On 11/1/07, Alec Conroy <alecmconroy(a)gmail.com> wrote:
The problem with the indef block of PM was that I
think he went out of
his way to follow the rules as they currently are. He was always very
polite, and he was very very helpful in mediating the discussion.
From the information I have in front of me as of this second, he's an
icon of compliance with our SOCKS rules as they currently exist, and
his block had much more to do with WP:BADSITES than WP:SOCKS.
I think it's one thing to have an alternate account to contribute to
controversial discussions - although I'm not keen on it in general -
and quite another to have one to take controversial ACTIONS. This is
close if not over the line of having 'good hand' / 'bad hand'
accounts, and I feel is at least beyond the spirit of our policy on
sockpuppetry - whether it's beyond the current wording of the policy
I'm not sure.
Frankly, our policy on socking and multiple accounts is way looser
than it should be, and I think the wording of the current on-wiki
policy pages is significantly looser than what is actually acceptable
in practice to the community.
-Matt