Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-11-06/Arbitration report

← Back to Arbitration report

Discuss this story

What does "extremely banned" mean? StAnselm (talk) 03:47, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

my guess is "unappealable indefinite ban". ltbdl (talk) 03:57, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Is it actually unappealable though? The remedy specified that Wifione can appeal after 12 months (whether the appeal would be accepted is another story). Ian P. Tetriss (talk) 19:07, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I believe it's merely a turn-of-phrase, using a modifier for a term that can't be modified because it's binary. "I tried to ask Abraham Lincoln about the quote but it turns out he's exceedingly dead." GMG^talk 11:44, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

This is kind of a surprise, but I think this could easily have been avoided with proper screening measures. The fact they were able to fool the community for so long is more than concerning. I am not saying that all admins need to be screened, but there should be this expectation of trust. I don't think any person that has abused trust in the past should ever be allowed to become an admin, period. Awesome Aasim 03:48, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

What screening procedure do you have that would've "easily" detected that Lourdes was a sock? Certainly the many editors and admins who supported and nominated them for adminship didn't notice anything amiss. Galobtter (talk) 03:58, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

wasn't the "lourdes" account checkusered? ltbdl (talk) 04:02, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Just to put it to bed, Lourdes was checked last night. Common UAs and exclusive proxy use for the data retention period. Izno (talk) 15:34, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

* Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:11, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Aren't checkusers supposed to be done at the time of adminship? A checkuser will reveal stuff like proxy use and alternative accounts. The whole point of emailing ArbCom about any alternative accounts is to come clean that there was not any breaches of trust or community expectations. Awesome Aasim 15:05, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Aren't checkusers supposed to be done at the time of adminship?

no. never. ltbdl (talk) 15:08, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

I think we should, especially because adminship is a position of community trust. An administrator should be trusted to have disclosed all alternative accounts they know they have created and used currently to either the community or to the arbitration committee.

Maybe we can add the following line to Wikipedia:Administrators: "An administrator who is found once to be using one more alternative accounts inconsistent with the policy on sockpuppetry shall have their administrator rights removed. The rights may only be regained after a successful request for adminship." Awesome Aasim 18:19, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

• Comment I was unaware of this arbitration case but had suspicions about Lourdes and was surprised when they passed their RfA (Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Lourdes 2) so decisively. I know hindsight is 20/20 though. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:46, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

  I voted for Eostrix... Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:35, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

This episode isn't just a one-off scandal; it's symptomatic of a more pervasive ailment that could undermine the very foundation of Wikipedia: trust. If an abuser can use their admin privileges for clandestine purposes until choosing to come forward, it stands to reason that there could be many more bad actors hidden in plain sight, wielding their editing privileges as a cloak for censorship or for commercial and political gains. Wikipedia prides itself on being the bastion of open-source information, but as this case indicates, the current vetting mechanisms for admin misconduct are insufficient. With the ascent of LLMs and generative AI, Wikipedia's human element is its unique selling point, but also its Achilles' heel. Without stringent and proactive measures to reinforce accountability and transparency, WP risks not only reputational decay but also obsolescence, as users turn to emerging technologies that offer reliable information with less human baggage. Normchou ^💬 05:50, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Agreed that this is a seriously concerning matter, that threatens to undermine confidence in the encyclopedia. Funcrunch (talk) 06:19, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, what? Are you suggesting that LLMs offer superior accountability, transparency, and reliability than Wikipedia? They're black boxes trained on Wikipedia! -- asilvering (talk) 16:49, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Bri, JPxG: The "Godfather" description seems to have been misquoted. Neither is the provided quote from the "case request", nor did "her request to Fermiboson that he archive the WP:AN thread he had opened" refer to that message. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 07:39, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

"The Godfather" was referred to in the "BADSITE", if it helps. Usedtobecool ☎️ 13:40, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I picked it from Special:Diff/1183036383, I am pressed for time at the moment but I will have to review and see what I got wrong. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:12, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Changed the wording a little bit. Hopefully it wasn't a horrible faux pas, but I agree, correct attribution is important. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:45, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! Special:Diff/1183811282 looks good to me; in the end it's RoySmith who knows what they have been referring to. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:51, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

This could certainly be the last sock from this user, and they may not have any other accounts at this point. Still, the paranoid side of me wonders. Will someone with a decade or two of experience in ban evasion give up for good, after surrendering this readily? It almost seems like a stunt. Mlkj (talk) 11:14, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Maybe he'll go for the sock-to-admin hat-trick. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:22, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Strange enough, this is not the first time I heard about admin with sockpuppets. The Dutch Wikipedia had also a few cases. Probably the current election and control is failing. How can that be fixed? The Banner talk 11:40, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

In cases like this one, I would probably agree with what Anomie and OwenBlacker noted below (and I also liked Ganesha811's reference to xkcd:810): Any "fix" would require a fundamental reworking of how editing on Wikipedia works since anonymity is a central corner-stone and that would most likely be even worse since there a number of highly respected editors and admins that do pride their anonymity and who would probably quit if they had to out themselves in the name of preventing such socking. Regards SoWhy 19:35, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

If any saga needs an interrobang, this is it. Self-selected sleeper agent and performance art come to mind... We can't foresee any and every edge case, after all! kencf0618 (talk) 12:34, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Now this is a saga, but a better (funnier at least) saga would be a trilogy, next time ArbCom need to take some time to review every RfA candidate, but still very funny for what it's worth. This was just a what the hell moment and then when I saw Lourdes' name, a second what the hell moment. Zippybonzo | talk | contribs (he|she|they) 13:14, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

How did they get away with this for so long? [...] How did nobody notice? Get away with what, exactly? Did they get away with becoming an admin by not doing the bad things that led to the earlier ban (or much other bad things)? Or did they get away with doing bad things before the "Godfather" thing? The first possibility I think we can't do much about without a significant risk of the cure being worse than the disease, and unfortunately that's the direction I see some pushing. The second has more promise, but doesn't necessarily result in us catching that a sock is a sock versus just a bad admin. Anomie⚔ 13:30, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

While I already have a bunch of concerns about on-wiki functionary processes, I'm including to agree — while obviously ban evasion is something we would want the community to pursue and punish, if the evader doesn't get noticed because they're acting like an exemplary editor then I'm much less concerned.

(That nobody seems willing to do anything about attacks and harassment from an on-wiki BADSITE is something I find substantially more problematic — I think people behaving poorly on a BADSITE should be blocked from here without it being considered OUTING to raise the complaint. But that's a different conversation.) —  OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 15:09, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Anomie, OwenBlacker, agreed. This came up after Eostrix was blocked too. Malicious behavior is the core problem, not socking, which is just a mask. This XKCD is relevant. —Ganesha811 (talk) 18:07, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

This wasn't the news I was expecting to read today. I'm not going to lie, it's actually kind of impressive that Wifione/Lourdes was able to successfully go through RfA twice as a sockpuppet. - ZLEA _T\^C 14:44, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah. Must have had considerable passion for their project, so to speak. Perhaps your username in short for Zillionth Lourdes' Editor Account. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:56, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I've revealed the meaning of my username to only a few. Perhaps one day you will be one of them. - ZLEA _T\^C 18:12, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I'll strive to be worthy of it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:30, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

• I was as surprised as anyone, I thought Lourdes was a terrible admin because they rushed into things and tended to chose the "Path of the Most Drama" more often than not. That was all I expected to be addressing in the request I filed. I would suggest that it is not a worthwhile endeavor to ponder why someone like this does the things they do, and also don't be fooled by them implying they confessed out of some sort of kindness to me either, that's just as much of a lie as all the other lies they told. They did email the committee a while back to say they thought I was losing it and should be forced into some sort of counseling. That made me laugh and also almost certainly made the rest of the committee less likely to take "her" seriously. Now that we are reasonably certain of the connection between the accounts, in hindsight there are some other indicators that have come up, things that might habve tipped this situaion over a bit sooner, but per WP:BEANS I don't think it is prudent to be discussing them here. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:54, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
• What goes unmentioned here is that Wifione was impersonating a moderately famous celebrity with same first name behind the scenes, going all the way back to their first edits on the Lourdes account late in 2015, including in their emails, and going as far to use a VPN to appear to be in the same country that person was living in. Back in 2021, in the aftermath of the RexxS case, they were complaining about OUTING when their supposed real identity was mentioned offwiki, and managed to then get the original edits they made pretending to be the celebrity oversighted (these edits have now been restored). Ideally, they should have been blocked under Template:Uw-ublock-wellknown after making the initial edits pretending to be the celebrity. Overall, this is undoubtedly one of the most elaborate ruses in Wikipedia history, and a clear demonstration of the fact that you never really know who's behind the mask. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:11, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
• I don't understand why so many are so surprised. Today is election day in Ohio, where I will be required to present a government-issued photo ID in order to be allowed to walk into a voting booth. Yet some MAGA Republicans still cry that thousands of sock-puppets voted in the 2020 election. I expect that more "surprising" socks will be outed in the coming years. You just asked where all the administrators were – I choose to focus on the content of the encyclopedia, rather than editor behavior. There are shortages of admins in many areas; you can't help in them all so you need to prioritize. Besides, if I were more active in looking for editors who weren't who they said they were, I'd still need to assume good faith and tiptoe around the "outing" policy to avoid getting in trouble myself. Want to really surprise me, Lourdes? Show up in Toronto this week, ready to perform. – wbm1058 (talk) 11:37, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

  Asking Lourdes to come to Toronto and make miracles is not how it's supposed to work. :) -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 14:48, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

• Why did the Signpost chose to cover only the "news at eleven" story in this issue of the Arbitration Report? -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 11:44, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
  • The answer is obvious (though I'm not speaking for @Bri and JPxG:). It would be journalistic malpractice for The Signpost *not* to cover this story. A bent admin with special privileges has been watching over other Wikipedians (as well as their paid clients) for about a decade. As far as why other stories weren't published - we've all got time pressures - but please feel free to submit a full story, or even just a brief paragraph for inclusion for the next issue. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:36, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
• You know, I vividly recall that something was off about Lourdes when she unilaterally reverted the block on Athaenara after having not made any major contributions to the project in ages. I thought it was very odd for someone to randomly do that out of the blue. Still, I'm shocked. --Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 22:25, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
• Certainly very weird Bedivere (talk) 03:57, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
• Eh? Why did they doxx themselves? Bizarre behaviour. JMWt (talk) 08:29, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

  attention. ltbdl (talk) 08:32, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

• Should the sockpuppet categories for Mrinal Pandey (MP) and Wifione be merged? And should Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mrinal Pandey/Archive note Izno's comment on Lourdes's checkuser results quoted above? I've already left a note about Lourdes on the talk of the Wifione ArbCom case. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 12:26, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
• On seeing this, I felt a compulsion to re-read Lourdes' 2nd Rfa, specifically, the opposes (there were only 4 of them). I was curious how those 4 individuals saw so clearly what a room full of editors was telling them wasn't the case. Reading their opposes, I became fascinated by their ability, in the face of such support, to not be fooled. In the case of Andrew D., I was struck by what I imagined was some secret ability of his to see right through Lourdes' machinations. Andrew made a salient argument that Lourdes might have been, at one time, attempting to artificially increase their edit count (through what they assumed was some sort of editing script). As soon as Andrew's oppose was posted, scorn was heaped upon him by Ritchie333, Davey2010, The Rambling Man, and in particular, TheGracefulSlick - who felt it pointless for any editor to validate Andrew's votes at Rfa...His decision for Lourdes, and any other worthy candidate, was set before the Rfa even began - a comment which, unfortunately for Slick, is destined to never age well. Part of me wonders if any of those editors might think to apologize to Andrew. Not that they need to. I'm sure those editors deep down feel just as fooled as everyone else. They might even feel that I'm being unfair, that hindsight is always 20/20, and that whatever idealized hero I saw in Andrew was probably just as much an illusion as was Lourdes. Kudpung noted Andrew as a serial opposer. Not knowing Andrew myself, I'd like to envision his role as more of devil's advocate. Or maybe I've just romanticized his opposition. I suppose that like a broken clock which is right twice a day, a serial opposer was bound to get lucky. Perhaps, if anything, it is a cautionary tale for editors at Rfa not to jump so quickly on opposers. One never knows when the next Lourdes might be lurking about. Regards,  Spintendo  12:53, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

  One never knows when the next Lourdes might be lurking about.

  ok, but it's happened, like, twice. ltbdl (talk) 13:58, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

  That we know of. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:35, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

  still, it's like one "lourdes" to a thousand good editors. ltbdl (talk) 10:17, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

  I think you're right. We can deal with it as we are able when discovered, but the problem is not new and of limited concern. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:23, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

  For what it's worth, I know Andrew Davidson in real life and have talked to him in person about various Wikipedia articles and events numerous times. We have also collaborated on several articles together. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:29, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

  Andrew had a reputation for Opposing the majority of RFAs for any reason they could think of. Andrew didn't outright say "I believe they're a sock of x" or "they're acting similarly to x", They were opposing because they felt Lourdes was making COSMETICBOT edits ..... No connection between Wifione and Lourdes was made in his Oppose !vote (and going by Wifione's contribs they didn't do script work anyway).... so no apology is required as to me it's not like Andrew said "This user is a sock of x" and they were ignored (If they said that we would've took them far more seriously.) –Davey2010^Talk 13:00, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

  "how those 4 individuals saw so clearly what a room full of editors was telling them wasn't the case. Reading their opposes, I became fascinated by their ability, in the face of such support, to not be fooled." @Spintendo: As Davey said, no apology is required. I was one of those four opposes and I didn't know about the socking. I think your latter point is more prescient: maybe we shouldn't so quickly attack opposers. The truth of RfA is that it is always an attempt to create the appearance of political consensus; it's never a fact-finding mission. Because we're not collectively holding folks like Ritchie333 to account for the nomination is why they continue to be so cavalier in their approach. This sort of thing will continue to happen because dark tetrad personalities know how to game the system and we have no desire at all to stop them. Chris Troutman (talk) 20:45, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

  I didn't just oppose Lourdes; I also opposed their WifiOne alias at that RfA too. So, that's a big told-you-so.

  This didn't happen because I opposed everyone at RfA; I supported plenty of candidates such as Ritchie333. It's because I did due diligence as seemed appropriate for the granting of such lifetime powers. I would usually check the candidate's user pages and then systematically check a month of their contributions. If I found something that indicated that the candiate was unsuitable then I would oppose because that's the way it's supposed to work. RfA should not be an easy pass because failed candidates are able to try again, as Lourdes did, but successful candidates cannot easily be recalled or suspended.

  But casting such opposes generated hostility and unpleasantness because the voting process is public. Admins such as Kudpung in particular would make regular personal attacks on me, claiming that I was part of an anti-admin brigade. This was a fabrication because, so far I can tell, there's no such thing. I suspect that his real beef was that I had opposed him at his own RfA. And I was vindicated there too because he was eventually de-sysopped.

  The attacks culminated in my being taken to ANI to ban me from RfA. This was not done but I was warned. I continued to vote in RfAs to demonstrate that I could not be cowed or intimidated but then I stopped and haven't done much since. I have my reasons but that's another story and the main issue here is Lourdes. I noticed the claims that they were Russian Red and looked into that too. I checked on their early history and noticed the keen interest in cricket. It then seemed quite likely that they were Indian whereas the idea that they were a Spanish singer seemed quite incredible. I didn't say anything about this at the time because the evidence was just circumstantial and Lourdes was actually quite polite to me:

  I didn't want to write it there. I actually commend your discussion style (except for a few words, of course, like "absurd", but forget that) and applaud your persistence in something you believe in. I'm also in awe that you don't cow down to number pressure – that is, the social pressure of having a huge number of editors against you. It's an honest appreciation of you. Warmly, Lourdes 04:02, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

  Andrew🐉(talk) 23:29, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  Just for the record, I closed the RfA topic ban as "no consensus". I haven't always agreed with Andrew's views of a candidate at RfA, but I absolutely defend his right to say them. Indeed, as I said at the time, "voters are free to air whatever opinions they like, and banning people for their views is unlikely to lead to a conductive environment." Similarly, I think responding (or, if you prefer, "badgering") opposition at an RfA, especially when that opposition is very much in the minority, is a profound waste of time that would be better spent doing something else. I also haven't put forward any RfA candidates for a while, but for those I did, I mentioned that there would be some opposition, most of it would be at best good feedback or at worst easily ignored, and not to worry about it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:31, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• I was away from Wikipedia for quite some time due to real life reasons, and then got this news via Reddit and Twitter, and I'm back here to reiterate Moneytrees' feelings myself, "What the hell?". —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 18:18, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

  FWIW, it seems that Lourdes already had many red flags, but how many others don't? To question Lourdes' "innocence" back then would've violated WP:AGF, wouldn't it? And that person might just well have been blocked for casting aspersions on an editor in good standing. As I read replies to Andrew's oppose at Lourdes' 2nd RFA (as Spintendo points above), I think we've been there already. In this case, not real sanctions, but editors assuming bad faith and trying to imply malicious behaviour on someone who pointed out a red flag. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 18:18, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

• I've always had an iffy feeling about Lourdes that I couldn't quite put my finger on and now I know why. Never would have imagined the problem to be this serious though. Grumpylawnchair (talk) 21:35, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
• While this Lourdes case might be surprising, I was actually more shocked about User:Edgar181 when it came out that such a productive and ever-present administrator had socked for so long, socked in an ArbCom election (where it most certainly would be discovered and was) and had no remorse about it. There have been other "Admins gone Wild" cases as well but most of them were awhile ago (see Wikipedia:Former administrators/reason/for cause if you are interested). And there was also User:Od Mishehu, another active admin who socked. This one was unusual because the socking admin volunteered the information themselves and they were the sockpuppet, not the sockmaster. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:08, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
• This page isn't really complete without the 2015 Newsweek article on Wifione: Manipulating Wikipedia to Promote a Bogus Business School. --Andreas JN466 19:54, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
• Lourdes probably confessed because they already have another admin acccount. Jehochman ^Talk 03:09, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

  Entirely possible, better not to rule that out because I would find that pretty possible. Zippybonzo | talk | contribs (he|she|they) 08:23, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• They've probably only admitted to it because they have alternative accounts or have accomplished there goal.1keyhole (talk) 04:25, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

This is so wild to me

Like babe, you were living a TRIPLE LIFE??? Not even pretending, BEING a respected member of the admin community who is PRETENDING to be Spanish indie pop sensation Russian Red, who is PRETENDING that they haven't scammed anyone before. I can hardly wrap my head around this, this is some George Santos stuff. 2600:6C65:627F:FA27:6C:B3E6:FE6F:1812 (talk) 02:09, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

• I've only just read the whole thing and gotten context for it. Holy shit, I wasn't ready for this on a Wednesday morning. I need to lie down. - MountainKemono (talk) 10:58, 6 December 2023 (UTC)