please bore me by replying to my post. This post will only need replying to
because the post is not busy enough.
The only way I might be moderated is if i reply to three or four posts in a
row and if I beat 13k you'll never know.
If the list is to make wikipedia good keep "ban"? blocks and everything
which makes ephemeral seem long lived to user talk.
My bans, my discussion On wiki does not even go near the aims of this list.
boring
> Earlier: "... [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strike
> article editing] ... Is it just me being
> jaded and impatient? Or is this the
> reason so much of Wikipedia prose
> is so crap? Because the payoff for
> trying to fix it is so small, and editors
> put so much weight on every possible
> detail being retained, at the expense
> of clarity and readability?
Peter Blaise responds:
May I suggest expanding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bird_strike to
connect (CONNECT) with the other editors, and fill as many
discussion/talk pages as are appropriate with an exploration with the
people concerned.
On the one hand, yes, it seems like a lot of work. Democracies are like
that. On the other hand, not only will all editors involved probably
learn much, but the next time in a similar situation, all will be better
prepared by the experience.
And, the article may develop, also.
The Wikipedia article pages are a RESULT of community building on the
discussion/talk pages, not an alternative.
In other words, what did the other editors say when offered to explore
this on the discussion/talk page for that article? Hint, hint. ;-)
-- Peter Blaise
On 5 Sep 2007 at 15:52:42 -0700 Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net>
wrote:
> If Vee knows not to take this too far that shouldn't be necessary.
> After our long thread about moderation you should know that many of us
> like to give members some leeway instead of crying for blood on the
> least minor offence.
Unfortunately, the way Wikipedia culture has evolved these days,
there seems to be a large tendency to "cry for blood" all the time,
and to conduct "troll hunts". There's an extremely vindictive,
punitive attitude all around, and a belief that it's more important
to protect the fragile egos of long-time Wikipedians than to try to
be fair to newbies who may just be inept or frustrated rather than
being the evil trolls they're often labeled as when they rub somebody
the wrong way. Once somebody with some status on Wikipedia claims to
be attacked, harrassed, stalked, or otherwise bothered by somebody
with lesser status, it's all over for them... everybody else circles
their wagons and has no interest in hearing the other side of the
dispute (and there are *always* at least two sides to any dispute).
This list is perhaps a bit more of a tolerant zone than Wikipedia
itself these days, but still sometimes sees similar behavior, though
the ability to make somebody an "unperson" by deleting their posts
before anybody can read them at least doesn't exist.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
Folks,
I just learned by private email, that one of most articulate and frequent
contributors to this List is on moderation.
In the interest of full and honest disclosure, I would like to see a list of
all persons who are currently on moderation - and why.
Marc Riddell
> Earlier: "... I hate the fact that so many messages get wasted on stupid topics like this ..."
Peter Blaise responds: And I wholeheartedly support our right to extend such a discussion with an objection to it. Since even the objection is not spam, I can't imagine asking any moderator to waste their time pre-reading it in an effort to save me from the trials and tribulations of deciding for myself what interests me or not, and just scroll-on instead.
> Earlier: "... I'd really like much firmer rules for moderation ... where anything off topic is not tolerated ... maintain a high signal to noise ratio ..."
Peter Blaise responds: Ahh, and therein lies the rub. Who decides what's off topic? As suggested earlier, even a moderator's feeling of déjà vu would be enough to ... to do what about it? Therein lies another rub - what to do about it, once a moderator decides a post is actionable? Quash the topic on the list? Delete it? Ban the writer?
What is it again that we are trying to protect by asking another person (a moderator) to preempt or take other action on a post that's not spam? In the meantime, might I suggest that we all rise to the challenge of adjusting our own signal-to-noise ratio controller - using our own delete keys, and our own scroll-down arrows!
"> Earlier: "... I don't want to read messages from people talking about their cats either ..."
Peter Blaise responds: That's one. I not that I've yet to read another thread about cats - has it ever happened here before?
As a computer consultant with 30+ years successful experience supporting customers, may I assist anyone in finding the scroll-down arrow key on our own computer so we don't have to read anything that does not interest us? And, we don't have to ask a moderator to deny anyone else from reading that thing that does not interest us. Win win win. Perhaps I should make stickers that fit over the down-arrow key and say, in small print: [Don't read this!], then instead of demanding that someone else do our pre-reading for us, we can do our own decision-making - just tap that key until the post disappears off screen!
Or, write back in complaining about people who talk about their cats, and be the first on the list, then, to talk about cats on the list!
> Earlier: "... These lists are a tool. They are a tool to further the project. They're not a sounding board for anything anyone wants to post; they're not a forum for community warm-fuzzies. I really don't see what would be gained by abandoning any attempt to keep them on-topic and free of random crap. What, exactly, are we trying to achieve here? ..."
Peter Blaise responds: A community.
I'm not sure what is meant by "warm-fuzzies"? Oh, I get it, that's the reference to people talking about their cats, right? Warm-fuzzies - hahahahah! Okay, that's a grand total of two people who have mentioned cats on the list. I can scroll past that. Anyone want to go for three? I can scroll past that, too.
Meta-discussions like this one, that is, discussions-about-our-discussions, seem to be an integral part of any community's self-governance, as proven by even those among us who object to meta-discussions, using a meta-discussion to do so, thereby proving the intrinsic value of meta-discussions.
I want to thank the one or two people who have read this far -- but I object!
Didn't you read and understand what I wrote about the scroll-down keys?!?
Am I not being clear?
SCROLL ON!
=8^o
-- Peter Blaise
Given that Jimbo is apparently an advocate of Ayn Rand's Objectivism,
I wonder what he thinks of all the subjectivism that seems to be
driving policy around here. I'm referring in particular to the
frequent assertions that the subjective feelings of editors are of
such great importance that they often trump other concerns. In this
diff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_
noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=155921054
an editor asserts that "You are welcome to your own opinions
regarding threats that are leveled against you. Attempting to
evaluate my concerns using your own metrics is inappropriate." (This
is in the context of supporting a permaban against a user for alleged
legal threats, where others dispute that there were any actual
threats aimed at the complaining user.) Basically, in the ideology of
some editors, objective reality and logical discourse are irrelevant
compared to the feelings of an editor who claims to have been
emotionally hurt. Of course, taking action based on this (such as
blocking or banning another user, banning links to particular sites,
and so on) will likely cause emotional hurt to the targets of this
action, but that is apparently resolved in terms of status in the
Wikipedia hierarchy; emotional hurt to a higher-ranked editor is more
important than hurt to a lower-ranked one. If you're way up in the
hierarchy, and you act like a drama queen, then you can force
everyone and everything on Wikipedia to bend to your will; if you
claim to be emotionally hurt by people saying the word "rutabaga",
you can probably get it banned.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
I recently sent a message to the wikien-l mailing list which was a long account of what happened to get me banned from Wikipedia, and also my opinions on the matter. I was very pleased with the response, because my thread actually received legitimate responses instead of the ubiquitous "you're a troll, anything you say is trolling, and now I will ban you from the channel/wiki/mailing list".
And because a lot of people were wondering about the details of the story, which I did not realize were so vague. I will include several links and a timeline (or rough approximation of a timeline) in this message to give a clearer view of events.
Timeline below. I don't have dates for these things, so it will be constructed from memory.
I join Wikipedia as "Flameviper12".
Not being very good at the whole civility thing and not used to Wikipedia/etc, I do a lot of stupid stuff and get some 24-hour blocks, warnings. Petty things.
I get indef-blocked after vandalizing my own userpage by moving it to various places within my userspace.
Some time passes, and I create an account named Son of a Peach, which is totally unrelated to Flameviper12.
Unfortunately, SoaP gets into trouble much the same as Flameviper12. I wasn't really trying to be civil with the account, and was making an ass of myself by acting like I was on my main account and everything was fine.
Eventually, Son of a Peach becomes indefinitely blocked for some reason (I believe it was 3RR).
I don't know if this was before or after the userpage vandalism/SoaP saga (I think it was before but I'm not certain), but at one point I was relieved of an indefinite block by Samuel Blanning. I was later re-banned.
About a month passes after SoaP is blocked.
I go back on and create another account, "Flameviper in Exile". After a short discussion, the administrator Netsnipe and I make a deal that if FiE can get 200 (or maybe 100, I can't remember) edits, than Flameviper12 (my name as of then) would be unblocked.
I edit, revert vandalism, and do various things as Flameviper in Exile. Joy.
I go to Netsnipe and he unblocks the account Flameviper12. At this point, I have the account's name changed to "Flameviper" without the "12". (NOTE: Many people get confused by this for some reason and assume that Flameviper12 was my sockpuppet. This is incorrect. It's the same account.)
I edit some with Flameviper, and submit an RfA, one of several. It is brutally killed with fire. Even though everyone essentially hates me, I still edit and accomplish some things.
NOTE: This message is not complete because the size limit for this list is 10KB and the full message is 16KB. I am sending both halves of the message at the same time.
---------------------------------
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Good, the journals now take my being shot down for trying to stop them
for spamming Wikipedia as an open invitation to add any academic
journals and books to all articles all over Wikipedia. And create as
many sock puppet accounts, or use as many IPs as they want to do it.
Forget it that I work over these articles to try to make sure that
every outside source and link is directly related and important and
useful to readers. Forget that we discuss them for weeks on WP:Plants
and on the article talk pages. It's clear that it's more important to
let these people spam the fuck out of Wikipedia.
KP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/64.62.138.21