentioned earlier, I am convinced that the Cognition that was editing before I was banned is no fake. It is not that easy to become conversant in LaRouche's theories, as Cognition clearly was. A person who was posing as a LaRouchista would inevitably sound like a Berlet or SlimVirgin parody of LaRouche.


I actually think that your own style of criticizing Wikipedia is quite effective, and I'd like to propose that you preserve How to ban a POV you dislike in 9 easy steps as an essay, a sort of companion piece to WP:SAUCE. Except, don't you think you could make it a 12-step program? Then it could probably be included in wads of categories. I know that Will Beback finds WP:SAUCE to be a major irritant, so you're on a roll.

Who knows?

Just so everyone is clear on this point: checkuser only holds information from the last few months. The match is between Cognition's edits in his recent and unexpected request to be unblocked, and in 172's recent edits this summer (after 14 months or so of hardly editing at all). Cognition's request triggered the checkuser, which is why the theory about compromised accounts is sound.

Everyking: do you think potentially-compromised accounts should not be blocked indefinitely?

If there is a reasonable basis to do so, yes, but in this case there is no change in the user's behavior to indicate a compromised account, making that appear to be a quite implausible theory. I have worked alongside 172 in the past--he was actually the person who first nominated me for adminship, way back in May 2004--and I know his style and interests; a cursory examination of his edits over the last few months leaves no doubt that the account is still being operated by the same person. It's preposterous to imagine that a LaRouche supporter would take over 172's account and then use it in exactly the same way 172 did, pursuing the same interests with the same style.