Wikipedia admins turn a blind eye to obvious meatpuppetry and canvassing when those infractions come from a group that coordinates off-site and can influence Wikipedia by the sheer power of numbers.
I have noticed a lot of users from India (self-declared on their user page) will pile on the same RfCs, same ANs and ANIs, especially/only when it comes to topics about India.
I'm guessing Administrators turn a blind eye because they're afraid that if any one of the editors complains, they'll have a horde of editors (whose coordinated editing they've so far ignored) who'll demand the action be overturned and probably removal of the admin. Since there's lots of them, any thread will be supervoted by them.
The Admins seem to have agreed upon some sort agreement with Indian editors. Administrators don't touch India/India-Pakistan/Hindu-Muslim topics and the Indian editors don't involve themselves too much or cause too much of a stir on articles outside of the India topic area broadly construed.
I think they were also spooked by the government of India cracking down on Wikipedia so they give a wide berth to any editor from India.
For example: Pakistani editors get warnings of meatpuppetry [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1279382852] and get taken to ANI [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... ar_of_1965]. And there's requests to block them [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... n1_(Result:_)]
Notice how on other ANI threads you'll have half a dozen people on the first day screaming for blood or commenting, but on the ANI involving an Indian editor -- crickets.
The cabal even the Admins fear
-
WikiWikiWow
- Sucks
- Posts: 33
- Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2025 1:48 am
- Been thanked: 12 times
-
WikiWikiWow
- Sucks
- Posts: 33
- Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2025 1:48 am
- Been thanked: 12 times
Re: The cabal even the Admins fear
And here is a situation where it is obvious.
The Kash Patel RfC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kash ... t_sentence
They're discussing whether to call Kash Patel a "conspiracy theorist" in the lede. The thread has a bunch of IPs voting oppose.
The interesting thing here is three powerful interest groups fighting it out. On the one side you have the liberals and the skeptics, on the other the Indians.
Liberals want to attach as many pejoratives to anyone even remotely linked to Trump, skeptics have a need to call anyone who publicly goes against scientific dogma a "conspiracy theorist", the Indians don't want to see one of their own called a negative label so prominently.
The discussion was closed already once as "no consensus" but the close wss reverted. Looks like both sides want a consensus in their favor.
The RfC is full of editors claiming victory because of the number of votes. How can people still not understand the concept of consensus? Or are they doing it on purpose because wikipedians have no way of distinguishing a good argument and a bad argument so as long as their !vote is seen that's all that matters.
Here's a funny quote: because I don't think there will be a compromise on this, and if there's it will be in favour of the arguments for "Oppose".[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kash ... 0317232200]
Of course, no admin is going to touch that thread. 25 votes for desysop is nothing. It'd maybe be worth it to see which users voted for that threshold. It gives a group of 25-30 editors who can keep out of each other's way but coordinate offsite a lot of power.
I'm guessing Admins suspect it also (I mean, you'd have to be pretty daft not to notice it) but they have no way of proving off-site collusion.
The Kash Patel RfC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kash ... t_sentence
They're discussing whether to call Kash Patel a "conspiracy theorist" in the lede. The thread has a bunch of IPs voting oppose.
The interesting thing here is three powerful interest groups fighting it out. On the one side you have the liberals and the skeptics, on the other the Indians.
Liberals want to attach as many pejoratives to anyone even remotely linked to Trump, skeptics have a need to call anyone who publicly goes against scientific dogma a "conspiracy theorist", the Indians don't want to see one of their own called a negative label so prominently.
The discussion was closed already once as "no consensus" but the close wss reverted. Looks like both sides want a consensus in their favor.
The RfC is full of editors claiming victory because of the number of votes. How can people still not understand the concept of consensus? Or are they doing it on purpose because wikipedians have no way of distinguishing a good argument and a bad argument so as long as their !vote is seen that's all that matters.
Here's a funny quote: because I don't think there will be a compromise on this, and if there's it will be in favour of the arguments for "Oppose".[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kash ... 0317232200]
Of course, no admin is going to touch that thread. 25 votes for desysop is nothing. It'd maybe be worth it to see which users voted for that threshold. It gives a group of 25-30 editors who can keep out of each other's way but coordinate offsite a lot of power.
I'm guessing Admins suspect it also (I mean, you'd have to be pretty daft not to notice it) but they have no way of proving off-site collusion.