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Case clerks: Hahc21 (Talk) & Callanecc (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Worm That Turned (Talk) & David Fuchs (Talk)

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Evidence presented by Rich Farmbrough[edit]

Breaching experiment/trolling by Wikipediocracy community in violation of WP:POINT

User Receiver 0814 and user User:The Rewarder are engaging in nominally paid editing [1], as the payee and payer respectively. thumb|Would you kill a kitten to preserve NPOV?

To muddy the ethical/moral dimensions the "rewarder" has promised to not kill a kitten pay $5 to the WMF if the edits are performed and stand for 15 days.[2]

The intention appears to be to establish precedent for paid editing, or to illustrate that Wikipedia is a financially corrupt entity that accepts editing against its policy, if there is a financial reward, or that Wikipedia rejects perfectly valid contributions, both monetary and content, for spurious reasons.

No doubt the relevant threads on Wikipediocracy can be referenced by someone with more time than I, but it is certain that the "usual suspects" including "Mr 2001" and Tarc would be aware of this.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough21:56, 2 September 2014 (UTC).

Testimony and hearsay helpfully provided by SB_Johnny[edit]

Meh to the above

If "The Rewarder" was the Wikipediocracy participant (call him "G.K.") that Mr. Farmbrough thinks it is, offering to give $5 to the WMF would be anathema to him. Actually I'm pretty sure it would be anathema to pretty much any Wikipediocracy participant that would bother with a "breaching experiment" (it's really not much of a challenge to breach WP, after all, so what's the point?).

I assume I don't need to bother with diffs for this, though I'll leave you with a logical diff: if I were the type to have sock accounts, I certainly could have provided the same testimony and hearsay using one of those, though of course it wouldn't have meant as much coming from an "unknown character", right?

Evidence presented by {Hell in a Bucket}[edit]

My Perspective

This has root in one thing, my comment that was removed by User:Tarc with the edit summary [but this is the adult table. When you can learn to speak like an adult to others, then you can have your placemat back]. I reverted him because at the time ANI had determined there was nothing to be done and that the comment while distasteful to some was not a removable worry. That is a taint on the case consideration because it did cause quite a stir when I made the comment. A short time later, User:Smallbones reverted a banned user Mr. 2001. The banning policy clearly states that for any reason a banned user or blocked user may be reverted without reason. In this case new accounts were popping up to Jimbo's page and these were their first edits. Based on my experience this means at best they were evading scrutiny as a sockpuppet or were a blocked user. I reverted this based on this and another editors suspicion added to the fact that it made sense it was a sock. Tarc came in and reverted well over 20 times stating on their talkpage that they didn't care who they were[3]. Later after a checkuser asked for more information Tarc assumed that this meant that the SPI was failed. The fact is that the evidence was enough that a CU ran the check and didn't find sleepers which isn't always the case and later the three editors in this situation were blocked as obvious DUCKS. Tarc in this showed a battleground attitude and a willingness to edit war and bypass wikipedia guidelines and banning in what is my opinion a trolling attitude. After the first rounds of reverts I had a discussion with Tarc found [4] where he stated that this was a problem with Smallbones, the comment at 1:23 is where he said Smallbones was a bully and whiteknighting etc. As I stated there I did not revert on that occasion again until after I saw the comments made by Tarc here [5] and [6]. Also a little further down you can see the second sockpuppet come to Tarc's page [7] where they acknowledge watching their having knowledge of the previous situation and offering it up to Tarc for their amusement whereupon Tarc makes another statement showing that his later reversion wasn't based on agreeing or taking responsibility for the comment but to "Consider this a trial balloon to see how far these little defenders of the crown will go". During this I was taunted by Tarc in edit summaries up until the point he threatened to take me to Arbcom because of this and attempted to intimidate me that my recent comments wouldn't reflect well so I should be careful. I admit that I let that one threat completely get under my skin and I took it to arbcom as it is it does highlight an issue that seems to me to be clear cut, when we site ban them we don't generally list but you can post on Jimbo's page or you post if it's helpful, in article space sure if they are removing vandalism we wouldn't want to cut off our nose to spite our face but talkpages are a far different animal and this was more the hypothetical trap question then a good faith question to appeal sanctions. Banned means banned, if WP:EVADE only applies to CU confirmed socks or Admin may only remove that great let's say that and move on. This does state the obvious that I am confrontational in nature at times and I understand that this reflects poorly. This is a work in progress so I will add as time goes on despite my reservations. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 01:36, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Pattern by Tarc in summaries alone directed at multiple users that this wasn't a good faith effort

restoring the comment of an editor who is not banned, and encouraging smallbones to stop lying in edit summaries, lest it be considered a WP:NPA violation)

Blatant Troll Page and actions by the people reverted

User talk:Spotting ToU with a first edit of [8] . After a SPI is filed on a "new" user comments you for demonstrating how to file an improper SPI. I appreciate that. A reasonable editor can infer from that response that the person has been involved in a few SPI's in the past just based on that comment alone. Later on the now deleted page the editor in question refused to even deny they were the person they were accused of being and after that two user's The Rewarder and the Receiver came up to pose a similar set of ToU's questions on Jimmy's page. Later based on behavioral evidence Spotting ToU's, the Rewarder and The Receiver all were handed out blocks.

Incorrect Evidence presented by others

Last minute thoughts

I still intend to curtail a lot of my participation here for the time being, during the interim though I'd like to point out part of the reason for my last two week absence was to observe the behaviors and actions of the other people in this thread. I think that the section headings and comments, and overall attitudes displayed speaks far more loudly then I could have. I have played a part in this issue but I think that overall my part is actually quite small and I hope that the committee looks at the entire situation policy scope included rather then the acceptance comments attitude expressed by 1/3 of the active arbs. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 18:01, 16 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Carrite[edit]

Placeholder. Evidence to follow... Carrite (talk) 03:16, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

While one of my posts was hit by some of Smallbones' wild machine gun fire (Aug. 6 revision 620109318, LINK), which I did not appreciate, he corrected the error. I've decided I don't have much to add to move the case forward constructively. I kept this slot open in case Mr. Kohs (an acquaintance or dare I say friend of mine via Wikipediocracy) had anything to say in this case more or less involving him. It seems he does not. Carrite (talk) 06:22, 16 September 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 06:34, 16 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Smallbones. Greg Kohs is "dangerous" only in the fervid imagination. You really should redact that malicious assertion. Carrite (talk) 06:27, 16 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by S Marshall[edit]

All I want to add is a diff of an RfC close. Here. Hope this helps.—S Marshall T/C 16:34, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by User:Smallbones[edit]

Editors are not using the prescribed format on this page

Nobody was using the prescribed format for this page, denying me the opportunity to see what I was accused of. Now they have simply removed all evidence against me.

User:Spotting ToU is a sock of User:MyWikiBiz/User:Thekohser

MyWikiBiz/Thekohser (TK) was first banned on Wikipedia by Jimmy Wales (JW) in 2006 for advertising a paid editing service "Your entire approach to Wikipedia is 100% antithetical to our community values" In 2008 after TK was community banned, the ArbCom provisionally unbanned TK, but soon re-banned him for personal attacks and not fulfilling his promises to help create the encyclopedia. (See WP:List of banned users, under MyWikiBiz) He has also been banned or blocked for long periods at Commons and on Wikipedia-l.

There is no question that this entire conglomerate of socks is the work of one user, TK, and Spotting ToU was a recent sock of his. JW has asked that these edits be removed from his talk page.

Thekohser harasses other editors and is disruptive and dangerous

TK and his websites have long had a well-deserved reputation for harassing Wikipedia editors, including outing them. I'll leave out his websites, except to note that the most recent outing is advertised by one of TK's socks at User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Wikipedia_editor_being_railroaded_by_Wikipediocracy.

Just a couple of historical examples of other types of harassment.

TK has also attempted to out me on-wiki.

There has never been a policy on JW's talk forbidding reverting banned editors

It's been alleged that JW has a talk page policy prohibiting editors from deleting comments by banned users. No editors making this allegation have linked to this "policy". Nevertheless:

The 5th paragraph of User:Jimbo Wales states "Over 3,000 Wikipedians monitor my user and user talk page via a watchlist, and I trust them to edit and remove errors or attacks." Clearly, editors, including me, are allowed to remove material from his talk page.

On May 27, 2014 I stated that I would revert Mr 2001 on-sight on JW's talk page, unless JW asked me not to. JW has never asked me not to.

I've repeated that statement at other times, e.g. on August 5, it was soon reverted by TK [19]

JW has made some direct statements about allowing reverting editors who are not here to improve the encyclopedia;

Tarc sabotages application of WP:Banning policy

In WP:Banning policy "[A]ll editors are expected to respect the enforcement of policies by not undermining or sabotaging them."

Response to Konveyor Belt

Response to Devil's Advocate

You say that JW's attitude toward TK has changed since 2012, when he said that he considered TK to be dangerous and requested that other editors revert TK. I'd rather not beat this horse to death - there are people off-wiki to consider, but I can provide 2 diffs from 2014 where JW goes into the same incident in more detail and calls TK dangerous. I'll provide these diffs to arbs if they ask.

Response to Tarc

What you see as peace and quiet on JW's talk page, I see as rowdyism enforced by the threat of a Heckler's veto. It doesn't look to me like anybody can have a serious discussion there anymore.

Response to Tarc's last minute section

Responding to the sections consisting of long lists of diffs. I've checked almost all of the first 26 diffs and they all seem to be my edits. The last 5 however, despite a version of my name being in the heading of the section with 3 diffs, are all by HIAB, and are not mine.

Number 4 in the list of 26 was the result of an edit conflict and is described by Carrite above. He seems comfortable with it now. In any case he originally asked HIAB to apologize for it (which he did) and much later you asked me to apologize for it (which I did).

Your list of bare diffs suffers from the same problem that Konveyor Belt's did. There is no assertion, no accusation, of anything that I've done wrong. I have to guess what you are talking about, the arbs have to guess what you're accusing me of. It's not fair to me, or the arbs, or indeed to to yourself to make everybody guess. It is especially unfair to me in that, by responding to a vague or non-existent accusation, I have to assume some sort of order or sense to the accusation, which is forcing me to make the case against myself. I might not understand what you mean, and thus I might be denied the right to respond. Not clearly stating an accusation is an abuse of the ArbCom procedure when it has lasted so long and is not corrected as I've asked and in general is harassment.

In any case, I will guess that you mean to accuse me of WP:Revert war (which is similar to your section title). WP:Revert war is a redirect of WP:Edit warring, which states quite clearly

This is important enough to that policy that the phrase is repeated in substance lower down in the section known as WP:NOT3RR.

This is not a fluke of one or two sentences in one policy. Rather, the same idea is contained in two other policies: WP:Banning policy and WP:Blocking policy. This is the core concept in banning policy enforcement.

Every revert you listed (except number 4) is of an edit that was 100% written and signed by a banned editor.

You make the same mistake in your section saying that I vowed to edit war. Absolutely not. I told people that I would continue to exercise my option to revert a banned editor, strictly following the rule at WP:REVERTBAN.

Evidence presented by The Devil's Advocate[edit]

Bones that are small reveals the evident inconsistency of Wikipedia's Godking

Smallbones posts this edit from two years ago and this edit from about a month and a half ago. I think it is clear that the Dear Leader has adjusted his approach to He Who Must Not Be Named.--04:31, 12 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hell in a Bucket showed incredible restraint by reverting only three times or fewer in a 24-hour period, rather than like fifteen times

  1. [36]
  2. [37]
  3. [38]
  4. [39]
  5. [40]
  6. [41]--02:26, 13 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

He Who Must Not Be Named is vewwy, vewwy dangerous

The greatest threat posed by He Who Must Not Be Named is his role in revealing the COI and paid editing of people and organizations close to the Foundation and our Dear Leader, the very same high wiki-crime for which He Who Must Not Be Named was summarily exiled:

Also, just generally revealing how rampant paid and COI editing is on Wikipedia:

He Who Must Not Be Named is clearly the single most horrific enemy Wikipedia has ever faced.--18:16, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Tarc[edit]

When un-harried, Jimbo, Mr. 2001, and everyone else exist in harmony

HiaB and Smallbones "banned means banned" means that they believe they are doing the project a service, that it is improved by their intervention. However;

Again, it is just an IP. It could be a particular person, but it also may not be. HiaB and Smallbones created the drama where it otherwise would never have existed. When Jimbo's door is left open as intended, it polices itself, without the need of unreasonable force.

Smallbones, HiaB, and revert-warring

Smallbones, 26 reverts over 3 days (20 in the last 24 hours)

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=619985982
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=619989912
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=619998263
  4. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620109318
  5. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620178949 (own edit + revert)
  6. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620243789
  7. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620247031
  8. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620251369
  9. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620252157
  10. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620253692
  11. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620261050
  12. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620264608
  13. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620278472
  14. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620279799
  15. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620283792
  16. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620291811 (own edit + revert)
  17. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620311858
  18. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620357916
  19. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620367741
  20. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620368033
  21. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620368613
  22. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620371415
  23. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620376226
  24. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620378387
  25. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620386937
  26. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620388959

HiaB, small reverting during initial foray;

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=619993084
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620109124
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=620268686

More serious IMO is the reverts of my own post re-posting the allegedly bad user's comment, which was done under a long-standing project "you can take ownership of it" standard;

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=621258986
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=621259480

Smallbones did indeed declare he would edit-war endlessly

Smallbones threatened an editor over an Evidence page filing

I do not believe this falls under what is proper to do when one wishes to rebut an Evidence filing. Threatening a block is the proverbial "chilling effect".

Evidence presented by Coretheapple[edit]

Thekohser/MyWikiBiz has a history of disruptive socking

See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Thekohser/Archive and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/MyWikiBiz/Archive, in particular the sock case I filed in MyWikiBiz in May 2014. Note the Risker comment at the conclusion of the May 2014 MyWikiBiz case:

The user behind many but not all of these IPs is known to have access to a wide range of dynamic IP addresses, most of which can be blocked via WP:DUCK. There is no need to file SPIs and checkuser requests; they will not receive a public response even in this egregious a case, because those IPs *are* dynamic and the next time they're used, they'll probably be used by someone completely different. Please don't tag the IP addresses as socks, either, for that reason. Risker (talk) 23:10, 19 May 2014 (UTC) [emphasis added]

It is understandable that editors have reverted obvious TheKohser/MyWikibiz socks on sight rather than going to a sockpuppet investigation, which the administrator above specifically cautioned against doing. The person behind these socks knows that, and has taunted editors with it. See the edit summary here: "AB1:C068 is not banned. If you have evidence of such, take it to a Sockpuppet Investigation." He knows perfectly well that SPIs of his IP socks are fruitless. That is why he uses them.

At one point I felt that this person made useful contributions to Jimbo's talk page. But my patience with him was eroded by his trolling there and my user talk page[49][50][51][52][53], and his disruption of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reliance Globalcom, the latter evidently on behalf of a client. All the struck-out IP comments in that AfD are from his socks.

Crude insults are one of MyWikiBiz/TheKohser's identifying characteristics. A sampling:

Clearly this is not a misunderstood person who made a few mistakes and is trying to improve the project, but a businessman who has sought to cynically exploit Wikipedia by a paid editing business, was thwarted by Jimbo, and ever since then has embarked upon a campaign to undermine and disrupt Wikipedia. I have stopped policing Jimbo's talk page for this person because I feel Jimbo has been mealy-mouthed on this issue, and should do his own policing. But let's not kid ourselves by denying that TheKohser/MyWikibiz is disruptive or claiming that all would be fine if he was allowed to evade his ban.

Evidence presented by {your user name}[edit]

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.