On 8/13/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
To start with, use of a sockpuppet is not a violation of policy, and the sockpuppet I was using did not violate any policy. So there was absolutely no valid reason to make that check in the first place. Secondly, the fact that my actions were not disclosed to the public is irrelevant, as what I have a problem with is the fact that the checkuser was made in the first place. Thirdly, revelation of the matter would not have hurt my reputation. I have made no attempt to hide the fact that I often edit Wikipedia using pseudonyms. And fourthly, my privacy would have been violated by your revelation of the identity of an edit which was made under a pseudonym. You might not call that a violation of privacy, but it is.
Anthony. You created a sock which was an apparent impersonation of a outside institution which was in some way associated with the WMF or some members of the WMF board.
Creating impersonation accounts is a violation of EnWP policy. You should have known better.
You used that account to create an article on the institution.
Doing so created the appearance of a violation of our conflict of interest guidelines. At least within our community, doing cast the origination in a falsely negative light ... as you should be well aware, much of our community frowns on self-edits. You should have known better.
As a direct result of your actions Wikimedia received unfair public criticism. It was claimed that Wikimedia looks the other way when it comes to COI edits from possible sponsors. You should have seen that coming.
I asked a Enwiki checkuser to see if there we had any useful data on the impersonator account, and the checkuser discovered that the person who created the account was you.
If you think that checkuering a blocked impersonator account is a violation of your privacy you are more out of touch with reality than I previously expected. No doubt, no one thinks you are important enough to bother checkusering you... it's just as easy to checkuser the disruptive account you make.
I see that you don't disclose your actions in your post, is it because you are not so confident that it wouldn't hurt your reputation or is it because you've created disruptive sock accounts so many times that you couldn't tell which one I was taking about in your prior message?
I suggest you be more careful with your words, because it's really starting to sound like you're complaining because you're not able to avoid the risk of being caught when you create a disruptive account.
Rather than simply throw you to the dogs over this, I asked the CU to take no further action at the time. I contacted you directly and asked what you were up to. You gave what I felt was a half-assed excuse, but since we all make idiotic mistakes from time to time I left it at that. As far as I can recall I only ever told a few foundation folks, since they had to clean up the mess you made.
It was my view that we needed no further response towards you in order to avoid continued disruptive behavior from you of that sort. After seeing your ranting, complaint, and defence of your disruptive actions I now believe my prior conclusion was made in error.