User talk:Classmusic

Sockpuppetry and COI

I've indefinitely blocked your other account, User:Cohler, as you're not allowed to use two accounts on Wikipedia. Next time, do us a favour and tell us first - hiding things like this make you much less trustworthy.

Also, please note that you're not allowed to edit Jonathan Cohler for now, due to your possible conflict of interest.

I'm not blocking this account, as you've shown at least some good-faith attempts at editing, but take this as a serious warning: we don't tolerate people who try to game the system. Thanks, m.o.p 18:00, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Here are my responses to Almost-instinct's list, with his statements restated here for clarity with my responses indented. --Classmusic (talk) 20:20, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

1. In 2008 User:Cohler's sixth edit on Wikipedia created Jonathan Cohler, a straight copy and paste of Jonathan Cohler's official biography
2. Cohler's next edit was at Talk:Jonathan Cohler stating that the User:Cohler = the subject of the article Jonathan Cohler
   1. This is true and it was immediately noted by User:Cohler that he was making the contribution and licensing Wikipedia to use the material.
3. Two years later Cohler added Jonathan Cohler to list of faculty at Longy School of Music
   1. So what? Mr. Cohler is and was a member of the faculty at Longy School of Music. Is Almost-instinct against the truth?
4. On 26 Sep 2011 Cohler made five edits to Jonathan Cohler
   1. All five of these edits added independent citation references and or factual birth date information, none of which have been contested to my knowledge. References included Boston Globe, Penguin Guide, BBC Music Magazine and other recognized independent sources.
5. On 27 Sep 2011 User:Classmusic made their first edit - removing from the Jonathan Cohler page a Multiple Issues tag which made reference to Autobiography
   1. Yes, I did, because the article at this point had been edited by more than a dozen editors, it no longer closely resembled Mr. Cohler's self-published bio, and it now had reliable independent sources. Those satisfied all the reasons for removing the tags. Subsequent to this, nobody has retagged the article, including Almost-instinct.
6. On 27, 29 & 30 Sep 2011 Classmusic made many contributions to both Jonathan Cohler and Talk:Jonathan Cohler. All but 82 of the 125 edits to Jonathan Cohler have been made by User:Cohler or User:Classmusic
   1. User:Cohler has made only 8 edits. I have made 85 edits, all in the past few days. There are a total of 167 edits as of now. That means there have been 74 edits made neither by User:Cohler nor me. Contrary to User:Voceditenore's claim, the page looked very dissimilar from Mr. Cohler's originally published bio when I began editing it.
7. On 28 Sep 2011 User:Voceditenore wrote on Usertalk:Classmusic: "If you have previously edited Wikipedia under a different account/user name, make sure that you stick to only one of them for your future editing. There's more guidance about this here"
   1. This is inappropriate to post on a user's Talk page and is a thinly veiled public accusation of Sock Puppetry. I immediately deleted this as the WP guidelines say I should.
8. On 1 Oct 2011, noticing that Classmusic had not given a reply to Voceditenore, I wrote at Talk:Jonathan Cohler: "Hi Classmusic - can I just check that I haven't got muddled, and that this is your new account, taking over the work you were previously doing at User:Cohler? The edit history of this page suggests so, but I wouldn't like to be making an incorrect assumption [on] this question"
   1. This is a thinly veiled attempt at Outing. Amost-instinct is aware that User:Cohler self-declared on his Talk page that he was, in fact, Jonathan Cohler. Therefore, Almost-instinct claiming that he believes that I (Classmusic) am in fact the same person as User:Cohler is equivalent to him posting his theory about my personally identifiable information (POI). This is strictly forbidden by WP:OUTING. I therefore, followed the policy of WP:OUTING, which clearly states I should delete such posts without confirming or denying the accuracy of the claim. Furthermore, the policy states that whether or not the accuser's assumption is accurate doesn't matter, it is still considered Outing. As it states in the policy, "If you see an editor post personal information about another person, do not confirm or deny the accuracy of the information. Doing so would give the person posting the information and anyone else who saw the page feedback on the accuracy of the material. Do not treat incorrect attempts at outing any differently from correct attempts for the same reason."
9. On 1 Oct 2011 Classmusic blanked both Voceditenore's warning from their own talkpage and my query from Talk:Jonathan Cohler. This suggests that Jonathan Cohler is using a sock to try to avoid being recognised as editing his own article
   1. I blanked an inappropriate message from my Talk page. I have the right to do that according to Wikipedia policies (see Wikipedia:User_pages Removal of comments, notices, and warnings. I also blanked Almost-instinct's inappropriate Outing attempt. Which he promptly reinstated. I have objected once again on the page.
10. On 2 Oct 2011 Classmusic implied in this edit that they are not Jonathan Cohler
    1. This is false. I implied nothing. The text speaks for itself.
11. On 3 Oct 2011 shortly after Classmusic had made a few more edits of the Jonathan Cohler, adding links in references to positive reviews of Jonathan Cohler's CDs, User:Cohler put up an Account Retired template on their Userpage
    1. I added more independent sources from reputable journals. If Almost-instinct has a problem with any of those references, he has not indicated so.
12. On 3 Oct 2011 in these two edits to the Jonathan Cohler talkpage I re-made my query if User:Classmusic was a sock of User:Cohler; User:Classmusic claimed this was a misuse of the talkpage
    1. This is yet another Outing attempt by Almost-instinct.

Almost-instinct continues to make personal attacks and fails to argue anything on the substance of the page. In fact, many of Almost-instinct's most recent changes have been arguably detrimental to the page, introducting inaccuracies and making things less specific, more general and providing no reasons for why those changes were needed. This seems to be a personal issue for Almost-instinct, and I hope you will put a stop to it. Thank you for your time and consideration.

--Classmusic (talk) 20:20, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Some words of advice

You will have observed by now that while the adminstrator m.o.p. blocked only your previous account, a second admistrator has blocked this account as well. In both cases, the reason was "Abusing multiple accounts", which was confirmed via CheckUser at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Cohler. It is possible for you to request an unblock here on your talk page by adding Template:Unblock and your reason, but you will have to indicate very clearly that you understand why what you did was wrong. You created a sockpuppet account to evade scrutiny of your edits and disguise the conflict of interest you had in editing an article about yourself. And yes, it is entirely appropriate to point this out on your talk page. If you are eventually unblocked, you need to re-read very carefully the guidelines at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and Wikipedia:Autobiography and follow them scrupulously. Voceditenore (talk) 10:18, 5 October 2011 (UTC)