User talk:Charles Matthews/Hoax investigation

After looking at all the evidence, it seems like ExplorerCDT is not, in fact, responsible for the original hoax - there are just too many things that don't fit. (The timing is off, the IP numbers are off, the edit history of ExplorerCDT doesn't match at all the edit history of the other anon editors of CNOM, or indeed to mathematics at all, and ExplorerCDT shows no sign of exhibiting the love of intellectual puzzles which presumably the CNOM hoaxer is fond of; the only thing which at all connects is the VfD discussion and ExplorerCDT's penchant for "testing" WP with frivolous pages, but even those pages share little resemblance to the CNOM page. Besides, his denials of this are quite insistent and remarkably clear compared to other evasions). There then appear to be three alternate hypotheses:

1. ExplorerCDT is telling the truth in that he misread A&S (see User_talk:ExplorerCDT for some recent discussion), and the "one can only leave so many clues" is just some really bad attempt at humour. I think Paul August's proposal here is fair - if ExplorerCDT can provide the page number of A&S that he misread, then presumably an apology is owed him (even obnoxious people can occasionally be in the right) and the whole thing blows over. If this page number is not provided, then one can then begin considering one of the other hypotheses.
2. ExplorerCDT was "testing" VfD with disinformation, perhaps to make some point, but then retracted (with some difficulty, because he was also trying to save face) once he realized he went too far; the CNOM page was just selected randomly among all the VfD pages for this purpose (note his edit history shows he is quite active in several of them). Note that he has exhibited contempt for the VfD process in the past, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/ExplorerCDT and especially the comments at the very bottom. This may be somewhat consistent with his penchant for testing WP in other ways. This may also explain his somewhat evasive behavior once he was "caught". I think this is the most likely scenario if the page number of A&S is not provided; if so then he may be guilty of some pranks that got out of hand but again it seems not worthwhile to push things any further, as it is a relatively minor misdemeanour that just happened to get somewhat out of hand, in no small part due to his method of responding to inquiries.
3. The "conspiracy theory" - ExplorerCDT is part of some Discordian club of friends, including perhaps the CNOM hoaxer (and subsequent anon editors) and heck maybe Jim Slim also, who amuse themselves by disinforming WP in various ways and occasionally colluding with each other. That would be more serious, but at present the evidence suggests that this scenario is extremely unlikely. We should assume this is not the case unless some more solid evidence is provided otherwise.

My guess is somewhere between #1 and #2, but the page number of A&S will probably be the decisive factor. He claims on his talk page that his copy of A&S is currently packed away while moving; let's give him the benefit of the doubt on that for now. Terry 23:27, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

All reasonable analyses. However my looking at the IP number data suggests #3 rather more strongly - Washingston area generally for the geography. Charles Matthews 11:48, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Yeah, I wonder if in your investigative work, Detective Matthews, you came to realize that IP address is one of a block of IP addresses owned by Verizon. The Virginia legislature gave benefits an tax write-offs to computer companies, and most large internet providers have located their headquarters there (including AOL, fyi). For someone who appears to be somewhat intelligent, you really are clueless. I live in NYC and haven't been to Virginia in 4 years. —ExplorerCDT 18:10, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm now strongly supporting theory #2. The IP data is unconvincing, as it only weakly localizes both users to an area with a population in the tens of millions (and which presumably contains a large fraction of the users of the English WP anyway). On the other hand, he has had multiple opportunities to prove he wasn't lying (page ref of A&S, etc.) and has conspicuously failed to do so.

An examination of ExplorerCDT's edit history suggests that he enjoys being an authority on every issue, including ones for which he really doesn't know anything about, and is extremely sensitive to when that authority is challenged (as Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/ExplorerCDT also shows). There are days in which he comments on every single VfD, or every single request for move, or every featured article candidate... you get the idea. Also I think the privilege of being a universal authority is what drew ExplorerCDT to WP in the first place. For instance after his first comment on CNOM on Dec 22, he also commented on eight other VfD candidates also, none of which had any relation to CNOM. The only difference is that while in all other VfD's his authority was not challenged, in CNOM it was, because his position was so clearly in the wrong. His first real mistake begins at that point; rather than back down, or at least concede some difficulty with the position, he chose to deliberately lie (A&S) in order to preserve his authority. When that too was challenged, he acknowledged that CNOM was a in fact a clear hoax but didn't admit any other error; instead, I think what he meant by the "one can only leave so many clues" aside was some attempt to mitigate the blame, i.e. "OK, so I didn't catch the hoax, but hey, for 8 months neither did any of you guys; clearly the hoaxer didn't leave enough clues". Of course, it came out like a hoax admission. This was his second mistake; he did try to retract it but again without really admitting any error, and doing so in a way which didn't really alleviate suspicion. Of course, the fact that he still defended his lie and was otherwise acting oddly and abusively also caused suspicion. But I think his behavior can be entirely explained by the above personality traits and not because of any connection to the original hoax. In any event, he has now declared on Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/ExplorerCDT_2 that he is leaving WP, though in my experience such declarations generally only last on the order of a week to a month. Terry 19:10, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)