Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/BillWikiAsk/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets
See below. GeneralNotability (talk) 21:35, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Comments by other users

 * Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

To GeneralNotability and others, I see this investigation is marked "Closed" and there is indication it will be archived soon, but I don't see where else to make a comment objecting to some or all of the accounts being blocked (is there an appeal location? I would rather this discussion be continued a bit here.)

What I object about is expressed by me in this diff of several paragraphs by me at User talk:A455bcd9. Namely that i do not see violation of either Sockpuppetry or Meatpuppetry policies, which I explain there. So as far as I can tell, all these accounts should be unblocked. I do gather that there was apparently emailing about WikiAsk from these accounts and from one more, User:Analog292, not included in this sockpuppet case yet. And while I was not bothered by receiving an email, in fact welcomed it, I can understand that others could be bothered, and I can understand that "mass emailing" could be a problem. I have no idea how many emails are involved, but as I comment in that diff, there is no violation of Sockpuppetry or Meatpuppetry from that. If the entire problem is that mass emailing happened, and that is defined somewhere as bad (how many emails, say?) then that is a different thing. [But, otherwise, (added later by Doncram for clarity)] Specifically, if multiple Wikipedia chose to send emails about WikiAsk, even in a coordinated way, there is nothing wrong with that [that I am aware of (added later by Doncram for clarity)]. If I myself choose to send some emails RE WikiAsk, which I was actually thinking about doing, I would not be violating any policy that I know of, and I certainly would object strenuously if anyone wanted to block me for doing so. Currently, I believe all the above accounts should be unblocked, and Analog292 should not be blocked. --Doncram (talk) 00:52, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

P.S. By the way, coincidentally, in real life I have a stack of postcards supporting one candidate in upcoming U.S. elections, for whom I have agreed to write a personal appeal and to address and send to a short list of registered voters that I was given. This is in coordination with others doing similarly, with different sets of voters off a purchased list of registered voters, and this all is part of democracy in action. In the U.S. while persons can add their names to lists of "do not call me / do not mail me" about any commercial offers, and it is illegal for commercial organizations to ignore those lists, it is not possible to cut off political campaign contacts or, I think, nonprofit donation requests. It would be wrong to prohibit free speech about political candidates (and, i guess, about nonprofits). In Wikipedia, I do not know what are the limits of free speech as a basic right. I think advocating that people check out WikiAsk, a project that is either explicitly nonprofit or very likely to be not profitable in fact, is or should be okay, as a matter of free speech like right that we have or should have. --Doncram (talk) 01:03, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you GeneralNotability for your replies there and here. To be clear to anyone else I did not (dismissively) say anywhere that whatever has gone on merely "violates some policy or guideline or whatever that the English Wikipedia community made up," that is a phrase in quotes composed by GeneralNotability to address a point that they suppose I or someone else could have made (but I did not).  The term "spam" had not occurred to me, but I did note here and there both, that mass emailing could be a problem, and that I did not have any knowledge of numbers involved.  I do believe I am entirely correct in saying neither Sockpuppetry nor Meatpuppetry, as those are explicitly defined, occurred, and I think GeneralNotability has not disagreed.  GeneralNotability does have means to see how many emails were sent, and I dunno maybe they can see all of the actual emails themselves, and anyhow they have presumably received copies of emails received by complaining Wikipedians, so they are informed much differently than I am.  At "there", GeneralNotability mentions that there were 60 emails from one account and they comment that is enough to clearly be "spam" in their opinion.  And they point to "Terms of Use" where indeed there is statement of prohibition against spam, i.e. that prohibited is:
 * "Engaging in harassment, threats, stalking, spamming, or vandalism; and
 * Transmitting chain mail, junk mail, or spam to other users."
 * It is not defined there exactly what constitutes spam, but okay, thank you for pointing that out. And, also I agree that the behavior here is perhaps "meatpuppet-like" in being coordinated (though I don't know if the emails are substantially the same, or whether the parties used non-overlapping lists, etc.).  And I will volunteer that emails coming from three long-dormant accounts (which I was not aware of) possibly does suggest "sockpuppet-like" behavior.  Another potential violation would relate to prohibition in terms of use about undisclosed paid editing (though this is not editing in Wikipedia, it is use of emails, and I have no knowledge of any parties actually being employees or otherwise paid).
 * Also, by the way, by my actually being a very prolific Wikipedian high up on whatever rankings there are of edits or articles created, and by the fact that it is probably observable that I have cooperated with researchers before, I thought it could be reasonable for WikiAsk to include me in selective targeting, i.e. to think I could be more relevant or interested or willing to answer questions than most others. I did not suppose that I was just one of some arguably too-large, i.e. non-selective, group for them to be contacting.
 * Now I can't really object to GeneralNotability's having blocked the accounts, including the one I pointed out had been missed, on grounds of apparent violation of terms of use (which is a different thing, as I had asserted). --Doncram (talk) 01:54, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Except, perhaps, that User:A455bcd9 may be a constructive editor with long history of reasonable contributions like these recent edits to Alain Aspect article, for whom reversing the block may yet make sense. I am not performing an overall assessment of their contributions vs. arguable violations, or how plausible it is that they are caught up unfairly here.  I do understand that bad actors can make reasonable-looking edits to make a pattern disguising their more true purposes;  i am not evaluating that.  In their request to be unblocked, though, they do apologize for possibly having done wrong stuff, and they express regret for being involved with WikiAsk at all (which they have quit from), and they make appropriate promises on future behavior. --Doncram (talk) 02:09, 15 October 2022 (UTC) 02:34, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * In fact, User:A455bcd9's block is not deserved, as there is explanation for the main evidence against them, that they and BillWikiAsk have edited from the same I.P. address, which is because they were at same coworking sites in London. This has come out in discussion at their block review request, where experienced Wikipedia editor User:Pharos, a witness and participant in discussion with A455bcd9, Bill, and one or two others about WikiAsk's licensing decision (that bears a lot on that project's compatibility with the wikipedia etc movement), has come in to state "This block doesn't make any sense. I can understand why there was suspicion for a moment, but the user is clearly not a sockpuppet, just shared a co-working space on one occasion. I can confirm I was on a call very recently with those mentioned, who are all indeed very real and individual human beings."  A455bcd9 is a longterm editor (who happens to be in the middle of performing a FAR review) who was interested in WikiAsk as a project they perceived compatible with Wikipedia, and, not disobeying any obvious policy, they sent emails to something like 20 persons as is apparently allowed before getting a warning on each of several days.  And this was done in a focused way, reaching persons they had reason to think would be interested.  And it happens they had stopped, and quit WikiAsk, and regretted their participation all before being blocked, and make the apology for having done something wrong (which I personally don't see that they have) and make appropriate future promises.  I don't see any violation of policy, and, while a theory that 60 emails means "spam" means violation of term of use may be okay as a rule of thumb to indicate reason for concern, the application to A455bcd9 appears to be inappropriate for their facts.  If I may, I do ask that their block be overturned.
 * I will further volunteer that BillWikiAsk's approach to reaching potentially interested Wikipedians (what they apparently did and encouraged other(s) to do), rather than taking an aboveboard approach like writing an editorial or article for the Signpost, say, does not speak well, is a matter of concern for me and likely will be for others. BillWikiAsk has apparently been persuaded by the feedback received from Wikipedians to pursue the WikiAsk project differently than they first intended, though apparently not differently enough for A455bcd9 already.  But open questions there IMHO are how content and other disagreements are to be handled, and what the longterm commitment of the project is to be.  And this episode of apparent violation of Wikipedia policies to further WikiAsk shortterm aims doesn't augur well for how WikiAsk's policies and processes can be established and respected, and for whether community there can trust longterm commitments about what WikiAsk is to be.  Please, though, let A455bcd9 out of this situation. --Doncram (talk) 22:54, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Followup: A455bcd9's unblock request was reviewed, presumably with the reviewer checking here too, and they were unblocked, with a warning. Thank you. --Doncram (talk) 01:16, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Checks were run here following complaints about BillWikiAsk mass-emailing users about a non-Wikipedia-related topic (WikiAsk). These checks confirmed that mass emailing was occurring, and that A455bcd9 and Hemantruparel were both also sending lots of emails and are technically . Both of the latter also have messages in their talk page histories that suggest that they were emailing about WikiAsk as well. Shipisomani is unrelated from a technical perspective, but they are definitely sending emails en masse and a copy of the email indicates that they're also emailing about WikiAsk, so they're at least a meatpuppet. all without email access. Clerks: I recognize that BillWikiAsk is not the oldest account, but since they were the first blocked and have the most relevant name, I ask that you keep the current case name (IAR and all that good stuff). GeneralNotability (talk) 21:41, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
 * , I replied to your comment here, but to restate for everyone else: what I am seeing here is spam, which isn't just rude, and isn't just "violates some policy or guideline or whatever that the English Wikipedia community made up," it is explicitly prohibited by the Wikimedia Terms of Use, section 4. The CheckUser tool was used to identify the spamming and connected A455bc9 to several other accounts, but even if this weren't a sock block, it might well be a spam block. And I have indeed blocked Analog292 for sending an astounding 120ish emails in a week and a half. GeneralNotability (talk) 01:00, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I can't speak for others, but I certainly don't care for the endless unsolicited political robocalls and letters...and this really isn't political speech here. GeneralNotability (talk) 01:15, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Master already blocked; to socking with multiple accounts. is one that was not covered in the original report. Drm310 🍁 (talk) 02:15, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Comments by other users

 * Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Saaiyan21 has not edited in over two years. Closing. Bbb23 (talk) 13:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)