December '18 Grab-Bag

It's been one of those years, so we've run out of time to do any real posting before New Years', so grab-bag it is.

Always remember that Wikipedia is a "Force for Evil".

Proof of the Evil: The Anvil Email, i.e., "that one time FT2 (Kunwar P. Singh) told Poetlister that he was blackmailing him to get him to stop doing things Singh didn't like." Truly fun times back there in September of 2008. Below is the greasy sleaze for all to see:

From ft2.wiki at gmail.com Sat Sep 13 09:25:47 2008 From: ft2.wiki at gmail.com (FT2) Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 10:25:47 +0100 Subject: [Arbcom-l] Email to Poetlister / Cato Message-ID: <e71d9fab0809130225k15ec75ccjb0ca613ea5eda35b@mail.gmail.com> 
For information: I have sent an email to Poetlister / Cato. It is hard hitting, and doesn't give much slack. It's CC'ed to cary, who has known in advance the style I plan to write in. If anyone gets a message about it, or needs to discuss, please do so Paul.

Introduction

I have been considering my email to you, which you surely knew to expect. I have also considered your email.




So... please read what follows and believe it. You have no opening for significant negotiation. Despite its tone, this email is aiming for hope. It is a statement how I feel, and advance information on the actions I propose to take and events that may pass, depending whether you voluntarily address these matterst yourself, or whether you show you wish to unrepentantly hang round this place where you have abused so many people's trust and identities already, and keep those you most deceived (your family and on and offline friends) in ignorance of your true abusive activities when online, and therefore it needs extreme measures to obtain forcible removal. The choice is yours. This note is for information, and to assist that decision.


It's also to emphasize the scale of your betrayal. People who trusted and helped, of the project goals, of your work colleagues, innocent transvestites and friends who couldn't complain because of your manipulations, and of your own wife and children. The latter are each victims, but nobody speaks for them and your emails continue to express the hope that you'll continue to deceive them in all your actions. Any normal human would recoil on moral horror at this trail and feel an ethical obligation to compel an honest ending by any reasonable means within the law.




Part 1

Let's start with the latest, "OMG HACKING!!!".

Unfortunately **** (and I think we can drop your nickname here, both John and Aphaia have known who you are since July) but you are the "boy who cried wolf".

You have used proxies nonstop, and you used them after promising FloNight you wouldn't. You have played games, telling this person this thing and that person that thing even after the events of last weekend. You manipulate and you lie and you betray yourself and others you love. You have provided zero evidence this is anything more than another "please pity me!". Anyone can claim that their email is hacked, add some IPs or something they claim was on their computer and try to make it plausible. Suddenly "I was hacked!".

It's almost certainly just today's game. I also note you appear to yourself have hacked (misused without authorization) other people's accounts at WR, according to rumor. So I'm addressing this matter in a separate email.

Part 2

I have watched this case a long time now, and I've watched your behavior carefully. Based on that, I have drawn some conclusions.

My conditions to you are simple. I will state them once, below. Failure to take this seriously will lead to the events changing from your rules and WR's rules, to my rules. Hide one thing now or later, lie or evade once, and the gloves come off. Believe me, you don't want to test that . That's the advantage of being a volunteer rather than an employee. My only formal obligation is my own conscience, and the law.

I guarantee you will prefer to follow this instruction to the last letter, Mike. I also guarantee with zero regret, that any failure of complete compliance will result in pain and quite likely more real and difficult unavoidable results than anything you ever wrote when you pretended to be Taxwoman, because I plan to clean up thoroughly, and to do that I'll probably end up ripping your ego apart.

My reason is simple: compassion, and disgust of abuse. You have done this so long that you don't know how to change it. You are driving yourself to destruction. I'm your last offramp before law enforcement and the press. If you don't take action yourself, you're about to get a helping hand, and if Cary wants my resignation over it, I'll have no compunction handing in my resignation if that's what it takes to get rid of this abusive behavior for good. So don't even start to think anyone has the ability to put pressure otherwise on me. Your wife is a lawyer and by the time this is done, don't think about legal action, because the only legal action will be if she wants rid of you. You have me to deal with, *****, which is exactly what your aliases asked of me in December. And I'm focused and determined. I'm the one non-bribable, non-distractable person in the frame.

My message is blunt, and you can discuss and email others all you like, but right here and now, it's comply or face the consequences. We'll get to that soon enough below.

Part 3

You're intelligent and a manipulator, which means you recognize impossibility to manipulate when you see it. This is it. I know the games have continued since Saturday, and I know you're trying to manipulate John and Aphaia.

I don't often talk in these terms. I don't wish to now, but there are some who understand no language other than force. You have abused others, and your response to others trying to prevent your abuse and to all other communication, has been to do it more, to new victims, with more attempts to hide it at others' cost, and more hardened. Even your response this last 5 days has been manipulation. I don't know any way exists to say "you must not do this harm to our users and members of the public" without a degree of forcefulness and pressure.

You have repeatedly tried to sidestep every chance of honesty and avoid publicly admitting the socking. In doing that you have been continuing to leave people in doubt, which is a form of abuse. By the omission of you admitting this, you have caused prolonged pain to the community. Users like Shalom and Lar took huge effort -- all abused -- to defend you.

There are many web pages that Tarantino and Proabivouac have not found, yet, that confirmed identity, deception, guilt. They also haven't found many other things. They made errors like confusing your wife and sister. They don't know about your children, whose names you put in the public domain and used as covers (which would disgust most people including your family). They don't recognize that the <redacted>' IP means <redacted>'s employer is legitimately fair to be brought into the frame to ascertain just what it extended to. Your word or purported explanations mean nothing, by the way.

Part 4: Conditions

This is the tough bit, that you knew was coming. The conditions. What you have to do to get away from this with anything intact. The bad news is, you have a choice: complete abject confession online to your online games, or exposure in your /offline/ world - it goes "real world" as the only way to kill it. You don't get to keep both. Choose which.

My conditions are actually quite simple and reasonable. Name every sock of yours, on every WMF wiki, publicly and under your "name". Apologize to all you have abused (publicly for wiki users) in a way that we and others here can be 100% sure you have done so. Then (if ever allowed onto any WMF wiki in future) do not ever abuse again, whether in one year or ten, and don't "just experiment" wondering if we'll notice. We will eventually and when we do, we'll have to reopen everything. Those are my requirements (details below).

The flip side, for fair warning:

Lie once, fail on any point (whether known now or found later), evade once, play once more after this is over, and all deals are off. Patience is history. I'll give you exact details how to meet my requirements and that's all. As with "RachelBrown's" idiotic story "adulterers fucking anonymous", I'll tell you what to do, and you either do it or not, but the responsibility is yours either way. You have a deadline below, and I'll repeat everything as often as you need to hear it, and consider concerns all the way till then. One minute after that, gloves come off all the way, without any further warning, starting with <redacted>'s workplace for evidence, and the Department of Health, and probably unavoidably, ending with family or someone will inform the police. Do you actually love your family, or need them? Or are they toys too? Sacrifice your fictions, games and abuses for yourself and them. Put right the abuses you have done over the last 3 years and you may survive, or take complete responsibility for any unfortunate results of forcible removal. I don't know <redacted>, but she seems tough, and people don't like being deceived. I don't know what settlement you'd get, but I bet it won't include the things in real life you care most about. Risk it if you like. Your call. And watch me not minding if it hurts you to put this all right.

I need to be convinced you mean it, but so far by your actions since Saturday, I am only convinced you are into denial and games instead. You are trying to now rather obviously use John and Aphaia who are out on a limb to help you, and still trying to "game" that rather than be honest.

Part 5: Exact requirements

Let me be absolutely clear what you need to do.

1. I expect you to name every one of your WMF wiki socks and WR accounts, publicly with recognizable attribution, on any WMF wiki, as Cato or Poetlister. You'll notice I have carefully avoided saying which socks I know of. Capice?

2. Next, to each person you hurt by stacking or accusations you knew were false, a proper credible apology that says at a minimum "Dear <name>. I apologize for the harm I did by <named action> under the names <list of relevant socks> at <wikipage link>", to each on their talk page. When you agree I'll send you a list. The 'immortality bubble' bursts right here.

3. Last, a 300+ word (I'll count them) formal email apology to each victim whose pictures or names you used for WMF wiki related purposes. That was a disgusting action so this one will need work. These emails are to be cc'ed to anticabal (for WR) and myself + Lar (for WMF communities) to ensure genuine sending. There is also to be a global apology to the Wiki community and WR, for the harm you have done, to post on any WMF wiki under a known "name". Those victims you can't contact, you are to send to Jodie Lynn with the request to forward them. Any who don't reply (eg false addresses), I may request resending to a specified address. You're used to long emails for yourself and you write thousands of edits for your own purposes. Now you can write them for others instead. You may sign them by a pseudonym.

4. I'm then done with you, so long as you're not abusive. If any project will have you, they can.

Yes doing this is going to hurt and humiliate you. I couldn't care less. No, avoiding hurt is not an option in life. You're about to feel every last person you abused over 3 years, right now. You like editing, you don't mind others hurting when you edit, so we're going to edit my way a bit, if you want me to believe in any way that the matter is closed. The lesson here is, a wrong isn't closed or an abuser off the hook till it's put right and they commit not to repeat.

And on a religious basis, you're religious Jewish, right? Judaism matters to you, hypocrite? Your "Yom Kippur" is coming up, when you can't be right with God unless you put right all matters where you have wronged human beings? (Advantages of editing on religion, you learn these odd facts.) That's what this email's about. Last 3 Yom Kippurs you lied when you said you had. This time so help me, you had better not.

Then when that's done you can fuck off to number 74 to reminiscence with <redacted list of family names> and the family. Or did you think I might be guessing at knowing far more than you thought? You put all that information on the web.

By Monday noon EDT (ie Sept 15, 5pm UK, 6pm UTC I think), if you haven't complied with at least #1 and are visibly in progress on #2 and #3, or there's one sock you haven't named, or I ever see one abusive edit after that from you under any name or proxy, the gloves come off for good with no more warning. We can talk as much as you like before then, but when that's over, we're done talking and I move on without further discussion if I don't see a disclosure that I feel is honest and complete.

Failure to name any known sock, will negate my hope that you can be redeemed. Failure to apologize convincingly to any user will negate my hope that you can be redeemed. Failure to cease your squalid abuse again or smell it again in our lifetimes will negate my hope you can be redeemed. Discovery of untruthful or partial disclosure at any later time will negate my hope you can be redeemed. There will be no warnings. My hope you can finally be honest and break this habit of abusing our users and others, is all that keeps me from pursuing this all the way to the end.

Part 6: Other victims

Others have contacted <redacted> and your workplace -- shit happens, too bad, you did expect that, right? As for me, I plan to inform the last major group of victims, your family, not out of malice, but because they are ultimately the only ones who can prevent future abuse here, and recidivism.

You yourself dragged your wife <redacted>, her employer <redacted>, and your son <sigh also redacted> into this by yourself; they are in some ways the biggest victims of all and deserve to no longer be lied to or left ignorant of being taken as victims, as your co-worker Giselle, the beautician Nes, your boss Guy, the boudoir's owner Jodie Lynn whose business you placed at risk, and the rest were.

Part 7: Other matters

You are of course able to pass round this email. I can't stop you. But if any words from it get back to me, or word that someone has been told what I said in a biased manner, I will disclose to the sender the whole email, intact, so they can read the selective citation in context and recognize your gaming. One chance to keep this email private, Mike. Otherwise it'll probably end up posted on WR, full and uncensored, completely beyond my control. But that's your decision. I myself will keep this private between us unless needed, as an incentive to take the chance offered seriously.

I'll also be keeping tabs on you, across the wikis, now and then, in future. If you edit on any WMF project, now or ten years time, I will expect you to immediately give the local checkusers CC checkuser-l a disclosure of your username and a link to an information page I will provide. The local checkusers may set conditions, that's up to them. If you have complied, don't abuse, and multiple accounts aren't in use, all will be well. If you edit without disclosure then I may decide at any time to disclose for you, and there may be serious problems. I'm watchful and patient; I may not say anything for a while before doing so. This is my own personal requirement of you, so I can be sure others will have the information needed to protect their own project from anything but good honest editing.

Summary

Email done. Now get busy. When the deadline is over, if all terms are not fully complied with then the gloves come off without warning, and your family etc, get to know what's up. You dragged your wife <redacted>, her employer <redacted>, and your son <redacted> into this. Same with your co-worker <redacted>, the beautician <redacted>, your boss <redacted>, the boudoir's owner <redacted> whose business you placed at risk, and the rest. You have done some good, but you hurt countless users here, and caused unknown numbers of others to leave or be seen unfairly. They and others have the right to know, if there is any likelihood it will continue.

Believe me, it will be better to own up on-wiki, apologize, and take your medicine online, than have it come to meet you in your offline life. It's numbered 1 to 4 above and now it's time to get going on them.

You may call me by nickname, or by the name I use at Arbcom, or the name I use at OTRS. Any is fine.

***

Wonderfully charming, yes? FT2 was never punished for this scam. Proof that the WMF is too chickenshit to face the unpaid "administrators" of the site.


Eric Barbour has been running a thread of "Crap or Questionable Articles" which is now 12 pages long. Also check out his thread on articles Wikipedia should have but doesn't. It's truly a monument to the loss of focus and editors that Wikipedia has been suffering from for the last ten years.


That's all we've got for now, have a Happy New Year!