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Shortcuts WP:ARM WP:ARBM This page can be used by arbitrators to propose motions not related to any existing case or request. Motions are archived at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Index/Motions. Only arbitrators may propose or vote on motions on this page. You may visit WP:ARC or WP:ARCA for potential alternatives. Make a motion (Arbitrators only) You can make comments in the sections called "community discussion" or in some cases only in your own section. Arbitrators or clerks may summarily remove or refactor any comment.

Geogre

Motion 4

There are currently 12 active arbitrators; Risker and John Vandenberg are recused on all Geogre motions, so 6 votes are a majority.

4) The Utgard Loki (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) account is to be unblocked and clearly identified as being an alternate account of Geogre. Geogre (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) remains indefinitely prohibited from maintaining any other alternate account without disclosing it publicly.

Support:

1. The intent of the first motion was not to prevent Geogre from editing from an alternate account when at work, but only from undisclosed accounts in a way that can be deceptive. If the Utgard Loki account cannot mislead, then I have no problem with it being used to contribute. — Coren  19:57, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
2. Per Coren. More detailed comment below. Carcharoth (talk) 22:30, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
3. Support as an improvement over the status quo created by the enactment of motions 1 and 3 and in light of Geogre's statement of today. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:24, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
4. I still can't see why the need for two accounts, nevertheless I would be sad to lose Geogre and the cheeky norse giant illusionist in his frozen palace. Thus if the accounts are clearly indentified as the same human being I accept it. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:37, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
5. FloNight♥♥♥ 01:44, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
6. So long as it remains clearly marked, and used as a proper alt account now, okay. Wizardman 03:11, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
7. Per my colleagues,  Roger Davies 07:30, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Oppose:

Abstain:

Arbitrator views and discussion

• I have moved Geogre's statement here, along with this proposed amendment, so that it does not get removed prematurely as the previous motions are closed.

  As a simple factual correction, incidentally, I did not propose the previous motions, nor did I post them. — Coren  19:57, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

  • SV: Yes, we have seen and evaluated those diffs, but the majority of the committee did not find them compelling. — Coren  17:37, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
• Geogre, if you wish, I can respond in more detail to your statements in a few days (probably on your talk page or elsewhere, if that would be better), as there is a lot there to consider. At the moment, though, I think this is a satisfactory result (if the proposed unblocking of the Utgard Loki account passes). If you would like to contest the desysopping, or get a better idea of what has (to an approximation) been going on here, please look at this page. Effectively (if not with precise formality), what has been happening here is Level II procedures (I know it sounds terribly bureaucratic, but bear with me). "Level II procedures may be used if (a) the account's behaviour is inconsistent with the level of trust required for its associated advanced permissions, and (b) no satisfactory explanation is forthcoming." I think it is fair to say here that the use of the two accounts in a way that could mislead (and almost certainly did mislead some people) covers the 'level of trust' bit. I think it is also fair to say that a majority of arbs have not been satisfied with your explanation (most of which, I have to say, repeats what you e-mailed us at the beginning of July). So what we have been engaged in is stage 4: "A request for removal of advanced permissions may be made once a motion to do so has been endorsed by a majority of active arbitrators." If you want to appeal the impending desysopping, see the bit right at the bottom of the page. Specifically:

  "If the editor in question requests it, or if the Committee determines that a routine reinstatement of permissions is not appropriate, normal arbitration proceedings shall be opened to examine the removal of permissions and any surrounding circumstances."

  One thing I will respond to from your statement is that you "suggested a way that they could, indeed, come up with a council for the future". I believe you are referring to the suggestions here. Those are indeed excellent suggestions, and I hope that those ideas get taken on board and developed into something useful. Carcharoth (talk) 22:40, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
• Comment: For the record, I have no objection whatsoever to turning this motion into a case (called "Geogre"?), along with evidence pages and so forth.  Roger Davies 07:03, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Geogre

I will break this into sections. As I have not said anything, I hope that people read it and take it all into account. Given that this is supposed to be a "motion," or a series of them, one would hope that the only people speaking were the arbitrators and myself. I find, though, that a great group of unquiet ghosts of conflicts past have risen in glee. They add spite and spittle, but nothing to the purpose.

Background

The background is not a series of diffs, as diffs are a series of citations of single lines of difference. Instead, the background is two years ago, when there was a different cast at ArbCom and a different makeup and set of procedures at the ArbCom mailing list. At that time, there was check user abuse. I had reason to believe that there was sharing of personal data from users for personal and petty reasons. However, characteristically, I did not feel that chasing down the issues was worth the bother, because, at that time, the mailing list and decisions for ArbCom was dominated by David Gerard ("owner" of the list), whom I did not and do not trust, and "ArbCom, retired arbitrators and trusted others." "Trusted...." Not trusted by me.

Initially, I felt that I needed a second account, if I were to contribute articles at Misplaced Pages anymore. I became increasingly aware, in the words of Tennyson, that "I am become a name." While many Wikipedians relish getting "famous," I do not. I love getting respect, and I enjoy a compliment, but getting known by people who have never "met" me is a drag. I do not want to be typecast, and yet "Geogre" was "anti-IRC" was "anti-box," was "anti-citation" (!), etc. All of these caricatures meant that any article I wrote was subject to undue attention and animosity. Anywhere I went, I had watchers.

Perhaps, though, I was wrong in this suspicion, I thought. I set up a secondary account and followed the laws and rules. I labeled it an alternate account. Before a week had passed, its password had been scrambled.

That was odd!

Then I set up User:Crowbait. I think I got about ten days out of that one. I did not put the alternate user template on it immediately. I think I took a couple of days and put it on as Crowbait. Nevertheless, the password got scrambled, too!

That was odd, too, wasn't it?

The choice, to me, then, was to either stop writing for Misplaced Pages, to stop doing the only thing I actually enjoy at Misplaced Pages -- writing articles and working for readers (remember them, people? readers? do any of you think about them on a daily basis?) -- or to put up with hounding at every turn. I should point out that the miraculous, amazing congregation of people who have and had no interest in my little activities as Utgard Loki here and now more or less testifies to the vehemence of animosity I can look forward to under my proper account name. I also could look forward to, at that time, what I believed to be very corrupt checkuser practices. (I am not convinced that the reforms involved are permanent, nor do I believe that the secret archives at the list are completely secret or that a future iteration would not jeopardize past materials.) Geogre (talk) 14:54, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Motion One

I created and used user:Utgard Loki simply as a work account. It was an alternate account and, most emphatically, not a "sock puppet."

I would urge ArbCom and all others who read this, by the way, to purge themselves of that odious term. It comes from Rush Limbaugh and is freighted with his nastiness.

I did not establish the account to "do" anything. In fact, I took every pain to be honest. On one occasion only on Wiki, someone actually asked me if I was the same, and that was in the Danny RFA matter, and I admitted it, because I was not hiding. Oddly, the "alternate account" rules are something that I am in more agreement with the present ArbCom on than they might suppose. My feeling has been, and remains, that we are in a binary position. Either we should or should not allow them. Instead of that, though, we have these hypocritical and impossible rules that encourage lying.

In fact, had I deceived I would not have "been caught." I have been honest at all times in this regard. When Coren was involved, I was extremely irritated, because, instead of anyone simply asking, on either user talk page, we had to go through the "Ooooh, I've caught you now, you dangerous criminal" method. Why, I asked, does no one communicate? Aren't we supposed to talk first and then resort to arbitration when that fails? No one tried to communicate.

How can readers tell that I am telling the truth?

1. I edited the same articles, in the same fields.
2. I used the same writing style. Anyone who knows the Geogre account at all ought to know that he is enough of a writer to assume different voices as occasion demands, and it would have been simple to create a character.
3. I took the same positions, consistently.
4. I never made up fake back stories.
5. I never used one to do one type of edit.

Furthermore, I was very careful to never use my administrative powers to settle something that my editor-only account could not do. For example, as Loki I frequently tagged prods and speedies. In one case, an article really annoyed me, because the "article" as nothing but an infobox. Seriously. There was nothing else there! There wasn't even a noun. Another admin removed the speedy tag. The article had been sitting in that condition for three years, and I was very, very tempted, as Geogre, to come back and delete the article and give a lecture to the junior admin on what CSD A1 means.

The lack of template for "alternate account" was no deception. I went far out of my way to ensure that the two were obviously the same. I was as obvious as I could be without the template. My reasoning was that anyone who knew Geogre would not be confused. If people read Geogre, they'd see, instantly, that the rhythms, habits of metaphor, adjective choice, vocabulary, and structures were identical. In fact, I kept getting e-mails from people saying, "Oh, come on! That's too obvious!" I would answer, "I'm not hiding." (These can be produced, by the way.)

Motion One Nolo contendere

My understanding of the alternate account rules apparently differs from that of a majority, or perhaps consensus, of others, but it is not an irrational one. On the "same page editing," what you will find are two separate cases:

1. User talk page doubling
2. Process page doubling

In the case of #1, it is, to my knowledge, entirely allowed. However, what readers will find is that I was extremely careful not to double up on users who did not already know that both accounts were the same person.

In the second case, we are going to have a subtlety that many of you will disagree with.

A. Proposed: The sky is red. B. Answer: No, it's blue! C. Comment: It's blue as a robin's egg. A'. Comment: It is not blue!

Now, in that case, we have two positions and two comments. A' has knocked down B/C, but has not supported A. Is A' "doubling" or "multiplying" or giving "artificial consensus" for A? In two years of operating the alternate account, I rarely knowingly answered comments where my main account had voiced an opinion (or vice versa). I never knowingly doubled my position with a secondary account. By my understanding of the rules of alternate accounts, I was not "supporting myself" when I was denying an attack on my position.

If ArbCom believes that I cannot have this belief in good faith, then it can indefinitely block the secondary account. However, in doing so, they leave me with no capacity to contribute content to Misplaced Pages.

Motion One results

Utgard Loki wrote some 150 or so articles. He created the format for the XXXX in literature articles and went from 1690 in literature to 1780 in literature, by hand. He wrote a few Classical literature articles. He tweaked quite a few articles. He did the kind of casual addition of content that Geogre cannot do.

Mattisse is a good example of why Geogre cannot do it. Restoration literature got listed at WP:FAR four times. Mattisse was sure that it needed to be torn down. He listed and listed and listed. Because I had downed one of his previous tear-downs, he was on a kick to go after everything. He and others were on a tear to get rid of parenthetical citation and insist on footnotes alone as the only citational method, and any old FA that had citations in parenthetical form had to go. If one disagrees, then woe betide him.

After Coren's unilateral action, I kept going as Geogre, but, as Geogre, I can only do one sort of thing, the sort of thing I do not enjoy: wiki politics. No offense, but y'all bore me. Articles are interesting, but not people. Getting rid of a second account means that all my time has to be spent as an opinion maker and a ranter and agitator and focal point against abuses in power.

Coren's action was stupidly done. (This is not a personal attack.) The way Coren did it was with the sloppy, hamfisted "sock puppet" term (again, let me urge you folks to purify your vocabularies). Because the block log carried that, a group of people who put templates on things without knowing more about the subject were going about putting "This is a sockpuppet of the dangerous Geogre account" template on Loki. How silly was that?

Several people reverted these templateers. One of them must have asked Coren, and so he filed this Motion. <sigh> If he had only communicated, only asked people what the fuss was, it could have been avoided. However, the first reaction was, again, to go with cop talk. Geogre is hardly Amorrow or Gawp, and the template made no sense.

If ArbCom wants to leave me with no way to edit Misplaced Pages for content, then leave it as it is: block Loki indefinitely (with "account creation blocked" checked... dangerous sock puppeteer, you know). If not, then we can go on and let me label the account with the proper template. Geogre (talk) 14:54, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Amendment

I'm told I have made mistakes in date and fact, above. This does not surprise me. I often make mistakes. "I am a man, that is sufficient reason to be miserable," as Euripides said. The FAR with Mattisse was Augustan lit.

Further amending, for those who note that Crowbait and Geogre speak to each other, please note that the alternate account label was on the page, and there is a difference between abuse and self abuse. (If you expect something high minded, my model is Henry in The Dream Songs) Geogre (talk) 17:56, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Motion Two

The admonition is dependent upon the central finding, and so is the third motion, of "sockpuppeting."

This relies exclusively on the idea that an account was developed and/or used to abuse and subvert Misplaced Pages's processes. Such a finding is without basis.

What can be found, and what I will admit to, is in one case knowingly allowing both accounts to speak (the Mattisse FAR). Otherwise, we're looking at mistakes, like the above. As Washington officials like to say, "Mistakes were made," but a mistake is not the same thing as a crime.

For those who believe that it is, consider this. Since the "Motion" format is adapted from law, let us look at what constitutes crime. It requires mens rea and res acta. I would argue that it also includes harm. (I will get to "harm" more on Motion Three.)

Did I have the intent to deceive? If I did, I was mentally deficient. I have many detractors among the undersigned, but I doubt very many would call me stupid. If I had set out to subvert with a second account, I believe that I would have cultivated multiple accounts, the way sock puppet users actually do. I believe that I would have ensured that the accounts did not stick around, the way sock puppet users do. I would have offered lavish lies about relationships, the way meat puppets do. Instead, I stayed with the second account during work hours, always during work hours, and my primary account at home, always at home. Every action looks precisely like a person with two accounts.

Was there the criminal act? I would say that there was not. The criminal act requires inflating votes or swaying consensus. I would ask for a single example where the presence of that second voice made even a difference in outcome.

Motion Three

Oh, absolutely not.

The "threat" was that I had better come and argue. I had been ignoring the first motion because I regarded it as a dead issue. If Coren were going to unilaterally block my second account, I did not want argument and drama. See above: the politics of this place bores me, and the egos of the people are none of my concern. If David Gerard, Fred Bauder, and FT2 want to promote themselves as the three wise men, they're free to do so. I do not care. I was cherishing silence and working on actual governmental bureaucracy at the time. Crisis after crisis have been blossoming in actual living world life, so the self-image and wounded pride of this or that account name was not interesting, and yet here came an e-mail telling me that, if I knew what was good for me, I'd come and take my licks.

Why does no one communicate? Why are people on ArbCom incapable of speaking to people as peers? Is there a requirement that they see everyone as a criminal? Is there some demand that they shriek and threaten? Is there some law that they can't just ask people questions? Is there a style guide that maintains, FT2-style, passive voice and circumlocutions?

User:Geogre has been here since 2003. During that time, I have been a witness to most of the rules as they have come into existence, and I have been a consistent proponent of principle. My chief principle is that power is the enemy of the good, that it is always tempting to invoke exigency and the presence of "enemies" (BADSITES, anyone) to justify power, but that Misplaced Pages came to be and grew to popularity on the flat hierarchy. (I recently saw that folks were stumbling around, again, unable to think outside of hierarchies, and suggested a way that they could, indeed, come up with a council for the future, if they'd only shake this reliance on being in charge.)

Before anyone decides that my actions were sock puppeting, he or she should see that there was a conscious, rather than mistaken, use of a second account for a malicious goal, as that is the definition of a sock puppet, as opposed to a stray edit by a legitimate second account. Barring that, there would need to be devastating effect of these edits. (I.e. mistaken edits in good faith could amount to the need for demotion if the effect were severe.)

However:

1. No edit made by Utgard Loki drew a comment from any of the now-aggrieved editors to the user talk page of either account.
2. No edit made by either account "settled" any of the debates.
3. No edit or action by either account used or threatened administrative power.

For the mistaken edits to rise to the level of misuse of tools, they would need to, it seems to me, to have the effect of power. I have seen no evidence, as no evidence has been presented, that any thing said or done by either account had any substantial effect on the outcomes in question, much less that it was the determining factor.

If ArbCom wishes to "make an example," simply for someone going out of his way to be honest and not have a "role account" or play the silly buggers games that our current policy encourages, then I would volunteer for a three month suspension of administrator status. At the same time, without a secondary account, I will not be adding article content to Misplaced Pages. If others believe that I will or will not be harassed in article creation is not their problem: I am sure of it, and I do not feel like going through more of ... this. I detest it. Geogre (talk) 18:33, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment from Ottava Rima

I would like my comments to Motions 1-3 carry down in regards to Motion 4. Specifically, my statement that Geogre should be allowed the use of a disclosed secondary account for standard use. Additionally, it would only make logical sense for Geogre to be allowed use of Loki as said secondary account. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:57, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Question from a confused SlimVirgin

I'm posting this here and on the RfAr page.

I am confused by the two pages we have on this, and the different motions. A desysopping has been decided, it appears, but without a case, which apparently ignores the very clear evidence that Geogre was not intending to sock, and that he had identified himself. Statements made there have been removed, including the diffs that showed that evidence. Geogre's statement referred to on the other page as "below" has been moved here. Can the Committee explain what exactly has been decided, or what remains to be decided? And where should interested parties post comments or evidence so that they will be read and won't be removed?

Would the Committee please consider for the future putting the motions on the same page as the regular requests? In fact, having everything on the same page as before (requests, motions, amendments, clarifications) would make things a lot easier to follow. SlimVirgin 02:41, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I restored the statements that were removed from this page, because some of them contain evidence that supports what Geogre is saying, but Daniel reverted me. Instead, I'm only going to restore my own posts, but I am hard pressed to understand why comments containing diffs that show Geogre was not socking abusively are being removed, and I'd appreciate an explanation. Would the Committee please confirm that they have seen and evaluated those diffs? SlimVirgin 05:44, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by SlimVirgin

I would like to ask for clemency for Geogre, and specifically for him not to be forbidden from using an alternate account, so long as there's no SOCK violation. For various reasons, Geogre's edits occasionally attract attention from people out to make a point of some kind. In part because of that, he created an alternate account so he could edit in peace. He also wanted to use a different account when editing from work for privacy reasons, so he would use Geogre at home, and Utgard at work. There was no intention to deceive the people he was editing with, as I think is often clear from the diffs above, where it's pretty obvious Utgard is Geogre. Geogre has a very distinctive writing style, and he made no effort to hide it as Utgard. Even in the diff showing the 3RR violation, he was violating it even using the Geogre account alone. It was just an example of him getting frustrated by what he saw as a bot-like application of rules. His intention was not to use a second account to get round the 3RR rule.

The upshot of Geogre being required to add content using only the Geogre account may be that he stops editing articles entirely. This would be a great pity. He's been with Misplaced Pages since November 2003, and he's written some great articles, including several FAs. I'd like to ask the Committee to allow him to use an alternate account to create content, on condition that he makes sure there is no SOCK violation and that he tells at least one member of the Committee the name of the second account. SlimVirgin 00:02, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

In response to David, Josh, Mackensen, and Fred, I completely agree that abusive sockpuppetry is destructive behavior that no admin should engage in. The problem I'm having here is seeing a clear example of abuse. In all the diffs I've looked at, it seems clear that Utgard is Geogre. Mackensen and Risker both seemed to know it was him (I can't find the diff now, but they both posted that they assumed Utgard was Geogre). There has to be an attempt at deception for a sock to be abusive. Geogre was trying to hide slightly from the people who had a tendency to pursue him, but without hiding from anyone else.

Take his edits to Karah Parshad. It's an article that attracts very few edits—just 28 edits from 22 editors, only 10 of whom were accounts— exactly the kind of page you avoid using both accounts on if you're socking abusively. Utgard (his work account) edited it from work at 16:05 April 17, 2007—it was a Thursday, a work day. But he made a mistake; he left out an "is." When he got home, he spotted the error and fixed it as Geogre, his home account, just over four hours later at 20:16 April 17, the very next edit after Utgard's. No abusive sockpuppeteer would have done this.

On the same day, Utgard made an edit to another little-edited article, Sewadar (only 15 edits from nine editors) at 16:07, and again left out an "is." Geogre got home and fixed that one too at 20:17, once more the very next edit after Utgard's. There are many more examples like this that strongly suggest he saw Utgard as a legitimate second account. SlimVirgin 02:46, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Response to Thatcher

His edits to Peachoid were a 3RR violation (and he violated it even with Geogre alone) committed because he was fed up with the bot-like approach to images. They weren't rational edits, and it was clear he was pissed off. Geogre is old school. He is anti-bot, anti-template, anti-heavy style guides, anti-whatever gets in the way of good content. That was what was going on at Peachoid. That he was doing it so obviously with Utgard and Geogre is another indication that he wasn't trying to be deceptive.

Utgard was created because Geogre was fed up being followed around. He isn't really into politics, he's into content, but he ended up involved in politics because he often felt he had to criticize the way certain parts of the project were headed. Some of those comments brought him to the attention of people who then over-focused on his edits. Matisse was allegedly one of them (I haven't looked to see whether she really did over-focus, but that's the claim.) So he created another account to escape the attention of the small number of people watching Geogre's contribs, but not to deceive anyone else. And then presumably he started commenting on political issues on Utgard too, because he got annoyed about something and didn't want to wait until he was home before posting as Geogre.

The thing that is to blame for this is the atmosphere we have where people are followed around by wiki-enemies. No single editor should be repeatedly submitting one person's articles for FA review, for example. That is demoralizing and it should have been stopped. Geogre reacted badly to it, and one of the reasons he reacted badly is that he's a nice person, an honest person who cares about content, and who has felt over the years that it has become harder and harder to write good content and to get it recognized. Maybe we should start to address why he felt that way, because he's not the only one who feels it. But the point here is that, yes, he made mistakes with Utgard that he shouldn't have made, but there were many, many more times where he edited in a way that made it crystal clear that Utgard was Geogre. We need an evidence page where we can lay it all out, so we can see whether, on balance, he was being deceptive or just being Geogre. SlimVirgin 06:46, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Response to FT2

I think Geogre's point was that certain people were watching and following his contributions as Geogre, and he wanted to shake them off, so he created another account. But he only wanted not to be followed by those particular people; he didn't want to deceive others. You're right that anyone serious about pursuing him would have found Utgard Loki very quickly, and you and Thatcher are also right that he could have handled things better. My only argument throughout this is that he wasn't actively trying to deceive the project, or benefit personally (or editorially), and those are usually the two key components in determining whether SOCK has been violated. SlimVirgin 00:40, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Response to Matisse

I don't know who Geogre is referring to. I know only that he felt a little hounded, and wanted to work with an account that wasn't attracting negative attention. He also wanted to split his work/home edits. I didn't know Utgard was Geogre, because I don't work in the same areas (though I'd have known instantly if I'd spotted him), and I also didn't know he felt he was being pursued; had I known that, I'd have tried to help him. If you weren't one of the people he was concerned about—and I certainly accept your assurances—I apologize if I implied otherwise. SlimVirgin 01:09, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement from Durova

Let it be noted that the most frequently edited page in the Misplaced Pages talk namespace by Utgard Loki was Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration/Durova/Proposed decision. The Geogre account made 19 posts to that same page, which was among Geogre's top ten most frequently edited Misplaced Pages talk pages over his six year history as a Wikipedian. To the best of my recollection, I had no interaction with Geogre (or Utgard Loki) before the week that case began. He made no disclosure to me that they were the same: not then, nor at any other time. The following June, Geogre used the Utgard Loki account to post at Ottava Rima's community siteban discussion, where I also participated.

At the time of the Ottava Rima siteban discussion I remained unaware that Utgard Loki was the same person as Geogre. He had already posted three times to that discussion as Geogre, so it seemed inconceivable that a senior administrator would post under an undisclosed second account to the same conversation. The Utgard Loki account specifically asserts "I'm no admin" and refers to Geogre in the third person. It is not tenable to presume I inferred something Geogre had never told me on a topic where he had insisted I discontinue attempts at inferences. A full reading of the siteban discussion is worthwhile.

While Ottava Rima was indefinitely blocked I was ambivalent about whether to endorse the siteban proposal. Ottava had been pugnacious, and although he contributed good content, content work does not generate permanent exemptions from policy. The key factor is whether a difficult individual recognizes their faults and undertakes improvement.

...it is usually necessary to request that they alter their conduct in specific ways. It does no one any favors to pretend otherwise: in the absence of a firm message that certain conduct is inappropriate, the editor is likely to repeat it--placing further strains upon the patience of other Wikipedians, necessitating more administrative involvement, and humiliating himself or herself far more thoroughly than a simple mea culpa would have done. DurovaCharge! 19:17, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

When Ottava apologized to the community I accepted that apology; he and I now write articles together. I'm not out to get Geogre either. But I want a conversation with Geogre on the level. There is no use mincing words: violating WP:SOCK at an arbitration case and a siteban discussion is a very serious matter. Geogre could have forestalled problems with a straightforward disclosure such as this one, but he didn't. Geogre had no qualms about requesting the fullest possible consequences upon Ottava Rima and myself for our mistakes. I do not ask that he feel the fullest possible consequences for his own mistakes; I do ask these things:

1. Talk to me, respectfully, as one mature adult to another.
2. Bring back the old Geogre of 2003-2006. Reading the histories, I liked that fellow.
3. Work on improving civility. Other people aren't perfect, but we may be a lot smarter than you presume.
4. Write another featured article. It's been a while.

In return, if Geogre does the above:

1. I will restore the image of his choice to the best of my ability. He may need to provide a scan for it.
2. One year from today, I will nominate him for RFA.

If he regains the use of the Utgard Loki account, though, it would be courteous to retire it. When I reread the Durova arbitration after discovering that they were the same person, my first reaction was to mutter language I had endeavored to remove from my vocabulary when I left the Navy. Then I closed the window. There are bad memories there; let's close that door and move to a better place. Durova 03:25, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Giano's misreading is unfortunate. It is fairly well known that after opposing Everyking at one RfA, I conominated him at his next RfA. After discussing a possible topic ban on Cirt, I later conominated his RfA also. Reconciliation is an important part of wiki culture. It shouldn't be necessary to bring forth examples to demonstrate good intentions; assume good faith used to be policy. Durova 18:56, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Two weeks ago Giano was blocked for personal attacks against me; after administrative consensus supported the block I extended an olive branch and his block was shortened. Giano appears to be bitter, but he and I are different people. The offer to Geogre remains on the table. Durova 21:18, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement from Thatcher

I guess we aren't done here after all. Since there is a call for clemency, most recently articulated by SlimVirgin, I wanted to point out a couple of things about Geogre's statement that jumped out at me.

1. He says he did not intend to deceive, that he did not attempt to create a separate persona, and that users who knew him well recognized that the accounts were the same person. But he also says that he created the account specifically to avoid scrutiny because there were things he could not do as "Geogre." That's deceptive by definition. He cites the example of an article he wrote that Mattisse listed at FAR 4 times, and he acknowledges intentionally using the Loki account in a deceptive way with regards to Mattisse. He did not mention or defend his edit war on Peachoid against David Shankbone, where he made 6 reverts in 12 hours, the last one through protection. There are repeated instances where Loki referred to Geogre in the third person and said things like "I am not an admin." While people who knew Geogre well were likely to recognize him in Loki, that does not extend to people who know him casually, or who only recognize his name from his participation in wiki politics. If the Loki account was created to pursue his real love of editing articles, why did he use it also for wiki politics? Did Mattisse, Ottava, Durova, or David have an obligation to review all of Loki's contributions in sufficient depth to recognize him as Geogre? Geogre seems to be blaming everyone else for not being smart enough to recognize that the accounts were operated by the same person. The account was created for a deceptive purpose, albeit one that many people have sympathy for, and it was used in a deceptive way far more often than Geogre has acknowledged.

2. If I understand Geogre's argument nolo contendre correctly, he is saying that if Geogre argues for proposition A, and User:Smith argues for Proposition B, and then Utgard Loki argues against proposition B, this is not the same as arguing in favor of proposition A, and therefore not deceptive. Does anyone else take this seriously? Thatcher 06:31, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin

a) Presumably, being "fed up with the bot-like approach to images" means Geogre preferred trying to rescue images and give them proper rationales rather than remove them without thinking. Funny thing is, while Geogre was edit-warring with Shankbone (is there anything more "bot-like" than that?), someone else actually tracked down the proper ownership of the image and wrote a satisfactory fair use rationale. (In fact, Geogre spent 3 weeks fighting with Orphanbot and other users when it took me an hour to confirm the source and write a rationale.)

b) "That he was doing it so obviously with Utgard and Geogre is another indication that he wasn't trying to be deceptive." Doesn't this place the burden on everyone else to recognize him, rather than placing the burden on Geogre to behave properly?

c) "And then presumably he started commenting on political issues on Utgard too, because he got annoyed about something and didn't want to wait until he was home before posting as Geogre." This is an excuse? You want clemency because after creating an alternate account to avoid politics, he got impatient. Why not log in as Geogre from wherever he was? He knew or should have known, as I'm sure you know, that he should have logged in as Geogre, or he should have waited until he could log in as Geogre. Impatience is not an excuse for using two different accounts in an impermissible manner, even if the original reason for creating the alternate account was legitimate.

d) "But the point here is that, yes, he made mistakes with Utgard that he shouldn't have made, but there were many, many more times where he edited in a way that made it crystal clear that Utgard was Geogre." Again, you, like Geogre, are placing the burden on other people who failed to recognize him rather than on him to act responsibly when editing from his alternate account.

e) Geogre's nolo contendre argument is still bizarre.

I'm not arguing for any particular outcome, if I wanted to do that, I would run for Arbcom. Perhaps leniency or clemency is deserved. But the first step there would be for Geogre to acknowledge his multiple errors in judgement in the use of his alternate account, rather than blaming others. Thatcher 15:43, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment from Giano

Below is a quote on this page from Durova :

1. Talk to me, respectfully, as one mature adult to another.
2. Bring back the old Geogre of 2003-2006. Reading the histories, I liked that fellow.
3. Work on improving civility. Other people aren't perfect, but we may be a lot smarter than you presume.
4. Write another featured article. It's been a while.

In return, if Geogre does the above:

1. I will restore the image of his choice to the best of my ability. He may need to provide a scan for it.
2. One year from today, I will nominate him for RFA."

I have kept my cool over this lamentable affair and my opinions largely to myself. However, the above from Durova defies belief, I have never read such blatent, hypocrytical and insensitive trolling in all my life. The man has been de-sysopped what more does she want? How dare she be so patronising and condescending? I would imagine that she is the last person on earth that Geogre wants anything to do with. The above is designed to make people think what a nice sweet forgiving person she is and of course plug her bloody image restoration - well she has caused a lot of trouble and hurt with this request - just as much as she caused in the past over User:!!. She put this thing into motion, now she can damn well learn to live with it because people have long memories and just at this moment the best thing she could do for all is keep quiet. Giano (talk) 18:41, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Durova I am sure you beleive yourself to be a Little Sister of Mercy, whose Godly and goodly works known no bounds, while recipients of your bounty line up to give thanks. Sadly, I don't buy it - I see a bitter woman hell bent on revenge trying to make herself out to be something she is not because she knows ultimately that her recent actions are going to make her look very bad indeed and back fire badly. Now I think it best if we terminate this conversation before I become cross or either of us says something we may later regret. Giano (talk) 19:41, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Further reply to Durova , if being unblocked were conditional on accepting Durova's "olive branch", I would still be blocked and she would be having her "olive branch" surgically removed. Now, I suggest Durova appreciates that I am not impressed by her, I require no understanding from her, olive branches or indeed, anything at all from her. I find her opinions contrary to my own, and her sanctimonious proferring of them nauseating. In short, I suggest we agree to differ, I hope I do not have the misfortune to come across her again on Misplaced Pages, but if our paths do cross, she will find my opinions quite unchanged. Giano (talk) 21:34, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Clarification of Geogre's statement from Mattisse

Geogre stated: "Mattisse is a good example of why Geogre cannot do it. Restoration literature got listed at WP:FAR four times. Mattisse was sure that it needed to be torn down. He listed and listed and listed."

Geogre stated: "I'm told I have made mistakes in date and fact, above. This does not surprise me. I often make mistakes. "I am a man, that is sufficient reason to be miserable," as Euripides said. The FAR with Mattisse was Augustan lit."

In point of fact, each article was listed once at FAR.

1. I did not list Restoration literature at FAR, did not comment on it, and did not even know about it. Someone else nominated it.
2. I did list Augustan literature at FAR once. In this case the Utgard Loki account was used to argue with Awadewit and not with me.

These are the facts. They do not seem to justify Geogre's use of an alternate account in my case. —Mattisse (Talk) 16:39, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Response to SlimVirgin from Mattisse

Please provide some proof that my experience with Geogre demonstrates "certain people were watching and following his contributions as Geogre, and he wanted to shake them off, so he created another account."

I did not know Geogre previously, I did not follow him around nor watch his contributions, and have never written nor edited articles in his area (which I assume is British literature). I only became aware of him later, primarily by learning the details of Geogre and his editing habits through this arbitration. I do not remember ever directly interacting with him at all.

Before this arbitration, I did not know what Geogre's "style" was.

As far as I know, all I have ever done regarding Geoge is to list Augustan literature at FAR once. The Utgard Loki account was used to argue with Awadewit and not with me. I did not debate in that FAR. Awadewit listed reasons the article was deficit and Utgard Loki argued. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:05, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by FT2

Concurring and adding to Thatcher's post. Other inconsistencies struck me too.

That said, motion 4 itself sounds okay to me. I doubt any harm is likely from the Utgard Loki account stacking with Geogre at this point. As Coren says, if it can no longer mislead users or the community, then it is not a problem. FT2  00:24, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Clerk notes