Tony Sidaway wrote:
Indeed. Having said that, I think arbcom must take great care to afford all involved in a case an opportunity to give evidence in their defense. Towards the end of the recent Robert the Bruce case, it emerged that one innocent third party named by Robert the Bruce as a sock puppet only heard of this accusation by accident. He had not been involved in the arbitration case at all except by being named, unknown to him, by one of the parties. A sock puppet check was ordered on him without his knowledge.
Yeah. I should add also that the AC is not perfect.
Mind you, sockpuppet checks are not IMO themselves an intrusion, as we do take care not to give the details, e.g. "technical evidence shows". Privacy is important.
In cases of sock puppet accusations sometimes the accused may be able to, and certainly should always be given the opportunity to, convince the arbitrators that he is not a sock puppet. Many people use AOL which I understand uses a round-robin web proxy system, so it would be quite easy for two people with ostensible similarities in their patterns of Wiki usage to be mistaken for sock puppets.
We are *keenly* aware of the anoying case of AOL ...
Sockpuppetry is usually flagged through a remarkable similarity in edits and favourite topics. Occasionally when a noted sockpuppeteer starts throwing around spurious allegations of sockpuppetry against his detractors. Writing and editing styles are what's telling; technical evidence is only a corroboration.
- d.