Hmm, assuming that el-Reg article is the full extent of the issue, then there seems no reason to demand a global ban. Bad stuff happened on WP with him impersonating real people, that seems to be dealt with. Unless there is anything more, the response seems kosher...
Except other comments indicate this is not the extent of it.
Here is the problem; the el'reg article is a load of rubbish, of little information in relation to *why this person is bad news for the whole of WMF. *My inclination on these matters is, generally, to be harsh and get rid of them. But you're making it very difficult with the vague and meaningless responses to make me, personally, come out and support such an action.
No offence, but.. any of his on-wiki or within-WMF activities should be fine for public knowledge, and I fail to see why the wider majority should be asked to comment or support these actions without running over the basic details.
In case my point isn't obvious *that *is why global bans are probably seeing so much resistance. Secretive shit.
Yes, I am pushing hard here. But this sort of discussion should not be taken lightly; *what sort of activity requires a global ban*?
Tom
(p.s. the signpost link doesn't work for me - if that addresses my above issues then apologies)
On 4 June 2011 01:54, Scott MacDonald doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l- bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Morton Sent: 04 June 2011 01:41 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Global ban - poetlister?
Not at all! That would be bad, and misses the point - I don't care at all who he is in meat space.
But consider me unable to pick apart the million threads of information about his on-wiki activities. I've tried, and need a better intro.
Tom
Far be it from me to point anyone to the Register, but this is the best record I can find.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/19/wikipedia_civil_servant_scandal/prin t.html
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2008-09-15/Poetlis ter
Scott
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 3 June 2011 22:03, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
Hmm, assuming that el-Reg article is the full extent of the issue, then there seems no reason to demand a global ban. Bad stuff happened on WP with him impersonating real people, that seems to be dealt with. Unless there is anything more, the response seems kosher...
Except other comments indicate this is not the extent of it.
Here is the problem; the el'reg article is a load of rubbish, of little information in relation to *why this person is bad news for the whole of WMF. *My inclination on these matters is, generally, to be harsh and get rid of them. But you're making it very difficult with the vague and meaningless responses to make me, personally, come out and support such an action.
No offence, but.. any of his on-wiki or within-WMF activities should be fine for public knowledge, and I fail to see why the wider majority should be asked to comment or support these actions without running over the basic details.
In case my point isn't obvious *that *is why global bans are probably seeing so much resistance. Secretive shit.
Yes, I am pushing hard here. But this sort of discussion should not be taken lightly; *what sort of activity requires a global ban*?
Tom
(p.s. the signpost link doesn't work for me - if that addresses my above issues then apologies)
What the Register article doesn't go into as much is the harm that this group of sockpuppets did on English Wikipedia and in other projects. They have been used to change the outcome of multiple discussions, including deletion discussions and requests for adminship. The Runcorn (administrator) account unblocked known harmful proxies, softblocked them, and then the sockpuppets used them. He has continued to manage to persuade various administrators and other advanced privilege users on various projects that he has reformed, but because of the negative connotations associated with his former username(s), he needs a new, secret account to contribute, thus creating further sockpuppets that have the patina of protection from respected community members. He has used those "new" accounts to SUL to various projects and send harassing and otherwise inappropriate emails to other users. (We had to go through and block email on all of the English Wikipedia accounts we're aware of because they were originally blocked before that feature was enabled.) He has promised his protectors that he will never run for adminship, and then does so, forcing his protectors to either come clean about what his previous identities are (thus harming the reputation of the protectors) or keeping quiet (creating a time bomb for the project). We will never know what information he gained or how he used it when he had checkuser access; his deception in this area is one of the reasons that the WMF is looking at ways to retain the personal information submitted by "identified" users. His off-wiki activities have focused on harming the personal reputations of various "enemies" on Wikipedia and the other projects. As recently as the beginning of this year, he was still emailing users and insisting that this is all a terrible misunderstanding, and that the accounts really are just a group of girls who know each other and are all separate individuals.
In other words, the initial harm was significant, and the deception has continued unabated to this day.
Risker/Anne
I second everything that Risker has said.
I am not convinced that further public discussion of this situation is really going to do anything other than feed Poetlister's ego, and create exactly the bitterness and divisiveness in the community, or communities, that it seems to be one of his aims to create. My view is that if we can't come to a consensus quickly on this matter, it ought to just be handled and announced, either by one or more stewards or by the Office acting as such.
Newyorkbrad
On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 10:21 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 June 2011 22:03, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
Hmm, assuming that el-Reg article is the full extent of the issue, then there seems no reason to demand a global ban. Bad stuff happened on WP
with
him impersonating real people, that seems to be dealt with. Unless there
is
anything more, the response seems kosher...
Except other comments indicate this is not the extent of it.
Here is the problem; the el'reg article is a load of rubbish, of little information in relation to *why this person is bad news for the whole of WMF. *My inclination on these matters is, generally, to be harsh and get rid of them. But you're making it very difficult with the vague and
meaningless
responses to make me, personally, come out and support such an action.
No offence, but.. any of his on-wiki or within-WMF activities should be fine for public knowledge, and I fail to see why the wider majority should be asked to comment or support these actions without running over the basic details.
In case my point isn't obvious *that *is why global bans are probably seeing so much resistance. Secretive shit.
Yes, I am pushing hard here. But this sort of discussion should not be taken lightly; *what sort of activity requires a global ban*?
Tom
(p.s. the signpost link doesn't work for me - if that addresses my above issues then apologies)
What the Register article doesn't go into as much is the harm that this group of sockpuppets did on English Wikipedia and in other projects. They have been used to change the outcome of multiple discussions, including deletion discussions and requests for adminship. The Runcorn (administrator) account unblocked known harmful proxies, softblocked them, and then the sockpuppets used them. He has continued to manage to persuade various administrators and other advanced privilege users on various projects that he has reformed, but because of the negative connotations associated with his former username(s), he needs a new, secret account to contribute, thus creating further sockpuppets that have the patina of protection from respected community members. He has used those "new" accounts to SUL to various projects and send harassing and otherwise inappropriate emails to other users. (We had to go through and block email on all of the English Wikipedia accounts we're aware of because they were originally blocked before that feature was enabled.) He has promised his protectors that he will never run for adminship, and then does so, forcing his protectors to either come clean about what his previous identities are (thus harming the reputation of the protectors) or keeping quiet (creating a time bomb for the project). We will never know what information he gained or how he used it when he had checkuser access; his deception in this area is one of the reasons that the WMF is looking at ways to retain the personal information submitted by "identified" users. His off-wiki activities have focused on harming the personal reputations of various "enemies" on Wikipedia and the other projects. As recently as the beginning of this year, he was still emailing users and insisting that this is all a terrible misunderstanding, and that the accounts really are just a group of girls who know each other and are all separate individuals.
In other words, the initial harm was significant, and the deception has continued unabated to this day.
Risker/Anne _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I am being a bit of a "jerk" over this, because I do know some of the details (enough to support any global ban).
But the *point *I am trying to get across is this; Scott posted to this * public* list asking why a global ban was not on the table for this guy, and why projects were sidestepping any attempt at a global lock.
And the answer is twofold; firstly it is an assertion of independence. But mostly it seems to be due to a lack of clear communication between projects as to what abuse has occurred that merits such strong response. We need to detail that abuse in a dispassionate and public way for all of the projects to note and understand. I doubt anyone would really support the guy were all of the detail revealed in one place.
Saying "this guy is bad news" is true, but without detail on why that is the case you will always find a project that pushes back.
If the stewards or an office action can deal with this then great. But I doubt that will even stick long term in such a case.
Tom
On 4 June 2011 03:28, Newyorkbrad newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
I second everything that Risker has said.
I am not convinced that further public discussion of this situation is really going to do anything other than feed Poetlister's ego, and create exactly the bitterness and divisiveness in the community, or communities, that it seems to be one of his aims to create. My view is that if we can't come to a consensus quickly on this matter, it ought to just be handled and announced, either by one or more stewards or by the Office acting as such.
Newyorkbrad
On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 10:21 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 June 2011 22:03, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com
wrote:
Hmm, assuming that el-Reg article is the full extent of the issue, then there seems no reason to demand a global ban. Bad stuff happened on WP
with
him impersonating real people, that seems to be dealt with. Unless
there
is
anything more, the response seems kosher...
Except other comments indicate this is not the extent of it.
Here is the problem; the el'reg article is a load of rubbish, of little information in relation to *why this person is bad news for the whole
of
WMF. *My inclination on these matters is, generally, to be harsh and
get
rid of them. But you're making it very difficult with the vague and
meaningless
responses to make me, personally, come out and support such an action.
No offence, but.. any of his on-wiki or within-WMF activities should be fine for public knowledge, and I fail to see why the wider majority should
be
asked to comment or support these actions without running over the
basic
details.
In case my point isn't obvious *that *is why global bans are probably seeing so much resistance. Secretive shit.
Yes, I am pushing hard here. But this sort of discussion should not be taken lightly; *what sort of activity requires a global ban*?
Tom
(p.s. the signpost link doesn't work for me - if that addresses my
above
issues then apologies)
What the Register article doesn't go into as much is the harm that this group of sockpuppets did on English Wikipedia and in other projects.
They
have been used to change the outcome of multiple discussions, including deletion discussions and requests for adminship. The Runcorn (administrator) account unblocked known harmful proxies, softblocked
them,
and then the sockpuppets used them. He has continued to manage to
persuade
various administrators and other advanced privilege users on various projects that he has reformed, but because of the negative connotations associated with his former username(s), he needs a new, secret account to contribute, thus creating further sockpuppets that have the patina of protection from respected community members. He has used those "new" accounts to SUL to various projects and send harassing and otherwise inappropriate emails to other users. (We had to go through and block
on all of the English Wikipedia accounts we're aware of because they were originally blocked before that feature was enabled.) He has promised his protectors that he will never run for adminship, and then does so,
forcing
his protectors to either come clean about what his previous identities
are
(thus harming the reputation of the protectors) or keeping quiet
(creating
a time bomb for the project). We will never know what information he gained or how he used it when he had checkuser access; his deception in this area
is
one of the reasons that the WMF is looking at ways to retain the personal information submitted by "identified" users. His off-wiki activities have focused on harming the personal reputations of various "enemies" on Wikipedia and the other projects. As recently as the beginning of this year, he was still emailing users and insisting that this is all a terrible misunderstanding, and that the accounts really are just a group of girls who know each other and are all separate individuals.
In other words, the initial harm was significant, and the deception has continued unabated to this day.
Risker/Anne _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 20:36, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
... And the answer is twofold; firstly it is an assertion of independence. But mostly it seems to be due to a lack of clear communication between projects as to what abuse has occurred that merits such strong response. We need to detail that abuse in a dispassionate and public way for all of the projects to note and understand. I doubt anyone would really support the guy were all of the detail revealed in one place.
Thomas, lack of communication wasn't really the issue. Even after the abuse was widely known, the ArbCom unblocked him. The truth is that we had an extreme empathy failure as a community for the people who were being attacked, accompanied by a bending over backwards to assume good faith of the troublemaker. This happens much less than it used to, but it does still happen. Poetlister was extremely good at exploiting that tendency. That's the long and short of it.
The one good thing that could come of it is that we recognize in future when we're doing it again, but that will only happen if we remember and discuss it, and try to heal the divisions he caused or made worse.
Sarah
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l- bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Newyorkbrad Sent: 04 June 2011 03:28 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Global ban - poetlister?
I second everything that Risker has said.
I am not convinced that further public discussion of this situation is really going to do anything other than feed Poetlister's ego, and create exactly the bitterness and divisiveness in the community, or communities, that it seems to be one of his aims to create. My view is that if we can't come to a consensus quickly on this matter, it ought to just be handled and announced, either by one or more stewards or by the Office acting as such.
Newyorkbrad
I entirely agree. Unfortunately, there is apparently no mechanism for this to be "handled and announced". Even in an extreme case like this, the Foundation are playing Pontius Pilate, and any attempt to create a cross-community mechanism will meet demands of "what specific problem are you trying to fix" and, before consenting to any mechanism, everyone on every project will demand to know all the details in the name of open decision making.
There is nothing other than an open list to allow cross-community decision making, and no other way of doing it. Honestly, this needs to be the job of the service provider, because there is no other responsible way of doing this. (And that's over to you Sue.)
Scott
On Fri, 3 Jun 2011 22:28:28 -0400, Newyorkbrad newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
I second everything that Risker has said.
I am not convinced that further public discussion of this situation is really going to do anything other than feed Poetlister's ego, and create exactly the bitterness and divisiveness in the community, or
communities,
that it seems to be one of his aims to create. My view is that if we
can't
come to a consensus quickly on this matter, it ought to just be handled
and
announced, either by one or more stewards or by the Office acting as
such.
Newyorkbrad
Would it be any good if the attention of en.wv community has been drawn to this tread? Or are they expected to know/not care?
Cheers Yaroslav
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org