Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Nsa1001/Archive

Report date January 30 2009, 14:07 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Evidence submitted by Scripturalreasoning (talk)

Meatpuppetry is the fraudulent recruitment by an editor of new Wikipedia editors, from colleagues and communities of people who agree with him in order to give a false appearance of editorial "consensus". It is a violation of Wikipedia policy Sock puppetry which states:

the recruitment of new editors to Wikipedia for the purpose of influencing a survey, performing reverts, or otherwise attempting to give the appearance of consensus is strongly discouraged

''Do not recruit meatpuppets. It is considered highly inappropriate to advertise Wikipedia articles to your friends, family members, or communities of people who agree with you, so that they come to Wikipedia and support your side of a debate.''

I therefore put on the record and file with Wikipedia administrative personnel:


 * It has come to my attention that, since 2006 up to October 2008 after many months of low editing activity on the Wikipedia Scriptural Reasoning article, in November 2008 circular notice about the Wikipedia "Scriptural Reasoning" article was sent to one group of persons all belonging to the same "Scriptural Reasoning University Group"/"SR Theory Group"/"Society for Scriptural Reasoning" (a group allegedly around 35 persons) apparently with a view to recruiting them to edit the Wikipedia article Scriptural Reasoning from that group's perspective.


 * On 27 November 2008, in a series of edits user Nsa1001, whom I have strong reason to believe is employed as a consultant to the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme (which organisation and whose Director's actions have been critiqued by me in the article), first started to edit the article and began to remove all material from the article comprising opposing viewpoints or critical of organisations to which he is affiliated, or relating to the "Scriptural Reasoning Society" ("Oxford School") - and has continued to do so since. Without breaching Wiki outing rules, I have strong reason to suspect that user Nsa1001 is a Christian theologian personally/collegially employed by the Director of the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme, and personally knows some of the newly recruited editors to Wikipedia on this article.


 * Two days after user Nsa1001's first edit, on 29 November 2008, a newly registered user to Wikipedia Laysha101 arrived and began to edit with the same opinion and pattern as user Nsa1001. All Laysha101's contributions to date have been to this Scriptural Reasoning article or related to Scriptural Reasoning, and all her editing behaviour is in support of the positions of Nsa1001 and the "Society for Scriptural Reasoning".  Without breaching Wiki outing rules, I have good reason to suspect she is a Christian theologian colleague of user Nsa1001 and user mahigton, based at the University of Leeds, and a member of the very same SRU/SR Theory Group/Society for Scriptural Reasoning as the above.


 * On 28 November 2008, the very next day after Nsa1001's first posting, an existing Wikipedia editor mahigton who had not ever before posted on the Scriptural Reasoning article began to edit in support of the positions of user Nsa1001 and of the SRU/SR Theory Group/Society for Scriptural Reasoning of which he admits he is a member. I have reason to suspect that he is also a Christian theologian colleague of user Nsa1001 and user Laysha101, based at the University of Exeter, and of course a member of the same Scriptural Reasoning organisations as the above two.


 * On 4 December 2008 one week after after Nsa1001's first posting, another new user to Wikipedia, The maulana began to edit the article, all of whose expressed opinions follow the same view as Nsa1001, mahigton etc, and all of whose Wikipedia contributions to date relate to this article only, or to Peter Ochs a lead founder personality of the "Society for Scriptural Reasoning".


 * Again on 26 December 2008, yet another new user to Wikipedia Chaisr began to post views in support of the position of user Nsa1001 and the "Society for Scriptural Reasoning". All the contributions of this new user have related to this Scriptural Reasoning article only.

Aside from this sudden arrival in the immediate aftermath of the date of Nsa1001's first posting on 27 November 2008 of a rash of new users to the article of similar viewpoint, including wholly newly registered users to Wikipedia, all posting either primarily or entirely to this article, with same editing behaviour -- neither in the many months before, nor in the time since, has there been such new user interest in this article. This pattern therefore all corresponds to the facts brought to my attention of circular notice being circulated at that time among a single community of people, and new meatpuppetry recruitment of new users. All this is in violation of Wikipedia guidelines.

Within a very short time therefore of this meatpuppet recruitment, users Nsa1001 and mahigton and Laysha101 dishonestly began to allege a "consensus" in relation to the editing of the article, in particular in relation to their systematic removal of material from Scriptural Reasoning critical of organisations and personalities with which they are politically or collegially connected. Their editing behaviour further indicates coordination in actioning reverts and removal of material written by me, possibly as a means of bypassing the WP:3RR andWP:3RR rule, where user mahigton speedily reported me as a single editor.

Just as one example of co-ordination in bypassing Conflict of Interest: the edit history shows that on 28 January 2009 user Nsa1001 actioned an edit in which he attempted to avoid a COI conflict (his edit comment: "Removed potential COI material - see talk page") and a couple of hours later, his colleague user Laysha101 then actioned the remaining COI-sensitive part of the edit.

There is therefore clear evidence warranting further investigation by Wikipedia Administrators as to there having been fraudulent meatpuppetry recruitment of new editors all associated with one same organisation and viewpoint, in order dishonestly to give a misleading impression of editorial "consensus" on Scriptural Reasoning - this fraud is in violation of Wikipedia policy.

Users Nsa1001, mahigton, Laysha101 have remained evasive about their connections to one another, institutional/organisational affiliations, and the circumstances under which they all began to edit Scriptural Reasoning at the same time. I hope they will now have the integrity to answer Wikipedia administrators of the circumstances in which they and other new editors started upon editing this article all at the same time. In relation to WP:3RR, I further draw attention to the clause:

For the purposes of dispute resolution, the Arbitration Committee has ruled that when there is uncertainty whether a party is one user with sock puppets, or several users acting as meatpuppets, they may be treated as one entity. --Scripturalreasoning (talk) 01:56, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

SUPPLEMENTARY COMMENTS: Despite user mahigton's comments hereunder and the spin and sophistry placed on them, before the filing of this Meatpuppetry investigation report, he stated on 28 January 2008 rather more simply on User talk:PhilKnight : "On one side of the conflict is editor scripturalreasoning...On the other side are a number of editors, most noticeably me, Nsa1001 and Laysha101, but various others have supported our side: The maulana, Ar2yeh, Chaisr, etc."
 * Very simply therefore, user mahigton correctly identifies a debate of two sides and he identifies a list of named users who have supported "our side"
 * Every single one of the named users listed by user mahigton - Nsa1001, Laysha101, The maulana, Ar2yeh, Chaisr, are wholly new editors, every single one of them arriving in a single wave on or shortly after Nsa1001's first edits on 27 November 2008. They are all either wholly newly registered users to Wikipedia posting contribs only or almost entirely to this article Scriptural Reasoning, or they are existing Wikipedia users who had never posted to article Scriptural Reasoning prior to 27 November 2008.
 * Therefore, after almost 28 months of low level activity on Scriptural Reasoning all of a sudden in a matter of days there are a sudden number of entirely new editors all supporting one side of a debate identified by user mahigton himself. Suspicious??
 * To compound this,mahigton himself admits (see hereunder) to having connection in the real world to at least two of these editors, Nsa1001 and user Laysha101 (in relation to the latter who is a wholly newly registered user on Wikipedia, s/he appears to be a different individual - though still within the same Scriptural Reasoning grouping - to my initial supposition, but the important point which was aimed to be established, and which has, is that these three are all colleagues and connected in real life).
 * I have strong reason to believe that all the new editors to Wikipedia Scriptural Reasoning have been recruited into Wikipedia externally from a single external Community of Opinion outside Wikipedia (in this case the Society for Scriptural Reasoning/SR University Group/SR Theory Group), giving a deceptive impression of "consensus", and being contrary to Wikipedia policy.
 * I will not comment on mahigton's own definition of meatpuppets as clones who must say exactly the same thing all the time agreeing on every minor detail, and must themselves know nothing about the subject nor hold the viewpoint tendered themselves. Instead, I refer again to the official Sock puppetry statement:

"It is considered highly inappropriate to advertise Wikipedia articles to your friends, family members, or communities of people who agree with you, so that they come to Wikipedia and support your side of a debate"

It is for the Wikipedia administrators to interpret the official written policy in this area. --Scripturalreasoning (talk) 03:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Hkelkar_2/Workshop#Meatpuppets 5) It is considered highly inappropriate to advertise Wikipedia articles in order to attract users with known views in an attempt to strengthen one side of a debate. Advertising or soliciting meatpuppet activity is not an acceptable practice on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/SPI/Guidance#Abusive_meat-puppetry ''Sometimes users who appear to work with a common agenda are not sockpuppets (one user, multiple accounts), but multiple users editing with the sole purpose of backing each other up, often called "meatpuppets."...Advertising Wikipedia articles to your friends, family members, or communities of people who agree with you, so that they come to Wikipedia and support your side of a debate and give the appearance of consensus is strongly discouraged. Discussions in which violations of this nature are found will have the violations stricken from the discussions and sanctions may be applied to protect the project's integrity.''

Requests for arbitration/Webcomics/Workshop/Meatpuppets

--Scripturalreasoning (talk) 04:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

For personal reasons, I am dropping this sockpuppetry allegation. I hope the other parties are able to act in a morally appropriate way from now on.

--Scripturalreasoning (talk) 23:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.

mahigton

I am one of those who is being accused of being a meat-puppet for user Nsa1001, and am happy for that accusation to be investigated. I have taken the liberty of copying here the response I have already made to this accusation at Talk:Scriptural Reasoning. I hope that is appropriate. Note that the same talk page also includes responses from the other persons accused.


 * A meat puppet would be someone recruited purely to give a false impression of consensus - i.e., someone whose editing activity could only properly be considered as a means by which some other editor was enacting edits that were in truth only his or her own. The users you mention (and yes, I do happen to know Nsa1001 and Laysha101, and I am willing admit that I do talk to people I know from time to time in contexts other than Wikipedia talk pages) both have direct, independent experience of the subject matter of the article: Scriptural Reasoning. I edit this article on the basis of my own direct knowledge of SR, and have not made any edits which are not based on what I directly know of SR. It seems pretty clear from their edits that both Nsa1001 and Laysha101 edit the article from the basis of their own direct, independent knowledge of SR as well - and, although I do not know who some of the other editors are who have disagreed with user scripturalreasoning, I see no reason to believe that any one of them does not have the independent knowledge of Scriptural Reasoning that he or she claims. User scripturalreasoning's misunderstanding of Wikipedia meatpuppetry policy would, if taken seriously, simply amount to a ban on people talking to one another offline about any topics related to Wikipedia.


 * So, yes, I am entirely happy, should any administrator be interested, to talk to that administrator about all the circumstances in which I started editing this article.--mahigton (talk) 08:33, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

If I may make one additional observation here: I am accused above of being 'evasive' about my connections to other editors, my institutional affiliations, and the circumstances which led to my editing this particular article. I will freely admit that, when (as has happened repeatedly) user scripturalreasoning has tried to respond to editorial disagreements by attacking the trustworthiness, integrity and motives of the editors with whom he/she disagrees, I have tried to steer the discussion as quickly as possible back to questions about the content of the article, and specifically questions of verifiability, due weight, NPOV, original research, and so on. I can see that this probably does look like 'evasion' to someone determined to personalise the argument. --mahigton (talk) 15:43, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I have just noticed that I said one potentially misleading thing, above. I said 'A meat puppet would be someone recruited purely to give a false impression of consensus'.  In saying that, I might be taken to be tacitly admitting recruiting people to Wikipedia for other purposes, or admitting that I had been recruited for some other purpose.  Let me be clear here: I have not at any point in this disagreement sought to recruit any new members to Wikipedia, nor was I myself recruited by anyone else, user Nsa1001 included.  As I said before, I am happy to discuss this further with any administrator, and to back up what I have said here.--mahigton (talk) 09:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Nsa1001

I am the principal accused party. For the record, I have not engaged in WP:Meat. I've not recruited new users to WP. The views of editors on the page in question are, as far as I'm concerned, their own independent views - with many of which I disagree. Some of the editors mentioned as potential meatpuppets are users whose identity I don't know. Of those editors I do, I do not know their views, and I have not asked them to support any particular side or argument. I have consistently appealed to the force of the better argument, to WP:V and WP:OR and not to personal friendships, associations or anything else. I am surprised to find WP:Outing on this, an admin page: this seems a lapse of judgement by Scripturalreasoning. I can only assume it was an inadvertent error, and would ask for speculations about my employer to be reversed in a timely manner on this (and any other) page, please. Very happy to cooperate with WP:Sysops - I review my talk page from time to time, so that's a good place to post. Other than that, I think mahigton has posted eloquently enough, and I endorse his remarks. Does that make him my puppet, or I his? Naturally, it does not. Had Scripturalreasoning understood this, perhaps the accusation might have been avoided in the first place. Nsa1001 (talk) 16:21, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Laysha101


 * I am perfectly happy to be investigated, and to discuss any relevant issues (including the emerging confusion about my identity) with an administrator. I would like to come out of this process with a good and stable Wikipedia article on Scriptural Reasoning, and have acted throughout with that aim in view. I know nsa1001 and mahigton, and would love to know who some of the other editors of the article are - but haven't chosen to enquire or to speculate.Laysha101 (talk) 09:04, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by other users

as withdrawn by reporter Mayalld (talk) 11:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

Mayalld (talk) 11:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Conclusions