[Wikimedia-l] Protecting the Encylopedia vs Destroying a human

[Peter Southwood]

Some of this e-mail is incomprehensible to me, so I am unable to form a 
valid opinion. This may also apply to other readers. Cheers,
Peter
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eddy Paine" <blogginged at outlook.com>
To: <wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2013 2:22 PM
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Protecting the Encylopedia vs Destroying a human


> Hello,
> First of all I was asked to take a look at the following case. I found it 
> very strange how people behave against other people and I would like to 
> write about it and ask opinions. I'm sure this is not only for this user 
> but there are more users like this.
> I understand that its needed for people to block users when the 
> encyclopedia or the project is in danger, but where do will place the 
> border? I think destroying people or behaving against people like I will 
> describe below is also endangering the project. We should all remember 
> that we are humans and not robots and everybody makes mistakes. Therefor I 
> am sure that there was behavior that was totally wrong, but the way the 
> whole international community decided to handle it was wrong also.
> First of all we have a policy against socks. In that policy we describe 
> that its not right to edit with two accounts at the same time or working 
> together with 2 accounts to get something done. Secondly its not right to 
> use new accounts to evade blocks. Lastly bot accounts are not seen as 
> socks neither are old and unused accounts. Besides that we have a policy 
> in place that says that people are free to leave the project or abandon a 
> username and continue with a new name. This I guess is for protecting the 
> project and protecting the people that work on it.
> Now to get to my case. On 3 July on Meta a attack started against a former 
> Dutch Wikipedia user. This attack was mainly started by people of the 
> Dutch Wikipedia. The same people that are willing to destroy this user. 
> (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Abigor) now before 
> you all click away this message hear me out and give me opinions. This is 
> now almost two years ago and a good moment to look back. If I am wrong 
> please point me to that and lets keep a good talk instead of going all 
> "don't waste our time".
> In this case there was a big list of names that where socks and this 
> "sockmaster" needed to be blocked. But when we look at our policies and on 
> that list we see the following:
> Abigor (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) - thats meAbiBot 
> (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) No sock its a bot, only 
> did bot editsAbiBot.nl.wiki (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • 
> CA) No sock its a bot, only did bot editsAbibot (talk • contribs • block • 
> SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) (renamed to AbiBot[2], self acknowledged)Huib 
> (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) Created on request by 
> meta communety en en.wiki communety, because I sign with Huib while I'm 
> abigor... Its points to my abigor account and its created to protect my 
> own account. Execpt for the rename edits, it didn't edit at all.Huib (old) 
> (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) Did a rename request to 
> get Huib free..Sterkebak (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) 
> old account... on my userpage is a note that I used to use that 
> oneSterkeBak (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) old 
> account... on my userpage is a note that I used to use that oneSterkebot 
> (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) No sock its a bot, only 
> did bot editsSterkeBot (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) 
> (renamed from Sterkebot[3][4] and later renamed to AbiBot[5][6])P.J.L 
> Laurens (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) - Its a account 
> created for my uploads, it has a different userpage on Commons with 
> information about me as photographer. Didn't do any edits just created for 
> the userpage and information. All my uploads are pointed to this one with 
> a link.WikiLinkBot (talk • contribs • block • SULinfo • x-wiki • CA) No 
> sock its a bot. Only editted on nl.wiki to let its userpage be removed, 
> the dutch admins didn't want to remove the page.This list is ctrl C Ctrl V 
> from Meta.
> Now go to the policy:
> Abigor is the account of the user. Than we have AbiBot, AbiBot.nl.Wiki and 
> Abibot sterkebot SterkeBot as bot accounts. According to the policy 
> accounts used by a bot without human edits are not socks. Huib and Huib 
> (old) Sterkbak SterkeBak P.J.L Laurens. All those names are old accounts 
> without overlapping edits so according to the policy its not socking. Some 
> accounts doesn't have edits at all but where only there to redirect. 
> WikiLinkBot is intresting cause its now in use by a other user. This user 
> is also the source for the blocking on the Dutch Wikipedia. Abigor would 
> have placed personal attacks against this user and now the user is having 
> that accounts. Very intresting don't you think.
> Then we get a bunch of accounts:
> Accounts with only a few edits and no CU results where linked to this 
> users. I strongly believe that we should have proof before pointing 
> something out and say "hey it was you". But the account where I want to 
> speak about is Delay. We have the policy that says that you can start 
> right over with a new account. But still a Foundation employee confirms a 
> link between the Delay Account and the Abigor account something CU didn't 
> do at start. So we have a policy, but the policy doesn't work for some 
> people?
> The coolest thing here is that we block him for disrupting a project. Or 
> disrupting multiple projects, but every account used on the Wikipedia did 
> get a barnstar for good work. Since when do we give vandals barnstars? Or 
> since when do we block people doing good work?
> So in this case one of the accounts that pointed to him is now in use by 
> the user requesting Abigor to get blocked. There are a bunch of account 
> creations that are never clearly linked to the user. Its linked by Abigor 
> was on Wikimania so he have done the actions. And after that we decided to 
> TELL all communities where he was active that he is a danger.
> So tell me, why doesn't get this user the change to start over like many 
> others did. Many people have more accounts, or old accounts and why don't 
> do they get blocked and most off all why do we keep hunting him down when 
> there is clear proof that he is doing good work (a.k.a barnstars). Where 
> do we draw the line between protecting a community or scaring people off?
> Ed
>
>
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