<CPOV> Wikipedia as an Alternative United Nations-Like Forum

[Jon Awbrey]

Andy, Greg, & All ...

Actually, I wasn't thinking so much of people who use alternate accounts
to carry out legitimate editing activities -- after all, one of the most
highly touted maxims of the original wiki philosophy was often expressed
as "Mind the Edits, Not the Editor", and Wikipedians still piously, if a
bit Heapishly, echo those words even today.  Nor was I thinking of folks
who use their transient socks for nothing more serious than tweaking the
noses of Wikipedian power-mongers -- after all, I know few people who so
richly deserve to have their Wiki-Probosci rejointed.

No, I was thinking of people who use massive sock drawers to conduct
concerted, longterm campaigns of media distortion -- and what medium
is so well-tailored for ease of distortion as Wikipedia?  Few indeed.

Cases like Gary Weiss, I guess.  But there I am already out of my depth,
as it takes a real forensic investigator to unravel socks of that order.

Jon Awbrey

Gregory Kohs wrote:
>
> As a practitioner in Wikipedia manipulation, I may represent one of those
> "individual cases" that Jon mentions. If you're interested in either a
> formal case study, or in just a chuckle, you might wish to peruse my "hall
> of shame" of sockpuppet accounts that I was compelled to disclose before I
> would be unblocked on Wikipedia:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Thekohser/2009#Thekohser_responds
> (click the "Show" link in the green box)
> 
> After Wikipedia Arbitration Committee member decided that she liked Adam
> "Shoemaker's Holiday" Cuerden more than she liked me, I was nonetheless
> re-blocked again, and so I set about making more sockpuppets again.  You
> see, I need an ample drawer of active socks, so that my individual clients
> can be promptly served, without giving away my entire slate of clients, nor
> compromising any specific IP addresses if the paid editing should ever be
> detected.  I have presently 19 different socks at my disposal, undetected by
> the Wikipedia admin crew.
> 
> No, I don't consider it "a very serious form of fraud", as Andy suggested.
> I tried to work with the Wikipedia community from the outset -- above
> board, in the disinfecting light of full disclosure.  Jimmy Wales made clear
> to me that he disapproved of that method.  Many people at high levels of
> Wikipedia participation warned Jimmy that his alternative would only drive
> underground the activity of paid editors, where it would be less-easily
> monitored.  Jimmy ignored their guidance.  And so, here I am today, still
> able to author Wikipedia articles for paying clients, and in about 90% of
> client cases, the work goes completely undetected by the very people who are
> dead-set against "POV" "shills" editing "their" encyclopedia.

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