As there was genuine, repeated interest in NSK's user identity and NSK
has AFAIK still not clarified his identity himself, I will "blow the
whistle", that is, I will relay the relevant info (which is, after all,
freely and openly available):
NSK appears to be [[en:User:Npc]].
He has been active since October 23 and as of this writing has made 96
edits.
A certain share of his contributions are insertions of links to his own
wiki projects. These link insertions may be (or may not be) perceived
as inappropriate, but others be the judge of that. Not all of NSK's
contributions are such link insertions and IMHO some of his
contributions are quite ok.
Sorry to be the one to "blow the whistle" but I feel there's a public
interest; no offense to NSK.
-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
www.ropersonline.comhttp://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?
collection=independent_news&collectionid=Mosh
>>This isn't some obscure corner of the 'pedia, folks, like [[Iridology]]
>>or [[Instructional capital]].
>>
>>This is about the article on one of the largest minor political parties
>>in U.S. politics, on the 300th largest web site in the world.
Ec wrote-
>Your POV is showing. The second part is true in itself, but the
>comparison with two other ideas merits mentioning. Controversial as it
>may be , iridology does have a certain following. Many of these might
>place the Libertarian Party in an obscure corner. It is a matter of
>pure speculation for the followers of the one to say that the followers
>of the other are in an obscure corner.
>Instructional capital is probably less well known, but that is probably
>only because econo-social theories in general attract less attention.
My ignorance is showing, perhaps, but not my POV; I have never
been much of a supporter of the Libertarian party or of third-party
movements in general. I chose the other articles as examples that
have been the targets of POV warriors. Wikipedia lacks hit counters
so we have no objective way of knowing which of these articles is
the most frequently visited, though I still suspect that the Libertarian
page has had more views, particularly with the election and its
aftermath stimulating interest in U.S. politics.
In any case, my point remains: that with Wikipedia's continuing surge
in popularity, we have an obligation of service to our readers. And
POV warriors are making trouble on articles that, IMO, are now widely
read.
Two years ago it didn't make much difference if *any* article was
protected
for a week on [[m:The wrong version]]. Now it does, at least in some
cases.
UninvitedCompany
I'd just like to note a few more things on
arbitration, keeping it short, if I can. I completely
agree with Mark's (Delirium's) comments. It is a
ridiculously difficult thing to settle these disputes.
Especially when people seem to have infinite free
time to dredge up everything a user has ever done
since their arrival at WP 2 years prior. The claims
and counterclaims go on for ages. Often-times this
evidence is not in a very user-friendly format. It
takes ages to go through it all, and as a result I
often end up with poor impressions of a case because
I've had to read it piecemeal over several days. I
have no idea how to solve that. The fact that this
task is mind-numbingly boring is not much relieved by
the general grumbling in the community (regardless of
how a case is decided, someone hates me, often
publically...and usually there are dozens more who
post to the mailing list that we're either
inconsistent or punitive or soft on trolls or trolls
ourselves or just too damn slow). That, I think we
can solve in part. But it will take a restoration of
trust, which is always difficult.
Ambi's comments are very generous to me -- the fact is
that I don't do the heavy lifting, so cut me from your
list, if you would. I do what I can to offer the
occasional proposal, but I'd say that 95-98% of all
proposal making is the work of Fred, James F., and
Martin. I try hard to keep up with cases and vote on
proposals once made (and occasionally offer a
counter-proposal), but the work of actually deciding a
reasonable consequence to propose is too great for me.
I'll do my best to do more in this arena in the
coming weeks, but frankly it's a very tough task, and
I don't want the credit for it -- in the last 2-3
months, it's been the three people I mention above,
and my hat is off to all of them (Fred especially).
And I say this with no disrespect intended to my
fellow non-proposers -- I know all too well the
position we're in.
I won't comment on the rest of the AC proposals....all
of them have their advantages and drawbacks. I do
want to clarify my remakrs about IRC, though. I have
no problem with arbitrators using an IRC channel to
deliberate in simple ways (perhaps it would help in
the formulation of proposals). I thought the proposal
had been to have the arbitration, complete with agreed
punishments, happening in real time on IRC. That is
the possibility I cannot abide. If the AC used IRC
merely as an official way of opening deliberations
(while still making proposals and leaving comments in
the open and public wiki, holding all voting there), I
could live with that more reasonably (though I would
still have issues with the speed of my connection, I
think -- but I'm not tech-savvy enough to be sure).
Thanks for reading yet another lengthy rambling -- I
am hopeful that the AC is getting onto the right
track, and I wish us all well in getting there.
James R. (Jwrosenzweig)
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.
www.yahoo.com
Tim Starling wrote:
> The first and most important measure to improve the speed of the AC is
> to reduce the necessary quorum to three members. Decisions are made by a
> simple majority. Any member of the arbitration committee may request a
> review of such decisions by the full committee.
How would it be determined which three? Based on the IRC suggestion, it
seems likely that it would be the first three to come along.
Letting the arbitrators divide into three-member panels has been
suggested before, and has some merit to it. In my proposal to reorganize
the Arbitration Committee, I didn't address restructuring the
arbitration process itself because this kind of proposal doesn't need
the election context to happen. This could be implemented now if we want
it, or it could be implemented sometime after the election. Shrinking
the size of the committee, on the other hand, is best accomplished as
part of the election cycle.
> The second is that deliberation should be conducted by IRC, not email.
> Cases will still be accepted on the wiki, and findings will still be
> announced on the wiki. But deliberations will be performed by any and
> all AC members present in #arbcom.wikipedia, as long as there is more
> than three of them.
How much deliberation actually occurs via email to begin with? I know
there are several arbitrators who are not big fans of conducting
deliberations in private. Also, human nature being what it is, I'm not
sure how much we can do to move the deliberation process to any
particular forum if it doesn't happen organically. The Arbitration
Committee was given a message board when first set up, which went
nowhere. Nothing is preventing arbitrators from deliberating on IRC now
if they want to, but some of them are not present in that forum.
--Michael Snow
User:Smack has listed [[list of exponential topics]], a list I originated
and maintain still, at VfD, on the sole ground that he has added an
equivalent category. In his words, it has been 'superseded'. I contest
this. It is silly technologists' thinking, without any basis in common
sense.
I have posted a couple of times here already about the harmful (as I see it)
effect of talk assuming that categories are in some way now the de facto
standard. That's quite wrong. I won't rehearse all the reasons again.
I intend to make this a test case at VfD, so that the ludicrous idea of
removing a list that serves a proper purpose on WP can be knocked on the
head, once and for all.
Charles
I suggest we regularly edit each others' user pages in an attempt to
break this bizarre perception of ownership.
-- Tim Starling
:I agree. I actively encourage people editing my (my? It's wikimedia's
isn't it?) user page by stating a feel free to edit this page note on
it.
Theresa
James D. Forrester wrote:
>I've jotted down a draft of the note about the upcoming December elections
>for the AC, along the same lines as Angela's first draft for the July ones.
>It's at:
>
> [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2004]]
>
>Looking forward to some input and moving forwards,
>
>
I have tried to combine and condense the different proposals onto this
page and provided links to the relevant posts from the mailing list.
I'll try advertising the discussion a little more on the wiki at this point.
--Michael Snow
Fred Bauder wrote:
>I think we should simply empanel a 3 person jury from active users
>(including folks who are not administrators) and let them make a decision.
>If someone is dissatisfied they can appeal to the arbitrators and get a new
>trial.
>
>
As part of the Arbitration Committee + magistrates concept, one possible
benefit I can see is that anyone from the pool of magistrates could step
up and serve as a pro tem arbitrator when there are recusals. This
benefit would not be available if the panels are simply juries.
That doesn't necessarily prevent us from making use of the "jury of
peers" approach to justice, but I definitely think that any jury in that
sense needs to be larger than three people.
--Michael Snow