Greetings.
I have a question, and I hope this is the right place to ask it... I saw that Wikipedia has a page listing micronations and with links to other pages containing information on each of those micronations. I contributed a page with a micronation. It was deleted, and I received an IP ban:
Your user name or IP address has been blocked by RickK. The reason given is this:
repeated creaton [sic] of nonsense articles
You may contact RickK or one of the other administrators to discuss the block.
Note that you may not use the "email this user" feature unless you have a valid email address registered in your user preferences.
Your IP address is . Please include this address in any queries you make.
My entry was a serious one, and I only made one (NOT repeated entries). I understand that Wikipedia might feel my contribution was not a useful one, and I will not repeat it. Obviously, not everything can be accepted. However, I would have appreciated that explanation being given me, rather than the above offensive message.
I apologise for the invconveniance, and also if this was not the right place to send this message.
Kind regards,
Adrian
I had tried at one point to volunteer myself for the
mediation committee, but then got disconnected and
lost the message. By the time I got around to doing
it again, the discussion had died out. Now that it
appears to be happening again, I'd like to renominate
myself for mediation.
TUF-KAT
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LOL, yes, sorry! My brain must have slipped out of gear due to
[[santorum]].
I'm still trying to clean the coffee off my screen (Hi, DJ!).
I feel like Lady Macbeth, trying to get out these damned spots...
Uncle Ed
I forget our policy on offensive usernames.
Is "TittoAssini" perfectly okay, or obviously NOT okay, or what?
Call me dirty-minded, but I can't help thinking of feminine fleshy parts
when I read that name...
Ed Poor
Hi all,
A new user named Mr-Natural-Health has created a number of new articles in
recent days which are disturbingly non-neutral -- this individual has an
axe to grind with mainstream medicine. See:
Allopathy
Natural Health
Natural therapy
Heroic medicine
Patient empowerment
Though several are currently listed on Cleanup and have been edited a bit,
VfD might be a better place, since they are so slanted that deleting and
starting anew is probably the wisest strategy. However, if anyone would
like to lend hand and try to salvage something...
V.
Ed Poor wrote:
>I forget our policy on offensive usernames.
>
>Is "TittoAssini" perfectly okay, or obviously NOT okay, or what?
It's a good thing, I guess, that George Bush and Philip K. Dick
aren't Wikipedians. ;-)
--
--------------------------------
| Sheldon Rampton
| Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
| Author of books including:
| Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
| Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
| Mad Cow USA
| Trust Us, We're Experts
| Weapons of Mass Deception
--------------------------------
Cross posting to wikipedia-l
In effect I messed my "To".
In practice, I do not think mediation and arbitration entirely limit themselves to english wikipedia;
they at least also relate to meta, which is shared by all wikipedia, though under the benevolent dictactorship on Jimbo.
They also relate to users who cross wikipedias.
A user problematic on one wikipedia, is generally problematic on the other wikipedias he contribute to as well. And conflicts sometimes jump language barriers.
That is why I expressed my interest for mediation. Not to mediate issues between english users, where I am unlikely to help.
>If I overlooked anyone in my appointments, don't be insulted and don't
>hesitate to ask about it. It was unintentional. I tried to appoint
>everyone who volunteered. Anyone who is left over and would still
>like to be appointed will be appointed to mediation.
Yes. I volunteered for mediation over conflict involving non-english speaking people, as I think my lack in english culture may help me understand the seeds of some conflicts :-)
(I thank those who understand that I do not understand everything, whatever my capacity to handle humour :-))
In particular should there be any issues with french users of course, such as "the one who must not be named" (because he requested to have his name and contributions disappear on all wikipedias, english included), or our famous chaterring box, Papotages (who is banned on fr, but not banned on en:) or perhaps JacquesD (who is perhaps a user ban on en:, but not on fr: )
:-)
-------
For information, I recently exchanged many private emails with a user called HeKeIsDa (and likely Sayeya as well), over posting little understandable articles on meta and fr: (and I saw recently on en: as well). The user was also trying to set up a new wikipedia on meta itself.
Though this was not a conflict really, it could have become one. If the user had insisted in going on setting his wikipedia on meta, he could have ended banned :-)
I am half seriously mentionning this, because a spanish person told me privately that if there was discussion over banning this user on meta, likely no spanish user would oppose the ban => that means he considered it an option. The user is a problematic user on the es: wikipedia. But no banned as spanish people wish to solve the issues they have with HeKeIsDa amicably. He is however, banned on the spanish encyclopedia fork.
HeKeIsDa and I do not share a common language (to say the least :-)), so that was a bit tough.
Actually, it is not even obvious he shares a language with spanish people.
I was embarassed because HeKeIsDa was only communicating through private emails, and I felt I should not take a decision alone on the topic. I felt I had no right to do so alone.
For this reason, I posted copies of some of his mails on meta so that other people could give me their opinion over those. I also found myself embarassed to do so, as these were private mails, but felt any decision over this should be public. I blanked the content for less visibility. I also talked about this to other people by private mail, on fr and on irc. Several people volunteered to bring very valuable information to help understand what it was all about, and some indicated their unfavorable opinion over the creation of the wild spanish wikipedia.
Practically, it was a sort of mediation commitee, where some users were providing input in a semi-public semi-private way (but not on meta itself, so these discussions were *invisible* to HeKeIsDa himself, while most discussions between HeKeIsDa and I were private as well).
However, no public opinion but mine was offered to him on meta itself.
Since no one made any comment, I boldly deleted HeKeIsDa articles
(Incidentally, I noticed that recently I am getting perhaps too bold in deletion on meta these days, if some people think I am being so, please do tell me).
I tried to explain HeKeIsDa the decision. Fortunately, he has stopped insisting, and limits himself to posting google-translated articles on fr: now (this will also have to be adressed...).
If HeKeIsDa had decided to go on in creating a wild spanish wikipedia on meta, I would have routinely deleted his articles (and talked to him again), in practice considering his posting vandalism, as he was told not to do it.
Though this would not have been a hard ban pronounced by Jimbo, it would have in effect sort of a ban that would have decided somehow on HeKeIsDa, for not respecting the goal of meta.
My point is : I feel like I did not do anything alone. I asked people opinion, and either they were neutral, or they were unfavorable to that new wikipedia.
But to HeKeIsDa or any external viewer, it certainly does look as if I took the decision myself alone. It does look as if I deleted his stuff on my own opinion. And if he post again articles, and I delete them again, it will look like I act as an arbitration commitee, and decided to out the guy myself.
Did I do well ? I think I did. In effect, I think I was honest and fair, and I do not think I offended the guy.
The important points I will keep from that case, are
: how will people feel if they find me routinely deleting articles with seemingly no discussion ?
: what will happen if someone feel like saying I abused my sysop powers in deleting unilaterally HeKeIsDa articles :-) ?
: how could I support my case given that a good deal of the discussion took place on volatile support (irc) ?
: do I have the right to make it appear that I took a decision myself, that was not mine to take as I am not representing community decision ?
: is that ok that I copied some private mails on meta, which is a breach in etiquette, in order to easily share the information with other people ?
: Should I delete that page ? Since that is a user page, on which the user has never written anything, may I do so ?
: How can we deal with similar matters on meta, which are likely to occur more and more often, given that there are a limited number of users for each language but english ?
To me, these questions are important; Is it to you ?
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Everyone who volunteered was appointed to something, and two who
didn't volunteer I appointed anyway. (Obviously, they can decline if
they must.)
I selected primarily based on your own stated preferences, although in
a couple of cases, I moved people who said "prefer this, but would do
either" to the other side, mostly just to balance out the numbers.
Mediators -- people who are volunteering to get involved in mediating
user disputes, but without any actual power to vote for or recommend a
ban or any other punitive action
Angela
LDan
Geoff
DanteAlighieri
VancouverGuy
sannse
Ed Poor
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
Stevertigo
I envision this group being fairly fluid, with new volunteers
appearing, and existing volunteers retiring, as personal preferences
dictate.
Arbitration -- people who are volunteering to get involved in
arbitrating user disputes, with the results of the arbitration being
formally binding in the sense that it is at least possible for the
arbitration committee to vote to ban someone or take some lesser
action to enforce their decision
C - Gutza
C - MyRedDice
C - NoHat
C - Epopt
B - Fred Bauder
B - Delirium
B - Maveric149
B - Camembert
A - Jdforrester
A - Kat/UninvitedCompany
A - Cunctator*
A - Erik Moeller*
These last two are marked with a '*' to indicate that I'm drafting
them, if they don't refuse.
The letters indicate groups up for re-election in the future. I'm
thinking that these posts are to be held for 3 year terms, with group
A up for re-election next December, group B, the following year, group
C, the following year. (People were partitioned in this way randomly,
with the exception of Cunc and Erik, who I placed in the shortest
group because they didn't even volunteer in the first place!)
Terms begin January 1, which means we have the rest of this month to
argue about what the hell all this means. :-)
---------
Both committees should meet via email -- we should set up public
mailing lists, I think -- to work on procedures and policies. We'll
have to write this up cognizant of the difficulty of obtaining a
quorum at times, etc.
In any event, I'm holding as a 'reserved power' the right to pardon
anyone who is banned by the arbitration committee, in the unlikely
event that the process seems to be going astray.
Also, just to be really clear on this, I'm also holding as a reserved
power to "disband parliament" if problems appear to be made worse
overall by this change. We can always go back to our current
'benevolent dictator' model, if it works out better. (But it's really
exhausting for me to try to figure out that someone needs to be
banned.)
In the future, if this is working well, and if elections are producing
good results, then I'm certainly willing to make stronger promises
about not just overturning the whole thing. I'm just very cautious
about the whole concept right now, and think we should try it and
learn from it before we imagine that it's "the way things are".
--Jimbo
If I overlooked anyone in my appointments, don't be insulted and don't
hesitate to ask about it. It was unintentional. I tried to appoint
everyone who volunteered. Anyone who is left over and would still
like to be appointed will be appointed to mediation.
Oh, there's one exception. Alex R. volunteered, but what he wrote made
it sound more like he's volunteered to act as a "public defender" for
anyone who is facing the arbitration committee's judgment (i.e. a
possible ban). So I took that to mean that he's volunteering to be
part of the overall process, but that role is actually different from
either mediation or arbitration, and so of course if he wants to offer
to anyone who needs it, that's great.
--Jimbo