[Foundation-l] Global ban - poetlister?

[Risker]

On 3 June 2011 22:03, Thomas Morton <morton.thomas at 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