Flip Flopped wrote:For example, what is up with Durova? I've never really understood what went on. She appears to have gone nuts hunting socks. Is that the deal?
Lise was a famously abusive (and incompetent) administrator who liked to throw her ego around. Her adminship lasted all of 13 months. She's probably running socks but it's not really provable--just a general suspicion by Wp observers. If you want to communicate with her, she still participates on Facebook with some other Wikipedians...https://www.facebook.com/lise.broer
I'll quote part of the book wiki article for you:
According to her edit history (which might not be accurate), Durova first appeared on Wikipedia October 2005, and promptly started heavily editing the Joan of Arc article. Within a month she was heavily voting on AFDs. She spent the next year with her nose buried in the asses of any administrators she could find, and was a regular participant on AN, Arbcom, RFC and other administrative pages. The username was taken from a famous female figure in Russian history. Obviously Broer considers herself a "female warrior" and feminist.
Successful RFA October 2006. The insiders lined up to approve her and the few objections were shouted down or censored -- sometimes by Durova herself.
Most of her appearances on AN/I, 3RR, RFC, RFA and other official Wikipedia noticeboards appear to be her attempts to accuse others of malfeasance. See below for examples. Many of the other arguments involving Durova have been deleted, "disappeared mysteriously", or were "blanked as a courtesy". Very few remain. [2][3] She was also heavily involved in the "Featured Picture" project for many years. [4]
She wrote an article that was popular on the Digg group blog in August 2007. Which was posted on the AN noticeboard by her friend, Jonathan Hochman.
She was responsible for starting the August 2007 scandal over Wikipedia editing done by U.S. Congressional staffers, specifically Timothy Hill, then press secretary for Tennessee congressman David Davis. It was started by this July SEO blog article written by Durova, pointing out the edits in question. Allegedly she contacted the Congressman's office and managed to frighten Hill into resigning his position, although there is no hard evidence of it. [5][6] Some mention of this incident is preserved in the Wikipedia article about Hill, who later became a Tennessee state representative himself. A subsequent post on the StepForth blog revealed this statement by Durova:
"I am a voluntary participant in a program called ‘administrators open to recall.’ That means I’ll stand for reconfirmation of sysop status if half a dozen Wikipedians in good standing request it. Nobody’s ever initiated such a request. My candidacy for administratorship passed on an 81-0-1 vote (one neutral short of unanimous). So the community has expressed its confidence. I do, however, specialize in investigations and dispute resolution. So some sitebanned individuals sometimes turn up elsewhere on the Web with complaints.”
Note that the blogs involved were "search engine optimization" or SEO blogs. Wikipedia is often edited by SEO professionals wishing to increase the Internet presence of people and organizations for pay, making it a form of unacceptable "Paid editing". Another participant on those same SEO blogs, an admitted SEO professional himself, and a good friend to Durova: Jonathan Hochman.
Previously, in 2006, Broer had set up a secret mailing list ("wpcyberstalking") for discussion of "improper activity" on WP, but which ended up being used to plot revenge against critics of Wikipedia and Wikipedia administrators. Based on a faulty analysis discussed on this mailing list, in November 2007 she blocked fellow administrator !! (T-C-F-R-B) as a sockpuppet of a banned user[7], resulting in further unfavorable media coverage. [8] [9]
This led to an RFC in November 2007, in which she admitted guilt but was not punished in any way. "User:Durova has, time and again, made false public accusations against other editors, including myself. She has wrongfully accused numerous editors off wrongful conduct without evidence. She has repeatedly failed to WP:AGF in her self-declared wiki sleuthing. She has falsely identified myself and others as being guilty of 'offline collusion'. She has falsely accused me of being a long-term vandal. She routinely half-reads things and then makes blocking decisions on this partial information. When challenged or questioned, she routinely claims that she is 'busy' and 'doesnt have time to read everything carefully'."
As a result of the publicity and ensuing waves of criticism, she resigned her admin status 26 November 2007. [10] The responsible party: Cary Bass. In only 13 months of adminship, Durova had managed to create bad publicity for Wikipedia in a manner rarely seen.
Absurdly, Arbcom opened an arbitration case against her, two days before her resignation. "1) Durova is admonished to exercise greater care when issuing blocks." They also used the opportunity to accuse Giano of "not assuming good faith", after he criticized Durova for her conduct. Yet another premium example of the general cowardice of Arbcom.
She tried to run for Arbcom in December 2007 -- and failed.
Account "Hu12 (T-C-F-R-B)" was believed to be her primary sock account. She nominated her own sock for adminship in February 2007, and succeeded. This WR thread shows that it was not a secret.
In 2009 Durova won the "WikiCup", an article-creation contest. Held every year since 2007, the WikiCup is little known outside of Wikipedia circles.
In 2010 Durova became the focus of an arbitration complaint filed by "Shoemaker's Holiday".
"I left Wikipedia over harassment by Durova. Durova had been continually hounding me over tiny issues for months; the final straw being when I politely pointed out a bizarre decision by her in a set nomination, here, she cursed me out for 15 minutes on Skype. See [11] (deleted) "
"Durova is in the habit of maliciously false claims in order to attack me. In this very case, she claims she had permission to post e-mails. She did not. She had permission to republish the log in which she falsely claims I boasted about gaming the system, which now admits does not exist. ("For two days I've searched for a log where he made that disclosure. It may have happened in voice so there isn't any log [...]") She instead falsely claimed permission to post material in which I vented about the Matthew Hoffman case."
Once again, Arbcom displayed its cowardice; Shoemaker's Holiday was blocked for a week and nothing was done to Durova.
Hu12 has done nothing since November 2013, and was desysopped in April 2014 for "inactivity". Broer has also done almost nothing with her main Durova account since 2013. Observers suspect she is operating a sock farm on WMF projects without permission or disclosure.
