A Wikipedia editor calling himself Thamrin2(T-C-L) has just been blocked for "Working behind a proxy to evade CU detection." I don't know/can't remember if using proxy servers is explicitly forbidden at Wikipedia. Kind of interesting if it is given that so many members of the hacker set are in love with Wikipedia and its commitment to "free culture."
More interesting still is how this came about. Our old pal Sterling Erickson (sp?) aka Silverseren(T-C-L) flagged the account as a sockpuppet of Gregory Kohs because it was making edits to the article of (obscure to Americans at least) Indonesian politician Aburizal Bakrie(T-H-L). He also tagged a Singapore-based IP address as belonging to Mr. Kohs (who must be even better-travelled than I thought).
The IP was ultimately left alone. The Thamrin account (named almost certainly after Indonesian independence hero Mohamed Thamrin, another obscure name to most Americans) was blocked for the crime of editing behind a proxy (no connection to Kohs found). The following text, in Indonesian, is on the userpage of the blocked account:
Wiki project of the law faculty of University Indonesia http://law.ui.ac.id/ human rights for all. - Thamrin2
What evil lurks here? Only the shadow knows...
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 11:34 pm
by lilburne
Don't Indonesians use proxies as a matter of course to evade government scrutiny?
Open or anonymous proxies are to be blocked on sight, per Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Open_or_anonymous_proxies(T-H-L). Nice job on purposefully omitting the fact that Kohser was already paid to whitewash the article in question. [[User:Silver seren|Silver]] 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 12:15 am
by Moonage Daydream
"Legitimate users" are free to use proxies, but those proxies may be blocked at any time. If a user is found to have been using a proxy, they may be blocked if they are adjudged to have been using the proxy to "avoid scrutiny". Clear enough?
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 12:18 am
by DanMurphy
Moonage Daydream wrote:"Legitimate users" are free to use proxies, but those proxies may be blocked at any time. If a user is found to have been using a proxy, they may be blocked if they are adjudged to have been using the proxy to "avoid scrutiny". Clear enough?
As mud. Natch.
To be honest, the Indonesian on the guy's userpage is simple enough that maybe even google translate would have gotten it right. But, well, I very much doubt that is what's going on here.
Adding: Having just played with google translate, it returns a more grammatical, less colloquial translation. So, no.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 12:23 am
by Captain Occam
I thought the policy was that accounts editing from proxies only get blocked when the behavioral evidence can determine who they are independently of checkuser data. That's how this appears to have usually gone when Echigo mole was socking through a proxy.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 12:29 am
by TungstenCarbide
There are different types of blocks -- one type just blocks IP editing from the IP, but allows autoconfirmed accounts to edit once logged in. In fact, I remember board member Kat Walsh endorsing this feature so established editors could edit through Tor, if they so chose, while having the IP blocked otherwise.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 2:39 am
by Moonage Daydream
Captain Occam wrote:I thought the policy was that accounts editing from proxies only get blocked when the behavioral evidence can determine who they are independently of checkuser data. That's how this appears to have usually gone when Echigo mole was socking through a proxy.
The policy says
When a Checkuser detects that an account has been using open proxies, this information may be considered when evaluating suspicions of sock puppetry or other editing abuses. If there is an appearance that an account has been using open proxies to circumvent policy, the account may be blocked.
Notice that it says "if there is an appearance that" not "if a checkuser finds that". So if a checkuser can't identify any other accounts, they can still block the account if they think it looks fishy. That probably means if it edits anything contentious or stands up to anyone.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Open or anonymous proxies are to be blocked on sight, per Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Open_or_anonymous_proxies(T-H-L). Nice job on purposefully omitting the fact that Kohser was already paid to whitewash the article in question. [[User:Silver seren|Silver]] 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Once again, Ericsson defames me with a falsehood. I was never paid for my consultation on the article in question, as was agreed when the bidder on Freelancer was reluctant to provide me an advance payment. My advice to the bidder was provided gratis, and I never again received communication from the Freelancer bidder. Even the direct evidence on Freelancer's site indicates that I only "accepted" the project -- it was never "completed", as other projects of mine show.
I have asked the Arbitration Committee to review this continued lying by Silver Seren, but they have not responded to me (for days).
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 4:06 am
by SB_Johnny
thekohser wrote:I have asked the Arbitration Committee to review this continued lying by Silver Seren, but they have not responded to me (for days).
Not surprising, since Jimbo recently professed his adoption of young Sterling as a favorite pet, while still insisting that you be sent to the farm where the bad dogs live far away from the sort of people who would adopt young Sterling as a favorite pet.
Jimbo dramas are Jimbo dramas, and the vast majority of the arbcommies have always kept that in mind.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 4:15 am
by Mathsci
Captain Occam wrote:I thought the policy was that accounts editing from proxies only get blocked when the behavioral evidence can determine who they are independently of checkuser data. That's how this appears to have usually gone when Echigo mole was socking through a proxy.
The requests concerning open proxies or tor nodes are normally made at WikiProject Open Proxies not in SPI reports as happened in this case. On that page there is no need for the kind of detailed evidence that has to be provided for checkuser reports (comparison of diffs, etc). The responses there are usually quite rapid (there was a delay of almost 2 weeks for Silverseren's report).
I'm not sure why Silverseren notified Thamrin2 about the SPI report (more drama?). He did not request a checkuser, but got one anyway.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 6:48 am
by EricBarbour
thekohser wrote:Once again, Ericsson defames me with a falsehood. I was never paid for my consultation on the article in question, as was agreed when the bidder on Freelancer was reluctant to provide me an advance payment. My advice to the bidder was provided gratis, and I never again received communication from the Freelancer bidder. Even the direct evidence on Freelancer's site indicates that I only "accepted" the project -- it was never "completed", as other projects of mine show.
I have asked the Arbitration Committee to review this continued lying by Silver Seren, but they have not responded to me (for days).
Ah, now I see. Sterling is watching freelancer.com, and has stumbled over your account there.
(Which would take some doing, as I don't see any easy way to search for contractors by specialty.)
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 4:04 pm
by thekohser
Does anyone know how to contact Silver seren, other than on English Wikipedia? I have tried via a private message to his Facebook account -- no response. I have posted a note to his Wikiversity talk page, but I doubt he'll respond. He doesn't have the "Email this user" feature set on Wikimedia projects.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 5:31 pm
by mac
thekohser wrote:Does anyone know how to contact Silver seren, other than on English Wikipedia? I have tried via a private message to his Facebook account -- no response. I have posted a note to his Wikiversity talk page, but I doubt he'll respond. He doesn't have the "Email this user" feature set on Wikimedia projects.
His user page lists other fursites where he is active.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2013 6:52 pm
by Tarc
SB_Johnny wrote:
thekohser wrote:I have asked the Arbitration Committee to review this continued lying by Silver Seren, but they have not responded to me (for days).
Not surprising, since Jimbo recently professed his adoption of young Sterling as a favorite pet, while still insisting that you be sent to the farm where the bad dogs live far away from the sort of people who would adopt young Sterling as a favorite pet.
I see what you did there.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Prioryman, not all WPO members are banned. In fact, most of us still edit Wikipedia and are in good standing.
Silva Seren wrote:
You're not gonna find anything. They know how to keep their accounts unlinked so that CUs are useless against their accounts. SilverserenC 12:59 pm, Today (UTC−5)
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 4:40 am
by EricBarbour
The Joy wrote:It's like the early days of WR all over again.
It will always be like WR all over again, no matter how "seriously" you treat the issues.
That place is a outright haven for obsessive-compulsives. They don't even pretend to cover it up anymore.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 7:13 am
by The Joy
EricBarbour wrote:
The Joy wrote:It's like the early days of WR all over again.
It will always be like WR all over again, no matter how "seriously" you treat the issues.
That place is a outright haven for obsessive-compulsives. They don't even pretend to cover it up anymore.
Indeed. It's better to expose WP's problems to the media and let external forces pressure reforms (or bring WP down) than hoping for internal reform. Some part of me, I guess, still believes that some good Wikipedians will rise up and overthrow the man-children. That's apparently a pipe-dream, however.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 7:34 am
by lilburne
The Joy wrote:
EricBarbour wrote:
The Joy wrote:It's like the early days of WR all over again.
It will always be like WR all over again, no matter how "seriously" you treat the issues.
That place is a outright haven for obsessive-compulsives. They don't even pretend to cover it up anymore.
Indeed. It's better to expose WP's problems to the media and let external forces pressure reforms (or bring WP down) than hoping for internal reform. Some part of me, I guess, still believes that some good Wikipedians will rise up and overthrow the man-children. That's apparently a pipe-dream, however.
They need one of these amongst their litany of nonsense.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 11:27 am
by thekohser
thekohser wrote:Does anyone know how to contact Silver seren, other than on English Wikipedia? I have tried via a private message to his Facebook account -- no response. I have posted a note to his Wikiversity talk page, but I doubt he'll respond. He doesn't have the "Email this user" feature set on Wikimedia projects.
If someone with a WP account in good standing would be kind enough, could you go to his User Talk page and leave a message that I wish to communicate with him, asking him to suggest what is the best means to carry that out?
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 12:08 pm
by lilburne
I'm fairly sure the little shit is reading this anyway.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 12:38 pm
by Michaeldsuarez
thekohser wrote:Does anyone know how to contact Silver seren, other than on English Wikipedia? I have tried via a private message to his Facebook account -- no response. I have posted a note to his Wikiversity talk page, but I doubt he'll respond. He doesn't have the "Email this user" feature set on Wikimedia projects.
Silver seren currently allows users to Email him via Special:EmailUser. My account is blocked, and "Email this user" is still available to me. Did you confirm your Email address? Are you trying to send Emails from a account that the sysops disabled Emailing for (check your account's block log for "e-mail disabled")?
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 2:10 pm
by thekohser
Michaeldsuarez wrote:
thekohser wrote:Does anyone know how to contact Silver seren, other than on English Wikipedia? I have tried via a private message to his Facebook account -- no response. I have posted a note to his Wikiversity talk page, but I doubt he'll respond. He doesn't have the "Email this user" feature set on Wikimedia projects.
Silver seren currently allows users to Email him via Special:EmailUser. My account is blocked, and "Email this user" is still available to me. Did you confirm your Email address? Are you trying to send Emails from a account that the sysops disabled Emailing for (check your account's block log for "e-mail disabled")?
I no longer allow the Wikimedia Foundation to associate my e-mail address with any of my English Wikipedia accounts. I believe that I have the feature activated on Wikiversity, though (for example), but Silver seren's account there did not display the "Email this User" option in the Toolbox.
I hope you can understand why I do not wish to contact Silver seren via a Wikimedia property, given his three CheckUser requests against me in the past 12 months.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 2:39 pm
by Michaeldsuarez
thekohser wrote:I no longer allow the Wikimedia Foundation to associate my e-mail address with any of my English Wikipedia accounts. I believe that I have the feature activated on Wikiversity, though (for example), but Silver seren's account there did not display the "Email this User" option in the Toolbox.
I hope you can understand why I do not wish to contact Silver seren via a Wikimedia property, given his three CheckUser requests against me in the past 12 months.
Alright, I see now that Silver seren only allows users to Email him from enwiki and Meta. I left him a message on his Meta talk page:
If he's trying to keep people from contacting him,
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 3:18 pm
by thekohser
Michaeldsuarez wrote:Alright, I see now that Silver seren only allows users to Email him from enwiki and Meta. I left him a message on his Meta talk page:
Well, you left the message on February 15th, and I haven't received any response, despite Silver seren finding the time twice to chime in elsewhere on Meta.
I'll have to take that as his formally ignoring my request to communicate with him about his falsehoods published on Wikimedia Foundation servers, and it is time to escalate to Plan B.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 4:21 pm
by Anroth
thekohser wrote:it is time to escalate to Plan B.
'Plan B' is usually 'Kill it with fire'. Thats a bit drastic isnt it?
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 6:52 pm
by Tarc
Anroth wrote:
thekohser wrote:it is time to escalate to Plan B.
'Plan B' is usually 'Kill it with fire'. Thats a bit drastic isnt it?
No no no, Plan B is to append "...or else" to Plan A's request;
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 7:50 pm
by Vigilant
Anroth wrote:
thekohser wrote:it is time to escalate to Plan B.
'Plan B' is usually 'Kill it with fire'. Thats a bit drastic isnt it?
Dude's a furry.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 8:32 pm
by Zoloft
Vigilant wrote:
Anroth wrote:
thekohser wrote:it is time to escalate to Plan B.
'Plan B' is usually 'Kill it with fire'. Thats a bit drastic isnt it?
Dude's a furry.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 12:19 am
by Michaeldsuarez
thekohser wrote:Well, you left the message on February 15th, and I haven't received any response, despite Silver seren finding the time twice to chime in elsewhere on Meta.
I'll have to take that as his formally ignoring my request to communicate with him about his falsehoods published on Wikimedia Foundation servers, and it is time to escalate to Plan B.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 2:46 am
by thekohser
Michaeldsuarez wrote:Is escalation really necessary? An anon recently removed the comments that you're concerned about...
How do you know that wasn't the escalation?
Anyway, it is very clear to me now that Silver seren is willing to admit that he doesn't really care what the truth is, as long as he's leveling charges that land somewhere in the general vicinity of where a suspicious act may (or may not) have taken place.
Even when he's shown that he's playing fast and loose with the evidence, he still has the nerve to say that the Freelancer buyer's intention was "to whitewash an article of any criticism". How did Silver seren come to that conclusion? The Freelancer bid asked for this:
I need a wikipedia editor of that can monitor and apply wiki rules on my friends wikipage. His page is being abused by what appears to be politically motivated entries.
The request went on to ask if the biography could be kept "clean from abusive entries".
Taken at face value, the Freelancer buyer was essentially asking for assistance in applying WP:BLP to a biography that was being caked up with layers of criticism that could not be reliably sourced as applying to the subject of the biography. Of course, Silver seren, being the underdeveloped, juvenile mind that he is, interprets this as "whitewash an article of any criticism".
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 11:35 pm
by Vigilant
Zoloft wrote:
Vigilant wrote:
Anroth wrote:
thekohser wrote:it is time to escalate to Plan B.
'Plan B' is usually 'Kill it with fire'. Thats a bit drastic isnt it?
I respectfully request that my account and the IP address I used to access the Internet (118.98.16.4) be unblocked by an impartial administrator. The block that was imposed on my account is in fact not necessary to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia. I have been an editor in good standing, with the interests of Wikipedia at heart, to be a comprehensive and neutral reference. I believe the reason the block was imposed, was for another Wikipedia user to gain leverage in editing content about an Indonesian politician. I know that this may sound alarming, but if you look at my contribution history, I have been editing quite fairly about numerous Indonesian politicians, while the other editor with no other interest in Indonesian politics has exclusively made edits – no less with a negative bias – to a solitary Indonesian politician's biography, Aburizal Bakrie, because he suspects that edits made to that article are from paid editors. I am not a paid editor. Silver seren has pushed for an title=Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Thekohser&diff=prev&oldid=535246869 investigation into my account, falsely claiming that I am a paid editor from the United States. So, because his sockpuppet investigation proved him wrong (my home is in Indonesia), User:DeltaQuad elected to block my account anyway, on a pretense that I am using an IP address used for open proxies. I am using a Telkom Indonesia home Internet access point. Telkom Indonesia is a company whose history dates back more than 150 years. It is alarming that DeltaQuad would accuse me and our largest phone company in our country for using "open proxy". I will inform Telkom Indonesia and inform them that a Wikipedia CheckUser claims that their service is being used for open proxy activity that can be grounds for blocking other customers from use of Wikipedia. When looking who this CheckUser is, I discovered that DeltaQuad made a similar mistake recently in handling an investigation, for which he later [http:// en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Int21h&diff=prev&oldid=533840212 apologized]. He has clearly made another mistake with me and with my Internet service provider. I would like to see my block reversed, because I am not damaging or disrupting Wikipedia. False accusations have been used to impose the block, based on the mistaken conclusion of a CheckUser. Thamrin2 (talk) 00:35, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 4:50 pm
by mac
King of Hearts wrote:decline=Your account itself is blocked (though that IP is blocked as well). Please wait six months without sockpuppetry before making another unblock request, per our [[WP:OFFER|standard offer]]. Further unblock requests before then may result in removal of your ability to edit this page. [[User:King of Hearts|King of]] [[User:King of Hearts|<font color="red">♥</font>]] [[User talk:King of Hearts|<font color="red">♦</font>]] [[Special:Contributions/King of Hearts|<font color="black">♣</font>]] ♠ 09:16, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
I thought Thamrin2 made a fine case for unblocking.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 4:56 pm
by DanMurphy
The guy was never found to be socking. His sole crime was allegedly using an "open proxy" (by the clearly incompetent checkuser "Deltaquad.")
This is a small one, but a classic case of the insider incompetents protecting each other, and driving an outsider interested in content away.
Re: Old pal Sterling gets an Indonesian blocked as "thekohse
Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 5:35 pm
by thekohser
DanMurphy wrote:The guy was never found to be socking. His sole crime was allegedly using an "open proxy" (by the clearly incompetent checkuser "Deltaquad.")
This is a small one, but a classic case of the insider incompetents protecting each other, and driving an outsider interested in content away.
Yes, which accounts exactly were determined to be sockpuppets of Thamrin2? And what proof does anyone have that 118.98.16.4 is an open proxy? (I really don't know -- I'm not an expert on that. If it's a proxy, just someone please show me how a CheckUser determines that.) Is something like this evidence of a proxy configuration?
It's been a long, long time since I've cast that powerful shadow where suspicion of someone being me has gotten them blocked from Wikipedia. Back in 2008, it was easy to do... but I'm quite impressed that it's still possible in 2013. Way to go, jack-asses! I'm happily editing Wikipedia here in the United States, but tough luck to the poor sap in Jakarta!
Meanwhile, Silver seren's claim, "A banned user, Thekohser, accepted a paid job to edit this article." still persists on Wikipedia, even though it is not true. Based on the evidence Silver seren himself gives from Freelancer.com, all that can be concluded is that I bid on a paid job to edit the article, but did not accept the job, nor complete the job!
So, once again we see how BLP applies to most people, but not paid editors.
