[WikiEN-l] Assume bad faith, for banned users.

[Skyring]

On Nov 21, 2007 4:38 AM, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/20/07, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Some admins have the uncanny ability to smell out and ban a sock without
> > benefit of CheckUser.
>
> Yes, it's called the "duck test" and it works when said socks go back
> to doing the same things that got them banned in the first place.
> Don't do those things and nobody has any reason to suspect you of
> being a sock.
>
Another point here, one that you've apparently missed, is that, bad
behaviour aside, one doesn't always need CheckUser to work out if two
usernames are the same person. Just as the timbre, pitch, accent, word
choice and so on will mark out a particular speaker, it is hard to mask
one's online patterns. Leo Marks tells of being able to work out whether
Morse Code operators were genuine SOE agents or not, even when they were
merely sending encrypted code-groups. They had a distinctive "fist" and
other little tell-tale signs.

Some people are more aware of nuances and patterns than others, of course,
and the ham-fisted are represented in the admin ranks at the same
propoirtion as in the general editor population, it seems.

-- 
Peter in Canberra