Post
by Mutineer » Sun Oct 29, 2017 1:01 am
"I also have an admin account that I seldom use. I do not use that account for normal editing due to security concerns, for privacy reasons and also to prevent any possibility of my using admin tools inappropriately on articles in which I may be considered to be involved. I have sent details of my alternate account to the Arbitration Committee. I am willing to provide details by mail to any admin who requests it," says "Geraldo Perez."
1) This is a pseudonym that sounds like a real name. I've always found these deceptive based on that alone. "James B. Watson" is another administrator that does this. Courcelles has done it, he was once "Brad Brown," except Brown wasn't his name. His wife "Flonutter," I mean "Fluffernutter," whatever it is, doesn't do it on-wiki as far as I know, but she does it on the wikimedia-l mailing list.
2) His argument that he uses this non-admin account for privacy reasons doesn't make an heck of a lot of sense. How does another account improve his privacy? As a smoke-screen? But he just announced it. He wants to use this account to edit topics that he is involved with in his personal life, on which he might be found out based on his admin username? But you're not supposed to do that.
3) His argument "to prevent any possibility of my using admin tools inappropriately on articles in which I may be considered to be involved" is deceptive on its face. It doesn't prevent that at all. He can still use the admin tools with his admin account on whatever article he likes. Plus he doesn't appear to be editing his interests. He's parked at some "recent changes" page where he nullifies and reverts what he chooses.
4) The box where he asserts oh-so-officially "this is an alternate account permitted by policy" is annoying. Who is he to certify that his sockpuppet account is on the up-and-up? Bwilkins used to do the same thing, with four or five accounts, two active at a time, at times editing the same thing, not clearly linked at all but rather a question of following an unmarked and unobvious hyperlink between userpages.
Glargh!
Is it AGK or Gamaliel? There's no way to tell that I know. You don't want to make a judgement based on suspicion or "this seems like him to me." You'll probably be wrong. It doesn't smell like AGK to me, and I don't know much about Gamaliel. If you want to figure out such puzzles you really have to go through them analytically, finding similarities and so forth, rejecting suspicion at every turn.
The administrative sector is anonymizing itself these days. Between that and the routine whitewashing, it's getting really difficult to ferret them out. Short of getting someone on the inside, or convincing someone on the inside to finally do the right thing, it's turning into a different ballgame for those like us that try to hold them to account.
I am "Modsquad" here, and participate, but I don't want you to think we can't have an angry argument.
