Under the heading of "Sorry"


I've seen alot of referrer links from a hidden forum on this site visiting my site, along with a couple of PM's via this site inquiring, so I thought I'd post here. That is to be expected, folks, like me, want to know things. After this, I'll basically ask, respectfully request that no further attempts be made into the identity of any prior account I may or may not have edited under, or my personal identity.


I may post here (on WR) in the future if a topic interests me, but this is the context I'll post under...

1. I believe in Wikipedia, and Wikimedia I also agree with some of the criticisms of Wikipedia here and elsewhere. I am here to listen, learn, and add info.

2. It is possible that the naysayers are correct, but I hope not. A lot of good things have been created despite the valid concerns raised.

3. I will not act in ways other than what I believe are in Wikipedia's, and Wikimedia's best interests. This includes choosing carefully what to say, and what not to say.

4. For time and interest reasons, I may concede the last word in advance. (taken from Lar)

Warm,

Scream

We won't say what your identity is, but you need to correct something in your reply to Random here that is not accurate.

The post of mine is accurate.

Warm,
Scream

I've always wanted to have 300 degrees in Canon Law and be so hooked on Wikipedia that I secretly edit during class.

NVS, there are many different opinions among members of this site about revelation of easily-accessible online information about the history of Wikipedia admins: some support it, as part of a general principle that those in positions of power within Wikipedia should not be anonymous; others believe in respect for wishes for anonymity, but for those that show similar respect for others. There are many other more nuanced positions as well, and this forum does not pretend to speak with a single voice on that (or any) topic.

For my own part, I think I'm in the middle -- I see no reason to gratuitously reveal the real-life identities of ordinary Wikipedia users provided they are not abusing others. Such abuse can, and often does, take the form of BLP follies, of abusive blocking and banning, or of tag-team editing of controversial topics and the protection of those that do.

For now, since you are not an admin and don't seem guilty of such abuses, I think few here are inclined to disturb you. Some here take a "no prisoners" policy regarding Wikipedia, but the majority here thinks that there are those who seek to elevate the standard there, and that we should support them. I hope you stay in that camp.

For the benefit of those of us who are unfamiliar with the details, can someone spell out the item whose accuracy is disputed?

Mr NVS says he has a clean block log. This is false.

Is there some stigma (presumptive or otherwise) to having been blocked?

Not really. He stated he has a clean block log though, so he's telling a fib and surely people on OTRS shouldn't tell fibs?

How do you actually know this?

Prolly the biggest fib of OTRS is that they exist to address problems reported to them by visitors to the site.

What level of honesty are you expecting from someone who personality-shifts on wikipedia? Seems fibbing is pretty much ingrained.

Well...

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



Though if it is who I would love it to be, their comment here would bring a chuckle to my lips:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=199452352

NVS wrote, "The block log on the previous account is clean."

The cited block log is on his current account, and it appears to be a practice test, not a real block.

The block log on WordMachine is indeed clean.

Correct, the block on his previous account was not a test.

What block on his previous account? I don't see any block listed on WordMachine.

That's just one of his previous accounts.

Though if it is who I would love it to be, their comment here would bring a chuckle to my lips:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=199452352


Oh, my. Seriously? Is that who we mean?

If I understand your point, Jorge, the fib wasn't that the block log on his previous account was clean, but that he neglected to expressly mention even older previous accounts?

I see, so you're an ArbCom-approved sockpuppet, participating in "discussions internal to the project" contra this ruling…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req...gs#Sockpuppetry
…an ArbCom-approved sockpuppet who is allied with the authors of that ruling, and opposes the person who was retroactively punished and outed for violating it.

There don't appear to be any other accounts he is presently active under.

This is the same ArbCom which outed me and drove me off Wikipedia, and I wasn't operating under any other names. Where was "Nonvocal scream?"

Busy being a tenured professor of religion at a private university?

You see, ArbCom isn't for or against sockpuppetry, or for or against outing or contributor privacy.

What they are very much for - what they insist upon - is their right to control the process, that of socking and that of outing.

So, NonvocalScream, regarding these edits as WordMachine:

Were these not calculated efforts to deceive by presenting yourself as a new contributor?

Sheez, you might as well say it, then....

Of course, this is so predictable...

Starts with an EESSSS.....

...J...zg?

404

:0

OK, I have got to hold up my hands and say I made a mistake here. NVS did leave evidence of their real life name on their website in the html author info and I linked that to a Wikipedia account (don't bother looking at the website, it's deleted). There were other factors that led me to connect this account with NVS's account but it appears I was completely wrong.

I can confirm that NVS edited Wikipedia under a previous account and he has now stopped editing with that account and that that account had been under no sanction.

So, "NonvocalScream", tell me, what are your feelings about the Arbitration Committee's outing of Privatemusings and of myself?

How do you feel about the Committee giving you license to sockpuppet while outing others' real world identities?

And per my question above…
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&sh...indpost&p=92361
…were those edits not calculated attempts to deceive?

To which we can add:

Wasn't that, too, a calculated attempt to deceive?

Thank you, Jorge. That resolves my confusion.

NVS told it straight after all.

Not really, if you look at the quotes above.

What are the remaining discrepancies?

There aren't any remaining discrepencies - we now know that posts such as these…
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=192445240
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=185525640
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=185526876
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=203314347
…were dishonest, designed so that others would walk away believing something untrue.

It's odd that he came off as one of the BADSITES crowd over on WP, but is now posting here, right in the Axis of Evil.

I'm missing something here. There doesn't seem to be anything substantive in those pages to even suggest there is a meaningful hypothesis of any sort to form at all.

It's very straightforward, Moulton. He says he "intend[s] to be a long-term contributor" to disguise the fact that he already was a long-term contributor: one does not naturally "intend to be" what one already is. He says he is "following instructions" in proposing JANJAN for deletion to obscure the fact that he knows how to do it because he has done it many times before. And he invokes gaining trust on other Wikiprojects to obscure his previous participation on English Wikipedia.

Help me out here. As I recall, his previous account, WordMachine, was created only a few months ago. Who was he before that, and how do we know how far back he goes?

I'm interested in this question because there are other accounts I know of that appeared out of nowhere during my troubles, and obviously were being operated by someone with substantial knowledge of bureaucratic minutiae (like how to request page-blanking).

We can't answer this just yet, but we will.

Here is another example of his deception:

Rather overcompensatory, too, as there is no shortage of long-time contributors (including myself) who are not so good about using preview.

What we have here is the Arbitration Committee - the same Committee who outed the real-world identities of several honest good-faith contributors, concocting bogus "principles" to justify this post facto - approving a well-connected foundation volunteer's ongoing effort to pull the wool over the eyes of the community.

OK. I get your point. He's pretending to be a novice, but you have good reason to believe he's already a seasoned editor. (But you don't yet have any hard evidence to prove that.)

Could I ask you to opine on what, to me, seems an even more obvious case of a fake new user?

Consider User:Baegis who created his account last September 10th (the night before I was indef blocked).

Now look at his Contributions Log from the moment of his registration to the morning after I was blocked (when my user page was blanked and protected) -- a period of 36 hours.

What do you make of that?

(See also this greeting from Dave Souza, who also participated in the RfC against me.)

Fishy indeed, here is a request today by Orangemarlin to help tag-team since he was already at 3RR. Perhaps we shoud split this off into a new thread though.

I'd say that it's painfully transparent that his claim to be a new user was bullshit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=156999147
Not only does he jump into the RfC on his second edit, but he fixes other posters' indents!
Between that and FM/ON, Moulton, it looks like you were jumped by sockpuppets.

Yes, if this editor is of interest, it should be split off.

By the way, if you look at his edits to my talk page, you can see that he was trolling me fairly blatantly (presumably angling to draw an uncivil response).


Yes, that was my impression, too. But remember that I had only been editing on Wikipedia for about 2 weeks, and I was woefully naive about all the shenanigans that these adversarial editors were engaging in (or how to call them on it).

He's an OTRS volunteer, has admitted he has edited before and was allowed to create a new account by Arbcom. However, his original account had no sanctions...

I want to deduce a few things from what is in this thread.

1) He was allowed by Arbcom, off-Wiki, to create a new account that now has OTRS access
2) 1 suggests he was both experienced with OTRS and knew those who pull the strings
3) For some reason, he had to vanish from an account that had no sanctions on it
4) Apart from the Arbcom few who know, his "newbie" actions make it clear he doesn't want anyone else to know about his past on Wiki
5) He has told other editors that they can't use their credentials to win arguments

So...

Who has been involved with the "high-ups" in Wiki in the past, has had to disappear - though "by choice," but has shown they can deal with OTRS work in the past? Person is desperate nobody knows who he is, perhaps because his original account has a stigma attached to it. Could be argued the sort of person who is given OTRS access after vanishing would be the sort of person Wikipedia would try to defend, right up until the point the mainstream press start asking questions.

There is nothing stopping him coming back, from a Wiki point of view.

I'll just point out (one more time) that none of this speculation or suspicion would exist if WP operated like all other responsible publications, where all the authors and editors are identified and their credentials are available for inspection.

This is wrong. His previous account is clean.

He was blocked indefinitely for two minutes on 6 October 2007 as a "vandalism-only account"…

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...ge=User:Mercury

Maybe I missed an episode of CSI: Criminal Intent here, but was it conclusively proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that NVS == Mercury?

What I recall is that NVS evaded answering the question, when he was afforded a chance to categorically deny it.

So you're just being pedantic?