Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations/Kumioko/Archive

Un-blanking
The user-page template says

"Please refer to ... the sockpuppet investigation"

The sockpuppet investigation is archived, partly I have always understood, per WP:DENY.

There is no need to ad a further layer of obfuscation, which is contrary to the spirit of openness that characterises Wikis.

Moreover I question the wisdom of referring to someone as a "minor banned user" - if you mean "banned, but not absolutely reprehensible" then say so. Although that would seem to be the reverse of WP:DENY, encouraging less amenable sock masters to go for "major banned user". If on the other hand, you mean a minor user that is banned, then that is particularly rude. Kumioko has made considerable contributions to the project proper.

Further blanking completely breaks the point of the archive. Any additional investigations will be archived to the blanked page.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 11:34, 8 May 2014 (UTC).


 * You have not addressed, nor indeed do you appear to be aware of, the problems posed by this specific banned user's method of operation. He creates sock puppets for glory, contrary to what most other banned users do. Maintaining a list of his ostensible accomplishments is disruptive to the encyclopaedia, because it empowers and encourages him. Please do not hijack this process again. AGK  [•] 12:19, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Can you establish that he creates them for glory? It seems to me that he creates them because they get blocked, and he want to speak openly as himself.  As to it being an "accomplishment" creating a thousand or even a million socks is not an accomplishment.


 * Moreover I think I have made it perfectly clear in the past that if there is anything that is likely to "encourage" Kumioko, though of course I do not speak for him, it is this sort of "extraordinary measures". Were I trying to discourage Kumioko as an admin, I would simply block his socks as they appear, without reverting, and without extraneous comment.  Playing whack-a-mole with his (well intentioned) posts is futile and childish.


 * I would also like to remind you of WP:BRD. Not WP:BRR "I'm right your wrong".


 * All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:43, 8 May 2014 (UTC).


 * Yes, he has admitted as much in some of his post-ban comments, in e-mails to the Arbitration Committee, and in comments made about the AbuseFilter designed to stop him creating socks ("I will never stop fighting it", "nothing you do can stop me", etc.). WP:DENY is not an extraordinary measure. It is routinely used against certain types of banned sock masters such as Kumioko. I'm sorry to have to say you would know this if you had any experience whatsoever in preventing banned socking. You do not, so I question why you are involving yourself here. "Playing whack-a-mole" is mandated by Wikipedia policy and the Wikimedia Foundation Terms of Use, and more to the point I am flabbergasted that you would attempt to describe a concerted campaign of childish ban evasion as "well-intention posts". AGK  [•] 12:56, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * It is quite clear that he is correct that "nothing you can do can stop him", anyone living in a major conurbation has thousands of IP addresses available, not to mention that he has said he is dynamically provisioned - and as you know there are many other options available if one were determined.
 * Were Kumioko an inveterate page-move vandal, for example, there would be sense in developing tools to prevent abuse. However Kumioko has posted almost entirely about very narrowly defined user behaviour topics, provoked largely, in the cases I saw, by those who found themselves unable to resist responding to him - for example NYB's insufficiently abstract "Could we sue Kumi" and the, once again, futile attempts to stop Kumioko responding.
 * Sometimes it is far simpler to let the other party have the last word. Neither you nor anyone else are required to read the occasional post which Kumioko makes, and, more to the point you are not required to respond to it.  Nothing is "mandated" and if it is a bad idea it is specifically frowned upon by IAR.
 * Let me now restate in bullet point format, since you seem to have missed most of the narrative points I made above - adding a few minor items. I shall ignore the rudeness and aspersions you cast on me as irrelevant.
 * WP:REVERTBAN says "This does not mean that edits must be reverted"
 * Wikimedia Foundation Terms of Use deos not mandate anything, and is about the Foudation not the community. I am flabbergasted you should confuse the two.
 * Your attempts at preventing Kumioko from signing his posts were a miserable failure. Had they succeeded he would have posted unsigned,  which would have been worse.
 * If you view this as a competition between yourself and Kumioko, you are destined to fail. All you can do is increase the challenge slightly. I belive you blocked most of a Canadian state as "acceptable collateral damage" to prevent Br'er Rabbit from socking.  I doubt that worked either.
 * You have not answered the point about breaking the archive.
 * Nor have you explained why you edit-warred.
 * All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:31, 8 May 2014 (UTC).
 * All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:31, 8 May 2014 (UTC).

You have just:
 * Proposed we excuse and ignore his abusive messages on the talk page of many users, and do absolutely nothing about them. The community would find this position insupportable.
 * Misunderstood me. I mean the other use of "mandated": authorising, not requiring. You are probably flabbergasted because you do not understand.
 * Cast aspersions. There is no competition; this is not about me. Please do not suggest it is.

I did not try to prevent Kumioko from signing his posts. You are misinformed. I was a known supporter of Br'er Rabbit. Again, you are misinformed. I have already explained why I reverted you: you are disrupting this SPI, with the only plausible defence being that the archival process is disrupted. Your information about scripts and automation is also subpar: the archival script continues to work despite that earlier archived SPIs are no longer on the page.

Lastly, as you have waded into this page to overturn my actions – I rather doubt by surprise – and a process I am extensively involved in, and you never have been, I must assume this, for you, is a tiny bit personal. I would therefore request that you not sign your posts on this matter with "All the best". It is at best inane and at worst passive-aggressive.

Please now obtain consensus on this question from WT:SPI. You will need other checkusers or a larger group of editors to adjudicate this, as I am unconvinced by your rationale, and at this point I do not think further discussion is likely to be helpful. AGK [•] 14:31, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * have you done something similar to other sockpuppet investigations? -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:17, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
 * as far as I can see the answer is none. Analysis here.  All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:17, 19 May 2014 (UTC).

This battle is unseemly. I have locked the page for one week.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:03, 18 May 2014 (UTC)