[Foundation-l] Global ban - poetlister?

[Newyorkbrad]

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 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
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