Carrite wrote:Gaslighted wrote:Carrite wrote:I rather doubt there is a route back for him.
Yep, the punishments for "socking" are unjust, and often used to push out an editor. Not that I'm sorry for EC: it was silly to start editing on the same ip from another account, after he diva-quit - that's guaranteed CU block. Though calling it "abusive use of multiple accounts" is false. ArbCom saw an easy-lazy way out of a proper case, and they took it. Now that's abuse of / gaming the system (by the arbs), and that's how Wikipedia works. But who cares, right? It does not hurt, until the banhammer falls on one's head, and then one can do nothing, but walk away.
It's not the socking that got him per se, it is the attempt to edit without signing in around a pending Arbcom case.
Now we will again observe how it is pretty impossible for WP to actually ban anyone with their system of unverified registration, as Malleus begins to create and use new sock accounts. His enemies will have a field day sock hunting and every bridge back to WP will be burned in the process.
Bottom line: the Net Positive has become a Net Negative and the crows have come home to roost, so to speak, for his years of shitty behavior...
No, the IP wasn't doing anything he hasn't already been allowed to do as Eric. He would have gotten away with it.
He fucked up by assuming there was still any appetite to allow him to make up the clean start rules by creating an actually deceptive sock.
He has fucked himself because his entire legitimacy came from being "Eric Corbett", a brave unblockable editor doing only good things for Wikipedia, his record serving as his armour, his friends as his shield, all problems coming his way being unjust attempts to crush him.
There will be no honour or even satisfaction in living his life as some kind of sad sack Kumioko type figure. Anyone who outs themselves as a friend and facilitator of Eric the outlaw sock, just puts a target on their own back. They're easily cast as the villains, the people actively working against Wikipedia, rather than nobly trying to reform it to accommodate Eric.
Far more likely is that this was either a genuine attempt to draw a line under it all and leave, or he does plan to sock, but the satisfaction of getting away with it will necessarily have to only be shared by the small group who knows he is doing it. Maybe that is enough for him, but I doubt it. One reason he was so mad these least few years, was clearly because people were starting to not care about him and his bullshit, he wasn't getting the attention he craves, as the Problem Child.
If all he is now is just another sad bastard socking around a block like anyone really cares, good. I don't have a problem with that, I only ever had an issue with him being treated like he was special. He won't get far as a poster child for how easy it is for blocked users to still edit. It's a crowded market, crammed full of self-important idiots, he won't stand out from the other muppets at all.
If he confuses his legacy, with people on the edges of his support base unsure as to whether he is a martry to a corrupt system that they should be trying to smash in his name, or an outlaw whose attempts to circumvent the system they should be facilitating as some kind of slap back to The Man, it will all just work against what has been until a few years ago, a pretty strong brand.
He won't gain any more support by openly, rampantly, socking, screaming catch me if you can! He'll just lose even more support than he has these last couple of years, as he became a right sorry sack of shit, clearly only interested in himself and his ego, not the wider principles of his erstwhile insurrection. Hence why his enemies won't be wasting their time hunting him, but by imitating him. Making him look like the new Kumioko will absolutely fuck his legacy properly.
Eric used to be special. Now he is not. That is all that matters.
Genuine martyrdom was the best he could hope for, if he even is the old Eric of a few years ago, and he even screwed that up. Useless twat.