Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2007-06-04
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Sockpuppeting administrator desysopped, banned
After a lengthy investigation, it was officially determined this week that Runcorn, an administrator, was among many accounts used as sockpuppets by the same user. As a result, the account was desysopped and the puppetmaster and all sockpuppet accounts were banned.
The case is related to a December 2005 case that involved RachelBrown and a variety of sock puppets, some of whom were later unblocked and continued editing. After a suspected sock puppet request on many of the accounts, a CheckUser was performed, confirming that many of the accounts involved were related.
In a post to the administrators' noticeboard, checkuser and former arbitrator Dmcdevit said,
After an investigation involving several CheckUsers, myself included, it has been determined based on new, firmer technical evidence, as well as the editing patterns, including similar article interests, reverting to each other, and double voting, that Newport, Poetlister, R613vlu, Brownlee, Londoneye, and Taxwoman, all previous sockpuppetry suspects from 2005, are all the same user, and, further, that the operator of these accounts is also the operator of newer accounts including Simul8, Osidge, Holdenhurst, and the admin account Runcorn. On the recommendation of the Arbitration Committee, Runcorn has been desysopped by a steward, and all of the accounts have been blocked indefinitely.
According to Dmcdevit, the question of whether Runcorn may have been a sockmaster was raised privately on the Arbitration Committee's mailing list but evidence was at that time inconclusive. Dmcdevit, who was not involved in that conversation, looked at the report on Newport and began to find more and more sockpuppets. Said Dmcdevit, "I first connected Simul8 with an IP used for double-voting, and then it kept getting deeper and deeper, so I decided to contact ArbCom privately before taking any further action."
Much of the suspicion regarding the accounts revolved around the accounts' similar interests, editing habits, and comments. At least three of the accounts created articles on British scientists and professors in an unusual fashion; the articles read like résumés and are all excerpted from Who's Who (often credited in the articles as "Who was Who").
The effects of Runcorn's sockpuppeting are still being evaluated. Many of the sockpuppets voted together in deletion debates and requests for adminship. One notable request, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jreferee, ended with 69% support, out of the usual bureaucrat's discretionary range, but without six oppose votes by Runcorn and sockpuppets, the request would have ended with 75% support and may have resulted in Jreferee's promotion.
The case is at least the sixth sockpuppeting case involving an administrator. In each case, the user in question was desysopped:
- June 2006: The Arbitration Committee desysopped an administrator after making edits on behalf of a permanently-banned user (see archived story).
- December 2006: Konstable voluntarily relinquished adminship as a result of an arbitration case involving his use of, and unblocking of, his sockpuppets.
- February 2007: Husnock was desysopped after an arbitration case involving his misuse of sockpuppets to support his opinion in a dispute.
- May 2007: ChrisGriswold requested desysopping after a sockpuppeting incident, rather than having an arbitration case open against him.
- May 2007: Henrygb was desysopped and banned after sockpuppeting, and not responding to an arbitration case involving the sockpuppeting.
Admin restored after desysopping; dispute centers on suitability of certain biographies
Biographical articles, especially so-called "single-incident biographies", remained the focus of heavy debate and some controversial interventions over the past week. Deletions of several articles in this class were contested on Wikipedia:Deletion review, while one administrator was briefly desysopped over an apparent offer to disseminate deleted content.
The problems grew out of uncertainty with the policy restrictions on biographies of living persons, the scope of that policy, and its intersection with other policies. The general issue has already been a source of considerable dispute and produced an arbitration case. As the discussion evolved, particular concern was directed toward subjects who were children at the time of the events, especially those who were victims of crime or tragic circumstances. Complications arose with the consideration of other factors, such as participation in publicity by themselves or family members, and the fact that some were no longer living.
All a misunderstanding
Amid the contentious atmosphere of these deletion reviews, a comment Friday by Night Gyr sparked fears that prompted an emergency removal of administrator privileges. The comment appeared to say that Night Gyr had offered to provide the text of one of these controversially deleted articles to a Washington Post reporter covering the subject. Within an hour, Night Gyr had been desysopped, based on a case last September in which the Arbitration Committee took the same action against Everyking for offering to publish deleted article revisions that might contain sensitive personal information.
However, this time the situation proved to be a misunderstanding based in part on a confusion of gender pronouns; Night Gyr was contemplating giving the text to the subject of the article in question, a female, not the male reporter. Night Gyr immediately afterward had suggested to another contributor the possibility of "a new team to track down people with these dubious BLPs written about them and ask them what they think of their articles". Others questioned the wisdom of trying to contact article subjects in situations where the media coverage about them was arguably exploitative, potentially exacerbating the hurt they might feel. In any case, the reason for desysopping did not apply, and Night Gyr was restored to administrator status on Monday after the issue was called to the attention of the bureaucrats.
The archetype
The current debate has sprung in part from a series of events that began a month ago, when an article written about a Chinese teenager was nominated for deletion. The teenager was cited as being an Internet phenomenon whose picture had been photoshopped into a wide variety of contexts. In this teenager's case, the subject was 16 when the original picture in question was taken in 2003, but the English-language media coverage did not appear until 2006, with the teen now 19 and above the age of majority for most jurisdictions. As an adult, the teenager had apparently cooperated with the press, but with a sense of "facing the inevitable" and "making the best of the situation".
These stories appeared not purely because of the phenomenon itself, but rather in the context of coverage about Chinese government efforts to regulate online discussion. The pictures, in which the teenager's rotund appearance prompted nicknames like "Little Fatty", served as an example of ègǎo, a Chinese word applied to forms of insulting online humor that might be prohibited by the government's restrictions.
Cases on edge
The number of disputed cases expanded in the past week, starting with two boys who were recovered from their alleged kidnapper, Michael J. Devlin, amid considerable publicity in January. Articles about the boys themselves were deleted by Newyorkbrad, and the issue became the subject of a deletion review. The names of the boys ultimately became redirects to the Devlin article; the article histories remain deleted and the redirects have been protected from editing.
During the debate over these two, Doc glasgow and other administrators made additional deletions of similar cases, including several articles involving children who had been kidnapped, molested, or murdered, as well as others born with rare medical conditions or other unusual circumstances. A few of these also came up for deletion review, but generally have not been restored. In some cases, they have been redirected to articles about the general topic of which they are a specific case.
Another edge case made the news with a story in Tuesday's Washington Post, this time involving a high school pole vaulter whose picture, posted to a blog, sparked a "wave of attention" and comments about her that she characterized as "demeaning" because of their focus on her attractive appearance. However, in this situation the individual was 18, and she and her parents had been interviewed by the Post, though the initial publicity was involuntary. It was in the context of this matter that Night Gyr made the comment that led to the temporary desysopping. The underlying questions — whether to have an article at all, whether to cover only her athletic accomplishments, where to cover this incident if at all — are still being debated.
Controversial RFA suspended, results pending
A request for adminship (RFA) on behalf of Gracenotes was a point of discussion this week, with comments from over 250 users. Upon the conclusion of the RFA, which stood within bureaucrat discretion range, the decision on whether to promote was suspended, pending a bureaucrat discussion currently in process.
On 21 May 2007, Ryan Postlethwaite nominated Gracenotes for adminship, along with two co-nominations by Snowolf and Nishkid64. An optional question posted by SlimVirgin, along with its answer, were the source of the controversy:
Hi GN, I seem to recall your posting something that implied you felt it was okay to link to attack sites, but I may be misremembering. Can you outline your position on that issue, please? [1]
Followed by this answer:
Certainly. I suppose you mean attack sites as those in which personal attacks are made against Wikipedians, without the intent of improving Wikipedia.
I came to view the proposed WP:BADSITES as an extension of our policy on No Personal Attacks, as several others did. Personal attacks are restricted on Wikipedia, but not on other websites, where nonconstructive criticism has no consequences. (This can be compared to Wikipedia, where action can be taken upon personal attacks.) If posting a link to an attack site is intended, in any way, to be a personal attack in itself, then Wikipedians may wish to rephrase or remove their comments. If the issue brought up by the attack site is valid, surely Wikipedians can discuss it on-wiki.
In the discussion at WT:BADSITES, I thought it unhelpful for editors to either add or remove links merely to make a point; I was also frustrated by the enforcing of a proposed policy for cases without a clear personal attack.
To delineate, and to address some of the concerns in your question, I oppose removing all links to all such sites in all contexts, especially if such removals interfere with the good faith development of Wikipedia (if rules make you nervous or depressed...) Granted, not all additions of links to attack sites happen in good faith. Both adding and removing links should be justified by logic, and not by enforcement merely for the sake of enforcement (something I see way too much in real life). Temperance, rather than prohibition, is the best route. (There has not been an amendment enforcing morality since the 18th, and for good reason.)
To conclude, it is an interesting fact that (to my knowledge) MeatballWiki has no articles on dealing with external sites of criticism. Wikis are meant to be their own self-sufficient world, taking care of their own problems, not meant to be in the real world. However, Wikipedia no longer has that option: the recognition of this is helpful in dealing with such sites. Now, if these comments seem without focus, it is because the issue has many, many facets. Hopefully I've explained my views on the facets you're interested in.[2]
After the response, SlimVirgin then became the second user to oppose Gracenotes for adminship. The merits of the answer was later heavily discussed on Gracenotes's RfA talk page.
Because of this issue, these were a few of the many concerns raised:
- A user expressed concerns that RfA participants are basing their decisions based on ideology over experience and character.
- The RfA was discussing "character over administrative ability".
- There may have been confusion between Gracenotes and Grace Note for some supporters and opposers, which may have also influenced the RfA.
After the standard seven days of RfA and discussion, it became apparent that no consensus has been reached by the community. Thus, on his own action, the most recently re-elected bureaucrat Cecropia (talk · contribs · rights · renames) suspended Gracenotes' RfA pending bureaucrat action.
By the suspension of his RfA, Gracenotes had amassed 201 supports, 71 opposes, and 4 neutrals. The RfA was one of only a handful which have had over two hundred supporters. Out of all the count, 73% were arguments supporting him for adminship.
After suspending the RfA, Cecropia notified the RfA talk page on the situation. There was definite consensus by several users that there should not be a re-run for Gracenotes' RfA, and that a discussion between bureaucrats would be more justified. Cecropia then conducted a poll with this question: "If a Bureaucrat Chat resulted in a decision that is the opposite of the opinion you expressed on Gracenotes' RfA, how would you feel about the fairness of the process?" About half of the users said they would accept the decision with no reservation, with only a few users unwilling to accept a decision they disagreed with.
In recent months, the requests for adminship process has received much critique and attention by the general community. It has been a major subject of centralized discussion for nearly two months, with thirty proposals to reform the RfA process. There were also discussions on a reform trial run and an open question to the community recently.
Currently, a bureaucrat discussion is underway to determine whether Gracenotes will be made an administrator or not.
Dutch government provides freely licensed photos
In a milestone for free content, the Dutch government has released pictures of its current cabinet under the GNU Free Documentation License. The images were uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons this week and have quickly been put to use on Wikipedia.
This achievement comes thanks to the efforts of the local chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation. Elly Waterman, chair of the Dutch Wikimedia chapter, wrote to the government seeking freely licensed photos of its leadership. After some discussion, the government agreed to release portraits of the entire cabinet, a total of 27 photos. The images were provided by the Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst, the Dutch government's public information agency.
Although their intellectual property is typically created at taxpayer expense, most governments maintain some degree of control over it. The US federal government provides that works created by its employees in the course of their duties is not subject to copyright protection, but in other countries (as well as in most US states) similar material is not in the public domain.
This state of affairs makes illustrating the articles of politicians an interesting challenge, since images found on the Internet, including on government websites, may not be eligible for use on Wikipedia. Images relying on claims of fair use have been used at times in the past, but the policy regarding use of non-free content disallows such images when it remains possible to create a freely licensed alternative, as is the case for still-living public figures. If no image is yet available, a placeholder image may be used that solicits contribution of a free image.
As a result, free images of politicians are a mixed bag, ranging from pictures taken by Wikipedia contributors to photo ops with US government officials — taking advantage of the aforementioned lack of copyright. (While helpful in terms of illustration, this also fuels complaints that it makes Wikipedia too US-centric, even for subjects that have no particular connection to the US.) Some of the Dutch ministers already had such images in the articles about them. Two-thirds of the cabinet members did not have any image available previously, however.
Images like those provided by the Dutch government are not the end of Wikipedia's needs. Even though public figures may perceive that it serves their interest to provide free-license photos, these will typically be polished, posed shots designed to present a favorable impression. For such subjects, the contributions of other photographers will remain useful to present additional visual perspectives and convey a neutral point of view.
The release of these images is only a first step in terms of persuading governments to make their material compatible with use on Wikimedia projects. The Dutch Wikimedia chapter plans next to seek additional photos from the Dutch parliament. Hopefully additional governments will find it similarly beneficial to put content under free licenses.
WikiWorld comic: "John Hodgman"
This week's WikiWorld comic uses text from "John Hodgman". The comic is released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere.
News and notes
Influential Bulgarian Wikipedian dies
bg:Потребител:Emil / User:Espetkov, one of the first editors of the Bulgarian Wikipedia, died on 20 May, 2007. The cause of death is still unknown. He was residing in the Netherlands and working as a Software Engineer and a researcher. His last edit was on 16 May. Emil made many contributions to the Bulgarian Wikipedia in many different areas for the past 3.5 years. He is survived by his wife and daughter.
Wikimedia brand survey open
A Wikimedia brand survey is open, regarding Wikimedia's current trademarks and brands, and the possibility of re-branding certain projects and logos, and licensing and brand protection and strategy issues. The survey follows a mailing list post by board member Erik Moeller that attracted many replies and differing opinions.
Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense deleted
Many subpages of Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense were deleted this week due to non-compliance with the GFDL. Because most entries were not attributed to their original poster, most of the BJAODN subpages were deleted; however, an effort is currently underway on the talk page to restore many of the entries, with proper attribution.
French Wikiquote reaches 500 articles
After its closure in March 2006 (see archived story) and reopening in December (see archived story), the French Wikiquote reached 500 articles this week. The site is also nearing 2,500 total quotes.
Briefly
- Wikipedia was mentioned in Sunday's issue of the daily comic The Lockhorns. In one panel of the comic, Loretta Lockhorn said to her husband, Leroy, "You're listed here in Wikipedia under 'cheapskate'."
- The Thai Wikipedia has reached 600,000 edits.
- The Spanish Wikipedia has reached 10,000,000 edits.
- The English Wiktionary has reached 375,000 entries.
- The Turkish Wikipedia has reached 80,000 articles.
- The French Wikipedia has reached 500,000 articles.
Features and admins
Featured content
Fourteen articles were promoted to featured status last week: "She Shoulda Said 'No'!" (nom), Kung Fu Hustle (nom), Search engine optimization (nom), Daylight saving time (nom), Shen Kuo (nom), Indonesia (nom), Tech Tower (nom), Miranda Otto (nom), Sarah Trimmer (nom), Rich Girl (Gwen Stefani song) (nom), John Martin Scripps (nom), Madlax (nom), Anne of Denmark (nom), Bradley Joseph (nom).
Four articles were de-featured last week: Dayuan (nom), Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 (nom), Xiangqi (nom), and Montréal-Mirabel International Airport (nom).
Four lists were promoted to featured status last week: List of World Heavyweight Champions (WWE) (nom), List of family relations in the National Hockey League (nom), Tampa Bay Buccaneers seasons (nom), and List of Bleach Agent of the Shinigami arc episodes (nom).
Two topics were promoted to featured status last week: Solar System (nom) and Final Fantasy VIII (nom).
No portals were promoted to featured status last week.
Two sounds were promoted to featured status last week: ⓘ and ⓘ.
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Caspian expeditions of the Rus, Sydney Roosters, "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Basiliscus, Harriet Arbuthnot, Taiwanese aborigines, and Excel Saga.
The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: P-38 Lightning, Papilio ulysses, Comet McNaught, Edgar Allan Poe, Union Stock Yards, Chicago, Cairns Birdwing, and Oscar (fish).
Fourteen pictures were promoted to featured status last week:
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Administrators
Six users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Pascal.Tesson (nom), DanMS (nom), Vassyana (nom), WilyD (nom), Reedy Boy (nom), and Mr.Z-man (nom).
Bots
Six bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: VeblenBot (task request), Android Mouse Bot 4 (task request), polbot (task request), BetacommandBot (task request), Tuonela (task request), and Alphachimpbot (task request).
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
This is a summary of recent technology news for the MediaWiki software and Wikimedia configuration. Note that changes do not necessarily go live immediately; compare the revision number (starting with 'r') on Special:Version with the revision number on this page to see whether a change is live or not.
Fixed bugs
- It's now impossible for an admin to enter a block summary that's too large to fit into the relevant database field (such summaries were previously truncated). (r22578, bug 10036)
- The incorrect password attempt is no longer repeated back in the HTML of the login form if a user enters an incorrect password. (r22665, bug 8931)
New features
- The 'upright' parameter can be given in image markup, which reduces the width of a thumbnail (for use with images that are significantly taller than wide). (r22305, bug 7003)
- Several changes were made to <math> tags:
- Each entry on Special:Whatlinkshere for a page now has an entry to that page's own what-links-here. (r22546, bug 7960)
- The information about what user, IP, or range was actually blocked can now be shown in the block message (e.g. if a user is caught in a rangeblock, it's possible to distinguish this from their IP being blocked). (r22641, bug 10076)
- The deletion log for a page name is now shown when creating that page. (r22642, bug 7691)
Other technology news
There were two highly noticeable server problems this week:
- A bug in some new code confused the English Wikipedia and Commons database servers, messing up replication and causing Special:Contributions to gain an unusually large lag. [3]
- A fire alarm turned off the air conditioners in one area, causing several machines to overheat. The database was locked (preventing any edits, uploads, registration of new accounts, or just about anything that is saved by the database) and Wikipedia was incredibly slow for a while. [4]
Both problems have since been fixed.
Ongoing news
- Internationalisation has been continuing as normal; help is always appreciated! See m:Localization statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to bugzilla.
The Report on Lengthy Litigation
The Arbitration Committee accepted one case this week, and closed one case.
Closed case
- Zeq-Zero0000: A case involving the actions of Zeq (talk · contribs) and Zero0000 (talk · contribs). Zero alleged that Zeq had engaged in POV-pushing, while Zeq alleged that Zero had misused administrative tools in blocking him, the case in particular involving the question of whether probations, article bans, etc. can be enforced by involved admins. The arbitrators considered several different versions of a principle covering to what degree involved administrators may enforce probation, but none attained majority support. As a result of the case, Zero0000 was advised not to take further administrative actions against Zeq, including enforcement of probation, and was admonished that editors who are not restricted in their editing of a page or area are entitled to be accorded good faith and be treated with respect and courtesy.
New case
- Badlydrawnjeff: A highly controversial case involving the actions of Badlydrawnjeff, Doc glasgow, Tony Sidaway and JzG in relation inter alia to the article known as QZ, which underwent an AfD which was closed as delete by Drini, but overturned on DRV by Xoloz. The resulting AfD was then speedily closed by thebainer. Badlydrawnjeff then filed for a deletion review, which was speedily closed or removed by a number of administrators and others consecutively, including JzG, Doc Glasgow and Tony Sidaway, and the closures often reverted or new DRVs opened. There is dispute as to whether the actions of all parties were within process, and whether, as some believe, WP:BLP takes priority over DRV. A peripheral issue to the case is a 60-hour block of Badlydrawnjeff by Zsinj, apparently after discussions on the admin IRC channel, although some have stated that the consensus on the channel did not favour the block. The block was quickly undone by Gaillimh. Additionally, some allege that violetriga acted improperly in undeleting some articles deleted under BLP.
Evidence phase
- PalestineRemembered: A case involving the actions of PalestineRemembered (talk · contribs), referred from the Community sanction noticeboard.
- Miskin: A case involving the actions of Miskin (talk · contribs), who was controversially blocked by Swatjester (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) for one month (later reduced to one week) for revert warring.
- Abu badali: A case alleging that Abu badali (talk · contribs) has disruptively tagged non-free images for deletion, even when a valid fair-use justification exists, and has harassed editors who have complained about this behavior. Abu badali denies the allegations.
- NYScholar: A case involving the actions of a number of users, including NYScholar (talk · contribs) and Notmyrealname (talk · contribs), in relation to the Lewis Libby article.
- Piotrus: A case involving administrator Piotrus (talk · contribs) and other editors on Central and Eastern Europe-related articles. Multiple parties accuse others of edit warring, incivility, unethical behavior and biased editing. (An earlier arbitration case, Piotrus-Ghirla, was dismissed without prejudice in part due to inactivity of Ghirlandajo (talk · contribs), who was listed as a party in the new case.)
- Paranormal: A case involving the actions of various users, especially as regards bias and attribution, on "articles on paranormal and pseudoscientific topics", such as parapsychology and Electronic voice phenomenon.
Voting phase
- Hkelkar 2: A case involving the actions of Rama's Arrow (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), Bakasuprman (talk · contribs), Dangerous-Boy (talk · contribs) and Sbhushan (talk · contribs), Rama's Arrow alleges that the others acted as meatpuppets of banned user Hkelkar, and blocked them for six months. They deny the allegations, and allege that Rama's Arrow acted improperly in blocking them, and in posting private e-mails to the incidents noticeboard. Kirill Lokshin has proposed remedies imposing no sanctions but calling on the parties to enter into mediation, as well as a finding of fact noting the lack of reliable evidence in the case, all of which have the support of six arbitrators, and a remedy prohibiting admin actions between the parties has the support of four. However, voting on principles regarding the posting of private e-mails is split.
- TingMing: A case involving the actions of TingMing (talk · contribs). Ideogram (talk · contribs) alleges that he has engaged in "controversial edits", edit warring, incivility, and possibly sockpuppetry. TingMing denies the allegations, and alleges incivility on the part of Ideogram. Kirill Lokshin has proposed a remedy banning TingMing for one year, which has the support of four arbitrators, but is opposed by Blnguyen.
- E104421-Tajik: A case involving the actions of E104421 and Tajik. The case had been suspended to allow a referral to Community enforceable mediation, but the mediation broke down after Tajik was alleged to have edited through sockpuppets while claiming to be away and unavailable for the mediation. Remedies have been proposed banning Tajik either indefinitely or for one year (which have the support of five arbitrators), and reminding AzaToth that Wikipedia operates by consensus (with the support of two arbitrators).
Motion to close
- Transnistria: A case involving the actions of MariusM (talk · contribs) and William Mauco (talk · contribs) on Transnistria-related articles. MariusM alleges that Mauco (who has not made a statement because he is blocked) has engaged in sockpuppetry, edit warring and other misconduct. If closed, MarkStreet (talk · contribs), William Mauco (talk · contribs) and EvilAlex (talk · contribs) would be indefinitely banned from any editing related to Transnistria.