Re: [Wikimedia-l] Community liaison advocacy in support of the community

James, you are a long-term Wikipedia user. Were it not for the fact that you have been, on occasion, a good-faith contributor, I'd not bother with this. "To live outside the law, you must be honest." --Bob Dylan. You have been a long-term puppet master, creating many socks. I have no personal judgment of that, I could say that maybe WP:IAR could require it on occasion. But, of course, break the rules, get blocked. Because you are experienced, James, you should know that you are not "banned" on meta. You are indef blocked. You claim about the reason does not match the evidence. Rather, there was, at the time, a controversy over certain research you did. In doing that research, you created some undisclosed socks and used them to send many emails on enwiki. While the research question may have fueled some interest in your activity, you were actually blocked for sock puppetry. I'm aware that you might have had an excuse for this, a "reason" why the accounts should be undisclosed. However, you violated the general expectations of WMF users regarding socks and role accounts. *However, you did not do this on meta.* The block was discussed at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Requests_for_CheckUser_information/Arc… Your arguments there were unskillful. Nevertheless, I see no clear sign that you violated meta policy, or behaved there in such a way as to legitimate a block, and you could, in my opinion, be unblocked even if you did, that long ago. (The CA data shows no meta edits, for both "Survey" accounts, and for other known James Salsman accounts listed in the Checkuser report, except Tashir, which had 5 harmless unrelated edits, and Selery, 6 unrelated, all of these nondisruptive.)  However, you have not requested unblock as instructed on https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:James_Salsman#Blocked I would consider assisting you if you need it, but you must first follow procedure. I'd advise having a conversation first about how to request unblock, there are ways that work and ways that don't. Email me if you like. I will watch your talk page. Beyond that, it is likely that much that you have wanted to do could be done through Wikiversity. The issue of wiki research is a complex one, but, on Wikiversity, there is a possibility of developing ethical standards and of doing independent research. There are some issues raised by your interaction with the WMF, I'm not going to address here, beyond pointing to a very interesting discussion: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:James_Salsman/Inactive_administra…   Abd ul-Rahman Lomax I'm so excited I can't wait for Now.