This notice concerns RJII, a user who has been banned indefinately for a series of wiki violations and his own eventual admission of intent to abuse. Vision Thing is a user whose first edit occured on March 19, 2006. Because his first edit was to immediately initiate a discussion on a topic which had recently been the focus of user RJII, he was soon accused by user AaronS of being a sockpuppet. User InfinityO also suspected Vision Thing of being a sockpuppet, and requested a checkuser. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the RJ "project", as user Logical2u said on the checkuser page, "all accounts by the RJII "team" will likely be undectable and un-check-user-verifiable, due to "home" computers, etc."
Due to lack of evidence from usercheck, the case appears to have been dropped. However, I believe that subsequent edits by user Vision Thing have more than demonstrated his intimate connection to RJII. I have compiled an extensive list of identical edits made by user RJII and Vision Thing. Please note that in my time searching dozens of articles edited by these two accounts I never found a single instance in which either editor reverted or even openly disagreed with one another, despite a tendency by both accounts to engage in edit wars and reverts. When I first became suspicious of Vision Thing being a sockpuppet I attempted to inform twice. Despite making several other edits on his talk page in the meantime, both my attempts were ignored.
As evidence I would first like to note RJII's repeated insistance on indicating that the writers of the anarchist FAQ are "social anarchists". This is the very topic that Vision Thing first used as a subject of his first edit. The similarity of their edits can be seen from these examples by RJ,
which can be compared with this edit by Vision Thing after RJ was banned:
Such instances are not isolated. For example, RJ and Vision Thing inserted the same edits concerning David Friedman on medieval Iceland:
Vision Thing has made many of the same edits that RJ was formally known for inserting since RJ's ban. Benjamin Tucker's "capitalism is at least tolerable" is a quote originally introduced into several articles by RJ:
After RJ's ban it has been inserted into articles by Vision Thing:
Individualist anarchism "reborn", another quote originally inserted by RJ into the [anarchism] aritlce:
has since been championed by Vision thing after RJs ban:
Way back in January of 2005 RJ started posting many edits about the "U.S. Postal Service monopoly"
not surpirsingly, after RJ was banned nearly identical edits started coming from Vision Thing
And yet another instance again, before his ban RJ inserted the following edit into
Anti-capitalism: *
15 June
After RJs ban Vision Thing once again inserted an identical edit:
25 June
This is only a small sample, constrained due to my limits on time. Here is a partial list of more articles that each has contributed to, often making the same or very similar edits. Please feel free to look through them to get an idea of the similarity in tone, style, and point of view:
An Anarchist FAQ],
Economics of fascism,
Anarcho-capitalism,
Bryan Caplan,
Laissez-faire,
Capitalism,
Anarchism and anarcho-capitalism,
Anarchism in the United States,
Template:Socialism sidebar,
Criticisms of socialism,
Talk:Wage labour,
Collectivism,
Anti-capitalism,
Corporatism,
Friedrich Hayek,
United States Postal Service,
Mixed economy,
Free market,
Property,
Altruism,
Natural rights,
Negative and positive rights,
List of anarchists.
In fact, the total number of edits to pages they hold in common is far greater than those to pages they do not. Yet, despite the fact that these two seem to have identical interests, edits, and political viewpoints, they have never engaged in so much as a " hello", with their only contact being to support one another on arbitration issues or deny that they were the same person.
To my knowledge use of a sockpuppet to circumvent a ban is a violation of wiki policy in itself, however I believe there is plenty of evidence that the sockpuppet itself is a violation of the rules on
It is important to note that when faced with a ban RJ eventually admitted what had previously been obvious to many, that his intent was to use "...advanced techniques of psychological warfare, including intimidation, and game theory. However, most importantly, most of our edits were not done through the RJII account but through multiple "sockpuppets" (from a seperate IP(s) for increased security against detection). Hence, the RJII account served largely to wear particular individuals down, pyschologically, who were judged to be enemies."
In addition he admits to having multiple sockpuppets already prepared and engaged in wikipedia, "In the meantime, the "sockpuppets," who evinced a somewhat amiable personality did not engage in personal attacks and other such disagreeable behavior that may have risked blocks by adminstrators, went about editing the encyclopedia... It is safe now for us to divulge that some of the sockpuppets will continue editing Wikipedia until at least the end of the year."
The edits of RJ and Vision Thing are so nearly identical, and so obviously from the same narrow POV, that it can't helped but be felt that RJIIs intent to be "successful in driving several individuals off of Wikipedia, or away from particular articles, who through their hands up in disgust (probably literally)" is being carried on via the account of Vision Thing. In the very unlikely case that Vision Thing is not a sock puppet of RJ he is a Meat Puppet, and is intent on carrying out the same explicitly stated goals of disrupting wikipedia and gaming the system.
This notice concerns RJII, a user who has been banned indefinately for a series of wiki violations and his own eventual admission of intent to abuse. Vision Thing is a user whose first edit occured on March 19, 2006. Because his first edit was to immediately initiate a discussion on a topic which had recently been the focus of user RJII, he was soon accused by user AaronS of being a sockpuppet. User InfinityO also suspected Vision Thing of being a sockpuppet, and requested a checkuser. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the RJ "project", as user Logical2u said on the checkuser page, "all accounts by the RJII "team" will likely be undectable and un-check-user-verifiable, due to "home" computers, etc."
Due to lack of evidence from usercheck, the case appears to have been dropped. However, I believe that subsequent edits by user Vision Thing have more than demonstrated his intimate connection to RJII. I have compiled an extensive list of identical edits made by user RJII and Vision Thing. Please note that in my time searching dozens of articles edited by these two accounts I never found a single instance in which either editor reverted or even openly disagreed with one another, despite a tendency by both accounts to engage in edit wars and reverts. When I first became suspicious of Vision Thing being a sockpuppet I attempted to inform twice. Despite making several other edits on his talk page in the meantime, both my attempts were ignored.
As evidence I would first like to note RJII's repeated insistance on indicating that the writers of the anarchist FAQ are "social anarchists". This is the very topic that Vision Thing first used as a subject of his first edit. The similarity of their edits can be seen from these examples by RJ,
which can be compared with this edit by Vision Thing after RJ was banned:
Such instances are not isolated. For example, RJ and Vision Thing inserted the same edits concerning David Friedman on medieval Iceland:
Vision Thing has made many of the same edits that RJ was formally known for inserting since RJ's ban. Benjamin Tucker's "capitalism is at least tolerable" is a quote originally introduced into several articles by RJ:
After RJ's ban it has been inserted into articles by Vision Thing:
Individualist anarchism "reborn", another quote originally inserted by RJ into the [anarchism] aritlce:
has since been championed by Vision thing after RJs ban:
Way back in January of 2005 RJ started posting many edits about the "U.S. Postal Service monopoly"
not surpirsingly, after RJ was banned nearly identical edits started coming from Vision Thing
And yet another instance again, before his ban RJ inserted the following edit into
Anti-capitalism: *
15 June
After RJs ban Vision Thing once again inserted an identical edit:
25 June
This is only a small sample, constrained due to my limits on time. Here is a partial list of more articles that each has contributed to, often making the same or very similar edits. Please feel free to look through them to get an idea of the similarity in tone, style, and point of view:
An Anarchist FAQ],
Economics of fascism,
Anarcho-capitalism,
Bryan Caplan,
Laissez-faire,
Capitalism,
Anarchism and anarcho-capitalism,
Anarchism in the United States,
Template:Socialism sidebar,
Criticisms of socialism,
Talk:Wage labour,
Collectivism,
Anti-capitalism,
Corporatism,
Friedrich Hayek,
United States Postal Service,
Mixed economy,
Free market,
Property,
Altruism,
Natural rights,
Negative and positive rights,
List of anarchists.
In fact, the total number of edits to pages they hold in common is far greater than those to pages they do not. Yet, despite the fact that these two seem to have identical interests, edits, and political viewpoints, they have never engaged in so much as a " hello", with their only contact being to support one another on arbitration issues or deny that they were the same person.
To my knowledge use of a sockpuppet to circumvent a ban is a violation of wiki policy in itself, however I believe there is plenty of evidence that the sockpuppet itself is a violation of the rules on
It is important to note that when faced with a ban RJ eventually admitted what had previously been obvious to many, that his intent was to use "...advanced techniques of psychological warfare, including intimidation, and game theory. However, most importantly, most of our edits were not done through the RJII account but through multiple "sockpuppets" (from a seperate IP(s) for increased security against detection). Hence, the RJII account served largely to wear particular individuals down, pyschologically, who were judged to be enemies."
In addition he admits to having multiple sockpuppets already prepared and engaged in wikipedia, "In the meantime, the "sockpuppets," who evinced a somewhat amiable personality did not engage in personal attacks and other such disagreeable behavior that may have risked blocks by adminstrators, went about editing the encyclopedia... It is safe now for us to divulge that some of the sockpuppets will continue editing Wikipedia until at least the end of the year."
The edits of RJ and Vision Thing are so nearly identical, and so obviously from the same narrow POV, that it can't helped but be felt that RJIIs intent to be "successful in driving several individuals off of Wikipedia, or away from particular articles, who through their hands up in disgust (probably literally)" is being carried on via the account of Vision Thing. In the very unlikely case that Vision Thing is not a sock puppet of RJ he is a Meat Puppet, and is intent on carrying out the same explicitly stated goals of disrupting wikipedia and gaming the system.