Quoting jayjg <jayjg99(a)gmail.com>om>:
On Nov 21, 2007 2:31 PM,
<joshua.zelinsky(a)yale.edu> wrote:
> That's a distinct argument from claiming
that the admin wasn't part of
> the same edit warring (and regardless I see nothing that was
somehow
"quiet"
about
those edits).
When an admin steps in to remove the edits of a banned editor, or
indeed takes action where two SPA sockpuppets are edit-warring, it's
not creating drama.
It can be when not done with appropriate foresight (and the fact that Will
Beback then argued for the blog's removal after it was again inserted didn't
exactly reduce the drama levels).
The Making Lights blog? Look, I don't think either of us can
accurately present Will's views or actions on this, and I think at
this point it's just flogging a dead (albeit useful in a strawman way)
horse.
It isn't much of a dead horse as I'd like it to be. See the archived emails
where Will discussed this most recently and see the interaction with David.
> >> Furthermore, this isn't the only
example. I'd love to see for
example an
> >> explanation of how the Making Lights
fiasco was somehow a
result of the
> >> "anti-BADSITES
proponents".
> >
> > I'm not sure I understand this point.
>
> It is relevant to the original point at the start of this
subthread. If you
> recall, the assertion was made that often the
act of removing
links creates
> more drama than it helps with two examples,
Black's blog and Making
> Lights. You
> asserted that wasn't the case and that the drama in such
situations was
the
fault of
the "anti-BADSITES proponents". I'm attempting to
understand how the
Making Lights problem was caused by the "anti-BADSITES proponents".
Well, the original action wasn't, of course, but the constant
flag-waving by the "anti-BADSITES proponents" of an error made long
ago and quickly rectified and apologized for, is, of course, designed
for heat not light. People make mistakes, even when applying actual
policies - for example, people are regularly blocked for 3RR when they
haven't actually violated 3RR. We don't then repeatedly bring up those
mistakes as "proof" that the policies are bad.
See David's reponse to this. The fact hat Will seemed to maintain well
after the
fact that this was still a problem and the fact that Tony, Mongo and Thuranx
continued to push for some form of BADSITES means that it wasn't nearly
as much
a strawman or as dead as it should have been.
See above. Dead horse, three non-admins.
Yes, three editors two of whom are prominent and
are former admins with many
political ties (and let's not pretend that doesn't matter), and again
they were
only the most prominent.
Insisting that editors are "prominent" and have "many political
ties"
feeds into the conspiratorial worldview promulgated by banned users on
less than savory websites. Please don't try to build these people up
into some frightening powerful force; they're just 3 editors, no less,
but certainly no more.
It doesn't require conspiracy mongering to see that some editors are more
influential than others and that some have more political ties than others (I
should know. I'm an influential editor with a variety of political ties).
You can't claim that just because none of
them are
admins that somehow makes it a strawman. (Incidentally, this seems to be
something I'm seeing more and more often on Wikipedia and it is disturbing.
People don't take policy proposals seriously from non-admins. This goes
against the entire philosophy of what admins are supposed to be,
janitors not
senators).
Admins are trusted, longtime editors. You can't on the one hand insist
that some editors are "former admins with political ties" and on the
other insist that adminship is no big deal and everyone is equal.
Hey, it isn't my fault life is complicated. Non-admins should be taken
seriously, that doesn't mean that a policy advocated by admins or
former admins
isn't going to have a much better chance of getting accepted.
> >> (Incidentally, as someone who was and
remains
> >> strongly opposed to BADSITES I object to your characterization of
> >> such editors
> >> as part of an amorphous "they" who desire "drama").
> >
> > "BADSITES" itself is the rallying cry. So far we seem to have a whole
> > bunch of people who have been going around for months now VERY LOUDLY
> > "opposing" something that was proposed as a strawman, and apparently
> > supported as policy by one editor.
>
> We have quite a few more editors than a single one. The fact is that
> many people
> are understandably worried that something like BADSITES is going
to continue
either as
policy or as de facto behavior. I do wish that people
wouldn't focus
so much on BADSITES and indeed most reasonable editors aren't doing so.
Then why does it keep being mentioned again and again and again?
Again, because people are worried.
If they were just worried, they'd simply make rational arguments.
Constant cries of BADSITES and of "remember the Making Light
incident!" are ways of short-circuiting rational thought.
No, they are a way of saying "Hey look. We had this really bad example
that got
us bad press and made a number of our natural supporters such as Cory Doctorow
really unhappy with us. And it harmed our uncyclopedia content. Let's be
careful that new policies don't have the same problem."
Look at the
history and talk page of NPA
where we've had repeated attempts now to insert language very similar to the
original BADSITES language. It is getting mentioned because to some extent
people have been (at least until a few days ago) pushing for it.
In your view I'm sure that it's "very similar to the BADSITES
language". How do the proponents view it, though? How do outside
observers view it? Is it close to BADSITES, or close to LOVELINKS, or
somewhere in between? There's no question that Wikipedia needs to find
an effective way of dealing with harassment of its volunteers; as long
as Wikipedia is a top 10 website, and remains "The encyclopedia
anybody can edit", this will remain a problem.
I have an idea. Why don't you look at what Mongo et al. said on the talk page
and then see if you can point to any way that anyone would think it was at all
different.
>> After
>> BADSITES failed Mongo and Thuranx then tried to get nearly identical
>> language
>> in NPA.
>
> So it was down to two non-admins then. Did they think the language was
> "nearly identical", or did they think it was along the lines of
> LINKLOVE?
You can read the talk pages. From the description
their it seemed to me that
they thought it was identical to BADSITES.
I'd rather let them speak for themselves, rather than have their
opponents speak for them.
Ok, so why not ask them?
It entailed
the banning of websites
that contain anything that could be construed as harassment (After 3
weeks of
arguing Mongo recently proposed something more toned down closer to LINKLOVE
but still stricter than LINKLOVE and still open to the possibility
of altering
article space)
Ah, the dreaded MONGO. Well, I can see why you're concerned, after
all, what if he does decide to try to alter policy again? He's so
scary with the BADSITES stuff, I think we should have an Arbcom case
about it.
Oh, wait...
The sarcasm is less than helpful. I didn't say Mongo was scary. If it had been
Tony or anyone else I'd have an almost identical reaction.
But as
long as the specter remains people are going to be understandably upset.
No, not understandably. It was a strawman, plain and simple, that was
never policy. It's been used quite effectively for months now, but
only as a strawman (or a rallying cry).
Um, what? It is hardly a strawman when two former admins are strongly
supporting
it.
Did you read what you said? "Two former admins are strongly supporting
it". There are over 1,000 admins on Wikipedia, and you've come up with
two former admins, who aren't even supporting BADSITES, but rather
something you've labelled as BADSITES.
Gah. Both supported BADSITES. Read above and look at their talk page comments.
When BADSITES failed Mongo supported something which was functionally
identical
to BADSITES. And considering of 1000 admins what fraction are active on most
policy pages (50 at most?) 2 isn't a non-trivial amount. Keep in mind that I'm
not arguing that there was a majority for it, merely that there were
people who
were established editors who didn't see it as a strawman.
As
soon as we get LINKLOVE approved (that name does sound very
Orwellian, can we
get a better shortcut?) this will die out.
Right, the policy created by banned sockpuppets and IP editors. That's
how effective that BADSITES strawman was, actual policy editors can't
even go near any policy pages attempting to deal with outside
harassment any more.
What do you mean? David Gerard and others have had no problem
discussing this.
Because no-one is going to accusing David of being a Communist, err,
BADSITES supporter.
Um, what? Is this some sort of claim that BADSITES proponents are being
Mcarthied? Forgive me if I don't see much evidence for that claim.
And frankly,
who made a policy has nothing to do with whether or not it is a
good idea. Daniel Brandt could say "1+1=2" and the fact that it came from
Brandt would have nothing to do with whether or not the statement is true.
It's a bad idea to have sockpuppets of banned editors writing our
policies; that should be common sense, I would think.
Yes, but if a user is banned happens to propose a kerner of a good idea
there's
no need to reject it based on the who it came from. (And point of fact PM is
not a sockpuppet of a banned user so...)