The following discussion is an archived debate of the case of suspected sockpuppetry. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page. All edits should go to the talk page of this case. If you are seeing this page as a result of an attempt to open a new case of sockpuppetry of the same user, read this for detailed instructions.

Suspected sockpuppeteer

Nrcprm2026 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Suspected sockpuppets

Yellowbeard (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Report submission by

Abd (talk) 05:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence

Yellowbeard Contributions

08:57, 23 July 2006 Yellowbeard New user account[1]

First edit: 09:10, 23 July 2006 Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Schentrup method‎ (First deletion reason)[2]

comment: Clay Shentrup is a well-known activist for Range voting, often ppromoting the Center for Range Voting, and he has written some articles posted there. Schentrup method was his invention, and is non-notable. The point is the timing, as the first act of a new account, within minutes of registering.

One of Yellowbeard's early AfDs was for Center for Range Voting.[3] If I recall the history of CRV correctly, it might have been notable by then, it much more likely is now. Notability is not the issue, the action shows pattern and intention.

Subsequent activities included the deletion, though AfD or redirection, initially with high success, of many articles relevant to voting systems. If this sock is James Salsman, aka User:Nrcprm2026, an indefinitely banned user, it is relevant that numerous socks of his have been involved in attempting to keep criticism of Instant-runoff voting out of that article and to further slant or remove positive information on alternate voting methods from Wikipedia, and this is my reason for suspecting that this sock is one of Salsman's. For the Salsman socks which are clearly identified and involved with voting systems, see: Special:Contributions/BenB4 Special:Contributions/Acct4 Special:Contributions/P-j-t-a

Yellowbeard took action against articles for voting systems that might be considered political competition for his apparent preference, Instant-runoff voting, and against Voting systems criteria that are not satisfied by Instant-runoff voting, such as the FBC, Favorite betrayal criterion.

(Not all of Yellowbeard's actions have some obvious function with respect to a particular agenda, though I've seen no example of any work to actually improve the encyclopedia, only killing articles of arguably marginal utility, with some attempts -- and some success -- at removing notable articles.)

Yellowbeard filed a successful AfD for Bayesian regret[4], which is a term used for a measure of overall public satisfaction in simulation studies of voting systems by Warren Smith, cofounder of the Center for Range Voting, which work is widely considered to be important in measuring performance of voting systems. As was common with Yellowbeard's AfD's, the notability of this was misrepresented. For a definition of Bayesian regret, see [5], and for confirmation of the claim of prior use there, see (1989), ref to 1957 work, etc. Warren Smith himself showed up on that AfD, and gave references, but Smith is definitely *not* a wikilawyer!

Favorite betrayal criterion had been deleted [6] as a result of a simultaneous AfD for six articles on election criteria. Some of these may have been non-notable, but others are quite recognizable to students of election methods. Yellowbeard was not involved in the first deletion. However, FBC is very well-known to people studying the field, so it is not surprising that the article reappeared.

Then Yellowbeard filed: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Favorite betrayal criterion (2nd nomination). For the first time in this series of AfDs, editors familiar to me as participants in the voting systems articles appear to have noticed the AfD, and provided the necessary sources and arguments, and the decision was Keep.

Then he filed: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Favorite betrayal criterion (3rd nomination). This one started to heat up, and there was even broader participation. The AfD success of Yellowbeard depended on nobody watching the articles; some of these articles were created by specialists who are not regular Wikipedia editors, so they may have been on no watchlist for any interested user who logged in during the AfD period. At this point Yellowbeard began to personally attack those who had voted to Keep; however, Keep prevailed.

At this point, Yellowbeard began to attract some suspicion. He reverted a comment from User:Fahrenheit451 on his Talk page with the summary "rv vandalism."[7]

Yellowbeard continued to AfD articles. Definite majority choice was successfully deleted: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Definite_Majority_Choice. Here he started to encounter more resistance. DMC is well-known among students of election methods.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sequential proportional approval voting was also a successful deletion. Ironically, one of Yellowbeard's arguments was that there was already a section on this in Proportional approval voting. Yes, he then subsequently presented Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Proportional approval voting, and was again successful.

In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Majority choice approval (3rd nomination), which was successful, Yellowbeard presented a novel proof of non-notability: "The fact that only two users participate at this AfD exemplifies the complete lack of notability of this article." Of course, the number of users who participate in an AfD has little to do with notability, except for massively notable subjects. With specialized subjects, it can have to do with the very few editors who have the article on their watchlists, and who are not constant editors. Most of us don't watch all the AfDs that come by! Of course, there were two prior AfDs: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Majority Choice Approval and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Majority choice approval (second nomination)

Yellowbeard stopped editing for a period, his last edit before this hiatus was October 25[8] when he deleted content and redirected Allocation voting to Range voting, which is an error; Allocation voting is similar or identical to Cumulative voting, it is not Range voting at all. Again, nobody noticed. Recently, I became aware of the extent of Yellowbeard's activities, but he had not been editing, so it was moot. However, in case he returned, I put him on my watchlist. He started editing again December 11, with the same theme.

I have been countering his efforts, this time, but it's tedious.

My biggest concern is the abrupt and ill-considered loss of content. Indeed, some of the articles he has successfully deleted are not sufficiently notable to have their own articles; however, the goal of Yellowbeard, unfortunately, does not appear to be improving the encyclopedia, but to remove information about voting systems. If he does not go for an AfD but instead deletes the content and redirects, he does not place the old content on the Talk page for the new target, so that editors there can merge it, nor does he merge it himself. He's an eraser, not an editor, and that's not a proper use for socks.

From his Contributions it is clear that he is a sock, an experienced wikilawyer, and User:Nrcprm2026 is an obvious suspect; but it's possible that he is another with a similar agenda.

Comments

I am not a sock puppet of James Salsman. Abd also doesn't give any explanation why he believes that I was a sock puppet of James Salsman.

As for the article on allocation voting, the article says:

Allocation voting is any voting system in which voters are assigned a number of "points" or other unit of account, and are expected to allocate these among a number of alternatives. Unlike preference voting the numbers do not represent ranks but weights.

As a simple example, a system might allocate each voter five points or votes and permit them to apply them to a number of candidates for office. A more complex example might permit both positive and also negative votes, so that disapproval voting was also supported in the same system. asasally, an approval voting scheme is just an allocation voting scheme where each voter has as many votes as there are options, and can allocate only one vote to each such option.

This article is very contradictory. Is the number of points that a voter can cast fixed or variable? If this number is fixed, then I have to agree with Abd that allocation voting is identical to cumulative voting. But the author of the "allocation voting" article also mentions approval voting and disapproval voting, two methods where the number of points is variable, as examples for allocation voting. In this case, "allocation voting" refers to all range voting schemes. In any case, and here Abd agrees with me, we already have a Wikipedia article on this topic. Yellowbeard (talk) 11:48, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is a suspected sock report and content controversy or argument is not generally relevant here. It's been acknowledged above that many of Yellowbeard's AfDs and other actions were technically correct. If any facts alleged above are incorrect, Yellowbeard is, of course, welcome to correct them, and if any apparent implications from the fact are imbalanced, he is also welcome to counter those implications with fact or argument. Allocation voting was mentioned merely as the most recent action; however, there may be some specific relevance, i.e., in the specific interest in deleting subjects relevant to Range voting. Allocation voting and cumulative voting are essentially plurality systems and as such have well-known problems; if a reader is referred to the Range voting article when looking for Allocation voting, and has a knowledge of the problems, Range might be tarred with the same brush. But any editor may err, even sock puppets, without consequence; it is a series of errors in a particular field, generating a certain subtle (or sometimes blatant) slant in coverage of that field, that may lead to suspicions of POV motive.

As noted above, there is only circumstantial evidence, based on interest and to some extent on more subtle characteristics of his behavior, that Yellowbeard is James Salsman. What is clear, however, a virtual certainty, and what was not denied by Yellowbeard in his response, is that Yellowbeard is a sock, an experienced Wikipedia user, who registered a new account. I assert that he has made and is making contentious edits and proposals, including voting twice first vote, and second vote; when correctly warned[9], responded defending action), and including personal attack and incivility. (See diff and the general discussion in that AfD.) As such, any administrator may consider appropriate action, from doing nothing, to warning or blocking any of the users involved, including me if my behavior is inappropriate.)

If the conclusion here is that Yellowbeard is not a sock puppet making improper edits, then various forms of dispute resolution would become appropriate if any content disputes remain. Because I consider the probability high that a judgment of "abusive sock" will be found, I'm not wasting effort yet on dispute resolution that would become moot. I am independently taking action to prevent harm from current edits of Yellowbeard. This mostly is a matter of insisting on proper process before making massive edits, such as his deleting and redirecting an entire article without notice and opportunity for consensus to form. Generally, the articles he has attempted to delete need improvements, and it is possible that the attention generated by this situation will help attract the attention of editors who can make them. I will do so myself as I can. Note, as well, that Yellowbeard initially reverted my reversion of his content deletion and redirection for one article, without engaging in discussion.diff

--Abd (talk) 20:38, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Abd complains: "Yellowbeard initially reverted my reversion of his content deletion and redirection for one article, without engaging in discussion." Well, Abd re-inserted the AfD tag although the corresponding discussion was already closed since 3 days [10]. Of course, Abd's behaviour was a clear violation of Wikipedia's deletion policies. Therefore, I replaced the AfD tag by a Merge tag [11]. Yellowbeard (talk) 16:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I considered not responding to this at all, since what I wrote wasn't a "complaint," but a piece of evidence showing a pattern of behavior; but then I realized that this response, itself, confirms the pattern, in its wikilawyering and misleading description of the history.

This is the history: Yellowbeard filed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Simple majority voting, primarily based on content criticism, and was correctly advised he did not need to AfD, he could simply delete content and redirect. Yellowbeard then did this,[12] noting it in the AfD, which was then closed: "The result was Redirected to Plurality voting system. Non-admin closure. --Blanchardb-MeMyEarsMyMouth-timed 23:54, 11 December 2007 (UTC)" This is in no way a binding AfD result. It is an AfD helpfully closed by a user because it has become moot.

I then reverted this, summarizing "AfD should be renewed or this article improved. Topic is notable."[13] At this point, Yellowbeard is on notice that the redirection is disputed. I left the AfD tag because of what I suggested. Contrary to his assertion above, he again deleted and redirected, giving a content-criticism based summary.[14] I reverted, with "See Talk."[15], and added comment to Talk:Simple majority voting. He then (correctly) replaced the AfD tag with a merge tag, which is where it stands. He has not responded in the article's Talk. I then placed discussion of the merge proposal in Talk:Plurality voting system (as indicated in the tag]]. No response there either. --Abd (talk) 00:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

File an WP:RFCU, this is possible, but not conclusive. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

RFCU filed, hope I did it right![16]

That Yellowbeard is a sock is, from clear evidence in contributions, a near-certainty. That he is a sock of User:Nrcprm2026 is a reasonable presumption from interest; also it is of interest that no proven socks active in voting systems started Afds, Yellowbeard mostly avoided article edits except to place deletion or merge tags. That partition is also a possible characteristic of a puppet master becoming more sophisticated. Nrcprm2026 threatened to partition activity to avoid detection.

--Abd (talk) 17:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Conclusions

Closing, RFCU results said they are unrelated. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:19, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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