[WikiEN-l] BADSITES ArbCom case in progress

[Armed Blowfish]

On 20/09/2007, <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> "Armed Blowfish" wrote
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:TROLL
>> This lists six different 'types' of trolling, encouraging people
>> to call people who do those things trolls.
>
> You know, it doesn't do that. It implicitly does the exact opposite,
> and references [[Wikipedia:Do not insult the vandals]], which
> explicitly does the opposite.

It may not explicitly say 'You should call people trolls!' but it does
provide material about what trolling supposedly is, which can be
cited by those calling people trolls.

As for WP:DNITV, the people who don't follow that are far more
visible than the ones who do.

>> An interesting one,
>> 'Examples [of trolling] include continual nomination of articles
>> for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion that are obviously
>> encyclopedic'
>>
>> Erm, many blatantly psychologically damaging articles in
>> violation of BLP may be encyclopaedic.  So would those who
>> support this essay consider those who try to get defamatory
>> or otherwise damaging biographies deleted from Wikipaedia
>> trolls?
>
> A biography should be _deleted_ if the subject fails the criteria for
> inclusion in WP. It should be _radically edited_ if the content fails
> BLP, or other criteria for content. These are two different things
> entirely. You seem to be conflating them.

And what of the wishes of the subject? And what are the criteria for
inclusion outside the main space?

>> Another one:
>> 'Some trolls are critical of the project, its policies, its users,
>> its administration, or its goals. Often, this criticism comes in
>> the form of accusations of cabals, ilks, or campaigns, that
>> are typically invested in a particular POV, invested in
>> maligning a specific user, and other similar claims.'
>>
>> So would those who agree with this paragraph consider
>> criticism directed at Wikipaedia as a whole, and not at
>> individual users, to be trolls?  I'm sure the more positive
>> critics of Wikipaedia would be offended by that....
>
> As I have said, criticism of actions on WP is OK. Accusations
> may not be OK, because they move from disagreeing with
> what is done, to implications that go well beyond mistakes.
> This need not make someone a 'troll': trolling is a kind of
> systematic provocation.

Individuals can be hurt more easily than whole organisations.
Especially when talking in a forum where many of the people
whose actions you are criticising are not able to respond, it
may be better to criticise the whole organisation.  If the
culture of the organisation encouraged the individual's actions
anyway, the individual may not be entirely responsible anyway.
If someone flays you, do you criticise the whip, the hand, the
whipper, or the person who ordered the whipping?  Certainly
not the whip - it has no control over its actions.  Nor the hand,
which was simply acting mechanically on the nerve impulses
of the brain.  The whipper is him or her self merely a hand to
whomever ordered it.  Sure, he or she could say no, but some
one else would step in to take his or her place.  The one who
ordered it, though, that person is responsible.

[snip]
>> It isn't though.  Your average Recent Changes patroller,
>> constantly looking to revert damaging edits, may be hasty
>> to call anything that looks bad vandalism.  And don't almost
>> all the standard warnings (uw2 and up) encourage this, by
>> including the term vandalism?
>
> Your way of putting it (what is uw2?) makes it clear that you
> know enough about WP, to know also that the text in templates
> is editable. Have you tried to get the text changed? This is a
> sofixit - if there is a problem in your view, there is also a route
> for debating and dealing with it, namely through the discussion
> page for any template you think is objectionable.

Clicking on 'edit this page' brings up the following in big bold
letters:

'Block warning: You can read pages, but your account is blocked
from editing and changing them.'

So much for that theory.

This is uw2:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Uw-test2

>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:VAND#Types_of_vandalism
>> This has a whole list of circumstances where you are
>> encouraged to assume that someone is trying to deface
>> Wikipaedia!
>
> Well, in fairness, you could also reference the next section at
> WP:VAND where numerous things, including newbie tests, are
> described as not vandalism. That page also references the
> essay [[Wikipedia:Avoid the word "vandal"]]. So I fear you are
> shifting ground here. Where exactly is the incitement to call
> someone a vandal?

By saying that certain types of actions are or tend to be the
result of a desire to hurt Wikipaedia, it discourages consideration
that most people are more complex than that.

Oh look, an entire page dedicated to calling people vandals!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrator_intervention_against_vandalism

Also see the Administrators' Noticeboards....

Alternatively, the policy could be renamed 'Destructive editing',
and discussion of reasons for destructive limited to merely
saying their are a wide variety of reason, including the well-
meaning, the ill-meaning, and the nothing-to-do-with-Wikipaedia.

>> Well, unless they come right out and say they have
>> a conflict of interest, don't you have to go looking
>> for it, i.e. make negative guess about their motives?
>> And we wonder why Wikipaedia admins get stalked...
>> perhaps Wikipaedia itself is setting a terrible example.
>
> We have to deal with COI. Since I have worked on the policy, I
> have a fairly clear idea of what it consists of. There is nothing
> at all - nothing - at WP:COI which justifies linking having such a
> policy with stalking. You demean yourself my making such a
> connection.

1.  What policy says and what is done are not the same.
2.  There have been complaints by people who feel outed
     by enforcers of that policy.
3.  Someone connected to the outing of a Wikipaedia admin
     cited the need to prove a conflict of interest as a reason
     for outing.

Perhaps you should consider other ways of keeping the articles
neutral-ish.

>> AGF is an interesting one.
>>
>> 'Unless there is strong evidence to the contrary, assume
>> that people who work on the project are trying to help it,
>> not hurt it.'
>>
>> If good faith is defined as an attempt to help the
>> encyclopaedia, is WP:AGF encouraging Wikipaedians to
>> consider motivations which have absolutely nothing to do
>> with Wikipaedia 'bad'?  Or is this a Wikipaedia-centric
>> world view?  The world is not black and white, and not
>> everything is about hurting Wikipaedia or helping it.
>
> No, that is really a kind of smear on WP. It is a voluntary
> organization, and anyone can turn up to work on it. The baseline
> assumption in AGF is that volunteers are there to help, and are
> not (for example) propagandists or entryists of some sort.

Not anyone... for starters, not the Chinese.

'There to help' ... who or what?

Certainly, everyone wants to help someone or something, probably
multiple someones or somethings.  The questions is not whether,
but who or what?

>> And in big bold letters:
>> 'This guideline does not require that editors continue to
>> assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the
>> contrary.'
>>
>> Erm, when else would the guideline be useful?  So if
>> someone does a few bad things, that person is suddenly
>> a horrible horrible person who deserves to be defamed
>> on top of Google?  Well, that includes everyone except
>> the children....
>>
>> Or, you could join the School of Humanism, and accept
>> that the world is not black and white, and people are a
>> mixture of good and bad!
>
> Actually it means all sorts of things you miss. But making a
> few mistakes under policy is not 'evidence' applicable to
> revoking the assumption of AGF.

The assumption that you are a human being, a mixture of
good and bad, who feels and laughs and cries, is never
revoked unless you fail the Turing test.

>> But there's no such thing as certainty, only varying
>> degrees of uncertainty.  IP addresses do not map
>> one-to-one to human beings.  NATs (very large
>> NATs in some countries), dynamic IPs (very dynamic
>> in the case of dial-up), shared computers (especially
>> internet cafes), etc.  And that's not even getting in to
>> proxies....  Yes, when you do writing analysis,
>> accuracy gets much better, but not 100%.  Some
>> people are similar, and it can be very hard to tell the
>> difference between Sybils and collaborators.
>
> I'm aware of all this. This is the meat-and-potatoes of
> any serious discussion of socks. I've been involved in
> a few.

Excellent!  : )

>> So block the people, keep notes available for the
>> people who do the sockpuppetry investigations,
>> but don't label the person as a sockpuppeteer on
>> top of Google, because y'all will get it wrong
>> sometimes.
>
> Well, abusive sockpuppetry on WP is almost always
> undertaken consciously, knowing it is against site rules.
> I come down on the sceptical side of these investigations
> (non-Occamist). I can be wrong too, though.

1.  It is highly probable that certain people are
     sockpuppets.
2.  The above is only a probability - it could be
     mistaken.
3.  Sockpuppets are apparently dangerous to
     Wikipaedia.
4.  They are also human beings, and not
     particularly notable ones.

1 and 3 are reasons for banning these people, and keeping
notes necessary for future investigations.  (The notes can be
kept somewhere non-public - most of the people who
investigate sockpuppetry are admins anyway.)  2 and 4 are
reasons to ban them kindly.  Prevent them from editing, but
if one of the accounts is a real name, don't spread that around,
don't out where the live to the world, don't publish user-space
biographies on them saying they are sockpuppets on Google-
indexed pages, etc.

>> Perhaps, but it appears to be the popular term.
>>
>> In any case, the websites discussed (WP, WR,
>> ED, WT, WW) all seem to be engaging in one
>> big, huge cross-site flame war.
>>
>> So, go over to WR under a white flag....
>
> No thanks. While some at WR are just deluded,
> some are malicious, and some pathological liars.

The whole world's deluded.  Benevolence and
malevolence are sometimes two sides of the same
coin.  As for lying, show me someone who's never
lied and I'll show you a mute... oh wait, there is also
non-vocal communication... ah well.  In any case, from
king and milk snakes to katydids to whales to owl
butterflies to hyenas, deception is evolutionarily
ingrained into living creatures, something that we do
without even thinking about it, deceiving not only others,
but also ourselves.  (Better understanding of signalling
theory could help with your sockpuppetry investigations,
by the way.)

1.  WR has been known to remove some offending
     material upon request.
2.  WR has removed personal info on me which
     WP has refused to remove.
3.  I am guessing there are things you think they
     should remove?

They have an email you can send complaints to....