Members of the Arbitration Committee are aware of the core issues here. On 21 April 2015 at 1513 hours UTC, Chase me Ladies, I'm the Cavalry (ChaseMe for short) blocked Contribsx (talk · contribs) for abusing multiple accounts.[2] Immediately before that, he had initiated a sockpuppet investigation (SPI) at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Hackneymarsh in which he alleged that Contribsx was a sock of Hackneymarsh; in that SPI, he states that he was contacted by reporters from the UK newspaper The Guardian. His original statement also implied that the account was managed by or managed at the direction of a specific living person who is the subject of one of the articles edited by Contribsx and also edited several years previously by Hackneymarsh; however, as it was pointed out to him off-wiki that such a statement was a BLP violation (absent direct proof that the living person was directing or responsible for the edits of Contribsx) ChaseMe modified his statement. After he had completed the SPI and the block, he noted that, because the subject of the key article in question is a British politician involved in the current election, there would likely be some media attention. He then added a link to the news report in The Guardian at 1524 hours UTC.[3] The Guardian news story was published at 15.55 hours BST, or 1455 hours UTC[4], and includes nearly direct quotes from ChaseMe's unmodified SPI statement, and also states that the Contribsx account was blocked by Wikipedia "administrators" - despite the fact that the account was not blocked until 18 minutes after the Guardian article was published. The allegation that the living person was abusively editing Wikipedia using the Contribsx account has now been widely reported through most major news outlets throughout the United Kingdom.

Because the range of sanctions involved includes the removal of both checkuser and administrator permissions, the only body that can appropriately hear this matter is the Arbitration Committee. As well, because this case involves checkuser data, a living person who is a candidate in an ongoing and very contentious national election, and likely some off-wiki information including social media and emails, at least some of the evidence will need to be reviewed privately by the Arbitration Committee; however, there is a fair amount of publicly available and on-wiki information to manage this case publicly with acknowledgement that certain evidence may remain non-public. Risker (talk) 03:17, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Rschen7754: I am not alleging that data covered by the privacy policy was released to any unauthorized person, so it is not in scope for the Ombudsman Commission. As well, because this involves not just checkuser tools but also administrator tools (the block is a straight admin block, not a CU block), and because the AUSC does not have the power to remove either CU or Admin tools, there is hardly a point in taking the intermediate steps. In my mind, there is already sufficient evidence just in my statement plus some additional information provided on the Functionaries mailing list for Arbcom to take action. Risker (talk) 04:26, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to add here Rschen7754, that there is an element of procedural fairness that should be considered. It is unfair to expect someone to defend their actions in multiple venues at the same time. While certainly the AUSC can assist Arbcom by reviewing checkuser actions in this case, ultimately the most serious sanction they can impose is recommending to Arbcom that the checkuser permission be removed. And it may be quite challenging (especially given the fact that half of AUSC is arbitrators) for ChaseMe to keep up with the pace of an investigation that involves two separate reviewers of private evidence, as well as the public case. I think he made a serious error in judgment here that has abnormally wide-ranging effects (how many volunteers in the world can say that their action resulted in headlines around the country?). But even people who make mistakes should be treated fairly. Risker (talk) 05:29, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Rschen7754 There are several aspects: the fact that the news article was directly quoting an SPI that had not yet been posted on-wiki, the fact that the block was made 18 minutes after the Guardian article reported that it had been made, BLP violation, the extent of the investigation, who was consulted during the process (and whether they had any COI)...and those are just the matters that are public; there are non-public issues as well, which is why I pointed out that Arbcom is already in possession of a lot of facts about this case. I'll note that I found out about this because I happened to look at the Guardian website about 1515 hours today, and their article was complete and included the quotes and the fact of blocking; not even Wikipedia can update an article that fast. Risker (talk) 05:50, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Jehochman, there are significant discrepancies between public statements and those made on non-public mailing lists (Checkuser-L and Functionaries-en-L at minimum, and I suspect more will come to light) as well as other non-public information, and this matter is not only in the on-wiki public sphere but also broadly discussed in the news media. Thus, it is important that the matter (a) be investigated and (b) be publicly acknowledged to be under investigation; there is no such public acknowledgement with AUSC investigations. There is also the rather serious matter of a person holding checkuser and oversight permissions including a rather obvious BLP violation in a public statement (see the history of the SPI), one that has been widely quoted in the press. There's a more general question of whether or not the conclusions reached in the SPI are reasonable or have gone beyond what the evidence shows, at least in part because of the BLP violation that linked inappropriate editing behaviour to a specific person. Risker (talk) 14:07, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry

This is a sensible precaution and I understand why it has to be done. It should be done in private. In short, I - and several other editors - were contacted by the Guardian in early April about the suspicion they had that Contribsx was deceiving editors on Wikipedia. I treated this email as I would treat any email from a member of the public about foul play: I investigated it in my own time as a volunteer administrator/checkuser. I did so independently of the Guardian but they were able to point out a few edits that were particularly suspicious. I came to the conclusion listed on the SPI, and ran this conclusion past other administrators, who concurred. I then responded to the Guardian journalist that I would be blocking the account, and my reasons - not sharing any personally identifiable data with them - and went to immediately block the account. I already had the reasons and evidence written out. I then struggled with the SPI template for over half an hour, which was not displaying properly. You can see in the history of the SPI that even after I hit 'save' rather than 'preview', I still had to manually build the page up - this explains the delay between the Guardian's article and the SPI case page. I then emailed the checkuser email list explaining the potentially contentious block I had made, and I sent a separate message to Jimmy Wales explaining what I'd done.

I made the SPI case public in the interests of transparency, as I knew there would be questions asked, but I admit that ideally I should have run this past more people for checking. I have not provided any statements to the press, everything I have shared with non-functionaries is shared publicly in the SPI.

Once again, I think it's sensible to review things like this and am more than happy to support it, as long as it's done privately, for obvious reasons. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (Message me) 10:24, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have made a further comment, mostly for the benefit of the journalists who showed up at my door, and the other ones who published an article about me without actually talking to me, here: User talk:Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry#Further comment on Contribsx. I am off to another location for a few days to avoid the press but will stay in touch. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (Message me) 16:24, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Rschen7754

@Risker: I guess I'm not following what's being alleged here or what policies were violated (though I can speculate), or if this overlaps with the remit of the m:OC or WP:AUSC, if it does. --Rs chen 7754 04:19, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Risker: Well, what I am asking is, so if it's not privacy violations, then is the scope of the request just to review the actions and determine if they were appropriate? Or are there specific concerns? (I believe it was said elsewhere that some thought Chase me should not have conducted the entire investigation on his own). --Rs chen 7754 05:42, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Arthur goes shopping

It is not correct to say that the impending election is "very contentious" as compared with other United Kingdom general elections. For example the United Kingdom general election, 1992 is described by Wikipedia as "one of the most dramatic elections in the UK since the end of the Second World War", while another general election that century was called "in the midst of a constitutional crisis". By comparison, commenting on this year's general election, the BBC said three days ago, "We're still awaiting take-off ... How many different and interesting ways are there to describe a walrus moving barely one inch?"

The politician about whom the allegations were made is quoted by the BBC this morning as saying "A simple look in my diary shows I was elsewhere". Elsewhere than whom? If the politician and his advisers had no knowledge of the person operating the Contribsx account, how would they know that person was in a different location to the politician? The only unregistered edits mentioned by the Guardian are described as IP addresses of "a web hosting service regularly employed by internet spammers" ... it does not seem there is any suggestion that the politician and the web hosting service were in the same physical location. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 06:59, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Fæ

I welcome Arbcom shining some light in public on this case. ~~The impact has been publicly damaging, and continues to damage Wikimedia projects as the press run with this story.~~

Chase appears to have been ~~driving the investigation~~ in cooperation with the newspaper while the story was being prepared even if information was not directly cut&paste (as ~~appears to~~ have been stated by himself on the sockpuppet investigation with "[The Guardian] did point out the likelihood of sockpuppetry and explained the connections between the various characters, which is a lot of work - thankyou!"). I note that a second Wikimedia employee used their personal Wikipedia account to protect the article on 21 April. ~~Chase's investigation is entirely likely to have been done with the support of other employees of Wikimedia UK as part of their "communications" activities, indeed~~ The Guardian has used a public statement from "a spokesperson from Wikimedia UK", which Chase must have been part of preparing.[5] The UK chapter has a long and open history of working with newspaper contacts on ~~secret~~ Wikipedia investigations ~~as part of increasing the charity's media profile~~.

During my tenure as an elected trustee on the board of Wikimedia UK, I was advised by employees (including Chase) that they were running ~~"black ops"~~ investigations. This included employees having anonymous accounts on Wikipediocracy in order to glean information from non-public threads. If this is still going on, and relies (or has relied) on checkuser information, or information from OTRS accounts, then it is about time these ~~secrecy games~~ came to an end, and employees advised to stick to open and accountable working using "WMUK" accounts, or those involved advised to make open declarations about their anonymous activities.

I suggest that Arbcom contact D'Arcy Myers, the current interim Wikimedia UK CEO,[6] at the commencement of this case, for an official statement with regards to what Wikipedia investigations are being run ~~covertly~~, with the support or facilities of the charity even if on a "tacit" basis. Other employees involved in any way, should be invited to make a public statement and expect to be a party to this case.

For what I hope are obvious reasons, I urge Arbcom members who are personal friends with Chase (himself a past member of Arbcom) to recuse. --Fæ (talk) 09:51, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note, based on Worm That Turned's threat to block me because of language,[7] I have struck some superfluous words above. I will be happy to strike further if he thinks it is needed. --Fæ (talk) 12:04, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Worm That Turned: I have said nothing here about employees "own gain", so there has been no "extraordinary accusation", only a statement of fact.

The cases that I knew about where WMUK employees including Chase were involved were being run for entirely virtuous reasons, such as debunking PR manipulation of Wikipedia articles. At the board level we supported the idea that the charity could take a lead in ensuring that the press had factual and appropriate information, rather than repeating gossip. Trusted checkusers and OTRS volunteers were involved, I am sure they can come forward and make statements. I have nowhere claimed that confidential information has been released, but it would be naive to presume that those with access to confidential material like this, who are at the same time working with journalists, are not influenced by the information. Neither Wikipedia, nor the UK charity, have any firm governance rules on how to separate these activities, apart from not actually cut & pasting the material; for example it is common to paraphrase emails from closed email discussions where there was an expectation of confidentiality, such as we see for OTRS.

Thanks for your note that I have "fallen far from grace with WMUK". Neither the Wikimedia UK Head of Communications (who I talked with at the time), nor the CEO will deny the facts stated, though based on past experience they are likely to add some spin. If you believe these are bizarre (and easy to disprove) lies, perhaps you should test them by asking. I could spend time ferreting through emails from when I was a trustee, but I do not want to be responsible for passing on what might be retrospectively claimed to be records of the charity, when there has been no request under the Freedom of Information Act.

I would prefer it if the facts of this case remained the focus, rather than tangential statements about me. I am neither a trusted user nor have any political influence, not just down to allegations from long ago which destroyed my reputation, but mainly thanks to the sustained hounding and public character assassination which a couple of apparently obsessive people attracted to my private life, have been unable to resist over the years since. --Fæ (talk) 11:46, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have struck my statement entirely. I shall consider if it is worth the volunteer effort, and the risk of being blocked, for trying to make a statement in this case about what I know to be true, from my time as a charity trustee that are relevant to this case. I was told things as a trustee and the Chairman of Wikimedia UK about activities of the employees for which there will be no hard on-wiki evidence, so verification may boil down to whether the people who have been involved are prepared to make an open and straight-forward statement out of good conscience. --Fæ (talk) 12:32, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Two observations:

There are 14 employees at Wikimedia UK.[8] and a few are active administrators on the English Wikipedia. An employee ~~protected the biography, another~~ ran the SPI case and checkuser, while yet another prepared an official statement to The Guardian. It is possible but would be surprising if these people did not communicate with each other before the official statement from the charity to the press was finalized. If they did, then actions taken as an unpaid volunteer and actions as a full time employee must be considered blurred.
It is stated that "I - and several other editors - were contacted by the Guardian". I have no idea how the Guardian contacts editors off-wiki, or how the Guardian would select their Wikipedia representatives. Presumably via a Wikimedia email account on OTRS or through an existing network or list of Wikimedians with an interest for working with journalists. It would be reassuringly transparent if the actions of The Guardian as to what, who, when and how this contact happened, were publicly stated. --Fæ (talk) 13:33, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Strike part of observation 1, based on KTC's statement of the order of events, not having discussed the article with anyone, and deducing that they were not one of the editors contacted by the Guardian. --Fæ (talk) 14:23, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Observation 1 with regard to blurring the lines, seems superseded by direct quotes from correspondence between The Guardian and Chase in the press, now being of more interest to the press than the official statement from the UK chapter (avoiding direct link to press articles as these use Chase's real name). I hope these statements will be verified or disproved by passing original correspondence to Arbcom. --Fæ (talk) 15:57, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification with regard to Wikimedia UK aspects:

I have never been bound by a non-disclosure agreement. Trustees agree to a code of conduct (it was first created when I was the Chairman), but trustees have no legal nor expected restraint to free speech when they resign. I had access to some sensitive information when recruiting and managing employees for the charity, as well as some secure administrative details, but we followed good practice for managing it and retained none at a personal level.
My two observations above are independent of my original struck statement, they are not intended to replace it.
With regard WTT's question of only now raising the issues of anonymous accounts and private investigations run by charity employees (even when declaring themselves as volunteers at that moment), I have raised this in years past as a risk with the board of Wikimedia UK when I was a trustee, and after I resigned. It was not a matter of special public interest at that time I raised it internally. It can come as no surprise, I even raised a similar issue with the WMF, who have now changed to using appropriately named staff accounts to improve transparency, along with my maintenance of m:WMF Advanced Permissions better to ensure transparency of staff rights.
I would like to recognize that I know of several current and past professional connections between employees, trustees and UK political parties. As a trustee I pushed for public declarations, but these are optional for employees, apart from the CEO. I do not believe that any of these relationships that may be declared or discussed are of any relevance to this case, nor do I believe that these personal networks are abnormal for a UK charity. I continue to believe it is in the best interests of the charity for employees and trustees to make fulsome public declarations of these loyalties and past connections, especially considering how they may be perceived in the context of Wikimedia funds and the importance of being seen to retain a Wikipedia neutral point of view.

--Fæ (talk) 15:25, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by William M. Connolley (talk)

As far as I can tell, the sock-block is entirely spurious. The grounds for block, if there were any, would be COI; but since the account has had no warnings an immeadiate COI block would appear to be rather severe. So, why hasn't the block been overturned while the case is considered? William M. Connolley (talk) 10:14, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jehochman

Risker, what are you alleging? That Chase leaked CU info to the Guardian? To me the timeline suggests that a reporter figured this all out and emailed Chase the evidence, and Chase then posted it publicly. That would explain the exact quotes. The worst you've alleged is that Chase told the reporter he would block the account before doing it. So what? Please post the crux of the complaint if there is one. Jehochman ^Talk 10:34, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Risker, this is the same old story where WP:COI and WP:OUTING don't play nicely together. You all can debate whether Chase Me should be sanctioned for getting crossed up in our poorly integrated policies and guidelines. In the meanwhile, out of an abundance of caution, I would delete Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Hackneymarsh and its archive until it is clear that publishing the connection is appropriate. Looking at that page, Chase Me disclosed that a reporter did the research and then fed the data to him. Jehochman ^Talk 16:12, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Worm That Turned

It looks like the Arbs are doing the right thing (investigation by both Arbcom and AUSC, in camera) so there's not much for me to add there. I must say that I'm astounded by Fæ's comment though. The idea that WMUK staff are using private information (CU and OTRS) for their own gain is an extraordinary accusation - I hope you have something to back it up, which should be passed to Arbcom immediately. If accurate, why in the hell did you not do something about it at the time. I note however that you have fallen far from grace with WMUK and wonder how accurate these accusations are. If not accurate, I do hope they are stricken. Worm^TT(talk) 10:46, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Fæ, I do hope you know how distant I am from WMUK. I know a few people associated with it, but given my location, I've never been to the office, nor am I involved in general discussions. You can count my contributions to the WMUK on your fingers. What I know is that you were a trustee of that charity, and you are now not a member - and not by your choice, that's what I refer to by "fall from grace". I don't know which lies you're referring to and I'm really not interested.

Focussing on your accusation that Chase Me used CU data for "black ops" investigations - which you now clarify is for "ensuring the press has factual information" (a completely different thing) - that is still against CU policy. Checks should checks must only be made in order to prevent or reduce potential or actual disruption, or to investigate credible, legitimate concerns of bad faith editing. You are suggesting that checks have been made for other reasons. There's definitely stuff that needs to be investigated in this case - but what you are accusing Chase Me of is a pattern of misusing the tool. Similarly with your accusation of misuse of OTRS which prohibits release of that information without explicit permission from the original provider of that information. Are you saying that non-vague information has been passed around the WMUK office?

The idea that CU or OTRS information is used in this manner is not a "statement of fact" but an accusation and alluding to it in this manner, in this forum, is reprehensible. If you have evidence, it should be provided - I'd hope WMUK has a whistleblower policy? If not, you need to refactor your comments to remove the slur. Worm^TT(talk) 12:07, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Fae. Worm^TT(talk) 12:34, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Black Kite

I can't quite understand why people above are saying the block itself is spurious or even dubious. There's no problem here with the actual block itself. Contribsx is a very loudly quacking duck of a sock of Hackneymarsh, with everything including its creation time, articles edited, and material added or deleted pointing precisely to it being operated, or under the direction of, the same person or organisation. To be honest, I wouldn't even have bothered going to SPI, I'd have just blocked it on behaviour. So there's no misuse of the blocking tool here.
However, if it had gone to SPI, it would almost certainly have been approved for CU on behaviour. So no violation of CU policy on that basis (i.e. it wasn't fishing, for example).

@DoRD: - fair point. It certainly wouldn't be unusual to run a CU in such situations to look for sleepers, though. And it wouldn't be unusual to run a CU to see what IP the new logged-in user was coming from, to compare it with the IP edits from the previous issue (although that info wouldn't be made public). Black Kite (talk) 17:37, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Any issue, I think, will have to be limited to whether there was any disclosure of CU or other privileged information to the Guardian. This has to be done in private, I'm pretty sure.
Black Kite (talk) 11:42, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Black Kite has a history of attempting to personally discredit editors who raise concerns about the way this issue has been handled. See [9] [10] [11] Hobson (talk) 19:23, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by DoRD

I would like to respond to Black Kite from my perspective as an active CheckUser and former SPI clerk. Except for Contribsx, the CU data for every account and IP in the SPI archive is long stale, so it is actually rather unlikely that any checks would have been endorsed in the recent case, and personally, I wouldn't have run any checks on my own. In addition, if Contribsx was such an obvious sockpuppet, checks would not normally have been warranted unless there was some evidence that other unused "sleeper" accounts were waiting in the wings. —DoRD (talk) 13:41, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by KTC

*Sigh*

Timeline:

There's a leading article on one of national newspaper website concerning yet another politician allegedly directly or indirectly editing their and/or other articles.
I look at the article on him.
It gets vandalised by an IP.[12]
It was temporarily semi'd only last month on BLP ground.[13]
Though the one instance of vandalism so far was minor, with the news cycle/social media, it was only likely to continue/get worse.[14][15]
I semi-protected the page for one month to reduce further vandalism or potential BLP violation.

I never even heard of the subject of the article before yesterday (after the newspaper article was published), much less discussed anything about this in advance with anyone since I didn't know anything about it, and no I didn't discuss whether I should apply semi-protection to the article with anyone before I applied it. -- KTC (talk) 14:08, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Anthonyhcole

Please look at the evidence Chase Me had at the time of the block and determine whether he accurately characterised to The Guardian and others the strength of that evidence.

Statement by uninvolved Hammersoft

The cases of employees of the Foundation and/or its chapters overlapping their official capacity and volunteer edits continue to grow. The Foundation supposedly created a policy^{(see note below)} to address this, but the policy has failed. This case is another possible case where employees are overlapping their duties with their volunteer edits. As is often the case, there are real world implications to these failures. I remind ArbCom of a motion it passed which in part addressed this issue. Should ArbCom accept this case, part of its investigation should be looking into whether this policy was violated. Though ArbCom has no jurisdiction over the actions of the WMF and its employees, it does have jurisdiction over their local privileges and actions here on this project.

Note: As an addendum, I note with disgust that the Foundation has failed to post the policy, referenced by Philippe here, on its policies page, nor does there appear to be any traffic regarding such in its resolutions. If the Foundation is unwilling to enact/enforce (if it exists, which appears doubtful) this policy, it may come to pass in the future that ArbCom will be forced to remove all but the basic user access levels from Foundation/chapter employees to prevent such serious issues from arising again. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:35, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(Thanks to @Fæ:, clarifying) I would like to note that I'm well aware of the relationship and dividing line between the Foundation and its chapters as outlined at Foundation:Local chapters. Regardless, the impact of employees, whether they be Foundation or chapter employees, can and has been dramatically felt here. This issue is once again apparently raising its ugly head, and I think needs to be firmly addressed. Any action by an employee needs to be unequivocally demarcated as to whether they are acting as an employee or as a volunteer. Further, any advanced user access level action by an employee where the employer is involved (broadly construed) should not be taken. A request at an appropriate noticeboard should be made in lieu of direct action. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:05, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Pudeo

The earlier September 2012 SPI case (which was declined) was opened only after the Guardian alleged Hackneymarsh is the politician and alleged that two IP addresses are connected to him.

This was never confirmed by any Wikipedia process and as such evidence related to the politician's real-life activities is inappropriate and undue outing. Yet the Guardian article in 2012 [16] claimed that Hackneymarsh, Historyset and two IP addresses belong to the politician. Did someone leak CheckUser information already back then? How could the newspaper link an anonymous Wikipedia editor to an IP address? It brings forth a very serious question. Both the 2012 and 2015 the Guardian articles were written by the same journalist by the way, and the journalist knew who to contact to get a solo SPI on-going. AUSC should examine CheckUser use all the way back to 2010. --Pudeo ' 15:34, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

re Dweller: ChaseMe's initial wording in the SPI directly tied the politician to the sockmaster. He did change the wording a bit later (diff). But it's clear the whole SPI was based on the mere allegation that Hackneymarsh is the politician, only supported by the Guardian's "investigations" which were taken at face value. --Pudeo ' 15:50, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Dweller

Did the investigation reveal for *absolute certainty* that this sock was "clearly controlled by Shapps"?

It's my understanding that that is the quote that was given to the Guardian and if it's not true, we should immediately contact the paper, apologise to them and to Shapps and correct the assertion. --Dweller (talk) 15:36, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Carrite

While I don't object to ArbCom hearing evidence and making a decision in secret, I do hope that it will publish a timeline of its findings. The questions are: who contacted whom, when, and with what intent? Carrite (talk) 17:31, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Andreas

The Daily Telegraph, April 22, "Wikipedia administrator who accused Grant Shapps of editing pages of Tory rivals is Liberal Democrat activist".

"The Wikipedia administrator who accused the Tory co-chairman, Grant Shapps, of creating a fake identity on the online encyclopedia to boost his reputation is a leading activist in the Liberal Democrats, the Telegraph can reveal. In his Twitter profile, Mr Symonds describes himself as a “Liberal Democrat to the last.” He has written letters to newspapers, including The Telegraph, in his capacity as a Liberal Democrat activist."

Among those political letters are: [17] [18]. These are also signed by "Chris Keating, Streatham".

Wikimedia UK board member Chris Keating declared his membership in the LibDems only in November 2012, a few weeks after the previous, 2012 Shapps Wikipedia story in the Guardian [19][20]. At that time, Chris Keating was the chairman of the Wikimedia UK board. He has since then run for office for the LibDems, according to his interest declaration. Given Fæ's comments above, we are now left to wonder whether the timing of that interest declaration, a few weeks after the previous Shapps imbroglio, was significant, whether Wikimedia UK was involved in that previous story as well, and whether some form of non-standard checkuser access was used at the time.

If the Committee could establish the facts of the matter and report to the community about it, I would welcome that. All of this strikes me as highly damaging to the image of Wikipedia and Wikimedia UK. Andreas JN466 17:50, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {an editor}

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Sockpuppet investigation block: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <10/0/1/0>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)

Accept with CU aspects initially referred to AUSC. -- Euryalus (talk) 04:10, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Risker: In case necessary to clarify why I support AUSC referral - yes this is an intermediate step, but I'd argue it's necessary to ensure allegations of functionary tool misuse are not reviewed solely by functionaries. The AUSC outcome, whatever it may be, would inform the wider case. -- Euryalus (talk) 05:30, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Arthur goes shopping: clarifying that while you may be right re contentiousness in the current UK elections, the case request focuses on whether admin and functionary tools were used in accordance with WP policy. -- Euryalus (talk) 07:10, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Accept. We definitely need to take a look at what happened here. I also agree with Euryalus that we should recommend that the AUSC look at the possibility of CU issues and give their opinion. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:23, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Risker: Just to clarify—do you feel that the Arbitration Committee should be reviewing this without asking for input from the AUSC? GorillaWarfare (talk) 06:47, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Accept and support AUSC referral. LFaraone 04:38, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Accept with AUSC referral. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:33, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Recuse. I know Chase me in real life, and as a Brit with known political views I want to avoid any accusations of bias tainting the outcome of the case. Thryduulf (talk) 07:29, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Accept and support referral to AUSC. Yunshui ^雲 _水 07:39, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Accept but this case needs to be adjudicated in camera. $Salvio$ ^{Let's talk about it!} 09:38, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Accept but with AUSC involvement and, per Salvio, largely in private, Roger Davies ^talk 09:47, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Accept but per Roger and Salvio, largely in private. AUSC referral if this won't cause any significant delay. Dougweller (talk) 10:56, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Accept Per Doug, Roger, Salvio in terms of the privacy thing. I'm not sure about AUSC, it certainly doens't seem patently necessary, but nor does it seem like a bad idea. NativeForeigner ^Talk 18:14, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Accept but this is going to take me a bit to get up to speed --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 19:13, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 105: / Line 105: @@
 * Any issue, I think, will have to be limited to whether there was any disclosure of CU or other privileged information to the Guardian.  This has to be done in private, I'm pretty sure.
 * [[User_talk:Black Kite|Black Kite (talk)]] 11:42, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
+:* Note: Black Kite has a history of attempting to personally discredit editors who raise concerns about the way this issue has been handled. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Hackneymarsh&diff=prev&oldid=657732474] [https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Hackneymarsh&diff=prev&oldid=657865250] [https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Hackneymarsh&diff=prev&oldid=657885750] [[User:Hobson|Hobson]] ([[User talk:Hobson|talk]]) 19:23, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 === Statement by DoRD ===