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Sockpuppet scandal

Law affair

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By Kirill Lokshin

This week saw scandal erupting around the Arbitration Committee after administrator Law was revealed to be a sockpuppet of the_undertow—a sockpuppet apparently operated with the knowledge of numerous administrators and of at least one member of the Committee.

Arbitration requested

Administrator Sandstein had, on 20 September, filed a request for arbitration regarding Law's unblock of ChildofMidnight, whom Sandstein had blocked under the provisions of the Obama articles arbitration decision. At first, there was no indication that the case was anything more than a routine dispute between two administrators—albeit not a particularly complex one, as the Arbitration Committee appeared to be moving towards dealing with the matter by a summary motion instead of a full case.

On 30 September, however, the case suddenly took a bizarre turn, as arbitrator Risker blocked Law indefinitely and posted a motion that stated:

The Arbitration Committee has been informed that Law (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is an alternate account of The undertow (talk · contribs), and this has been confirmed with the user involved. User:Law has now resigned his administrator tools.[1] At the time that the User:Law account was created, User:The undertow was subject to an Arbitration Committee ban.

The Arbitration Committee notes the resignation of administrator tools by Law (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), and further notes that this resignation is under controversial circumstances. The user is restricted to one account, The undertow (talk · contribs). He is required to notify the Arbitration Committee in advance should he wish to change usernames or create a new account, in accordance with Arbitration Committee enforcement procedures initiated in June 2009.

By the end of the day, ten arbitrators had voted in favor of the motion.

Casliber resigns

Shortly before midnight on 30 September, arbitrator Casliber posted a statement to the Committee's noticeboard, admitting that he knew of Law's previous identity and apologizing to the community. Casliber wrote:

I did know that Law was the undertow for several months...

I first got to know the Undertow before the time which saw his editing privileges revoked for 9 months. He was having a rough patch and I talked to him a few times and he picked up and felt better afterwards and was very grateful. I didn't hear from him for some time until he popped up and told me about the Law account. He told me that the issues which had resulted in the ban had been settled.

After this, I tried to persuade him several times to come clean which he deliberated on (as I figured this was the least dramatic way of dealing with the issue). He was at several stages going to retire the Law account, frequently enough for me to desist from pursuing it (combined with a large number of arb-related, wikipedia-related and RL-related issues keeping me very busy). I became aware of the successful RfA and was unhappy about it, and continued talking to him off and on about how to come clean. For the most part, his editing has been very productive. Once the issue with the unblock of Sandstein's block of ChildofMidnight arose, I realised I was put in a spot and confessed to the committee a day ago, after the committee became alerted to the identities by another incident.

Yes, this was a bad decision on my part and I apologise...

Early the next day, Casliber resigned from the Committee—a move which garnered equal parts approval and regret from the community. "We are none of us perfect, and we all make mistakes, but the good that we do when we do it, and the good advice we give, and the strangers we have helped, are our silent memorials. You have also these last few hours provided a few drops of dignity in what appears to be a murky matter, no matter what accusations regarding failings of character have been made..." wrote administrator LessHeard vanU, echoing the feelings of many other editors.

Who knew?

The focus of the discussion had meanwhile turned to the question of who, exactly, had known of Law's previous identity. The investigation turned quickly to the administrators who had taken part in Law's request for adminship, and allegations were made that they had colluded to deceive the community regarding the identity of the nominee.

Administrator GlassCobra, who had nominated Law, was unapologetic:

Yes, I was aware that The_undertow and Law are the same person... I did purposefully leave out any mention of The_undertow in his RfA nomination; I wanted editors to judge him solely by his actions and edits as Law. I would also like to reaffirm my trust in this editor and call attention to his overwhelmingly positive track record as Law; he has written quality articles, collaborated peacefully with other editors, and used the tools in a manner that is a net positive to this project. It is unfortunate that his identity was revealed this way, and I take this opportunity to note my extreme displeasure with the actions and behavior of the other editors involved in leaking the information... It is quite a mystery to me why this particular instance seems to be generating such a dramastorm.

Another of the involved administrators, Jennavecia, was even more blunt:

He's my best friend. Big deal. I trust him. That's why I supported him. I don't care if he broke a rule on a website... I'll always have his back no matter what, because we're friends regardless of what's going on with Wikipedia. I would never put a website before a friendship. And I would never not get his back because I'm an admin. If you don't trust me with my tools, recall me, but I won't be admonished for supporting my best friend.

Meanwhile, arbitrator John Vandenberg posted an apology of his own, writing:

It was brought to my attention this morning, about 9 hours ago, that a functionary had privately informed me on August 21 about the connection between Law and The undertow... My apologies for adding to the recent confusion, especially to the functionary who believed that they had elevated the matter to the committee appropriately. I dropped the ball, and didn't go back to pick it up once I had more time on my hands.

The statement caused a flurry of speculation regarding the identity of the functionary, and the reason why he had written to John, which continued until Keegan identified himself as the editor in question. It then emerged that another functionary had, in fact, used the oversight tool to remove posts identifying Law as the_undertow; arbitrator FloNight, speaking on behalf of the Audit Subcommittee, noted that they would be "reviewing the situation according to our usual practices".

More arbitration requested

Late on 1 October, administrator Jehochman filed a new request for arbitration, calling on the Arbitration Committee to remove the administrator status of those administrators who had knowingly supported Law's own request for adminship. Over the next few days, nearly sixty editors had commented on the request, variously supporting it, opposing it, arguing over whether the Committee was empowered to act on it, suggesting that the administrators in question be recalled, or commenting on a variety of tangential matters. As yet, only Carcharoth has voted on whether to accept the request, although a number of other arbitrators have either recused themselves or posted comments.

On 3 October, Jehochman filed a second request, asking that the first request be heard in an irregular manner—as a collection of requests for comments rather than a normal case. Arbitrator response has been underwhelming.

Policy and codes of conduct

Other editors, meanwhile, have taken the opportunity to pursue a number of policy reform proposals. The most prominent of these, the Arbitration Committee code of conduct, was proposed by administrator SlimVirgin. Among other clauses, the proposed code would include provisions requiring arbitrators to report any "serious violation of policy" or "any violation of the Committee's sanctions" to the rest of the Committee.

At the same time, the matter has renewed interest in the draft arbitration policy that was published for community comment by the Committee earlier this year. Little work on the draft has been done since the second version was released in late June; now, a number of editors have suggested that the Committee is too busy with other tasks to make further progress, and that the community must see to the future development of the policy on its own. Debate over these issues, as well as over the substance of the policy, continues unabated.


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  • A sad affair. It's easy to see why Casliber's resignation from the Committee, "garnered equal parts approval and regret from the community." The project has to have rules to survive. Yet it has lost an able arbitrator, who found himself in a position where he felt he would benefit both the project and a friend-in-need by skirting the rules.
Might the rules be changed to account for an arbitrator who wants to help an editor "having a rough patch"? Especially in light of what evidently happened with this editor's "appeal to the committee a year ago" (see Lara, below). How about giving every arbitrator a veto over the Committee's decisions (which the Committee could override, of course)? To allow for an arbitrator who wants to go to bat for a problem editor? After all, the arbitrator, by resorting to his or her veto, would be more or less putting his or her own hide on the line should it not work out. Just a thought. ô¿ô 02:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • This incident has prompted me to remove a lot of administrator and policy forums from my watchlist, as it makes me realize just how disorganized and out of control en.Wikipedia's current governance processes are. The standards for building quality article content are, fortunately, more clear and organized. Cla68 (talk) 05:24, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wow. It is pretty fascinating. I especially like how his co-conspirators are so unapologetic. Da'oud Nkrumah 06:27, 6 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dnkrumah (talk • contribs)
    • When you look at society in general, it is not 'weird' that people support their friends, and even keep 'secrets' under wraps to protect their friends. And I would put friends before websites as well. However, as administrators they took an active role in supporting Law. They should know better. There is a difference between, being silent and having someone be judged on his own value by other editors, and actively supporting said person in a RfA and removing evidence of connections between the two accounts. It was a conflict of interest and they should at the very least have made themselves scarce when those conflicts arose. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:11, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have been watching that case for a while now since I noticed it... I just think that, if you take a step back and think of what people reading this would think, the entire affair has been damaging for the encyclopedia. Sure they are all comparing whether any actual rules/policies have been broken, but this is just bureaucracy. I must admit I was happier when I was an IP editor of Wikipedia and didn't pay attention to the mass of red tape, incivility and policy bashing going on... --Taelus (talk) 08:34, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • You might clarify if the two accounts were used in tandem, or if the user switched from the_undertow to Law permanently. There's a big difference. My review of their two edit histories seems to show that Law mostly replaced the_undertow as the main account beginning in Sept 08, but the_undertow was still used occasionally to vote in RfAs and a handful of minor edits. - Draeco (talk) 11:01, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's fine to support your friends, but when you accept the role of admin or arbiter you have a higher responsibility to the project as a whole. (And frankly, my friends wouldn't put me in the position of having to choose.) Every time something like this happens, it makes it that much harder on those of us who are trying to do the best job we can at the job we accepted, because every action we take is automatically tainted by the actions of others. I might feel differently after reflection, but my initial reaction is that desysoping would be in order here. --Fabrictramp | talk to me 14:29, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do not know anyone involved or any details, but I want to comment on the principle (main issue). The proper way for the_undertow and those who supported him to help him would have been to petition the Arbitration committee to modify its sanctions. What they did was to willfully evade the sanctions. This undermines the authority of the committee, thereby damaging the governance and dispute resolution process for the English Wikipedia. The committee should not allow its authority to be undermined without consequences. It should punish all those who helped the_undertow to evade the sanctions. JRSpriggs (talk) 16:48, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • He did appeal to the committee a year ago. There was general agreement among the arbitrators to accept his request (which was revealed this week), but the thread went silent and the request fell into archives without response. Lara 19:58, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Although I disagree with ban evasion, The Undertow's appeal was not the only one which the Committee let slip through the cracks. I know of several others, including one who earned barnstars after a legitimate return. The Committee failed to act upon polite requests for eight months until finally I took the appeal to ANI. It shouldn't be so difficult to seek a review legitimately. Durova322 15:03, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • What a fascinating and well-written article! I'm a sucker for wikidrama but kudos to Kirill Lokshin for the level-headed account. -- EA Swyer Talk Contributions 17:52, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Without commenting on any other aspect of the Law event itself, I would like to extend my compliments to Kirill for the quality of his writing in the course of this article. Excellent work, Kirill. AGK 18:37, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good writing Kirill! As to the events described above, if the admins who supported him put their friendship above honesty and Wikipedia, they obviously cannot be trusted. You can support your friends, but you shouldn't hide the truth either. — BQZip01 — talk 20:39, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Great, I've not watched what the heck is going on in the noticeboards, and I don't dare to venture there, because they're probably completely unreadable smouldering ruins. See, this is why we need LiquidThreads! </sarcasm> --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 19:47, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good article. Important to write about this stuff. I saw a question raised in the Casliber resignation discussion. What about CasLiber deleting the_undertow's user and talk pages? What's the story there? On another note, I am surprised that the admins mentioned would tolerate a ban evasion by anyone. Diderot's dreams (talk) 01:40, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I strongly object to the assertion that I am "unapologetic." Please see my statement at RfArb; I have repeatedly apologized to the community and acknowledged my wrongdoing. My statement linked to here in this story was simply my initial thoughts about the news and by no means my complete reaction. My next statement at the RfArb was posted only a day later, well before the publishing date of this story, so I would like to go on record and state my disappointment with the author for misrepresenting me so. GlassCobra 15:57, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I assume you are the same person that posted to my talk page recently, and I would like to state that I am puzzled by your assertions. My edit to Law Abiding Citizen was merely because I had just seen a commercial for the movie and was reading the article to learn more about it, and discovered something that needed to be fixed. There is no latent message being sent. I also am unsure of what off-wiki comments you are referring to. GlassCobra 17:08, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm well aware of your statement at the request for arbitration, in which you—by my interpretation, in any case—continue to assert that your actions were essentially correct ("To sum up, I do not feel that supporting a friend and acting in the best interests of the project need to be mutually exclusive goals, and I feel that the two were one and the same in this instance."). Given that, I believe it's entirely appropriate to consider your attitude unapologetic, both in the first instance, and subsequently. Kirill [talk] [pf] 21:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was unaware that it was the policy of the Signpost to be editorializing and inserting the personal point of view and opinions of the authors (whether or not they are in fact correct) into their reports on sensitive project matters, and I will again iterate my disappointment, both on my personal behalf and on the behalf of journalistic standards. I hope the readers of this publication will consider the admission of the author in this matter when viewing this piece. GlassCobra 13:36, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • A quality article and an intriguing case. I don't blame the_undertow for wanting a fresh start; I am a firm believer in second chances. But once the matter became known, there is no other acceptable outcome. I know that hypotheticals aren't very helpful, but I suppose the proper thing would be to privately alert ArbCom of the desire to create a new account, to tell the Committee the account name so it could be monitored for compliance, but not to publicaly connect the two accounts. HereToHelp (talk to me) 01:29, 10 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I reviewed the use of oversight in this case. (link). My own stance on friendship v. integrity is that standing up for ones' friends is fine, but not at the cost of breach of trust. Possibly the admins concerned believed it was a historic matter and didn't really need bringing up. But they should at the least, have urged Law to disclose to Arbcom or the 'crat team (the matter was bound to come out some time) because it was a material factor, and failing which, told him they could not propose or support his RFA with that undisclosed. Both as friends and Wiki community admins that would have demonstrated integrity. I can't decide if this is serious poor judgment or gross breach of trust. Perhaps a mix of both. FT2 (Talk | email) 03:39, 10 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • One of the interesting things to have been discovered during this case was the problem with Arbcom's emails - there was a filter throwing away emails from a variety of domains. I think that this would be an interesting item for the Signpost. DuncanHill (talk) 12:43, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Everyone musing on the whole "friendship vs. policy" conundrum seem to miss one important point, namely that the main mistake was made before this issue even emerged. There is a policy against using Wikipedia for social networking, and that policy is there for a reason. When social networks emerge between editors and admins, neutral behaviour and upholding of policy easily suffer. This camaraderie can be horribly alienating to newcomers; a big problem these days as we're already seeing serious decline in participation. Anyone looking for friends, please go to MySpace or – God forbid – turn off the computer and go outside. Lampman (talk) 19:10, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • To answer Diderot's dreams, I was asked to delete The Undertow's pages by him for a reason unconnected with wikipedia, which I'll leave for the undertow to explain onwiki or I can discuss by email. It didn't even occur to me that it looked bad until pointed out to me retrospectively when all this blew up. Stupid I know, but there you go. Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:59, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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