Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:51, 13 November 2009

Welcome!Last edited: Last edited by:15:51, 13 November 2009 (UTC) Daniel Case (talk · contribs) Interested in becoming a regular contributor to Misplaced Pages? Create an account! Your IP address, 69.121.221.174, is registered to student housing and may be shared by multiple users, so you might receive messages on this page that were not intended for you. To have your own user pages, keep track of articles you've edited in a watchlist, and have access to a few other special features, please consider registering an account! It's fast and free. If you are autoblocked repeatedly, contact your Internet service provider or network administrator and request it contact Wikimedia's XFF project about enabling X-Forwarded-For HTTP headers on its proxy servers so that blocks will affect only the intended user. Administrators: review contributions carefully if blocking this IP address or reverting its contributions. If a block is needed, consider a soft block using Template:Anonblock. In response to vandalism from this IP address, abuse reports may be sent to its network administrator for investigation. Network administrators or other parties wishing to monitor this IP address for vandalism can subscribe to a web feed of this page in either RSS or Atom format.

Blocked as a sock puppet

:)

Thanks for the email. I skimmed it. If you want to talk about being unblocked in a way that doesn't end with a big "fuck you", you can talk to one of the Misplaced Pages higher-ups. You did admit that this IP was not a school IP, but rather a frat/sorority/coop/dorm address, so you'll need a new tag at the top of this page. Don't worry your little head, I'm not interested in reporting "bad behavior" and Schrandit won't be touching Global warming while I'm around; you seem to be lacking in your understanding of my editing patterns (and that Wiki is more generally criticized for a liberal slant). I'm also watching his/her contribs for the moment and will not be allowing gay-bashing etc. I behaved politely to him/her because that's what I prefer to do; seeing that you are an IP connected to a sockpuppet that had been rude to me made me be rude to you. But your anger about the situation sends me the message that hey - even if this person is confirmed as the same IP as Spotfixer and TruthIIPower, maybe they are telling the truth, which is the only reason I am responding to you after your spineless insults about my past life while you refuse to reveal your identity.

So there you have it. You made edits using the same IP as Spotfixer about the same kind of content as Spotfixer liked to edit. There was a rather straightforward sockpuppetry investigation that I wouldn't have been involved in if I hadn't still watchlisted the articles that TruthIIPower edited, and which was probably a pile of sh*t that I shouldn't have jumped into in any case. But you can see that from my point of view, it is your word against evidence that you are associated with a known liar, which make me distrustful of your word. Nasty catch, eh?

I'll be watching this. I'm touched that you registered an email account just to insult me; if the point was to show that you really are not Spotfixer, I'm listening. If the point was just to insult me, consider me duly insulted :)

Awickert (talk) 06:07, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Thought I'd actually read it - the content at least, I skipped over the junk. One of the kinder things that you say to me was, "The biggest gap in your education is that you never learned to take into account background probability. What are the odds of two randomly-selected people who happen to use the same IP some months apart editing the same topic in the same direction? Very low... unless there is a common causal link and they're selected for the consequences of that link, not randomly. So, for example, if a journalism class given twice a year brings up the "mother" propaganda and explicitly mentions Misplaced Pages, then it would be surprising if there weren't a pattern of students following up on it and running into conservative goons like Schrandit who WP:OWN those articles." Well, why didn't you say so before? This would have given me a good reason to rescind the sockpuppetry charges. Of course, since you've been such a meanie-peanie to me (much more than I've been to you, especially since my concerns were based on legitimate patterns of editing history) . . . ah, whatever.

This piece of information makes it seem that perhaps the notion of a "spotfixer sock" is completely in error. But if we are to move forward with this, you came off as an arrogant jackass in your email. I'm happy to move on from this if you can apologize for that and say, whatever, that it was because of your frustration with my sockpuppetry charges or because I somehow impeded you from stopping Schrandit from pushing his agenda. I can be first: I am sorry if my actions made you feel frustrated, and I assure you that I acted in what I thought was the best way, but I can be (and often am) wrong. I do not want to be the bad guy in this mess that I stepped into (thinking that it was straightforward, heh), but being that you sent that email, I imagine that you may have wanted more than to vent at me, so here is your response, and it's lengthier and more positive than I expected it would be. Of course, the major issue is that you don't want to divulge your educational institution, which would be the key ingredient in solving this, but you do have the right to keep that private. My options are to trust the similar IP and editing topics as signs of sockpuppetry, or to trust them as signs of different people living behind the same router taking the same class and editing the same topic. Now I have a plausible option B. Awickert (talk) 09:16, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Andrew, I did say so before; I just didn't beat you over the head with it, like I did in that email. Go look at item 4 in WP:Sockpuppet_investigations/Spotfixer, where I mentioned that I was motivated by a journalism class, and even linked to the diff of my first edit to support this. I didn't spell it out as bluntly, but it's all there.

As you may have noticed, the point wasn't so much to insult you as to speak more strongly than Misplaced Pages allows, which is apparently what it took to make myself clear. Insulting you was certainly a foreseeable consequence, and not one I'm particularly apologetic about, but it wasn't my goal. Nor is it my goal at this point to stop Schrandit; plenty of other people are jumping in to slap down his little tricks. As for getting this IP unblocked, it'll happen eventually all on its own, and I'm sure that, in the interim, Misplaced Pages will somehow survive with a few typos in cooking articles. 69.121.221.174 (talk)

I pointed out the error: whether you fix it is up to you. Either way, I'll cope.

Yes, you said that you were in a journalism class, not that people who share with this IP have been in the journalism class every year. You're asking for a lot of benefit of the doubt and for me to make IMO too many assumptions considering the suspicious nature of the issue.

Insulting me was neither forseeable nor appropriate, and several of your insults were based on unsubstantiated assumptions. By replying to your email, I tried to give some good faith. You could have made yourself clear without being insulting. But if I try to see your point of view after that wacky email and after I even apologize for how I seem to have antagonized you, and you don't try to see where I am coming from, I can't see how your standards of interpersonal interaction would be a positive thing for Wiki whether or not you are a previously-banned user.

So that's the deal: either you want to work this out, which I am still willing to do, or you are not, in which case I will drop this issue/mess and happily return to improving science-ey articles. Awickert (talk) 17:44, 20 October 2009 (UTC) 10:27, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think I can see where you're coming from. Tell me if this is about right:

You got this IP blocked because you genuinely thought it was still being used by a disruptive editor who had previously been blocked, so you were surprised when some details came to light that made you reconsider that conclusion. There was clearly reasonable doubt, and probably a preponderance of evidence against guilt. At the same time, the message that convinced you that perhaps the wrong thing had been done was less than kind about the matter, leaving you annoyed and ambivalent. Despite this, you decide to do the right thing, putting aside the insult and even offering an apology while raising the topic of lifting the ban, but your diplomacy is rebuffed. For reasons that seem inexplicable to you, not only were they unwilling to reciprocate the apology, they even expressed apathy about the block. This left you wondering why you even bothered in the first place, and ready to walk away in disgust.

Now that I've walked a mile in your shoes, metaphorically speaking, try mine out for size:

I come here to clean up some bias but run afoul of one of its sources; a perennial bad apple who's spent years quietly poisoning articles and is an expert at WP:GAMEing the system. At first, I WP:AGF and try to reason with him, but he quickly escalates it into an edit war, baits me with insults and (after I rightfully report him for those insults) retaliates by instigating a sockpuppet accusation against me. Other editors jump in to break the deadlock and restore the articles to neutrality, and the POV-pusher has the spotlight of unwanted attention shining on him. Before I can pat myself on the back and return to my now-urgent schoolwork, I find out that I need to defend myself from that bogus accusation. And when I come back after doing that, I see that more questions had been asked, but I am already blocked. Now I need to explain to the other residents that I'm the reason they can no longer fix typos in articles about fondue! So I send a letter with the answers, both to set him straight and vent my displeasure, then forget about the whole thing. The next time I come to look something up, I see that they've left me a message, offering to fix their mistake but expecting an apology. From my point of view, it was ridiculous in the first place for me to get blocked for what people did months before I even got here, especially since all I've done is to clean up some articles. All things being equal, I'd rather this IP be unblocked than blocked, but I've already eaten humble pie in front of the people I have to share a roof with; I'm not willing to pretend I'm sorry just to fix this mess, especially since I still stand behind each and every edit I've made.

Perhaps this gives you some insight into why I was so nasty in that letter, so unapologetic about my actions, and so indifferent about the restoration of my ability to edit. 69.121.221.174 (talk) 06:36, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

That would be about right; thanks for the summary. We started with different information and expectations, and all in all it was a bad case of being at the wrong place (your IP) at the wrong time (while I was observing developments in Scibaby socks, who constantly troll global-warming-related articles). I'm satisfied that you are not Spotfixer, and I will appeal an unblock. Give my apologies to your housemates, and I'll leave a message when things are set in order. Awickert (talk) 20:32, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Since my name has been mentioned so many times I feel the need to jump in here. This is Misplaced Pages - there are no "dirty little tricks" everything is transparent and it is hardly you that keeps me or anyone else inline, it is Misplaced Pages policy. You're under suspicion not merely because of your edit content but also because it is pretty clear that you are in no way new to editing this encyclopedia, you implied that you are working in collusion with another editor and you share an ip address that was used by a banned sockpuppeteer. - Schrandit (talk) 13:55, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Good faith was my initial assumption, but not my eventual conclusion. You continue to make blatantly biased edits and lying about consensus, so I can't take anything you say seriously. 69.121.221.174 (talk) 06:36, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

In case anyone's curious, here's a citation to counter this deletion. 69.121.221.174 (talk) 23:57, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Unblock request at AN/I

See Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#69.121.221.174. Awickert (talk) 21:00, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Whether or not they end the block, thank you for taking this step, and sorry about my temper. 69.121.221.174 (talk) 00:26, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

It's all good now. Water under the bridge. I'll be watching your talk in case you want to add input to the AN/I discussion. (I'd have to make sure that you get heard because you can't edit there right now, since you're blocked.) Awickert (talk) 01:41, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. The following is for reposting on the WP:ANI page:

(unindent)

I had imagined that the same administrators who were involved in the original block would handle a request for its reversal, both because they're the ones who know the most about it and also to avoid conflict. Since that's not the case, I guess I should address any questions that haven't already been resolved:

@Thatcher: My IP was used by a banned user, but that was almost a year ago. Yes, I guess I could register an account somewhere else and use it from here, but now that I have been mistakenly associated with someone who once used this IP, doing this would amount to ban evasion through the use of a sockpuppet. Ironically, I would have to actually become guilty of what I was accused of in order to avoid punishment from that mistaken accusation.  :-) Arguably, if I had created an account to begin with, I might not have been mistaken for the banned user, but then again, a CheckUser fishing expedition at any point would have turned up the false connection and probably led to a block, and there's no requirement to register just to edit. In short, registering an account would neither solve the problem now nor would it have avoided it to begin with.

@Tainted Conformity & Elen of the Roads: Awickert is correct, in that the instructor never suggested that anyone change Misplaced Pages, although perhaps it is a foreseeable consequence that someone would. Also, while the changes I made were similar to those made by former students, among others, they did not constitute vandalism. My IP was not blocked for vandalism but on the basis of my being mistakenly identified with a banned user. As far as I can tell, this IP has never been associated with actual vandalism.

@Schrandit: Putting aside your admitted bias, the points you bring up were refuted, so they're irrelevant. For example, the fact that I know how to edit a wiki is not evidence of anything, as I never claimed to be a novice user. I've edited before, though I haven't made changes in controversial areas, so I haven't had to deal with the these processes. Likewise, the "damning" link proves nothing that we don't already know: that this IP has been used by other people. The fact that the person who petitioned for my block is now asking for a reversal should carry much more weight than your continued negativity. 69.121.221.174 (talk) 23:09, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

@69.228.171.150: Nobody is conducting any experiments, and there's no way to stop a tenured professor from routinely using Misplaced Pages as a classic example of amateurishly bad journalism, other than to make Misplaced Pages a better place, which happens to be what I was trying to do. 69.121.221.174 (talk) 17:05, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I was about to send this over to the noticeboard, but I see that the discussion went stale and got archived. It seems that the few comments were to create an account and generally that the IP address should stay blocked. Shoot. Well, if you want to create an account, by all means. I'm not entirely sure where to go from here. Awickert (talk) 08:01, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a clue, myself. It's not as if you requested an unblock and were refused: they just talked about irrelevant things, instead. If I could still post, I guess I'd try to contact the administrator who blocked me. As a last-ditch effort, I could put up an unblock template, but those don't really work. 69.121.221.174 (talk) 23:11, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Unblock

{{unblock|I'm asking for the block to be lifted because it was made in error. This is not my opinion alone; the editor who got me blocked in the first place, Awickert, has concluded that it was an innocent mistake on his part and made a concerted effort to get the block lifted. Unfortunately, he was unable to command the sustained attention of WP:ANI and gave up on the whole effort in frustration. At this point, not only am I being blocked for the actions of someone who graduated before I even got here, but others are likewise affected. Let's just fix this.}}

Your request to be unblocked has been granted for the following reason(s): Per discussion above and below Request handled by: Daniel Case (talk) 15:51, 13 November 2009 (UTC) Unblocking administrator: Please check for active autoblocks on this user after accepting the unblock request.

I'm inclined to unblock, if there are no objections. UltraExactZZ ~ Did 15:24, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Fine by me. m.o.p 15:31, 13 November 2009 (UTC)