Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 11:48, 16 December 2007

User:Nrcprm2026

Suspected sockpuppeteer

Nrcprm2026 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Suspected sockpuppets

Yellowbeard (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Report submission by

Abd (talk) 05:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Evidence

Yellowbeard Contributions

08:57, 23 July 2006 Yellowbeard New user account

First edit: 09:10, 23 July 2006 Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Schentrup method‎ (First deletion reason)

comment: Clay Shentrup is a well-known activist for Range voting, often ppromoting the Center for Range Voting, and he has written some articles posted there. Schentrup method was his invention, and is non-notable. The point is the timing, as the first act of a new account, within minutes of registering.

One of Yellowbeard's early AfDs was for Center for Range Voting. If I recall the history of CRV correctly, it might have been notable by then, it much more likely is now. Notability is not the issue, the action shows pattern and intention.

Subsequent activities included the deletion, though AfD or redirection, initially with high success, of many articles relevant to voting systems. If this sock is James Salsman, aka User:Nrcprm2026, an indefinitely banned user, it is relevant that numerous socks of his have been involved in attempting to keep criticism of Instant-runoff voting out of that article and to further slant or remove positive information on alternate voting methods from Misplaced Pages, and this is my reason for suspecting that this sock is one of Salsman's. For the Salsman socks which are clearly identified and involved with voting systems, see: Special:Contributions/BenB4 Special:Contributions/Acct4 Special:Contributions/P-j-t-a

Yellowbeard took action against articles for voting systems that might be considered political competition for his apparent preference, Instant-runoff voting, and against Voting systems criteria that are not satisfied by Instant-runoff voting, such as the FBC, Favorite betrayal criterion.

(Not all of Yellowbeard's actions have some obvious function with respect to a particular agenda, though I've seen no example of any work to actually improve the encyclopedia, only killing articles of arguably marginal utility, with some attempts -- and some success -- at removing notable articles.)

Yellowbeard filed a successful AfD for Baysian regret, which is a term used for a measure of overall public satisfaction in simulation studies of voting systems by Warren Smith, cofounder of the Center for Range Voting, which work is widely considered to be important in measuring performance of voting systems. As was common with Yellowbeard's AfD's, the notability of this was misrepresented. For a definition of Bayesian regret, see , and for confirmation of the claim of prior use there, see (1989), ref to 1957 work, etc. Warren Smith himself showed up on that AfD, and gave references, but Smith is definitely *not* a wikilawyer!

Favorite betrayal criterion had been deleted as a result of a simultaneous AfD for six articles on election criteria. Some of these may have been non-notable, but others are quite recognizable to students of election methods. Yellowbeard was not involved in the first deletion. However, FBC is very well-known to people studying the field, so it is not surprising that the article reappeared.

Then Yellowbeard filed: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Favorite betrayal criterion (2nd nomination). For the first time in this series of AfDs, editors familiar to me as participants in the voting systems articles appear to have noticed the AfD, and provided the necessary sources and arguments, and the decision was Keep.

Then he filed: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Favorite betrayal criterion (3rd nomination). This one started to heat up, and there was even broader participation. The AfD success of Yellowbeard depended on nobody watching the articles; some of these articles were created by specialists who are not regular Misplaced Pages editors, so they may have been on no watchlist for any interested user who logged in during the AfD period. At this point Yellowbeard began to personally attack those who had voted to Keep; however, Keep prevailed.

At this point, Yellowbeard began to attract some suspicion. He reverted a comment from User:Fahrenheit451 on his Talk page with the summary "rv vandalism."

Yellowbeard continued to AfD articles. Definite majority choice was successfully deleted: Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Definite_Majority_Choice. Here he started to encounter more resistance. DMC is well-known among students of election methods.

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Sequential proportional approval voting was also a successful deletion. Ironically, one of Yellowbeard's arguments was that there was already a section on this in Proportional approval voting. Yes, he then subsequently presented Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Proportional approval voting, and was again successful.

In Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Majority choice approval (3rd nomination), which was successful, Yellowbeard presented a novel proof of non-notability: "The fact that only two users participate at this AfD exemplifies the complete lack of notability of this article." Of course, the number of users who participate in an AfD has little to do with notability, except for massively notable subjects. With specialized subjects, it can have to do with the very few editors who have the article on their watchlists, and who are not constant editors. Most of us don't watch all the AfDs that come by! Of course, there were two prior AfDs: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Majority Choice Approval and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Majority choice approval (second nomination)

Yellowbeard stopped editing for a period, his last edit before this hiatus was October 25 when he deleted content and redirected Allocation voting to Range voting, which is an error; Allocation voting is similar or identical to Cumulative voting, it is not Range voting at all. Again, nobody noticed. Recently, I became aware of the extent of Yellowbeard's activities, but he had not been editing, so it was moot. However, in case he returned, I put him on my watchlist. He started editing again December 11, with the same theme.

I have been countering his efforts, this time, but it's tedious.

My biggest concern is the abrupt and ill-considered loss of content. Indeed, some of the articles he has successfully deleted are not sufficiently notable to have their own articles; however, the goal of Yellowbeard, unfortunately, does not appear to be improving the encyclopedia, but to remove information about voting systems. If he does not go for an AfD but instead deletes the content and redirects, he does not place the old content on the Talk page for the new target, so that editors there can merge it, nor does he merge it himself. He's an eraser, not an editor, and that's not a proper use for socks.

From his Contributions it is clear that he is a sock, an experienced wikilawyer, and User:Nrcprm2026 is an obvious suspect; but it's possible that he is another with a similar agenda.

Comments

I am not a sock puppet of James Salsman. Abd also doesn't give any explanation why he believes that I was a sock puppet of James Salsman.

As for the article on allocation voting, the article says:

Allocation voting is any voting system in which voters are assigned a number of "points" or other unit of account, and are expected to allocate these among a number of alternatives. Unlike preference voting the numbers do not represent ranks but weights.

As a simple example, a system might allocate each voter five points or votes and permit them to apply them to a number of candidates for office. A more complex example might permit both positive and also negative votes, so that disapproval voting was also supported in the same system. asasally, an approval voting scheme is just an allocation voting scheme where each voter has as many votes as there are options, and can allocate only one vote to each such option.

This article is very contradictory. Is the number of points that a voter can cast fixed or variable? If this number is fixed, then I have to agree with Abd that allocation voting is identical to cumulative voting. But the author of the "allocation voting" article also mentions approval voting and disapproval voting, two methods where the number of points is variable, as examples for allocation voting. In this case, "allocation voting" refers to all range voting schemes. In any case, and here Abd agrees with me, we already have a Misplaced Pages article on this topic. Yellowbeard (talk) 11:48, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Conclusions