[WikiEN-l] An Open Letter to Mr. Wales

[K P]

On 3/17/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 3/17/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at waterwiki.info> wrote:
>
> > >Hm. As a rule, checkuser doesn't lie.
>
> > Checkuser doesn't lie, but results can easily be misinterpreted.
>
> Agreed. Many people still use ISPs that assign IPs dynamically. This
> is even true for many DSL and Broadband providers. In such cases the
> only thing a checkuser will tell you is that both accounts in question
> are (for example) Comcast users in Chicago or Bellsouth DSL users in
> Birmingham. A few years ago I was blocked for a month. So was every
> other user in Atlanta whose ISP used Level3 POPs all thanks to some
> dickhead called alberuni who was also an earthlink subscriber in
> Atlanta (or another ISP in Atlanta using Level3 POPs) . If someone
> suspected me of being a sockpuppet of user:alberuni, a checkuser would
> likely say I was.
>
> >I think there have been a number of instances of troublesome users
> seizing
> > on an inaccurate interpretation of checkuser to contest remedies which
> are
> >directed at the troublesome behavior shared by both accounts in question.
>
> > If both accounts are making the same kind of trouble...
>
> If user:foo and user:bar are both being wp:dicks, then unless you are
> 99.998% certain
> then one is a sock of the other, both should be judged solely on their
> own dickery. If you accuse one of being a sock of the other and it
> turns out they are 2 separate dicks, it makes you look like the dick
> and the dicks look like victims.


A lot of the rants from various unrelated users on this list complaining
about being blocked sound exactly alike.  I simply cannot tell one from the
other.   This is partly a function of boredom.

This is interesting though:

"I took the offending admin to WP:AN/I and instigated a WP:RfCU
against them. My RfC was closed early for some reason, apparently
because I violated WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA, in my edits to WP:BJAODN. But
WP:CIVIL is only a guideline, not a policy."

Couldn't it be from an experienced computer user rather than an experienced
Wikipedia editor?  I asked my son to get an account and edit an article on
Wikipedia that needed work.  Today he showed me how to do something so
embarrassingly newbie that I can't ever admit it--even worse than the four
months it took me to find the edit undo button.  I said, "oh, you've been
editing Wikipedia."  Nope, he only used it that one time to edit the article
I requested, then forgot all about it, but he learned what was what for the
few days he spent editing.

I think Wikipedia administrators are seeing what they want to see when they
look at something like this, and at check user.  My son grew up on
computers.  He rebooted his grandmother's op system when he was 7.  Learning
what all these things are for a user who spends time on the Internet, and is
computer savvy, or a computer gamer (like my son),  probably does not take
months of time.

Still, been editing for 7 months and I probably couldn't write that.

Sometimes I wonder though when I find two editors who occassionally cross my
path and seem just like another editor.  Today I ran across a new one who
reminded me of some other editor, and I found it.  Funny, how they appear to
have almost cloned each other's users pages.

A quote from User:Nesbit:

Why I do Wikipedia

Wikipedia is an excellent example of how knowledge can be socially
constructed. The editing and discussion tools constitute a collaborative
knowledge building environment that stands as an alternative model to
threaded asynchronous conferences, collaborative annotation systems, blogs,
and software development systems.

A quote from User:Sue Rangell:

Why I do Wikipedia

Wikipedia is an excellent example of how knowledge can be socially
constructed. The editing and discussion tools constitute a collaborative
knowledge building environment that stands as an alternative model to
threaded asynchronous conferences, collaborative annotation systems, blogs,
and software development systems.

They also are both have a discrete number (less than twelve) of right
justified, paragraph spaced rather than continually stacked,  user boxes
identifying both as native speakers of English, left handed, skeptical of
MBTL (whatever that is), users of Mozilla firefox browsers, they both
program in Pascal and HTML, and they both may, one day, become
self-proclaimed professional procastinators.

As for professional interests, they both have the exact same list:


My professional interests on Wikipedia include:

Cognitive psychology

Concept mapping

Knowledge representation

Educational psychology

Educational technology

Instructional design

Interaction design

Learning object

Multivariate statistics

Meta-analysis

Multimedia

Qualitative psychological research

Self-regulated learning

Among my recreational interests are:

Artificial intelligence

European history

Northumberland

History of technology

History of science

Science fiction

Music theory

Music Synthesizers

Jazz

Computer programming

See, *this* is what I call a sock-puppet.

*Interesting enough, in light of the Essjay scandal, they both claim to be
professors or educators at universities*, one a woman in the department of
education at DeMoines University (sic), the other a man at a university in
Canada.  Only the man links to his faculty page, whereas I assume the
spelling might be an issue with the woman's link--is there really a DeMoines
University?

I've run across a handful of pairs like this on Wikipedia, both active
editors, just like these two--Nesbit just editing a few days ago, Sue
posting a poorly written snowball of an article to FAC today.  They seem
more like socks, to me, than the random rantors that pop up on this list
every once in a while. They come up in unusual situations, like GA
nominations, FAC.  Sue Rangell's nomination for FAC was such a poorly
written article, ridiculously made into a series of lists, that I wondered
what else she had done.  Not much considering she only made her user page
and first edit a week ago, but has already been giving away barnstars like
crazy and getting awards, too.

I suppose there is some obvious explanation for this, so I'll just ask
User:Nesbit if User:Sue Rangell is his sock puppet.  But like last time I
asked this, I just got a denial, although the editor in question did stop
supporting him/herself on GA nominations.

Am I missing something?  Or is it just that some folks have two Wikipedia
accounts and are various things on different accounts (American
female educator on one, male Canadian professor on the other)?  I suppose if
the socks are not misbehaving it's not an issue, so maybe that's why
administrators are not commenting upon these.

But check user?  Similar whiney rants on this list?  It's not like whining
requires finese and originality, especially when angry.

KP