Requests for comment/Global lock for severe continuous cross wiki damage done by sockpuppet abuse

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The following request for comments is closed. See the "Closing comments" section below for comments


--Abd 19:21, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Global lock for severe continuous cross wiki damage done by sockpuppet abuse[edit]

Motivation: Long time cross wiki vandalistic disruption of many projects. Repeated mis-use of sockpuppets to do detrimental and wrong legal categorisations and various other often wrong edits re. categories and content. Has been adressed on many wikiversions to stop this behaviour since he makes mistakes galore due to lack of knowledge of the languages but did continue. Blockmessage on nl-wiki with diffs to the various warnings received cross-wiki over the years here. Checkuser on meta here on 20 and 21 jun 2011. Checkusers on nl-wiki: checkuser 1 on 09 jun 2011 - checkuser 2 on 09 jul 2011 - - checkuser 3 on 09 jul 2011. Adressed on his various talk pages and urged to stop on meta but does not wish to do so. Please lock all acounts to prevent further ongoing damage done cross wiki as there is clearly no intention to stop the compulsively driven edit pattern and this harms the projects severely. User was asked to stop repeatedly, give up sockpuppet abuse and clean up his act but does not wish to do so and thus this leaves no other option at hand alas. Sockpuppet abuse came to light after he abused his existing accounts for this on nl-wiki - it seemed to be unrelated "bona fide" users up until recent. Main account still then has access to meta to comment and when promising to stop could be unlocked. MoiraMoira 12:11, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Update: User is active and did only comment on his meta talk page indicating he did not see any problem and intend to continue and does not wish to give up his socks nor stop. On the talk pages of his accounts per country there was no reaction at all. Please deal with my request as the wikimedia projects are harmed by this compulsive vandalism clearly. MoiraMoira 09:14, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
comments copied by MoiraMoira from Global lock request
Catbot and Logos are not unified and can not be locked. Ruslik 09:56, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I locked only one account. Since this is an established user, a proper way forward is an RFC. Ruslik 10:19, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I copied the contents to this RFC and hope for a good solution. MoiraMoira 11:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy Close of RfC. This RfC is an abuse of meta process to blackmail Brox. MoiraMoira is carrying out her threat. We do not have the information to confirm socking on nl.wiki. The checkuser reports I've seen there are unclear, similarly to the one checkuser run here (still open for review.) Cross-wiki socking is not, in itself, a violation of policy, it must be accompanied by disruption, and the only place where disruption is actually being claimed is nl.wiki. This is far from the dramatic "severe continuous cross wiki damage" claimed. If Brox is engaged in "cross-wiki disruption," where are the multiple blocks? Brox is only blocked on nl.wiki. I've looked at the checkuser reports on nl.wiki and they seem very weak to me, it looks like what's "possible" is being interpreted as "certain." As an example, in [1], cited by MoiraMoira, where the checkuser explains the result: (google translation) Probably. Same Lithuanian mobile operator. This is a very weak identification; in the other checkuser reports, the basis was not stated. This is the same result as here on meta.[2]permanent link. If this were en.wiki, that users have the same Lithuanian mobile operator would be a strong coincidence, hence "likely." However, the wiki in question in our CU report was lt.wiki. Lithuanian. That ID is very, very weak, and should not be relied upon. Absolutely, this RfC is way, way premature, at best. More likely, it's an obsessive pursuit of sockpuppets, instead of following the more sane Wikipedia policy, w:WP:RBI. I'm shocked to see the severity of nl.wiki response, year blocks of mobile IP? For a couple of edits, no warning, no opportunity to defend, and weak basis in checkuser? But that's nl.wiki's problem, not ours. --Abd 15:47, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • You're suggesting now that the Dutch admins made mistakes and that's absolutely incorrect. First of all the performed checkusers: they don't just compare the IP's, but also other information that comes with it (user string etc.). Obviously it matched, otherwise they wouldn't give such a result onwiki. And on nlwiki it's not allowed to abuse multiple accounts (abuse, not use) and therefore all accounts will get blocked and the IP's will be blocked for a year. That's our policy. And I don't know why he's not blocked yet on other projects - probably because they haven't seen the disruption or so... Although please notice that it's not just MoiraMoira who blocked, also Mathonius blocked some and me I thought. Trijnstel 18:42, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Trijnstel, it's not my position to say that the NL wiki admins made a mistake. They are not responsible to me, nor to meta. They are responsible to their community. Your comment about the checkusers, however, is blatantly incorrect. I've read all those reports, and it's obvious there was neither an IP match nor a user agent match. Did you look at my link above? That is completely inconsistent with an IP and user agent match. If the CU had seen that, the report would have been much stronger. The other reports are vaguer, that's all. It looks like the same underlying evidence is what they saw, and they interpreted in different ways or reported it without so much clarity.
      • NL wiki has the right to set whatever policies they wish, but WMF users may not anticipate or be familiar with them. It is obvious that nl:User:Brox and nl:User:Dendrolo are the same user, this is an acknowledged sock on lt.wiki. Brox stopped editing, last edit 25 April. At that point (or ever), there were no warnings on his Talk page. He was blocked on Jun 9, based on those weak CU identifications, entirely. Dendrolo had one edit before Brox stopped editing, then began making substantial contributions. Brox had had no problems, as far as I can tell, so there was no evasion involved here. Dendrolo, however, began making massive category additions, on Jun 9. This caused concern. However, Dendrolo block log. Dendrolo was falling into a common error. "I'm right, therefore my actions are proper." Bad Idea. On en.wiki, an editor with a clean block log might get a 24-hour block over this, and it would be escalated until and unless the user gets the message. Brox had not been disruptive, so checkuser on wikis I'm familiar with wouldn't even be allowed. On my home wiki, we'd also work with the editor, helping the editor engage in discussion. I'd personally short-block if needed, but I'd make it very clear that what I want is voluntary compliance with the needs of the community. Indef blocking, same day, because of one flurry of edits? No. What I'm seeing here is personal offense taken.
      • This is meta. We are not about to dump on an editor for behavior that offended one wiki. If LT users are concerned, it's up to them to address it. Dendrolo is also an active account on de.wiki (6815 edits). From the Talk page, no obvious problems. Brox on de? No account, no edits. There is absolutely no basis for a global lock in anything I've seen, no evidence of "cross-wiki disruption," much less "severe continuous cross wiki damage." I'm seeing much more "cross-wiki disruption" from others around this than anything from Brox. --Abd 19:38, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • It seems like Brox did the same things on ltwiki; see the reply of lt-wiki user Tomreves. And for your (really long! ;-)) reply: don't forget that checkuser doesn't count completely. I can't comment anymore about this case, because I don't know all of it. Those cases - when users are quite active crosswiki - are always difficult. Trijnstel 19:50, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comments[edit]

This is really a dispute on nl.wiki that became personal, being brought here and carried to many wikis by the filer of this RfC. For example:[3]

It has been revealed that the filer is on vacation and has not been able to participate since filing this. Because it has been indicated that filing this may have been a mistake,[4] I'm closing it and removing it from the RfC list. When the filer returns, she may re-open it, but I would strongly advise against that.

This RfC was identical to the global lock request that was (mostly) rejected. It provides no evidence of cross-wiki abuse. Leaving this open would needlessly invite every enemy that this active administrator has ever made to come and comment. Bad Idea, if there is no cross-wiki disruption. Having alternative accounts is not, in itself, abusive, on many of the wikis. --Abd 19:21, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]