https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... ting_style
So obsessed are the Wikishits about hunting their socky wockies*, in common with their chosen means of fixing all their other problems, they've turned to technology for a solution.
It has one slight drawback.......all that China/Iran/North Korea/The Republican Party/The KKK needs to do to be able to identify the personal details of people who, quite legitimately due to the threat to their safety, aren't editing certain topics with their main account but instead via a legitimate sock, is use this tool.
All it is something that compares the writing style of two accounts, which obviously can be done manually, but that takes time and skill. Two things your average white supremacist doesn't have. With this tool, they can make hundreds of comparisons in a very short time, and don't need to know the first thing about what the tool is actually looking for.
But Wikipedia has a safety system, don't you worry! The tool can only be used by those with the CheckUser user right. Yay!
What could go wrong? Well, as we all know, one of English Wikipedia's most prolific and trusted CheckUsers, Bbb23, was in reality, a serial violator of one of their other most basic protections of user's privacy. As well as restricting mere access to the CheckUser right, you have to use it according to their allegedly very strict rules.
In reality, that bastard was routinely just checking people's private data, submitted to the Foundation in confidence they would handle it the way their privacy Policy says (carefully and responsibly), on nothing but a hunch. He was engaged in what the Wikipedians call "fishing" expeditions. Sort of like tasking the NSA to figure out who in your neighbourhood is stealing your wheelie bin. Because you know how they'd do that shit....
And here's the kicker. He wasn't doing it occasionally, on a small scale, we pretty much know he was doing it for so long and on such a scale, they knew they would be facing serious fines under California law. That's the only reason they would act (because they know whenever they do act, it becomes a stick with which they can be beaten, like I am doing now). So he was told to knock it the fuck off. And when he didn't, he was demoted.
He wasn't banned, of course, they save that for the really bad actors! Shit, he is actually still trusted to be an Administrator, even though the way he reacted to being found out demonstrated very well, that he lacks many of the basic personal qualities the Wikipedia community allegedly likes to see even in that moderately powerful user right.
Christ, you only need to read a few of his posts to know he lacks a few basic human qualities, period. As ever though, the Wikipedia community never seems to really care that they have psychos in positions of trust, perhaps because so many of them are also seriously damaged. And those that do care, the handful of normals, if they lack the rank and privilege, can do nothing about it. Or more likely, think it wise for their own wellbeing not to even try.
Here's the thing. As most experienced sock masters will know, Bbb23 was no rotten apple. Pretty much all the CheckUsers bend the rules the way he did, no doubt telling themselves it is justified and justifiable, like he did, and presumably still does, safe in the knowledge that there is little to no effective oversight of this small but powerful crew of snoopers. As the Bbb23 fallout showed, their distinct to circle the wagons is strong. Thin blue line and all that.
The people tasked with this crucial job of watching the watchers, are the Arbitration Committee. One of them is Beeblebrox. So you probably already know, a higher standard, they are not. A beacon of leadership and standards, they are not.
It's ironic that if you create a sock puppet to file a report on Wikipedia that shows that the updated advice post Bbb23 that was issued by ArbCom to remind CheckUsers what is and is not fishing, is being routinely ignored, you will get blocked by one of those CheckUsers for being disruptive. I shit you not. Try it if you doubt me.
This is Wikipedia. They're not real life, they will proudly tell you. There is no justice. Normally that means getting hit on the head for complaining that the other kid stole your lunch money is routine. But it of course also means, there is typically no formal or transparent means of oversight. Their system of self governance, often violently defended as seen in Framgate, because it offers such rich benefits to bullies and corrupt bastards, is more medieval or Judge Dredd than a twentieth Century community of alleged equals, and to be honest, that's probably doing a disservice to the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Abuse of the CheckUser right, and thus by extension, a window into how little the Wikipedia community does to prevent bad actors from gaining it, is one of the many things that is considered top secret on Wikipedia. You can't air that dirty laundry in public.
You can file a report on confidence, but funnily enough, with nobody to see it much less track its progress, they never seem to go anywhere. We know, because people had been filing reports about Bbb23's fishing for years before anything actually happened. They were ignored because they came from people Wikipedia automatically distrusts - socky wockies!
But who better to know it is happening, than those who know it happened? Often because they didn't create a sock to win some lame edit war, as Wikishits often laughable think is their purpose, they did so merely to set a trap to catch a scumbag like Bbb23 in the act. Not just catch them, but show the Wikipedia community doesn't want to do a damn thing when you have caught them.
It's very easy to do, it takes no particular skill to set up a scenario where the only plausible explanation for why account A got blocked as a sock puppet of account B, is because someone in that small band of CheckUsers, has been putting his hand in the cookie jar.
As the nominal exposers of Wikipedia corruption and the natural place you might report such experimental findings, Wikipediocracy could do something about it if it wanted. But that would annoy their beloved forum member Beeblebrox, so they won't. They'll block you instead. Seriously, try it. I don't just make this shit up you know.
And so there's the rub. A system that already can't and indeed won't stop unethical scum from obtaining this powerful right, is hardly going to notice when a White Supremacist obtains the right. And that's all they need do, obtain it, because it looks like use of this behavioural matching tool isn't logged, or at least not by those who would need to know who is using it and why, for the purposes of auditing.
Not that it would matter if they did. It being rather obvious Bbb23 et al only get away with their fishing expeditions because it's either very easy to circumvent the logging system, or there is so little oversight people don't think twice about entering false information, confident nobody is going to check it. At least not unless a Bbb23 scale problem has arisen, and if so, well, you're hardly going to be worried are you? Worst that can happen is you lose the CheckUser right, and only then after you've had years to enjoy the fruits of your abuses. You got it once, you can get it again.
Me, I'm not particularly bothered. If an established Wikipedia editor trying to do good work documenting human rights abuses in Russia gets killed after drinking poison tea, and that happens because Wikipedia itself is a very microcosm of what can happen when a governance system has too few checks and balances and too much incentive and reward for doing bad things, I'll just laugh my fucking ass off.
After all, there is no such thing as a good Wikipedia editor, remember.
A good Wikipedia editor ->
This of course presupposes Russia gives a shit about what happens on English Wikipedia. The horrifying truth for Wikipedia editors, at least those minded to use it to document human rights abuses in Russia, is that they don't! Partly because America is such a useless global power these days, doing absolutely nothing when Putin just goes and grabs bits of other people's lawn for the oil under the ground, and that was before Uncle Sell Out Joe rose to power.
I suppose they might find value in using it to root out certain people on Russian Wikipedia, but it seems more likely they'll go the other proven root and simply capture the whole community. Pretty easy to do that, for the same overall reasons it was pretty easy for Bbb23 to do what he did.
English Wikipedia would do nothing, because it's been terribly named from the outset. It should have been called American Wikipedia. They must quite like the idea that apparently they're now the vanguard of American's Imperialist ideals.
It's at times like this I am reminded why I often feel moved to do physical harm to Wikipedia editors, out of a sense of profound moral justice. It's perhaps because I am British, and gosh darn it if they don't get right on my wick for their casual disregard of simple concepts like basic fairness.
And this is nothing of not accutely illustrated in the way they use hunting for socky wockies as their primary means of ensuring insiders are kept in, outsiders are kept out.
* - this being their primary means of preventing their fellow editors from discovering the dirty truth about Wikipedia (such as the fact Marek Kukula is a threat to children but Guy Macon would prefer to put children at risk than concede for a second that he's abusing Wikipedia to wage a war against right wing media)
So sit back and enjoy the show, because the Daleks just discovered they can fly....
