[WikiEN-l] Featured editors?

[Relata Refero]

"Even if admins were blocking a specific POV- so what?" Well, here's why
that thinking might be dangerous: most banned editors are banned for
disruptively arguing their POV, nor their POV. If we ban accounts on the
basis of POVs like already banned editors, that would be a severe error, and
compromise our neutrality, our effectiveness, and our ability to criticize
ourselves.

I'd let this go - I don't normally write in - but it seems that too many
people have begun believing that 'sounding like' people who are dangerous
for *other reasons *is in itself reason for banning. That's just happened at
AN/I, for example which is why I've broken the rules I've set myself and
written in. We've got to be careful to avoid false positives in our
identification.

I agree with Joshua on the effectiveness of textual analysis to catch
sockpuppets, so don't make this remark about that. It isn't. It's about how
this method must not appear to be used to scotch criticism of our own on-WP
behavior.

RR



Quoting joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu
<wikien-l%40lists.wikimedia.org?Subject=%5BWikiEN-l%5D%20Featured%20editors%3F&In-Reply-To=20071112103004.GB16056%40psi.co.at>
*Mon Nov 12 14:16:40 UTC 2007*

> > Quoting Raphael Wegmann <wegmann at psi.co.at>:
>
> > On Sun, Nov 11, 2007 at 05:41:21PM -0500, joshua.zelinsky at yale.eduwrote:
> >> Quoting Raphael Wegmann <raphael at psi.co.at >:
> >>
> >> > Guy Chapman aka JzG schrieb:
> >> >> On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 18:52:43 +0100, Raphael Wegmann
> >> >> <raphael at psi.co.at> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>>> No, the only people who need to fear that are the *already banned*
> >> >>>> abusers of the project whose socks we are blocking on an almost
> >> >>>> daily basis.
> >> >>
> >> >>> And what kind of magic is involved in finding those socks?
> >> >>> In what way is it different from a witch hunt?
> >> >>
> >> >> The average sockpuppet is traceable via IP using CheckUser and other
>
> >> >> methods, whereas witch hunts require ducking stools and the like.
> >> >


> > What are those "other methods"? According to WP:SOCK
> > "similarities in interests and editing style" might help
> > to detect sockpuppets. If this is the case, how can we
> > make sure, that we do not block different editors,
> > who happen to share the same POV? Does it matter at all
> > since we might call them as well meatpuppets?
> > How do we prevent admins from blocking not a vandal
> > but a certain POV?
>
>
> Furthermore, even if admins were blocking a specific POV- so what? In
> order for
> a POV to look similar to a blocked editor it generally needs to be extreme
> and
> with no caring for NPOV. So even if such blocks were occasionally
> occurring we
> aren't losing much. Consider for example, some socks of Jason Gastrich
> we've
> blocked. At least one of those I think wasn't a Gastrich sock, but it was
> interested in pretty close to the same thing; spamming and promoting
> Louisiana
> Baptist University and whitewashing the article. We didn't lose much for
> blocking it. Note incidentally, that this isn't the sort of evidence we
> are
> talking about above- that sort is almost never wrong.
>