User talk:Giovanni33/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions about User:Giovanni33. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

This page is an archive. Please do not edit the contents of this page. Direct any additional comments to the current talk page.

"Ann calls her opponents enemies" and other claims in dispute

Claim that Ann calls her opponents enemies

Giovanni, you have claimed in various places that I call people who disagree with the Christian POV my "enemies". You followed me to WP:AN when, in a case completely unconnected to you, I was trying to convince another admin that, as a result of not knowing the full background, he had treated an editor too harshly (and he agreed with me and apologized to that editor); and you warned administrators to be very cautious when reading comments made "by such a partisan editor", and added for good measure that I call people with opposite POVs my enemies.[1] I didn't bother to respond there. Then Professor33 put in his letter to administrators, 'She has referred to [Giovanni33] as her "enemy."' (Strange that Professor33 would have the same piece of misinformation as you!) Then you put it in an e-mail to administrators, which you posted on your own talk page[2] Then (without mentioning me this time) you told Danny about editors who describe you as their "enemy". I have no doubt that you've repeated it in other private e-mails, and on IRC.

Quite frankly, I can't imagine that I would call people with opposite POVs my enemies. It doesn't sound at all like me. I do use the word opponents, as a quick and handy alternative to "people who oppose my edits", but you use that word too.[3] I recall that on one occasion, I sent SOPHIA a message, saying how much I appreciated the fact that she was always prepared to publicly agree with her opponents when it was possible to do so, and that it was nice to have "an honourable enemy with integrity". And I included a wink ;-) in case there might be any misunderstanding. SOPHIA and I have remained on very good terms, and I hope to meet her some day if she's ever in Ireland. The other message was when someone (now indefinitely banned) that you referred to as a "good editor" was huffing and puffing at the 3RR noticeboard that I should be banned (not just desysopped) for not blocking Str1977, who may or may not have violated 3RR (it was never established because, while demanding a block, that editor didn't bother to fill in a report with diffs), I sent Str a message and instead of signing with the tildes, I put "Your friend, who won't block you or her enemies", and wiki-linked it to my user page.[4]

I fail to see how either of those can be taken to mean that I refer to people with opposing POVs as my enemies, so if you have another diff, I'd very much like to see it. Otherwise, I'll have to take it as being on the same level as numerous other false claims you make. AnnH ♫ 15:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

If you now say that you do not regard your opponents who disagree with your POV as your enemies, then that is good enough for me not to ever say you do. I read that you used that term more than once, although I did not save it for posterity. You did not object to me before bringing up this point so I thought it correctly reflected the way you say people who disagree with your POV. Since I thought this was part of the problem, that is why I mention it. But, if you say that you do not think this way, then my apologies for miunderstanding what you previously wrote and I will not make this claim again.Giovanni33 07:40, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

It is not how I feel. Nor is it something I have ever said. AnnH ♫ 22:50, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Claim that Ann doesn't have a degree in linguistics

You made a claim on your talk page[5] and in an e-mail (to how many administrators?) that I don't have a degree in linguistics. That was a rather extraordinay claim to make. Several administrators have seen photos of my graduation day where I (same person as the photo that used to be on my user page) am holding Master's certificate, which clearly shows my name, and these admins all know my real name. They've also seen my Bachelor's certificate, and two diploma certificates — all clearly marked as being in Language or Linguistics. I think Str1977 could vouch for that also, as he once e-mailed me about something he needed to know about linguistics, and I sent him a long, detailed reply about stance adverbials, modal content disjuncts, and courtesy subjuncts. So one wonders what purpose it serves to make statements that can so easily be refuted. AnnH ♫ 15:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

This is based on reading that you are going to school and studying for classes, which I thought was linguistics. My understanding was that you were working towards your degree still. If I'm wrong about that, then I admit I am wrong and stand corrected. Thanks for correcting me. While I do not know for sure, I will accept your word in this matter (although I still think you give too much credence to linguistic analaysis as determinitive and defintitive). As far as making false statments that can be easily proven false, those are the best kind as I love to be corrected when wrong.Giovanni33 07:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Claim that your 3RR violations were when you didn't know the policy

Another claim that can easily be refuted is your claim (3RR "once or twice . . . in the very beginning"[6] or when you were "brand new and didn't know the policy at all".[7] Your first report shows evidence that you continued after you were fully aware of the rule, and that you simply ignored our warnings. You were first informed of the rule on 16 January,[8] then on 17 January,[9]. You were warned on 23 Janury[10] that you had reached your maximum number of reverts for that day, and BelindaGong made her first edit (revert to your version) twenty-three minutes later.[11] Later that day, you were warned twice more.[12] [13]. On 24 January, I told you that you had made ten reverts to Christianity, and I begged you to stop, telling you that I had never yet blocked or reported anyone for a 3RR violation but that you were putting yourself at risk of being blocked by another admin, and that 3RR blocks really do sour the atmosphere.[14] As a matter of fact, you had actually made ELEVEN reverts or partial reverts to that article between 1:31 and 18:51 UTC on 22 January.[15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]

I warned you again on 25 January in an edit summary,[26] and also on the Christianity talk page.[27] On 26 January, I warned you that you had made six reverts.[28] Later that day, I sent you another message with more information about the 3RR policy.[29] And on the same day, another administrator told you: "Begin by not reverting edits out of hand, especially not in violation of the three revert rule." He also told you that "The people you're insulting and reverting similarly have a history of having collaborated with editors with whom they disagree, and ultimately arriving at a mutually acceptable result."[30]

I finally reported you on 26 January, in the evening.

You violated 3RR on Georg Elser, on 22 February [31] [32] [33] [34] and Str1977 and I very kindly did not report you.[35] [36] You escaped a block at the end of March by pretending to be just reverting vandalism, but taking the opportunity of reinserting something that you were edit warring over, and which had not been in the version you said you were reverting to.[37]

You have also made four reverts at Adolf Hitler in May. [38] [39] [40] [41]. I told you about it on your talk page, but didn't report it. I thought it was possible that you hadn't seen the first one as a revert, but it was, because in the past you have been reverting Str1977's "totalitarian" to "fascist" in that article; you were just restarting an old edit war.

You were treated with a lot of generosity. I can't think of any case where someone has made so many violations (some of them massive) which were noticed but not reported. It is completely inaccurate to say that you only violated the rule when you were new and didn't know it. It's also unfair on those who reported you (suggesting that they took advantage of newbie ignorance), and of the admin who blocked you. AnnH ♫ 15:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

A very comprehensive report of long, long ago when I did first start. However, my statements are not as easily refuted as you seem to think. Simply being shown policy, does not necessarily mean I fully understood it, nor the culture of Wikipedia. My understanding of the policy was fully grasped around the time that I respected it, which was shortly after I joined WP. My following a rule only occurs after I understand its beneficial purpose and how things are to be done within WP. When it sinks in, and I see why its valid that I should be govered by the rule, I do abide by it. That is the case now, and it was shortly after I joined. I joined in Janurary, and after Janurary, I very rarely went over 3 reverts. I say throw out the history of the first month I joined as that is just training, learning curve. :)Giovanni33 07:51, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Claim that Ann reverts for Str1977 100% of the time

In your e-mail to blocking admins, you claim "She shows up anytime Str1977 needs support for an edit confict. I mean 100% of the time (whenver there is an edit confict they will both be there to support each other without exception)."[42] On the contrary, I do regularly leave the article in what I consider the "wrong" version while I'm online, and while I still have some reverts left. Nor is it true that I show up 100% of the time to revert for Str1977. If you look at the history of my contributions and of Positive Christianity, you'll see that you reverted Str1977 at 15 19 on 23 June, and I reverted back to his version (if it can be called that) at 12:39 the following day. I had been online a lot between his revert and mine, and had made 46 edits including one to the talk page of that article. Most of those edits had absolutely nothing to do with Str1977. After Professor33 reverted back to you (just after you were blocked and just before that account was), I left the article in that version although I had reverted just once in that 24-hour period (fourteen hours previously), and although I was online, and it was finally reverted back by Str1977 himself twenty-nine hours later. I can give other examples of being online, still "having some reverts left" (which is not how we should look at it), and leaving the article in the version that I didn't like. It often happened at the Abortion article, where GTBacchus, a pro-choice, lapsed Catholic administrator whom I admire very much for his behaviour on Wikipedia, appealed to editors to leave the article in the "wrong" version and come to the talk page. My last thousand article edits show three reverts to Str1977. Kecik has 40 reverts to you out of 45 article edits. He and MikaM follow you to unrelated articles to give you support. I don't follow Str1977. I know he sometimes meets with opposition at history articles, but I don't turn up to revert to his version, and I have never voted with him on any of those pages. I specifically stated that I would not revert in the case of his disagreement with you over "totalitarian" and "fascist", as I did not have an opinion on it myself, and I didn't join in to support him over whether Germany "triggered" or "started" the Second World War. Kecik and MikaM did revert for you on such issues, though, obviously logging on in order to support you on historical and political issues as well as theological ones. The articles where I supported Str1977 against you were articles which had been on my watchlist for months, or where another talk page that I contributed to linked to them. And, until after it was known that Professor33 had been blocked indefinitely for being a puppet of yours there was never an occasion on which Kecik or MikaM was known to be online, on which you had run out of reverts and been reverted, and on which one of them just edited other articles and left alone the one where you had been reverted. In other words, what you falsely claim about me and Str1977 is true in the case of Kecik and MikaM.

I would say that close to 100% of my non-vandalism reverts are reverts to something that Str1977 would approve of (though I reverted you at God before Str1977 did, when you were trying to add unencyclopaedic "create-your-own-God-it's-fast-easy-and-fun" links). But it still remains a very small percentage of my total contributions. I had an average of less than one revert per day, before you appeared and began to say that Galileo was tortured, that Hitler received the sacraments devoutly, that Christianity was a self-professed monotheisitc religion based on stories about a character, that transubstantiation evolved from pagan cannabalistic rites, etc. Since you and the Professor33 account were blocked at the end of June, I'm now back down to less than one revert per day — much less, in fact. The pages where I was reverting to Str1977's version (genearlly less than 4% of my article edits, and much less than 4% of my total edits) happen to be pages where you were trying to enforce your edits, by fair means and foul. Bear in mind, also, that Str1977 and I both have a history of regularly editing articles that are not in any way religious or political or connected to our POVs, that we both have a much lower "average edits per page" count than you (a high count often indicates that someone is at Wikipedia with an agenda), and that we did not know of each other's existence when we first joined. AnnH ♫ 15:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Claim that Giovanni allowed Ann to self revert rather than reporting her

As you have claimed in various places that I violated 3RR (on "numerous" occasions?), and that you gave me an opportunity to revert myself, whereas I reported you, I will reply to that. Yes, it is absolutely true that I violated 3RR on two occasions. As I have said, before you arrived at Wikipedia, my revert record (other than for vandalism) was below one per day. I had been on Wikipedia for several weeks and had made about seventy edits when I first reverted, whereas you began to revert the very first time your edits were reverted. Everyone's revert average went up when you arrived. I was lucky not to be blocked, just as you were lucky at least eight times when I didn't report you. Your "kindness" in not reporting me (if it's true) for my first (and only) two violations, compared with my "nastiness" in reporting you (when I hadn't reported your first four or five and when I subsequently deliberately overlooked three more) should be weighed against the fact that you would make a sixth revert after you had been told you had made five (so you couldn't possibly have been unaware of it), whereas my fourth reverts happened when the article had been edited so much that a 24-hour period could not even be seen on the same page and therefore it was possible to miss one edit when checking to see how many times I had reverted. I don't make any excuses, as I should have been more careful, but it's a lot better than your eleven reverts in less than nineteen hours despite pleas and warnings.

However, let's look and see if you really were as kind as you claim. The record shows that I made a fourth revert to Christianity, and that after I had self reverted[43] (and after I and the others had given you numerous chances before reporting you for the first time), you went straight to Tznkai's page (he was the admin who had blocked you, and you may not have known about WP:AN/3RR at that stage) and reported me,[44] saying that you thought the rules should apply equally to everyone, and that I was a possible meat puppet for Str1977. (This was at a time when you and Belinda were pretending not to know each other, and when Belinda had posted that she couldn't stand "hypocracy [sic.] and dishonesty".[45]) Tznkai was away at the time, and by the time he got back, it was too late to block. It's most unusual to block someone for 3RR a day or two later. At that stage, you posted something saying that since I said it was an accident, you were going to assume good faith and request that I not be blocked! On the second occasion, I was reported immediately by Bengalski,[46] so you had no need to report. What you did was to revert me,[47] thereby taking away my chance to revert myself. There are administrators (and, indeed, editors) who never go near the boundaries, and therefore can't accidentally violate the rule. Kelly Martin is one, GTBacchus is another. I think Tony Sidaway might be a third. I respect them very much for it, but I don't claim to equal them in that regard. I do claim to have had an average of less than one revert per day before you and your puppets turned up, and it's nice to be back at that average again. AnnH ♫ 15:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Warnings

Please see my talk page for a proposed resolution. If you agree, please just delete this section. Killfest2—Daniel.Bryant 08:58, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Done

I've archived your page. You can find your old discussions at User talk:Giovanni33/Archive1. I'll add one of those neat little archive boxes in a moment. Happy editing! Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 08:41, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Michael. It is appreciated. It was getting far too large. Giovanni33 08:48, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

3RR on your user page

Giovanni, you have reverted seven times on your user page in less than 24 hours.

I'm a little puzzled at your edit summary saying that a compromise was reached with another admin.[48] Since you posted on User talk:Danny about this issue, and since I know that you subsequently returned to that page after I had posted there, you must have seen where Daniel assures Danny that he hadn't been pretending to be an admin — that you had just made a mistake in thinking that he was.[49] I have no doubt that you have also seen my message to Daniel where I explain why the standard tag is appropriate.[50] To summarize it here: it is indeed confirmed that you used puppets in two cases, and suspected in about ten other cases. Even if you are speaking the truth in saying that BelindaGong and Freethinker99 are separate people, those accounts were used in violation of the WP:SOCK policy, so the labelling is perfectly appropriate. There is absolutely no possibility of an honest mistake — that you simply didn't know that it wasn't okay to ask people you know in real life to join Wikipedia for the purpose of supporting you, since we repeatedly referred you to the WP:SOCK policy which explains that meatpuppetry is very much frowned upon. And you have admitted that you pretended not to know BelindaGong — that pretence would hardly have been necessary if you hadn't known you were violating policy. The administrators Mindspillage, Jdavidb, and Angela don't have to pretend not to know their spouses/partners, because they're not using those accounts to violate policy. The confirmed puppet accounts were used abusively. Period. They abused our trust and Wikipedia policy. Therefore they are abusive puppet accounts.

As for your reviving of that stale accusation that I "did the same thing" in joining Wikipedia, have you forgotten that you were blocked for disruption when you repeatedly posted that to an admin noticeboard?[51] [52] [53] [54] It's not going to impress anyone, because nobody is going to think that seeing an online invitation to join Wikipedia (provided you are prepared to follow the rules and respect NPOV), posted by someone you don't know and have never encountered before online, and responding to that invitation, never editing any article at the same time as the person who made that post, never reverting to his version, and discovering months later that he was the person who posted the invitation, is the same as having your wife suddenly turn up with "rv to better version. I've been following in talk page"[55] just fifteen minutes after you had been told that you had reached your maximum number of reverts,[56] and making five reverts within a few hours. Nor will anyone think that it's the same as sitting beside a friend at the computer and showing him which buttons to press in order to reinsert stuff that you had been pushing for, and which had been removed by other editors, while you yourself were blocked for puppetry. You don't harm me by bringing that up; you just harm yourself.

Finally, not for my sake, but for your own, can I refer you to this section of the WP:3RR policy. Note that contrary to what people think, reverts in your user space are not exempt from 3RR the way self reverts, vandalism reverts, etc. are; rather the rule is "generally not enforced" in such cases, except in the case of editors identified as sockpuppets by administrators, the arbitration committee, or developers, where the sockpuppet tag is continually removed from the user page by the user. The 3RR rule may be enforced in these situations." In case you're unaware of it, there are over a dozen administrators who have idenitifed you as a puppeteer. I imagine that it would be very frustrating to be blocked yet again for removing the tag from your user page, so on this occasion, I don't intend to report it. I just want you to be aware that you may be blocked if you continue. Regards. AnnH ♫ 07:39, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out this policy. But it doesnt apply here since I'm not removing the suspected socketpuppet tag at all, im reverting one socket-puppet tag for another socket puppet tag. Thus there is no removal of the tag per se, as described by policy. This revert is thus about content of what the tag says exactly. I'm reverting innacruate information that says that I have confirmed abusive socks. Your interpretation of abusive is novel, and not what most people think--and not what I think it means. So I revert it out of accuracy and restore the more resonable label--even thought that label is unjust as well. These two "puppets" (not really puppets) were confirmed how long ago? Getting close to a year now? But all of a sudden only NOW do you want to harass me with it on my user page? Why is that? Because I've ignored the harassing labels elsewhere? And you know I'm in the middle of seeing a resolution with the foundation member regarding this issue, so why not let it go until a resolution is arrived at? Why must you edit war on my user page now? And, no, I'm not trying to make you look bad (but I do note that your thinking this reflects that you think it makes you look bad). I'm not really interested what others think--they can and will think what they will think--so much as what the truth is and that I defend myself against untruths as far as my abilities go so as to allow the truth in the thinking of others to have a chance of being known in my own defense.Giovanni33 07:51, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Gio, you are indeed removing the tag, replacing it with something quite similar but not quite the same. The tag is an official label and should not be tampered with (even if the one-size-fits-all-puppeteers did not fit your case totally. You complained about this in regard to abusiveness and there is certainly much more abusive behaviour on WP, but still your behaviour in IMHO and in the opinion of a dozen admins and many fellow Wikipedians falls into the category of abuse nonetheless.) Imagine you being annoyed at one element of your passport, e.g. because your eyes are not grey but blueish-grey - you cannot just fabricate a similar piece of paper. It would still be fraudulent. Hence the tag will and must stay. Ann has informed you about the extent of the 3RR policy in this case and you acknowledge it, so you be assured that you will not be able to claim ignorance if reported for that. Good day, Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 09:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Gio, I hope you understand the thin ice you are treading on (read above). Also mind WP:NPA regarding this edit summary: [57] Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 09:32, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Your analogy is false. These labels are not official gov. documents but are flexible and able to be mofified according to an accurate description and purpose. Note that AnnH has herself modified the label on Professor33, after he complained how the standard one said things which were not true or fair. So its false to say that one fits all governs the nature of labels here. The tag is a socketpuppet tag. This tag I did not remove. If I did I'd remove the whole tag. Its only the false wording of 'abusive" which must and can not stand for I have no confirmed abusive puppets by most conventional understanding of the word. This is merely an way to further disparage my reputation to anyone who visits my page. Lastly, I have not altered this tag--someone else did who AGREED that it was wrong and not accurate. I revert to his version of this tag without removing this tag, and thus do not fall under policy AnnH describes above. Thin ice? Yes, it is thin but so is the case being made against me.Giovanni33 19:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

You have been blocked for 24 hours. Edit warring is not acceptable, regardless of what you're edit warring over. You have been reverted by several people... are you incapable of admitting that you might be wrong? As an aside, if x = "suspected", x = "suspected or confirmed" is as true as x = "suspected". --Lord Deskana (talk) 19:57, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

This is an abuse of your admin privleges since you are using it to gain an advantage in this content dispute. You are a party of this dispute, of this "edit warring" on my user page--so why are you doing the blocking? Isn't there a rule agaisnt that? You blocked me for 24 hours so you can get your version and keep my version (favored by others who placed it there) out (at least for 24 hours and also to keep me from editing any articles as a practical effect). Is this not a blatant misuse of your blocking powers as an admin?Giovanni33 20:34, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Gio, come on, be a man and admit you're wrong. Ann pointed the rules out to you I twice warned you above that you would be reported and subsequently blocked. You shouldn't be surprised that it happened after all. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 20:39, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

You edit warring with about 5 editors is of course accepted by Wikipedia policy. You were wasting people's time (perhaps it's poetic justice that this block wastes some of yours as a side effect). You were edit warring, you got blocked. Go figure. That's really all there is to it. Scream admin abuse as much as you want; perhaps I'm flattered that people care enough to hate me! --Lord Deskana (talk) 20:44, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I also suggest you try not to think of your userpage as "content". Userpages are a side note to the encyclopedic content; a means to an end. I very much doubt the term "content dispute" was coined with the intention it could be applied to userspace. Not that I've done anything wrong, mind. --Lord Deskana (talk) 20:47, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Can you point to some policy that says content on user pages is not content? You can't have it both ways. If 3RR applies here then so does the rule that if you are an involved party ot the 3RR dispute you can not be the blocking agent which gives you an advantage in the dispute.Giovanni33 20:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't hate anyone. I do hate injustice of which this is a prime example. Both of you make comments not related to the issue I raise. This issue is your involving with this edit war (takes two to edit war, no?). And, your blocking me to gain an advantage here. This is a violation of rules of conduct of an admin. Plain and simple. You have given no defense to this. Care to try again?

Str, I am a man, I have no choice to "become or not become one." Also, its a bit sexist to suggest that to "not be a man" is to not be able to admit one is wrong. That is your clear implication, no? Ann did point out the rules to me and I pointed out to you and her that the rule did not pertain to this situation. You attempted to make the case that it did, but I refuted your argument. Also, I never claimed surprise. I do have the ability to anticpate certain outcomes, however I act according to principal no matter the outcome for me personally. Truth and doing the right thing are more important than "saving myself." If I will be a martyr then so be it.Giovanni33 20:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I shall repeat what I have said: You were edit warring, you got blocked. Go figure. I suggest you learn from this matter, and drop it for fear of humiliating yourself. No further comments from me regarding this matter. --Lord Deskana (talk) 20:57, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

And you were edit waring with me and you did the blocking. Don't leave out that important part. You can repeat yourself but does nothing to alter the argument made against your action: namely you are a party to this edit conflict and therefore should not have been the one to block me, which objectively gives you the advantage to get the version you want. No further comments because you don't have a counter argument to make. But you are not willing to admit you are wrong? I wont go as far as you did by implying a lack of ability to admit your wrong. But wrong you are as the truth of the argument remains unaltered.Giovanni33 21:01, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Since you had reverted seven times in that 24-hr period when Deskana appeared on the scene, and since there were already warnings on your talk page, he could easily have blocked you immediately, and the tag would have been quickly replaced, so the block did not give him any advantage. That said, I think we could come to an agreement that if all the puppetry ceases, the tag can be removed. AnnH ♫ 23:02, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Gio, I remember that I explained this once to you before, but I may repeat it here: dispute is not refute. Not that I can see any profound reasoning here, so it's not actually attempted refutation. In fact, your "refutation" has been refuted by your block.

Since Gio you self-identify as a male human being, or short: man, I may appeal to live up to the best you can be, a man, and be just that: a man (I didn't talk about becoming a man).

If you were a woman, I might say something different, more appropriate to the the female gender, but since you are not a woman (at least most of the time, some of your puppets are not clearly identified gender-wise.hehe) that is of no concern to you.

Also, now that I think about it, women are men too, at least in the English language.

And note that I didn't suggest that to "not be a man" is to not be able to admit one is wrong. I wrote that "to be a man" includes admitting one's mistake. So much for your clear implication. I thought you were "Mr Logic" but appearently you fail to notice how that logical connection works. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 21:25, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Refutation stands unrefuted. The block does not touch the merits of the argument. ITs not a refutation. I showed, logically, how your analogy is fallacious. That is a refutation, which you have no responded to. Thus, your argument stand refuted by my argument. Also, 'profound reasoning" is not required to refute a weak argument.:)

You said "be a man." This implies that its a condition I have control over, as if one can choose to become one or not become one. Infact, it is a sexist phrase that attributes possitive attributes to "manliness," which implies a lackthereof for women. Hence, it is a sexist term. The organization of which you are a proud member of is very aquianted with practices of sexism (not to mention homophobia) to this day. Do you deny this? In anycase, I object to that phrase. If you really meant it as "dont be non-human,' then I also object for its negative commentary on our fellow species.Giovanni33 21:47, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I have now found the posting you claimed to be a refutation and I almost had to laugh! Is that your argument? That Ann (who's an admin BTW) changed your tag over at Professor, according to his request? That is exactly the difference: over there Professor went to the officials to institute the change to his "passport", if I may apply my analogy. You, Gio, just did it yourself.

Your other pontification are not very sophisticated. I could twist your comment to the effect that you love animals and plants more than human beings, which also would sit fine with your apologetics for that genocide Mao. Also, I wonder why "homophobia" is worse than sexism. You can object all you want but that is what I said and there's nothing wrong with it. Hugh I have spoken! Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 07:55, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, you almost laughed whereas I really did laugh when I read your postings here. Your claim was that the tag was one fit all. It could not be changed. This is proven false by the fact that the Professor's tag was changed based on his complaint. I made a similar complaint and it was changed, too--not be me. I did not make that change. Someone else, who is neutral, agreed with with and made the change. These facts refute your "one fits all," 'can't be changed' notion of these types of labels.

How can you twist my argument that I love animals more than humans? I'd like to see that. I don't believe you can twist such a meaning from my comments. First of all humans are animals, second of all my objection was to your sexist use of the term "be a man.' My point is that even if you wish to wiggle out with a strange interpretation that you meant it to mean 'human," and not "male," then its still objectionable as you are degrading other animals by attributing negative traits (which wouldn't make sense anyway, and makes your ostensive intended comment rather nonsensical and illogical). But, nice try. Lastly, when did I say that homophobia is worse than sexism? Why do you make things up? I never made such a claim. Both are equally bad as is all bigotry, of which the organization you are so proud of and defend, is still guilty of perpetrating to this day. But since you defend its most bloody adventures like the Crusades, then I would not be suprirsed. Voltaire was right about this organization of yours, btw.Giovanni33 05:27, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I never claimed that I meant "human", only that you never entertained that possibility. Since I have no doubt about you being male I think I am free to expect to to behave according to the best of the male specimen. But apparently you are not ... and you are free to do so. Another lesson for me.

"not to mention" in my book implies that the following element is worse than the preceding.

Strange, how you always harp on my defense of the crusades, when my position was quite nuanced (but that word is probably foreign to you), which BTW weren't nearly as bloody as you think them to be. All that while defending one of the really big mass murderers of all time (yes, I am talking about the man from Shaoshan). Even Voltaire wouldn't have defended that (I hope). Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 09:52, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Re:my user page

Giovanni, you know full well the answer to your question and I'm not going to waste my time explaining what has already been repeatedly explained to you. And yes, I do know the "full scope of the nature of this." I'm sorry but I refuse to believe that someone like Ann is "motivated by political and ideological content disputes" or that she is harassing you. She is merely trying to get you to edit within policy and guidelines. Please leave the tag intact. Thanks, Sarah Ewart (Talk) 06:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Then you must know Ann personaly and know her motivations for this? Since you say its to get me to "edit within policy and guidelines" then pretell, how is sticking this rather insulting label on my user page accomplish this? Nevermind the fact that I already DO edit within all policy and guidlines. I'd love an answer to this question. And, no, its never been explained. If you are going to waste your time edit warring on my page on her behalf, then its no waste at all explaining your rationale, which may lead you to not doing the real waste of time which is posting this label back in that unjustified form. Notice that the confirmed 'puppets" which I have explained are not really puppets, are very dated, close to 8 months ago. Yet only NOW is there a need to harass me with a false and degrading label on my talk page? Explain the timing, of this, as well, perhaps.Giovanni33 06:28, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I do not know Ann personally, but I have seen enough of her and the way she conducts herself to know that she is not as you characterise her.
I am not acting for or on behalf of anyone.
I would have to disagree with your assertion that you edit within policy and guidelines. Your block log alone testifies against that.
I am sorry but I do not understand what you mean by "pretell, how is sticking this rather insulting label on my user page accomplish this?" I do not know what "pretell" means and it is not in my dictionary or any online dictionary that I can find. So I am unable to answer that question.
I do not feel it is necessary for me to explain the rationale behind the tag placement because I have seen it explained to you in great detail many, many times by numerous different people. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 09:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, thanks for attempting to answer. But spelling it in the conventional "prey tell," does not make the question impossible to undertand and that is the heart of the matter: the answer that question: How is this label forced upon my user page that alleged "abusive" puppets (defended as "abuse of trust") does anything to accomplish the stated goal of making me "edit within policy and guidelines?" Esp. when you consider the fact that it purports to make a claim that is about 8 months old and yet only now is deemed necessary to affront my user page with this scarlet letter? Again, I'd love to hear a logical answer to this question.Giovanni33 09:12, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Giovanni, the sockpuppet policy says an identified sockpuppet/eer should be tagged accordingly. You were identified under criteria 4, "a confirmed Checkuser." I know you contest this finding, however, the fact remains you meet the criteria for labelling under the policy. By breaching 3RR to remove the tag, you are acting outside policy.

Regarding "abusive" puppets, the policy gives the following examples of abuse: "a person voting more than once in a poll, or using multiple accounts to circumvent Wikipedia policies or cause disruption." This you did. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 10:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

P.S. [58]

Blocked

I have blocked you for 1 week for edit warring and trolling usertalk pages.--MONGO 09:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

That is absurd. What edit warring? Did I violate any 3RR, after my 24 hour block? No. Did I even change or remove the false label, again since it was restored? No. I put a statement under it, in my own defense. And for this you block me a week? Trolling user talk pages? Where? What trolling? This is plainly unjust and I contest this block.Giovanni33 09:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

You didn't violate 3RR straight after your block, but you did revert three times in a little over an hour. Remember I told you on various occasions that people with a history of edit warring can be blocked on fewer than four. It's never a good idea to do the same revert just after a 3RR block expires. AnnH ♫ 13:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

As much as {{{1}}} is a lovely reason to get unblocked, you might find a great many people will not agree with your logical reasoning. --Lord Deskana (talk) 09:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Email I just sent the blocking admin: "You have have blocked me for a 1 week "for edit warring and trolling usertalk pages." With all due respect I find that absurd, and ask for clarification. What edit warring? Did I violate any 3RR, after my 24 hour block? No. Did I even change or remove the false label again since it was restored, last? No. Instead I put a statement under it, in my own defense about what I thought of that false label. This indicates I'm leaving it there and not edit warring. And for this you block me a week? Trolling user talk pages? Where? What trolling? This is plainly unjust and I contest this block. I ask to you clarify these charges.Giovanni33 09:59, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to believe that a week vacation for you is in the best interests of Wikipedia. Personally, I wouldn't argue if someone extended the block to indefinite based on exhausting the community's patience.--MONGO 10:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm changing reason? At least "exhausting communties patience' is a little more creative. I take it this is an admision that the stated reason given origianlly is not correct? So now its comes down to an alleged lack of "patience,'--an emotive reason to justify blocking? Where is the strong community conensus that the guidline stipulates as a requirement for invoking this policy? Infact it says "should never be enacted based on agreement between a handful of admins or users." Giovanni33 10:12, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

No reason was changed...you have been edit warring about the sock tags...you come back from a block and resume this behavior. You have been trolling usertalk pages, trying to provoke a response. The indef block is the one that requires a large concensus...I have only blocked you for a week and that was after at least one other admin thought it was time for a community ban.--MONGO 10:22, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah but you stated your view, inviting others to extend the block to indefinite per your rationale above, citing this policy. So, this is your view, even if not your own action (yet), referencing the policy, but yet in violation of its actual requirments as it fails to meet the requisites at this time. To advocate a tolerance for an action in refence to a policy as the basis of the action, but at the same time which violates the standards of the very policy itself is problematic. In essence it comes down to "free free to violate policy to block this guy."

You say I'm trolling because I'm trying to provoke a response? How is that trolling. Ofcourse, If I communicate honestly and sincerely something I would want and expect a response along the same lines. Is not all communication predicated upon exactly that--provoking a response? Indeed, without a response there is scarely any communication! No, trolling is when an action is taken without any sincerity, without any purpose other than creating a situation for its own sake absent of genuine exchange given the subject matter. This I did not do. If anything my commuications have been quite serious even if at at time jovial and light hearted. Shouldnt you assume good faith given my intentions? I know you say your not inclinded to accept the veracity of my claims. But, your also not inclined even to look at, review, or accept the evidence I have which, if reivewed, would be hard for you to mainting your stance of 'not inclinded to believe" the charge of confirmed socketpuppet is my wife. As I said many times this can be proved but those who are pushing this vendetta have no interest in the truth of the matter or the evidence. Do you find yourself in this camp? To act on the basis of a belief requires at a minimum that the actor be willing to reivew, consider and look at all the evidence offered, esp. from the side of the accused. Otherwise, what we have is old fashioned prejudice at work here. Prejudice has no place, least of all, in wikipedia.

The behavior you said I continued ignores the fact that I discontinued and instead left my own note under the false tag on my user page. It was only then that I was blocked. This seems to be an act against free speech. A punishment for speaking in my defense. On this basis, as well, this block serves as a grave injustice to important principals which should never be ignored, even when they can be.Giovanni33 11:22, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

So, none of the suspected accounts listed here are yours? It seems that MikaM (talk · contribs) and CleanSocks (talk · contribs) have both been interested in removing the sock tags from the other sock accounts lately...just as you did from the same accounts on August 2, 2006. Yes, it's my recommendation that you be indefinitely blocked.--MONGO 11:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I've been following what's been going on here, and IMHO, the template should not say "abusive sockpuppets" unless anyone can point to diffs about the "sockpuppets" being abusive. As for extending the block to indefinite, the very block of text that you cited earlier even states "Administrators who block in these cases should be sure that there is widespread community support for the block", and I have not seen any widespread support. [59] Oh, and Gio, probably not a good idea to revert your user page if you ever get unblocked :D Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 11:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I blocked for a week...not an indefinite block and I am well aware of the policy on this issue. Not one of the socktemplates that are on linked by the link I posted above has an "abusive sockpuppet" tag...what are you talking about?--MONGO 12:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I think Michael and Giovanni are referring to the {{sockpuppeteer}} tag on Giovanni's user page. Giovanni says first that he's never used puppets, and secondly that the ones that were accused of being his puppets were not abusive. Giovanni, there are two confirmed puppets, and while I'd agree that they didn't use foul language, or engage in the kind of personal attacks that we got from Alienus, FuelWagon, Thewolfstar, or Robsteadman, they were used abusively, in abuse of the policy on sockpuppetry, and they abused our trust. The word abusive on that tag is not linked to WP:NPA but to the section of the WP:SOCK policy, which explains how puppets are not to be used. Also, one of the suspected puppets was abusive. I'm talking about HK30, who turned up and began to revert aggressively to your version of Christianity. He was blocked indefinitely, not for being your puppet (although evidence indicates he was) but for posting links to a website that gave personal information about other Wikipedians, asking one of the victims of that site if he had a photo, and following round another editor who was trying to remove the links and reverting her. You defended him here and here and only decided to be upset at being linked to such a "bad" user after the indefinite ban had been ratified by other administrators and after your own behaviour was under scrutiny. AnnH ♫ 12:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

What is the evidence linking me to this user? Or any of the other users? Its all "linguistic." People who have recieved all your evidence about this have concluded that its not strong as you claim but weak, and "not earth shattering." Its not fair that I suffer the indignaties for the ability of others to copy me. If there is proof of a connection then that would be one thing but the otherwise its another matter. And why the label on my user page? What good does that do? And why only now? Why raise an issue that is based on something close to a year old?Giovanni33 12:58, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I started a new section below, to answer some of those questions, as this section is getting too long. But I'll comment here on your claim that people who have received all my evidence say that it's "weak" and "not earth shattering". Kelly Martin, who presumably knew nothing about your history of puppetting and edit warring, commented here that the secondary evidence connecting Professor33 to you was weak. At that stage, she had not seen any of the linguistic evidence. I have since e-mailed it to her, and have not heard back from her. The weak evidence she was referring to was that posted by Wikibofh — user name, the fact that Professor reverted to your version after you had been blocked, and that you edited similar articles in similar ways. I very much doubt that she examined all his contributions and all your recent contributions in depth. But whether or not she did, she was commenting on Professor, before seeing the linguistic evidence, and she was not commenting on Kecik, MikaM, HK30, etc. The other case is that of the admin Wikibofh. He commented here that he had seen the evidence, and that it was nothing earth shattering, but that my rationale was perfectly reasonable. In fact, he had not seen the report, which is pages long, and comes with lots of diffs and refers to HK30's deleted edits. As far as I remember, I had sent him a short e-mail, giving him a few pointers, without diffs, and asking would he like me to send the full report. I can't recall how much I told him, but I know I sent it through the "e-mail this user" feature, not through Outlook Express, and that I kept it short. He did not ask for further information. So far, nobody who has seen the report has concluded that the evidence is anything less than compelling. AnnH ♫ 15:56, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I changed my mind about reverting the tag and instead decided to post a polemic under the tag. It was this sign that I was not going to fall into the trap by continuing to revert the 'abusive" wording, which explains the timing of this block, IMHO. Likewise, the tag itself put on my user page only after I decided I was going to ignore, and stop reverting the tag elsewhere. What else explains these timings? Giovanni33 11:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Mongo, just as several others users have been intersted in keeping the tags on these users user pages. But we do not claim they are puppets of each other based on this agreement of action. They have their reasons, as separate individuals, for putting on the labels, just as these user--as separate individuals--have reasons for removing it, expressed as an agreement of action. It doesnt mean they are me any more than Str1977 is ML. I do not have socketpuppets. The two confirmed users by usercheck are distinct, separate people--thus not "me," not "puppets." Again, you ignore not only logic but appeals for you to even look at the proof of my claims, to reivew the evidence, instead of just having inclinations "not to not believe," so you can continue to recommend an indefinite block? A willingness to sentence and judge without willingness to look at basis of such judgement amounts to bigotry and prejudice. You are better than that.Giovanni33 11:47, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

You must have me mistaken to be a fool. These sock accounts all edit the same articles you do, with the same style of wording...with the same effort to remove the sock tags, quickly moving from one tagged account to another. It's so obvious a blind man can see it.--MONGO 12:07, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, sometimes a blind person can see the truth better than a sighted one. What is too obvious sometimes is not always the truth. Its like saying, its so obvious that the earth is still, while the sun moves accross the sky. Why am I being punished for the actions of others, solely on the basis that they adopt similar language, or edit on common articles? If they follow me and do that, which I have no control over, why do you persecute me and hold me responsible? By your logic, all I have to do is create an account, follow you around, adopt your vernacular, and support your POV, then someone can claim 'do you take me for a fool? You have abusive socketpuppets! Community ban time!" It is so easy. But is that justice? If you claim I am them, as a matter of fact, instead of them being either impersonators, or simply other users who share a similar POV (I think both classes exist), then you need solid evidence, not negative, bad-faith speculations, prompted by people who edit war with me over content dispute, who regard me as the "enemy." This is informed with extreme bias. So, no, I don't think you are a fool. I think you are acting unjust and ask you to change and be just. When you refuse to look at the evidence, to consider my explanations, my proof (which Im still willing to show anyone who want to see), and at the same time remain so sure of yourself based on circumstancial evidence, it is all consistent with prejudice. You do not have an open mind. Contrast this with Daniel, who observed both sides of the argument and comes up with the following reasonable questions, compared to your response:

"Gio feels he was blocked unfairly. He was warned for 3RR, and hence stopped doing it. Instead he published a prose explaining, in all coherancy with Wikipedia policy, why he felt that the template was not justified. He asks that he be unblocked. Daniel.Bryant 09:55, 8 August 2006 (UTC)"

"I'm inclined to believe that a week vacation for Giovanni33 is in the best interests of Wikipedia. Personally, I wouldn't argue if someone extended the block to indefinite based on exhausting the community's patience.--MONGO 10:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)"

"Honestly, have you acknowledged his explinations? About his wife and how he was at a friends house? The claim about his wife as a confirmed sock is pretty vaild, in my opinion - it's not uncommon for people who are in a relationship to share the same ideals and discuss what they have done during the day, which would have ultimately lead to her finding Gio's edits (like my girlfriend, who I'm not going to disclose the username of in fear of being blocked as a meatpuppet). I am inclined to be suspicious about the friend explination, but the current circumstantial evidence which has been used to prove he is a sockpuppet master is a bit flimsy in the light of these explinations. Daniel.Bryant 10:10, 8 August 2006 (UTC):

"Checkuser confirmed two sock accounts....I'm not inclined to believe that the accounts were his wife's or anyone elses. I have watched this situation for six months and am well aware of the ongoing issues.--MONGO 10:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)"

Well, alrighty then...I guess I'm blind, bigoted and prejudiced. One more insult and we'll have to either seek a community banning or take this to arbcom.--MONGO 13:12, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Notice you did not respond to the merits of the argument with any argument or attempted refutation. Rather we only have sarcasm with a futher threat. To say you pre-judge a situation and state correctly that you refuse to even consider my evidence is not a matter of insult, but an accurate description of the reality, and the problem with your behavior in this regard, which culminates with an abuse of your admin powers, perpetrating an unreasoned injustice. Also, notice that your claim here is not even accurate. I did not call you blind. You said even a blind person can see, etc. My response was "Well, sometimes a blind person can see the truth better than a sighted one." So clearly what I said is that you are NOT blind, but that you can not see the truth. I point out that seeing the truth has nothing to do with being sighted or blind. Get it? Giovanni33 13:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

What merits are you talking about? The problem with my behavior? Abuse of admin powers? You have provided zero evidence that you have not utilized sock accounts to circumvent 3RR, to try and build concensus by employing multiple accounts or that you haven't been using not only this account but others to remove sock tags that have been placed on your various sock accounts. Exactly who do you think you're fooling? Nothing you have presented at any time is proof that there is anyone using these accounts other than yourself.--MONGO 13:28, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, so now its guilty until proven innocent? Its hard to prove a negative but I can prove that the "confirmed by user check" account is indeed my wife. You said you don't believe me, but you have failed to respond to my williness to prove it. Her user name happens to be her real name, as my name is my real name. So the question is are you willing to be proven wrong? Or will you refuse to look at the evidence? Or, will you simply say that it doesnt matter that she is not my socketpuppet, that even she is a real different, separate and equal person, the mere fact that she is my wife with similar interest and POV means that she is not to be counted as a person and rea person but is to be banned, along with a tag saying falsely that she is a socketpuppet--as those who would love to see me gone would have it? And, I have yet to hear whta this issue of so many month ago (8?) has such import now in terms of sticking this label on my user page, along with other users, some who are seem to be invented for the purpose.Giovanni33 13:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, Gio, but you have been found guilty countless times. And yes, if you ask for the verdict to be overturned that doesn't invalidate the verdict. Your block log will not erradicated! Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 13:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

And since you don't get I will explain it again to you:

No one here disputes that Belinda is a real life person. So don't bother trying to prove that. Consider, I could log out right now and register an account under the name "Giovanni N..." - but that wouldn't make me you. WP has no means of telling whether it was you or Belinda who registered the Belinda account and whether you or she posted (all or some of) its messages. Therefore, what counts under Wikirules is that that two accounts share one IP and one acts as a puppet of the other. Both are shown to be the case beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Also the tag doesn't say that the RL person Belinda is you - it says that Belinda's account and yours are puppets under wikirules. In case you wondered, in RL there is no Str1977. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 14:05, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Wrong on all counts Str. Mongo has said he does not beleive it, as have many others. The fact that I've stated my willingness to prove otherwise scares you and AnnH because you realize you may be wrong, so you do not wish to rest your argument on this fact, but at the same time you want to pretend she is a really me, prending to be her, a puppet. Can't have it both ways. If Belinda is a real different person then she is not a puppet by deffinition and this CAN be proved. Wikipedia is made of people, and people can be shown the reality. We do not have to assume that appearences of reality is the reality. Lastly if you register an account and act like my puppet then, again, why would I be held accountable in any way for YOUR actions?
Wrong that I have been found guilty counless times. Accusations of guilt to not equate to validity of the accusation. "Found" here implies the chrages have been proved, shown to be correct by the evidence. The evidence is based on user checks which have other legitmiate explanations which I am able to prove. Your countless times is only in your wishes. The verdict being overturned doesnt invlidate the verdict, rather the verdict is invalid and therefore it should be overturned.Giovanni33 14:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, people have no legal right to free speech here, nor does the site have to be run on a "guilty until proven innocent" regime, nor do the administrators of the site have to offer any sort of explanation for banning people. I'm not saying any of these are true for Wikipedia, but I think it's important to bear in mind. --Lord Deskana (talk) 14:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

All truisms, but whats important to keep in mind is how they are important principals and values which should never be ignored, even in wikipedia unless there is a very good reason to do so (and that reason is not to commit injustices like that which is being committed against me now).Giovanni33 14:07, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Blocked Part Two - section getting too long

I'm answering some of your questions here, because the other section is getting too long, and it's getting hard to find individual posts.

The evidence linking you to HK30 is that you post from the same area, that you have very, very, very strong linguistic similarities (available to administrators, who can see deleted edits), that he reverted aggressively to your "Christianity is centred on stories" version, that he was supportive of a stalking website which you also supported (while other non Christians, such as SOPHIA, and some of the admins dealing with it, were appalled), that you supported his behaviour, that you both told stories that were very improbable (his story that he hadn't seen the 3RR warnings even though the orange bar would have flashed at him every time he opened a page, compared with your stories that you didn't see Freethinker's name which was directly above the first words you were typing of your denial), and that your behaviour on SlimVirgin's talk page (taunting a victim of stalking, and saying that she was just pretending to leave, and that if you were wrong, you'd convert and be a good Christian) was very similar to all those silly things he put on his talk page (If I convert, can I be an administrator?), and that your behaviour towards me in May, when you asked a question about a banned user, linking to something that gave very personal details about me (some true, some false), and constantly reverting me when I tried to discreetly remove that link just before replying to you, forcing me to protect, and delete, my page, was similar to the behaviour that got him banned, and finally there's some evidence of something that someone couldn't know unless that someone is also someone else, or at least linked to him. And that is combined with the knowledge that you have a history of violating policy in order to get your own way, and being deceitful about it.

As for why only now? At the time that your original puppetry was discovered, I wasn't aware of the existence of that tag. If I had been, I might have hoped that you'd turn over a new leaf and that the tag would be unnecessary. Some time ago, a user, who is now an admin, created a sockpuppet. He later admitted it, and expressed deep regret. He posted a full confession on his user page, and left it there for several weeks, or even months. It was finally removed by someone else. Nobody even thinks of it now. The fact that you've continued that behaviour shows that you're not going to improve out of good will (and you've been offered plenty of that). I suppose the NeoOne was the account that broke the camel's back, but also there was the fact that you constantly refuse to acknowledge that you've done anything wrong, and you constantly make accusations against me. Yes, I revert to Str1977, as I revert to Tom harrison and others. My last thousand article edits have three reverts to Str. Compare that with Kecik's article edits, or Belinda's. You've shown yourself to be quite brazen, even going to Tznkai's page and telling him that I was a possible meatpuppet for Str1977, while you and Belinda were reverting to each other while carrying on that pretence of not knowing each other. Don't you think that was rather hypocritical? But, when you were exposed, rather that hoping that people would forget your past, you continued to accuse people of things that you were guilty of, putting "do not edit war" in edit summaries when you were reverting them, complaining if someone reverted your edits without going to "talk", but not complaining that Kecik reverted to your version without using talk, accusing people of having reverted blindly when you were reverting blindly (i.e. reintroducing spelling mistakes, or undoing format changes in your frantic effort to have your POV in the article), talking about the problem of meatpuppets, while you were surrounded with your own meatpuppets, accusing people of deliberately using misleading edit summaries (for example, when I clearly put "revert" in mine, and then went on to explain why I was reverting one thing, but didn't mention the other as there was no room in the edit summary box) while you actually escaped a 3RR report because you pretended to be only reverting vandalism in this edit and so managed to escape deteection until I discovered it a month later. You even told SlimVirgin recently that you were proud of your history here. If you acknowledged that you had behaved extremely badly, there would be some reason to hope that that behaviour would stop. Without any such reason, it's better to have your page tagged, so that when you start insisting that an edit you're pushing for is the "consensus" version, people will know that that may not be the case.

Finally, as to your claim that Str1977 and I are scared because you're willing to prove that BelindaGong is a real person, I have absolutely no reason to doubt that you're married to someone called Belinda Gong. Why should I be scared that you can prove it? Tim Starling and Angela are both real people, but they don't pretend not to know each other and revert to each other's version. If Belinda is a real person who joined to support you, while you were both pretending not to know each other, and reverted aggressively to your version, then you broke the WP:SOCK policy. I'm not in the least bit scared that you can prove it. You don't have to prove it. We believe it, even though we may be a bit puzzled that you describe yourself as single on another website, that is, when you're not saying that "it's complicated". When I was sending my report to senior admins some time back, I said that I believed that you were married to BelindaGong. The question is — what was the purpose of the creation of that account? Any administrator who looks at Special:Contributions/BelindaGong will realize that that account was created in order to ensure that Giovanni33 got his way. That she sometimes used your language and your spelling mistakes suggests that you may have been editing from the BelindaGong account at least some of the time, but even if that's not the case, wives who follow their husbands around in order to revert for them are by definition puppets. AnnH ♫ 15:36, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Accounts created by people who want to look like your puppets?

Giovanni, your point that someone could create an account, follow you around, and support you, for the purpose of getting you banned deserves a response. Of course, it's possible, though I add that I don't believe for a moment that it has happened in your case. Kecik and MikaM arrived shortly after you, long before you were in any kind of trouble. (Remember that we were too kind to report several of your first violations.) They followed you to other articles, voted for what you wanted (even in cases where it's most unlikely that they'd have found that page by chance, and they didn't have e-mail enabled, and you hadn't left them a message), and reverted for you. Since you weren't in trouble then, it's not possible that those accounts were created by people who wanted to discredit you; they couldn't have foreseen that you'd be caught out through a usercheck with BelindaGong and through a signature blunder with Freethinker99, both of which incidents made it easier for people to believe that you were morally capable of violating our policies in order to get your way.

Now, TheShriek was considered as a possible puppet of yours, long before we were familiar with the patterns shown by your puppets. It never occurred to me for a second to tag his page, or to tag that of Kecik, MikaM, or BelindaGong. I'm very much against tagging someone with those templates just because a new user shows up with the same POV as someone else. We were all anxious to give you the benefit of the doubt, and you violated our trust, with the pretence you put on or not knowing Belinda. Also, even if your claim were true that you hadn't seen Freethinker's name when you answered the question saying that you didn't know any of these users, we had discussed meatpuppetry a lot, and you had been urged to read the policy, so it doesn't impress us that you answered no. If you hadn't seen that name (disputed), if you had no connection to Kecik, MikaM, etc. (disputed) and if you had been told about meatpuppetry (accepted), honesty should have compelled you to say that you didn't have any connection to any of those users, but that you did know Freethinker, who had just arrived. You knew perfectly well that the context of the question was that we felt it was suspicious that all these new users were turning up to agree with you.

I've ruled out Kecik and Mika as accounts created to make it look as if you're violating policy, for reasons given above. Do you disagree? Obviously, we can also rule out Belinda and Freethinker. The FionaS account appeared too early on for your theory to be plausible in that case, and didn't stay for long enough, or revert for you, so you were never blocked because of that account. You defended RTS and NPOV77 at the time that they appeared, and posted stuff in various places about me abusing my privileges in blocking NPOV77. Now that block was ratified by other admins who were not part of the so-called "Christian cabal". It's perfectly normal to block under such circumstances. I saw it happen once when someone had been blocked for repeatedly changing CE to AD, and a new account was created, made one edit, and was indefinitely blocked. As you know, I favour the AD usage, but I didn't post thousand-word essays on admin noticeboards about the admin having abused her privileges, even though I happen to know that that admin is in favour of CE. You contested the NPOV77 block. If you were really innocent, the best thing would have been for you to say, "Yes, I did knowingly violate the policy in the past. It was wrong of me to do so, and I regret it. I'd like to state, however, that the NPOV77 account is not in anyway connected with me, although as an obvious puppet of RTS, it was correctly blocked. I hope people will believe me." As a matter of fact, not only did I fully report that block at WP:ANI, but I also, at a later stage, reported it in an e-mail to a bureaucrat, with a copy to Jimbo.

So, we come to HK30. When he was blocked, you protested, and said that you thought he was a good user, and the block was unjust. And we know that Mercury2001 is HK30. So why should you now think that those accounts were set up to harm you? As for Professor33, you supported him, and when he was blocked, you complained about this terrible injustice against a good user, and seemed even more upset for him than for yourself. We know from IP evidence that Professor33 is NeoOne, having promised to stay away from pages connected with you, he took up residence at the Christianity talk page, with Gio-ish arguments and Gio-ish behaviour. If it weren't for the fact that your denial of any wrongdoing (the closest you've ever got to admitting wrongdoing is when you say that it was a "mistake" to have your wife and friend support you) means that we can't trust you, and also that we know that NeoOne is Professor33, it might have been possible to believe that NeoOne, with his "{(yes, I said STORIES (hehe)}", was set up to discredit you, but the evidence indicates that the Professor account was set up to support you, and that you can't be trusted.

Finally, you said on User talk:CleanSocks that that account should be unblocked, so you obviously didn't look on it as an account set up to discredit you. Why should you think so now? So, yes, it's a hypothetical possibility that someone could set up an account, revert to your version, throw in a few "hehe"s for good measure, for the purpose of getting you blocked. It seems extremely unlikely that it would happen, and there's absolutely no evidence that it has happened. In any case, the cases are based on a combination of different kinds of evidence. So, which of the ten suspected puppets do you think have been set up to discredit you? AnnH ♫ 14:24, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Note to Giovanni33: Yes...NPOV77 (talk · contribs)..the account is on it's third edit and is three minutes old and there he is at the Christianity article doing a revert back to RTS (talk · contribs) who was edit warring. NPOV77 seemed to have a lot of knowledge about WP:3RR as shown on that third edit when the account was only 3 minutes old with edit summaries as rv No RTS is right--there is no consensus to move to bottom as of yet. Also, you reverted POV content, which is why I decided to intervene. I am aware of the rules so I have 2 rvts left.. The list goes on..and I for one am not fooled by this nonsense. It's nothing personal...I have no feelings about you as a person one way or the other, no offense...but repeated misuse of sock accounts to avoid 3RR, to edit war in article space and to make it appear there is a concensus for your POV when there isn't, simply won't fly. Here's the deal...you promise to admit to the use of all these sock accounts and disclose any others we have overlooked and I won't seek a longer block period.--MONGO 15:23, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree NPOV77 is probably a puppet of RTS. But, what does this have to do with me? What link does RTS have to me? If they are puppets of each other, what do they have to to do with me? That is the question. You say that I should be blocked and even banned for "repeated misused of sock accounts to avoid 3RR, etc.' but tell me--even with if we accept the suspected accounts where this has occured--I ask: how long ago was that? Is it not true that even the most recent example of such an occurance is well over 6 months ago? I have avoided going to any article that these other editors edit on, to avoid even the suggestion of a possible abuse of policy or guidelines--even though these users are only suspected of being my puppets ,and when they are in fact not me. But, assume that they are and that such abusive use of puppets is a problem---its no longer a problem, is it? Again, when was the last time that even such an interpretation of the facts could yield such a conclusion? I say over 6 months ago. So why the action taken against me now? Is this is a problem now? But you use examples that are ancient history. Give me one recent example of socketpuppet use (yes even suspected puppet use) that is abusive in nature (i.e. used to evade 3rr, etc). The fact that my opponents need to go back in history to when I first joined Wikipedia to find evidence that paints a negative picture, which shows how desperate and weak the case really is against me. It's a lot of smoke but no fire. The embers have all dried up. There are not even any ashes left. Yet, they cry out as if there is a forest fire now! So I say again: Show me something recent where there are even any suspected "socketpuppets" of mine where I have used them in any way that could possibly be deemed "abusive." Name one, just one with an example of such usage, and then look at the date, and tell me why its relvent today, and why I should be blocked today for these spurious suspicions, of so long ago?

ML/AnnH has made the claim that part of the evidence is that they are geographically close to me. I contest this and ask for evidence. I just don't believe it. Infact, the evidence suggest she doesn't have the technical ability to make such determinations because when BelindaGong's IP was revealed, she did a check for location and AnnH then concluded that she didnt think BelindaGong was connected to me, because according to AnnH, Belinda was in a different part of the country. I found that quite funny at the time because I knew for a fact she didn't know what she was talking about. I never lied about Belinda, I was never asked if I was connected to her. Yet, I didn't want the connection known so I pretended not to know her. Again, this is when I first joined and didn't know this was wrong. I regarded my relationship as private and none of anyone else's bussiness. I felt she has as much right to her POV as I do--even if we are married. This is my stance. But, the fact is she never left the area, and was always here, yet according to AnnH, obviously due to her lack of understanding of IP addresses and how they work led her to false conclusions. I am willing to bet that her same flawed methodology is now used to make an equally false claim that these other users are geographically close to me. I challenged this and ask for the basis of this highly unlikley determination. Where is the evidence? If they prove to be anywhere near me I'd be surprised! Giovanni33 04:25, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

MikaM], another sock account you apparently use has been editing the same pages you have in the past...and seems worried about the sockpuppet tags...these edits are from just the other day and earlier.--MONGO 05:29, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, in the past. How long ago? Don't say apparently, look it up and know for sure. Find out when was the last time MikaM and I were on the same article and could have possibly been used to evade 3RR on an article content (not tags on user pages). I bet you it would be more than 6 months old. So, yes, if it has occured, it is definitely in the distant past. This is my whole point. When you take this fact along with the fact that this is only a suspected puppet, not a real one, the flimsy nature of the case against me becomes evident.Giovanni33 15:37, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Here are some examples, just to convince you that they're more recent.

Christianity

God

Hitler's Pope

But a more important question than how long ago is where is the evidence that they are here for any purpose other than supporting you? At one stage Kecik had 31 reverts to you out of 33 article edits. He was here for nearly four months before he ever went near an article you weren't at. And even that was only after I kept making remarks about his 27/29, 28/30, 29/31 records. Since he arrived in January, he has made three edits to articles that you had no connection with. His seventh edit was a vote on the transubstantiation talk page for including your material about the Eucharist having developed from pagan, cannibalistic rites. How did he find that page? He started off by reverting to your version at Christianity, then followed you to Hitler to do the same thing, when you ran into opposition there. He then turned up at God when other editors were taking out links that you wanted to include. And finally, he appeared at Hitler's Pope, when you were meeting with opposition there. I'm quite sure that his recent silence (except for reverting of user pages with the puppet tags) is because of Professor33 being blocked as a puppet based partly on his contribution history. Let me tell you: Kecik's contribution history is even more puppet-like than Professor's. And why did Mika, whose history was almost identical to Kecik's only decide after Professor's block (and after more than five months at Wikipedia) to make some tiny edits to Earthquake, Circumcision, Plato, and Objective idealism? If you look at my contributions, you'll find that I have a very small overlap with Str1977, which happens to be at the pages where we encounter you. AnnH ♫ 01:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Giovanni, I'm replying down here, because multiple indenting makes the page hard to read later.

Reply to the paragraph beginning "Yes, I agree NPOV77 is probably a puppet of RTS." If RTS were someone who just happened to share your POV, but with no connection to you, and if you believed that NPOV77 (the account which reverted back to his version just after he had been blocked for making eight reverts within a 90-minute period) was created by him, and if you disapproved of puppetry, then why did you post all those messages accusing me of having seriously abused my admin privileges? SOPHIA, an atheist who shares your POV and was usually in content dispute with me, supported me fully when I blocked NPOV77. You'd have more credibility if you had said at the time, "Yes, the account shares my POV, but it's obviously a puppet created by RTS after he was blocked, and Ann was right to block him", instead of "What really puzzles me is what did he do to get banned? And by MusicalLinguist, no less? This seems a rather serious violation of standard procedure. . . He appears to be banned outright by your dearest friend MusicalLinguist, and yet, I do not see the reason for that." Your messages were not just about how unfair it was to accuse NPOV77 of being you, but also how wrong it was to block him. That undermines your credibility. Most decent, honourable Wikipedians agree that abusive puppets (and note that "abusive" in this context simply means "used in violation of policy") should be blocked.

Continuing my response to the same paragraph, you say that all these incidents are at least six months old. Look at these seven reverts in the history of Early Christianity

Revision as of 17:31, 28 June 2006 Professor33, and it is a revert, as admitted here
Revision as of 21:25, 28 June 2006 Professor33
Revision as of 02:52, 29 June 2006 Giovanni33
Revision as of 15:00, 29 June 2006 Giovanni33
Revision as of 15:13, 29 June 2006 Giovanni33
Revision as of 15:21, 29 June 2006 Giovanni33
Revision as of 16:25, 29 June 2006 Professor33

Or what about the history of Positive Christianity?

Revision as of 20:24, 25 June 2006 Giovanni33
Revision as of 15:22, 26 June 2006 Giovanni33
Revision as of 17:17, 26 June 2006 Professor33
Revision as of 19:37, 26 June 2006 Professor33

They were in addition to the other reverts you both carried out both before and after those four. But even if you hadn't broken 3RR between you, if the same person is working on the same article at the same time under two different names, or gets a friend to join in order to support him, that is an abuse of the policy because it gives a misleading impression of consensus. I note that in the first of the Positive Christianity reverts mentioned above, your edit summary was "rv. Consensus disagrees with you an Ann on this point" The Professor33 account was reverting for you and supporting you right up to the end of June (and would still be doing so if it hadn't been blocked). The NeoOne account, editing from the IP that the Professor33 account edited from, turned up at Christianity and started arguing with your main opponent after you had agreed (on the condition of being unblocked) to stay away from the Christianity articles, and after Professor had been warned that any new account should stay away from articles associated with you. Yet, on Danny's talk page, you complained about my block of NeoOne. The block was perfectly within policy.

Your next paragraph begins by saying, "ML/AnnH has made the claim that part of the evidence is that they are geographically close to me." It is quite true that I was mistaken in believing that BelindaGong was in a different part of thee country, though it's not to your credit that you found it quite funny at the time, showing that you were both laughing up your sleeves at my failure to unmask your duplicity. I am not an expert in tracking IPs. The two IPs were public knowledge, as you both often edited when logged off, and then acknowledged the edit (e.g. by logging on and changing the signature on a talk page). Your IP is 64.121.40.153. Belinda's is 38.114.145.148. I originally looked up addresses in Lacnic/whois and got Princeton NJ for 64.121.40.153 (though the same search now says Herndon Virginia), and Washington DC for 38.114.145.148. Without having any great knowledge of the matter, I now presume that the locations I got were for the headquarters of the ISP provider, rather than for the person using it. Another administrator informed me of this website for finding locations, and at the time of the Easter stalking incident, another admin was privately in communication with me, trying to determine if certain anonymous edits had been made by User:Trollwatcher, and she told me of dnstuff.com. Both of those sites place you and Belinda in California, and you freely link your user page to your friendster profile, which says that you're in California. But I admit that I don't have a lot of knowledge in tracking IPs. I'd happily defer to any of the checkuser admins on this issue. I have IP addresses for nearly all your puppets, with diffs to prove it, and have sent them to some checkuser admins. Your statement that your Belinda-meatpuppetry was when you "first joined and didn't know this was wrong" makes you lose more credibility, because you Belinda were both told of the policy (which included meatpuppetry) from the moment she turned up to support you, and meatpuppetry was actually discussed at the Christianity talk page, before you were caught out, so you would still have had an opportunity to stop, rather than carrying on your duplicity and your policy violations. Do I have to give diffs? AnnH ♫ 12:17, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

So you admit you don't have a lot of knowledge on tracking IPs. You admit drawing false conclusions, of being mistaken regarding the geographical location of said IPs as they relate to me in the past (the first time you aditted that). Yet, today you still insist that, as part of your regular argument, these alleged accounts suspected of being my puppets, are all "geographicall close." Are you now retracting that statement? It is not clear. On one hand you continually assert with complete confidence the statement 'they are all in your area,' no qualifications, even--yet your creditiblity in making such determination is lacking, and you now admit you really don't know--do you? So this begs the question: why do you act as if you do? You always used different websites to try to find the locations of IP addresses, but is isn't quite that straightforward, is it? You do lack understanding in the technical realm. I know its not your forte and that is fine, but what troubles me is that given this, you still state as if were an established, reliable fact, with aplomb and confidence,for all to accept without any doubt, as if that fact were already established. I agree, you should defer to someone who knows better of such matters. I'm glad that you will happily do so. But, the question is when they tell you they are not close to me, will it make any difference to you or will you just leave out this information, since it no longer fits into your POV in this matter? Or will you simply say I must be hopping on a plane and going back and forth? In past occassions when you have done so they have indicated their results as there being no connection to me. As I said, I'd be very surprised if all these accounts show up to be geographically close. I'd be highsly suspicious of any investigation that purports to establish this, as it would be hightly unlikely. In truth, though, it may not be possible to determine with complete confidence the true origin, given only the revealed information. There are ways to spoof IP addresses, although I doubt these accounts are products of any such sophisticated measures. Still, you make statements with confidence where no confidence should exist. You overstate your case, your evidence is selective, cheery picking, your quoting of those who support your stance is one sided, as well, and ignores all statments made in my favor--even among those you quote to support your stance. And, in general you exagerate your case. Lastly, you interpret facts in a manner that is not consistent with the context. There are many examples. Your interpreation that I thought it was "funny," for instance does not mean I was "laughing." On the contrary, I was cringing, as I do when confronted with most of your reasoning. Its not a laughing matter. So "funny" in this context carries the other accepted meaning of the word, per the dictionary, "strangely or suspiciously odd; curious; Tricky or deceitful." In fairness, I will assume good faith and say that you may not be trying to be deceitful, however, shoddy thinking, false reasoning, and a certain zealousness in terms of pushing for your POV, results in a great distortion of truth, and has the effect to deceive.

The professor account, one of the suspected socketpuppets is banned--so how is that relevant to anything I am doing now to justify this block and its possible extension? It seems I am to be convicted of the same crime twice. NeoOne was banned. I agree it looks like the professor33 puppet, which I note he was granted the right to use one. From what I could see, he wasnt reverting or edit waring on the article itself but merely making points on the talk page. So, I think his being banned did not serve the interests of WP, although it did serve your POV. That is why I think the real crime was making arguments contrary to your POV on the Christianity article. Also, note I was not there, I was avoiding the page per the suggestion of another admin, who advised I stay away for the time being--which I certainly did. I also note that there is no logical connection between the Chrisitanity articles and these allegations against me, except that those who are pursuing this case against me are all ideological oppoents in past POV disputes from the Christianity article and staying away for a while is a consession not interfer with the POV pushing that regularly goes on, esp. with me there to check it. When I'm blocked, for instance, its a great time to revert my edits, even following me to places where, Str1077, for examples, has not been to before, just to revert my edits. But--when I'm blocked, and there is no opposition to stand in the way. And is it not wiki-stalking? For example, see [60] [61] [62]. So given that the professor was only a suspected puppet, and since I know in his case he is innocent (given he is accused of being me), I know it was unjust to ban him. But he is banned. His puppet (created only after he was told he could do so), was banned by yourself and while you could ban him, no one forced you to, and I think it served your POV more than it served the interests of Wikipedia when you consider his actual conduct. The case with NPOV and RTS, yes, I agree, now having looked at it, that they are puppets, however, I do not know for a fact that they are puppets. I agree that it looks like they are, and probably are. However, I still oppose banning a new editor simply because they are probably a puppet. For of all puppets are allowed. Its not enough to have a high probabilty that they are one. It must be shown that they are the puppet of another editor being used to evade 3RR or another policy. Absent of that, I oppose banning. I believe we should err on the side of caution. Above all, I believe in looking at the actual role and quality of content of what they are doing for Wikipedia in terms of contributions as an important factor. Ignore all the Rules relates to this. The real goals and purpose of the rules is not to stick to the rules at all costs, as if that were the highest good. Not at all. Its about building a quality free encyclopedia and that should be our main guide for making decisions. This is why I often disagree with you, as we have a different philosophy even when it comes to admistration. This does not reflect badly on my credibility, as you seem to think, but reflects my consistent POV on such matters. To make an argument that to stand up for someone and express this POV over admistrative judgements as it affected them is to make them my own puppets is also a very weak argument. If anything, would I not be silent and not speak up, or rather say "Yes, he was a puppet, glad you got him, Annh!" if they really were my puppet since the idea is to distance yourself from your puppet and even have disagreements with them (what people really do when they have socketpuppets). Real socketpuppet accounts are not defended by their puppetmasters in such a blatant manner, and the fact that I do should be evidence of my innocence, not guilt. Unless you think me a very simpleminded person.Giovanni33 15:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Professor33 was told he could create another account but that that account should stay away from the Christianity articles. AnnH ♫ 18:21, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, of course I admit that I don't have a lot of knowledge about IPs. I've never denied it: it wasn't an issue. I don't know what you mean by saying that it's the first time I've admitted it. In my message to KHM03, I simply indicated that I didn't think you and Belinda were in the same area. You were then found by usercheck to be editing from the same IP. I never thought about my message to KHM03 again. It wasn't as if some policy decision was being made because of it; if that had been the case, I would have asked an expert to review it. I found out how to look up locations after KHM03 had been stalked off Wikipedia. My original mistake was not at all on my mind at all then. You sound as if I had made a decision to ban someone indefinitly based on my incorrect understanding of IPs, when all I did was tell KHM03 informally that I didn't think you were in the same part of the country as Belinda. AnnH ♫ 01:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Ann. I moved your long messages above because its slightly off topic to the more relevant issues here, and has the effect of burrying this, getting lost. So I moved your issues above, which I'll respond to when I have time. In the meanwhile, maybe you can address the points relating to my block that I raise to you immediately, above, in particular my questions about IP address, which you claimed to know are close to be but at the same time seem to admit that you really dont know after alll? And that after--if--it is shown the claims you make in that regard if proven false by someone who does know what they are talking about, what effect will that have on your conclusion, if any? Giovanni33 17:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Others have said that they are geographically close. When I made that mistake in my message to KHM03, I knew less about looking up IPs than I do now. I have explained (either here or on Danny's page) that two other admins told me of sites where you can look up location, and that the site I was looking at probably gave the location of the headquarters of the ISP rather than the location of the person using it. In any case, not knowing something in January does not mean not knowing something in August. If I became an atheist, would you say that my claims that there's no God are unreliable because I had said in January that there was, so I obviously don't know what I'm talking about? (Not that I did say that in January; unlike you, I don't use discussion pages for arguing that my POV is the right one.) I've talked to others, more experienced than I, about the various IPs, and e-mailed them to bureaucrats and arbcom members, some of whom have checkuser access. And checkuser access is only granted to admins who are considered to be completely trustworthy and who have a proper understanding (i.e. far greater than mine) of IPs.

As to what I'd say if they were shown to be not geographically close, well it would depend on which puppets they were. It's possible that some of them are meatpuppets — friends or colleagues who are just doing you a favour. I personally don't go along with Timothy's theory about the two laptops, but as you've pointed out, I don't really have any expertise in that matter, so he could be right! To my mind, it's more likely that you planned the timing beforehand, when you asked someone to ask Timothy to talk to you in IRC. (It seemed to me at the time to be a slightly surprising request.) And then a friend, by arrangement with you, logged on as Kecik, and removed the tags. It could even be Belinda who did that — from another address! You see, I do believe that Belinda is a real person, though I don't think her existence in any way clears you from the duplicity you engaged in with regard to that account. If Kecik is a friend of yours who joined Wikipedia at your request, and was frequently in touch with you by e-mail and in real life meetings, then he could be on holidays in Japan right now, but he would be geographically close to you for most of the year. The strongest linguistic matches to you are HK30 and Professor33. But nobody could look at Kecik's contributions and think that he's someone with the same POV as you who just happened to find Wikipedia around the same time, and just happened to find all the articles you were at, as a brand new user, even when he didn't have e-mail enabled, and when some of the articles were not being discussed at talk pages of other articles he was at, and that he just happened to make a habit of logging on, doing three reverts to your version, and logging off, and that he just happened to have some linguistic similarities; but that he has absolutely nothing to do with you in real life. Does that answer your question? AnnH ♫ 18:21, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

The mental gymnastics required here for this conspiracy theory is actually quite funny but I like it better than the two laptop theories while im in Starbucks that Timothy theorized. I guess its true there are infinite possiblities but lets keep the principal of Occams Razor in mind and lets assume good faith, also. If I really would put in the effort to make such an elaborate plan, I must truly have no life (nor would my meatpuppets friends (goodness, do such friends exist who would do this, and what would they think?!). It is funny to think about. hehe But as that is not the case that I have lots of free time to think of these kind of things and carry them out, so it is it true that I don't have much time at the moment to respond here. I must get back to the points you raise later on. I do thank you for your time here, and it is interesting to see your thought process on these matters. I will say that you seem to be saying more that they are not my sockepuppets now but more just real other people who you would refer to as meatpuppets. I must say that I do not think its right to treat other people as if they were the same. My view is: one person one vote. If they are new we should not discriminate against them. If they share my POV, that should not matter. It should not matter even if there were a connection with me, if I invited them. What matters is they express their own thoughts, argue the points, and abibe by NPOV, Verifiability, and other policies and guidlines. More volunteers, esp. if they are good ones, helps Wikipedia ("meatpuppets") or not. I think this really does come down to the fact that they disagree with your POV, hence the hightenend scrutiny.Giovanni33 18:31, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Punishment for the innocent?

Hello, Gio. I made a post on Str1977's talk page in July, saying that I did not think Deuteronomy was you. You read that post, and then posted stuff about my extraordinary ideas of justice, which you called a "fringe view".[63] What I had written was that if a little boy steals apples from the neighbours garden, and his mother doesn't know that he did, that but thinks wrongly that he stole biscuits from the pantry and punishes him for that, he has still deserved the punishment.[64] You also posted about that on Danny's page.[65]

The first thing to point out is that my message was intended for Str1977, who is capable of understanding what I write. I don't think he had any problems with it. The second thing is that Wikipedia does not go in for "punishment". Blocks are meant to be preventative. Even bans are not meant to be punitive. People are banned from Wikipedia in order to protect Wikipedia from their disruption (which can include edit warring and sockpuppetry), not because Wikipedia decides that they deserve "this amount of unhappiness" for "this bad thing that they did". So, regardless of what my own views might be (and in case you're interested, I do not take pleasure in seeing people punished), it would be contrary to Wikipedia policy to "punish" you for something, and nowhere did I suggest that you should be punished. I said that I did not want a page tagged as your puppet when it was unlikely to be true; but I did feel that someone who had used eleven puppets only had himself to blame when he was wrongly suspected of having one more. I don't know how you inferred from that that I thought that you might be innocent but still deserved punishment. I didn't say to Str, "Yes, I think he's innocent of being Deuteronomy's puppetmaster, but please continue to put the Giovanni puppet tag on Deuteronomy's page, because Giovanni, who's innocent, deserves to be punished." I specifically asked him not to tag that page, since I didn't believe Deuteronomy was you, and I made the same request of Timothy. But I pointed out that with your long history of puppetry and deception, you weren't entitled to be indignant at being temporarily suspected of having eleven, instead of twelve, puppets. (At this stage, of course, the number has gone up to twelve.)

Anyway, let's agree for the moment that being made to stay home from a party is an appropriate punishment for stealing apples from the neighbour, and that it would also be an appropriate punishment for stealing biscuits from the pantry. Whether you agree or not, pretend for the moment that you do. Okay? Now, Johnny has stolen his neighbour's apples. He deserves to be prevented from going to that party. Agreed so far. His little sister, Sally, steals biscuits from the pantry. Mother thinks Johnny stole them, so she tells Johnny he can't go to the party. I don't think that in that case, fate has been unfair to Johnny. He wasn't kept home from two parties (one for the apples and one for the biscuits), because Mother never found out about the apples. I won't argue that the situation is completely just: it's a bit unfair, for example that Johnny is punished, while Sally, who's equally guilty, goes to the party.

Now, let's move on twenty-five years. Johnny is now John, and is married to Susan. He falls in love with Janet, and deliberately poisons Susan. The doctor thinks Susan died of natural causes. John escapes detection, and marries Janet, with whom he remains in love. Janet falls from a cliff, and dies. The police think John pushed her. He's arrested, convicted, and imprisoned. Does he deserve punishment? Absolutely (though I would still consider it a failure of the legal system if a jury, after hearing the evidence, found a man guilty for a particular crime that he had not committed). I'm surprised that it's the first time you've seen such reasoning. Poetic justice is a common theme in literature, where some disaster (far greater than having Deuteronomy2000 wrongly tagged as your puppet) befalls the characters because of previous wrongdoing. I highly recommend this poem. You may not be familiar with it, as it was written by a man who, like me, held beliefs that were as ridiculous as the moon being made of cheese, and who belonged to the same racist, bigoted, intolerant institution that I belong to! Hope you enjoy it. But please understand that no administrator is going to suggest any remedy that will be for the purpose of punishing you. What we're trying to find is a solution that will put an end to the multiple accounts that register for the purpose of supporting Giovanni33 — something very different from accounts (Alienus, Drogo Underburrow, Agathoclea, SOPHIA, etc.) that share your POV. AnnH ♫ 16:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I'm glad you have taken the time to express your thoughts with an explanation, Ann. I must say that I now have a better understanding of what you actualy meant, which was different from what I understood. Mea culpa for not reading carefully what you had said and mis-interpreting the meaning. Ofcourse, I'm familar with "poetic justice." Its a well known feature of literature. Infact, it rather pervades it, even today. However, the analogy doesnt exactly fit my situation. Consider that that the boy was accused of stealing something, which he may or may not have done (we dont know for sure), but he did not evade punishment--he was punished nonetheless for it. Then, if his sister stole the bisquits, he gets blamed for that and punished again, when he didn't do it. Is that fair, or even a form of poetic justice? No.

I did not read this poem before but I have heard of its author, as he was mentioned by George Bernard Shaw, who I am very familar with. You make a mistake to assume that I would not be intrested in people who do not share my POV. This is not true. So, I looked him up and he was a traditional catholic, true, so he seems to have held irrational beliefs, as well, which was more common for his time then it is today. However, he held progressive ideas, too, despite adherence to some backwards thinking, which you correctly attribute to your organization. :) This includes his anti-semitism, which appears he was infected with, sadly. While I have mentioned sexism, and homophobia as other elements within the dogma and history of the Church, I did not ever mention racism. Its true that the Catholic church is guilty of being rather indifferent and practicing racism but when did I mention this? So, this is an example where you do mix in some things I say, along with things I never said. I know you are not as careless as I am when speaking. You are very precise, as you should be, being a linguist. So that is why it troubles me more when you add things to what I do say, that I do not think are true, i.e. I never said them. Correct me if I'm wrong, please. I will also say that while these social evils were and still are perpetrated by your organization, I do not regard it as a white and black issue, nor do I see all members being guilty of sharing in bigotry, prejudice, sexism, or homophobia that the Church currently teaches. While I know you are conservative, I do not know your views on these social issues. Indeed, on the questio nof racism take a look at this Catholic magazine which denounces the indifference and tolerance of racism by its own church: [66] I'm glad they do. Here in SF, recently, here is some controvery about the Catholic church's homophobia, as the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome (what, from my understanding is what used to be the Inquisition), stated that the Catholic Worker Charity is forbidden from doing any adoptions to same sex parents, as they regard it as immoral and equated it to 'violence on the children." The adoption charity is Boston was closed down as a result of the Church's bigoted ruling, but the one here in SF decided to find a way around it, by essentially lying about what they are doing (form over content, pragmaticsm over obedience to dogma?). The San Francisco Board of Supervisors did the right thing by asking local church officials to defy the Vatican. To quote, "It is an insult to all San Franciscans when a foreign country, like the Vatican, meddles with and attempts to negatively influence this great city's existing and established customs and traditions, such as the right of same-sex couples to adopt and care for children in need," the resolution stated. Supervisors in their resolution called it "hateful and discriminatory rhetoric (that) is both insulting and callous, and shows a level of insensitivity and ignorance which has seldom been encountered..." [67] Again, I'm not sure where you stand on this, nor does it really matter. There are good pepole of faith, even if they hold to irrational, or bigoted beliefs. This does make them bad people, nor does it mean I am not interested in learning and reading what such people say or think--and, esp. it does not mean that everyone belongint to the organization, while committed to following in its dogma, really do in both thoughts and deeds. I never view things in aboslutes, as you seem to suggest, painting me with a rather sweeping brush.Giovanni33 06:27, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I did not say that you had ever directly used the word "racist" about the Catholic Church. However, I do recall several efforts to portray Hitler in articles as a devout Catholic, in which you tried to imply that Nazism was consistent with Catholicism, etc. And, you have just now written of Belloc's "anti-semitism". Even if you regard anti-semitism as primarily a religious issue rather than as a racial one, you surely acknowledge that the Nazis persecuted ethnic minorities. The article you link to about racism, if accurate, offers no evidence that racism was consistent with Catholic teaching. I imagine people were more racist back then than they are now. Our sense of morality can be affected by our culture. It was not obvious to eighteenth-century Frenchmen that duelling was wrong. It's somehow much easier for us to see that. The same goes for racism. If you've read the Little House on the Prairie series, you'll recall that Ma, who was portrayed as a very gentle, honourable woman, frequently said, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." That seems appalling by our standards, but if it was normal at that time, then all you can reproach the Catholic Church for is that she may not have been better than the rest of society, but there's no reason to single out the Church, unless there's a particular motive for wanting the Church to appear in a bad light.

I make it a general rule not to use Wikipedia server space to post long arguments about who's right and who's wrong. I could make an exception here, just once, but I really am too busy at the moment. If you're still around in September, I don't mind responding to some of your points about sexism and homophobia, but the constant jibes will have to stop. Oh, and by the way, here is an article for you to read. AnnH ♫ 01:09, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ann. If someone read what you wrote, attributing it to me, it would look as if you were saying that I said something to that effect, when I didn't. I don't disagree with you, and do not think racism is consistent with Catholic teaching. I specifically said I think its a matter of indifference, reflected in its practices, as that Catholic article I gave showed. The same kind of accomodation to dominant social norms within a community that was exhibited politically withing Nazi Germany. In this regard, I also never said that Catholisism is consistent with Naizism. That would be silly. Can you show where I said that? If I said that, I take it back. Its not true. I do say that it can be made to be compatible with fascism, hence clerical fascism as a form of Catholicsm, or Catholic integralism. See for example, [68]. That religion can be compatible with such extreme right wing politics is quite different than saying that Catholicism, esp. mainstream versions, are consistent with them. They are not. However, it can act as a shell, a vehicle, for virtually any kind of politics. I may have said the former but not the latter. The same with Hitler being "devout." Did I really say that? Can you show me where? If so, its not correct. I may have said Hitler's mother was devout, but I then changed that to reflect the sources own words, which were "devoted Catholic,' not devout.Giovanni33 23:25, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I haven't got time to respond, Gio. Here's one diff to show "a devout Christian", without any qualifications such as "said he was". Anyway, I have to finish this discussion, and it's far more important at the moment to concentrate on the conditions for unblocking. I'm going on wiki-break now. I may look in occasionally, but I very much doubt if I'll be doing much editing before September. AnnH ♫ 00:48, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ann. Its ok, I do appreicate your willingness to communicate to clear up past misunderstandings and your role in resolving this blocking issue. About Hitler being devout, note that this only pertains to how he was raised, as a child. Devout may not be the best word, but he was strictly raised as a Catholic. Hence he served as an altar boy, sang in the choir, was baptized, took the sacraments and received Communion. Its in this context that I said he was brought up, raised as a devout Christian. I do strive for accuracy and welcome others to help to balance an article for accuracy and a neutral pov, which usually works out to create a text that is usually better and in accord with what both sides can at least live with. Giovanni33 01:12, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Do you think the Catholic Church had you blocked? Gio, please, please just come clean so we can all move on. Your POV is fine. All people are asking you to do is play by the rules. Take a moment to assess the situation - has your puppetry, in the end, accomplished anything for you, or advanced what you've wanted to do with Wikipedia? Its only result is to make everyone upset, including you. I've little doubt you can return with more usernames, each waiting to be accused again, to deny it, to have everyone evaluating the evidence and growing ever more suspicious as you generate high-minded rhetoric of injustice and persecution until CheckUser finally does you in. This is a sad waste of time and brainpower, especially yours.Timothy Usher 06:49, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Yup, I agree, Timothy. I proposed a solution, below, to Mongo. I think it should be accepted as a practical resolution to the ostenive objectives desired, which would allow me to edit going forward free from these ugly engaglments in a win-win resolution. You are correct that even if they were all my puppets, as you said, they have failed to do any real long-term good, for my POV or my desire to continue contributing in WP. It would be foolish for me to continue with such tactics. So, I will avoid any possible interpetation by assuming they are my socketpuppets in my own daily conduct in WP to abide by guildines and policy related to such an assumption. Giovanni33 06:55, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I like what I'm seeing. I'd like to take the reconciliation a step further. Up to you, naturally.

Gio, I’d like you to disclose how you’ve done this. I don’t expect anything dramatic - as I’ve pointed out, it’s quite easy, and inevitable given the state of technology - just the details in their mundanity. In return, all these IP’s should be unblocked, so you can post under your main account from wherever you like unhindered, and unblocked. Not as a confessor, but as an informant. People need to know how this works these days, and you're clearly a good source. It will help WP deal with other puppeteers. Mark my words, I’ll give you a barnstar for singular self-examination and self-improvement, and I think, in such an event, WP should unblock you, and welcome you back. There's no more face to save; only to earn. Personally, I'd be happy to see you out of the box, out of the line of fire, and back on Wikipedia, following the rules and most importantly, enjoying the interaction. Again, up to you.Timothy Usher 08:51, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

That would be lovely, Timothy, but I don't think Giovanni is explicitly confessing to anything. If I'm wrong, please correct me, Gio. I see it more as a nolo contendere plea, which can be used to avoid the stress of a trial while allowing an innocent person to avoid admitting to something he didn't do, or allowing a guilty person to save face. In any case, usercheck admins don't ever give details in public that would enable future puppeteers to avoid detection, and for the same reason, reformed ex-puppeteers should not make such details public either. Giovanni, if you ever do want to help Wikipedia by giving details, the best way of doing it would be by sending a private e-mail to any member of the ArbCom, or anyone else who has usercheck access. They are all people who have earned the trust of the community. I know, for example, that Kelly Martin recently kept a promise not to divulge something in spite of what must have been considerable temptation for her to do so, so I think you wouldn't have anything to fear. AnnH ♫ 16:31, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Block extended to one month

I have extended your block to one month due to ongoing confirmation that you have been/are using sockpuppet accounts for wrongful purposes. [69]--MONGO 22:31, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I wanted to add that if you return after the month long block and resume using multiple accounts, then it will be hard to support allowing you to contribute to Wikipedia.--MONGO 22:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. I just had time to come back here today to read all this and have a chance to respond--not even doing anything on WP, obeying the week block---and now you have given me another block, this time for a whole month? What confirmation of what socketpuppet? Im sure my wife no longer edits WP. I just asked her and she swears she has not logged in, and has not edited. So, which new "confirmation" is now being used to give me this even greater block?Giovanni33 05:37, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

CleanSocks (talk · contribs) just edited on August 1[70] and has been confirmed via checkuser to be a sockpuupet account of yours. The three edits performed were to remove sock templates from sock accounts of yours. NeoOne (talk · contribs) edited three weeks ago and has been shown to be a sock account of your via checkuser. Professor33 (talk · contribs) has also been confirmed to be a sock account of yours and edited last on July 1. Your continued attempts to not admit that you have used sock accounts to build a fictious concensus, to evade 3RR, to edit war and in some cases to harass, leave me little in terms of options. The link I provided above when I started this section was posted at AN/I after checkuser demostrated that these accounts were all yours.--MONGO 05:49, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm it is my understanding that a user check was done on Professor33, and that it did not show a connection to me, that the "confirmation" was based on indirect means. But, the professor33 is banned. The professor33 was given permission to create a puppet of his own, and I note that his puppet (NeoOne) was not abusive in anyway. Neo did not edit where I was editing, so no possible use contrary to guidlines or policies was effected. CleanSocks was not used on any artcles. And, again, all these accounts have been indef. blocked. I dont see how giving me a whole month block follows--even if they are my puppets, for argument sake.

How about this as a proposed solution. Since having puppets is legal on WP, and its only their abuse--evade 3RR, false consensus, etc. (although one could always argue IAR), and whereas the purpose of blocks is not to punish but to prevent such abuse, I propose the following: I will not edit on any page where any of the puppets, suspected or otherwise, appear. Should one of these users appear, I will not join them in either reverts or supporting them by argument on the page, or with votes, etc. If they vote with me, strike my voite. If they revert to my version, I will leave the article and only come back when they are no longer active there. Ofcourse, if they are my puppets, really, I have control over that, so to what extend I do have any control over them, they will not be instructed to make any appearence on any article I'm active on. Is this a reasonable solution to this problem? If new users show up and act like puppets, feel free to add them to the list with the same restirctions that I agree to adhere to, as stated above. At some point, though, users who are not my puppets, should be allowed to be removed from the list, once that determination has been made by a consensus of admins. Agree? In exchange for this consession of good faith, I'd like the block reduced back. Giovanni33 06:40, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

The original check done on Professor33 was inconclusive, though it didn't rule out puppetry. A new check was done, and confirmed the Professor33 account, along with two others. Professor33 was told that he could open a new account, but was to stay away from Christianity, which is where NeoOne was when he was caught. The use of unidentified alternative accounts is discouraged unless there's a serious reason, such as a fear that one's particular combination of interests could lead to one's identity being discovered, and to real-life stalking. And IAR does not apply to the use of puppets for evading 3RR or giving a false impression of consensus. AnnH ♫ 20:02, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Gio...this isn;t a personal thing, seriously. I am a neutral party and I don't have a problem with some of your past work. I do have a problem with your unwillingness to admit to the creation of at least a dozen sock accounts and your ongoing denials that this has in fact happened. I don't think there is much more to say on the matter, but I suspect that a permanent block is also a potentiality...especially if you resume the creation of sock accounts. Simply put, I am not in favor of reducing your block to less than the now 29/30 days sice I have to assume, based on your actions, that you will resume the same course of action.--MONGO 07:08, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Mongo, I have no reasons to think you are motivated by any personal or POV reasons. I think you are doing your job as you see best. I think I offered a practical resolution for objectives desired, which would allow me to edit going forward free from these ugly engaglments in a win-win situation. If they are all my puppets they have failed to do any real long-term good, for my POV or my desire to continue contributing in WP. The enforcement of the policies has won out and I have failed. It would be foolish for me to continue with such tactics which would lead to a perm ban. I might as well just quit, and save everyone time, if I were to continue with such a waste of time. Therefore, the futility of using puppets is itself the greatest incentive not to. I agree that I will avoid any possible interpetation by assuming as a matter of fact that all suspected and confirmed socketpuppets are indeed my oown socketpuppets with all editing conduct withing WP, to abide by guildines and policy related to such an assumption without further complaint. Given that this solves issue of any potencial use of puppets 'abusively," and given the logic of the situation at hand, its far more compelling, logically, to assume I would not create a puppet and use it to fake consensus or get extra reverts, etc. Given my pledge above, with this proposed practical solution, I should be allowed to edit under these conditions and understanding. Waiting another month does seem to amount only to punishment. The purpose is prevention, not punishment. A week block had done the trick.Giovanni33 07:24, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll think it over...your week block was going to end next Tuesday I believe. Until then.--MONGO 07:33, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. If Im bad then you can always give me the month, again. But I'll be good.Giovanni33 07:35, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Conditions for unblocking

I have suggested unblocking early, if we can come to some agreement. You can read discussion here. (The two sections above are also of relevance.) It's only at the discussion stage at the moment, and I am hoping for more input. If the puppetry stops, I am also prepared to consider removing the tag from your userpage, in order to give you the chance to start again, free from any unneeded humiliation. I think it might help you to contribute more constructively. AnnH ♫ 20:02, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

That's fine...but every one of the sock accounts needs to be permablocked of course.--MONGO 20:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

It now appears that all sock accounts are blocked, so that eliminates those accounts being used again.--MONGO 20:14, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that next time you're online, you read this discussion, and then post here on your talk page what you agree to, so that we can get this mess sorted out as soon as possible. AnnH ♫ 07:38, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. Read it and I confirm I will not engage in any editing practices that could possibly be interpreted as violating any policies and guidelines, in particular as they pertain to the socket puppet issue. I affirm the above stipulations and confirm their sincereity. In addition, if I ever do introduce anyone new to Wikipedia, I will do so with full discloser to the community, and I will refrain from colluding with them within areas of wikipedia that I am engaged in. In the past I made mistakes relating to this issue and others, and I wish to remove all negatives aspects of my involvement with the project, while keeping the positive ones. It is only to this end that I seek the month long block shortened. I only ask that if any new users appear which someone suspects as my socketpuppet that I be alerted to this fact so I may abide by my own words per above, until a consensus of admins can acertain that such an editor is no longer regarded as a suspected puppet of myself. I think that is fair.Giovanni33 22:57, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Mr Gio, would you also be willing to agree to not make personal comments about other editors, speculate about their motives for trying to enforce policies or cast aspersions on them in anyway at all by commenting on such things as their education, background etc? Cheers, Sarah Ewart (Talk) 01:47, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I do agree, and I apologize to the extent that I have been guilty of such conduct in the past.Giovanni33 01:51, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Gio. I really appreciate that and your desire and willingness to reconcile with the community. Thanks, Sarah Ewart (Talk) 04:44, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

That sounds good to me, as do the conditions that you suggest in the section above this. I would also like an undertaking that neither you nor any account controlled by you will submit to any off-wiki webistes, by e-mail or by other means, any information about any other editor or editors that could be considered attacking or harassing in nature; and that you will not publicize such websites on Wikipedia. I am not going to draw attention to the websites I have in mind by naming them or the people involved, and I will state for the record that I do not believe that you have any real-life connection to Trollwatcher or SimplePilgrim, although you may have been in touch with them by e-mail after they arrived at Wikipedia (indeed, Trollwatcher asked you to e-mail him), and some of the online attacks on me may have been, at the very least, influenced by what you wrote. I do, however, believe that an account controlled by you posted information about me and engaged in dialogue of an encouraging nature with a mentally-ill, sexually-deviant stalker who has harassed numerous female editors here, sending them obscene and threatening e-mails, phoning their workplaces, creating webpages about them, with contact details and references to body parts, etc. I am not looking for any confession or denial; I am simply asking for an undertaking for the future. Of course, if you ask a friend to join to support you, and clear evidence (unknown to you) emerges of a connection between the two of you, and your friend then engages in behaviour that you do not control or condone, you will be blamed for it.

It has also been suggested at AN/I that you need to agree to stop making personal commentary about editors and allegations about their motives. I see, though refreshing my watchlist in another window of my browser, that Sarah made a similar suggestion while I was typing this, and you have agreed. Your apology is certainly accepted. I think you should make an effort to drop taunts like "Christians don't like to talk about their origins. hehe", "when we look [at the Eucharist] in a microscope, I don't see red blood cells but fermented grape juice. hehe", "this particular book of such depraved moral instruction" (the Bible), "I also have a problem with calling God mentally ill. I don't think God can get off so easy for his massive crimes against humanity, and genocide on an insanity defense." etc. They don't help the editing atmosphere when many of the people reading those pages are Christians, and where people of different POVs should be trying to work together to find the best wording for the article. And I'd strongly urge you not to use a user talk page as a place for your opinions about the user, but simply as a place where, if necesssary, you can communicate with the user.

I personally wouldn't make them conditions for unblocking, except for the one relating to stalking, but I feel you should be prepared to agree to them both out of common sense and as an act of good will.

In return for your agreement, you will be unblocked, and the tag will be removed from your user page. The tags will be left on the other user pages, but as those accounts do not edit Wikipedia any more, it's unlikely that anyone unfamiliar with this background will find those pages. As long as there is no indication of continued use of puppets, and as long as you stop your commentaries about other users and their motives, your past will not be brought up — at least in cases where I can stop it. If you doubt my ability to deal fairly, as admin, with someone I've been in content dispute with, look here, here, here, and here.

Finally, you must understand that if you violate the WP:SOCK policy in the future, you will be blocked indefinitely, and I don't think you'll find anyone to unblock you. Even if you're cautious, you don't know what leads to your unmasking, so you can never fully escape detection. You can rest assured that I will not declare another user to be your puppet unless I have good evidence, and in such cases I would discuss it privately with other admins, bureaucrats, arbcome members, etc. You need have absolutely no fear that I will use the existence of another editor with your POV as a means of "getting rid of you" on trumped-up charges. If I wanted to get rid of you, I imagine that I would find it fairly easy to do so now. Regarding your request that if new users are suspected of being you, you will be alerted, yes, I agree to that, with the understanding that I would have time to observe such users for a while before informing you. You would be informed once I felt I had grounds for such a suspicion.

I am going on wiki-break now, and may not read your replies until September. As far as I'm concerned, based on what you have already agreed to, if you add an agreement that you will not participate in any attacking or harassing of Wikipedians on other websites, then I am happy for MONGO to unblock you and to untag your user page as soon as he wishes. For the record, I will say I do not think you were in any way responsible for what happened with KHM03, but because of the behaviour of a new user who had been aggressively reverting to your version, and who used language similar to yours, (and whom I believe to be you,) I would like to feel that this can be ruled out for the future, to the extent that it is in your control. AnnH ♫ 03:15, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Sigh

Way, way, way up there, I mentined something about the block being extended to indefinite, to clarify, I was referring to the blocking reason given in the block log:

19:41, 8 August 2006 MONGO (Talk | contribs) blocked "Giovanni33 (contribs)" with an expiry time of 1 week (1 week, edit warring, insults, etc. feel free to extend block to indef)

Yep, that's what I was refering to, my lack of wanting-Gio-to-be-blocked-indefinitely. See you around. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 00:50, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Unblocked

Per discussions on this page and at AN/I, I have now unblocked your account one day earlier than I said I would. I am sure you understand the constraints and expectations for your future editing. Best wishes.--MONGO 04:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. I tried and I'm still blocked. It might have been set by autoblock because I tried earlier today to change something I wrote on my user page.Giovanni33 05:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Give me a few minutes and I'll see what's up.--MONGO 05:03, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Wait 5 minutes and try again...I'm not seeing any autoblocks.--MONGO 05:09, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I tried again. The message I get is: "Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "Giovanni33". " It gives my IP address. I think its the ip that is blocked, which is: 64.121.40.153. Giovanni33 05:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, try it now.--MONGO 05:48, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Working. Merci.Giovanni33 06:33, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back, and I really hope everything works out this time. I take it that you have also agreed to the condition I gave above with regard to any possible participation in (or encouraging of) the attacking of other Wikipedians on off-wiki sites and/or the posting of their personal details? AnnH ♫ 08:14, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, and yes, that goes without saying.Giovanni33 11:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Do you concede that Professor33 is (or perhaps "was" is a more appropriate term) your sockpuppet? You might want to remove the award "he" gave you from your userpage... --Lord Deskana (talk) 09:34, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I concede that it's logical and appropriate to treat him as a socketpuppet for all practical purposes, if not as a matter of established fact, esp. considering all the information that is known regarding that account, specifically technical data that establishes a confirmation. What more is there to say that needs to be said on the matter which yields a substantive difference? At this point in time, and moving forward, I offer no arguments to the contrary and accept the ramifcations of such a classification, nor will I for any other editor, even if just suspected. Administrators here should be given credit and I will abide by their general consensus on such matters instead of being argumentative. Giovanni33 11:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) Since Giovanni has gone so far as to agree that such users can be assumed to be his puppets, and since there seems to be general agreement not to try to force a more explicit statement from him, I think the best solution would be that Giovanni should simply agree that an administrator may quietly remove that award, rather than doing it himself. In any case, since the puppeteer tag has been removed from Gio's page, and since the puppet tag will remain on Professor's page, it's probably preferable not to have a link to Professor's page from Gio's page. Gio, if you stick to Wikipedia policy, and collaborate constructively with people you've been in opposition with, I'm sure you'll get many barnstars to replace that award. Anyway, I'm about to log off, so that my watchlist won't work until September. Too many distractions here. AnnH ♫ 11:51, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I did remove it, as that is the right thing to do in this circumstance.Giovanni33 12:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back Gio and best of luck. I hope it all works out well for you. I think it might be time to archive this page and make a new start. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 11:54, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, my reason for asking was to get that award removed, so if that's done I'm happy. --Lord Deskana (talk) 13:13, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: Archiving

Whilst I could help you archive this page again, it seems to have the ability to grow at a massive rate, so it's probably best if you farmiliarise yourself with the instructions at WP:ARCHIVE, as you may need to archive this page a lot in future. See you around and happy editing! Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 08:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, your right, ofcourse, but as hard as it may be to beleive for some people, for some things I am just plain lazy. And this happens to be one of those things. I think I need to hire a wiki-janitor. Giovanni33 09:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

There is even an archive bot available. Agathoclea 09:34, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Open User talk:Giovanni33/Archive2 in a separate window in your browser. Keep this page open at the same time. Click on "edit this page" from Archive2. Put: {{subst:talkarchive}} at the top of Archive2. Click on "edit this page" from this page. Select anything that you want to move to the archive, and either "copy" it or "cut" it (and delete it later). Save the new archive page (the link to it will turn blue), and then save your talk page (minus the bits you've removed), having put a link to Archive1 and Archive2 at the top. If you find that Archive1 is longer than you would like it to be, you could remove some stuff and put it in Archive2, and you could create a new User talk:Giovanni33/Archive3 and put stuff from this page there. Oh, and contrary to what some people may say, there is absolutely no policy requiring you to archive every single thing that you remove from your talk page. While this is not acceptable, and while altering someone else's post (even on your own talk page) to make it seem as if he wrote something that he didn't write is not acceptable, it's up to you to decide which threads you want to keep when you're archiving. AnnH ♫ 20:14, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi

Thanks Gio. This is my last attempt at surviving the wiki world and hopefully this one will work. I shall be avoiding all conflict and keeping as far away from the bureaucracy as I can as I have lost all faith in them. I'm sticking to the science articles and hopefully this is somewhere I can work in peace. Sophia 10:58, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm so happy you are back and I hope you will survice this time around. I have a lot going on now so I've been to busy to continue contributing in any major ways, at least for now; i just do minor stuff on various articles I check on at whim. So, I can't say I'm avoiding all conflicts per se, but I'll probably avoid articles that make them inevitable given my current time constrants, and I've committed to adjusting my own editing style to better work with other editors--even if I don't get my way, which is ok. This should lesson the frequency and nature of the conflicts that do arise. Hopefully enough to escape the spector of the bureauracracy. I hear that AI has been banned for a year? Sad to hear that. I wonder if some back channel diplomacy could be had that allows him to return before then?Giovanni33 02:32, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Article up for AfD

You may be interested: David MacMichael one of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity is up for deletion. 68.91.252.148 18:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)